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From a delivery boy to an entrepreneur, following his passion relentlessly

In April 2015, Monkvyasa had 15 astrologers on its platform and began with close to 22 consultations in a month. Today, it has 25 astrologers on board and provides over 22 consultations in a day.

There were 30 days to go. The cash registers were silent. The co-founder had quit unable to deal with the mess. The office space had to be vacated, as paying the rent was no longer possible. Is this what entrepreneurship is all about? This was not what Dinup Kalleril had in mind when he left home with big dreams.

The days were dark for Dinup in early 2013, and so were his thoughts. Maybe his parents were right; he ought to have finished his engineering degree and found a job. The online T-shirt company he had set up wasn’t working, the Rs 25,000-investment was long gone.

His parents assumed their son would be the first one in the family to finish a college degree, find a good job and settle abroad, but this son of a plumber had different plans.

He chose the travails of entrepreneurship and it has been a journey ridden with challenges. The online T-shirt company long sold, Dinup has bounced back with another startup—MonkVyasa, an online astrology consultation platform. He claims the platform, set up earlier this year, has daily transactions of Rs 75,000 to Rs 1,00,000.
But in early 2013, the only course of action left was to become a delivery boy and work his way upward.

The first failed venture

“Sachin Tendulkar was my hero. So my school vacations were spent playing cricket or swimming in the nearby ponds. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but the appeal of a 9-5 job didn’t hold,” says 27-year-old Dinup. Nevertheless, like most of his peers, he ended up joining an engineering college, but soon recognised the move to be a blunder.

“In the second year of college, I decided to become an entrepreneur. I got many ideas and discussed those with my friends. I tried my hand at trading scrap, selling SIM cards and conducting tours for agencies. With the money I earned I got a computer in 2008,” recalls Dinup.

The world of Internet and computers enthralled Dinup and he knew he had to take the plunge. So that year, he quit his university to focus on starting up. But all hell broke loose. His father refused to speak to him until he changed his mind. Finding it difficult to live in the such an environment, Dinup decided to move to Chennai.
Staying in Chennai for two months, he worked as a salesman to sustain himself. “I came back from Chennai with the idea of starting an online shopping portal for T-shirts. In 2012, online shopping was not popular in Kerala,” says Dinup.

But all didn’t go as planned and one of the biggest challenges was to meet the expenses. The money from most transactions was cash-on-delivery, which would take a month to reach them and that’s when Dinup decided to become a delivery boy for his own venture and for other delivery companies as well.

“I delivered products for six months in Kochi. For many Kochities, I am familiar as a delivery boy,” he adds.
Challenges were not new to Dinup, who was born in Pattimattom, 25 km from Kochi, into a family with a humble background. As he had studied in a school where the language of instruction was Malayalam, Dinup had to learn English when he joined college. He also did odd jobs while studying, to get some cash as he did not have pocket money.

Dinup eventually sold the business to a chartered accountant in Kochi and got out.

While his first venture didn’t pan out as he hoped, Dinup continued his efforts to make ends meet and find a sustainable entrepreneurial venture. He ended up being the go-to guy for any online-related services.



A new beginning with MonkVyasa

It was serendipity that led him to his new venture. In December 2013, while at his friend’s house, Dinup saw that his friend’s father was going to consult an astrologer. Dinup immediately asked him why he didn’t try consulting an astrologer online.

“I took my friend’s laptop and searched for astrologer consultations online but I could not find any website that offered such a service,” says Dinup. After going through some websites related to astrology, he figured out about ‘automatic horoscope report’, which is a technology that generates an online horoscope based on inputs like date, time and place of birth.

“That was the Eureka moment for my new venture. I realised that astrology is an important part of decision-making for most Indians. But in this Internet era, we could not get astrology services online like other services,” says Dinup.

Finding his co-founder

However, Dinup knew he needed a strong technical team. One evening, after four months of relentless search, Dinup happened to be sitting in a teashop near Kochi’s international cricket stadium, and he met his college friend Sarath KS, who was then working as a software developer.

“When I talked about the idea of a marketplace website for astrologers, he was very excited. We met several times at the same place discussing the idea and plans. Soon, he decided to quit his job and joined me as the Co-founder of Monkvyasa,” says Dinup.

Another rough patch

The duo took two months to design the entire flow chart and UI before starting work on the coding. The next challenge was to get astrologers on board as most were not Internet-savvy. They took time to convince astrologers to try out their platform and trained them on giving online consultations.

However, technical glitches made them go back to the drawing board. They had built a video consultation platform that had worked well during beta testing with 10 astrologers. But the payment gateway integration and video consultation together did not work.

They shut operations on the website and re-launched in April 2015 after working further on the product. Dinup by then had become a member of TIE Kerala and soon got mentorship and seed funding from Sanjay Vijaykumar, Chairman of Kochi-based startup incubator Startup Village.

The business model

In April 2015, Monkvyasa had 15 astrologers on its platform and began with close to 22 consultations in a month. Today, it has 25 astrologers on board and provides over 22 consultations in a day.

While the team gets over 500 enquiries and 200 online enquiries for astrologers, it is taking things one step at a time. “We want to be absolutely sure of astrologers’ credentials before we on-board anyone,” says Dinup.

The team charges a 15-per-cent commission from the astrologer for every transaction made. Users looking for a consultation can choose between an online video chat and an offline phone call. The payments are made online with the average cost of a consultation being Rs 500.

The vision is to bring the best astrologers in India on one platform, Dinup says. The company is targeting to on-board 2,000 astrologers in three years and reach transactions of $200 million.

“Entrepreneurship has given me freedom even in the toughest of times. I don’t think there is anything else I would want to do despite all the stress and struggles,” says Dinup.

 

This article was originally published in YourStory

Image credit: www.monkvyasa.com



How a Farmer’s son and College-dropout became a Tech Millionaire

For Varun Chandran life has been the biggest teacher, and the need to survive has been the biggest motivation.

“I just want to make a point that it’s not just great teachers who shape your life. Sometimes it’s the absence of great teachers that shapes your life, and being ignored can be just as good for a person as being lauded,” Julia Roberts.

For Varun Chandran life has been the biggest teacher, and the need to survive has been the biggest motivation.

He is today a millionaire who runs a tech firm out of Singapore and is spreading his wings across the globe. From being barely able to feed himself, to being able to create a global footprint is nearly impossible. But Varun has shown how it can be done.

Read his story to get a glimpse of a young India which is not apologetic of its humble background but is raring to make a difference in the world.

“I come from a small village in Kerala called Padam which is bordering a jungle in Kollam district. My father was a farmer and since childhood I learnt to work hard, helping him with his daily work. We did not have proper food to eat and managed to survive on the basic minimum. The need to live and survive defined my childhood. It pushed me to do better and be better. I learnt the value of labour,” says Varun Chandran, now 32 years old and Founder of Corporate 360, a firm which has operations in four continents today.

Born into a poor farmer’s family in Kerala, Varun strived for better. His parents had studied till class V but they wanted their sons to be educated. He was admitted to a school near his village in a small town called Pathanapuram. Hard physical labour came as an advantage since it gave him an edge to excel in sports. Soon, he started winning medals and prizes for his school, St.Stephens HSS.



After he finished class X, he was given a scholarship by the Kerala government to play football. “I would have had to leave studies if not for that scholarship.” He went on to make a significant mark in his football career by winning a gold medal for being the best youth footballer in Kerala. He captained Kerala Youth and Kerala University football teams.

When he was injured on the football field, he decided to take the biggest risk of his life: he quit football, left college, and moved to Bangalore to find a job.

And it was not easy.

Things were not smooth at home and there was pressure to support the family. “My grand-mother gave me her gold bangle to sell and told me to go somewhere to find my life. I packed my bag and left home,” Varun recalls a past that he can never forget.

In 2002, he came to Bangalore with a small bag and a little bundle of hope. Varun went on to learn everything about tech jobs and entrepreneurship at internet cafes. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, he also realized the need to speak good English. He bought a dictionary and spent a lot of time in public libraries devouring the novels of Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer and watched CNN to learn English.



“Reading a lot of books, I realised a whole wide world existed outside my village,” says Varun. Such was his hunger to learn that he was not content with reading fiction alone; he devoured non-fiction books too which not only became his guide but opened his eyes to the world of entrepreneurship as well.

“Footballer IM Vijayan has been my inspiration from my school days. He is like God to me. From living on the streets to selling soda and peanuts, he went on to become a top Indian footballer. I remember always thinking, if he can excel amidst so much hardship, then so can I,” says Varun.

“I worked in Bangalore, learnt about the internet by spending time in cyber-cafes and taught myself to be a programmer. I believe nothing is impossible. In fact, today with so much information available on the net, you can learn so much. Everything is available if we just want to learn.”

