After Forbes, Flipkart’s Bansals now on the TIME 100 list 

By Himansu

Flipkart marches towards being a $100 billion company

The devaluation or even the recent rounds of senior executive exits don’t seem to have lessened the impact that Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal have created. The founders of Flipkart, which is ranked as India’s biggest e-commerce marketplace, have found a spot in the TIME 100 list – a list of 100 most influential people in the world.
Included under the ‘Titan’ section, the list has had some truly big names like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Wang Jianlin, Mohammed Bin Nayef, Tim Cook, Yuri Milner, Pope Francis, Pricilla Chan and Sundar Pichai to name a few.
A few months back, in September, the Bansals had made their debut on the country’s top 100 rich list as per Forbes magazine. It is to be noted that the Bansals are country’s first e-commerce billionaires as well. The Bansals made their debut at 86th position with a net worth of $1.3 billion each.
For close to 13 years now, the TIME list compiles the list of the world’s most influential men and women. Nancy Gibbs, Editor of TIME, states that while power is certain, influence is subtle. She added that as much as the exercise works towards chronicling the achievements made in the past year, the list also focusses on figures whose influence will most likely grow.
Speaking of being included in the list, Sachin and Binny Bansal say that this is a recognition of the Indian internet ecosystem and its role in using technology to solve Indian problems. They added that this acknowledgement comes as a validation of the work they are doing and it also reinforces the faith people have in Flipkart.
Some of the technology leaders who have been featured in the list include Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Travis Kalanick and Larry Page.
An excerpt of the list says:
“Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal (no relation) started Flipkart in 2007 as an online bookstore. For seed money, they pooled their savings: around $10,000. Their data center was their apartment in Bangalore. So it could have been the height of arrogance when the two Bansals, who had worked together at Amazon, told investors Flipkart could be worth $100 million in a decade.”

Techno Sat Comm to provide free Wi-Fi in Delhi Metro

By Himansu

Techno Sat Comm in collaboration with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has been awarded a 10-year contract to provide free Wi-Fi service to commuters. The Internet facility would be launched in the second half of this year.

Source : qoalt

The company will invest Rs 250 crore to set up the infrastructure, Techno Sat Comm Director Jagdip Rana said. Ping Network is partnering with Techno Sat Comm as the main licensee for providing content.

Techno Sat Comm and Ping Network are coming together to roll out what will potentially be India’s largest platform to serve content to passengers and work with advertisers, keen to reach Delhi Metro’s 2.75 million passengers, the company said in a statement.

The free-to-consumer service will be launched in the second half of this year, it added. A DMRC spokesperson confirmed that an MoU was signed in October last year for the same. Rana said the service will be free for customers and it will generate revenue through advertising.

The company said Wi-Fi service will ensure a 50 Mbps (3 times 4G) minimum speed to passengers devices while the maximum speed could potentially go up to 1.6 Gbps. Techno Sat Comm, said it already runs Wi-Fi on the Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Express train and will use a solution deployed on superfast rail networks in Europe to deliver high speed broadband internet experience. Nirav Dave of Techno Sat Comm. said,

We have adapted the technology to India keeping in mind adverse weather conditions including heat, dust, heavy rains, vibration of trains and large passenger loads.

Ping will be building the front-end customer interface as well as the content pipe. Delhi Metro passengers across the NCR region will be able to experience high speed broadband by logging onto the internet via a dedicated app. This app will also display the location, approach and destination stations on a real-time basis and help navigate between different lines.

8 Digital marketing tips for the recently funded startups

By Himansu

K

It’s a no-brainer that getting funded is a great achievement. You can hire the best of talent, move into a proper workplace, and invest more in improving your product.

Also, now you can go all-out marketing yourself; and that is where the problem begins.

Once you get funded, there’s an irresistible desire to explore all marketing options which you were not able to afford previously. And that is perfectly understandable. We all want to grow and start marketing ourselves to our target audience, but a careful approach here will ensure that you reach them with maximum effectiveness while burning considerably less amount of money.

Let’s a dive deeper and find out how you can optimise your approach towards marketing so that you can get better results.

Hire a senior digital marketing resource

Instead of going for a digital marketing executive, I would strongly suggest that you go with a senior resource who has seven to ten years of experience in handling overall digital marketing for startups/brands.

You will be coming up with a marketing strategy at this time and his/her insights will help you a lot in charting a long-term plan. While hiring the marketing person, make sure that he/she is good with all the major digital channels like SEO, SEM, social media marketing, email marketing and digital PR; a good knowledge of analytics is also must.

From my personal experience, however, I have noticed that people who come from digital marketing agencies don’t live up to the expectation; possibly because agencies have different teams handling all the above digital channels. I would suggest that you hire people from other startups/brands that are in the same niche as yours or somewhat related.

PS: I am suggesting a marketing resource in digital because it has a low entry barrier. Traditional marketing channels are very expensive and you will blow up your money in no time.

Work on your branding

Once you have decided to kickstart your marketing activities, you need to start working on your communication.

Coming up with a brand personality will help you define an identity for your brand. This, in turn, will develop an emotional connect with your customers and also help you stand apart from your competitors.

Once you have this in place, you will find that coming up with a tweet, an ad-copy for SEM campaign, or even the copy of a landing page becomes lot more easier.

To read up more on this, please refer to my earlier column on why startups must have a brand personality.

Start creating remarkable content

Content marketing is the most reliable way to make an impact on your audience. Having good content writers on board will make sure that you are coming up with content that people like and share. More than that, it will ensure that people get to know you and adopt your product/service.

This is a very big playground and you can dabble with so many options here. From videos to infographics, to blog posts and downloadable content; there are N number of ways you can create and share content.

However, you should stay away from fluffy content if all it gets is page views but no leads/sales. There’s no point in having a blog that shares listicles on food and lifestyle while you are dealing in real estate.

So keep analysing the impact of your content strategy on your KPIs (brand awareness, leads, sales, etc.) on a regular basis. You should always see content as a way to increase more sales, and not just a channel to get more likes or pageviews.

