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Screeny — Delete space consuming screenshots easily!

So that you can make more space for your photos and memories.

Being a designer, one is always looking for inspirations, working on ideas, trying and testing various versions of designs, giving feedback to the team, and all of this results in an unattended collection of… screenshots!

Using a 16GB iPhone a year and a half back, I asked a question on twitter “Is there an easy way to delete all my screenshots?” All answers led to a long process of connecting to iPhoto and filtering the photos and screenshots, primarily because iOS did not allow delete access to the core camera roll. That however changed with iOS8 and thats when we built our own app called Screeny. (that too in Swift!)

Screeny’s sole purpose is to find screenshots and give the user an ability to delete them easily. Why do I delete screenshots? Because it was taken at one point of time — to share, review or point out something and then forgotten over time.

Screeny1
Version 1

From a design standpoint we wanted to keep it super simple. The value addition to someone using Screeny, is not about how many screenshots have we found out, but how much space we can save for you. Which means more space for your photos (of cats) and memories with friends and family.

Version 2.0
Version 2.0

The next part is reviewing the screenshots themselves. You can select and delete them all! That said, there are times when you are working on a project and need them as references or for reviews/feedback. So we added in filter criterias which allow you to select all screenshots, except for the last 15 or 30 days. Shake to unselect all? YES!

Screeny3

Could we have given the ability to delete all photos and not just screenshots? Yes. But I did not want that. Somehow photos are more precious to me. We know photos consume space and the space in your phone is limited. So we subtly indicate, that there are photos which are older than 3 months and are consuming xxx(GBs?) space. So you can take a backup and delete those photos if you wish.

1*ztfovlqf6Yk8CfDfpwZisQ

Screeny is available in the AppStore and we would love you to check it out and give us your feedback. If you think some of your friends need this app do share it with them as well ☺

Guest Post by Sonaal Bangera, EffectWorks.

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Tax challenges being faced by the(SPI)Software Product Industry and Budget Recommendations made by iSPIRT.

With the budget closing in on the industry there are hectic conversations to represent the Software Product Industry in the right manner in the Ministry of Finance. The tax issues both on the Indirect Tax and Direct Tax have been plaguing the Industry for a long time and this hangout addresses the things which need to be done very well. The Indepth Knowledge of  Bharat Goenka (Tally Solutions) and the  moderation done by Sumeet Kapur(Employwise) leads to an in-depth conversation on the Tax issues.

Bharat divides the two issues into, First, the Direct Tax about TDS the why and when it should be applied along with Industry perspective, the second issue was Indirect Tax – the confusion around excise and service tax relating to products and its definition and applicability of VAT .

It becomes important to introduce the Constitutional Framework under Indirect taxes which broadly talks about Manufacturing and Services being taxed by the centre and anything that is traded is taxed by state.

Confusion arises around “Service” and “Right to Service”. Whereas “service” is not tradable a “Right to Service” when sold is a tradable e.g. a Mobile phone service being provided by a Telco is a service where as when a vendor sells a recharge coupon he is selling “Right to Service” that actually will be provided by the said Telco.

Hence, under this concept of “Right to Service” tends to be tradable until the service is rendered and not after it is consumed, because the title to right to service is nor more existing after consumption. Service is therefore treated as tradable commodity thus qualifying for VAT in states and the Center charging service tax, this leads to invoicing for both VAT and Service tax on a software product.

What is needed is clarity on the issue of tradability of service as “goods” and “service delivery” as “service”.

GST will bring in changes but the taxes will be shared between states and center. GST it self may not fully solve the problem of duality of tax on software products. The problem of duality on VAT and service shall be sorted out only when there is clarity on “Right to Service” as a tradable commodity and “service” is achieved.

We as an Industry need to help Government formulate a distinction between “Service” and “Right to Service” as a tradable, so as to do away the duplicity of VAT and Service Tax so that service tax is charged only on part of service and VAT only on tradable value added portion if and when a service is traded further by channel partners of the service provider.

Direct Taxes (TDS)

Sumeet introduced an issue on TDS. Primarily a TDS made by payers to software company leaves less cash on the money collected. This is mainly for software product which sold leaves the product company with 10% less cash on the money collected.

Bharat mentioned that Software despite being a tradable product is the only product that is subject to TDS. This creates a bigger problem for the young companies and growing industry as early years do not allow you the sufficiency of profits.

We need to bring in front of Industry that no trading activity should attract TDS. Also that by doing away TDS the Government is allowing the profitability and business growth thereby allowing more business to happen and widening the tax base eventually.

Sumeet was of the view that, if software product companies are being subject to a TDS there should be Tax credits available on service tax so that the cash availability to businesses can be balanced.

Bharat added yes we can represent to the Government on this that either give me an input credit or refund TDS on day I file my return. Sumeet added that refund must be done even if there is a scrutiny.

Pramod from Nucleus Software added that in an event the question of Duplicity of VAT and service tax was raised to the Revenue Secretary, who showed his inability to do away with duplicity on tax as VAT is a state subject.

Conclusion

Many of the changes in law have come in past few decades and there was a lack in taking the cause to Government or lack of sufficient clarity in helping Government to clearly define distinction between Goods and Services and to separate out Right to Service being traded verses Services.

Bharat Concluded by saying, in the present efforts done to represent to government, we are looking at adequacy of clarity and this clarity is much needed even if the GST is coming to solve the issues and problem in this regard.

The detailed budget recommendations can be seen here.

With Inputs from Sudhir Singh, ExcelICT

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UxNow ~ Nickel o Wonder : The Design Conference

 “It was a rainy day. Everyone in the family was relaxing and I, in my cuddling days, was sketching scenery with mountains, birds and rivers. I filled my clipart with all the colors I wished for and stroked in every direction with the freedom unrestricted.  Upon finishing my drawing, I jumped and jacked straight to my granny and she, with all the worldly affection, patted my shoulder and gifted me a cent as a token of appreciation. Back then, the twinkle in my eyes was shining bright and it was just the onset of the creativity in me.”

