Why BYOD for startups is a good idea

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is becoming an increasingly acceptable concept in the startup space. Here are my views on the benefits of BYOD and a bit on how to handle it in your startup.

Reducing depreciating fixed assets in your startup!

The most pressing issue in any startup is the fund. The concept of BYOD has gained a lot of traction. It decreases cost and increases productivity.

Laptops and mobile devices are fixed assets and they depreciate over time. With BYOD, you’ll have a stronger balance sheet with one less depreciation expense to hog up your profit and loss (P&L).

Feeling a little relieved? Yeah, I too was.

I had no idea about P&L, balance sheet, depreciation and fixed assets until recently. Nevertheless, it would always be better to have an idea about what they are.

Build an awesome customer support culture

If you can call/email an inbound lead within 60 to 120 seconds, you will have a better chance of converting them as a customer. In a startup scene it is fortunate, right? I believe that once you have a great product and a support culture, the rest will follow. BYOD and mobility allows you to respond to customer queries in no time.

Result, you will ultimately win the heart of the customer and gain more customers.

Work from anywhere

BYOD allows you to work from anywhere – your home, or on your commute, or while on your vacation.

Improve productivity – Reducing the learning curve and time to settle down:

It is not that easy to switch machines, you might have different keyboard layouts, different operating systems, and you might not have files you were working on. If you face this frustration every single day, will you be happy?.

I will be more comfortable if I can complete personal and official things from the same system or phone. I guess it is the same for everyone. With BYOD, employees do not have to switch between their personal and company devices. They gain more flexibility and will have better work-life continuity.

The result, they are happy and productive. As founders, we are happy too.

You can concentrate on your work rather on IT tickets

Employees will be more careful while using their own devices. They will also fix any issues related to it themselves. Thus, this will help reduce the stress level and request/tickets related to user devices.

Security risk and team culture:

Deploy countermeasures to promptly identify and mitigate security risks. Educate your team about the security aspects and trust them, they are part of your startup family. From an employee perspective, it is an immense pleasure to feel you are an integral part of the team and that you have earned their trust. Every single team member should have this feeling, it will improve the entire culture and atmosphere.

The result, highly motivated and productive employees, which reflects on the overall growth of your organisation.

Note: when you hire, give utmost priority for the culture and attitude. Hire him/her only if you get that family feel.

Using EMM/MDM tools to manage BYOD:

Deploying a tool requires your time and money. Thus, spend your time and money wisely. There are free tools too, but sometime it might be costlier in terms of time and effort. There is no free lunch, it would be better to think about the total cost of ownership when you choose any tool.

Think about an EMM/MDM tool when you are at that stage, where you can’t survive without one. Spend your time wisely and choose the one which is affordable and saves your time (time is precious) and effort in managing the devices.

Best of Luck, go and make your dream come true.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/byod-startup/

Bhasha festival uncovers 13 startups working to ensure local languages thrive in digital ecosystem

The highlight of the first-ever Bhasha festival that united entrepreneurs, experts and policy makers to stand up for our local languages was the showcase of 13 startups working to ensure that local languages thrive in the digital ecosystem.

 Founder CEO Shradha Sharma with the startups at the Bhasha Startup Showcase

Supported by the Ministry of Culture, along with language partner Reverie Language Technologies, the first-ever Indian Languages Digital Festival, Bhasha, organised by YourStory on March 11 in New Delhi opened opportunities for more such startups working in the language space.

The 13 startups include: BiliTutor, eReleGo, IndusOS, IndianTTS, Lipikar, Linguavista, Megdap Innovation Labs Pvt Ltd., Matrubharti, Planet GOGO, Pratilipi, Shabdanagri, Shradhanjali, and Tide Learning.

Here’s a brief about what they do:

BiliTutor: This startup combines the power of Kindle with Duolingo, that is, an e-book reader that gives the language learner an engaging and entertaining experience. The founder Amarsh Anand has had a successful pilot in China recently.

eRelego: eRelego Digi Media is a market place (e-commerce platform) for publishers, including those in local languages to sell the publications to online users across the globe. eReleGo publishes books, magazines, newspapers online for a new generation of readers who prefer digital over print publications.

Indus OS: This startup is addressing Digital India’s biggest challenge — to develop technology to cater to the diversity of the economic, social and regional diaspora. They use the smartphone as the medium to connect the digital world with the masses. Indus OS’s technology team has developed the world’s first Regional Mobile Operating System made especially for the regional language user. It also recently signed a first-of-its-kind MoU with the Government of India’s Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) to develop a native operating system with integrated text-to-speech technology in regional languages. The company recently raised $ 5 million Series A funding led by Omidyar Network and is also funded by angel investors such as Snapdeal Co-founders Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, Quikr Founder Pranay Chulet and InMobi Co-founders Naveen Tewari and Amit Gupta, Hari Padmanabhan and Mayank Singhal from Temasek.

Indian TTS: This is a text-to-speech system for local Indian languages with a strong significance on rhythm and prosody of speech that is closer to the natural enunciation. IndianTTS languages provides Indian accent voice. They build Hindi TTS API to use with IVR software for any kind of machines and any kind of mobiles. Earlier, IVR software was a pre-recorded voice which had an interrupted sound. Their solution provides normalization of the voice. Thus if IVR pronounces your name or order in a regional language or Hindi, it is more effective and improves customer’s engagement.

