#MadeInIndia Archives - Page 5 of 19

01/03/201701/03/2017

From Bootstrapped to Angeled : Is it your idea or product ?

You’ve shaped up your business idea to flag off. You have a pool of talent believing in that idea and lined up with working prototype with feedback. Now, it’s time for funding to take your idea to concept to design to product to a successful business.

Depending on the idea, startup projects can be particularly expensive and often incur new, unforeseen costs. That is particularly true of technological ideas, which are currently in vogue but require exploratory costs (to pay experts to determine if the idea is feasible) and initial product development costs. Even if a team proves the idea is feasible, they often need to build a working model or prototype to prove that to investors, which can sometimes add thousands of dollars to startup expenses.

The vital idea behind bootstrapping in commercial means is to borrow as minimal finance as possible. In two words, you only rely on either on your own budget and savings, on some crowdfunded amount or simply on loans from friends and family. This scenario urges you to borrow insignificant amounts of money and thus keep interest costs minimal. But as the market dynamics populates further, the wider entrepreneurial community starts delivering differing views.

Guy Kawasaki has proclaimed that “you should always be a boot-strapper… too much money is worse than too little” but goes onto to suggest “if you do get offered venture capital, take it, but don’t spend it”.

Most people focus all their time and attention on building their idea, and forget that even the coolest product or service is worthless if people don’t use it. Creating a successful product or service requires two things:

A solid implementation of the idea.
People that use it.

For the best chance of success, you need to identify the smallest core of your idea that has value to your potential users, build only that, and release it. This “minimum viable product” or MVP serves as the ultimate idea testing ground. It lets you build a relatively inexpensive version of your idea, test it with real users, and measure adoption.

Investors see a lot of ideas, which is why they won’t sign an NDA (your idea is not original, no matter what you think). But if you have a team that has delivered products in the past, worked through adversity, and has a failure or two to learn from, then the investor can see a group of people who will protect his investment, and has demonstrated the skills to do so.

So No. An idea will not get you funded.

To be investible, a start-up needs to have a good product-market fit and the potential to scale up quickly to a large market. It needs to be defensible with intellectual property or some other competitive advantage. And it needs to have a credible team in place, people who investors will believe can execute. And there needs to be some kind of proof, also called validation, also called traction.

Building an early prototype also helps you attract tech talent, because it gives people something to look at and play with, and it communicates your idea in a more “tangible” form. Then you can shop it around to potential technical co-founders to get them excited about your vision. If you have the means to actually build a working prototype, so much the better!

Most Angel Investors (and VCs) won’t pay much attention these days without some other sign of traction, especially because the financial and technical barriers to entry are getting lower and lower.

Additionally, the current market size doesn’t matter. The market size in 10 years is what really matters. You want to be in a small but rapidly growing market. You can change everything in your start-up except the market. So spend a lot of time up front to make sure you’ve thought through your market. “Having value” and “being fundable” are two completely different things.

Two of the most valuable things that the investor community seems to have been seeing from close quarters are: customer feedback and data from pilot research, which can enable them ask questions that lead to product breakthroughs. Angel Investors would need to know how your idea has improved to a bit more than a fledged product wireframe, so that their willingness to invest into those ideas via money, and social reach can increase to ensure that the success of your product is further defines by cutting-edge product development process.

Following guidance is thus seems to have gained ground and immovable traction for all the aspiring entrepreneurs who are progressing from a Bootstrapping channels to Angeled funding:

Be value-driven rather than fund-driven
Be independent of technologies that make you lose control over your idea
Make the customer a base for your product than profit
Base your ideas on supply and demand and not on the money it can attract

Once again, this isn’t a strict definition, but the seed round is normally used to fund the initial stage of your company where you’re finding product/market fit, and the following rounds are meant to help with scaling. That said, the road from concept to readiness (aka product MVP) is long and winding. Entrepreneurs’ single greatest challenge in this sphere of activity is balancing bursting creativity with structured, method-driven decision making.

05/10/201605/10/2016

Implications of GST Bill on Startups

The much-hyped Goods and Services Tax (GST), after years of stagnation and lack of political consensus, was finally passed in the upper house of the Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, on 4th August this year, almost a decade after it was first introduced in the Lok Sabha in the year 2006-07. It is the biggest indirect tax reform post economic liberalization of 1991.

The economists say, a double-digit growth in GDP, which seemed too surreal, will now be a reality. This law aims to give a boost to the new age start-ups and make India a conducive place to conduct business. Currently, India is home to around 4,200 startups growing at an exponential rate of 40% yearly. It is predicted that, with further relaxation of rules, India will be home to around 11,000 startups by 2020. This can be corroborated by the fact that India was ranked poorly at 142nd in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ survey conducted by the World Bank in 2015. With relaxation in the rules and regulations of setting up a business and lucrative schemes like ‘Start-up India, Stand up India’, India went twelve places up and ranked at 130 in 2016.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of how beneficial will the new law be for startups, it is important that the basics of this law are first looked into. GST, as mentioned above, is an indirect tax reform also known by the moniker – ‘One India, One Tax’. Different states have different tax structures which make the taxation structure very cumbersome and complex. This is a major reason why many start-ups are hesitant to expand their businesses to different states leaving the state concerned with little industrialization and low creation of jobs. GST aims to bridge the gap by integrating all taxes, making only one tax to be paid by everyone. As a result, the tax calculations will be simpler, saving time and energy for entrepreneurs and start-ups to focus on their respective businesses instead of investing time and energy on compliance and paperwork. However, just passing the bill is not the end of the story – there are rules to be framed, tax rates to be fixed, the central and state governments must reach a consensus, and proper infrastructure needs to be put in place. Hence, the implementation of GST still has a long way to go and is likely to happen in mid-2017.

