Furniture shopping becomes easier with Mebelkart.com

Bangalore based MebelKart Technologies Pvt. Ltd recently launched http://www.mebelkart.com  focussed on making furniture shopping easier, reliable and cost-effective. Currently they have focussed their operations in Bangalore and Mumbai. Mebelkart is currently targeting categories like bean bags, executive chairs, computer chairs, office chairs and cafeteria chairs.

The Company is formed by professionals having expertise in the ecommerce Industry. Mebelkart intends to use various technical tools to make the process of furniture selling Customer Friendly and seamless.

India’s infrastructure is growing at the rate of 30%. e-commerce market in India is expected to touch $ 24 billion by 2015 . The Indian furniture market is currently worth $8 billion and growing at a rate of 30 per cent compounded annually with the organized Indian furniture accounting for 15 per cent. There are very less recognized brands and there are a lot of problems while buying furniture. This excites the founders Ranjeet and Nikhil to enter into this difficult but promising market.

“While we keep our focus on B2C, we recognize the potential of B2B market. We are about to launch our B2B site namely MebelSupply (supply.mebelkart.com) for bulk deals and corporate supplies. This site enables Companies and bulk purchasers to get various office supplies at one single place. Through MebelSupply we are providing a platform to small and medium enterprises to buy bulk deals online or request for quotes through MebelSupply” says Ranjeet, the co-founder of MebelKart who graduated from IIT-Bombay and worked previously for Arcot Systems and CA Technologies.

“Customer Delight is our focus. Anything which makes the Customers happy is what we are targeting at be it better delivery, more options to choose from, lesser prices, more brands. We intend to achieve this through local partnerships to make our entire process more efficient and fast ” says Nikhil ,the co-founder of MebelKart, a BITS-Pilani graduate and having previously worked with Travelocity.

Mebelkart also offers product customization in some categories like Beanbags. If you have a design then MebelKart will get it custom manufactured for you. You can post that design to MebelKart’s faceBook page and request the fans to like it. If the number of likes on that particular design reaches a benchmark of 200, MebelKart will get that converted into a product.

In the near future, ©MebelKart plans to expand its portfolio to other categories like Tables, Wardrobe, Paintings, Bedsheets, Office Cubicles and other office / home supplies.

Read more... :)

NEN E Week 2012

E Week India 2012 urges youth to ‘Invent the Future’ through entrepreneurship

• E Week theme calls upon young entrepreneurs to ‘Invent the Future’ by providing innovative solutions for the biggest problems
• Led by Entrepreneurship Cells in 540 academic institutes and their 80,000 student members across India
• Supported by 30 entrepreneurship organisations

Entrepreneurship Week India (E Week 2012, http://eweek.nenonline.org/) – the largest national entrepreneurship event that reaches out to lakhs of people to build awareness and support - will take place from the 11 to 18 February 2012. E Week India is run by the National Entrepreneurship Network, supported by the Wadhwani Foundation and is led by over 80,000 student members and 1200 faculty from NEN Entrepreneurship Cells (E Cells) at 540 member institutes.

The theme for E Week 2012 calls upon young people to ‘Invent the Future’ as successful entrepreneurs, by providing innovative solutions to address the many large issues that communities across the country strive to cope with: availability of clean water, garbage and waste management, accessible healthcare, reliable power and growing pollution. .

As a special feature of E Week - “EWeek@Schools” - will reach out to school students in the age group of 7-16 years in schools across the country. They will be introduced to the possibilities and ideas of entrepreneurship through the Rs. 50 exercise - an experiential business lesson, by college students and faculty from NEN E Cells.

The week-long campaign also involves more than 30 organizations that support entrepreneurship and corporate, business leaders, experts, non-profits and faculty leaders to inspire, encourage, and mentor students.

During E Week, participants on and off campuses across the country - students, entrepreneurs, faculty members, industry leaders and key members of the community will take the E Week Pledge and engage in thousands of events. These include competitions, expositions, educational movie screenings, leadership and motivation talks with successful entrepreneurs, panel discussions, business plan and skills-building workshops, business and tech bazaars, awareness campaigns and more. In addition, participants can sign up on the E Week website to share their experiences, view events information, and connect with the larger NEN community.

E Week will culminate on 18th February, 2012 with a gala Awards Ceremony in Bangalore. NEN member academic institutes will be chosen for the E Week India 2012 Championship Awards as well as 3 Special Awards: 1) E Week @ School Award 2) Nilima Rovshen Creativity and Innovation Award 3) Most Effective Public Awareness Campaign Award. Student representatives of the Award winners will be flown to Bangalore for the Awards Ceremony attended by students from various institutes, eminent people from the industry and the government.

Read more... :)

Junglee.com : Welcome to the Jungle

Here comes Amazon.com at last as Junglee.com, a company (domain name) that Amazon had acquired in 1998.