~Anonymous

Is that a walk past the memory lane?  Off course! The semblance of this sweet memory is locked safe in everyone’s account.  Isn’t it? So, what if we invite you to unlock and unhide the very childlike streak in you?  Are the twinkles in the eyes coming back with a smile?

And now that we know you are smiling, here we go!

mailchimpMark your calendar for 28th November 2014 as MakeMyTrip, celebrating the sprit of World Usability Day, brings you UxNow, a conference focused on this year theme of “User Engagement”. World Usability Day is conducted each year in November with an aim to bring professionals, researchers and academicians to work towards simplifying products and services

UxNow aims to provide a multidisciplinary platform for designers, academicians, entrepreneurs & developers to discuss the challenges and potential solutions for effective interaction with and through web and mobile devices, applications, and services.

A one-day conference with exciting talks, chatter, networking lunch and a roundtable panel discussion provides participants plenty of real-world examples along with actionable takeaways.

Checkout the event site & agenda at: http://uxnow.org

To set the ball rolling, we have also started a design challenge where both students and professionals are invited to create products and services that can revolutionize the travel industry. To know more about the challenge please visit the website

UXNOWAs it was once said, “A creative adult is a child who has survived”. So what are you waiting for? See you on 28th Nov ’14 under the umbrella of UXnow. Let us together revisit the creative child in us in our very own NCR and we promise that you would ‘Rediscover’ the shining Nickel for the wonder inside.

Come ready, devices charged. We’ve got a packed day!

Yes!! Your very, Nickel o Wonder!

Guest Post by Dushyant Arora, Head – User Experience & Design at MakeMytrip

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Get to Learn from @Zoho – Zoholics: India, Nov 20-21, Bengaluru

We have been around for the last 18 years, making software for businesses around the world. At Zoho, software is our craft and our passion. Our people spend years mastering the craft, and their handiwork are the 30+ products that we now offer. With more than 10 million users across the world, we are one of the largest IT product companies based out of India. This journey has taught us many things, and we are ready to share our experience with you.

We are holding our first-ever event in India on Nov 20 and 21 at The Ritz Carlton in Bengaluru. At Zoholics: India, we will share our story and talk about creating world-class products, and selling them to a global audience, from India.

Other sessions include, product vs services mindset, engineering products, running a business on a budget, whether to take VC money or not, and much more. To view the full agenda, click here.

zoholicsJoin us at Zoholics:India, to learn, share and explore the Indian innovation in IT, through the lens of Zoho.

Who should attend and why

Entrepreneurs and Startups: It does not matter what business you do. Business apps can greatly increase your productivity and help you streamline various processes. This will leave you free to do what you love. At Zoholics:India, you can learn about which tech-tools are best suited for your business, how to position your product in the international market, and whether taking venture capital is good for your business or not.

Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Learn about various opportunities in the local market and how to create world-class products and sell them to a global audience, from India. Also find out how to capture the attention of an increasingly mobile-centric world.

CXOs and Managers: Discover some of the best practices in online marketing for selling to a global audience out of India. Know about the market trends and opportunities.

Technology Geeks: Learn about cloud-based technology and how it is affecting the local market. Find out more about business apps and latest trends.

Business and Technology Analysts: At Zoholics, we will discuss product vs services mindset, how college credentials are of little value as the real learning happens at the workplace, market trends and much more. Also, use this opportunity to learn more about the cloud market in India.

To register, log on to ZOHOICS India website. Use the discount code: ISP to avail a 15% discount.

Guest post by Raju Vegesna, ZOHO

 

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Exploring Mobile Moments and Building a Consumer Strategy for your App

It’s all about delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. Today mobile offers us this capability to capture, analyse and execute in real-time on users immediate needs. Mobile is the disruptive force that is here to change long standing business models. When building a consumer strategy for your app, it is important to understand that the journey to business success begins with the consumers.

Influential factor of brand messages and services increases when the message caters to the consumer’s need, preferences, and context.

Engagement and incentives can make mobile moments more memorable.

mobile momentsBrand experience must be pleasant and relevant to your consumers’ experience. However, marketers need to look beyond demographic, location specific or personal preferences and execute more on better targeting options like hyper-context. Hyper-context applications delve deeper in contextual understanding, going a step ahead to combine context with users past behaviours and preferences and to even predict the users’ need in the next moment. A personalized mobile experience that enriches consumer experience can augment favourable attitude toward a brand message, increasing purchase intention and significantly add to a company’s bottom line.

Consumer strategies on mobile must focus on improving engagement with consumers in their mobile moment – defined by Forrester as:

A mobile moment is a point in time and space when someone pulls out a mobile device to get what he or she wants immediately, in context.

The faster companies and marketers adapt to giving contextual experiences to their users the faster they would be able to keep pace with their competitors who are already engaging with their mobile consumers.

Starbucks of US has emerged as a clear leader in catering to consumers in their mobile moments of need. Building a strong loyalty program (My Starbucks Rewards), when members pay via smartphone, they get to redeem their awards for free drinks and food. Talking revenue, the rewards for the company has been huge: “The Starbucks app is on track to process over $1.5 billion in payment volume in the U.S. in 2014.”(Via Business Insider)

Adding on to their brand experience, Starbucks recently announced that they are ‘working on an order-ahead mobile application this year in a bid to speed up service and boost sales.’ The app will allow users to place their order before they arrive, reducing their wait time thereby adding to a more positive experience at their stores. Starbucks, through its successful consumer strategy has established a strong message on how influential factor of brand messages and services increases when the service caters to the consumer’s need, preferences, and context.

With a truly mobile-first Indian market, there is an unprecedented opportunity for marketers and brands to reach out to mobile users and capitalize through new innovative platforms that leverage on the mobile moments of consumers. According to Gartner the Indian eCommerce market will reach $6 billion in 2015 a 70 percent increase over 2014 revenue of $3.5 billion. The report cites the biggest challenge is in ‘getting the business digital commerce strategy right and adequate investments in people, process and technology to engage with customers across channels, which has been ignored by Indian enterprises so far.’

Brands and marketers must focus on creating a strong consumer strategy to increase customer connection and customer delight to overcome this challenge. Engagement and incentives can make mobile moments more memorable and add to measurable revenue growth and improved customer loyalty.