How Does the GST Help?

The Act is deemed to benefit all types of businesses but start-ups and SMEs are to benefit the most. It has been structured in a way keeping in mind the concerns of the small businesses. This is elaborately explained in points mentioned below –

Simple Taxation – Instead of adhering to different tax regulations in different states, GST simplifies the process by making it simpler and clear by integrating all taxes into one so that not only money on taxes are saved but time on compliances are saved too.

Ease of Conducting Business – Registration of VAT from the sales tax department of the state concerned is an imperative to start a new business. A business intending to establish in different states has to apply for VAT registration separately. Not only this, the VAT fees in different states is not uniform, making this one among the many other issues regarding the problems faced by startups and existing businesses in India. To fix this anomaly, the GST Act has provisions which will make VAT registration centralized, uniform and simple for companies. The concerned company/business would just need to get a single license valid pan India and pay taxes regularly. This will further help startups to establish, expand their business hassle-free.

Integration of Multiple Taxes – In addition to the VAT and service tax, there are other tax regulations that must be complied by the businesses like Central Sales Tax, Luxury Tax, Purchase Tax, Additional Customs Duty etc. Upon the implementation of the GST, all such taxes will be combined into one.

Lower Tax Rates for Small Businesses – At present, VAT is applied to businesses having an annual turnover of INR 5 lacs and above. GST aims to cap this limit to INR 10 lacs only and businesses with turnover between INR 10-50 lacs will be taxed at low rates. This move will not only bring respite to the start-ups but also help them invest the money saved on taxes back in their business.

Improvement in Logistics efficiency – Seamless movement of goods is currently a problem with border taxes and checks at state borders which delay the movement of goods which, in turn, results in delayed deliveries and enhances the product cost. GST aims to eliminate such inefficiencies making the inter-state trade less time consuming. With an uninterrupted movement of goods across the border, the costs associated with maintaining the goods will significantly reduce. According to a CRISIL analysis, the logistics cost of non-bulk goods can go down by as much as 20% once GST is implemented.

Other Side of GST: The Cons

While there are other advantages for the start-ups as well other than the ones mentioned above, the new Act also comes with implications, not necessarily for the start-ups. Start-ups in the manufacturing sector with lesser turnovers might have to bear the brunt of paying duty. As per the existing excise laws, any manufacturing business with an annual turnover of less than INR 1.5 crores is exempted from paying duties. But when the GST comes into force, the chances are, this limit could be reduced by six times to INR 25 lacs. This can have a detrimental effect on the growth of start-ups.

There are high chances that the inflation might rise after GST implementation. Also, whether ‘mandi tax’ would be included or not in the GST is ambiguous. Such causes can adversely affect the food startups.

Critics also say, the implementation of GST would also affect the real estate business and add up to 8% of the cost in new homes and as a ramification thereof, reduce the demand by 12%.

Despite its implications, GST is the most important and business friendly tax reform in India which will lead to a double-digit growth. It seeks to unify, integrate different tax structures so that there will be transparency and efficiency in the way businesses operate and the government levies taxes. This won’t just reduce the cost of the products but also create employment opportunities as more startups rise and India becomes the startup capital of the world!

Guest post by LegalDesk.com, a Do-It-Yourself legal platform for making legal documents online. LegalDesk helps startups with incorporation and legal documentation services. It also provides Aadhaar-based eSign service to businesses.

28/09/201628/09/2016

Customer Purchase Insights for Hotel Management Software

SoftwareSuggest is an online platform exclusively dedicated towards Business Software Discovery and Recommendation. We analyze every aspect of the software trends for the customers so that they can purchase the best software from hundreds of such products thronging the market. Since we value the satisfaction of our customers highly, we analyze their requirements with extensive research, and ultimately compile our observations and conclusions in the form of a report.

Here is an exhaustive Research Report on the “Customer Purchase Insights For Hotel Management Software”. The following are the conclusive findings of our Research Report.

Key Findings

– Most hotel management software buyers were from Maharashtra, followed by Delhi and Karnataka. With 8.5 percent, 7.5 percent and 7.3 percent software buyers respectively, these states tower over other states..

– Requirement for Installation-based software was more than Web-based software; the former crossing the mark with a whopping 64 percent.

– The Budget preferred by a majority of customers was in the range of INR 0-50,000, with around 65 percent of them belonging to the ‘First time User’ group.

– Around 40 percent of the customers prefer 3 demos before taking the purchase decision.

Let us have a detailed look at the figures as per our research results.

Geographic Spread Of Hotel Management Software Buyers

We found that 8.5 percent of hotel management software buyers were from Maharashtra, followed up by 7.5 percent in Delhi and 7.3 percent by Karnataka. Rest of the sections in the Graph is shared by other States.

Prefered Deployment Type: Installation-based Vs. Web-based Software

More Software buyers preferred installation-based software to web-based software. The former attributed to 64 percent of the total software buyers.