Junglee.com is still in its beta and offers 1.2 crore products, 90 lakhs of them are books, from over 14,000 brands and hundreds of retailers. Some of the big retailers listed on Junglee are homeShop18, UniverCell, Hidesign, Gitanjali, The Bombay Store, Fabindia, Bata India Limited, Dabur, Microsoft India Store, Reebok, Indiaplaza, bookAdda and Amazon.com.

Due to government restriction on FDI in multi-brand retail, Junglee.com is just an “Online Shopping Service” which helps user to compare price and availability from other e-retailers. You cannot buy products directly from Junglee.com. As of now IT’S NOT AN E-RETAILER and acting as a postman.

Few Observations:

• Price offered by Amazon on junglee.com is just a currency conversion from dollar to rupee. Check the snapshot given below. I searched for a book on jungle.com, 4 Indian retailers + Amazon are offering this book. Look at the price differences there. Amazon is selling that book 10 times costlier than others, also note the price offered by amazon, its 2,430 rupees and 40 paise. Where the heck does this 40 Paisa come from?

I wasn’t expecting this from Amazon. All my high hopes of Amazon India went down the drain.

• Existing Amazon users can login using their Amazon credentials. Users can then review products and even ‘Like’ products as well as sellers. "Hey Zuck, I think you should take a closer look of Amazon’s like button. Forget about raising 5 billion$ by going public, just hire a lawyer, pay him few hundred thousand dollar and get few billions from Amazon." :P
• 
  Junglee doesn’t have prices from FlipKart, myntra, infiBeam and Yebhi.
• Indian retailers can sign up for Amazon Product Ads to list their products on Junglee.com and advertise their product selection to drive targeted customer traffic to their websites and physical stores at zero cost. To get their products on to Junglee, retailers have to sign up for an account, upload their product catalog and Junglee takes care of the rest.

Do you think, Amazon is so dumb that it is helping its own competitors to grow their businesses?

Here is the master plan: By providing a common platform to consumers and retailers, Amazon knows what a customer wants and what are the prices offered by other Indian retailers (competitors) in real time. So it’s simple, Amazon will be selling products cheaper than what other Indian retailers are offering. Eventually, this will kill the competition.

Amit Agarwal (the author of leading tech blog labnol.org) has developed a bookmarklet that lets you compare prices of books on Junglee.com with that of Flipkart and Infibeam in one go.

Check this out “Is Junglee Cheaper than Flipkart or Infibeam?”

Read more... :)

Pitch It! - An opportunity for Startups to get funded by Top Investors of India

The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay presents Pitch it! for the startups who are looking for funding.

With it's unique format of express funding, the participants of Pitch it! get an opportunity to pitch before panel of investors. The best 10 entries will be selected from all over India for the finals at E-Summit 2012, where they will get exposure to funding opportunities from top Angel Investors viz.Mumbai Angels, Indian Angel Network(IAN) and many more. Some of previous year's investors are Blue Run Ventures, Seedfund, Canaan Partners, Telnet Ventures etc.


Pitch it! is a three phase event:

1. The first phase is online submission of the questionnaire by the start-ups. 10 entries will be shortlisted by a panel of investors for the final closed-room pitching.

2. The second phase comprises of mentoring, where these top 10 teams will be mentored on “pitching tactics” for funding from experts.

3. The third and final phase would be held at E-Summit on 29th January, 2012, IIT Bombay wherein the start-ups will be required to present their final pitch in their quest for funding by the Angel Investors/Venture Capitalists.


Don't miss out on this opportunity. Registration for Phase 1 closes on 5th december, 2011.

For more details and registering visit http://www.ecell.in/pitchit

Read more... :)

Go Skydiving or Trekking to 13000 feet this Diwali by Tushky.com

Tushky.com, a state-of-the-art ecommerce web portal providing unique travel and event experiences, is coming up with a big experience for all ardent adventure lovers.

True to its vision of providing never before experiences, Tushky.com has announced its extravagant diwali vacation, in line with promoting green diwali- authentic skydiving camp in India followed by a trek to the 13000 ft high beas kund in Himachal. When the festival of lights is around the corner, celebrating a Green Diwali near to the Mother Nature without crackers is a unique idea.

After the super success of its first commercial skydiving camp in picturesque locales of Sagar in MP and setting a record of the youngest tandem skydiving, Tushky.com proudly presents second skydiving camp in UP and trekking unfolding the magical experience at Himalayan Valley. Trekking alongside the beas river and stunning landscape with soaring mountain, one will finally reach the breath taking destination Beas Kund.

Mr.Talvinder Singh, founder of Tushky.com shares “What differentiates us from other large companies is our ability to reach and appeal to small and independent tour guides and individual who will share their beautiful world with the travelers.” He adds “This adventure aims to go beyond the limits of your fear and spend a gala time living a life amidst of nature. Go back to mother nature, there is no better way to celebrate green diwali.”

