Archive for the ‘Startups’ Category

A Passionate Mentor Can Change the Game for Your Emerging Company

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Aug
17

Before I venture ahead into this post, I would like to extend an honest “Thank You” to everyone who has stood by me, towards raising up Until ROI. Though I may not be able to put all the names, let me try and recount all I can in the time I have:

My Mom, Kamal Sir (my graduate school professor), Avinash Raghava (the turning point of my professional life), Neha (a great support), Sarika (one who knows, I’d be too lazy to work on what she says always, till she scolds me bad :P ), Sonam Budhiraja (a great support to Until ROI), Akanksha Seth (a great friend), Gargi Sharma (a great support and a fantastic human), Geetu Mam (this is one lecturer whom I used to adore in college times :P , one lecture I never bunked)

The first turning point in life

Just a little over 3 years back I bumped online into someone who, with his insights and thoughts, actually helped me evolve as an individual. Avinash Raghava from NASSCOM. Avi has been both a mentor, guide and a friend of sorts.

I remember, when I had this super lucrative job offer from a large company, Avi called me up and actually helped me decide by saying: Paritosh, Job or Until ROI. And he said, if you utter Until ROI, well, we wont discuss the job part again. And we did not. And today Until ROI has challenges, but we are poised to create a success story, a part of India’s growth story!

Avi, as I call him, and many others too, extracted the best out of me by making me always push for raising my level of performance. And I am so thankful to him always for this.

The Second Time, Life Took a Turn

This one encounter with a gentleman called Rajiv Mittal, has been one of the steepest learning curves in my life. Rajiv Sir as I call him always, is a Mentor, not just to me but for Until ROI. He is one of the best people undoubtedly who you must work with once in your lifetime in the industry.

Rajiv Sir, has helped me evolve as an entrepreneur over the past 6 months and is now helping me transition into a well bred CEO. And Mind you, he’s not another mentor, who will come and share his insights. He actually has sat with me overnights, late at work, helping me work on various aspects of business, running a venture, raising capital and much more.

I am not sure about the others reading this blog, but how many times the mentor actually takes your work and does it?!

And well, in all honesty, its not really the fact that he’s just been a client, its a relationship on a different level. Try telling your boss/ mentor/ Chief, that I dont agree to you and go up against his views and put up a fight, well, chances are somewhere it snaps. With Rajiv Sir, its on the other level. We argue, we listen, we learn and at the end of the day Iv always actually seen that his experience wins. His insights into what may happen right/ wrong actually proves right.

For Emerging companies, having the right insights at the right time is very crucial and obviously you as an entrepreneur, must always be ready to learn and un-learn from such people in your life. Be open, and you will create magic faster!

I surely am excited to be on the path to raising up a successful enterprise and contribute to the nation’s growth :) thank you all again, look forward to your support always!

How is it like Living On Just DREAMS

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Oct
20

Why do I pay 45 when the burger is for 40…written on d menu? It’s the VAT sir, replied the cashier.
I asked this question when I went into a restaurant to catch up with a bite last night.

Well, being an entrepreneur is a life of Pride, Passion and amongst many more things its about living life on the edge. I have seen many people around who say look we are running a side business while we still earn from a day job. Alas, I took the harder path.

With a right on the edge bank account, no financial backing at all…and nothing else, other than DREAMS to count on, I am learning and growing each day. Feels hard at times…people tell me, that leaving some very lucrative and smart paying job offers which I was being flooded with, even in these times of recession was foolish on my part. Well, and all I have as an answer is: there are DREAMS to take care of, they are calling!

As I am writing this blog post from my mobile phone, since I had to leave my laptop which was given to me by my previous company. I realize somethings in life: im being taught how NOT to be dependent on things and how to CREATE POSSIBILITIES in every situation.

It’s been great being an entrepreneur and as I start my new journey as the Co-founder and CMO, Proideaz Consulting, I look for wishes and support in creating a whole new world of opportunities.