The Estimated Budget Preference (in INR) Of The Customers

Around 49 percent of customers preferred to buy their required software in the Budget range of INR 0-50,000. This is followed by 28 percent of customers, who preferred the the Budget range of INR 50,001- 1,00,000. The percentage of customers decreases gradually as the Budget range increases and this is clearly demonstrated in the Graph.

First time Software Buyers Against Existing Users Looking To Upgrade

It was observed that 65 percent of the users were first time software buyers and and 35% were looking to upgrade their existing software. For such buyers, the existing hotel management software was not quite up to the mark, and they wanted to try another software, with more functionalities and better quality standards.

Time Consumed By Customers Before Making A Purchase Decision

40% of customers usually take 2-3 months before finalizing which Hotel Management Software they want to purchase. Around 15% of the software buyers take the purchase decision in less than 1 month’s time. These are usually first time buyers with a new property.

Number Of Demos Taken by Customers Before Purchasing the Software

Around 40 percent of customers took 3 demos before opting to buy the paid version of Hotel Management Software. While 20 percent of users were satisfied with just 2 demos, around 30 percent used 4 demo sessions, before they were actually convinced to purchase this software.

Features Customers Look For In Hotel Management Software

As per our research, customers look for the below-mentioned features when it comes to buying a Hotel Management Software. Among these, Channel Management, Front Desk and Book Engine are the ‘must-have’ features in a Hotel Management Software.

All the above-mentioned facts and statistics have been generated from the data collected by SoftwareSuggest team.

We welcome your valuable thoughts or suggestions in the comment section below. You can find a list of Hotel Management Software here.

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18/07/201618/09/2020

3 Levels of Product Training for growth

You have crossed the initial milestone of proving your product has seen some initial success, covered the MVP and now its time for growth…what is one key ingredient for growth ?

You are the rockstar founder or product manager…you have the urge to be omnipresent in every customer discussion or support call…you do a good job on this…but it’s a major deterrent for growth as you become the bottleneck…

The best solution for this problem is to put together a strategy for your product training. Based on interaction with a startup growth entrepreneur’s request I had put few things, and sharing that in this post.

I plan to cover 3 levels of product training that I have personally learnt or done over the years to make products scale and be successful, the examples are more relevant to B2B but some of this can be used for B2C as well….

The analogy i have used here is of movies

Level 1 : Trailer – Targeted to people that engage with the Decision Makers who buy the product

Level 2 : Movie – Targeted to people that interact with users of the product

Level 3 : Making of Movie – Targeted to people that interact with administrators or consultants that configure, implement or support the product

Lets look at each of them in detail

Level 1 : Trailer training

This training is usually provided to Sales & Marketing teams who have the responsibility to engage and influence the decision makers, to buy the product. Certainly while the content stays high level , I have come across 3 questions to be covered in this training, that will help Sales to effectively position the product and get the interests

The three questions

Why buy ? – This question establishes what is the real need for the product. What is the real problem that the product solves and why is it important for the customer

Why me ? – Having established the need to buy, the next question that needs to be answered is why me, why your product vs. other choices available in the market, what are differentiators, how is your product better in solving the problems and other objection handling

Why now ? – Assuming the need is established, and the fact that your product is the best fit, the next convincing part is the timing of the buy. The “why now” training should facilitate content that will help the trainee to engage with establishing the urgency, to get the decision to be made in a realistic time.

Coverage of the content

The content should cover the following to help with the above three questions

Benefits – the benefits of using the product , to improve the process, derive top line or bottom line savings or any others
Customer case studies – this is an amazing content to help sell. How are other customers using the product, their experiences, quotes, videos and other documents
Competitors – its important to know your competitors and how your product differentiates from them, this is an important area of coverage in your training
Unique differentiators – the product may have 100s of features, but there maybe certain ones which are the outliers or differentiators, there should be specific focus to highlight these in the training
Pricing and ROI – how is your product pricing done, what are the flexible options, what is the discounting policy, how do you combine products , how do you optimize revenue opportunity are some of the things that should be covered. Creating presentations and videos to explain the pricing with examples would be an important tool. In addition you also should have ROI templates that can help sales to justify the ROI for the customer, using relevant metrics that is aligned to the product’s benefits
Short demos – 2 to 3 minutes – This is the eye catcher demo (The Trailers), as its typically done to the decision makers, the demo should highlight the most important capability and it should also try to cover the overall value proposition of the solution. Remember this is the main tool that can help sales to create the initial interest or close the opportunity for approval.
Role plays – This is another extremely successful way to train people – the role play enacts how a customer facing person engages with the customer, bringing in relevant questions and dictate the engagement style to bring out answering the 3 questions
FAQs – you know answers to several questions, but its important that this knowledge gets out. A Frequently Asked Questions document or video should be a must have.

Level 2 : The movie training

This is to do with the actual product in more detail on how the users would use them. So this is essentially a training that is usually provided to Sales Consultants , Partners and Others who are likely interacting and engaging with the customer users – both during pre-sales as well as post sales.