With this driving force, he worked in Bangalore for a couple of years and got himself a job offer in Singapore, where he moved in 2008. “Singapore was an eye-opener for me in terms of opportunities,” he reveals. He had to make things work in this new place. While he was working, he started coding a software tool for himself to make his job easier. Soon his colleagues found a lot of value in what he was doing. And that led to the birth of his venture Corporate360 (C360). “I saw people all around talking about Big Data and asked myself: how can we use all the data on the web to make companies grow and sell more?”

His company introduces innovative sales intelligence software for the tech industry. Some of the world’s largest IT-companies and tech startups are C360 clients. “A lot of companies talk about Big Data and Predictive Analytics for marketing methods, but they are not designed to be industry specific. Their algorithms are designed to grind transactional data and web behaviour hence providing generic data indicators,”says Varun. “We bring industry specific sales relevance to the customer, which enables them to create highly targeted sales campaigns to the right people at the right time with the right messaging,” informs Varun.



The flagship product, Tech SalesCloud is a cloud software, designed for IT marketers to avail comprehensive marketing campaign data services powered by Big Data, Patterns, Predictive Analytics, Competitive Intelligence, Contacts Intelligence, Web Analysis and IT research.

“Companies have made huge investments in CRM and Marketing Automation tools. But these tools are best efficient when fed with the right data sets. Our SalesCloud data platform helps to power-up marketing tools with the most qualified sales intelligence data thereby complementing your existing investments to get maximum ROI,” he says, adding, “We realised IT marketers are struggling to track constant changes happening in their target-base and a huge chunk of their marketing budget is spent on list purchases which has little ROI. So we decided to address this problem and introduced the first ever concept of ‘Data-as-a-Service’ for technology marketers. The SalesCloud IT marketing data platform is available as a subscription model with real-time data refresh and exclusive data maintenance support.”

The two-year-old company has recently crossed the million-dollar-mark and now has big plans ahead. The goal is to hit 5 million in revenues by 2015 and grow the team size to 30, expand data sets and open new offices in the US and Europe. “We have been approached by a few big players in our industry to buy us over with lucrative offers. But we decided against it. We love what we are doing and we decided to live our dreams.”

Varun branched off and opened an office in his hometown Pathanapuram in Kerala. “I want to create opportunities for people in my hometown. We do not lack talent but lack opportunities. There will be so many like me who have the drive to make things happen. I am going after them. We have built a proud and loyal team there,” he says.

Having come full circle in life, Varun shares his learnings: “Be curious, persevere and everything becomes possible. It’s a constant process but we need to learn every day to be positive.”





Truejodi – How this startup solves the core problems in online matrimony

Truejodi is an online matrimonial site that aims to solve a very important problem in online matchmaking – eliminating “fraud” profiles and getting in genuine people who are looking out for matches based on their requirements.

Are you inspired by the advertisement of a matrimonial site featuring Chetan Bhagat and his love story, but reluctant to create your profile on any of these matrimonial websites because you do not know how reliable they are? India is a country where marriages and matchmaking are taken very seriously and in a county where most of the people rely on the match to be arranged by their parents and family peeps, matrimonial sites have revolutionized these searches – both, for the bride & the groom.

Friends and family who used matrimonial sites to seek matrimonial alliances often cribbed about fake profiles and frauds on these sites. Having seen this happen with close family and friends, Ravi Mittal thought that no matrimonial site was looking at authenticating profiles. This led him to build Truejodi – a reliable place to find a 100% verified match.

Truejodi is an online matrimonial site that aims to solve a very important problem in online matchmaking – eliminating “fraud” profiles and getting in genuine people who are looking out for matches based on their requirements. This startup understands that the matrimonial club has two major issues:

  • There are hordes of singles looking for matches online, but are often cheated by fake profiles due to lack of verifications.
  • People seeking matches are often scared to ask about their match’s education, age, income, medical records and have to rely on the vocal commitments without any facts



Understanding these two major problems that force people to avoid using the internet to find matches, Truejodi is trying to solve this twin problem of removing fakes and bringing in transparency to matchmaking with a 9 step verification process and zero-tolerance towards frauds. Users are awarded trust ratings based on the information they verify. This helps others take a better call on their match. Once a user signs up, the next step is an elaborate 9 step verification process where users have to submit their photo ID proof, education, income, address proof, Facebook and mobile number and even undergo medical test before they can enter to find a match. There is an entry barrier for users who do not verify themselves.

Truejodi is a team of 15 passionate people comprising of web developers, app developers, digital marketers, social media specialists, graphic designers, UI/UX designers, moderators and more.

This startup sprang into action in November 2015 and in just 3 months has managed to gather a user base of 4000+ users. Out of these 70% are female users. They expect to cross 300,000 users by end of 2016 and help people find true life partners.

Kudos to the entire team in coming up with such a trusted source for taking the most important decisions of our lives – choosing a life partner.

Also read: HyperTrack: A start-up to track people and products

This article was originally published in Start-up Hyderabad



HyperTrack: A start-up to track people and products

HyperTrack is serial entrepreneur Deorah’s attempt at creating a global tech firm from India.

Serial entrepreneur and author of The Golden Tap, a book on—what else? — start-ups, Kashyap Deorah, is close to launching his fourth start-up, HyperTrack, which has created software for tracking products or people across the globe.

Deorah, 38, who has been working on building HyperTrack for almost nine months, is testing the software in several countries including India, the US, the Middle East, Australia and some in Europe.

The software is currently in private beta and is being tried out by 25 clients.

HyperTrack was founded in October 2015 by Deorah and Tapan Pandita, who together pooled in $300,000 to launch the venture. The company has already raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from investors in Silicon Valley.

HyperTrack is Deorah’s attempt at creating a global technology firm from India.

“Only a few companies in the world have built the smartphone tracking technology that HyperTrack aspires to build. Uber and Google are two such companies. Today you can track your Uber but it is surprising that there is just no publicly available web service to continuously track people and things while they are out and about,” said Deorah.

Delhi-based HyperTrack’s services will allow businesses or consumers to track goods or people in real time.

Imagine ordering food online and getting to track the order on a map, as it moves towards you. Just like a cab ride, Deorah eventually wants to enable businesses to track bike taxis, shuttle services or any other kind of feet-on-the-street through its services.

“It’s a problem that app developers are facing worldwide. There is no web service to “track the app until it gets there,” he added.



HyperTrack’s software will allow businesses to track people, goods and pay per use. For companies that are just starting out and are in boot-strap stage, the services will be offered free for up to 1,000 orders a day.

HyperTrack is largely looking to make money from established and sufficiently funded start-ups. The companies could pay $35 per 1000 orders tracked.

The biggest challenge in front of Deorah would be to convince consumer internet firms, especially in India, which are already trying to curb costs to invest in software that helps improve service levels.

Deorah believes these services will help companies to plug into a technology which is expensive and hard to build in-house.

HyperTrack has a six-member team and Deorah is actively scouting for talent in Silicon Valley. He has managed to attract Google’s Abhishek Poddar to join as the head of product at HyperTrack.

Poddar, who was working as the product manager at Google San Francisco for more than three years, decided to quit his job and relocate to India to help build HyperTrack.

According to Deorah, unlike high-flying Silicon Valley executives who joined Indian unicorns at million dollar salaries only to move back a year later, Poddar will draw a fraction of his salary at Google but have high ownership in the company.

“The motivation is to move back and make most of the market. It is a good time to start up in India because you have a chance of building a real valuable company now rather than what was happening a year or two ago,” said Poddar.

Poddar is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and holds a management degree from Stanford.

HyperTrack is also close to hiring an engineer from Amazon who will be joining the firm in Delhi in the next 30 days, added Deorah, who declined to divulge further details.

The company has got Meena Srinivasan, formerly at fitness device maker FitBit, as its advisory chief financial officer and is looking to further strengthen its advisory board by signing on a couple of technology heavy hitters in the map space.

Last year, Deorah authored The Golden Tap: the inside story of hyper-funded Indian start-ups. Over the last 15 years, he has started and sold three companies. He is also an angel investor in over 20 companies in India and Silicon Valley. Deorah founded Chalo, a payments app which was acquired by OpenTable in 2013. Prior to that he founded Chaupaati, a phone commerce marketplace, sold to Future Group in 2010. He served Future Bazaar as president for over two years.

“I am a big believer of selling shovels in a gold rush. At a time when everybody is building consumer centric businesses, the company that makes software such as these to help them reduce costs and bring in efficiencies can be a billion dollar opportunity,” says Rohan Malhotra, co-founder Investopad, a start-up incubator.

This article was originally published in LiveMint



Forget Flipkart and Ola – Here are the other richest startups in Bangalore

We all know about the Flipkart and Ola stories. Let’s take a look at the other successful start-ups that call Bangalore home.

“I don’t think building this scale would be possible if I didn’t move base to Bangalore,” Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal recently said at an event.