Thanks to all my family n friends, esp my Mom n the other best part of my life…who’v been amazing pillars of emotional support always.

Its time to get cracking and see more DREAMS!!

Innovation and Entrepreneurship – India’s Best Ice Candy Googled, Gogola India

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Oct
13

I landed back from Mumbai just yesterday and surely it was great LIVE Blogging the biggest Leadership event ever in India. Out of my many experiences in the financial capital of India and the city of dreams. Bollywood stars and the rest, I found this very amazing example of simple yet striking innovation by an entrepreneur.

This is what I found:

Gogola India - paritosh sharma

What you see in the picture above, no its not a Google van! Its the freshest and the best Gola (ice candy) made of fresh mineral water and fruit juices called Gogola India.

I bumped across this van while I was going for a meeting on the Hill street near the Globus mall in Mumbai and just for the fun of it and to interact with the van guys, I did buy two Golas from the van. The van looked pretty okay (a second hand maruti van) with all the electrical machines inside to make a good gola in seconds.

Interestingly, the menu is like an IE page, which gives you all the options of the various flavors available :) simple, yet unique!

The Revenue figures of a single van which stands since 12pm till late in the night and keeps rotating in between two streets in Mumbai are:

  • Daily sale (golas): 300 (in good times) 150-200 (in normal business days)
  • Price per gola : INR 30
  • Positioning of van is changed on weekdays and weekends
  • There are more than 10 vans in the city, doing the rounds

My Feedback and Comments as an Incubation Consultant:

  • Good to see that the logo has been duly trade-marked (good asset)
  • Good revenue model (taking in consideration, all operational costs, costs of building the supply chain, maintenance of vehicle etc.)
  • Simple and effective!

The Gola I had, was pretty good and was surely packed in a healthy manner, with properly kept juice/ color bottles.

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I very strongly feel, the kind of Innovation we have in India, is amazing! Its simplistically brilliant and a concept which can surely become into an auto-generating proposition, and once your brand is recognizable, and you have a size, you can diversify.

Kudos to the entrepreneur :)

Reconnect to Your Roots, Reclaim Your Pride, Support Your Parents Back Home – A Midson Care initiative for the NRI – Startup Watch

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Sep
10

I have been supporting start-ups and SME’s, moving up the value chain. In my quest for innovative work and finding out new companies which are doing interesting work, I would now be featuring some of these Start-ups and fairly based companies from India, who Deserve to be!

Midson Care Logo(1)

Just a couple of days back I got a chance to connect with the Founders of a New Delhi based NRI CONCIERGE Services company Midson Care. There was so much to know and for me it was another world of opportunities that Midson has opened up for the NRI community.

If I am in the US and my parents back home in India need medical help or some sort of help, how do I do it, without being dependent on my relatives?

This was a question that Mr. Vivek Chibber (Co-Founder, Midson Care) asked me and well, in my personal capacity I have no answers, as I have had no such experience. But reflecting back at the question, I remarked, that such a service is highly critical.

Midson Care Presentation
View more presentations from Midson Care.

A parent in India, whose son/daughter is there in the US, goes through much. I never was aware of the level at which the parents are affected, once their children go abroad. Post listening to some practical stories which happened and the stress and trauma the parents and the children both had to go through, which essentially resulted in a rift in the strongest bond on the planet, that of a parent and the child.

Interestingly Midson Care, aas told to me by the Co-Founder, is that platform and bond between the parent and the child, that is why we are called – “Mid-Son”…the middle son :)

The concept really struck with me and hence I decided that I would want to support this cause and if this can lead to lesser number of parents going to old age homes, then I am ready to leverage my blog as a platform for the same :)

To know more about the Services of the company click here.

I would now be doing a series of posts on the same and request you to SPREAD the WORD if this leads to happy families and great relationships!

Looking at Each Client Through the Same SOcial Media Glass – Are We Going Round in Circles Talking about the Same Problems?