Coverage of this training

Product feature functionality – going into details of the features and functionality of the product, focused towards customer users
Use cases – talk about different use cases that the product solves, every product may solve 100s of use cases, so its important to highlight different usage scenarios
Benefits in detail – while you cover the benefits already in level 1, this could further explain the details with more deep dives and examples
Product differentiators vs competition – detailed product differentiators, on various facets of the product and how this can help especially to cover the functional scenarios
Detailed demos (like the actual movie) – 30 minutes to 2 hours focusing on end user functionality
Role plays to explain usage of the product – detailed role play videos or depiction of how customers will use the product or how you can convince the users, for them to become influencers

Level 3 : The making of the movie training

The third level of the training is for the people that engage administrators, implementer, partners and consultants. This covers variety of areas and really detailed and deep dive into the “how to aspects”. This is usually done to consultants , support staff and Business/IT administrators. This training is for mostly people who engage post sales, but essentially they should also have good understanding of the level 2 training, before getting here.

Coverage of content

How to configure the application, security, data, master data etc
How to trouble shoot
Detailed functional and technical architecture
How to demos or videos – detailed 2 hours to a day or even multiple days
Technical FAQs

So as you can see, if you can create the above training content and start training, it will certainly help you in your growth endeavors.

Offcourse you will also have to keep updating these content as you enhance your product.

Product Training , these days can be delivered in different formats – in person, webcast or through videos. But its essential for you to understand the importance of this and make it as a priority if your goal is growth

24/06/201612/07/2016

#MadeinIndia Inventory Management Software

Inventory or stocks are the lifeline of a company or business, and managing it properly is what makes the difference between company’s success or failure. Regular usage of inventory management software can help in the same, and can keep a check on overstocking of product and outages. Continue reading “#MadeinIndia Inventory Management Software”

23/05/201623/05/2016

Payment Bank + Technology = Faster Profitability

Something very exciting is happening in India.Several Payment Banks are about to launch their operations with a dream to provide banking & transaction services esp. to millions of rural and semi urban un-banked & under-banked households. This is expected to greatly boost domestic remittances, rural savings & reduce dependency on cash.

One of the most important questions these banks is how to achieve profitability faster & sustain it while maintaining a low cost structure & capturing volumes.

Using modern digital technology is the answer.

There are 5 ways technology can help a payment bank not just to be operationally efficient but also establish a competitive edge:

Mobility: Total number of mobile phone connections in India crossed 1 billion (1003.49 million) mark in Oct 2015. Out of this, 902,26 million connection were active. 42.39% are rural subscribers & 57.61% are urban.About 1 in 5 uses a smartphone (220 million) and rest use feature phones.This strengthens a key assumption that each & every prospective customer has a mobile phone & he/she will consume most of the banking services on mobile. So, the offering has to be mobile:

USSD based for feature phones & app based for smartphones
Easy to use & secure
In local language
Integrated with the ecosystem of Bank Mitra (banking correspondents), Aadhaar enabled payments (AEP), Aadhaar enabled KYC, digital wallets, real time payments (IMPS).

The recent introduction of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a very welcome step by NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India).

Analytics: Customers’ data is a gold mine. Their transaction behaviour (deposits, withdrawals, subsidy receipts, categorised expenditures) makes a case for offerings that are truly “personalized”. For example, if a customer has incurred expenses in a hospital, they can automatically be offered a health or a life insurance product. The schemes launched by PM Modi cost Rs 12 (for health) & Rs 330 (for life). If a customer regularly receive say subsidy payments, they can be offered a long term savings product e.g. Atal Pension Yojana. The amount can be directly debited and is totally paperless for customer.

Analytics tools (SAS, R etc) combined with “small data” harnessing abilities will make it possible.

In UK, the banking regulator is encouraging Open APIs which in simpler words means encouraging bank to open up data vaults to fintechs and others who can offer useful products to the customers. BBVA Bank (US & Spain) has made customer data available through APIs. (Note: I assume customer has consented for data sharing).

Cloud Computing: Cloud solutions offer unparalleled scalability, flexible pricing models (you grow – we grow) & tight security. If data privacy concerns can be handled, there is a strong case for using cloud when compared to investing in a private data centre.

Automate Business Processes: More and more back office processes need to automated reducing dependency on human resources. The digital offerings have to be such that they are fully integrated with bank’s core processes and leverage the modern work flow solutions.

Referral Engines: Though the payment banks can’t lend, it doesn’t mean their customers do not need credit. These banks can refer the customer to other ‘full service banks’/NBFCs and earn commissions. Value added data like banks opinion about the customer, risk profile, transaction patterns, income potential can fetch additional revenue for the payment bank. Smart referral engines can be deployed that share info, calculate and track commissions.

India needs these payment banks to succeed & sustain in order to achieve a true Financial Inclusion and bring the Bharat under a financial umbrella.

India’s IT sector’s tech prowess and their ability to innovate/execute is what the country needs the most.

Jai Hind.

Guest Post by Gaurav Singhai

05/05/201605/05/2016

Customer Purchasing Insights For eCommerce Software

SoftwareSuggest is an online software discovery & recommendation platform. We provide free consultation on software and help SMEs select the right software for their organization. As a part of our business, we collect customer requirements, which when analysed can serve the industry with deep insights. Our learning for the eCommerce industry are presented in this report.

Below mentioned are the major takeaways:

There has been a hike in the number of organisations opting for online eCommerce solutions for their business. According to our findings a whopping 80% of the total are first time users.
A good number of e-commerce software buyers are located in Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka region.
We discovered that organizations prefer buying SaaS based over installation based software. The data suggest 69% prefer SaaS based.
The spread and depth of functionalities of software is the most prominent factor influencing the purchase decision of the software buyers.

Let us have a look at the fascinating figures that we discovered.