Lipikaar: Lipikaar is a patented solution that simplifies typing in all Indian Languages — currently supports 18 languages, including popular ones like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Telugu. The product suite comprises a multi-lingual editing software for Windows PC, keyboard app on Android phones, various browser plugins and a Web API. Lipikaar was awarded the 2008 Manthan Award South Asia for mass appeal and simplicity in product innovation. Its popularity comes from its easy and intuitive typing method. Lipikaar (unlike transliteration) does not require its users to be comfortable with English, allowing them to think and type in their native language.

Linguavista: Founder CEO Abhishek Chakrabarti started Linguavista with a simple vision of developing state-of-the-art language technology and combining it with outstanding language services to aggressively drive the businesses of global companies across the international markets. He started his journey with Linguavista at the age of 20 and has since led the company to having international presence in India, China, and Japan.

Megdap Innovation Labs Pvt Ltd.: Megdap was founded with the single goal of bridging the digital divide by creating an ecosystem for business that blends local relevance with a sustainable business model for all stakeholders. Megdap has created a technology platform, products and tools that enable real time delivery of content in multiple local languages. It provides a Language Technology Platform (TexLang) for consumption by third parties. This includes the ability to localize content for high churn areas like e-commerce, govt. media, travel and hospitality and education among others. TexLang will be a language technology platform that enables companies to localise their online/offline business, communications and every other customer interaction channels into local languages

Matrubharti: Matrubharti is a self-publishing platform for authors and an app for readers to download ebooks of authors in local Indian languages. In the last year, Matrubharti has achieved over 35000 readers, 900 writers, 3300 ebooks and over 3.6 lakhs of downloads of ebooks. Their milestone also includes reach in 22 Indian states, five languages and readers in 42 countries.

Pratilipi: Pratilipi is possibly the fastest growing self-publishing and reading platform for Indian language literature. In less than 18 months of its existence it already has over 2700 Indian language authors in six languages, including many who have won Sahitya Academy and Jnanpith awards, and their content has been read over 3.5 million times on the platform.

Planet GoGo: Gurgaon-based Planet GoGo is a lock-screen app for content discovery in local languages that delivers personalised content and news to Android users. Users are rewarded ‘GoGo points’ that can be used to redeem free talk-time from mobile operators, in exchange for reading content or even unlocking their phone.

Shabdanagari: Incubated in IIT Kanpur, Shabdanagari is India’s first social networking site in Hindi. They are addressing the content generation in local language piece of the puzzle. The portal went live a little over a year ago and has been gaining traction faster than anticipated.

Shradhanjali: Sradhanjali.com helps people keep the memories of their departed ancestors and relatives. One can upload, store, publish and share biographies (multiple languages), family details, photos, videos, post condolence messages (multiple languages), set music and also set death and birth anniversary reminders year on year. The portal has more than 350 subscribers. It supports condolence messages in as many as nine Indian languages.

Tidelearning: Their mission is to develop tech-assisted learning tools, which will create new learning experiences in education for teachers and less privileged children across the globe. Technology Initiative for Development of Education (TIDE) intends to create a platform that while suitably providing a link is also dynamic in nature to address ‘wide-eyed’ students’ quest for knowledge and a committed teachers search for ‘answers’. At the same time it endeavours to keep the classroom in touch with its local culture, language and traditions. It intends to assist teachers in reinforcing their knowledge by making available suitable content, new concepts and facilitators in teaching while also tracking the progress of their learners. It is also developing an independent English as a Second Language app for the rural and less privileged audience.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/language-technology-startups-bhasha/

A curated art gallery minus the intimidating vibe and lack of information: Eikowa takes genuine art online

The thought of buying art immediately invokes the image of someone in Tussar silks or Fab India khadis waltzing around a space with minimalist décor, nodding nonchalantly and making quintessential small-talk in breathy tones, of Picasso’s cubist rebellion. Here’s a revelation – it is as difficult for some genuinely talented upcoming and senior artists to create this simulation of high-society living for you as it is for you to keep up the façade every time you want to find an adornment for your walls. Your love affair with art can simply thrive as a silent conversation you have with the frame that you know belongs on the empty square above your bed, even though it is through a computer screen.

Where art thou?

Eikowa – the Greek word for ‘image’ – was born in December 2015 out of the need to break this barrier. Vaishnavi Murali, Founder and CEO at the brand, wanted to become a curator of meaningful art minus the nonsense of pretense. A two-time patron of the luxury brand industry, through retail brands like Madura Garment and Ethos, but an artist at heart, she started the portal after noticing a gap in the ecosystem. “The problem lies on both the demand as well as the supply side. While I was painting one day, I realised that there were hardly any avenues for upcoming artists to showcase their work. With limited wall space, new talent either gets sidelined or lost in the crowd. Reputed galleries seldom support upcoming artists. Local galleries lack the network or resources to promote artists, and good exhibitions are few and expensive. Serious artists, on the other hand, don’t get the right representation, as their works are mixed with hobby artists,”she explains.

On the buying side, art is accessible only to a few. “Many don’t know what to buy and where to buy from. Galleries are intimidating, and the other online galleries lack curation. Prices are rarely mentioned, and there is little information provided to the buyer. Ultimately, this scares the common buyer away, and limits the reach of the artist and the size of the ecosystem. At Eikowa, we create a lot of content around art through our blog, The Canvas, to help people understand the painting and the thought process behind the creation,” Vaishnavi adds.

And how art they different?

While sites like Fizdi choose to exhibit work by hobby artists also, e-commerce sites likeAmazon and Pepperfry predominantly sell prints. Eikowa strictly sells original paintings by professional artists – senior ones, who have been around for over a decade, but in some cases, even upcoming ones whose work shows promise.