Focus on product marketing

While the initial version of your product was about giving customers a good experience, you should now look at maximising your returns from the customer’s usage of your product.

We all know that product marketing is a good way to spread the word organically and it saves a lot of money; but many startups wait till they hire a good growth hacker to get started with this. However, this shouldn’t be the case.

Numerous case studies have pointed out that simple tweaks can lead to good returns, and your senior marketing resource should be able to pull this off (with some training, if required).

Work on your landing pages

Since you will be beginning with your paid marketing campaigns, you must have a landing page that converts like a charm. Being the first point of interaction of the customer with your brand, it becomes imperative that you focus on delivering a great experience to them.

Instead of going with a template and letting it run on auto-pilot, you should run A/B tests on all the aspects that are crucial to conversion (headlines, text, CTA, button, colour scheme, etc.). This should be an ongoing process and not a one-time affair.

Invest in great tools

Now that you have the funds, you should start looking at working with premium tools that do a better job than the free ones that you’ve been using all this time.

There are many good tools out there that can help you with SEO, lead generation, project management, and analytics. Give their free trials a spin and see which ones fit your requirements.

Suggested tools: Moz Pro, Crazy Egg, Webengage, SumoMe, Wishpond, Mixpanel or Kissmetrics.

Follow Pareto’s principle

In your eagerness to market yourself aggressively, it would be wise if you don’t spread yourself too thin here. You don’t need to do everything to build up your sales funnel. More often than not, you will see a handful of marketing activities giving you maximum returns.

Once you begin your marketing activities, you will start seeing the effectiveness of various channels. Invest in the ones that are more impactful than others. May be it is SEO, or SEM, or product marketing – it can be anything.

Running after every marketing channel is not going to help you. Stay focussed.

Work on your employer branding

Since you will only be growing more in the coming months, you should invest in branding yourself as a good place to work at.

Hiring is a lot of pain and trust me, there are very few talented people out there. This makes employer branding all the more important for you. Having a nice team page and a company blog always helps, but nothing beats tapping into the contacts of your current team via social media.

When people see their friends having a great time at their workplace, they start aspiring of a workplace like yours. This positive perception of your brand comes into force when you ask your team members to share the current job openings in your brand within their network.

I hope the above pointers were of help to you and gave some direction to your marketing aspirations. In case if you have any queries please feel free to comment below, I will do my best to answer them at the earliest.

A sneak peek at 9 women-led startups that raised funding in 2016 

By Himansu 

2016 has started off on a better note for women entrepreneurs, at least in the area of venture capital funding. In March 17 startups with a at least a woman co-founder raised funding versus six in the same period last year. This is close to a 183 percent growth.

Funding raised by startups funded or co-founded by women

Month	2016	2015	% change
January	27	11	145
February	23	3	667
March	17	6	183
Total	67	20	235

However, while these numbers look like a big leap, they still are nowhere close to what startups founded by male founders and co-founders raised. It nevertheless, is a step in the right direction.

Here is a list of nine women-led startups that have raised funding late last year and early this year:

1. Tarusa World

Founded by Rupali Gupta, Tarusa World is an online platform for handicrafts. Last month, the startup raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Mohit Gulati. In several reports, Rupali said that the investment will be used to add more inventory, designs and scale the brand. Started in 2012, Tarusa World works on an inventory-based model, where the products are designed and retailed in-house.

2. Zoctr

A home healthcare startup founded by Nidhi Saxena, Zoctr raised a funding of $1 million from the founder of SPA Capital Sandeep Parwal and Founder of Organic Wellness Krishnan Gupta and a few other angel investors. The Mumbai-based startup offers different services like health check-up, tele-consulting, home lab pickups, online pharma and other emergency support.

3. Transcell Biologicals

Started in 2009, Hyderbad-based Transcell raised an undisclosed amount of funding from the Indian Angel Network, led by Sanjay Jesrani. Founded by stem cell researcher Dr Subhadra Dravida, Transcell said it would use this investment to develop more products for therapeutic and non-therapeutic areas in stem cell based products. Transcell is known to build stem cell based products and is working on creating an India-patient specific repository for R&D.

4. FreshMenu

Rashmi Daga, Founder, FreshMenu

Bengaluru-based FreshMenu raised Rs 110 crore in a new round of funding from Zodius Capital, with participation from existing investor LightSpeed Ventures. Rashmi Daga, Founder of FreshMenu, said the round of funding will be used for team building, growth and strengthening of the brand. Started in 2015, FreshMenu follows a hub-and-spoke model with centralised kitchens in each locality they service.

5. medECUBE

In March this year, medECUBE raised Series A funding of Rs 25 crores from Artiman Ventures, a Silicon Valley based venture fund. Founded by Dilpreet Brar, medECUBE offers care coordination services to several domestic and international patients. With this round the team will be looking to expand their presence and services.

6. Heads Up for Tails

Rashi with her pet Sara

Founded by Rashi Narang, this startup makes a line of upscale, utility-based products for pets with a strong focus on design. This includes products such as dog beds, apparel, collars, accessories, toys, grooming products, treats, as well as a line for pet lovers. There is also a strong focus on customisation and personalisation based on what the customer is looking for. Heads Up For Tails has raised its seed round of funding from HNIs.

7. Vanity Cube

Renu Bisht, Co-founder of Vanity Cube, was started with a personal need of getting affordable and quality beauty services due to time crunch. After identifying the pain-point, the duo collaborated and started working on VanityCube. Renu added, “We took a few months to put our website together and bring salon artists on board.” The startup raised a pre-series A funding of $250,000 from Unicorn Ventures.

8. Funcart

The Delhi-based online store for party supplies raised seed funding of Rs 50 lakh from HNIs. Founded in 2015 by Ritika Nangia, the platform offers interesting and cost-effective party supplies for different events and occasions. The funding will be used to increase product offerings, infrastructure and technology.