1.Industries turning up to use eCommerce software

We found that 35% of the software requirement was from apparel industry and next position is occupied by food and grocery item business (i.e. 20%). Rest is shared by miscellaneous industry like electronics, footwear, etc.

2. From which state maximum requirement was generated?

According to our observation, maximum eCommerce software buyers are from Northern region with Delhi (16%) being the kingpin in the list. Next place is shared by Maharashtra (12%) and Karnataka (13%). It can be a good decision for eCommerce companies to invest their resources in these region.

3. What do the users prefer- SaaS based vs Installation based?

There has been a drastic shift in the number of users who prefer using SaaS based software when compared to server based software. It has been found from our data that 70% users prefer SaaS based or online software over the server based software.

4. What all features a buyer looks for in eCommerce software?

Nowadays, software buyers look for the product which can help them facilitate their customers in smarter way. With the advancement in technology, they look for sundry features which are stated as follows:

5. What is the preferred budget in which buyers purchase the software?

For SaaS based, it has been found that on an average 50% of software buyers look for an ecommerce software between ₹1000 to ₹3000 per month. Around 18% buyers are willing to spend ₹3000 to ₹7000 per month. Only 7% can spend above ₹10000.

For server or installation based, it has been discovered that 80% of software buyers prefer buying in the budget range of ₹50,000 – ₹1,00,000. Around 10% prefer buying in ₹100000- ₹150000. Remaining can afford up to ₹150000 and above.

6. New users v/s Existing users

Around 20% of the software buyers are the existing users who reach us due to following reasons:

They are not satisfied with the services provided by their software providers
Their software does not have the latest features and they want to upgrade their software

In regards with the changing market conditions, there has been a hike in the number of retailers opting for online stores for their business. We discovered that around 80% of the software buyers bought software for the first time.

7. What is an average number of products showcased by merchants using eCommerce software?

The data which has been collected by our team revealed that 17% of merchants prefer showcasing around 100-200 products on their website. And 21% of merchants prefer showcasing between 200-1000 products. Only 8% showcase above 1500 products which is quite less.

8. Time taken to decide on ecommerce solution

Our findings suggest that for a large percentage of software buyers, it takes around 3 to 5 weeks to decide on a solution.

9. Number of demos before buying a software

We found that maximum software buyers usually take around 3-4 demos to decide on a solution.

10. Factors influencing purchase decision

A software buyer looks for multiple features before purchasing any software.The depth and spread of functionality of the software is one of major factors. Have a glimpse at the other factors.

The report has been generated from the data being collected by SoftwareSuggest team.

You can give your valuable thoughts about the report in the comment section below.

Also, find the list of eCommerce software solution with software demo, comparison chart, and many other values to help yourself select the right software.

30/04/201615/03/2017

Becoming Cash Flow Positive In SaaS Business & Growing Revenue By 3 Times In 3 Months: The ShieldSquare Story

In Q1 2016, we saw our hard work payoff. We achieved some notable milestones. We became cash flow positive and our annual revenue rate (ARR) grew by 3 times in 3 months. We expanded our customer base to 68 countries (with over 90% of the revenues from outside our home base), and doubled our team to 50. Our Average Revenue per account (ARPA per year) has doubled to $10,000. Above all, we pushed ourselves to become one of the top 2 bot prevention vendors across the globe!

This is quite an achievement, and I’d want to share some of my learnings on what worked, and how we got there.

Who Are We?

We are ShieldSquare – a startup based out of Bangalore that has come up with a world-class solution to fight bad bots that scrape content, spam forms and engage in various forms of site abuse. We started off in late 2013 with a founding team of five incubated at Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, Bangalore. We worked hard on building the product and refining it by working with early customers till the first half of 2015. We launched ShieldSquare for the global market in mid 2015 and started getting good traction. We decided to shift gears and accelerate the business growth for the year 2016 and this is how we went about doing the same.

Expanding To Outbound Lead Generation Channels

We initially focused on a low-touch approach in getting leads via inbound channels. With the right keywords, and after a lot of optimisation, we became the No.1 in search ads. We started getting a good number of leads, and this also helped us secure a top global financial portal as our customer.

However, as the average deal sizes through the inbound approach were small, we kickstarted our outbound marketing campaigns with aggressive sales targets. We launched personalised email marketing across different verticals, analysed the technologies our prospective customers were using and focused on them. This helped us reach out to the Europe and US markets, and win marquee customers – still keeping it a low-touch approach.

Incentivising Customers To Opt For Longer Duration Plans

We wanted to have a win-win situation for our customers (lower total cost of ownership) and us (cash flow and predictable business growth). We removed monthly subscriptions, and started providing significant discounts to customers that opt for annual subscriptions. Why? Because we believe that the the cash paid today is many more times valuable than the same amount paid after a year. If the valuation of the company increases by 5 times over 12 months, the cash being realised now is 5 times more valuable than the same amount realised after 12 months. We now plan to expand this strategy to incentivise customers that go for 3-year subscriptions.

Then Came The Growth Hacks!

Our regular efforts resulted in regular leads, but we wanted higher conversions with minimal touch. We launched a few growth hacks that are first in this industry, to increase our conversions. Our free-forever diagnosis plan helped our prospects try, and experience our product with no upfront commitments. Our free tools ScrapeScanner and BadBot Analyser provided reports that enabled our prospective customers understand the need for ShieldSquare and prioritise it internally.

scrapescanner free tool

Wise Investments To Achieve Growth

One way for businesses to reach positive cash flow is to get the team to work 2 times harder, cut costs, and the like. But our team was already working 2 times harder and our costs were tightly managed. Another way—the more sustainable way—to reach positive cash flow is to grow revenues! We chose this path for becoming cash-flow positive!