He should know. Bhavish moved his scrappy cab-hailing startup from Mumbai to Bangalore in around 2012, and grew his little business into the US$5 billion behemoth it is today. Quikr, the listing website that just gobbled up CommonFloor, shifted to the city in 2014, and Paytm has been talking about doing so as well.

“Bengaluru, is to tech what Mumbai is to Bollywood,” Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar told the Economic Times.

The reasons are simple. Long the tech hub of the country, Bangalore first saw “startups” like Infosys and Wipro grow to put Indian IT on the world map. Then came Flipkart, and with it, an entire industry of investors, tech talent, advisors and more entrepreneurs. Success bred success, and Bangalore soon became the melting pot of all things startup in the country.

We all know about the Flipkart and Ola stories. Let’s take a look at the other successful start-ups that call Bangalore home.

Swiggy

Swiggy is the freshest in the lot of startup successes here, rising to the top layers after a US$ 35 million round of funding from some of the best known names in the investor market. The food delivery company has already taken away considerable market share from Zomato, Tinyowl and others that have been around longer. Unlike other food delivery startups, Swiggy owns its delivery fleet, allowing them better control over logistics. With no minimum order requirements but a fee, well trained delivery boys, and a strong backend tech, Swiggy turned the tide in food tech this year, when everyone thought the sector was toxic. The company is now believed to be worth around US$125 million.

Also read: Top 10 Indian Startups and how they took off

Jabong

Jabong was the Myntra competitor before Flipkart and Myntra got together, and Jabong ran into a bunch of problems. The company has seen its founder quit, gotten a new chief, and cleaned up some of its business mess, but is not out of the woods completely.

Local media reports suggest it is up for sale, but can’t find a buyer. It is said to be valued at around US$200 million.



Bigbasket

Groceries delivered at your doorstep. Bigbasket revolutionized the way Indians shop for groceries when it allowed shoppers to buy everything from meat to cereals to vegetables online, and at reasonable prices. This Bangalore-based startup is now operational in about 15 cities, and valued at around US$400 million.

Bigbasket spawned a number of similar startups like Grofers and Peppertap that raised the bar with 2-hour deliveries, but remains the best choice in terms of availability range, and quality of product. The company has also launched its own express delivery service to take on rivals in the instant deliver space.

Quikr

Listings website Quikr, India’s very own take on Craigslist, is worth US$1.5 billion. The marketplace made some headlines last year after it listed goats for sale during the Muslim festival of Id. But other than goats, Quikr allows buyers and sellers to access everything from used cars to furniture, to even homes. Quikr also bought Commonfloor in January, making it a bigger entity.

InMobi

Adtech company Inmobi leads the race, with a valuation of about US$2.5 billion. The company competes with Google and Facebook in the mobile ads space, and hence might not be popular enough for everyday headlines. It is, however, popular in the right channels.

Google was at one point reportedly interested in buying the company, which CEO Naveen Tewari later dismissed. Much more recently, Microsoft was said to be contemplating the same. Tewari has dissed those rumors too. InMobi has raised US$220.6 million in disclosed funding till date, as per TIA data.

Also read: 27 Striking facts most people don’t know about startups

Image credit: bangalorememories1992.blogspot.com



Deep discounts not a viable business model for start-ups, says Raghuram Rajan

With concerns being raised about cash-burn in burgeoning e-commerce sector, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan today made it clear that getting revenues through deep discounting is not a viable business model for start-ups.

With concerns being raised about cash-burn in burgeoning e-commerce sector, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan today made it clear that getting revenues through deep discounting is not a viable business model for start-ups. “If the only reason you are getting revenues, not profit, is because you are selling based on 50 per cent discount, it can’t be viable in the long run,” he said. Rajan was speaking after delivering the YB Chavan memorial
lecture at state secretariat.

He was quick to acknowledge that many businesses are in different stages of their life-cycle with some trying to
establish the viability. “All these businesses are trying to establish viability, some are still being financed in a big way,” he said, adding that it is natural for some of them not to work which will lead to shutting down the business.

The remarks come amid dwindling valuations of some successful Indian start-ups, which are being partly attributed to the high stress on discounting in the business model.

Many of the start-ups depend on capital injections from venture capital funds and some have also closed down. “I think this (shut down) is a natural process and we should not stand in the way and lament too much,” Rajan said, making a strong case for policies which will make it easier for startups to exit so that resources can be used productively.

Given the competitive nature of things, it is also essential to have safety covers including health insurance,
unemployment insurance and pensions, he said, adding that such nets can ensure “social peace”. Welcoming that it has become “reputable” for being an entrepreneur, Rajan made a plea for being resilient, saying “the enterprise started by an entrepreneur can fail, the people should not fail”.



He said the conditions for starting up are improving by the day on the back of interventions by the government and regulators which have upped the infrastructure and logistics support. However, there is a lot which needs to be done, he said, flagging skilled talent as a key prerequisite for the country. There are many other soon to be introduced aspects which will help the startup ecosystem, Rajan said, pointing out to Bankruptcy Code which he expects to be introduced in the current session of the Parliament, and also the introduction of the Small Finance Banks.

Rajan also said that the bankers while dealing with stressed loans with small businesses should also understand that the smaller firms do not have the same mettle to take every case to a court as a big business does. “I said easy exit (for startups) but it should not be unfair exit. With respect to small firms, creditors often have draconian powers which large firms can limit in courts. Something like Sarfaesi. A large firm has a better way of dealing with it in the court than a small firm has.

Also read: 27 Striking facts most people don’t know about startups

“The banker may have much more power over the small firm with Sarfaesi than it has over large firms. Because we want to get the money back from the large firms, we continue to make the power harder. So, we have to be a little careful. Balance it out. The small firm should not be put out of business too fast while large firms stay in business too long simply because the large firm has easier access to good lawyers.

Rajan said the credit to micro enterprises has gone up to 7.5 per cent of the loans from the earlier 6.5 per cent.

The central bank governor also welcomed the strides of Dalit entrepreneurs, underlining that none of these successful businessmen hail from reputed business or technology schools. Making a strong case creating the enabling environment, Rajan said it is not government programmes but a favourable business environment which has helped such entrepreneurs succeed.

This article was originally published in FirstPost



3 former Housing co-founders to launch a HR management startup

At the core of the solution, the three are looking to make use of semantic search, machine learning and big data to build the product.

Abhishek Anand, Sanat Ghosh and Ravish Naresh, all co-founders of Housing.com, are set to launch a product startup in the human resource management sector, a week after resigning from the Mumbai-based real estate portal.

“We want to leverage technology to bring the process of ‘recruiting’ completely online. By building a platform where we can help candidates and companies to discover, communicate and engage with each during the entire ‘recruiting’ process,” said Ghosh, a 26-year-old IIT-Bombay graduate who built the product team at Housing.

Anand, the former CTO at the real estate portal, said while building Housing, he realised that the “recruitment” process is broken at the fundamental level. “When we dug deeper, we felt that this is a big enough problem that can be solved by building an Internet product and no one in the industry has approached it in the right manner,” said the 24-year-old.

At the core of the solution, the three are looking to make use of semantic search, machine learning and big data to build the product.

The three engineers – Ghosh, Anand, and Naresh – plan to move to Bengaluru and bootstrap in the coming months until they build the product.

Of the 12 IIT-Bombay graduates who co-founded Housing, nine have now left the company. After the ouster of co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav, none of the founders hold a board position.

Anand was responsible for scaling the technology team of over 200 at Housing and led its Data Science Labs (DSL) division. Naresh, 26, scaled Housing’s on-ground data collection model to top 20 cities and later built the sales teams.

Also read: Top 10 Indian Startups and how they took off

Housing, too, revamped its top management team to get more experienced talent on board. It made numerous additions to its leadership team, including Mani Rangarajan, chief financial officer; Nikhil Rungta, chief marketing officer; Nandini Mehta, general counsel; and Abhishek Hota, chief of staff.

In November, Housing said it would focus on its home buying and selling business and scale down its listings and rentals, commercial properties, short stays and land businesses.

Housing competes with CommonFloor, 99Acres and MagicBricks, owned by the publisher of this paper.

“Abhishek, Ravish and Sanat played an important role in building the foundation of Housing.com. They are moving out to pursue their new dream of starting another new ventur. I am sure what they undertake next will be as exciting as Housing,” said Housing CEO Jason Kothari.

This article was originally published in ET Tech



The theory of Indian startups

The startup story of India has fascinated everybody, starting from students to the Prime Minister of the nation. But the moment flyers are printed about entrepreneurship courses for the school going and are nicely tucked in daily newspapers, it is time for us to take a step back and understand the entire situation.

THE PAST: We all know that billions of dollars were infused in our country’s startup ecosystem, almost nearing a global outcry for massive returns from a highly populated country with English speaking citizens who fancy smartphones. We saw some heroes rising and creating stellar businesses. But there were some bad things as well.