“There are a lot of hobby artists and professional artists at similar price points. We as a brand believe that it’s our responsibility to deliver value to the customer’s investment. We sell original art only. If there are multiple prints of original art in the market, the art loses its value. Art by professional artists tends to appreciate, hence we work with artists who have been painting for over 10 years and have developed a unique style of their own. In case of a promising upcoming artist we do make an exception,” she explains.

All in all, Vaishnavi, who curates each and every painting on her site with the help of some mentors, likes to see evolution, steady themes and ideas, professional strokes, and a portfolio that has morphed into a distinct personality of its own.

“We differentiate ourselves on our curation. From the cubist rebellion of Picasso, to the surrealistic renderings of Dali, every school of art will find a fan among this group of art connoisseurs,”she says.

Aficionados approve

Eikowa primarily focusses on three cites at the moment- Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. Anyone with a higher disposable income, collectors or first-time art buyers are their target customers.

Through Eikowa, a lot of artists get to share space with some established artist in the industry, not something seen commonly. “The ability to help deserving artists represent themselves well, reach the right people, and command the right price, gives me a high. It may be a mercurial and rocky journey, but I am finding it the most fulfilling,”Vaishnavi says.

There is no listing fee for the artist, and her revenue model is a clear-cut commission on sale. So far, she has curated the works of over 85 artists, many of whom are masters. They are the only startup in this space to have tied-up with so many master artists, within a month of launch. Some of the artists they work with are Madhuri Bhaduri, Biplab Biswas, Beena Pradhan, Dinkar Jadhav, and Niladri Paul.

The number of customers is limited but the value of transactions is high. They get close to 100-150 visits a day, and in a short span of two months, they have closed transactions worth Rsseven lakh and have recovered their set-up and operational costs already. They are on the way to sealing 80percent growth in March.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/eikowa/

Why this Indian bank is partnering with startups

HDFC Bank on Thursday announced the companies that it would partner with to use their tech products to empower and benefit the bank’s customers. The five companies were the winners of Digital Innovation Summit, conducted by the bank.

The process started in January this year, where the bank chose 30, out of the 105 applicants, to pitch and showcase their products to the senior leadership of the bank.

Winners of the Digital Innovation Summit Challenge (left) with . Nitin Chugh, Country Head – Digital Banking (3rd from Right)

Speaking to YourStory, Nitin Chugh, Country Head, Digital Banking, HDFC Bank said that the idea behind this initiative was not just to empower the customers but also to provide market linkage to the shortlisted businesses. While the engagement being strictly solution-led, the bank will not put any money in the businesses. However, there will be informal mentoring as well as reverse mentoring (from the businesses to the bank) as a part of the project. The gain to the winners would be in terms of the scale they would achieve from associating with a bank that is in a mature stage of the adoption cycle and digital aspects of transactions.

Judged on parameters of compatibility with HDFC Bank’s systems, uniqueness and innovation, business potential and usability with scale, the winners range from verticals ofartificial intelligence (AI), marketing, payments as well as quality assurances.

Here is a quick introduction to the winner startups:

Senseforth Technologies (AI)

Working on AI, Senseforth Technologies venture is essentially a conversation platform. Deploying customer response systems, the bot or machine can talk to millions of consumers to address their queries, and also to guide and help them with shopping through recommendations. Their bot is called AIRA, standing for Artifical Inteligence for Response and Action.

Started in November 2012 and based out of Bengaluru, the business has customers in the BFSI, telecom, healthcare and hospitality space.

NotifyVisitors (customer engagement SaaS)

Started in 2013 as a referral friends programme, the business has now taken the shape of a SaaS-based customer engagement platform. The company automates pop-up and push notifications, personalising user experiences across platform.

Having three offerings, the firm’s products are split between InviteReferals for e-commerce firms; NotifyVisitors.com automating in-app pop-up, push and browser push notifications, as well as AnalyticsMobi, which provide real-time analytics reports on engagements to mobile app companies.

Co-founder Siddharth Gupta explains a use case: if a customer is taking too long to fill in a credit card application form, HDFC Bank, through NotifyVisitors, will launch a pop-up asking the person’s details, to later help him through the process. This could be seen both in apps and websites.

Presently, the firm is associated with over 10,000 businesses, with 70 percent of the demand coming from foreign markets. Some of the bigger clients for the business include Shopclues, Times Group, EduKart etc.

Talking about the Digital Summit, Siddharth says,

“Being bootstrapped we not just get brand push and scalability but also a lot of support when it comes to visibility in the market. It is not everyday you get to pitch your idea in front of the whole leadership of the bank.”

NetVigil Software (mobile QR code payments)

With its flagship product S2Pay, the business is trying to replicate the cash transactions by introducing QR code-based mobile payments. In this case, the solution integrates with the vendor’s application (in this case HDFC Bank) where the consumer doesn’t require any Internet connection on their phone.

On putting in the amount to be paid with the personal pin, the application creates a 24-digit pin with a QR code that could be transmitted to the merchant through PoS (Point of Sale), NFC, QR code or sound for the merchant to capture the code. Once captured the payment is already made.

This holds even merchants in good stead as they don’t need any hardware (swipe machines) to accept payments. Just a smartphone can be used. Banks are also saved from installing a PoS terminal, which enables digital acceptance of payments for merchants where transaction numbers or values aren’t very large.

As a separate offering S2Pay needs to be downloaded as an application where all the customer’s cards are linked (including debit, credit, loyalty cards) without a customer having to sacrifice critical information in shops or malls .