Insights for creating a better mobile experience

The App Publishers need to understand their consumers’ intent and patterns.  Once the app publishers identify these patterns and intents and analyse the need and behaviour, it will further help to pre-target user with relevant services, information and content. For example in iOS 8, users can take quick actions in response to a push notification like – accepting an invitation to a party, one-click offers on sensor enabled shoes which indicate a wear outAnother big step in this direction is Google’s step towards indexing mobile app intents/pages. This aids fastest hop discoveries of apps and services from one app to another. With such innovations, it gives marketers a hyper-moment of opportunity to make itself relevant and visible to users when they are in a moment of need.

Another scenario is about enabling a user looking for second hand cars via search, online discussions with friends etc discover great deals catering to his needs and specific to his location while conversing. It is a hyper-moment where the users’ needs have been seamlessly met by just a click, and on the go. Mobile apps have opened up brilliant opportunities to connect consumers and brands in the mobile moment.

Conclusion

Creating such mobile moment, a user can be given the fastest service to solve his need at that instance and helping simplify the process of buy and sell. Apps which are able to weave this intelligence into their offerings will succeed in connecting to consumers in enriching and positive ways. This will not only delight the consumer but will also benefit brands.

Contributed to Ms. Prima Dona – VP Product Innovation, IP, Business Strategy at KeyPoint Technologies

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Early Stage Start-up? Your Chance to Get Market-Ready and Mentored by the Best Brains in the Business!

After a successful launch in 2013, TiE Bangalore’s AnthahPrerana is back with a bang!  It is not another business plan competition.  Think of it as an idea booster.  We pick the 10 best unfunded startups in commercial and social sectors, mentor them and get them market ready for exponential growth.

Last year, the who’s who of the Indian start-up ecosystem like Mohandas Pai, K. Ganesh, Krishnakumar Natarajan and Ashish Gupta picked the most promising ideas that TiE Bangalore began nurturing.  Out of the 10 winners from last year, 2 have already gotten funding: Tourlandish was accepted into the Dreamit Ventures incubator in NYC and TouchStone Equities invested in Channelyst.

AnthahPrerana Website imageThis year, we are partnering with Let’s Venture and IIM, Bangalore to deliver personalized help to our winners!  We have assembled another high-powered jury comprising of acclaimed IIM, Bangalore faculty, successful serial entrepreneurs and start-up experts at TiE Bangalore to select and mentor a new batch of start-ups.

Selection Criteria:

  • 0-3 years old companies
  • No angel or VC funding
  • Financially viable, for-profit ideas

What Do We Offer? (All for FREE!)

  • Showcase your idea to investors and start-ups gurus on Grand Gala Recognition night
  • Get highlighted on the extensive angel investor platform of our partner Let’s Venture
  • 2-day ‘boot camp’ with renowned mentors at our partner IIM, Bangalore’s campus
  • Automatic entry into our 90-day TiE-Turbo program with the best mentors in town

Key Dates:

  • October 31st, 2014: Deadline for applications (Apply now!)
  • November 27th, 2014: Announcement of winners
  • December 5th, 2014: Grand Gala Recognition night
  • January, 2015: 2-day boot camp at IIM, Bangalore
  • February – April 2015: TiE-Turbo mentorship program

Guest Post by Kunal Kashyap, TiE Banglaore

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Bootstrapping! Great or Bad?

BootStrapping! Good or Bad?Off-late, I have been seeing many articles on “Funded” V/S “Bootstrapped” models. Few articles have projected bootstrapped ventures as great in comparison to funded ones. I run a company that is profitable without any external funding and at times find it very odd with these sorts of comparisons. Many entrepreneur friends suggest me to continue the way we are and ask me to stay away from investors as they feel it is great to bootstrap a venture.

To me it is a factor driven by who you are, what you want to do and what your business demands. Every business needs resources (which are unique to that business) to build the business and run it. Hence the capital needs are different for each business.

I categories companies into three types

  1. Self-funded
  2. Customer Funded
  3. Investor Funded

Please note all of these are funded! Someone is funding them and that is universal.

[#NiceProduct]

We are a blend of Self-Funded and Customer Funded. Back in 2008 we started building a-ipas, a product that targets large manufacturing plants as its customers. We got exposed to an interesting problem faced by manufacturing plants where-in the ERP implemented by the company was the bottle-neck in the Manufacturing plant. The workers/operators found it hard to work with the ERP System. The ERP system was not mobile (Then) and hence the operators had to go to a computer and perform these tasks. The factory had ERP Operators sitting all day and performing the transactions as and when the workers approached them with a paper/job! Being an entrepreneur, I saw an opportunity to build something that could solve a real world problem, so negotiated with my wife, who is a software engineer to let go of her job and take up the task of developing a solution that can address these challenges. With no liabilities on our shoulders, it was an easy decision for us to risk some cash for the joy of developing a solution that would solve a real problem.

[#Start]

No business plan, no “Mission” / “Vision” statements, we started working from our rented house’s garage. Savita worked solo, with some support (mostly cooking and cleaning) from my side. We build a base version of the solution in about 4 months and offered it to the factory which we knew had this problem. As we had no identity or brand value, we had zero expectations. Lucky for us, the IT manager of the factory took interest in the solution and deployed it in the factory. He also helped us make it more effective for the worker. For him, he was getting a custom solution at a very low cost. For us we were building something that was solving a real problem. With this ideal win-win scenario, we ventured out to build an Enterprise class solution for a niche market segment with zero plan and support from outside.

Apart from Savita’s lost salary and small money we paid a couple of trainees, we had no major costs initially. We kept our focus on the solution and our goal was to make the factory workers life better and make factory a better place to work. The critical part of this journey was the partnership with the factory & their teams. They were working with us like “Product managers”, driving the requirements. We took each and every need of theirs very seriously and starting putting features into our solution. We licensed our solution to one factory and made enough money to lead a normal life. We had revenue from other business to keep us happy. Contrary to theory, we did not expand our business for a long time. We wanted to perfect our solution. Growth meant dilution in quality and delivery. So, we opted to keep low profile and continued adding features/modules to one single factory for four long years. We could have taken VC money after our initial success and grow rapidly. However, the product we were building requires deep understanding of the manufacturing domain. It required evolution of a solution and with VC money on your back, slow growth could eventually kill the business. So we opted not to go for any external investment and hence we ended up as “Self-Funded + Customer Funded”. Just to reiterate, bootstrapping was part of the need and choice.