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Aug
14

Well, Yes I have a problem.

I discuss Social Media with some of the established brains in the domain in India and have had discussions with Social Media thinkers sitting thousands of miles across the seven seas.

And now I do have a problem!

Before I put my problem down, let me put some questions for you to ponder upon:

  • Almost every business today needs to reach out and the Internet becomes one of the best mediums. But does every business have the same objective in terms of (Branding, Outreach, Lead generation) etc.?
  • Is it necessary that a solution which has worked for an IT company (as an example) would fit great for a BPO?
  • Is it necessary that YOU as an Online marketing company would be able to understand everything from a product business to an IT to a BPO to a Chocolate product company?
  • Is marketing universal and do the same rules apply for all on Social Media?

Well, now let me put forth my problem!

One of the biggest lacking points that I see with online marketing/ social media companies today is lack of good human resources. In my experience, you need three core and basic qualities to be even thinking of creating social media strategies for a business (client). These are:

  1. Solid understanding of Business/ Products/ Services/ Industry
  2. Solid understanding of the consumer who consume these products/ services online
  3. Solid understanding of marketing

My experience of the industry says that majority of Social Media companies, talk about all the major tools and all the great jargons, but what they dont understand is how to customize a solution for the client. Each business (may be from the similar domain) will have a different set of problem statements to answer. Each business will have different objectives to achieve.

When so much is different, how can you just go along with jargons and pitch the same solution to each client?

I have interacted with many a Social Media people who if spoken to, would not have the required level of knowledge/ understanding of the product/ industry/ consumer behavior they are pitching to, but will keep circling around their choice of words which are: branding, positioning and lead generation (amongst the many others)

To scale up as a Social Media company – My way would be

The human resources that I recruit would surely have these three above mentioned qualities. Also, since time is an essential factor in the Internet business, I as a small company cannot afford to keep training my employees and wait for them to grasp business and start delivering. Hence what I need to focus on is getting the right people on board who take the ownership of work and understand the criticality of client delivery and execution.

Building Software Products for India – 48th Session of NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 (Kumud Goel, KLG Systel)

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Jun
13

LIVE Blogging the NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 48th session, and well we are going to make it interactive says the session lead Mr. Kumud Goel who is also one of the founding members of NASSCOM and the founder KLG Systel a leading power solutions company in India.

Incidentally its a great day, coz the NASSCOM EMERGE Community turns one today, I must congratulate Avinash (NASSCOM) for the same and now we have the session underway :)

Mr. Kumud Goel a technology veteran for over 25 years, is leading the session. We have Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech Software introducing to the audience and well as usual we have the participants introducing themselves to the entire audience.

I am surely glad to be LIVE blogging the 48th session and well, always get excited to feel as we near the 50th session. Interestingly we have quite a diverse audience related to the product space today.

I am a case study of failures – shares Mr. Kumud and though this was said at the end, I would want to start my blog with it.

Kumud is interestingly sharing an incident from his life and my respects to the man as for young entrepreneurs like me, its surely highly invigorating and a great learning to interact with learned people like Kumud. And well, let me not keep it a secret anymore. Kumud is sharing the story of NASSCOM.

When we went to COMDEX years back, nobody used to talk to an Indian

That is when this desire of fighting these people came in me and I had a lot of experience in programming and I started my company which had only emotions behind it and no business plan.

On my first wedding anniversary my father told me that you have no money in the back and hence I gave away my dream of creating software for the rural India. At that time most Indian company did the right thing by making things for the foreign market but we were again at the step when we were looking at a product for the Indian market.

After 25 years of my experience I today feel taht what is more important out of a business model and a feeling is feeling, coz I believe that the business model shall follow

Once you have made an emotional decision of making a product for India, there were two drawbacks…I was at the Silicon Valley two weeks back and I met this guy who is regarded as one of the best deal makers in the tech space, and he told me that Kumud what you are doing is worth 500 million dollars and since you are sitting in India it is worth 20 million dollars. I had to go to the IBM’s of the world and get a recommendation that my technology is good.