Firstly, most of the startups were opportunistic rather than being real disruptors. Young Indians were scouting for ideas in the US that could be speedily recreated in India. Almost every other youth was consciously or unconsciously trying to emulate the Rocket Internet legacy. While some startups made relevant localizations to the foreign ideas, some did not. But overall it looked like a stampede of Indians competing with each other fiercely in the hopes of getting a multi-million dollar cheque. If one got it, one aspired for a bigger cheque. The VCs promoted it; they had their own agendas to run. So ultimately, while many companies were rationally correct in their individual standing, collectively we did unsatisfactorily.

If we look at our achievements, more than 80% of all startups remain in 3 cities. Even if we forget the collective dependency of these startups on the disposable income of the urban city dwellers, the benefits of these could not be passed beyond tier I cities. If we observe India, there are huge Bottom of Pyramid opportunities that we seem to have missed. We lived in our fantasy to cash on the ideas that originated in the West. India is different. Out of all the nations considered paragon of entrepreneurial excellence, India has the least per capita income (even after PPP), least internet penetration, least internet bandwidth, lowest life expectancy, very low quality of infrastructure and more bad things. So what do we have? India holds the promise of growth, explosive growth.

The penetration of internet growth is the highest, our literacy rate is rising and the middle income segment is fattening as we speak. So when we copy other successful ideas, we are trying to confuse absolute numbers with growth. The thing with growth is that it’s investment dependent and uncertain. So our disruption is supposed to be different from the Silicon Valley. When we hurriedly create companies that are based on successful models of the US firms, we nurture a hope to compete and that too on investor money, often assuming a perennial availability.

The technologies created in the foreign country have significant advantage because their models are not based on phenomenal labor force availability. This gives them efficiency. And when these companies enter India, they demonstrate that efficiency, which means that their survival in the game holds higher chances. But don’t we all know it now.



THE PRESENT: Having witnessed a bubble in 2000s, many experts have warned the investors and entrepreneurs about the possibility of a similar outcome in India. Consequently, all startups now have a single goal, to move from growth to profitability. While it is obvious that this is the right thing to do but it is far tougher than what we can imagine.

Changing a company’s strategy is not just about a change in pricing or mellowing down the discounts. It is far greater. All the business relationships need to be redefined or changed altogether. Employee mindset, company’s culture, business structure, contracts and many other things have to be changed with a focus on the minutest details. Going from growth to efficiency involves working on seven broad aspects. Starting from customer and market reach to fine tuning corporate strategy, a shift in company’s core objectives that too in a short span of time is a tough task.

Especially when all VCs seem to be working in unison and creating a scarcity of available funds that were easy to avail in the recent past. It is time for our startups to learn things from the mature companies and incorporate the best practices that make them successful. The transition is tough but is not impossible. The ones who can make this shift will be the ones who will succeed.

But in this entire episode of an artificial fiscal drought for entrepreneurs few good things have happened. Firstly the likelihood of obviating the conspicuous bubble has been increased. Startups have steered away from ‘growth only’ fallacy on time, at least so it looks like. Secondly startups are now orienting towards actual value creation and streamlining their efforts on creating sustainable businesses, which bodes well for India. Thirdly, this will create a bigger pool of domestic investors, primarily angel and series A which again is a good news for the community.

THE FUTURE: The future of Indian startups is bright, there’re no questions. In the realm of things happening today and that have happened in the past, the fledgling companies that can make a shift to a more operationally efficient model and generate profitability will be the ones that may emerge as leaders of tomorrow. The ones who cannot, might opt out of the game or will be absorbed by some of the stronger players. We will see some consolidation happening.

Starting from technology to operations there’s a lot of interdependency that startups have on each other, so it becomes important for few of the bigger startups to survive otherwise the whole thing may fall like a house of cards in the short term. But there’s a floating sentiment that the prudent investors will save the pivotal companies and the entire ecosystem will thrive.

Once we overcome this phase, there will be a paradigm shift in the startup culture, a shift that’s very good. We will have entrepreneurs focusing on profits, which will ultimately need them to harness the opportunities and potentials that exist in India. Accordingly, we will see innovation in agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing and education too. All these areas, as rightly envisioned by the Startup India plan of our PM, are essential for the long term growth of the country. If Startup India plan sees the light of the day, we will have the right attitude and skills imparted to the youth of the country.

Lastly and most importantly, there are further opportunities that await the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Starting from the Digital India drive to the success of JAM (Jan Dhan Yogna, Aadhar card, Mobile) there will be myriad opportunities.

As JAM becomes successful we will have a good infrastructure to reach a much higher proportion of population, interact with them and work with them. This will open many doors. Once that happens, money will flow in while startups will be efficient and hence hopefully flourishing.

This article was originally published here



Top 10 Indian Startups and how they took off

Here is a list of top 10 Indian startups that are riding the startup wave, and how they started.

The year 2015 was a definitive year for the Indian internet industry. As the economy continued to grow at a healthy 6-7%, the sluggish Chinese economy meant investors are looking at India with renewed interest. Nobody cashed in bigger than the e-commerce players.

Experts believe that while the Indian e-commerce market is currently pegged at $5 billion, the figure might leap to as much as $40-50 billion by 2020. A 2015 PwC report even states that Tier 2 and 3 cities have seen 30% to 50% rise in transactions.

With the rural and semi-rural markets catching up to the trend, no wonder the likes of internet startups are pulling out all their stocks to acquire customers with hefty discounts and schemes. However, while all this might seem very recent, it all started a while ago.

Here is a list of top 10 Indian startups that are riding the startup wave, and how they started.

1. Flipkart

This Bangalore-based e-commerce company is already registered in Singapore. Sachin and Binny Bansal launched it back in 2007, and the company now has launched its own product range under the brand name ‘DigiFlip’! Flipkart is currently one of India’s largest e-commerce players.

2. Snapdeal

Online marketplace Snapdeal was started by Wharton graduate Kunal Bahl and IIT Delhi guy Rohit Bansal. The company now has top investors like SoftBank onboard and is the biggest local rival to Flipkart.



3. Paytm

This Indian e-commerce company is based in Noida, India. Launched in 2010, Paytm has expanded to mobile recharges and bill payments, e-commerce, bus travel and even online deals. It is giving Flipkart and Snapdeal a run for their money.

4. OlaCabs

OlaCabs, commonly called Ola, is India’s home-grown transport network company. Launched as an online cab aggregator in Mumbai, this Bangalore-based startup is among the fastest growing online businesses currently. It is also India’s answer to global taxi giants like Uber.

5. Oyo Rooms

Touted as India’s largest branded network of hotels, OYO Rooms currently operates in more than 160 Indian cities.

This company, founded by a rather young founder-CEO Ritesh Agarwal, has been branded as one among the next start-up unicorns. It is backed by investors like Softbank Group and Sequoia Capital.

6. Zomato

This restaurant search and discovery service was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. It also provides cashless payment, online ordering, table reservation, and point-of-sale systems.

Users have access to restaurant contact details, scanned menus and photos sourced by local street teams. User reviews and ratings also help.

It currently operates in 23 countries, including India, Australia and the United States.



7. ShopClues

This online marketplace in currently based in Gurgaon, India. It was founded in California’s Silicon Valley in 2011. It came to India as the 35th entry in the Indian e-commerce space and now has over 12,000 registered merchants, 2,00,000+ products and over 42 million visitors every year across 9500 locations in the country.

8. Practo

Practo is a comprehensive health app. It currently has over 1,00,000 doctors listed from over 310 Indian towns and cities. It has over 1.3 million pageviews and 30,000 appointments booked every month, with traffic growing at 24% month-on-month.

The company has seven offices, in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Singapore.

9. UrbanClap

UrbanClap is an online platform that helps customers find and hire service professionals. The idea is really picking up amongst India’s nuclear families, tanks to the ease it offers.

10. Lenskart

Lenskart is an online eyewear portal founded by Peyush Bansal along with Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi. They currently sell prescription eyeglasses, sunglasses and contact lenses.

The company has self owned and franchise stores across India.

This article was originally published in Business Insider India.



11 Times when Indian startup wars got very real

Here are the top 11 times when the things got a bit heated in the Indian startup ecosystem.

The Indian startup ecosystem is normally a friendly place. People offer each other tips, share insights and generally have each other’s backs. But when there’s intense competition and big money at stake, the niceness is sometimes cast aside and bitter rivalries surface.

Here are the top 11 times when the things got a bit heated in the Indian startup ecosystem.

1. When Rahul Yadav had a tussle with the Housing investors

The most (in)famous battle in the startups world began when Housing.com cofounder and CEO Rahul exchanged a war of words with one of his own investors, Shailendra Singh of Sequioa capital. This was followed up a reposte from Singh and another barb by Yadav including some colourful language. Rahul’s temper ultimately ended up costing him his job, as after falling out of favour with the board, Rahul was fired from the company he cofounded.