Tushky.com's diwali celebration begins with the sky diving camp, starting from 22nd October to 25th October 2011 at Uttar Pradesh. The three day camp ensures, to provide a life time experience of skydiving from 10000 feet. The event is partnered with seasoned and celebrated skydivers having a collective experience of almost 50 years and over 8000 jumps with highest rated USPA (United States Parachute Association) certification. The celebration continues with a 7 day all inclusive trek, taking you through a route rarely explored while also allowing you the leisure to explore the pristine tourist hot spot from its starting station-Manali. During the trek you will luxuriate in vast area of green carpet with colorful flowers which goes through Solang Valley’s lush-green fields and orchards.

Tushky, a young and passionate start up by IIT Alumini, believes in taking home a memory and cherishing them life long. It’s a one stop solution providing experiences like Adventure and outdoor; art and culture; leisure and entertainment; wining and dining; mind and body rejuvenation and many more at spectacular places across India.

To be a part of this unique experience and celebrating Diwali with Nature, log on to www.tushky.com

Read more... :)

DreamAge Entertainment: from the World of Media and Entertainment

DreamAge Entertainment is one of India’s leading production house also the most contemporary one. DreamAge Entertainment is a fully integrated media firm, based in Mumbai. We represent a company that includes Innovation because DreamAge use the latest cutting edge equipment, the best and brightest media and production professionals in the industry. The best methods and the newest techniques to produce content that gets stunning results.

We execute any project in well organized and effective manner because we have sharp strategic planning and also in-depth knowledge of local resources. We understand that every project has a unique set of objectives and specific requirements. Therefore, we take great precaution in accessing the specific creative and production needs & other parameters like the deadlines and the budget always keeping in mind. We specialize in affordable contemporary Content Video Production and Ad Film Production.

Established in February 2011 by the joint efforts of Gaurav Agarwal, Vir Singh, Rupesh Kumar and Shweta Sudhakar Gautam, We provide a full service video production that specializes in sectors like content creation, corporate films, tutorial videos and Ad Film making. DreamAge will have some unique qualities in their products which differ us from others. We think and truly believe in creativity, experience and work intelligently and always matter to produce our dream project. We are the architects of our concept and Together, we create our vision, and hammer out the key elements that are important to an industry. By understanding the essence of concept, we lay a plan that produces great results.

This is a guest post by DreamAge Entertainment. You can contact DreamAge Entertainment at deepak@dreamageent.com

Read more... :)

Get A Job at Startup Using DreamStarts.in

Do you ever wonder how people get involved with the up and coming startup companies? Are you hungry to find meaningful work with a company who has the potential to really make it big? Do you love to work on ideas those are just written on tissue paper? Do you have such passion to climb with new entrepreneurs to reach from 10 $ to Billion $ organization? If you have such interest then here is the DreamStarts.in to connect you with the world of startups.

DreamStarts.in is a Job Portal/Job Board where Startups post job vacancies and potential employees (Talents) apply to the jobs, which is absolutely free. Startups can explore their ideas, thoughts, services, achievements and vision to the emerging market.

What makes DreamStarts different than other job sites in India?

• Talents can find jobs offered by emerging Startups.
• We do not ask users to create login/profile.
• Talents can apply online and post resume to the employers directly.
• We do not collect resumes. We provide a platform where talents can directly contact to Startups.
• We do not display company’s contact information without prior permission.
• Startups can find talents without any involvement of third-party recruiting agency.
• Company profile page for the startups.
• This service is absolutely free for both Startups and Talents.

What’s in it for the Talent?

The jobs on DreamStarts offered by startups are not just your everyday office job. These jobs will test your skills and creativity, lead to all sorts of opportunities and often come with a decent sized pay.

There are all types of jobs on board FULL TIME JOBS, PART TIME JOBS, FREELANCE JOBS and INTERNAHIP, further these types of jobs are arranged in different categories

WEB/UI/Graphics - contains all jobs related web designing and graphics,
JAVA/C/C++ - Contains software development jobs,
PHP/PYTHON/RUBY -contains scripting language jobs,
APPS - Contains all mobile apps/iOS apps and android apps design jobs,
Content/Journalism - content developer and SEO jobs
Sales/marketing jobs – Sales, marketing and management jobs .

Working at any startup is entirely different from working at big companies. So Mr. Talent, before applying for a startup job from the list of opportunities we publish on board, you will need to ask yourself and answer first before applying for startup jobs.

1. The first decision you must make is to conclude on what stage of the startup ladder you are comfortable slotting into.
2. Are you fine being the third/fourth employee and sharing a table with the two co-founders in a shared co-working space?
3. Are you more comfortable joining the team after they’ve raised a seed or series A round?

You can be kept in the loop via Facebook or Twitter.

What’s in it for the Startups?