9. Styledotme

Delhi-based fashion app, Styledotme founded by Meghna Saraogi raised seed funding from IAN, which was led by Ajay Gupta. The app is available on iOS and Android platforms and allows its consumers to instantly poll and get votes on his or her fashion choices. The app also gives expert advice from various bloggers and stylists. This round of funding will help in building the tech team and refining the app.

The first India-focused startup in Y Combinator, this dropout’s venture files 3 per cent of India’s tax today 

By Himansu

The year was 2010, and Archit Gupta had just returned from San Francisco. The startup he was working for, Data Domain Inc, got acquired by EMC for a whopping $2.4 billion. An alumnus of IIT-Guwahati, in 2008 he had dropped out of his PhD course from University of Wisconsin to join the startup.

ClearTax co-founder Archit Gupta at the Y Combinator office

Returning home, to Delhi, Archit’s father, a chartered accountant, was pointing out the lack of information while tax filing. This prompted Archit to look into the idea of starting a tax e-filing platform. Days after, he relocated to India, and started up from his garage.
Archit’s guideline was simple: ‘Make no mistakes in people’s taxes’.  And, after five years, that statement still holds strong as one of the guiding principles for his venture, ClearTax.
Within 10 days of launching, in March 2011, ClearTax was flooded by 1,000 people wishing to file their taxes through the platform. It was a clear validation of the times to come.
Archit is helped by Ankit Solanki and Srivatsan Chari, whom he met at a hackathon, hosted by him for Paytm in September 2011.

ClearTax co-founders (Ankit Solanki, CTO, Archit Gupta, Srivatsan Chari, VP, Business and Operations) with Geoff Ralston at YC in 2014

Easing the filing process

ClearTax helps individuals to prepare and file their taxes.  Users have to submit their Form16 on the platform, which automatically sieves the necessary data required.  This saves users time spent in manually crunching and feeding data.

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Further, ClearTax’s unique ability helps it to compete with the government tax filing website. It takes about 12 minutes for an average user to complete the process of filing, as opposed to the two hours through the traditional route. The platform also provides assisted services through CAs and tax experts, serving as a marketplace for the same.
ClearTax charges Rs 600- 13,000 for hiring experts. The value increases with the complexity of the tax filing, Archit says.
ClearTax also has interactive content for users on its platform to better understand the process of tax filings.
So what is the difference between the website by tax department and ClearTax?
Calculations on ClearTax are automated with losses adjusted for the next year. With no calculations required, what is needed is just the price and date of sale or purchase.
ClearTax claims that a three percent of India’s taxpayers e-file their taxes on its platform (about 10 lakh out of the total 3.4 crore tax filers).  The firm also has 10,000 CAs and experts registered, with close to 70 percent of the users coming from metro cities.
Additionally, the founder claims ClearTax to be the only platform in the country which has tax on the cloud. This gives individuals ease of usage from any part of the world.

Tax for businesses

Being a SaaS provider, the platform offering ClearTDS helps businesses to prepare their TDS returns, followed by quarterly withholdings. As of now, ClearTax’s software is used by 5,000 companies, both big and small.
Pricing for the B2C side depends on the complexity of these filings, followed by the size of the business.  Apart from these submissions, the software also provides intelligence around validation services (like PAN of employees) and pay package optimisation for tax savings.
The average pricing of the software can be Rs 2,700, and go all the way up to Rs 45,000.

The ClearTax Team

Technology for tax    

Having a proprietary technology, the platform is powered by a distributed system. The beauty of it being that it can be scaled on the cloud during peak demand, owing to the seasonality of the business.
The platform has three layers of checks enabled by technology. First, warns customers in case something calls out for a notice by the tax department.  The second is actual comparison, where the taxes filed are compared with the government guidelines of calculations.  The third entails hard warnings, wherein when a filing looks fishy, ClearTax takes a call whether to proceed or not.
The firm at present is putting a lot of its investments in machine learning, while aspiring to automate the process of invoicing, bill recognition and data extraction.
By 2014, the company became the first Indian startup to be selected by US-based seed accelerator Y Combinator.

Archit Gupta

Taxing in the future 

On aspirations for ClearTax’s future, Archit tells us that the goal is to work with one lakh businesses and 50 lakh customers by the end of this financial year. He also hints at the possibility of venturing into the tax-saving space.
On Friday, the company announced the hiring of three former core members of Flipkart – Prasanth Nair, Director (Fulfilments), Flipkart; Jai Santosh, the man behind Flipkart Lite; and Akash Bapna, one of the early employees of the e-commerce giant. Prashanth will lead engineering while Jai and Akash will look after newer business areas and consumer business segment for ClearTax.
Tax filing is a niche segment, with some players like Makeyourtax.com and Taxmantra already functioning in the space. So, either these firms prod towards the financial advisory segment, or strengthen their own offerings and work within their niche. ClearTax is doing exactly that in its strategy.
But with newer startups spending as much as a lakh for auditing and income tax filing, there seems to be enough scope and business opportunity for players to tap into this space.  However, functioning with a niche, it will be interesting how ClearTax disrupts this space and achieves scale.
Website: www.cleartax.in

Lessons in scaling up from unsung startup heroes

By Himansu

Once the initial euphoria around customer acceptance subsides, startups are faced with the inevitable challenge of scaling up. While stability in operations is imperative, it’s proven that sustainable businesses are the ones that have managed to timely scale up while remaining profitable. Scaling up is a necessity because of the requirement of the business model, or to keep up with competition. However, there have been some who chose to focus on process improvements rather than scaling up.
The foodtech sector is a perfect example of this. This sector has been losing its sheen in the investor community over the past few months, despite the initial surge of interest.  News of of setbacks like Tiny Owl scaling down its operations in four cities, Zomato firing 300 sales employees, SpoonJoy shutting down and then being acquired by with Grofers – these are just a few instances of trouble in the foodtech sector. Market feedback suggests that these businesses were running so much after numbers that they compromised on services, and failed to sustain the exponential growth.
YourStory takes a close look at the operations of two foodtech startups that have followed very different trajectories to understand what went right and what wrong with their strategies. However, we would like to also point out that this is not an exhaustive study and the learning might not be applicable to everyone.
“Chefs Only” was a Mumbai based food distribution startup, which started operations in July 2014 and closed down in December of the same year. Started by three MISB Bocconi graduates, it followed the home cooked meal distribution model. The business witnessed a dip in turnover and profits resulting in eventual loss of faith by investors who provided seed money.