All the great companies in the US have come about and have based out of the fact that the government has helped them. The SME’s in India who innovate do not have their path as easy.

The tendering system in Government of India is such that an SME cannot ever go up.

Today US is making money out of innovation and not selling someone else’s goods. Kumud now shares a highly interesting insight into the Chinese government way of working and wow I am amazed. Well, I think this is an applausible moment and I am saying this for the first time in a NASSCOM Friday’s 2.0 session, Kumud has broken the wall and is now talking about what NASSCOM should really be doing for the SME’s.

Start-ups and small companies have to get reservation in the government and NASSCOM should take care of that

There Is NO CORRUPTION in INDIA

Do what they want you to, don’t fight them…its your dream, coz you are giving them a poison which will kill them automatically. Corruption is not a hinderance, it is a way to survive. And for the first time I am supporting Kumud on this coz he shows tthe audience the bigger picture.

  • Your cash flow has to be positive, your spirit should not go negative, you have to live through those initial years. for sometime you need to live like a rat if you want to survive.

And now Kumud shares a story on a book he read “the saga of Dharampuri”, which he is relateing to the Indian IT industry. We have so gotten accustomed to the white man that we cannot think of anything out of it.

This life for ME is so shameful that after being 25 years into the industry, I still don’t have a world class  product

The govt. of India will spend 5000 crores dollars to the MS’s of the world and lets say there are 5000 SME’s from India, now if I divide 5000 what do you get? But how many companies are standing today for it?

Psychologically we need to start thinking of ourselves as better people than the foreign lands. We need to just break out of this trap, coz we actually are better than anybody. If you need to create the best OS from India, you need to have that feeling into you and only then it would happen.

The Indian out there is GOD shares one of the participants from the audience.

You have a dream, great! But you anyhow need money to make sure that you survive and take your dream further. You need to somehow find a way by hook or by crook, to reach that 50-100 crore level, otherwise your so called innovation would die.

I made 3 websites when I had 15 crores in the bank and I wen t overboard, we advertised like hell and people came to us. But because we believed into our stuff so much, we never realised the internet bust, and I went bankrupt. So now we had no money, but we had a dream!

Audacity, Audacity, Audacity and Arrogance

We raised money for about 11 million dollars and that came to us only because we had audacity.

The next I thought what is the next problem in India. And I chanced upon power. You need to be like the James Bond, who would take it the way as if the world wont be no more if my software wont be there. I went and borrowed 137 crores and I developed cleantech technology. And I bet my life on this.

And I bought myself a BMW, because I was going to change the world.

Personally I was broke, my stock is pledged, house with a bank, my wife and kids were the only tangible assets I had. And then I happened.

Innovation is like a black Hole, after a certain time you are dead. But once you are dead what can you do – STOP WORRYING!

You have created the aura of being the biggest player in the power industry and since you have already invested into it, you can demonstrate what you have already implemented. For 25 years you have been waiting to say it and when the big companies of the world come for you, to partner, what do you say…Go to !@#!

If you want to be an Innovator, You have to be a great Gambler as well

Anybody who does not listen to you has to become irrelevant!

The last lesson would be – your dream has to be bigger than the world, you will create the biggest product, all you need to do is to make sure that you get some cash in.

Kumud ends the session with some NASSCOM bashing, which he started the session with on a lighter note. I am certainly with Kumud, as this would surely be great for the entire SME community in India.

Small companies should file for patents and should do them religiously. This shall make sure of a winning road for you.

Now we have the participants sharing their thoughts on the entire topic and I can see the thoughts coming in together in the similar direction.

And now we have the session in the Q&A mode.

Thanks Kumud for an amazing session, I have been blogging the NASSCOM friday’s 2.0 for long, and certainly find you one of the best speakers, sharing from the heart.