2. When Rahul yadav called Deepinder Goyal a restaurant menu scanner

During his whole Housing saga, Rahul Yadav challenged other startup founders to follow in his footsteps and distribute a part of their equity amongst their employees. While Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal decided to not dignify Yadav’s cheek with a response, Deepinder Goyal replied to Rahul Yadav’s Facebook post with a “cute”. Rahul Yadav followed the snark with some photoshop work where he called Goyal a “restaurant scanner.”

3. When Haptik accused Helpchat of copying its business model and app design

Before the personal assistant chat app Helpchat came into its current form, it was a consumer complaint redressal forum called Akosha. However, Haptik, accused the then-Akosha of copying their entire app, despite Haptik being part of a judging panel of a hackathon organised by Akosha. “Imitation is the best form of flattery. And to everyone at Akosha, we at Haptik are truly humbled that you decided to build a clone to our app, not missing out on a single feature.”, the Haptik blog said. Not taking the barbs without a fight, Ankush Singla, founder of Akosha denied all such accusations and in a detailed blogpost explained how his startup came to make the app which for it was a natural progressions and a product of its 300+ engineers. Akosha is the personal assistant app Helpchat now, and competes more closely with Haptik than ever before. But looks like even after more than a year since the incident, the bad blood between the two startups is far from over as a current message on Haptik clearly seems to take a dig at Helpchat.



4. When TVF founders were embroiled in a legal battle over ownership

After its hugely popular take on India’s startup scene captured all the drama associated with entrepreneurship, TVF had a new resource to draw inspiration from – its own internal feud. TVF Founder Arunabh Kumar was dragged to court by former colleague Prashant Raj. Raj, who quit the company in 2014, demanded a 4% share in the company as well as cash compensation for his work with TVF.

5. When Zomato offended Dineout with its “first” claim

When last year Zomato launched its restaurant booking service and announced that it wanted “to ensure that we are the first in the market”, Dineout wasn’t pleased. Dineout had been taking restaurant booking since 2012, and sensing that Zomato was stepping on its toes, and not missing the marketing opportunity this would bring, Dineout wrote a scathing open letter to Zomato, pointing out how Dineout, not Zomato were the first restaurant booking service in India. Carrying on with the “cute” comeback, Zomato came up with this.

6. When Vijay Shekhar Sharma admitted to not respecting Snapdeal or Flipkart

Vijay Shekhar Sharma is known to mince no words when talking about Paytm. At a company party, VSS – as he’s popularly known – gave a rousing speech to his employees, proclaiming how “no fucking brand was better than us”. A few months later, in an interview with Dainik Bhaskar, VSS also mentioned how comparing Paytm with Flipkart and Snapdeal is unfair as those were mere “retailers”, and he didn’t enjoy comparisons with startups he didn’t even respect.

7. When Sachin Bansal wanted to have a go at competition, but himself was slayed

The otherwise soft spoken and reticent Flipkart co-founder and ex-CEO Sachin Bansal has had his share of controversy. Amidst talks of Chinese etailer giant Alibaba looking to set up shop in India, Bansal tweeted how Alibaba coming to India is a sign its investments (Snapdeal and Paytm) not doing so well. While VSS let this one pass without a comment, Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl wasn’t one to take Bansal’s slight lying down. He came up with this, to which Bansal had no response but a tame “:P”

8. When Rapido Bangalore blamed Uber of unfair competition

Uber launched its bike taxi service, UberMoto in Feb this year, and the response was grand. However, the bike taxi startup Rapido, that claims to be the first of its kind in India wasn’t happy. Not only had Uber poached many of its drivers for UberMoto, but had also compromised on training standards that rapido had provided, causing Rapido to respond to OfficeChai’s UberMoto tweet with a heartfelt message that read “No training, and poaching Rapido’s drivers. A fair playing field is all we ask for, @Uber”. Rapido’s tweet to OfficeChai has since been deleted.



9. When Uber took Ola to court over foul play

Ola and Uber are locked in a several battle for street dominance in India, but the two have sparred off the streets as well. Uber accused Ola of trying to sabotage its business by creating fake accounts to make and immediately cancel fake bookings, causing loss of revenue and customer dissatisfaction for Uber. While Ola has denied involvement, the court hearings are scheduled for later this year.

10. When Jugnoo followed suit and accused Ola of the same

Following in Uber’s heels, auto-rickshaw aggregator Jugnoo accused Ola of foul play just like Uber had. It claimed that Ola employees created multiple fake accounts to make and cancel bookings, trying to sabotage Jugnoo’s business. Jugnoo even published a proof of their claim through screenshots showing a pattern in the cancellations.

11. When Kishore Biyani dismissed the whole ecommerce industry

Retail oldie Kishore Biyani has never been a fan of e-commerce. As Chairman of the Future Group, India’s largest retail chain, he had predicted last year that “none of the grocery delivery companies will survive”, and he has been consistently disdainful of India’s e-commerce boom. He then decided to take on the entire ecommerce industry in a provocative campaign wherein Brand Factory, Future Group’s value retail chain poked fun at three main ecommerce players, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. With a straightforward theme of “Stop looking online”, the campaign was trying to wean users away from the e-commerce companies who’ve been luring them with discounts.



Exclusive: Hyper funded PepperTap to shutdown operations this month

On-demand grocery major PepperTap is shutting down its operations. The Gurgaon-based company will roll back its consumer centric grocery app by end of this month.

On-demand grocery major PepperTap is shutting down its operations. The Gurgaon-based company will roll back its consumer centric grocery app by end of this month. Navneet Singh, CEO of PepperTap, has confirmed to YourStory about shutdown. He said over a phone call,

We are pulling plug from B2C grocery business and pivoting to a full stack e-commerce logistics company.

The shutdown poses serious questions on the fate of other consumer centric on-demand businesses. PepperTap had raised over $51 million in risk capital from blue chip investors including Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and e-commerce major Snapdeal. The company didn’t share any further details on reasons for shutdown but according to YourStory’s sources lack of demand and poor unit economics forced PepperTap to back out from the business.

Navneet adds,

Shutting down PepperTap is extremely difficult call for us but it’s the need of hour. Our foray into full stack logistics space is a well-pondered decision and our experience in consumer as well as business-focused logistics will certainly help us to build next generation e-commerce logistics startup.

PepperTap has a sister concern, NuvoEx – an e-commerce focused reverse logistics company.

Prior to PepperTap, Localbanya and Townrush wound up their operations as they failed to raise risk capital and build sustainable business. Biggies like Paytm and Flipkart also launched on-demand grocery verticals but have pulled the plug on their operations soon.

One of the sources claimed that PepperTap was processing less than 1,000 orders since last month and had laid off over 200 employees last week. Navneet declined to comment on these details. The company claimed to ship about 20,000 orders each day in December 2015.

Launched in November 2014 by Navneet and Millind Sharma, PepperTap had previously closed operations in six cities including Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Softbank-backed Grofers also backed out from nine cities in January this year to conserve cash and keep tab on burn rate.

PepperTap had secured capital across four rounds. Besides a $1-million seed round, it raised $10 million Series A from Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners. In September last year it raised $36 million from Snapdeal and others while the final $4 million came in December last year. PepperTap also acquired struggling hyperlocal grocery marketplace – Jiffstore.

This article was originally published in YourStory

Image credit: YourStory



SoftBank investors ask for internal probe of its President and COO Nikesh Arora

The American law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner sent a request letter to SoftBank’s board dated Jan. 20, asking to investigate Nikesh Arora’s qualifications and track record as president of the firm.

After Sequoia, now Tokyo-based venture firm SoftBank is entangled in trouble but well for different reasons of course.

The American law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner sent a request letter to SoftBank’s board dated Jan. 20, asking to investigate Nikesh Arora’s qualifications and track record as president of the firm.

Also one of Sprint Corp’s investor which is managed by SoftBank, sent a letter to the venture firm asking Nikesh Arora’s removal as President, reports Bloomberg.

Nikesh Arora’s advisory role to the private equity firm Silver Lake has raised questions about his conflict of interests and suggests past wrongdoings and incompetent business decisions. The letter also says that Arora is getting compensated by Silver Lake for helping with potential technology company investments which he is supposed to be closing for SoftBank.

The investors have asked for an internal investigation by an independent firm.

Matthew Schwartz, a partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner, in the letter wrote, “Poor investment performance and a series of questionable transactions during his tenure. Despite these issues, the SoftBank board saw fit to make Mr. Arora the third-highest paid executive in the world without any track record of accomplishment at the company.”

SoftBank has denied to Bloomberg and called the letter “unsubstantiated allegations” from “unidentified shareholders.” The firm has strongly backed Arora and said it is completely aware of his involvement with Silver Lake.

Nikesh Arora had earlier worked with Google and had exited the company as chief business officer. Then in 2007, he joined Silver Lake but has clarified that his involvement with the firm has been ‘minimal’ since he joined SoftBank in 2014.