Bug Clipper (Quality Assurance, in-app reporting tool)

Also a part of Target’s third Accelerator batch, Bug Clipper essentially helps report bugs sharing screenshots and screen recordings.

Bug Clipper captures screenshots to avoid time wasted to spot a problem and allows individuals to record a video by shaking the device. An enterprise solution now, this especially helps teams of testers and developers who work remotely and usually take multiple rounds of communication to fix a bug.

In HDFC Bank, according to co-founder Puneet Sharma , the platform also aims to empower consumers to report any bugs on the app. Based in Mumbai, the firm has BFSI clients like ICICI, Kotak, and Yes Bank, as well as others like Reliance and Tata Motors.

Tapits Technologies (biometric payments)

HDFC Bank will be the first to integrate Tapits Technologies’ solution on its platform. It took one-and-a-half years to build the biometric payment solution with which a consumer can shop only with their biometric fingerprint, without needing any cash or credit card.

During the transaction there is biometric authentication, including a personal pin, which is chosen as a default (could be ATM, net banking etc.) to make payments by the account holder.

On the backend, the fingerprint goes to the Aadhaar, which on authentication is passed to the bank for approval. The co-founders claim that it takes roughly seven seconds for the transaction to process.

Based out of Indore, Tapits is also looking to innovate further to enhance the experiences for customers.

HDFC bank is not the only bank that is looking to partner with MSMEs and startups in the fintech space. With the launch of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), ICICI also launched its‘Appathon’, inviting fintech startups and developers to be a part of the event.

According to Nitin, HDFC Bank has been aggressively tracking newer technologies and integrating with them for a long time. He says

We just think a lot of ideation and innovation is happening in this space, looking as though banks are more open now to partnerships. We internally have a team called the ‘innovation team’ which was established one-and-a-half years back, which always looks at market developments and newer technologies entering the space.

The bank’s interest in new tech could be seen with HDFC making technology inroads with 30-minute paperless auto loans using biometric technology, 10-second personal loan on net banking and instant loans at ATMs to power its digital offerings.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/hdfc-bank-fintech-startups/

Father-daughter duo develop an elixir for partygoers against nasty hangovers, Morning Fresh

Imagine something you created had the ability to get someone through a career-making presentation without them imagining the numbers dancing on the slides. Or that you could save someone the embarrassment of throwing up every time a ladoo was waved in their face on their wedding day. You would have every reason to be completely invested in the product you were building. This is what inspires the father-daughter duo of Bharat and Mitali Tandon as they constantly work on improving the elixir they have concocted for night birds – Morning Fresh, the antidote for nasty hangovers.

A rather dope solution

Mitali Tandon started out rather young. While still in college, she volunteered with the Spastic Society of Karnataka and was part of the ‘Young Enterprise’ group. She clocked short stints with the forensics department at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Bangalore, and took up advocacy at Samvada, an NGO backing Dalits and Adivasis in Karnataka, as their fundraising manager. During that time, she also involved herself in her father’s business that dealt in Animal health, biotech and pharmaceuticals. It was then that she had her eureka moment.

“Our parent company Sericare, is a pioneer in the field of sericulture and using silk as a bio-material,” says Mitali, founder and CEO of Morning Fresh. ” I was always encouraged to work with my hands and be independent in thought and action. During our research, we discovered that certain peptides from silk protein stimulate the production of ADH. ADH is an enzyme that naturally occurs in your liver, and that is what helps break down alcohol. But it gets overpowered when given excess alcohol to manage, thus resulting in hangovers. But peptides re-activate the enzyme. We were very excited by the potential of the idea, and decided to test our hypothesis. We did a preliminary study on rats. We got fantastic results, which was really our ‘aha’ moment and that encouraged us to start developing the product.”

They developed Morning Fresh as the only post-drinking solution to help relieve the after-effects of alcohol consumption. “Most people rely on home-remedies or informal methods. Our target audience is also very health conscious and we were particular about keeping the product natural, portable, and easy to consume,” explains Mitali. Completely natural, its key ingredients are silk protein hydrolysate, Vitamin C and Mulberry Extract. They created three flavours – cola, mint and strawberry, at Rs 100 a bottle.

Binging on strategy, expansion, and publicity

To build a business around the breakthrough, they evaluated the market size in terms of the number of cases of alcohol bought every year, and the number of bars and restaurants that serve liquor. The quick survey showed that binge drinking was on the rise, and that there was a proliferation of bars and restaurants in the city and youngsters were increasingly leading a fast-paced life. Their customers are young professionals between the ages of 21 and 35 years. They are social drinkers, party goers, have high disposable incomes, and are also often health and fitness conscious.

“Our model is to continuously and consistently set a relevant context of Morning Fresh to our customer by being visible and available at venues our target market spends time at. And, there is a pattern that emerges in their lifestyle and entertainment preferences, so, we want to be around when they are most likely to need the product. Like at a bar with the bill; ensuring that wedding planners make Morning Fresh available in guest’s rooms at the end of a sangeet or a cocktail reception; or even at the checkout counter of a liquor store,” explains Mitali.

“Customers expect us to be responsive 24/7. I have received calls at midnight and 2:00 am from customers who want the product ‘immediately’. We realise it is an occupational hazard, especially with a product of this nature and are working towards a sustainable solution,” she elaborates, regarding the next leg of their business.

No morning without Morning Fresh

Mitali wants Morning Fresh to stand for responsible drinking, by having the top 500 bars and restaurants in the country that support responsible drinking stock it as part of the drinking routine or drinking culture. “Drink Morning Fresh as your last drink of the evening and wake up fresh, ready to take on your day. This should become the new drinking routine,” says Mitali.