Forget Google I prefer DuckDuckGo – Towards a Better Search Engine

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Apr
16

Yes the title of the post is correct and well, I am writing one after a long time. There has been lot of action lately in the social media domain. While working towards refining Social Media metrics and measurability and making things more transparent and understandable for the client, I have been working towards synergizing Social Media with the business objectives for my clients and the journey has been fairly fruitful.

Have stumbled upon a few tools which I found fairly interesting. In this post I am sharing with you a search engine which I digged, DuckDuckGo !! Yes, that’s the name of the search engine, and No, I havent lost my senses!

Strange name, but effective results. Far from the advertisement laden Google results, DDG comes fresh with a new interface and search results which are in contexts better than Google search results. The way DDG classifies search results and shows you the official site for yoru search result (if there is any existing) and then shows the rest of the results is amazing!

Who created DDG?

DDG is the brainchild of MIT grad Gabriel Weinberg, who is self funding the initiative!

I support Weinberg when he promises “less garbage” results. While I am writing this post, I have explored DDG for almost a couple of hours now and I do appreciate the design!

Design – what has it got to do with a search engine?

When you have just a text box on the landing page, what do you need to do with the design of the page? I found it highly intuitive and intelligent of DDG to be giving the user the option of clicking on the many options of internet web sites available on the right sidebar of the screen of your search results.

So, lets say, if I search my name: paritosh+sharma

The first result that comes is my official site:www.paritoshsharma.com followed by the other search results. Now I was fairly amused by the deep search results that I got while doing a name search.

Okay, so I got the search result, now what if I need to see the presence of the searched item on Social Media?

DDG has very intelligently placed links on the right sidebar of the page, which link to various social media channels and other popular sites and an automatic search query goes to the channel which gives the searcher access to your social media profile on the channels directly.

Thus with a single click on the YouTube icon, I reached to my channel on YouTube

ddg

Though not a Google yet, but DuckDuckGo is soon predictably going to prove to be a toughie in the search space, creating its own apprecaitive user base.

Jeanette McLeod, Founder Wizz-e.com in an Exclusive Interview with Paritosh Sharma

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Mar
19

An Exclusive Interview with Jeanette McLeod, Founder Wizz-e a company which is redefining how the children of the current generation learn!

Wizz-e leverages what your children love doing, that is using the computer, by creating innovative eBooks for children which are highly interactive in nature and makes learning fun and easy!

I was introduced to the concept of eBooks and Wizz-e by a good friend, Shama Hyder who runs a successful company (ClickToClient.com) in the US. Though I was initially not sure of the outreach of the concept, but Wizz-e I feel is redefining the space entirely.

Jeanette, who is a mother to four is an amazign Mompreneur and I caught up with her for a small interview. This interview is an exclusive on this blog and I thank Jeanette for her time!

Paritosh:  Wizz-e.com is a brilliant Idea, what made you think about eBooks as a medium for teaching the next generation?

Jeanette: Most people with kids will probably recognize that kids love computers. They are such a ‘tech savvy’ generation.  My passion is to get kids reading more so why not use the medium they love to teach them to read?  The technology gives us the ability to make the books interactive so kids can have the story read to them whilst the words highlight.

In this mode kids learn to model fluency, read left to right, pause at punctuation marks and associate sounds to letter groupings, just like having an adult read to them whilst using their finger to underline the words.  For emerging readers they can read to themselves and if they get stuck on a word they can click to hear that word spoken. For our early readers that means that they can read without having to rely on an adult to be there all the time.  The illustrations are animated which really bring the books to life.

After all if it is fun, they may not even know they are learning!

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Paritosh: You are a Mompreneur, a mother to four, how do your kids relate to the concept? What kind of research has gone into the project?

Jeanette: My kids are great at giving honest feedback!!