Image credit: www.bloomberg.com



DS Group’s Pulse candy hits Rs 100 crore in 8 months, equals Coke Zero’s record

Despite constituting a third of the total candy market, the hard-boiled segment is witnessing heightened traction due to entry of new players and innovation.

Candy sales are on the fast track, thanks to hard-boiled candies (HBC) such as Mango Bite, Pulse Candy and Alpenliebe that are pushing the Rs 6,000-crore sweet candy market to grow at 1.5 times the FMCG industry growth in the country.

Despite constituting a third of the total candy market, the hard-boiled segment is witnessing heightened traction due to entry of new players and innovation. For instance, Dharampal Satyapal (DS) Group’s Pulse Candy reached Rs 100 crore within just eight months of its launch, its maker said, equalling the record of Coca-Cola’s diet drink Coke Zero.

“Eclairs and soft toffees segment grew in single digits in 2015 in comparison to hard-boiled candy segment. Lollipops are the other segment witnessing healthy growth,” said Vijay Udasi, senior VP at Nielsen India.

While the overall sweet candy market is growing at 14% Y-o-Y, the HBC segment, pegged at around Rs 2,100 crore, is growing at 24%, revealed data from Nielsen. “The category has low entry barriers that results in numerous new players entering the market every year. At the same time, there are fairly quick exits too. Low entry-exit barriers facilitate innovation on formats and flavours in the category,” Udasi said.

Industry experts said, Pulse Candy, a kaccha aam (raw mango) hard boiled candy with a tangy salt filled centre, was one such innovation. “We launched it at Re 1. Other companies followed suit. Before that, everybody was selling 4gm hard boiled candies for 50 paise,” said Shashank Surana, VP, new product development, at DS Group, the maker of Rajnigandha pan masala, Pass Pass and Catch spices.



Mandar Keskar, category head at Perfetti Van Melle India, agrees. “Although the confectionery category in India is highly cluttered and price-sensitive with nearly 40% of the category volumes still coming from 50-paise price point, an encouraging trend is consumers lapping up innovations at higher price points,” he said.

While Perfetti leads in the caramel category, a flavour which constitutes 20% of the HBC segment, Parle is the dominant player with its Mango Bite brand. Interestingly, kaccha aam (26%) and mango flavour (24%) put together command 50% market share in the HBC category, followed by caramel and orange (16%). Inbisco is the other big player with its Kopico (coffee flavour) brand.

“The HBC segment is growing fast due to marketing push and innovations,” said Pravin Kulkarni, marketing head at Parle Products. “The chocolate eclair and soft toffee category is struggling because margins are low due to the premium nature of the product. By selling a candy for Rs 1, an HBC maker will make more money than a chocolate eclair company.”

This article was originally published in The Economic Times

Image credit: www.campaignindia.in



Where Rocket Internet went wrong with India

Fabfurnish, an Indian online furniture brand built by Rocket Internet AG, was recently sold to Indian retail giant Future Retail for an estimated 15 crore. That is less than $3Million after having absorbed funding which was more than 10 times the value.

Fabfurnish, an Indian online furniture brand built by Rocket Internet AG, now a publicly listed company was recently sold to Indian retail giant Future Retail for an estimated 15 crore. That is less than $3Million after having absorbed funding which was more than 10 times the value. The condition of the rest of its entities in India – FoodPanda, Jabong is not too different. And then, you have all the ventures that silently died – HeavenandHome, PricePanda, OfficeYes, 21Diamonds among a few others.

Where did Rocket Internet really go wrong? Having worked with them for about 18 months for two of their ventures, Fabfurnish.com and OfficeYes.com, I have formed some opinions that I thought would be good to share at this point.

1. Either you are a multinational or a VC – you cannot be both while being neither

Amazon is a multinational entity with a CEO at its HQ. Amit Aggarwal is an Amazon veteran who may not have a very high stake in the company, but has the experience, affinity, and probably compensation to motivate him and build Amazon India.

For entities like Flipkart, VCs invest, connect, believe in contributing as an advisor and allow the entrepreneur to run the venture as they know that both are trying to maximise shareholder value.

Rocket Internet tried to act like both. It had an obsessive control on day to day metrics and micro-managed funds. It believed that it had a template based on which it could replicate success learnt from very different geographies that represented very contrasting consumer behaviours. At the same time, it would put pressure on the Managing Directors to stake their careers by calling them co-founders, pushing them to the limelight, and forcing them to grow too fast.

2. Hyper-funded Growth at the cost of product market fit

Furniture, office supplies, jewellery, and food delivery are very complex models. Without giving someone time to figure out product market fit, forcing founders to grow with a sword of withdrawing funding was ridiculous pressure for anyone to perform at.

Throwing money on day one at a problem which was solved very differently by another company in a different country didn’t really work out for them. The best of businesses are built under constraints.



3. Skin in the game

This pressure could probably still be handled by someone who has skin in the game.

Rocket Internet had a theory that if it could hire from top-notch consulting firms and investment banks, it would solve the leadership problem. Both OfficeYes and Fabfurnish are an extremely smart bunch. However, most of these co-founders had all come from individually contributing roles and were suddenly thrust with teams of 100 and above within a couple of months with no time given to learn and organically grow as leaders.

With negligible equity stakes given to founding MDs, and allowing them to draw salaries that match the highest paying consulting firms gives a very different sort of motivation than what drives an entrepreneur. It leads to hiring less optimally and forces a spend that cannot be justified by the gross margins earned in a non-product-market fit scenario.

This was the kind of pressure that probably led to the exodus of most of these co-founders in 2015.

What could have been done better?

Should Rocket Internet continue with its cloning strategy? Yes, it’s not that bad an idea. It needs to recalibrate what it defines as execution. Some simple things, as mentioned below, could have taken these ventures in India to much higher levels:

1. Higher stakes to founders.
2. Lesser cash available in year one for focus only on product-market fit.
3. Lesser interference from Rocket with only advice and learnings to be shared.

Author: Mohammed Ali

CEO and Founder of Primaseller – a SaaS platform for multi-channel retail and has worked with Fabfurnish and OfficeYes in their early days helping them setup their operations.

Image credit: www.bidnessetc.com



When to start a startup?

When to start a startup? You really have to look within.

What do entrepreneurs, astronauts and artists have in common, other than they begin with syllable ‘Ah’.
Take astronauts. Some moments are indelibly imprinted in our minds. I remember the space shuttle Challenger launch in 1986, the excitement and anticipation leading up to the launch and 73 secs into the flight the somber disbelief and grief over its explosion. The loss of the young teacher Christa McAuliffe felt deeply personal.

“Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain,” Regan said in addressing in the aftermath, a quote that hugely influenced me all my life. There were other lessons too. The commission which looked into the disaster concluded, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations”. That again has been one of my guiding principles throughout my career. The accident, tragic as it was, is used as a case study for various topics, engineering ethics, dangers of group thinking, decision structures, client intimidation, topics that are relevant even today for startups and their management teams to contemplate, but that is another blog for another time.

Let’s spend some more time on astronauts. Many kids dream of being astronaut. Have you ever wonder about the odds of being selected? In 2013, for example, more than 6,000 people applied for NASA, but only eight individuals were selected. That’s 0.1% selection rate. We, the VCs are more accommodating. I believe on an average VCs invest in 2–3% of the companies they review, slightly better for startups to take off. Kelly Slack, a psychologist who sits on the astronaut selection panel once said, “It’s challenging to pick astronauts for a lot of reasons, primarily because we are predicting behavior so far in the future”. Also, the job the astronauts are selected for is probably not going to be the job they have by the time they fly. Sounds familiar to me. It is challenging to pick entrepreneurs for a lot of reasons, primarily because returns depend on predicting behavior based on future pivoting and the selected entrepreneurs will have to do a different job than what they have done to date. They have to lead an enterprise in order for mission landing, i.e, landing a unicorn for the VCs and themselves.

Again, NASA looks for intelligence, adaptability, physical condition, mental endurance, education in their astronauts, and it runs extensive tests to get data to decide on each candidate. On the other hand a VC also looks for the same traits in an entrepreneur but runs no tests and usually has limited time to make the decision.
Artists are a different breed, compared to astronauts. A typical astronaut is methodical, time bound, left brained, the kind of person who would draw a check list and adhere to it to the last. A typical artist on the other hand tends to be impulsive, tends to muse, rather than by the clock, right brained and the kind of person who would let his instincts guide him rather than a check list. Again, astronauts tend to be team players, systematic, and like to have as much clarity in communication as possible and reduce all the uncertainty that is humanly possible. Artists tend to be individualistic, they seek and thrive in chaos, communicate in metaphors and seek and find hidden meanings in ordinary objects. These qualities might be daunting to some, but it’s these qualities that help them be creative, inspire them to explore new territories, and push the boundaries, and find out new things.