Chefs Only’s financials in 2014; Source: Chefs Only

Gaurav Bhandari, CFO of Chefs Only, says:

We admit that we underestimated the immediate need of a website and investments in social media marketing to increase the customer base.

Looking at numbers and based on discussion with management we gather:

1. Overheads remained out of control during the entire course of operation. The startup, which had gathered a small customer base, was focussing excessively on improving the quality of food.
2. Concurrently, investments in technology (website, and mobile application) were put on the back burner and they failed to acquire newer customers.
3. Over time, the unit economics failed to add up and investments dried up.

Ultimately, Chefs Only lost out to competition by failing to scale up. Though it grew initially, the number of orders served stagnated at 500 orders in September, increased marginally to 541 in October and then dipped eventually. “The gap between the overheads and revenues could not be narrowed over five months of operations, making the business non sustainable,” says Gaurav.
While running too fast comes with its own risks, stagnation and deceleration can also push one out of the race. It’s important for businesses to understand how revenues can be predictably generated and sustained at the right times, as fixed overhead costs are static.
The bigger question is how to optimise overheads while scaling up. Fixed overheads are costs incurred irrespective of turnover such as rent for office space. Therefore, startups need to keep scaling up so as to reduce fixed costs as a percentage of sales.
In contrast to Chefs Only, Consegna Services, based out of Gurgaon chose to scale up operations. Founded by IIM alumni, Consegna became operational in 2014 with the launch of professional food delivery services (including various value added services) for premium and mid-premium restaurants. From 30 orders per day in Q2 2015 in Gurgaon, Consegna clocked 150-200 orders/day on an average in Q4 2015 from 12 hubs in Gurgaon and Delhi. “This growth has been attained by calibrated expansion and providing personalised services to customers to increase frequency of orders from every restaurant,” says founder Amandeep Kaur, an IIM-K alumnus. They are growing 9.5 per cent week on week, and more importantly, covering over 80 per cent of delivery operation expenses and over 60 per cent of total business expenses, as confirmed by the management.
The revenue growth has assisted in keeping the fixed overheads regulated.

Consegna’s revenue vs fixed costs; Source: Consegna

For any newly started business, regulating the overheads and sustaining unit economies is vital before leapfrogging to the next level. In case of Consegna, from Q1FY15 to Q4 FY16, the fixed expenses taken as a percentage of sales have only trended downwards. The management says this was achieved by:

1. Steadily increasing the topline by leveraging existing customer relationships;
2. Expanding in Delhi and Noida in less than two years; and
3. Minimal incremental technology investment to support the increase in customer base as the product was already well-developed.

Consegna’s rentals and fixed costs as percentage of sales; Source: Consegna

Consegna says that businesses must control overheads from inception. Amandeep states:

Our focus has always been to build a profitable and sustainable model. From day one, we have focused on unit economics and controlling overheads. While we are inching towards operational profitability, our target in the next six months is to be profitable on an overall basis, even after considering all overheads. Hence it becomes very important to closely monitor costs and minimize them, without adversely affecting the business.

Clearly if it’s a consumer-facing business whose success is predicated on scale, scaling up is imperative. While the importance of continuous innovation for process improvements cannot be denied, management needs to stay alert and keep up with competition and scale up while keeping costs in control.

How a casual conversation among four cousins on a foreign trip led to building a Rs 20-crore entity in Bengaluru 

By Himansu

What could be a better time than a family trip, away from the rigors of daily life, to shape up a business idea? Over cups of steaming coffee, four cousins discovered that they shared a common dream- to start something on their own.
So, in late 2003, Rafeeq Mohammed, Kadhar Jahan Thoombath, Sherin Nazer Thoombath and Anas Ahmed launched web development company Digifour Technologies with one assembled computer in Kerala. The venture, unfortunately, was not in a good shape due to lack of funds and minimal customer traction, and eventually shut down in 2010.

(L-R) Jahan Kadhar, Rafeeq Mohammed, Sherin Nazer, Anas

In 2005, Rafeeq (45) was working in a bank in Saudi where he noticed that banks were extensively using digital signage for various corporate communication activities. He then discussed the same with his cousins and decided to try this concept in India. They roped in US-based digital communication solution provider SCALA to sell their products in India. As a value-added reseller for SCALA, the quartet started their journey with a new office in a small IT Park in Kerala (close to Calicut).
They bagged the first project for installation of digital signage solution from Philips and TCS in 2006. Digital signage market in India was in a very nascent stage then, which gave them the opportunity to win the project for Hyderabad International airport. They executed the project through Siemens while HCL was their partner for screens. However, lack of credit arrangements left them in a dilemma on how to pay the vendors. They then put in their personal money to clear the payment. The project was completed in six months, and based on that experience, they obtained the Delhi airport project in 2007. They then moved to Bengaluru in 2010.

Inception of Nusyn Digital solutions

Fortune knocked on their door when US-based digital signage platform SCALA decided to open an office in India. Jahan, who brings 15 years of experience in IT/ITS in India and US, had moved into the R&D unit at SCALA. In 2011 February, they got into a joint venture deal and SCALA Digital Signage Solutions India was formed with 49 percent share.
Rafeeq quit his job in late 2011 and dedicated all his time to SCALA, India. The partnership went off well for the first three years. But with the reshuffling of top management in late 2014, differences arose between the partners on business priorities.