So to say, the product development was done with significant investment of our time and energy. To keep our operating costs low, we always picked fresh engineers and invested lot of time and effort to train them. To make our product robust, we needed experts from a lot of other domains for which we developed a network of experts who worked during after office hours. Net-Net, we innovated in ways to develop bleeding edge solution using low cost resources and all the possible support from the Eco-system.

[#Growth]

Early 2014 we assessed that our solution was mature and can be scaled up. We started expanding to other geographies. Today we have Six factories globally using our solution with one factory being the world’s largest adhesive manufacturing plant. We are competing with multi-billion dollar software gains and at times are luck to steal a deal just below their noses. We have moved out of a garage to an office that can accommodate more than 40 engineers. We have 22 full time engineers working on the solution and have a branch at Singapore and two engineers at China. More than 15 Experts work with us on a need basis. We have not yet taken any external funding and are profitable.

Is it good to continue the way we are? Should we take investment? Why? Why not? are question we regularly brainstorm. We believe external funding would help us accelerate our growth. While customer funded business model helps us grow organically, an investor funded catalyst would push us to faster gear. We have just started talking to investors. There is interest but there are other challenges we have to deal with. Having bootstrapped, we are conservative with money. We are asking small money and have reasonable revenue on board. This causes confusion amongst investors. We are hopeful of closing our first round very soon. If the cost of capital is much more than what we are willing to pay, we can afford to go much longer without external funds. In event we go ahead without funding, please note that we are not continuing bootstrapping because we think it is great way to build business. It is just that we are not yet ready for funding OR have no right options of funding!

The big benefit of self-funded & customer funded businesses is their ability to do what is right for the business with long term view. They would have more flexibility and agility to deal with market dynamics. They carry risk of starvation but are generally better prepared to handle the drought conditions. On an exit, the founders tend to have much larger pie at much lower valuations. If we exit at $10M today, we would be making similar gains like what RedBus founders gained at $100M Exit. Conclusion, no model is right or wrong. No model is great or otherwise! It is your business and it is for you to define the right way to build it and execute it. We chose the self-funded route + customer funded route, because we could afford it and was the right thing for the business then.

Guest Post by Subramanyam Kasibhat, Founder & CEO Aureole Technologies

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Understanding tech play in the B2B (business to business) Space

The last few years of my time I spent in IBM was in the space of B2B. Here are some of my observations during my consulting and interactions with the B2B companies over the years.

What is B2B?

B2B and B2C are often used terms in the Startup space. Let me begin by explaining these two.

B2C (Business to Consumer) are those companies who have products or Platforms that are used by end consumers like you and me. Most omnipresent examples of B2C companies in our lives are sites like Facebook, Twitter, Snapdeal, Flipkart.

B2B (Business to Business) Startups are those companies who have Products or Platforms that are used by Business or Enterprises. These Businesses or Enterprises could be a Bank or Insurance Company, Manufacturing Plant or a Retail Store, or a Hospital. The Startups in this space may not ring a bell. But if you see the iSPIRT’s InTech50 winners for 2014. They are classic examples of B2B Startups. I am putting up the link for anyone to refer to.

B2B few examples B2B product companies around 14-15 years back would focus on Automating things that were done over paper. I can take the classic example of Enterprise Resource Planning for Manufacturing Industry.

Before the advent of Information technology, all the processes in a Manufacturing company used to done over Documents. Right from generation of Master Product Schedule to Manufacturing Resource Plan, to generation of Purchase requisition and converting that to Purchase order.

The other ubiquitous change we all must have observed is when we walk into the Banks. There was a time when all the accounts were maintained in Registers. For our account statements, they used to give passbooks which would have all the transactions we did with the Bank. I haven’t taken a Passbook for the last 9 years. Thanks to the Core Banking Solutions, Loan Origination Systems, Internet Banking etc now it would be difficult to find Banks where the accounts and the transactions are maintained in registers. We can sit at our home take a view of the Transactions in the Bank we have done in the browsers. The Products for the Banks come from many providers like TCS, Infosys, Oracle, Infrasoft, Finacle to name a few.

As we passed through the years, we see the various Industries, be it Banking, Manufacturing, Retail, Logistics, Insurance, Hospital they have implemented Information technology in at least doing away from the Manual processes. In Banking as I mentioned earlier one has Core Banking Solutions, Payment Solutions, Channels Solutions, CRM applications, Basel II applications etc. Similarly in Insurance one has Underwriting, Policy Administration, Claims Administration, Product Configuration etc. Each of them are a subject in itself and I can probably write a book explaining each of these.

Startups Play in B2B

Now the questions comes is how Startups will play a role in the B2B space. The answer to this is there are always areas to achieve efficiencies in the existing landscape of any industry. Also there are new market to cater to. With advent of new technologies in the area of Enterprise Mobility, Cloud, Internet of Things, Big Data and Analytics, Startups have a great potential to provide solutions in these space in a fast and swift manner. I will take some examples in each of the above areas.

In Banks and Insurance there has been lot of data for them over the past 10 – 14 years. Many Banks and Insurance are looking at making more sense of the Data. For example what is the Product Profitability Analysis, Channel Profitability, Individual Customer Profile, Branch Profitability, Customer Lifetime Value etc.

This would be typically solved using Analytics solutions. How a Bank or the Insurance would typically generate this report is by pushing their Transactional data into a Data warehouse repository using Extraction, transformation and load (generally termed as ETL) tools. And on top of they would have an Analytics Engine. The Analytics engine would get the data from the Data warehouse repository and have it put in its Data Models. From the Data Models the Analytical reports are generated. What some of the B2B companies are doing is having pre build Data Models for a Bank or Insurance company and than having pre built Analytics reports.