Startups are not like other companies, so why hire people the way other companies do? Why do startups need to pay big bucks to recruiting firms? With DreamStarts.in, you can post your jobs for free and talents can reach to you directly. Startups can post any number of job advertisements and receive applications from skilled, experienced and best suitable talents. Startup can sort the profiles through the applications on the basis of experience, skills and qualifications.

Startups can also mail their job requirements to DreamStarts @ info@dreamstarts.in which will be published on board.

DreamStarts also features Startups in Indian-Satartups section and provide them unique URL according to their name. e.g. http://dreamstarts.in/company-name in simple English it’s “The Dream Starts in ‘company-name’”.

Indian Startups are going through a golden age and this startup world is hiring fast. If you want to work in an enthusiastic, frenetic, “anything’s possible” environment or if you want to publish your job ads I highly recommend checking out DreamStarts.in.

Follow DreamStarts on FaceBook and Twitter.

We really appreciate feedback!!! E-mail us at info@dreamstarts.in and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Read more... :)

I'm attending "Startup Saturday" Bangalore chapter on Oct 8th.

The next session of Startup Saturday Bangalore will be held on 8th Oct. I am attending this session, are you?

The main topic of this session will be "Term Sheets", a often neglected but important topic. Term sheets are an essential element of the fundraising process and they contain a lot of details which if not properly understood could cost an entrepreneur lots of value and cause problems downstream. This talk will walk through pre-money, post-money, capitalization tables, exclusivity, options pool carve outs, liquidation preferences, founder vesting, anti-dilution protection and many other terms.

Event Date : 8th October 2011
Event Venue : Room No. 301,Central Block,Christ College, Bangalore
Register for the Event at : http://startupsaturday.headstart.in/event.php?eid=161

If you are planning to attend this "Startup Saturday" in bangalore then let me know. Leave your message as comment to this post or mail me, my id is ranjeet@geekonnet.com. Lets meet up. It would be great to discuss ideas and blogging experiences over a cup of coffee. :)

Read more... :)

InMobi Raises $200 Million

Bangalore based mobile ad network company inMobi has raised $200 million in funding from Japan’s Softbank which would come in two Tranches one of $100 millon in September 2011 and the other $100 million in April of 2012. Including this huge money, InMobi has raised $215 million till date.

InMobi was founded in India in 2007 where it become the dominate ad network across the Asia Pacific Region. The company launched in the U.S. and Europe in early 2010. InMobi helps advertisers and developers serve up mobile ads, a fast-growing industry that has been fueled by the rise of consumer cellphones and multimedia-rich smartphones like Apple’s iPhone, android’s phones.

Everyone is just talking about this huge funding (probably this is the largest venture funding of year-11) but there is no news about the valuation or the current revenue of InMobi. How InMobi raised such a large funding? On What basis they got it? There would be only 2 possibilities behind InMobi’s $200 million funding.

1. InMobi would have shown a valuation of at least $ 2 billion in front of investors. Mobile ad marketing is growing but still it is a small market. According to a eMarketer “Mobile advertising is still a fairly small market. The total spend for such advertising is projected to hit $1.1 billion in the U.S. this year. That spend will hit $2.5 billion in 2014, the researcher estimates.” We should note that InMobi has big competitors like Google and Apple and these 2 companies hold the control on majority of smart phones (Andriod phones and IPhone). Would not this $2 billion valuation fairly big figure for InMobi.
2. So the 2nd thing that would have possible is, InMobi must be generating at least $20 million revenue so it got funding of 10 times of it's current revenue. This can be possible, because InMobi has good market capture in Asia Pecific and they are growing rapidly in latin American and in European market.

It really doesn’t matter how they pitched inmobi’s future in front of investors or how much of revenue they are generating currently. The thing that does matter, this company is doing extremely very well, growing rapidly and giving a good competition to the players like Google, Apple in the field of Mobile Ad networks. This funding will definitely help InMobi in its expansion. It might possible that they make their head count double or tipple. This means, InMobi will be opening many jobs for we Indian.

Indian Startups are going through a golden time currently. They are doing extremely well (FilpKart, Myntra, YeBhi, RedBus, SnapDeal, inkfruit, HomeShop18, SMSGupShup, JustDial and many more) and giving a good fight to American’s giants. Flipkart, InMobi, Redbus, SMSGupshup and JustDial are already in the list of 20 Hot International Startups You Need To Watch by Business Insider.

GeekOnNet congrats InMobi for its funding.

Company: InMobi

Head Quarter : Bangalore, India

Founder and CEO : Naveen Tewari

Funding: $215 million

Read more... :)

1st Commercial skydiving in India by Tushky.com

Tushky.com, Mumbai’s No. 1 site for unique activities, tours and getaways; brings to you all, a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the 1st commercial Skydiving camp in India!

Watch the video to know the people behind this piece of history.

