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PgcInfotech.com: Incubating business ideas.

During his college days, Yeragaselvan got to hear the stories of his college mates getting into jobs, most of which, they later realized themselves to be a square peg in a round hole. Some of the people were into jobs that drove their motivation spirit down into the drain.

Hailing from Chennai, Yeraga disliked going for the usual nine to fiver job. After completing his B.E. in Electronics and Communications from Kongu Engineering College, he went to the UK to pursue his Masters degree

at Westminster University in London . But his inner urge to become an entrepreneur saw h

im dropping his higher studies. He came back to Chennai and co-founded PGC Infotech during 2008 along with his friend Prem.

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PGC Group is a diversified group having business interest across real-estate, energy, textile, retail, etc., and has launched a technology seed fund for incubating various business ideas. The objective of this fund is to incubate various business ideas, whereby, the best of the ideas are nurtured by best of the talent. Each idea gets enough resource at PGC Jacob’s Ladder dvd and the venture is meticulously planned and delivered into this world.

Employing nearly 100 people, PGC infotech based in Chennai has a development center at Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. Getting a team at his development centre is a difficult task since it is situated too far away from a metropolitan city. Yeraga has to ensure that people joining his company will not get disoriented with the place. He takes into count the attitude of the people as the primary yardstick to judge an incumbent employee for his company. The required skills are then imparted to make the employees fit for the marathon run at PGC Infotech.

Being at various high responsibility jobs in India and in USA, Sharad gives out a pep talk to Startupstory.in.

“I believe to be innovative and create something new. For this I should go to the seed level rather than worry about the size of tree trunk”, quips the 35 year old Sharad.

Corporate Vs Startup
“Corporate is about defending your turf and Startups are about building a new turf. In corporate environment you focus on leveraging what you have, thus you need to be more defensive in your approach. In Corporate, you create virtual boundaries and waste time to defend them, whereas in a startup, you create new boundaries that are always focused on building your business idea. So in a Startup your approach to business is forthcoming and open.”

Sartup scenario in India
“Startup is not a new phenomenon for India, but these days it has got its needed formal identity. India has a more vibrant small business setup when compared to corporate America. Earlier in India, either you had a government job or you had to start a business. Remember startup is a painful ride with minimal immediate returns and has more complexity. But, it is the kick you get that keeps you going day in and day out.”

Strength of an Indian CEO
“We as Indians are very well equipped with dealing the unknown. In our day to day life, there is no guarantee that next moment we will have electricity, whether the elevator will work, whether the maid will show up, where the person driving in front will turn, but we very comfortably navigate it. Whereas in a developed country the factor called ‘unknown’ is negligible and is predictable. In a developed country the train arrives on time, everything works in a clockwork precision and people are in peace. So, Indian managers are seasoned to lead business in uncertain times very comfortably without panic. We have unknowingly inherited the skills needed to manage a startup which has many unknowns and is a very unpredictable system”.

The startup journey
“The pleasure is not in the destination, but in the journey, generally your current goal is your next destination. But when you reach it, your itinerary would be ready for the next destination. Enjoy the journey and remember whether the destination or milestone is success or failure. It is just incidental, don’t pay too much attention to it.”

Indian Startups and Indian economy
“Startup successes are very critical for our country. We need a lot of positive stories and press bytes. Some how I think we after independence thought it is the responsibility of the government to fix all the problems and even we want them to create employment. In current wave of economic growth, we moved from desired government job to corporate job. While we go to school, why are we trained to join in some job? Why we are not taught to start a business and solve a social / political problem and convert it into an opportunity and monetize from it?”
“The success of a startup can inspire and liberate an innocent graduate or even a college drop out to make the plunge and solve our social and economic challenges and contribute to our economy as a whole.”

Are you still defending your own turf at a big company? Why not build a new turf?

Are the Corporates hearing?