Growing revenues require building solid sales, marketing and product teams, and we invested on growing our teams across functions and bringing in passionate talents to drive these teams.

There are certain things that might seem unimportant, but rather carry great value. Our employees at Bangalore enjoy free breakfast, lunch and snacks, while the same will be implemented soon for our folks in the Chennai, who are already beating the heat with the free tender coconuts we offer twice a day.

It’s Ok To Say “NO”

In business, priority is everything. 20% of the activities we do contribute to 80% of the results. Here’s how we prioritised things to be more productive:

We steered our focus away from activities that are of less or no value to our business, like attending feel-good/networking events. Rather, we reached out to our advisors and mentors whenever we needed guidance and advice.
We have restricted ourselves from meeting prospects until we qualify them. But we keep engaging with various players to get better educated about the market, trends and customer requirements.
As we were focusing on building the business and not raising funds, we have politely refused the calls and meetings from VCs who wanted to know about the business. Yet, if any of them insist on learning more about the exciting things happening at ShieldSquare, we invite them to our office to meet the team. This really works as only those who are serious will come to our office to have a conversation, while the others drop out.

Strong Foundation

We have promised ourselves that we would never compromise on the core values that took ShieldSquare to the global audience. It would have been impossible for us to be in the global top 2 position in our space, if not for the following:

A world-class SaaS internet security product that caters to the problems of customers
Self-serve platform that requires minimal effort to integrate
Strong 24×7 support processes to help our customers
A great onboarding experience for customers using diverse tools

The aforementioned are the key learnings from our own trial and error experiments as well as interactions with our awesome customers and advisors. The key takeaway from these learnings would be to believe in our own instincts instead of reinventing the wheel.

The overall experience of developing a stellar security SaaS product for the world was amazing! As it turns out, the feedback we get from our customers are equally overwhelming, and yet it reminds us of the fact that the journey has just begun, and we still have a long way to go.

Guest Post by Pavan Thatha, Co-Founder & CEO of ShieldSquare, one of the fastest growing Saas Security company globally.

13/04/201613/04/2016

Cracking a niche B2B market without funding: Valuefy’s Story

Valuefy was started in 2010 to empower fund houses to make informed decisions better and faster. Vivek Singal, a B.Tech from IIT Bombay and Sharad Singh, an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad worked together at Fractal Analytics, an analytics firm, before starting Valuefy.

On choosing to build a product like this, Vivek shares, “When we chose our niche, which was a B2B product for such a specific market, at the time when eCommerce was growing, it took a lot of faith. It was a slow journey, but definitely a profitable journey. Our clients have been very sticky and we are collectively helping manage over 100 billion dollars worth of funds at this point.“

Here are some excerpts from a conversation with Vivek:

Where did the story of Valuefy start?

VS: “Whole science around the portfolio management is a very niche play. Valuefy has been serving Indian players so far. To give you an idea, we are servicing 2 of the top 3 fund houses of the country. We have cemented our place in an Indian market.

We picked up analytics as a domain since number crunching was our forte, coming from our experience with Fractal Analytics. We were intrigued to find the frameworks and algorithms that helped the fund houses make decisions. We wanted to understand if there was any tool that they were using to decompose their performance, analyse returns, and understand what are the drivers.

There are some large global organizations that were working in this area, but they didn’t seem to respond to the change in technology to create more sophisticated agile tools. So they were placed as a middle office tool, but not a decision-making tool.“

What were your major road blocks in your journey, and how did you overcome them?

VS: “First off, it is very difficult to do a product strategy in this kind of a market. Our clients are very comfortable with excel as a tool where they can manage their reports on an ad-hoc basis, even though it can only give 10% of the information. Our study says that 60% of a fund manager’s time goes in understanding and processing the data which leaves them with very little time to analyse the performance and the portfolio. The problem is that they are so used to it, that it is very difficult to break this pattern and bring the adoption of technology amongst the fund managers.

Second, when we started, the markets were not favouring our product. We realized that the bigger clients were more open to it. Also, we think the international customers would have been more open to the product but the markets were slow.”

What goes into marketing such a niche product?

VS: “

We have created a global advisory board. It includes people who have experience in the domain, people from our competition, also, people from the academia who are helping us with it.
We have formed some key partnerships with global conglomerates. It helps as a marketing platform as well as a distribution channel.
We started as a hosted product, but we have grown it into a SaaS based model, which has made it simple for us to integrate with the global companies and this will help sustain our global expansion.”

What is your advice to people who want to startup?

VS:”

Identify the market correctly. We served the Indian market for a very long time. While our market was global, we spent a lot of time on Indian markets first. So you will need to take the decision and define your market.
Get the connect to the market. While you may be good at creating something, but a venture needs both a good product and good marketing and sales. So plan accordingly.
Keep faith in your journey until you decide that you have given a fair chance to it.

People become a pendulum between deciding whether revenue generation is more important or increasing the valuation is more important. While valuations are sexier, I think if you want a sustainable growth and a strong business model, revenue generation helps create that solid foundation.”