Led by a team of celebrated and seasoned Skydivers in Asia who are registered USPA (United States Parachute Association) coaches!

Feel the rush as emotions like excitement, nervousness, fear and freedom collide, when you are about to do a free fall from the edge of a plane at a height of 4500 ft. Fly like a bird, float like a cloud and hear the wind whistle as you descend towards the ground at a speed of 200km/hr. The Ariel view of the landscape below, guarantees an amazing yet a surreal experience.

Be a part of this exciting, enthralling, once-in-a-lifetime experience on the 24 September, in the beautiful state of Madhya Pradesh.

Only 30 Seats! Book now!

Tushky.com

Read more... :)

SMS GupShup Raised $10 Million in series E funding

Mumbai-based social networking site, based around SMS and bulk messaging, SMS GupShup, has raised $10 million from Tenaya Capital. Including this, SMS GupShup has raised $47 million till date. Money is raised at the valuation of 1,000 crore though company is targeting a revenue of 100 crore by the end of FY-12, ie. valuation is more than 10 times of its current revenue. Majority of revenue comes from GupShup’s bulk messaging system.

SMS GupShup, owned by Webaroo (an offline search engine company), was incorporated in 2007 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and incubated at IIT Bombay’s SINE(Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship). GupShup connects 50 miilion users, 5 million user generated communities and 25,000 small businesses via Mobile and SMS.

Company: SMS GupShup
Website: http://www.smsgupshup.com
Location: Mumbai (IIT-Bombay)
Started in : 2007
Funding till date: $47 Million
CEO: Beerud Sheth
Ref: http://blog.dreamstarts.in/sms-gupshup-raised-10-million-in-series-e-funding/

Read more... :)

Tushky : For Exciting Experiences in Travel and activities.

Are you a travel freak? Do you love traveling but never have the time to plan and arrange your trip? Or you are not able to find out interesting places to go, interesting things to do.

GeekOnNet is showcasing another hot Indian startup (Tushky.com) that will take care of planning and arrangement of your trip to make it memorable and adventures. Tushky, an online marketplace to buy, sell or promote exciting travel experiences or experience related activities, in Mumbai and nationally, to provide an alternative to the impersonal approach of large tour companies and legacy travel agents.

Tushky is founded by a team of IIT Bombay, alumni:

Tushky is a hub for any experience-seeker to connect with local experience-provider and vice-versa. Tushky is for travelers who will love to live through the experience instead of just looking at it. The "been there, done that" era of fleeting visits to famous sites is well and truly over - travel virgins excepted. The modern traveler wants to take home a memory, not a memento.”

Tushky works only with a pick of providers, who can offer the best experience in their domain. Each experience is authenticated before putting them online; hence the buyer is sure of the quality of the experience.

“We added activities in our bouquet of products since, travelers are active 14 hours a day, but typically spend only six hours with the primary lure or attraction (the primary reason for visiting). That leaves an additional 8 hours for secondary activities or diversions. What is there to do after 5:00 pm? Downtowns can fill this role: providing entertainment, events, shopping, dining, etc. in a pedestrian-friendly setting.” Mr. CEO adds.

By providing a user-friendly platform, with a built-in community to promote the experiences across Facebook, twitter and Gmail, the team believes that, they will be able to claim a substantial stake of the $26.7 billion activity and experience market, which this year has become the fastest growing segment of the leisure travel market (with revenues surpassing those of cruises and car rentals combined). Tushky’s goal is to become the largest destination for travel experiences and activities worldwide, with an initial focus on Mumbai, where they plan to grow organically as local experts add their tours and experiences and from there, branch out nationally and internationally.

“Travel has seen tremendous innovation in flight and accommodation booking, especially with sites like Hipmunk and Airbnb disrupting the industry,”

“But once these reservations are booked, travelers still rely on old-school (and costly) guidebooks, travel agents, and large tours to plan their itineraries. It’s the blind spot of the travel industry.”

Tushky makes money by taking a percentage fee from those offering experiences (“local experts”). It anticipates additional revenue streams coming from affiliate partnerships with companies offering flight and accommodations, which would also provide their users with a fun and easy way to plan a trip they feel good about in just a few clicks.

Tushky is entering a market dominated by Makemytrip, cleartrip, Travelocity and other online travel agencies that have added activities to their offerings, as well as popular travel guide, The Lonely Planet, which has been expanding its online presence and recently added activity booking to their site through the large tour aggregator, Viator.

Mr. CEO says “What will differentiate us from these larger companies is our ability to reach and appeal to small, independent tour guides and individuals who want to share their world and expertise with travelers while making extra cash, as well as to travelers who have lost trust in existing industry platforms and crave more authenticity in their travel experiences. Further, we are bullish about the promotion feature on our site. We are very tightly integrated with social networking sites, because we believe that people love to share and brag about their experiences and expeditions”.