After rounds of hard discussions, we were provided with an option to buy our shares,” recalls Rafeeq, who has over 18 years of experience in strategic marketing and product development in BFSI in India and ME.

Blessing in disguise! The four of them grabbed the opportunity and bought their shares in August 2015. And in January this year, SCALA India was rechristened ‘Nusyn Digital Solutions’, funded by Rafeeq, Jahan and Sherin, who has 10 years of experience in IT/project management.

A total solution partner

 Nusyn delivers customer-centric solutions to segments like retail, healthcare, manufacturing, education, transportation and hospitality. For example, they offer digital menuboards to food retail joints that can be operated centrally.
It also offers customer engagement platforms, like Flight Information Display System (FIDS) integration, service history information at auto service rooms, Human Resource Management System (HRMS) integration at corporates, retail engagement using technologies like beacons, gesture and radio-frequency identification (RFID).
“Recent innovations such as large format touch screens, facial recognition technology and near field communication (NFC) further fuel the growth of this market. We are also planning to deliver our own WebOS solutions and roll out Android and Windows platforms for digital signage solutions,” says Jahan.
With more than 250 customers across verticals, Nusyn powers over 8,000 screens across the country. The client lists include names like Times OOH, PVR Cinemas, YUM and Delhi International Airport.
The company has three revenue models: one-time revenue from digital hardware and software sales; ongoing revenue in the form of asset management support; and revenue from content services, integration services and innovation services.
Witnessing a steady growth of 30-35 percent year on year, Bengaluru-based Nusyn in now a Rs 20-crore entity. Currently, it has more than 50 employees spread across India. In the next two years, it aims to grow by 50 percent year on year. Last year, they opened new offices in Mumbai and Noida. And this year, they would focus more on penetrating the Middle East, Europe and US markets.

Adoption of digital signage in India

 Backed by technological advancements, the evolution of digital signage over the past decade has almost replaced the trend of static signage. India digital signage systems market is projected to reach $524 million by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 25.8 percent, according to Research and Markets report.
Xtreme Media (XM), 3M digital Signage, Wall Flower, Broadsign and cloud-based digital signage solution provider Pickcel are some of the players in this space.
Growing retail sector, urbanisation, surge in advertisement expenditure, better public and private infrastructure collectively attribute to the growth of digital signage market in India. From lifestyle brand to premium car maker, digital signage solutions helps companies promote products and services through interactive medium and reach customers effectively.

Rs 1 Cr sales in four months – how a software engineer is giving Mandya’s debt-ridden farmers a new lease of life 

By Himansu

A farmer walks into the Organic Mandya store and puts a big bag of tomatoes and chillies on the table. The cashier weights it to be approximately 4.5 kg and 1.25 kg respectively and hands him a few crisp notes. The farmer pockets the money and walks away. The entire process took no less than six minutes. There were no delays, negotiations, middlemen or disappointments.
But Mandya wasn’t like this a year ago. In July 2015, more than 20 sugarcane farmers committed suicide. Perennially irrigated and verdant, Mandya is just about 100 km from Bengaluru. But the farmers are under the weight of heavy debt. Reports estimate that Mandya farmers owe banks Rs 1,200 crore in loans taken over the past year (2014-15). Government apathy, falling crop prices, excess stock and lack of guidance on proper farming techniques are the many reasons contributing to the grim scenario.

Madhuchandan C, Founder of Organic Mandya

Disturbed by these prevailing conditions was 37-year-old MadhuChandan Chikkadevaiah, an IT professional living the life of dreams in California, but having roots in Mandya. Hailing from a family of farmers, Madhu was born in Mandya and spent his entire childhood in the sprawling 300 acres of University of Agriculture, Bengaluru, where his father retired as a Vice Chancellor. While Madhu went on to become a software engineer who worked across the globe, co-founded Verifaya Corporation that delivers automated software testing solutions to companies, he was always a farmer at heart.
In August 2014, he quit everything in less than a fortnight and came back to Mandya – to help the farming community flourish. He says,

In the entire world, the farmer is the only person who sells at wholesale but buys at a retail price.

He further explains,

Farmers are leaving their lands and migrating to cities in search of menial jobs. Lack of stability forces them to hop from one job to the other denying continued economic benefits. They are unable to take care of themselves and their families; eventually getting in to heavy debts and suicide. It’s a vicious cycle, albeit one which can be prevented. That’s what Organic Mandya set out to do – give farmers a prosperous, healthy life so that no one leaves the profession.

The seeds of Organic Mandya

When Madhu moved to Mandya, the first thing he noticed was a scattered landscape. There were many farmers who had shifted to organic methods, and practising indigenous techniques that were giving them decent yields. Yet, there were glaring gaps – lack of an organised market and information exchange.
Madhu’s first step was to gather passionate individuals (friends and ex-colleagues) who pooled in Rs 1 crore and he registered Mandya Organic Farmers Cooperative Society, bringing together nearly 240 organic farmers in the first phase. It took him eight months to complete all the government formalities and also establish Organic Mandya – the brand under which farmers will sell their produce.

Organic Mandya shop on the Bengaluru – Mysuru highway

He says,

We dabbled with many ideas – starting a chain of organic shops in Bengaluru, or an e-commerce website, tying up with restaurants and selling the produce. But none would allow farmers to directly interface with the customers. And to me, that was a priority. Until a customer realises the value of efforts the farmer puts in and a farmer understands customer priorities, farming will never be in vogue.

Madhu decided to leverage the Mandya Highway that connects Bengaluru and Mysuru, and he was convinced that travellers would stop by to buy his produce. To further enthuse people, he started an organic restaurant next to the shop. He says,

My strategy was that travellers will stop to have food and end up walking into the shop to buy their weekly groceries. But after a month or so, the trend reversed. People would first stop at our shop and that was fulfilling.

Incorporating the right practices

The real beauty of Organic Mandya is Madhu’s idea of connecting the farmers and customers. According to him,

On one hand, customers are hesitant to switch to organic given the costs, and on the other, a 24-year-old farmer dies of cancer caused by excessive chemicals his body was exposed to. It becomes imperative to educate people on the benefits of going organic and that cannot happen unless a common platform is created.