Valuefy has definitely established that B2B businesses focussing on revenue generation and profitability can create a sustain an enviable growth. We wish Vivek and his team all the luck in their journey.

05/04/201615/03/2017

Write up the Business Plan !

Most of us have read the famous story about Jeff Bezos’s cross country trip from New York to Seattle. Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994, writing up the Amazon business plan on the way. Jeff’s important advise for startup company or any company is to write up the business plan.

Now if Jeff Bezos has done it, and become one of the most successful entrepreneur in the internet era, why not just do it ? By writing it down, you will certainly get a lot of clarity and reference point for what you want to achieve….

Here are some thoughts of what and how should this business plan be written to become a continuous reference point for your startup and growth story. The examples and references of this is more on Software Products in B2B (Enterprise) based on my own experience of writing business plans and working with startups whom I have mentored, however many of this can be relevant for Software Product in B2C (consumer) as well. Also this business plan should be ideally written by founder or a product manager…

What it is and some guidelines?

It’s an internal and confidential write-up – Don’t confuse it with presentations and business plans to be shared with people who will fund this – that should just be a subset of this
Is reference plan, and should be revisited frequently to change
Prepare it in word /excel, bit free form with text (power points constraints you)
Prepare atleast 3 scenarios – aggressive, best estimate, conservative plans
Do it for 1 year (short term – in greater detail), 3 years (medium – bit higher level) and 5-10 years (long – very high level) – Remember Bill Gates quote “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
Write it free form, and then organize it later, go through several iterations, review, review and review

Start with a summary:

Like an executive summary, this is the place you start jotting down the highlights of your road ahead – covering Introduction of yourself and the team, your idea, product space, history and market definition (presuming you have researched it), clear USP & value, challenges & risks, and overall KPIs that will come out of the rest of the business plan. The summary is most likely to change once you have written the rest of the plan.

Customers & Personas:

Who are the users, what are their current problems and how does your solution solve this problems.

Who pays for the software, what are their challenges and what are their company /career goals that the software would help solve

What are the financial/non financial benefits for the customer based on using this product or the cost reduction using the software, measured by productivity etc. Can there be a customer ROI estimated

Market:

Define the market category and market size ie today, and in the future that you want to focus. Try to break down into 2 – 3 levels of hierarchy and in a multi dimensional way by Business type /Geography / Revenue potential of customer/Size of the customer or any other business context.

Define the share of the market you would like to achieve of the market size, on key market segments in 1/3/5 years. What’s the customer IT spends planned for solving such problems

Market is the most key aspect that is going to drive you to successful product, so understand the potential market, research and put it in there

Product:

Now on to the product – write up about the product, to cater to the above market opportunity, with lot of details and value propositions, differentiations and what problem it solves.

Whether the product you are planning is a pain killer, vitamin or vaccine…

Product priorities and use cases – focus is the key, focus on the key market, focus on the design and so on and so forth…

Product Roadmap – at level 1 (vision), at level 2 (product category ) , at level 3 (feature /function level). Product roadmap is your product in the growth face

Competitors and other players in the market, and what they have today, in their roadmap or what they are trying to do. Your differentiation against each of them,plans to differentiate. If you don’t know it, some tips for this are here

When will your product be available , the minimum viable product and is there enough time to get the baby out ?

Monetization:

How do you plan to monetize your product, don’t build a plan that ignores monetization.

Revenue and Customer Goals – Quarterly, yearly and medium/long term goals, subscription revenue including projection of drop offs etc.

Pricing model description – different options to be considered, domestic vs international, subscription based vs fixed etc

Risks , probability and dependencies to achieve these goals

Technology:

Explain the technology used for the product, how it would scale, Ux differentiations, clear differentiations due to tech architecture, performance, simplicity, implementation effort. Important this is not technical architecture , so keep this high level.

Talent:

What the skills required to sustain the business – development, design, sales, customer support, channels marketing etc. Challenges & risks associated with this.

Identify gap in availability of talent.

Layout if its important for you to relocate to be successful, due to availability of talent. Place is super important for success – what are the options – what are the pros and cons.

Customer support & feedback:

What is the strategy around customer support & feedback, how product roadmaps are affected by feedback. Level of engagement required initially and as the product matures.

Past learning’s from customers, what went right and what went wrong. How was it addressed?

Challenges of remote support and how it was addressed /planned to be addressed

Draw your effort, cost and cash flows:

You don’t have be finance person – its like putting forth your personal finances, or just google for templates – put together your estimate of people cost, server /cloud Operating costs, sales & marketing costs, other infrastructure cost – space/communication/support/software etc, any other expenses required to do scale the product. Link this with your monetization plan, to ascertain your overall profit or loss over the years.

As you see above, there is a lot that can be written up – as you write up in detail, your thoughts on what you are setting forth gets clearer….

But don’t worry if what you plan is not exactly how it’s all turning out to be in reality…..but its important to have a plan, adjust it for reality…

So now pack up and start off on your cross country trip from Mumbai to Bangalore, to write your Business Plan in Bezos style !!!

26/03/201626/03/2016

#MadeinIndia Time & Attendance Management Software to Enhance Productivity

Let us start with a simple fact, no one can dispute over the countless benefits technology has brought us. It has allowed us to improve, perform and connect our resources beyond imagination!!