I knew I had hit the spot when the 2 youngest children sat transfixed to the computer having a story read to them.  They are really behind their mum doing this.  One of my kids has also done the voiceover for a book we are producing for charity [to be released later this year].  That made me really proud.  A lot of research was done before the start-up about how children learn to read. We are not trying to compete with the plethora of phonics books or early readers, we want to be complimentary to them.  We produce high quality, engaging stories for young children in a format they love. When kids read more their vocabulary and literacy skills improve.

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Paritosh: Looking at the quality of eBooks that you have, I am sure kids must be engaged into the content. What all goes into creation of such wonderful eBooks for the young ones?

Jeanette: Well it starts when an author submits a story to us.  We have slush pile readers who will assess whether the story will make a great picture book.  If we accept a submission then it goes to the editorial team who go through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure there are no grammatical or spelling errors.  Then we assign an illustrator, who we work very closely with, to produce beautiful illustrations to enhance the story.  We then have the story read by a professional voice over artist.  Then off it goes to the technical team who transform the text, audio and illustrations into page turning, animated audio books.

As kids can click on every word to hear it spoken it is a time consuming process but we firmly believe that all this hard work brings a much higher quality to the world of eBooks for children.

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Paritosh: Have any children contributed to the eBooks as Child-Guest authors?

Jeanette: No not yet, although that may be something we consider in the future.  A great story is a great story no matter what the age of the author.

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Paritosh:  I appreciate your effort in reducing paper usage. What would you like to tell the readers of this blog about eBooks and how they save the environment by reducing tree felling?!

Jeanette: Paper books consume far more of the world’s resources in their production than eBooks.  It is not just the impact of felling trees to make the paper.  There is a lot of energy consumption in the book making process. During paper production obviously are trees required making the paper, however, further energy is used to transport the trees to the factories, turn the wood into paper during the pulping process and at the paper mills, and to produce chemicals in making dyes for the inks.  Then further energy is used in the transportation of the paper to the print factories, during printing, storage and then shipping and distribution.  All this uses energy as well as producing CO2 emissions.

There is also the sad fact that books that do not sell are simply destroyed (more than 1 billion books in 2006) some are repulped (using energy) others end up in land fills.  Our eBook business is completely electronic.  Apart from the energy we consume using computers in their development we do not have a detrimental impact on the world’s resources.

Some key facts:

  • The carbon footprint of a book (2006 figures): 8.85 lbs, in carbon dioxide terms
  • The total carbon footprint of the book publishing industry (2006 figures): 12.4 million metric tons
  • The biggest contributor to the industry’s footprint: using virgin paper – forest and forest harvest are responsible to 62.7% of the industry’s total carbon emissions.

The book world (in the U.S.) uses up more than 1.5 million metric tons of paper each year.

Full report here http://www.ecolibris.net/book_industry_footprint.asp

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Paritosh: I love your blog, NextInLearning (www.nextinlearning.com) ! Can we see kids contributing to the blog?

Jeanette: What a great idea.  We would love to hear what kids think about eBooks, reading and how they see the future of learning and we will publish them on the blog.  Any views or thoughts should be sent to info [at] ebooks4kidz [dot] com.  Let’s hear from our next generation of learners!!

Paritosh:  Wizz-e.com is also present on facebook and I see you twitter as well! Its great to see a Mompreneur in action all across the internet, reaching out to as many kids and touching lives! How do you manage to do all this? Please share with us your twitter Id.

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Jeanette: When you love what you do, when you have a mission to get kids reading and help improve literacy levels across the world then you find the time!  The internet and social media is a fabulous way to connect to people across the world.  Let’s get kids reading! My twitter URL is http://twitter.com/JeanetteMcLeod.  I’d love to connect with people who are interested in getting kids reading more.

I would like to thank Jeanette, for her time and the value that she is providing to the generations in a way that they like it, there is so much knowledge which our children can access, how we can contribute to it is by giving them the access to all of it, the way they like it. The way it is easier for them to grasp things and really learn.

Give your smart ones the experience of learning through eBooks by gifting them a FREE eBook