That’s how the company’s ‘Organic Tourism’ initiative took birth which has the following –

1. Sweat Donation Campaign – A first-of-its-kind volunteering initiative that doesn’t ask for monetary contribution but sweat, Madhu says, “More than 20 percent of farmers’ yield is lost because of lack of timely labour.” In this initiative, people who enjoy farming or would want to experience it drive down over the weekend and work on Organic Mandya’s farms for the entire day. Citing an example, Madhu says, “A farmer (nearly 60-years old) was unable to spend Rs 3,000 for a day’s labour. But he needed to transplant his entire field. We put out a request on our Facebook page and had around 24 volunteers who completed the work in half a day.” In the last few months, the Sweat Donation Campaign has attracted over 1,000 volunteers from Bengaluru– right from college students to IT professionals and retired couples.

Volunteers at a Sweat Donation Campaign

1. Farm Share – Another unique initiative, Farm Share allows people to rent out farms of half to two acres for three months at approximately Rs 35,000 and grow their own food. The package allows families to stay on the farms for eight to nine nights over the three months and practice farming. In their absence, an Organic Mandya farmer will take care of the entire land. Once the yield is ready, families have the option to either sell the produce to Organic Mandya or use it for personal consumption. This ensures that farmers have continuous income as well as urban population is exposed to the joy of organic farming.
2. Team @ Farm – This initiative encourages companies to bring in their employees for day-long farming activities, rural sports such as kabaddi, gilli dandalu and lagori, as well as farm tours such as the jaggery plant tour, which gives people a chance to understand the entire process. This is at a nominal cost of Rs 1,300 per day.

Volunteers helping a farmer with his produce

Reaping the benefits

It’s just been around six months since Organic Mandya has been fully operational and its well on its way to success. The cooperative has already over 500 registered farmers who collectively own close to 200 acres of land and are producing over 70 varieties for sale – rice, dals and pulses, edible oils, personal healthcare products, beverages, masalas and spices. In terms of revenue, the company reached Rs one crore in just four months. The monthly baskets priced at Rs 999, Rs 1,499 and Rs 1,999 have found many takers. “After all, who doesn’t want healthy supplies that will last an entire month that can be ordered online and delivered right at your doorstep,” asks Madhu.
But most importantly, Mandya is seeing reverse migration. Madhu says,

My biggest success is when someone returns from the city to start farming again. And so far, around 57 have returned to their land. This is only the beginning of a rural, organic revolution.

Road to a sustainable future

Madhu is well aware that sustainability is an important aspect for any business to flourish. But he wants to ensure that sustainability benefits both – farmers and customers. In the next one year, Madhu is working towards cultivating 10,000 families to generate revenues of approximately Rs 30 crore by making them buy monthly supplies averaging to approximately Rs 2,000 to 3,000.
He says, “The idea is to get families to register as our members, which will cost Rs 1,000 annually. This will have dual benefits – one is they will get a steep discount on all our products for the entire year, and second is we will introduce them to a range of healthy eating practices.”
Madhu’s boldest vision is to make the entire Mandya district go organic by 2020.

Want to build a billion dollar organisation without VC money? Learn from Sridhar Vembu

By Himansu

Innovation at Zoho Corp is growing at an electrifying speed, as the organisation gets closer to $500 million in revenues, with over one lakh paying businesses and 18 million individual users. It has plans to sign up one million (ten lakh) enterprises in three years, a target that came about purely because of the tenacity of Sridhar Vembu, Founder, Zoho Corp, and his team.

Sridhar has a large fan-following in the startup industry, which seemed to have created a mythical narrative around the man for turning down venture capital money. One of the interesting stories is that the domain name ‘Zoho’ originally belonged to a US-based hospitality startup that had raised $53 million in 1999 to scale up. Unfortunately, the fairy tale story of great valuations turned out to be a nightmare for this hotel aggregator, which went into liquidation in 2000-01. Sridhar and his team loved the domain name and picked it up from the court that was handling the liquidation process.
The domain cost Sridhar an expensive $5000, in the year 2004, and it turned out the best decision his team had made. They used the domain to launch a suite of office products for the parent company, AdventNet Technologies. Sridhar rebranded the company as Zoho Corp by 2010.
The rest was history. Sridhar Vembu’s company is now one of the fastest growing companies, which is prepared for a world where software will be the business driver for every organisation. Be it in networks, smart offices or smart factories Zoho believes software will change IT businesses forever with subscription-based business models uprooting licence fee-based business models of proprietary software. Currently, Zoho is experimenting with over 100 different ideas and has seeded four productivity tools – Zoho Writer, App-Creator, Notebook and Gamescope – each of which helps an enterprise deploy IT rapidly in the organisation.