“The large OTA’s are not concerned about providing the unique, backdoor experiences that many travelers want,” says Mr. CEO. “That’s the market we’re trying to address first.”

Tushky.com
11/43, Yeshwant Nagar, S.V. Road, Goregaon(w) - 62
Phone– 022 28714472/3
Info@tushky.com

Read more... :)

contrich.com : Outsource your Website Content

It’s always a pleasure to write about the Indian Startup who is solving the problems of other startups/ businesses and helping them to grow. Good optimized content with very strong SEO is the heart and soul of any web based startup/business. Content outsourcing is a necessity for businesses who want to build a strong online presence with quality content but do not have a dedicated content team. Not only does content outsourcing save time and resources, it allows you to dedicate your time to more pressing things such as promoting your business and developing new product ideas.

Contrich.com (a web product by ByteClip Technologies ) helps you to outsource your web content to content writer/freelancer online. Contrich aims to redefine the process of developing and tracking your website content in a collaborative manner. Contrich bridges the gap between issue tracking systems and content management systems to improve content quality on web pages. It provides clean and innovative interface to capture content issues on a web page.

Company: BytClip Technologies.
Product: contrich.com
Founder(s): Vinay Kumar Singh (B.Tech.+M.Tech. IIT-Bombay), Jayant Upadhyay (B.Tech.+M.Tech. IIT-Delhi), Amit Chandel (B.Tech. IIT-Bombay, MS - University of Toronto) and Manish Pal (B.Tech.+M.Tech. IIT-Delhi)

Before jumping into the outsourcing business you should have some answers ready on your table :

• How do I decide the best fit provider for this job? Will a work sample from the provider help me with this?
• How can I clearly specify my content requirements?
• How can I monitor the work progress?
• How can I review the written content and provide feedback in a timely manner?
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) : How can I effectively specify my SEO requirements and check that the content written by the provider is meeting those requirements?

Since long, the answer to all of these questions has been communication with provider via email and word documents. These are the two most common and widespread used approaches, but it’s time we really thought about the fact that they do not provide the complete answer to any of the questions posed above. It’s time we decide whether these old ways are enough for us. These modes of communication are simple and effective for articles and blogs, but when it comes to writing content on web pages - they have some serious drawbacks. Lets list a few of them out here:

• The provider sends you his sample writings but the content belongs to some other domain and you are not able to judge whether the provider has the required domain expertise.
• You receive the sample work in an email or in a word document attached in the email, but you are not able to visualize your web page with this content written on it.
• The Content send by the provider does not fit in the particular section of your web page. You may need more content or truncate some of the received content.
• You may want to review the content while it is in the development phase(rather than after completion) so that you can bring up issues and provide early feedback.
• The provider can write the content and test its SEO effectiveness using a multitude of tools available on the internet. However, true SEO effectiveness can only be calculated when the content has been integrated into the page as search engines also consider the html tags when calculating your website’s ranking. The delivered content might not meet your SEO expectations and your integration effort may be wasted.

All these and many more of such problems deteriorate productivity due to increased number of development/review/verification cycles, and may lead to poor content quality under pressed timelines. Contrich tries to solve these issues with its collaborative nature and a very simple workflow.

How Contrich works:

The following sections will demonstrate this fact with the homepage of a sample clothes website and some workflow screenshots.

HomePage of a Sample Clothes Website

Requirement Specification

You can start by creating a ticket for your web page and mark the sections where you need content. You can edit the marked sections and specify the nature of your content requirements in each of them(Refer the screenshot below). Here, the sections marked in brown are where you want content to be written.

Requirement Specifications

Getting the Sample Work

Create a test account for the provider and assign the ticket to him. You can mark the sections where you want him to write sample content(Refer to the screenshot below). The provider will then write his sample content in these sections.

Getting the Sample Work

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The provider(and even you) can check the SEO Report for a web page which shows the most significant words and phrases on the web page. This helps him in doing iterative development where he is able to achieve your SEO expectations during the content development phase itself.

SEO Report

Content Review

You can review the content written in any of the sections and report problems on it. The problem sections of a page are marked in red and thus easily identifiable by the provider. The provider can view all the reported problems on a given section and modify the content accordingly.

Problem Reporting

View Reported Problems
Finishing the job

No more searching through your email attachments and word documents – the provider just has to update the ticket and assign it back to you. You have the final html page with the complete content written on it!! Now you can easily extract the page from Contrich and integrate it into your back-end system.

Try contrich.com and do share your experiences with us.
Source Contrich Blog.

Read more... :)

OlaCabs : Book a Car/Cab online!

We have already seen, how internet has revolutionized Train/Flight ticket booking. This technology can also be used to change our ground transportation system. GeekOnNet is featuring another hot startup from Mumbai "OlaCabs", started by 2 IIT-Bombay Alumnus.