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W: pgcinfotech.com,  whereismyboss.com

Sharad’s twitter - twitter.com/sharadvajpayee

Deskaway.com: Put your projects on cruise control

Gone are the days, when managing a team project involved the flexing steps of planning, scheduling and setting up the project. With the blessing of internet, now less planning is done and more of work is executed, with people in the team dispersed far and away even across the globe.

Sahil Parikh, the 29 year old entrepreneur from Mumbai sets in to cool off the vapours which usually rumbles up whenever more people are involved in a project. His SaaS (Software as a service) Daylight divx venture, DeskAway.com is a subscription based collaborative online service which enables business teams to organize, manage & track the progress of their team work from anywhere. This self funded startup is on track to provide simple and powerful tools through the web for people to work in a smarter way and at an affordable cost. Besides the project collaboration features, DeskAway also includes comment threads, RSS feeds, instant email notifications, user profiles and twitter-like social message updates.

In the year 1997, Sahil went to USA for pursuing his higher education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wherein he got associated with the founding team of an entrepreneurship society in his university. He had the luck of rubbing shoulders with investors and incubators. Further he got into multiple jobs which gave him the moral strength to co-start his own web design and development consultancy with his wife in March 2002.

The perception then in the USA was that India is a low-cost service destination perfect for off-shoring and that good quality products don’t come out of India that often. Though the number of clients for his service business grew in the successive 3 years, Sahil’s interest to plunge into a product business made him quit his job and shift his web design business to India in early 2005. Later he added up DeskAway, his first ever SaaS product during late 2007.

Though he was trying to phase out his service business, he could not do so since there was no other income to fuel his uphill journey. To earn the money needed for running his product business, he added up a couple of web development projects. Unlike a service business which earns money right from day one, a product business needs much of the time and effort to build and it pays back only at a later stage. The effort needed for steaming up his product business was getting beaten down and his entrepreneurial journey was facing a slippery path. He then took the critical decision to quit all service projects and concentrate 100% on DeskAway

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. He quips that it was best decision he had ever made in his life.

Now a team of 12 comprising of developers, online marketers, web/UI designer, business strategy consultants, testers, etc., manage the show. Sahil feels a joy in helping a developer learn new things to create a win-win situation. He is particular on hiring a person who wants to learn, rather than an expert who only wants to earn.

Web-savvy teams and professional small businesses which work in virtual teams are his target users. Though there are more than 11,000 registered users to boast off, getting new customers have been his real juggernaut. In India, people didn’t understand the business model of this online product and why the software was so affordable? He laughs at instances where he was called in by Ad agencies and PR firms for presentations, and they would want to buy and install the DeskAway software in their stand alone PCs. There is an online help & video section to impart knowledge on how to get started with DeskAway

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. This has drastically reduced the cost which was otherwise incurred towards customer acquisition and support.

A social network sort of open relationship exists between this company and feedback from their customers are taken in the right spirit to make DeskAway more productive for the user. Their product offer starts with a basic “free” version (supports 5 users) which has almost all aspects of the product to the higher end “$99/month” model (Unlimited users). Poltergeist divx

Sahil votes for promoting his business through the online medium due to lower cost and higher reach. To make their presence known far away, initiatives such as SEO, SEM, online affiliation are often explored in addition to implementing a vibrant FaceBook Fanpage and maintaining an active presence on Twitter.

“At the end of the day software should be fun and easy to use. Just like your social network. Right?” Sahil tells to Startupstory.

Blogs: DeskAway.com/blog & SahilParikh,com

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Micro Blogs: Twitter.com/DeskAway & Twitter.com/SahilParikh

FaceBook Fanpage : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deskaway/34895509600 November Son buy

Muziboo.com: Get An Audience

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Their passion for creating something from scratch made this young couple from Banglore to do a part-time weekend project to provide a Web 2.0 platform for sharing and discussing music. This was apart from their full-time work at a startup company involved in embedded solutions, where he was in Engineering team and she in the HR team. But the company scraps down the product due to funding issues. On the other side their hobby project had been gaining steam with ever increasing number of users. This gave them the impetus to make their hobby into a full time venture.