This is being done by associating with specific kinds of events in the city – like Kitsch Mandi, Strawberry Fields, SteppinOut Food Festival; through e-commerce platforms for easy access to information and sales, and tying up with distribution points like bars, restaurants, and wedding planners.

In the two months, since they have been in distribution, they have built a presence at Dewars Wine Stores, St. Marks Road, Red Fork and Hangover at Indiranagar, as well as events in venues like Shiro’s, Ub City, Church Street Social . With a user base of over 500, they have sold over 3,000 bottles, and had several little success stories that form the basis of their motivation. “When customers call us saying they made it through their own wedding because of Morning Fresh, and thank us for making sure they received their last-minute order in time or because they were able to get to work on time or catch an early flight, we know we are on the right track,” says Mitali.

Who’s the boss?

Between the 25-year-old daughter who wants to experience first and decide later, and the 62-year-old seasoned entrepreneur, who is set in his ways, their business is as varied a concoction as their product itself. “My father has had extensive academic and professional experience in the world of business, bio-technology and business development. He brings his collective experience, love for bio-technology, wisdom and foresight to the table while I add creative energy, new technology and out-of-the box marketing strategies. And as you would have guessed, the tug of war that ensues is mostly strategy related as we are trying to find a balance between traditional and modern methods of creating an impact.”

Also, in this space locally, there are certain herbal capsules, Mitali informs us. “However the functionalities of our products are very different. Abroad, there are several products that target the same segment; however, very few, if not none, are post-drinking solutions that use silk-proteins as their active ingredient,” she says.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/morning-fresh/

This Gurgaon-based startup is working to build faith in auto workshops in India

Anyone who’s ever had their own set of wheels knows that getting it repaired is not an easy deal. Leaving your car in somebody else’s hands makes you feel jittery. There’s a huge trust deficit between car owners and workshops. Care owners feel they will be cheated at local workshops, and consider company-owned workshops to be expensive rip-offs. Eventually, in either case, the customer satisfaction stands nil.

Navneet Singh(L) and Abhijeet Singh(R)

Navneet Pratap Singh, a self-professed car lover, faced a similar dilemma every time he sent his cars for repair. He often wished for workshops that would give him a satisfactory service. When he shared the thought with his childhood friend Abhijeet Singh, his sentiments were echoed. They further pursued the subject and in their research found that they were not the exceptions; everyone worried for their vehicle while it is at the body shop. They then decided to build a platform that could offer a high quality repair service to car owners.

Navneet and Abhijeet, who had an experience in security, highways & utility management and retail & startups respectively, came together to offer a complete solution in the automobile repair segment. In October 2015, they launched GetCarXpert, a Gurgaon-based car service and repairs platform that claims to offer convenient, affordable and transparent service.

“We have come up as the best alternative to unreliable local workshops and authorised service centres. We address the core issues faced by car owners. There is a ready availability of fake and sub-standard imported parts in the market, and a lot of workshops use these parts, thus compromising on quality. It creates a sense of insecurity every time a car owner has to leave his ride at the local mechanic or the authorised service centre. GetCarXpert.com has been very selective in partnering with its service centres,” says Navneet.

He adds that there are three parameters that define the quality of repair: quality of workmanship, spares and parts used, and customer experience. The platform on-boards the best and most well-equipped workshops with only genuine parts having manufacturer’s warranty, and offers 1,000 km or 60-day expert warranty to its customers. It has partnered with 35 authorised workshops.

GetCarXpert recently concluded a deal with spare parts manufacturers like Bosch and Valeo.

“So, whatever the demand – running repairs, accidental repairs, scheduled service, batteries, tyres, car care and insurance – the GetCarXpert.com’s workshops will fix it by offering the convenience of multi-brand workshops and by maintaining the same service standards as authorised service centres. Quality workmanship is guaranteed, with our engineers placed at all workshops to monitor the customer’s vehicle,” adds Navneet.

Building business

The platform works on a commission-based model with workshops. It claims that in the past few months it has witnessed a steep growth. During December, it serviced 120 cars. In January, the figure rose to 170. This month, it expects to reach 300.

The company’s vision is to emerge as the biggest multi-brand service provider for the car industry. Over the next year, it plans to enter 10 new cities and develop a full suite of services that will be offered through a workshop model. It intends to create a full-service spare-parts supply chain and a viable service line for taxi operators. It will also endeavour to launch an express and mobile repairs platform and develop IOT technology to track the usage and maintenance patterns in every car, to suggest the best predictive repairs.

GetCarXpert has a buffer of $1 million from founders’ personal savings, which will be used to sustain the platform, till it raises funding.

Market and competition

According to CII-ACMA, in 2015, the automotive after-market servicing business in India is pegged at about $2 billion (excluding spare parts).

During 2013–14, the total turnover of the Indian automotive component industry was estimated at $35 billion. Auto ancillary exports fetched $10.2 billion in the same year. The total number of registered motor vehicles on Indian roads reached 172 million in March 2013, of which over 21.5 million were cars, taxis and jeeps.

Besides GetCarXpert, Cartisan, MotorExpert, Bumper and MeriCar are some of the players vying with each other.

MeriCAR.com has had two rounds of investments from My First Cheque and Rajan Anandan (personal investment). In July last year, Bengaluru-based automotive service marketplaceCartisan raised an undisclosed amount in its seed round funding from YouWeCan ventures, Global Founders Capital, TaxiForSure’s Aprameya R and others. Late-December 2015,Bengaluru-based Bumper secured $500,000 seed funding, in a round led by SAIF partners.