OlaCabs offers car rental services for local use as well as outstation use. You can book cab/car online or over the phone.

Why do you want to book cab/car online? GeekOnNet is mentioning some benefits of online car/cab booking.

1. You pay the right price for your journey
2. The security of door to door service
3. Guaranteed journey
4. Ease of use
5. 24 hour service
6. Airport and other journeys
7. Excellent for business use

In an exclusive interview to the GeekOnNet team, Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder of OlaCabs and a very good friend of mine speaks about his company, its targets and future plans.

Venture Name: Olacabs.com
Founder(s): Bhavish Aggarwal, Ankit Bhati

The Geeks: What inspired you to start olacabs? What are the services offered by OlaCabs? What is the specific problem that OlaCab is solving?

Olacabs: I had once rented a car for a weekend trip with friends to Bandipur from Bangalore. The driver turned out to be a cheat. He stopped the car in Mysore en route to Bandipur and asked to be paid more than what had been decided earlier. He was so rigid and ill mannered that we had to leave him there and continue our journey by bus. This led to the business idea of using technology to offer a better and more predictable experience to consumers and improve efficieny for the car owners/drivers.

We offer car rental services for local use as well as outstation use. You can book online or over the phone and be assured of a reliable, safe and quality experience.

The Geeks: What’s your Business & revenue model.

Olacabs: We work on a pay-for-performance model. We just charge a commission in whatever sales that we bring to car owners. Also, to get access to the technology platform, we charge them a small fee. Other than that, there are no other costs that operators have to bear.

The Geeks: How difficult/easy for you to convince cab owners about your services? What obstacles have you overcome?

Olacabs: We have tied up with many car operators in Mumbai. They are very receptive to our concept as we work on a pay-for-performance model. The harder part is sourcing car owners. Since it is a fragmented industry, getting to the owners is a time consuming process.

The Geeks: There are few big players in this market. So, how can you differentiate OlaCabs from them?

Olacabs: most cab booking portals are plain vanilla websites with price listings. Our strategy is to focus on the backend with car operators because that would ensure a certain level of quality and predictability with respect to the consumer experience. We intend to bring all car operators and all taxis on to a single technology platform to enable real time inventory distribution, nationally.

The Geeks: What prospects are you visualizing for your company 5 years down the line? Are you going to implement something new (e.g. Mobile phone booking, smart phone’s app for cab booking etc.) to your business?

Olacabs: The entire ground transportation industry in India is run in a very opaque, inefficient and ad-hoc manner. There is no service guarantee or price transparency for the consumer and operators are also troubled with no structured channel through which customers can be sourced. We believe that technology will help make this industry efficient and drastically improve the consumer experience in years to come. We are definitely considering developing mobile bookings and smart phone apps in the near future!

The Geeks: After working in the world’s leading S/W firm for more than 2 years, what led you to quit your job and start your own venture? What are the rewards of owing own business over a nine to five job?

Olacabs: I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur since my college days. After spending 2 years in my job at Microsoft, I started feeling bored and restless. So I got together with Ankit and we decided to start a company. I left my job and moved to Mumbai to start Olacabs.
Working on a startup means you are the guy responsible for everything. The buck stops with you. The thrill and challenge of designing a company bottom up is beyond comparison and something you just cannot get in a job!

The Geeks: Any suggestions for future entrepreneurs?

Olacabs: The biggest joy and the biggest challenge in entrepreneurship is finding a real and challenging problem to solve. Most of us first generation entrepreneurs have a tough time finding the right problem. But once that is figured out, the joy of solving real issues for real users and seeing people benefit from your innovation is beyond comparison! So just be persistent!

Olacabs provides the simplest way to book a Cab/Car. You enter your city and your need. Olacabs searches the available inventory of its partners and provide you with a list of results and prices of different available cars from different operators. You can see rating of that operator, what other customers said of them, and then book it on Olacabs.com. Or you can call Olacabs at (022) 322-65-652 and they'll help you through the process!

Read more... :)

UniApply: One-Stop Solution for all Education needs

Choosing your career is an important step because your future is at stake. It is generally observed that a large section of students are unaware of what they want to achieve in life or how they can achieve their goal. This amounts to a situation like boarding a train without knowing one's destination. Undoubtedly it may result in waste of precious time as well as money.

Team GeekOnNet comes again with one of the hottest startups "UniApply" (www.uniapply.in) of Bangalore (Bengaluru).
Three IIT Bombay alumni started UniApply (www.uniapply.in), an educational portal in July 2010 with a vision to eliminate information based discrimination among students. UniApply is a one-stop solution for all your education needs in terms of choosing the right institutes and most importantly applying to them. This trio furthers the goal of a successful transition of more students from high school to college and also help them in career advancements.
In an exclusive interview to the GeekOnNet team, Ranjan Banerjee, co-founder of UniApply (www.uniapply.in) speaks about his company, its targets and future plans.