These Prebuilt Data Models and Reports would cater to most of the Analytical report requirement for a Bank or an Insurance Company. But they can be also customized depending on the specifics of an organization by tweaking here and there. The advantage a Bank or an Insurance company gets is faster time to go live with the Analytics projects instead of defining the Data Models and the Reports from scratch and than the Technology Implementation partner developing those. Similarly Prebuilt Analytics Solutions can be developed for any other industry such as Manufacturing, Retail, Healthcare etc.

Another example can be extension of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications using Mobile Technologies, especially with Location based services of Mobile Technologies.

Imagine if one can create a Customer opportunity in the CRM using his Mobile on his way back to office after he or she has a successful Customer meeting. Or if a Manager is able to figure out how many of his employees have made customer visits location wise in a week or month in a single Dashboard (I know this gets little intrusive).

One more example using the Internet of Things (IOT). This example would be for Utility companies especially Water. Imagine if the Water Utility Provider wants to know how much of Water is flowing across various pipes in a single Dashboard. This is possible by having sensors called Flow meters which detect the flow of water in a pipe and which would be sending the information to a central server using Wire less technologies (could be combinations of ZigBee, GSM). Once it reaches the Central server, it goes into a database from Dashboards can be generated.

Once they have the infrastructure in place, Utilities would be able to detect leakages or theft of waters in their areas. Let me illustrate how this can be done using a simple example. If there is Pipe A supplying water to Pipe B and Pipe C, the sum total of water flowing through Pipe B and Pipe C should be approximately equal the water that has flown through Pipe A. If there is an inequality (Water flown through Pipe A in a day < Water flown through Pipe B in a day + Water flown through Pipe C in a day) one can suspect a Water leakage. This would come as an alert in the Dashboard, which would be actioned by the Utility.

Applying analytics now the Utility can also get historical reports how much of water has been flowing through the various Water networks in the cities. It would be also possible to predict the Water that is required for the coming day based on past historical data. This can lead to better planning of the Utility resources right from figuring how much water should be pumped from the Water reservoirs to the Overhead Tanks depending on the amount of Water present in the Overhead Tanks. There are level sensors (another usage of IOT) which communicate the level of water in a tank to the Central Server.

I would take one last example which illustrates an entirely new customer segment being catered with the advent of technology. I am taking the example of Cooperative Banks. There are still many Cooperative Banks who have not been catered by the Solution providers in the Banking space. There are B2B Startups who are focused in these space. Cloud technologies have helped these Startups in the Economies of Scale to cater to this segment.

The examples mentioned are just scratch in the surface. By identifying a problem statement and finding a solution which is scalable by applying the right set of technologies to it, the possibilities are galore.

As per my observations most of the B2B companies originate with their Founders

  • Have experience in the specific Business domains, and they see an opportunity to solve a problem in that domain.
  • Have experience as an IT Consultant or Tech Specialist in a specific domain.
  • Are in the System Integration space to start with and have graduated to Product or Platform Solutions in a Domain.

IBM has interesting tools and middleware, which can be used by the B2B startups. We are working with some innovative companies in this space. Putting a few names below

  • A3 RMT has a solution for remote wireless patient monitoring which would lead to life saving emergency medical response in difficult conditions such as uneven communication networks, unstable power, jerky ambulance journeys etc. These mobile solutions deliver high precision medical parameters e.g. full 12 lead ECG, to any internet connected devices like a low cost mobile phone through which the doctor can remotely monitor a patient in critical condition. Their solution has enabled saving of over 1000 lives. They have integrated with WebSphere Application Server and DB2.
  • Ideyeah has a Cloud based offering called opTEAMize for Delivery & Operational Heads of IT/ITeS companies who need to quickly find resources and accurately quote for a project. opTEAMize integrates with existing HR, CRM, ERP & Resource Management Systems of IT/ ITeS companies and aggregates skill, capability, and cost data. And this enables fast decision making through information models and interactive analytics. The product runs on IBM Softlayer and IBM Cloudant and are integrating using IBM CastIron.
  • GlobalSinc has a Product called Educube, which is a cloud based collaboration and ERP suite for K-12 Schools enabling collaboration between students, teachers and parents, streamlining the business processes for schools such as Fees Automation, Payroll, Admissions, HR, performance and assessment of Students, knowledge management for teachers, teacher effectiveness monitoring with advanced Business Intelligence and Analytics tools. They are integrating with IBM Cognos BI.

We also do some interesting stuff in the B2B space. We are launching a competition for B2B Startups, the first of its kind by a Corporate in India. If you are a B2B Startup, less than 5 years and privately held. You can apply to the competition by becoming a Global Entrepreneur Program member. There is a bouquet of prizes for the winners. The details are in the website ibmgepindia.com.

Guest Post by Radhesh Kanumury, Country Lead, Global Entrepreneur Program, IBM.

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Take a Step Towards Denmark Presenting The Next Step Challenge

Denmark is located in Scandinavia in Northern Europe and of the easiest places to start and grow a business. The World Bank has rated it as amongst the easiest countries to do business in and as a fledging business, is that not ‘music to your ears’.

Denmark is also a hub for cutting edge technologies widen a variety of clusters including ICT, Clean Technologies, Life Sciences & Design. Some of the exciting start ups that have grown out of Denmark over the past few decades include SKYPE, GIGA, LINKSYS, NAVISION, all of whom were subsequently acquired by global majors.

The Danish Government is committed to fostering a culture of business & entrepreneurship and positioning Denmark as a global hot spot for Innovation. It continues to attract foreign companies into Denmark in an attempt to further strengthen its clusters.

Next Step Challenge

Invest in Denmark, a part of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with Next Step Challenge & Accelerace  brings to you a unique Accelerator program that promises you are ‘ride of your life’..

Next Step Challenge offers ambitious startups the chance to become part of what is perhaps the most ambitious accelerator program you’ll ever encounter.

The main prize of EUR 250,000 for the winning startup makes Next Step Challenge the biggest entrepreneur prize in Europe and the US.