What about entrepreneurs? In my view, entrepreneurs need to be both astronauts and artists. They need both precision and creativity. When it comes to having a vision, when it comes to coming up with a product or a service that even customers don’t know they want, they need to be like artists. And when it comes to execution, turning that vision into a product or a service that a customer is willing to pay, they need to be like astronauts — systematic, precise and methodical.

Both are demanding, and both are exciting. I know something about this. I have spent last two decades on two sides of the table, about a decade as an Entrepreneur and another as a Venture Capitalist. That affords me to have a perspective through personal experience.

A recent evening, while stuck in Bangalore I wondered how does the journey of an entrepreneur start. How does an entrepreneur decide when to take the plunge? Is he a technician — following a precise path, or is he an artist — guided by his passion and instincts? Do they wait till they reach certain age, or have a certain amount in the bank balance, or wait for ideal business environment, or wait till they put together the perfect team, or once they move to a perfect location?

Age is no longer a factor, it might actually favor the young. The stories of young entrepreneurs abound. Bill Gates was still a student at Harvard when he decided to drop out and start Microsoft Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg was just 20, when he dropped out of college to start Facebook. Old age shouldn’t deter you either. Gordon Bowker was 51 when he co-founded Starbucks, although it was really Howard Schultz, CEO, who really created the Starbucks we know today. Ferdinand Porsche was 56 when he founded Porsche. We have great examples in our own back yard, Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of Ola Cabs, Kunal Bahl of Snapdeal, Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo Rooms all started in their 20’s.



Your bank balance doesn’t matter. Entrepreneurs don’t wait to have a million dollars in their bank account before they start up. Rather, they startup so they can have a billion dollars in their bank account soon. One of the defining images of startups — that they are started in garage — also underlines the fact that many entrepreneurs aren’t exactly flush with cash when they start up. They make do with whatever resources they have. They borrow from friends and family. They do their planning not in board rooms, but in their dorm rooms, they conduct interviews not in corner offices but in cafes. They stretch their limited resources to the fullest, and think of innovative ways to find some.

Twenty five or thirty years ago, entrepreneurs in India didn’t have it easy. They had to wait for months to get a telephone line, Forex was hard to come by, it was too complex to import computers and computer parts, and India didn’t have the same reputation it has today. Yet, it didn’t stop entrepreneurs to start up, and build iconic companies. Today, it’s a different story. India might be ranked 130 in the ease of doing business — a list that World Bank publishes based on criteria such as how easy it is to start a business, getting credit, paying taxes etc. but it’s the second fastest growing startup country. Prime minister Narendra Modi slogan Startup India, Standup India reverberates across the country. Entrepreneurship is in the air everywhere. You just have to go to any campus and you see this clearly.

Similarly, entrepreneurs don’t wait for the best team to assemble before they start up. Entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury to wait. Entrepreneurs just start up. Their vision, passion and momentum attract great people — and eventually they end up with the dream team.

They don’t wait for the perfect business plan either. Don’t get me wrong. Business plans are important. Without one, you have no business to be in business. But, there is nothing like the perfect business plan. A plan is just a plan, and it changes whenever it meets the reality. These can be small, and sometimes a complete pivot. The team behind Twitter were building a podcast service when the entry of Apple into the segment changed everything. They quickly pivoted and the result was Twitter.

So, when to start a startup? You really have to look within. Do you feel the burning desire to become an entrepreneur? Do you have a vision that consumes you? Do you want to change the world with your work? Do you spend your days and nights thinking about starting up, as if you are madly in love with the idea? Do you have the confidence to find your way in the world? Are you good at failing and quickly recovering, facing rejection, facing your doubts? Are you an optimist? Do you feel the flow of adrenaline when you think of the things you can achieve as an entrepreneur, the problems you can solve, the challenges you can take on, the passion you can kindle in others? Then you are ready for starting up. Detailed business plans, money, team — they are all important. But as an entrepreneur the most important quality you have to have is that all consuming passion to become an entrepreneur.

If you have it, what are you waiting for? Get into the game. Today. Now!

Author: Vani Kola

Vani Kola is a Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, based in Bangalore, India. Her leadership at Kalaari centers around her commitment to the development of entrepreneurs and her conviction that Indian companies are poised to become global players. Vani brings 22 years of Silicon Valley experience as a founder of successful companies to her role as a mentor and enabler of startup companies in India. She serves on several company boards and speaks widely on entrepreneurship and leadership.

This article was originally published in Medium

Image credit: www.browngirlfromboston.com



Investments in Indian start-ups decline 24%

Investors infused some $1.15 billion into Indian start-ups in the first three months of this year, down almost a quarter on a sequential basis.

Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms cut investments in Indian start-ups by almost a quarter on a sequential basis in the three months to March, the second consecutive quarter they did so, as investors starved of exits and fearful of souring bets hold back cash.

Investors infused some $1.15 billion into Indian start-ups in the first quarter of this year, down as much as 24% from the December quarter, which itself had seen a slump in investments of 48% from the preceding three months, according to a joint report by KPMG and CB Insights.

The $1.15 billion reported by KPMG includes at least $150 million of secondary share sales that went from one set of investors in Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd) to another.

The number of start-up deals fell 4% to 116 in the quarter, the report said.

The largest deals in the January quarter included $150 million received by online grocer BigBasket; $150 million raised by online marketplace Shopclues; and $50 million raised by Snapdeal, India’s second most valuable e-commerce firm.

“With mounting investor hesitation and concerns of overvaluation, Indian investment continued to decline in the first quarter,” KPMG and CB Insights said in the report.

After pumping more than $9 billion into Indian start-ups since the beginning of 2014, investors started pulling back late last year because of a mix of global macroeconomic factors such as a growth slowdown in China, as well as concerns over massive losses incurred by start-ups.



This year, investor caution has increased manifold, resulting in an acute slowdown in funding, fall in valuations and delayed deal closures.

“We have not been in contact with investors to raise funds but the sense we are getting is that there is a wait-and-watch situation that is going on,” said Ashish Goel, chief executive at online furniture retailer UrbanLadder. “There is definitely lesser investment in early-stage start-ups when compared to the last 4-5 months and (the number of) deals have certainly reduced.”

Even India’s top start-ups are struggling to raise cash at their current valuations.

Mint reported on 14 April that Flipkart Ltd and Snapdeal have held funding talks with several investors over the past six months, all of whom have refused to invest in the companies at their preferred valuations of $15 billion and $6.5 billion, respectively.

Both denied that they have been trying to raise fresh funds.

There are two main reasons why companies are struggling to raise money, said Aseem Khare, co-founder of home services start-up Taskbob, which raised Rs.28 crore in February.

“First, companies have been using investor money for giving away discounts that have beefed up top-line numbers but have not been able to create brand loyalty. Due to this, the percentage of revenue that comes through discounts is very high and has put doubts on the business model. The second reason is that of unit economics. There are businesses that are solving a problem, but the margins are too low for them to be sustainable or operationally profitable,” Khare said. By unit economics, Khare’s reference is to the cost and revenue from one transaction—say, a food delivery order taken online, and fulfilled.

The funding slowdown is not restricted to Indian start-ups alone, said Varun Khaitan, chief executive at home service app UrbanClap.

“The US has much bigger problems. And since some of the biggest investors are US-based, this problem has flowed into India. But if a company is doing well, then irrespective of the environment, it will attract investors,” he said.

The report by KPMG and CB Insights confirmed Khaitan’s views and said start-up deals in the US were much lower in the first quarter compared with the peak levels seen in 2015.

This article was originally published in Live Mint

Image credit: www.bitlanders.com



Forget unicorns – Investors are looking for ‘cockroach’ startups now

2015 was the year of the “unicorn” – private technology-driven startups that reached a valuation of $1 billion or more.
But tech and startup investment is going to be defined by a very different beast in 2016 – the cockroach.

2015 was the year of the “unicorn” – private technology-driven startups that reached a valuation of $1 billion or more.
But tech and startup investment is going to be defined by a very different beast in 2016 – the cockroach.

“Everything is about resiliency now to weather the storm,” says Tim McSweeney, a director at technology-focused merchant bank Restoration Partners. “Unicorn, it’s a mythical beast, whereas a cockroach, it can survive a nuclear war.”

A unicorn is characterised by superfast growth, fuelled by VC money. They’re not profitable but the idea is that the business will reach “scale” first, before concentrating on making a money once it’s won plenty of market share. Uber is a prime example.

Startups that joined the unicorn club last year include TransferWise, Lyft, Zenefits, SoFi, Hellofresh, Prosper, Oscar, and Farfetch, according to venture capital data tracker CB Insights. There were many more.

A cockroach, by contrast, is a business that builds slowly and steadily from the get go, keeping a close eye on revenues and profits. Spending is kept in check so that it can weather any funding storm.

McSweeney says: “For the investment side, it’s minimizing the risk. Let’s find a company that can survive a nuclear war and then come back to fight another day or pivot and do something different – it has the right team, the right customer base etc.”