The key idea of their project is not just promoting music, but to provide a place to add fun in the process of creating, exchanging and discussing music. In a true Web 2.0 style, users can upload their audio and share with others for free. Muziboo.com started during August 2007, has a healthy mix of people right from sound engineers & short film makers to composers & label owners and plays as a ‘one stop huddle’ for anybody with aspirations for music. The users showcase and make their work better with the help of their peers adding constructive criticism similar to the commenting system for a blog article in a Web 2.0 style.

The self funded Banglore based company has no employees. Nithya takes care of marketing while her husband Prateek does the coding and there are no official designations yet. It is a classic example of a bootstrapped venture. On their marketing strategy, Nithya tells “Customer service is marketing”, I hope this dedication will keep their brand to be well known in the days to come.

In response to their users’ feedback, they have introduced added benefits like high bitrate streaming, private sharing, unlimited photo uploads etc., for a premium professional package of $25 per year. With half a million page views per month, they are scaling the absolute size of Muziboo.com to hit sustainability with their model.

The site is quite interactive and there is a 24 Hour internet radio which plays songs prepared by its members. There are different bands and you too can create your own band at the website.

Email: contact@muziboo.com

Blog:muziboo.com/blog

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Nithya blogs at nithyadayal.com/blog and Prateek blogs at prateekdayal.net/blog

Silverstripesoftware.com: Easing the pain in making software deliveries

“Always hire quality people” is the rule followed by Siddharta Govindaraj, the 29 years old founder of Silverstripesoftware.com, a Chennai based self funded startup which has just two employees including the founder himself.

Though many companies want to stick to this rule, they get desperate after looking around for a while and eventually lower their hiring standards. “We are comfortably waiting till we find the right people” tells Sid who started his company in March 2007.

One of the leading causes of project failure is the poor communication between stakeholders and teams. Silverstripesoftware.com specialises in software that eases this pain in making software deliveries.

During his 4 years stint as an employee with a startup in Singapore, Sid got the experience in a process called Agile Software Development. Since the process was new at that time, there was a lack of quality tools available for developing this software. Sid had the vision of filling this gap and started off his own company back in India.

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Offering their basic version for free and advanced version for a premium, their target customers are SMEs and medium size development shops abroad. Now a toddler in its development, the lack of money is the real challenge for this baby to grow, but this company does selective projects to get the revenue for funding their product development. With a record 3000 downloads of their software and with positive feedback for a couple of added features, they are making a few changes in their current version.

Though they manage revenues from custom projects, marketing is done through the internet and by actively participating in the Agile Software Development community in India. Since there are a very few established companies in its niche and their competitors being in business for less than two years, Sid finds it a level playing field to be won at the right possible time and achieve profits by middle of 2009. Sid a visionary of Chennai Open Coffee Club is pepping up his engines for achieving a break even by end of 2009 by concentrating on marketing and sales.

From his own experience he finds that many people while plunging into entrepreneurship have many doubts hindering on pursuing their entrepreneurial idea. Though many people opine that the right way is to clear all the doubts beforehand, Sid makes it a strong point that entrepreneurs should go ahead and make a plunge on starting up on their own.

“There is no way to clear everything upfront before starting. First start and then tackle each challenge as it comes on your path” tells Sid.

That is Kaushik the first employee of Silverstripesoftware.com

. He blogs at chaosbudha.blogspot.com and his microblog is http://twitter.com/kausikram

OrangeScape.com makes web application development a breeze

During his teenage and having just completed his 12th Standard in his native, a three tier coastal town called Cuddalore, he indulges in entrepreneurship by starting a company in the year 1992. The company did IT training and also attempted to churn out projects for the factories setting up shop at the nearby SIPCOT area. Though it had its initial successful days, the experiment was not promising and he along with his partners disposed it off for Rs.1 Lakh during 1995.