Sridhar Vembu

“Readily deployable IT is the future,” says Sridhar. But there is more to Zoho than just productivity tools for the office. Its Manage Engine software suite manages network nodes of enterprises, and its WebNMS platform is building Internet of Things (IoT) applications for industry.
Being an IT veteran, Sridhar believes startups in the B2B business should focus on building businesses without any funding, and they should learn to make customers pay for the services they deliver. He also believes a bigger global financial meltdown is around the corner and that funding could dry up soon. Here are the excerpts of the interview:
1. You want one million enterprises to sign up with Zoho in three years. Is that possible? 
SV. I am confident we can achieve it. Organisations are moving a lot of applications to the cloud. We are a company that is known for office applications and we see many small businesses that are going to use our products. A lot of medium-sized enterprises are moving to the cloud too, and they can use our applications with minimum support and implementation. The cost of IT is going to drop. Consumerisation of IT is the future and it will be about readily deployable apps and automation. The old world of IT, which is about large-scale implementation, is going to go through a rapid transformation. Most of our products are digitally marketed and word of mouth wins new customers for us.
2. You managed two downturns. Are you poised for any financial crisis?
SV. Each time, in 2000 and in 2008, we had enough cash to work on new technology areas. In 2000, we served the telecom as our major clientele. When the industry collapsed we had to use our internal accruals to build new network management technologies for enterprises across verticals. Similarly, in 2008, a lot of businesses went into cost-saving mode and began to experiment with our products, because even at the low price we offered quality. It served the needs of enterprises because proprietary software remained inefficient to catch up with the world facing a financial crunch. In 2000, we self-funded our growth; the second time around – in 2008 – we had the products that were accepted by the market. Now we are ready for the future, which is going to be about mobiles and changing IT architectures.
3. Was it tempting to go to a venture capital fund?
SV. I will never go to a VC. In fact, I was given a term sheet in 1999. But a clause put me off. The clause said that I must go for an IPO or generate liquidity in eight years. I did not know finance back then, but my mind kept saying that this clause is just not right. However, that is a standard clause for all VCs and everyone signs it. My point is that the whole construct is questionable and not glued to reality. The philosophy of taking somebody’s money and promising them what they want looks like a gamble to me. So, like a good man, I said no to the money. But, at the time, I was termed arrogant by the VC and he left the office fuming. It was a good decision because today I can experiment with technology and invest 50 percent of my money in R&D without having someone telling me where I should put my money. That said, many VC company founders are my friends. I respect that theirs is a different philosophy and it is their view of building companies. Now, I have shown everyone that sometimes you do not need VC money. Deep down I think Google and Apple would know that after a certain scale you do not require to go public. I must advice startups that you need partners or investors who will stay invested with you for life and help build great technology.
4. Have you invested in startups and how do you manage leadership in a culturally diverse organisation?
SV. I have invested in four companies and the founders share a common vision of building long-lasting businesses. These startups are in the areas of core technology. I am open to ideas in my organisation, which is why we have every team working with an idea that can become a product. Failures are good and experimenting is a key to success. That’s how most of our products in Zoho were born.
As a leader, I believe in being fluidic. Indian culture has been a fluidic culture and it teaches us to accept so many changes. For example I am Tamil, but I can also speak English. My company is global and yet I have not forgotten my cultural roots. I say English is important for economic growth, but one should also know everything about his or her culture. I relate this to dynamic leadership because it enables me to understand and accept people across borders. Just to illustrate this concept. Ten percent of my young engineers are from Bihar and this number is only increasing. Now, I am learning Hindi because I want to be able to communicate with my new hires. The mark of a leader is to learn constantly and understand different people without being troubled by their expectations. I think Indian philosophy and global history has enough examples of preparing leaders for running global companies. You have many Indian global CEOs; the same cannot be said about many other Asian countries.
5. You have two big businesses, Manage Engine and WebNMS. What are the plans for these businesses?
SV. Manage Engine is still a large business by value. But the Zoho suite of products will grow faster. The Manage Engine business is for large telecom vendors who want software to manage switches, nodes, printers and other access points of an enterprise. It enables them to figure out the downtime and availability of nodes. The delivery of this product will also eventually move to the cloud as enterprises begin to share their APIs to deliver such service. The WebNMS business is about preparing firmware of the future, which can then be implemented with device manufacturers for an IoT play. IoT, as you know, has many applications in the connected world.
6. What about the mobile? Could anyone have predicted its growth in such a short span?
SV. This was one thing that no enterprise predicted. In 2007, when the first iPhone was out, I was invited to a conference and almost everyone in that room had the iPhone. That changed the entire ecosystem of services on the mobile. Today, this small device can control large machines. Software is the business today and business is defined by the power of software. Today, our mobile device management application for enterprises is a popular product. Our suite of office productivity apps and the CRM have all moved mobile. By the way, building a mobile app is not about replicating the web world to a mobile form. It is about an entire new platform that has its own dynamics of user interface and performance.
7. You have mentioned a few times that there is downturn waiting to happen. Why do you say that, and what are the implications for India in such a case?
SV. The problem is over-leverage. The world’s debt is high. India is lucky because of the RBI managing the economy. Over-spending by consumers and high leverage on the enterprise side is the problem. Part of the larger problem is that the private funds bloat up valuations of everything in a short period and then when they leave markets, during a downturn, there are social ramifications. Loss of jobs and cultural identity is a reality that we have to get used to. Look at India, the growth is happening in four or five major cities. The opportunities are not trickling down. Although India’s domestic consumption economy is what everyone is betting on, the financial world is clearly global. The central banks have no control over foreign capital. The Indian central bank has done a wonderful job of reining in debt by not lowering rates. I think companies have to be frugal and conserve cash. But they seldom do because they embark on building swanky offices and spending on promotions. I can give you an example of a startup that spent $35 million on rentals per year. Now, for a 1,000-employee organisation this roughly can be estimated to about $25,000 per employee as rental cost. It is insane and worrisome.

From driver to award-winning entrepreneur: Sharanyan Sharma’s rise in Sri Lanka 

By Himansu 

When I asked Sharanyan Sharma to meet me at a small hotel in Colombo, he took no time in finding the place, even though there are many similar ones on the coast. “I used to deliver soda and snacks to each of these places eight years ago,” he says, recalling the time he worked as a driver.

From this humble beginning, he has come a long way to being the Founder and CEO of Extreme-Seo.net, one of Sri Lanka’s leading digital marketing firms. Sharanyan has also started two other companies called Privilegeserver Technologies and 7Arena Technologies.
Now, instead of a delivery van, he has four cars parked outside his house in Vavuniya, as emblems of a rumbling journey through struggles and satisfactions.
Vavuniya is a town in the predominantly Tamil-speaking north Sri Lanka. Sharanyan’s family moved here in 2009 from Jaffna for reasons related to the Tamil-Sinhalese civil war. “It was when I moved here that I met my family after three months. I hadn’t heard from them and didn’t know if they were alive or dead.”
The last months of the civil war in the country were intense and there was no way he could communicate with his family. “I was in Colombo studying engineering at that time. I had to drop out because I no longer had the means to receive money for paying university fees from my family.” To sustain himself, he took up a job as a driver, but within a month he was fired for driving too fast. Curiously, this was the lucky episode that made him realise his path was entrepreneurship.
“Being a driver was by no means what I wanted. All I could think was how to start something on my own,” affirms Sharanyan. “In those days, I was extremely intrigued by e-commerce as it is a space where everybody has an equal opportunity to create a business. So, I decided I wanted to explore it further.”