On competition, Navneet says that it’s the service he counts on to shine through. “We are very particular about the kind of service we promise to our customers. It will outstrip any other player in this category.”

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/02/getcarxpert/

How Chandra Shekhar and Salim Khan are making Mumbai healthier, one community at a time

With a growing population and increase in buildings, the last few years have seen a lack of public spaces for people to play, and meet at. This has resulted in people who are passionate about sports not being able to pursue it once they graduate from college.

Another deterrent is the lack of sports facilities and network around people to find others with similar interests. Chandra Shekhar Panigrahi, 33, too faced this issue. He says,

Last year, I wanted to take a break from the corporate world. I am passionate about sports,so I wanted to enroll myself in a crash course for badminton, and participate in a few events happening in the vicinity. While searching online, I found out that information was either not available or scattered and incomplete, and I didn’t find local players to get connected to.

Chandra Shekhar got along with his friend, Salim Khan, 32, and started PlayersVilla in March 2015, Mumbai-based startup that helps sportsperson find coaches, facilities and playing communities around them.

Chandra Shekhar Panigrahi(L) and Salim Khan(R) – Founders, Players Villa

Prior to starting PlayersVilla, Salim worked with FoodPanda, while Chandra Shekhar worked with Wipro and UltraTech before he started PlayersVilla. At present, the team has six full-time people and three interns, with the co-founders looking after major sales and marketing.

Sports is something that is often not taken seriously in our country, so finding a market was tough. The biggest challenges was getting users for their platform, and their own misconception as they thought that recreational sports had not yet caught up as a category with people. However, once the team went on to do the market survey their apprehensions were laid to rest and people were highly encouraging of their venture. Initially, the team started with only 40-50 users on their platform but in the last one year have scaled up to over 600+ active users on their platform.

At present, PlayersVilla is spread across Mulund, Seon, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Andheri, Borivalli and Powai in Mumba iand planning to start in Pune and Bengaluru. It has received an angel round of Rs 25 lakh from a Dubai-based investor and is looking to raise the next round in the coming months.

How it works

PlayersVilla has a simple process to help people with their sports requirements. At present, it has basketball, football, badminton, cricket, carrom, tennis, table tennis, and zumba on the platform.

There are four offerings on the platform: finding a coach, booking a facility, participating in an event, and networking.

The company earns its revenue through multiple channels, including commission from coaches and academy for successful leads, apart from commissions from sports facilities for booking transactions and advertisements for PPC and CPM models.

At present, there are quite a few companies in this space:Bengaluru-based Playo, JoinMyGame and PlayYourSport are startups active in this sector. PlayYourSport raised $16,000 from Hyderabad Angels in January 2015. There will be more players coming up in this sector, with higher income groups and rising comfort levels. There is a huge promise for growth in the outdoor sports sector but it is still dependent on the amount of funding available.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/02/playersvilla/

A book review site of kids’ books, by kids, for kids: Ihavereadthebook.com is run by a Class IX Mumbai student

My first memory with a book was, in fact, one of me holding two books – a scrumptious Enid Blyton in one hand, and a chubby little Oxford dictionary in the other. Over the years, the dictionary found moments of peace as I read my novels with absolute ease, but I had to dust off the old companion every so often when I looked for literature – like reviews, analyses etc. – on the books I had read or wished to read. It was the darndest thing – the language of these reviews was often more complicated than the language of the book itself!

Atharv Patil, a Mumbai school student who has been moonlighting as a bookworm since the raw age of six, felt the same amusement. All he wanted to do was devour book after book, but the difficult part was deciding which book is worth his precious time – for he never found a review that was fit for a child or a young adult to read and understand. So, he took it upon himself to make amends.

Atharv Patil, like a boss

When the Teenpreneurship bug bit

Atharv is a Class IX student at Chembur’s St. Gregarious High School. “I have been reading books since I was six years old. The idea for Ihavereadthebook.com struck me in the summer of 2014, over a simple dinner-table discussion. I wanted to buy a book, and I asked my father if I can have a kind of a preview before that. He asked me to check on the Internet. I searched, and found that there were many book review sites, but none for children and adolescents. Goodreads was also for adults, in language that only adults would understand. I asked my dad if I could work on something that caters to just kids, in their language and style, on books they’d prefer,” says Atharv.

He was barely 13 at the time. But his father was not one to discourage his son’s sense of initiative, no matter how far-fetched the idea seemed in the face of juggling academics, and his existing extra-curricular interests. “Together, we decided to build a platform that would crowd-source book reviews on all kinds of books for children and young adults, written by children – students and avid readers like me,” explains Atharv.

Like a boss

The prodigy’s work began in a rather systematic manner. He started collecting data on all the schools in the country, and listed down the coordinates of almost 12,000 schools between June and December, 2014.

When his Christmas break came along, he sat down with his parents and charted a plan. “We decided to hire a website developer who built our website in a short span of three months.” Ihavereadthebook.com was in business! But the toughest part was yet to come – getting registrations.

In May 2015, he decided to write to all these schools and had to dispatch 12,000 letters. “Children from the neighbourhood came to help out, inserting the letters and sealing the envelopes. Our house was a sea of paper, everywhere you looked! But, it was completely worth it. The response was amazing; almost all the schools registered with us, and got the word out amongst their students. That’s how I got my first set of writers,” he says.