Venture Name: UniApply (www.uniapply.in) Founder(s): Ranjan Banerjee, Kamlesh Laddad, Akshay Ukey.

The Geeks: How did you get the idea to start UniApply?

UniApply: Each and every one of us in our student life has surely been through the "All pain, No gain" application process and it was this realization that led to the need for automation in this sector. Today, almost all the students apply to multiple academic institutions before taking admissions in any vertical. However, there is a lack of connection resulting in a huge gap between various institutes and student/parent community. Hence, we aim to bridge the gap through our products and services by bringing all the stakeholders in education - students, parents, institutes, etc into a common platform.
UniApply aims to serve as a technological link between the educational institutions and students. While eliminating the prevailing information arbitrage, we aim to smoothen and strengthen automated education processes backed by a strong and updated technological base. UniApply team also develops innovative technology to enable students to successfully manage their educational and career plans. Its data-driven solution helps to bridge the transitions between high school, college, and career, by making certain that students take the necessary steps at the right time to reach their goals. Last but not the least; the collaboration platform will enable effective communication among the stakeholders in the educational ecosystem viz. institutes, faculty, students, alumni etc. Our basic objective is to help students to take informed decision about their academic and professional career and to help and guide them in preparation for competitive examinations. We also look forward to provide all sorts of information about admissions, different colleges, various career avenues, and entrance exams to students enabling them to make the right choice in selecting a career and institute option.
Our highly motivated team with its indelible technological background is determined to create a benchmark in the whole education process.

The Geeks: Give some details about the Team background and work experience.

UniApply: I (Ranjan) have completed my graduation / B.Tech from IIT Bombay. Post IIT, I worked at Zinnov Management Consulting, a business strategy consulting firm where I got an opportunity to work with Fortune 500 companies in projects related to market entry / expansion, go-to-market strategies, offshoring advisory etc. I have always been passionate about entrepreneurship and have been part of the core team at The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay. There when I met my other two co-founders, Kamlesh Laddad and Akshay Ukey.
Kamlesh and Akshay, both have completed their post graduation in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. Kamlesh was Senior Consultant at webMethods (now Software AG) in technical consulting division. He traveled round the globe during his tenure at Software AG and worked very closely with Business analysts and Functional analysts of MNCs and has a great understanding of industry processes.
Akshay was software engineer at America Online (AOL) and worked on key AOL properties like AOL Portal, AOL Autos, AOL Real Estate, etc. He has contributed to several open source projects and features of the Apache SOLR and has a publication in IEEE journal.

The Geeks: What is your market and how has been the response?
UniApply: With our aim to be the ultimate technology connect between the Educational Institutions and the students/parents community, we plan to associate with the institutes and have a parallel increase in our reach in the student community through online as well as offline campaigns. Our concept is being widely accepted. However we all know every new venture does have initial ignition issues yet undoubtedly there is arms open welcome to the concept.

The Geeks: Who are your competitors? How do you differentiate your products/services from that of others?
UniApply: All the portals providing education/career related information are our competitors. However, the domain of UniApply is yet unexplored, as very few startups are offering services related to admission application process. There is certainly a huge demand from the institutes’ side for automation of the pre-admission process and helping them enhance their reach in the student community. We are different from other education portals as we provide a platform for applications and admissions into an institute the student wants to join rather than just information on the institute. We aim to revolutionize the admission application process enabled by Information Technology and to remove information based discrimination among students. Our services are aimed not only at the application stage but also at the admission stage of an educational institute. Our focus is to automate and combine the areas of admission processes and thereby provide a single window for the students to apply to various institutions.

The Geeks: What are the rewards of running a business over a nine-to-five job? What are the challenges you have faced?
UniApply: There is always a joy of creating something new. Every day brings a new challenge, together with an opportunity to learn, create and innovate. Moreover, driving a business in itself is pretty exciting as you can mould the pre-existing concepts into an advanced level ideas and figure out the best possible ways to enhance your business and most importantly we are into a business that aims at making a student’s life simpler which is a huge impetus for us to keep going. However, since we are in start-up phase, we face challenges like recruiting the right person, funding etc.

The Geeks: What are the UniApply growth plans?
UniApply: Education industry is witnessing a fast paced growth so this sector has a promising growth going forward. There is significant increase in the number of institutes and students every year. Moreover, with the entire world getting tech-savvy and internet friendly, UniApply and all other education portals would achieve greater heights. Especially with regards to UniApply we intend to transform the application procedure and we are sure we would. We are looking for expanding horizontally and aim to broaden our reach both in terms of institutes as well as number of students. Apart from this, we are also looking forward at launching few more products/services targeted at helping students in their exam preparation.

It was a very interactive and informative talk with the team of UniApply. If you have any queries or suggestions please write to me (ranjeet@geekonnet.com) or info@uniapply.in

Read more... :)