Next Step Challenge could open a whole new world of opportunities for startup companies within the fields of digital health, smart energy, smart home, and communication. But just being part of the accelerator program is guaranteed to benefit the participating startups and entrepreneurs. 

nextstepchallenge

What the Program Entails

All Next Step Challenge participants are enrolled in an extensive six-month business development program that guarantees:

  • Two months of preparation where your business is currently located and four months on site in Next Step City
  • EUR 30,000 in seed financing (based on a due diligence) when you relocate to Next Step City
  • Individual mentoring by external business experts from leading Danish and international companies
  • 200+ hours of personal business training from experienced Accelerace consultants
  • Learning labs and workshops where you will get intensive training designed to maximize your business potential
  • The opportunity to test technology on 261,000 households using one of the world’s most advanced digital infrastructures
  • Free office space in Next Step City with access to high-speed broadband
  • Free housing in the region during the four-month relocation period
  • Rich opportunity to qualify for further financing from Accelerace and other Danish seed funds
  • A Founders pack with resources and tools worth EUR 50,000+
  • The benefit of a collaborative business environment featuring ambitious companies like your own
  • And much more …

We believe that this is a unique opportunity for Indian startups to get a foothold into one of the most exciting technology environments in the world and use Denmark as a launch pad into Europe.

So hurry, visit http://www.nextstepchallenge.com/apply/. Applications close by 30th of September, 2014.

Guest Post by Shanker Subramaniam, Country Manager, Invest in Denmark

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Can you implement Growth hacking in your small business?

With new start-ups coming up on a daily basis, the competition in the market is intense. To be successful in this competitive world, you have to think beyond the ordinary. This is probably why growth hacking has become the go-to word when looking for people you may want to hire! If you can scale your growth beyond a linear curve and find multiple ways to expand your reach multi-dimensionally, you will survive. There is no other way to make our mark.

Growth hacking is not a new thing and unmindful of the same, you might have been using it in a different variant in the recent past.  Here are some powerful marketing tools in your hands as a business entrepreneur, to hack your growth.

  1. Encourage People to use your Products

    If you have started product manufacturing, its popularity among masses can be increased by incorporating a mechanism wherein the actual product can be shared. A business card company by the name of Moo has used this strategy effectively.

    In its pack of business cards, it adds some cards which encourage people to pass it on to other users, giving them discount as an incentive. Try this strategy in promoting your business and you will find that the customer affinity with your range of services will increase randomly.

  2. Identify potential Partners

    Small businesses often grow well if backed by someone who is already established in the market. Identify some of the successful leaders in your niche and try to establish a business linkage with them. Get someone to mentor you, or get them as a customer. If they are doing an event, try to get into some kind of partnership. This will help your business to gain effective visibility in relatively less time.

    PayPal and eBay are a perfect example of this synchronization. eBay was already a successful brand by the time PayPal came up. However, the concept of offering a safer transaction to its customers impressed eBay so much that it tied up with PayPal helping the company grow at a rapid pace.

    Use this strategy in your business promotion initiatives and help it prosper.

  3. Endorsement for your Endeavours

    Endorsement by someone successful in the niche area in which you are trying to get a foothold also has its imminent benefits. Your customers will take you seriously and will start believing in your promotional initiatives. You can hire the services of someone with a visionary outlook and help explain to your customers, the services or ideas you are trying to spread.

  4. Free products along with some Paid Services

    This is another viable method of implementing growth hacking successfully. You should offer some free services or products to the customer initially to build upon their trust levels. These free products or services can be offered in synchronization with paid services.

    A company by the name of Moz has been trying this successfully. One can sign up for free SEO tools on Moz but will have to pay up for premium services. People will eventually connect with you and go for paid services when they find that the quality of your product or service is trustworthy.

  5. Using Social Media Tools

    The advent of social media has drastically changed the way small businesses are perceived. Join the bandwagon and reap the benefits. Link up your promotional content on to the social media platform. The users on the social media channels will do the rest for you and the worth of your business will spread multifold.

    Pinterest has used this growth hacking strategy successfully for promoting its reach. Pinterest allows its users to find up content on the site and share the same on their Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter page.

    Make it easy for people to distribute your content on their social media pages easy and you will be able to connect with users in an effective manner.

Growth hacking has been in use since long. The techniques and tricks of using the same in business promotion have been evolving with time. By incorporating the above listed tips in business promotion you will be able to improve your prospects in the competitive business world and grow at a rapid pace.

This post is contributed by Kritika Prashant, together with team MyOperator, this IIT Delhi alumna is committed to make business calls as efficient and manageable as emails for small businesses in India.

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Lessons for Customer-Funded Entrepreneurs #BootUpINDIA

More than two generations ago, the venture capital community – VCs, business angels, incubators, and others – convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they’ve delivered and the incredibly large and valuable companies that their ecosystem has created. But the vast majority of fast growing companies don’t take venture capital, at least at the outset. Are they on to something that most of today’s entrepreneurial ecosystem – VCs, business angels, incubators and accelerators, and all the rest – have missed? Do their stories hold lessons we can learn?

Is there an alternative to VC? Indeed, there are five!

There are five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative twenty-first century entrepreneurs have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors – like Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Banana Republic’s Mel and Patricia Ziegler. What Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers have in common is that they all started and grew their companies largely with their customers’ funds. Here are some of the lessons their stories hold:

    • Lesson 1 – Matchmaker models: By bringing together buyers and sellers, but not owning what is bought and sold, today’s matchmakers build great companies with virtually no startup capital. For Airbnb, the initial investment in 2007 was for a couple of air mattresses on the founders’ San Francisco apartment floor. By narrowly focusing on conventions that were too big for the city’s hotel inventory, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia built their business one step at a time until they got noticed in 2008. VC funding eventually followed, and the rest is history: 500,000 properties in 192 countries!
    • Lesson 2 – Pay-in-advance models: Bangalore’s Vinay Gupta built Via into the “Intel Inside” of the Indian travel industry. How? By asking India’s mom-and-pop travel agents for a rolling $5,000 deposit in advance in return for real-time ticketing capability and better commissions than the airlines were giving them. Do the maths: 200 agents in the first few months gave Gupta $1 million in cash with which to start and grow his business!
    • Lesson 3 – Subscription models: Krishnan Ganesh started TutorVista with three Indian teachers and a VoIP internet connection reaching American teens who needed help with their homework. He quickly learned that $100 per month for “all you can eat” – paid monthly in advance – was just what the teens’ parents wanted. When renewal rates after the trial subscription quickly materialized at north of 50 per cent, growing the business was simply a matter of adding more fuel. He sold the business to Pearson in six short years for more than $200 million.
    • Lesson 4 – Scarcity models: Jean-Jacques Granjon and his partners created the flash-sales phenomenon by doing something simple for Parisian designer apparel makers who needed to move unwanted inventory. By collecting payment from his online members who responded to the limited 3-day sales and limited quantity available at discounted prices, and paying his vendors long after the goods had been ordered and shipped, Granjon didn’t need any capital to start or grow what became one of France’s hottest fashion brands.
    • Lesson 5 – Service-to-product models: Claus Moseholm and Jimmy Maymann of GoViral, a Danish company created in 2003 to harness the then-emerging power of the Internet to deliver advertisers’ video content in viral fashion, funded their company’s startup and growth with the proceeds of one successful viral video campaign after another. In 2011, after having turned their service business (creating and hosting viral video campaigns) into a product platform that stood on its own, GoViral was sold for $97 million, having never taken a single krone or euro of investment capital.

The way forward: Lessons learned

If you’re a bootstrapping entrepreneur lacking the startup capital you need, an early-stage entrepreneur trying to get your cash-starved venture into take-off mode, or an angel investor, mentor, or business accelerator or incubator professional who supports high-potential entrepreneurial ventures, a customer-funded approach may offer the most sure-footed path to starting, financing, or growing your business or one you support. In the words of Shanghai’s entrepreneur and angel investor Bernard Auyang, “The customer is not just king, he can be your VC too!”

Post contributed by John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. His latest book is The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance, or Grow Your Company with Your Customers’ Cash (Wiley, August 2014), from which this post has been adapted. 

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YO YO Honey Singh Strategy for Product Startups!

We are a product startup from Delhi NCR and to be honest, not big fans of Yo Yo Honey Singh. He started his music career as a Music Director in 2005 and for 7 years, was virtually unknown. Then, something happened in the year 2012 that catapulted him to overnight success and by 2014, his songs were in close to 15 big Bollywood movies and he wrote lyrics with legendary Gulzar!

In past 2 years, he has been in news all the time, with a Yo Yo Honey Singh song cropping up every few days. He did this by partnering with many established singers and by being in songs of various movies. With his signature voice and style, many might not like him, but one cannot just ignore him.What he did struck us as a great strategy for early stage product startups.In India, customer validation for product startups takes 12-18 months easily and as an independent platform, things get off the track all the time and the period only increases. By using YO YO strategy of piggybacking upon existing, established distribution network, a startup can:

  • Reduce their time to market drastically
  • Amplify their reach substantially in quick time
  • Carry out quick product iterations to reach product/market fit

Ours is a B2B2C product – a white label plugin for payment splitting and aggregation for use-cases like group-gifting, group-travel, group-event booking and crowd funding. We have partnered with multiple e-commerce websites in gifting, travel and crowd funding domain in just a span of three months.

We have learnt that while taking this approach, it is important to take a Selective Distribution approach and tie up with partners that cater to the Target Segment you would have targeted if you had not taken a YO YO strategy and had been an independent B2C product.This stems from Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing The Chasm” lesson where you must ensure that partners whose network you are leveraging, cater to end target segment your product is meant for, to facilitate organic word of mouth spread among customers.We have a lot to learn and we realise that on path to creating great software products out of India, we will have to embrace innovative and new approaches which sometimes, we might not learn from a Silicon Valley blogger but from Indian celebrities you might not generally like.

Guest Post by Ankit Singh, Aprogift

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If Security is Your Question, CLOUD Is The Answer

You start your computer to check the sales ledger, and are in great tremor as it was incapable of opening anything. Some sort of advertisements related to a product kept on flashing on the screen. On further investigation you realize it has been infected by virus and the nastiest part was – the antivirus on the computer couldn’t even detect it. In the end, you had to format the entire computer to eliminate the virus. You lose all of my financial data just like that.

A lot of business have suffered through problems like these, and they often think that their home or office is the best place to store data. Businesses should be cautious when it comes to storing chief data relating to business.

Enter Cloud Accounting! Let’s see how that can help and what can cause such data loss.

1) Computers are susceptible to virus attacks. 
Your system will get affected by a virus, be it from the internet or the USB. Most viruses enter a computer through the internet. I know you’ve installed the best possible antivirus solution but virus-makers get smarter every day marketing their product. Your system is just one infected USB away from getting that virus. If not the USB, it is the Internet from where most viruses come these days. These viruses are difficult to remove and sometimes wiping the entire hard disk is the only decision.

2) Weak or no access control can jeopardize your computer.
Usually, we all have one password to unlock the computer at office. It might be shared with important coworkers. Anyone can accidently delete the vital records. And it becomes very difficult to trace if someone copies the files from your computer. There must be a strong access control for your computer, be it office or home. Weak or no access control can possibly lead to losing the important data on your computer.

3) Free/High speed Internet can be very costly.
If you possess a high speed internet at your office, there are heavy chances of your computers getting infected with malwares. Employees casually use the office internet and often don’t give a thought about the security. Therefore, office computers must be secured by an effective firewall which will prevent malicious sites from attacking your system.

4) No management for Backups. 
Backups are a boon in today’s time. Only thing which can save you after a heavy data loss. Even when people know that their systems can get infected anytime, they do not have discipline regarding data backups. Post backup, the data needs to be protected and organized in such a way that it is very easy to reestablish when wanted.

5) Unpredicted occurrences can cause chaos.
You have no idea how & when fate is going to intervene in your life. Just imagine you went in a coffee shop and forgot your laptop. When you went back, the laptop was stolen. These unpredicted events like fire and theft can occur anytime and may cause heavy penalty. In situations like these, there might be no chance of protecting your data.