Atharv had created a platform such that the writers could all sign up and access the backend themselves, to upload their reviews. Once the reviews were in, the founder and editor would begin his screening process. “I run a plagiarism check on their work with a free software. If there is any review with less than 60-percent originality, I send an e-mail to the student to rewrite the review. If we do not get the response within 15 days, those reviews are removed from the system. As we encourage the students to write the reviews in their own words, we do not change a single word from the review written by the student,”Atharv says.

So far, he has published 463 reviews from students across the map. At the start, he would work almost 10-12 hours a day monitoring the student registrations, sending them e-mail links if they are stuck up in the process,and answering queries. Now that the system is working perfectly he spends anywhere between two and three hours each day and four hours on the weekends, to keep the website updated.

Work-life balance has never been easier!

Get to know the man on the chair

In spite of this rush, Atharv hasn’t forgotten about his first love. He puts pen to paper himself every chance he gets, and writes reviews fairly often. Work-life balance has never been easier!

While he seeks the best of both worlds for himself, the worlds are giving them their best too. What made Atharv’s whole journey worthwhile, he says, is when he woke up to an email from a certain gentleman in Bengaluru. “He wrote to me saying he wanted to congratulate me for having the courage to start out so young! He told me how kids today rarely have the reading habit, and how my website would encourage them to pick up a book. And there’s so much more that I love about my life, right now. It’s been such a great experience for me – I’ve already met the CEOs of Scholastic, Crossword,” he says while smiling from ear to ear. He also won the Teen Tycoon title at IIT-B’s E-Summit 2016 last month, which saw participants from 250 nationwide schools.

Currently, they are earning modest revenues from the venture. The website is affiliated withAmazon and Flipkart. So, if anyone makes a purchase on Amazon or Flipkart from the Ihavereadthebook site, the website gets a 10 percent cut on it.

“My aim is to make this website self-sustaining, and we will chalk new revenue models on the road ahead,” Atharv says, adding, “And while I keep this website going, I also want to be a writer or a scientist someday!”

The ‘teenpreneur’ may work like a seasoned entrepreneur, but the lessons he has learnt are through a fresh set of eyes, and will teach you a thing or two about perhaps uncomplicating things, taking a step back, and simply going back to the basics. “In the last one-and-a-half years I have learned many things from my venture. Time management has to be on top of that list. I have to manage my time between studies and my website. My priorities are in line now. I have also understood the value of money, and how much it takes to earn it. It is so important to be able to make decisions, and follow your heart while doing so,” the wise youngster concludes.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/ihavereadthebook/

How this man from a small town in Karnataka is helping kids build robots

How will you visualise the future of a five-year-old boy when you see him tinkering and meddling with gadgets and toys? Sandeep C Senan (32) loved to spend his spare hours learning TV and radio repairs in a neighbour’s shop when he was in Class V. The passion eventually led him to design refrigerators, talking machines and coffee makers. A native of Bhadravati in the Shimoga district of Karnataka, Sandeep, by the time reached Class X, had decided to pursue engineering in computer science at Visveswaraya Technological University.

The curiosity about gadgets followed Sandeep to his later years as well and made him explore ideas on how a school-goer can convert an idea into a working model. This led to BIBOX in 2012, a programmable electronic platform that helps students from Classes V to X build smart machines, robots and other real-world gadgets.

BiBOX Team

Sandeep says, Headquartered in Bengaluru, BIBOX (Brain in a Box) is a hardware and software solution tailored for kids. It is like an electronic brain, which can be operated by a kid on a tablet, smartphone or PC using a graphical software. A kid can put these logical thoughts into BIBOX to create different accessories, from toys to lights to TV.

Sandeep has technological expertise in embedded systems, IoT, robotics, virtual reality and haptics. He has worked in Bangalore Endoscopic Surgical Training Institute (BEST) and done MBA at Edith Covan University, Australia in 2009. He then worked with Thinkinsoft Solutions where he had the opportunity to teach children about future technology in an assignment for Times Group (NIE).

Reconnecting to passion

During his second year of engineering, Sandeep rekindled his old passion to create things. Alongside engineering, he completed projects like virtual reality simulators, artificial intelligent systems, robotic machines, and more. A couple of his final-year projects were also picked by DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation).

Sandeep then started guiding juniors in college through workshops that later morphed into workshops for school students.

“BIBOX started as a toolkit that kids could use and then later became a full-fledged curriculum where kids are taken through a journey to become innovators to solve real-world problems in any field,” explains Sandeep.

Getting noticed

Sandeep got funding from Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) for his prototype model. The idea then made its way towards Department of Science and Technology (DST) and he received funds from there as well.

In April 2013, Sandeep met Madhusudan Namboodiri (48) who joined BIBOX as co-founder. He brings two decades of experience in the field of education, health, retail and telecom. Prior to this, Madhusudan was a consultant for Greycells 18 Media Ltd, where he created a niche space in schools for selling K12 content alone.

Sandeep C Senan and Madhusudan Namboodiri

The duo first approached Mumbai Angels in August 2013, and in early 2014, they raised angel fund of Rs 1.5 crore from Narendran K, a former Vice President of Infosys, Anirudha Malpani of Mumbai Angels and Manish Gupta, former MD of Rare Enterprises. Recently, it raised Rs 3.5 crore from Ravi Krishnamurthy, MD of Bengaluru-based Shadeflex India. Till now, the startup has raised a total fund of Rs. 6.5 crore in multiple rounds.

How to build smart machines, robots and gadgets

The mentors at BIBOX conduct 80-minute sessions in schools where kids are given tools and materials required to complete the project or innovation. According to Sandeep, traffic lights, automatic locking doors, smart room lights, water throwing alarm, drip irrigation system, asthma detector, vibratory blind stick, interactive bobcat and robotic arm for lifting things, controllable boats and smart cars are some of the working models created by students at different schools in Bengaluru, Kerala, Coimbatore and Delhi.