The problem was that he had neither the money nor an electronic device to start working with. “I had Lkr. 22,000, but even the most basic computer costed Lkr.48,000. I had to borrow money from people in town and I cannot tell you how hard it was. Nobody knew me and they were all reluctant to lend me money,” he explains. However, with his brother’s recommendation, he managed to raise his initial capital from neighbours. “I hadn’t even started and I was already in debt!” he laughs.
Sharanyan hailed from a Brahmin family who expected him to devote his life to his religious duties. They weren’t keen on him starting something anew, and it was hard to face them considering that he did not receive any commission for two months. Then, a US company hired him for a job. “I would receive some articles every morning and I had to redistribute them to about 500 other sites. However, they told me that to them I was just another kid, whom they didn’t know was reliable or not, and so the pay was very low. But I was ok with that. I just wanted to get started! I worked for a month on that project, day and night, and my final payment was $5,” he tells me, without even a trace of bitterness.

“The point,” he continues, “is that when you want to start a business, money cannot be the first concern. It is important, of course, but never the first thing.”

When the time came to expand operations to keep up with the increasing demand for his services, Sharanyan hired a couple of employees but had no money to pay them. “I had literally nothing, so I had to spend the initial sum on buying desks, chairs, and computers,” he recalls.
Today, Sharanyan has employed 65 people, of whom six are differently-abled. “We have I7 computers, which are the best you can find in Sri Lanka. On every floor, we have generator backup and air conditioning. If there is anything missing in office, I make sure that it is taken care of,” he says. At Extreme-Seo.net, employees also receive support in case they need money for house loans or for a wedding. Moreover, they hire consultants in India, China, and Philippines. Sharanyan is thinking of expanding his operations in Mumbai.

In the past six years, the company has carried out about 38,000 social media campaigns. “That first American customer I earned $5 from is still with us,” Sharanyan says. The difference is that they are now paying several hundred times the amount for their services they receive from Extreme-Seo.net.
The fast growth of the company has been possible, says Sharanyan, because at any given point of time, he has a plan B and plan C. “It is more about attitude. It is true that I didn’t have much experience, but I was not just thinking of profit or success. I was preparing against the worst possible thing that could happen to the company, be it from clients, from family or from the market.” Everything in the company is automated. “Say I assign a task that needs to be finalised by 8.30 in the morning and if the concerned person doesn’t do it, there are two others who will be notified that they need to take it up,” he says.

“Nothing is going to affect the destiny of the company because every step is automated and has multiple options of functioning. Time controls everything, but we can control time.”

In his journey of expansion, Sharanyan has never moved from Vavuniya, which is a bit unusual, as it is a small town far from Colombo, where most of the Sri Lankan digital ecosystem is taking shape. He explains, “I have to give back to the community that shaped me, otherwise there is no point in doing business.” Most of his employees are locals. “I am not interested in the education level of who I hire. I am interested in how hungry they are for experience. Many of my employees didn’t even know how to write their name in English. I trained them and now they can communicate through IP” he smiles,

“Even I learnt everything, including English, from my first customer. My best teachers have been the mistakes I made.”

In his company, he wants to spread the idea that business is not just about money, but about gaining experience. The best company, according to Sharanyan, is the one that does the best CSR and spreads social good, not the one with the fattest bank account. “If you look at my personal bank account (not the company’s), it is almost always zero because I want to keep myself ‘thirsty’ at every point,” he says.

“If your glass of water is always full, you will not bother to fill it. Only if it is empty, will you seek out a way to find water. ”

Sharanyan and his company have got several certification (SEO, Google analytics, etc.) won many awards in the past few years. In 2012 and 2013, he was nominated as the best emerging entrepreneur at the provincial and national level. In 2013, he also won the entrepreneurship award in the Asia Pacific region for the turnover and for employing people in troubled areas. Last year, he was awarded the Young Entrepreneur of the Year prize.

Sharanyan at the Sri Lankan Entrepreneur of the year 2012 award

“I’ve always wanted to be unique. I have never liked to follow anyone,” says Sharanyan. He adds,

“[although] I want to be an icon, I don’t want to be so because I am from Vavuniya or because of my entire story. I want to be seen for my good work and for the achievements in my career.”

In his career as an entrepreneur, Sharanyan has had to deal with multiple hassles, but he hasn’t let them slow him down. “The government is very slow in acknowledging the importance of technology. There are numerous limitations to the usage of PayPal – which is our ideal means of receiving payments. This means that our clients have to often pay us through bank transfers and a lot of money goes into transfer fees. But you cannot waste your time blaming them. You have to find your way through.”
Now, he is investing small amounts in small startups around north Sri Lanka. “In Sri Lanka, there are only three investing firms and all of them are focussed on the returns they can get. I want to challenge this mindset. I am more interested in how innovative the idea is, not how profitable it will be. It should be disruptive and challenging. It should have the power to wipe out its competition.”

Extreme-seo.net celebration in 2014

Many other things can be told about Sharanyan’s story, because his entrepreneurial journey has been eventful. He has shaped his own code of conduct through experiences, the reason why he prioritises ‘learning by doing’ as opposed to ‘learning at school’ (he got a diploma, but only after becoming an affirmed entrepreneur). Ultimately, one understands his philosophy when he says: “On every page of my business plan, I wrote ‘never give up’, because that is the first mandatory step to be unique.”
For more info about Sharanyan’s story check his personal website