McSweeney mentioned the concept of a cockroach company to me at the launch of the Virtual Technology Cluster (VTC) Group recently in London and jumped on the phone later on to discuss it.

Restoration Partners doesn’t invest itself but offers banking services to business-focused technology startups. As such, McSweeney and his colleagues have a good view of the investment space.

McSweeney didn’t coin the term cockroach and isn’t the first to highlight it. The investment theory is an old one and Flickr founder Caterina Fake penned a blogpost on the idea last September.

Unicorns are going out of fashion for many investors.



But the idea of the cockroach vs. unicorn captures a widespread mood in the investment community right now. At a recent conference in London on fintech – one of the hottest subsectors of technology that boasts plenty of unicorns – I found investors and bankers worried about “froth” in the market.
McSweeney says: “I think the unicorn element is coming to an end anyway and the bubble in the market is just sloping off.”

McSweeney’s boss, Restoration Partners’ founder Ken Olisa, told me much the same thing. At the VTC Group launch, he said: “There’s a unicorn industry and they can play around with each other but all it will do is end in tears, because it’s not about the customer and it’s not about adding value to anything.”

So why are investors looking for cockroaches rather than unicorns now? The answer is funding.

2015 was characterised by free and easy funding for startups, thanks to record low-interest rates driving more and more cash into venture capital and poor stock market performance encouraging the likes of Fidelity and BlackRock to try their hand at VC investing.

But 2016 got off to a very different start, with venture capital funding drying up amid wobbles for the global economy.

This has revealed problems in the business models of many unicorns and other fast-growing tech businesses, most of which rely on easy VC money to fund their growth. Businesses like Twitter and Birchbox have all been making layoffs and Fortune’s Dan Primack recently noted that both private equity and venture capital performance declined in the first quarter of 2016 for the first time in years. Zenefits, one of the 2015 inductees to the unicorn club, has imploded pretty spectacularly.

McSweeney says: “In terms of chasing growth and growth and growth – it’s not about sustainability. It’s just trying to grow as quickly as you can without looking at the fundamentals of the house. That’s what I feel a unicorn is – chase growth so investors give you money. It’s kind of a reinforcing cycle.

“Google didn’t growth hack, they just provided a service to the internet and build a business around it.”

He adds: “Look at Powa. It’s the bubble – I wouldn’t say it’s bursting, but it’s sloping downwards. There’s frothiness.”

London-based Powa Technologies raised at least $225 million in debt and equity over the last three years and at one point claimed to be worth $2.7 billion. But the payments business went bust in February, with debts of $16.4 million and just $250,000 in the bank.

McSweeney says: “I still think there’s capital out there but the application of it is more judicious. People are looking for smarter businesses to apply their capital to.”

This article was originally published in Business Insider

Image credit: Reuters/Andrew Kelly



Key checklist that Askme considers before investing in any startup

Piyush Pankaj, VP Corporate Finance and M&A at Askme Group, speaks about what are the key checklist that the company considers before investing in a company.

Piyush Pankaj, VP Corporate Finance and M&A at Askme Group, speaks about what are the key checklist that the company considers before investing in a company.

Askme, majorly owned by Malaysia’s Astro Holdings, invested a whooping $20 million in Indian online market place Mebelkart last year, in turn for a stake in the company. The company also acquired online grocery marketplace BestAtLowest.com for $10 million in 2015.

The key factors checked before a partnership or funding

Piyush said that the two main criteria that the group seeks are the synergy opportunities the startup has with the Askme Group and entrepreneurial skills of the team or the founder. Once these two main requisites are checked, then the Askme looks for other qualities like market opportunity and others.

When a startup begins operations, they have very limited resources. So the first thing we do is to keep the resources so that they can rapidly grow. We focus on how the company can further grow using the Askme ecosystem and how Askme’s gross users can generate revenue for the startup.

One of the challenges that we face is to integrate Askme’s philosophy and culture in the startup and at the same time create an environment where the startup continues to develop and innovate fresh ideas with complete freedom.

When a founder approaches us they should keep in mind whether they will be able to create any synergies with the Askme Group. We have the ability to incubate in our area — the online ecommerce, hyperlocal and penetration into the SMEs and bigger markets. So whoever comes with their idea, they should keep in mind if the idea matches our ecosystem and of possible synergies. The founders should have a clear idea as to how they can help grow our business or how they themselves could grow their startup using our platform.



What made Askme to invest in Mebelkart?

The idea of Mebelkart really appealed to us, as the concept of online furniture business has a lot of growth opportunities in India. The online business mostly caters to the metro cities. What Askme can provide to them is penetration into tier 2 and 3 cities.

Our main idea was to help Mebelkart rapidly grow using the Askme ecosystem. We also looked at the promoters, who come from a good IIT background, and have successfully created a sound technology platform which is very scalable. We have also seen a great amount of hunger in their team for success which made this decision come easy.

When Mebelkart approached us they had done their research on how we can help them and what are the opportunities that we could provide.

Ecommerce space can benefit from Chinese investments

The whole ecommerce industry is still at a nascent stage and penetration into the smaller cities is not up to the mark. The ecommerce industry still requires a lot of investment to help it penetrate into smaller cities. So with the Chinese investments coming and the new FDI norms, it is going to help the ecommerce industry, especially the startups.

Currently the whole ecommerce space is led by mobile and apparel categories, all other categories continue to remain at a very nascent stage. So wherever there are more hyperlocal businesses coming to the play, those startups are going to get benefitted because the market is moving towards these new distribution models.  Right now in the grocery domain, a lot of categories can penetrate into the hyperlocal model. The closer one gets to the consumer the better it is.

Lower funding in 2016 should improve quality

Money is drying up because everyone today is looking for profitability. On an industry basis, I think it’s good for the overall space as people will now stop giving several of those discounts, which the government also has tried to control via FDI rules. This will make a semblance for every player as it will make it a levelled play for everyone rather than giving the upper hand to those who were funded previously. It will help clear off the euphoria and let real businesses to emerge. People will focus on quality rather than quantity.

This article was originally published in Entrepreneur.com



Investments in Indian startups are back and how!

Compared with just 114 deals during the three months ended December 2015, there were 344 investments during January-March 2016. As many as 388 startups raised funds in the first three months of 2016.

Here is some cheer for startups this year after funding slowed down significantly in the last quarter of 2015. According to a report by venture capital and startup research firm Xeler, Indian startups raised $1.73 billion during January-March 2016.

Compared with just 114 deals during the three months ended December 2015, there were 344 investments during January-March 2016. As many as 388 startups raised funds in the first three months of 2016.

The largest funding rounds during the first three months of 2016 were by online travel venture Ibibo ($250 million), e-commerce major Snapdeal ($200 million), online grocery retailer Big Basket ($150 million), online automobile classified portal Cartrade.com ($145 million) and online retailer Shopclues ($75 million).



“On an average, we have seen at least 4 startup fundings per day between January to march 2016,” Xeler said in a report. Read full report here.

eCommerce, SaaS and health tech have emerged as the top performing investment segements this quarter with a cumulative investment of over USD 810mn across 103 startups that accounts for 47% of the cumulative deal value.

Image credit: www.livemint.com



Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital to launch $50Mn early-stage investment fund for Indian startups

EVC is launching its maiden India focused $50 million fund that will look to back enterprise software, internet and mobile-focused startups.

US Based Investor Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital (EVC) to launch early-stage investment fund for Indian Startups. EVC is launching its maiden India focused $50 million fund that will look to back enterprise software, internet and mobile-focused startups.

Serial entrepreneur and investor Anjli Jain, will lead this venture firm & will primarily focus on startups operating in the education sector, and will also look at backing early-stage ventures in the internet of things, ad-tech, ecommerce, wearables and gaming segments.

“India has emerged as one of the most assuring entrepreneurial landscapes globally, and we have launched the fund looking at opportunities that the country’s ecosystem has to offer, and the gap that we can bridge by supporting new businesses,” said Anjli Jain, managing partner of EVC.



The fund will typically invest $100,000-$5 million in startups, while its accelerator could invest $5,000-$100,000 in exchange for equity in the ventures.

“We look forward to working with some passionate entrepreneurs and bring forth ground-breaking ideas alive,” Jain said, adding that the venture capital firm is considering registering the fund under markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board’s Alternative Investment Fund regulations.

The venture capital firm also operates an accelerator programme in Gurgaon that provides physical and virtual co-working space and operational mentorship to ventures. It operates a second accelerator in Cleveland, Ohio.

Prior to launching the fund, India-born, Columbia University educated Jain had founded and invested in Kryptos Mobile, a cloudbased, self-service mobile app development and publishing platform, LookingGlass Platform, a provider of an integrated, software-as-a-service enterprise apps, portal and content management systems, and BlackbeltHelp, an information technology helpdesk and student services provider, among others.

Image credit: www.indiafilings.com