This Wikipedia article shows how businesses lose billions of dollars every year due to computer viruses alone.

Why Cloud accounting is more protected
Cloud accounting service providers store their data on way more sophisticated infrastructure, which is commanding and protected compared to office computers.
1. Cloud servers are sheltered by strong antivirus tools and are checked 24×7 by a devoted team of professionals.
2. Cloud data facilities employ state-of-the art electronic investigation and multi-factor access control systems. Data facilities are operated with trained security guards 24×7 and access is limited.
3. Firewall systems protect the data from online invaders. All Cloud accounting software providers use secure HTTPS connection with robust encryption levels.
4. The backup process is very precise and historic data can be restored within a few minutes, if required.
5. Systems are designed to dampen the impact of disturbances to operations. Multiple geographic regions and availability zones allow you to remain sturdy in the face of most failure methods, including natural disasters or system failures.

Such Cloud infrastructure has regularly experienced third-party certifications and evaluations. For example, leading service provider Amazon AWS has attained ISO 27001 certification and has been authenticated as a Level 1 service provider under the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). It experiences annual SOC 1 audits and has been successfully assessed at the Moderate level of Federal Government systems, as well as DIACAP Level 2 for DoD systems.

Every certification means that the auditor has dyed-in-the-wool that specific security controls are in place and operating as envisioned.

More businesses are adapting to Cloud accounting software like ProfitBooks or Xero, which are not only extra secure but affordable as well. Businesses don’t need to invest their time and money to ensure data security. This is the thing which attracts more customers towards cloud computing.

Financial data honesty and security are upper significances for any business and Cloud accounting software tools offer an impeccable solution. What more does a business need?

Guest blog post by Harshal Katre, ProfitBooks 

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Life-transforming lessons from “The Matrix”

I still remember the feeling of being blown away by “The Matrix“. The movie had stunning visual effects. But more remarkably, it helped connect several dots in my head that have evolved into life-transforming mantras:

Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon

Many of us lead our lives with bags of things that we believe impossible to achieve – spoons that we cannot bend. The spoon may be the aspiration to be an Olympic athlete, climb Mt Everest, run for the president’s office, or as common as a resolution to resist the urge to overeat, read a book every moth, blog regularly or make time to connect with old friends. We are often limited by our own ambition and tenacity. There is no such thing as an unattainable goal. The trick is to realize that the constraints that limit us from realizing our full potential may only exist in our mind.

Let me illustrate the point with the narrative that I heard from the man himself – Mark Inglis. Mark is an accomplished mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker who hails from New Zealand. In 1982, when 23 year old Mark lost both his feet to frost bite, scaling Mt. Everest seemed impossible. But Mark overcame his worst fears and physical limitations by sheer determination. He designed his own prosthetics and trained hard for 24 years to pursue his seemingly unattainable dream. In 2006, Mark became the world’s first double amputee to scale Mt. Everest.

While very few of us may possess the kind of grit that enabled Mark to overcome the odds, it’s quite interesting to note that we were all blessed with that same indomitable spirit as a child. Not caring about the length of his or her arms, an infant will persistently try to grab the moon. As we grow older, our experiences shape the matrix of constraints around us and we stop shooting for seemingly unattainable goals.

Unplug yourself from this system. Freeing your mind is the first step to unlocking this potential. Knowledge and training will do the trick.

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in any field. Zach Hambrick, associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University, notes that his research does not support “the egalitarian view that anyone who is sufficiently motivated can become a master.” Kaufman, however, made the most convincing argument by taking the middle ground. “Everyone can’t be a genius in everything,” he says. “But I’m coming around to the idea that every single person has the potential for genius in something.”

But finding true passion and aptitude for an adult is far from easy, let alone a child having to figure it out without any guidance or inspiration. Interestingly, as I was drafting this post, I came across a related LinkedIn post by Sir. Richard Branson titled “The importance of encouraging children to shoot for the moon“. It is a very inspiring story of Barbara who witnessed the launch of the world’s first privately-funded spacecraft to carry astronauts to space at the age of 11. The road-trip her parents took to the Mojave desert to witness the space shuttle launch sparked her life’s passion for aerospace. Ten years of inspiration and perspiration later, she is now a student at MIT and interns at Virgin Galactic.

The best thing we can do for ourselves and for our next generation is to keep reminding that there is no spoon (that cannot be bent).

Photo Credit (Creative Commons)

Guest Post by Mohit Garg, Co-Founder, MindTickle

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The A-B-Cs of the RBI Circular on Software Exports

Ok, so I am seeing a lot of posts / news item with headlines that make it look like the RBI / Government wants to wipe all export based startups off the face of the planet. Folks, please calm down. Here’s the A-B-Cs of what that really means:

1) You’ve got to understand that if the RBI / Government wanted to wipe you out, they would’ve done it already.

2) Wiping out export based startups is like shooting your best striker in the foot. Why would India, a country with trade deficit want to make life harder for the people who are helping reduce the trade deficit?

3) The circular was issued in September 2013. It’s a year old already. Please factor that in too.

Now down to some specifics: 

1) Firstly, it’s a myth that everyone has to get STPI certification. Only those companies that are registered with STPI have to get STPI certification. STPI is already in it’s sun-set era. The 10 year exemption is over and it has no jurisdiction over companies not registered with it.

2) The intention is to gather information on foreign exchange inflow into the country. Not to control it.

3) The reason it hasn’t been actively enforced yet is that this foreign exchange inflow related information is already supplied by banks to RBI monthly so whatever information you will be supplying is only corroborative.

4) What needs to be done is that you must download a form called “SOFTEX” from the RBI website, fill it up with basic information, sign it and then either submit it to your banker or upload on RBI website. There isn’t too much clarity on this.

Just to clarify, this is to the best of my knowledge. To be 99% sure, I have confirmed this with three other seasoned RBI / Tax practitioners.

So folks, please relax. There’s no need to arrive at massive conclusions based on the media reports!

Guest Post by Jaydeep Halbe, Halbe Innovations