Then he searches for a full time job with a vision to learn things and gets an important career break at Hewlett-Packard, in Bangalore. Gets involved in developing software that detects fraud on the cell phone network for Vodafone and from there moves on to work for a US Based, specialized, rule engine company called Selectica. Proves his mantle and gets two successive double promotions leading to Director of Engineering of eInsurance Division. Meanwhile the eInsurance division got sold off to Accenture.

But the steam inside this man with passion to work on products had enough energy to make an uphill drive. “Why not we start on our own?” this question laid the foundation stone of OrangeScape.com. He along with his former tech. lead makes the plunge to start the company @ Chennai in 2003, which has now grown to serving around 40 enterprise customers from around the world apart from establishing their own office in USA & Germany.

The entrepreneur we are talking about is Mr.Suresh Sambandam, the Founder & CEO of OrangeScape.com which churns out a unique, patent pending approach of using a spreadsheet like interface to develop sophisticated enterprise class web applications. Their product called DimensionN is a Do-It-Yourself platform which eliminates the gap between the business and technical knowledge. Without the knowledge of programming, one can make a powerful web-based business applications using their simple spreadsheet interface.

Suresh tells “OrangeScape platform would be the most easy and simple to use, yet it is comprehensive enough to build any type of business applications and neutral to vertical or domain! “

This Chennai based angel funded, public limited company employs around 50 people. Suresh feels a real challenge in finding the right employee and referral based employment works out fine for them.

Achievements of OrangeScape include, being recognized as the Top Innovator by NASSCOM for the last two consecutive years and being one of the 3 companies showcased as EMERGING companies in the NASSCOM Product Conclave. With 15 years of industry experience, Suresh has a passion towards entrepreneurship & technology startups and gets tied up with spending his time in the startup eco system. He mentors budding entrepreneurs at the E-Cell of IIT Bombay and he is one of the Advisors of NuVeda Learning.

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Hover.in set to revolutionize in-text content & Ads

Till date in-text Ads are somewhat the usual thing used in the websites to make those extra bucks. Though there are a number of in-text Ad networks in the world, there is no control for the owner of the web site over the Ads being served at his/her own web site.

“We change it all !!”, triumphs Arun the CEO of hover.in. Arun & Bosky the founders of hover.in are churning out a new technology of its kind wherein the web site owners can decide on what Ads will be served on their website. American Splendor ipod

Boasting of the fact that they are the world’s first, this Pune based Indian startup Hover.in provides a new platform of in-text customized content and Ad delivery platform. The demand should see an expanding trend since the advertising model gives more control for the advertisers and the publisher. They are moving towards an action based online advertising model.
On the branding perspective Arun is optimistic that the viral concept in the product which is now in beta will make the selling by itself. Little or no marketing is needed to make the selling. The demand expands for an advertising model if the advertisers and publishers are having more control, tells the 33 year old entrepreneur.
Way back in the year 2007 when Arun was in USA, he stumbled with Bosky’s (Bhasker) pet project on in-text technology. After initial brainstorming for a couple of months the two decided to build a prototype to look at the feasibility of the project. Thus rolled out hover.in.
With seed funding for this Pune based start-up coming from a media company in April’08 they plan to reach the Indian market in the first year and subsequently going global.
While Bosky handles the tech side, Arun takes care of the business side of the company which now employs 8 people, with a former Google intern being their first employee to churn out the crawl engine. While employing people, Arun believes in attitude of people rather than skill sets. He believes that skills can be acquired, but not attitude. Of course he looks for the flexible and willing minds to take on new challenges to make hover.in create waves in the online advertisement segment.
Now in beta, hover is offered to select publishers. With more positive feedback from the beta users, hover will be public in a couple of months. Its available for free to any online publisher / blogger.

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Arun’s blogs @ trak.in

Bosky blogs @ bhaskervk.com

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