BIBOX has currently tied up with 18 schools in Bengaluru, 21 in Kerala, spread across Muvathupuzha, Kottayam, Kollam, Angamaly, Ernakulam and Calicut, and four schools in Ghaziabad and Noida.

Sandeep states that 10,000 students have been benefitted from his programme so far.

Students experimenting with the tools and materials of Bibox

Tying up with 120 schools

The startup charges Rs 2,500 to 6,500 per student for an academic year. In the last one year, Bibox has grown by 3x in terms of revenue and expects to quadruple the growth this year.

Currently, it has 75 employees and is present in Bengaluru, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi. By the end of 2016, BIBOX is planning to tie up with 120 schools and come up with BIBOX-based products for kids.

India has witnessed a growing concern in the quality of science, maths and technology education imparted in schools and colleges. According to a Manpower report, by 2020, the shortfall of engineers is expected to range from 1.5 to 2.2 million putting India’s economy at risk.

As an angel investor, my bet is always on the founders. Sandeep’s passion for helping children to be creative by allowing them to tinker using BIBOX is infectious, and he is a great example of an innovator who thinks out of the box. His partnership with Madhu is a winning combination, and together they have been able to craft a winning business model around a very cool product,” says investor Dr. Malpani.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/02/bibox/

4 organisations that help women restart their career after a break

Women have been closing the gender gap when it comes to education. Research shows 45.9 per cent of all enrolled undergraduate students as well as 40.5 per cent of all enrolled PhD students in India today are women. On the other hand, the labour force participation rate of women has been falling – from 37 per cent in 2004-05 to 29 per cent in 2009-10. In 2011-2012, women comprised 14.7 per cent of all urban workers, a small increase from the 13.4 per cent in 1972-73. To give a clearer view of the larger picture, if India can increase women’s labour force participation by 10 percentage points (68 million more women) by 2025, India could increase its GDP by 16 per cent.

Many organisations have been working towards helping women join as well as re-join the workforce. Employers are also recognising the importance of diversity and at the same time, are seeing women who are getting back to work after a break as a viable group when it comes to hiring. When women have had a break after having a baby or for taking care of an elderly family member, the organisations mentioned below act as mentors and help them step back into the corporate space.

It has been a year since Bengaluru-based JobsForHer was founded by Neha Bagaria with the vision to reverse female brain drain from within the Indian workforce. JobsForHer has organised a mega Diversity Drive from March 7th to March 11th to coincide with this Women’s Day. Top companies across India like Sapient, Target, MakeMyTrip, Reliance, Mindtree and Mantri developers will be participating in the drive. With this drive, JobsForHer is also opening up its portal beyond Bengaluru and moving to a pan-India mode with a focus on Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

JobsForHer.com is currently seeing a traction of 50,000 visitors per month with approximately 2.50 lakh monthly page-views. In its first year in lean-startup mode and operating out of Bengaluru, JobsForHer is already associated with more than 750 companies, including Citibank, Future Group, GE, Godrej group, Kotak Mahindra Group,SnapDeal, Unilever and several other SMEs as well as startups. They offer job opportunities ranging from full-time, part-time, work-from-home, to freelance opportunities and also work with companies to provide returnee internships.

Chennai-based Avtar I-Win was the pioneer in the field of organisations that help women restart their careers, having been set up in 2005. Dr Saundarya Rajesh, Founder of Avtar I-Win, believes that equality often does not work in the gender space in corporates, due to the various unique issues that working women face in India. They facilitated the hiring of around 450 women employees for the Future Group way back in 2006. Saundarya says,

Forty-eight per cent of Indian working women under the age of 30 take a break, 60 per cent in STEM (science technology engineering and math) jobs take a break in the first 10 years of their career. These women often struggle to restart their career. When it comes to labour force participation of women, other Asian countries, for example Sri Lanka, do better than India.

Sairee Chahal co-founded Noida-based SHEROES.in in January 2014. SHEROES curates corporate jobs as well as flexible and work-from-home jobs for women in India. SHEROES has been building a community of working women, helping them find mentors and resources. They focus on helping women who are seeking a career along with maintaining a work-life balance.

SHEROES had raised Rs five crore of funding in an angel round and offers a diverse and large range of opportunities for women to pick from. These include opportunities with women-friendly employers, flex-friendly formats, mompreneur programmes and partnership programmes. The SHEROES Community gets access to career resources while SHEROES Mentors engage actively to help women attain career success on their own terms.

Her Second Innings

HerSecondInnings was founded with the principle that just helping women find a job is not enough and women professionals have to be empowered at all levels. Often when a woman is getting back to work after a long break, there is a lot of confusion in her mind about the best fit for her skillset and experience. Women might also prefer to shift to a more attractive or appropriate field at this point due to personal interests or convenience. Over 2,000 women have been accessing the portal for job options as well as for coaching to help develop their skills as well as better understand their options. There are e-coaching sessions as well, which women can attend online.

Founded by Manjula Dharmalingam and Madhuri Kale in November 2014, HerSecondInnings has presence in Bengaluru and Mumbai, and offer ‘work from home’ options, temporary assignments, permanent jobs, projects and consultancy and entrepreneurial opportunities. HerSecondInnings also help organisations improve their diversity and inclusion programmes. This includes diversity and inclusion assessment survey and women leadership programmes.

Reference:http://her.yourstory.com/organisations-helping-women-restart-career-0228