Whether you work in a company or run your own business, time management is always on top of your mind. By properly managing time, the organization can know the amount of work allocated to the employees, how long the employees spend in doing unproductive tasks and how many of them are doing over-time.

With this, organization can easily calculate their employees productivity. Moreover they can pre-plan their agendas and finalize company’s work schedule.

But, what if your time management software also facilitates the feature of attendance management? This will be an added advantage as the origination can keep an eye on the regularity and punctuality of an employee. Because, if company has a comprehensive and authentic time and attendance management softwares, it can easily organize the work with proper synchronization.

Here is a list of “#MadeinIndia” Time and Attendance Management Software to consider.

Timereckon: It is a web enabled time & attendance management software that can be seamlessly integrated with any payroll system. In case of time records processing, it provides an Enterprise web – based solutions. Moreover, it has comprehensive security layer which is accessible to supervisorial or managerial level only. Timereckon also allows integration with HR, Finance and Payroll Professionals so that they can automate the entire attendance and leave management process. It helps in generating extensive reports and has a large database for maximum storage.

Cost: Contact Website.

Timecheck Software: It is an enterprise grade web based solution with strong features to simplify Time and Attendance management process. Moreover, it provides immaculate solutions for improving business productivity. It integrates with payroll software and ensures on-time payments of salary. It provides intuitive dashboard and flexi-mode options for overtime management and terminal configuration.

Some of its value added features include visitor management integration, Bi-lingual support, user group management and work order management.

Cost: Contact Website.

ZingHR Time and Attendance Management Software: This time and attendance management software ensures that organization can keep track on various employee activities, irrespective of their locations. Moreover, it measures time spent on creating business policies and has a user-friendly dashboard. Thus, the organization can propel its productivity and utilize all its resources.

Cost: Welcome- 7250/month

Power- 9250/month

Business- 14250/month

Turbo- 19250/month

Timemate: It provides an organization the facility to reduce the processing time of employee time sheets and decrease human errors in it. In addition to this, it provides biometric time and attendance system which can seamlessly integrate with many hardware devices. Timemate has various solutions such as fingerprint scanning, swipe cards and hand-on punches which provides authentic attendance report. Moreover, it facilitates graphical representation of events & schedules and it allows the access of attendance reports via internet.

Cost: Contact Website

TimeSheet: Managing time spent on each job by a particular employee can be a daunting task. Therefore, Timesheet software is used as it is highly customizable & can be used by organizations of all sizes. Moreover, it gives enterprise-class time tracking solutions at very affordable prizes. It makes comprehensive reports of time management of employees at a rapid rate. It also provides a “to-do” manager to keep track of small and personal tasks. Some of its top-notch features include auto-locking of time sheets, intuitive dashboard & comprehensive reports with minimum data entry.

Cost: Independent Consultants: Rs.500/user/month.

Startups- Rs.400/user/month.

Growing Businesses- Rs.300/user/month.

Big Business House- Rs.200/user/month

Zoho: “Attendance Management is now a breeze” this is the tagline used by Zoho attendance management software. Its time tracker helps organizations to regularly monitor team’s efficiency thus improving their overall capacity. Its timesheet helps companies to analyze employee’s activity and how much time has been registered on each activity. Zoho time sheets are facilitated with hierarchal structures and customized time-log templates. Timesheets also records Log-billable hours and makes sure that the employees are paid for their over time. Moreover, it enables organizations to record all work related items cohesively at a single click.

Cost: Free up-to 5 users.

Standard: Rs.2340/month up-to 25 users.

Premium: Rs.4500/month up-to 50 users.

Enterprise: Rs.5940/month

Adrenalin: It enables the organization to have a 360 degree view of employees working hours thus provides authentic analysis of their productivity. Adrenalin provides accurate data collections of employee’s information which is the crucial step in attendance management. Along with this, it helps to redefine attendance capture mode through integration with external time capturing devices. Moreover, it provides various reports to monitor attendance, regularity and sign-in / sign-out information of the employees.

Cost: Contact Website

Time productivity is the key to success of any organization. With this, it is imperative that it should be managed properly. Moreover, the above mentioned time management software amalgamate with other features such as payroll and attendance management thus providing additional facility to the company. Optimizing and synchronizing time dwells well if managed properly. Therefore, use these software in order to enhance your organization’s productivity.

Moreover, if you are looking for free and open source time and attendance management software you can check it out here.

22/03/201615/03/2017

BPO Talent To Be Groomed For Inside Sales In SaaS India

With ongoing expeditious advancements in communication, social media, cloud, mobility and related technologies – sales is on a continuous path for digital transformation. This is going to place inside sales teams at a strategic position in sales and marketing process, in terms of significance. A shift is being observed from field sales model to inside sales model which is attracting field sales guys towards inside sales jobs. Therefore, the Inside Sales industry is moving towards a revolution worldwide.

Inside Sales Teams to Play a Greater Role in Sales

Inside sales is quite strategic to India’s GDP growth. Indian BPO industry alone contributes 1% of India’s GDP where professionals are majorly involved in B2C processes including inside sales. IT/ITES and software companies have been early adopters of Inside Sales process for B2B leads generation. With digital sales transformation happening for the digitally dependent buyers, the inside sales teams are going to play a greater role in sales process, as more tasks of the marketing and field sales teams have come under the scope of Inside Sales teams.

SaaS India – Early Adopters of Inside Sales Technology

SaaS, Technology and Professional Services companies in the western world are the first ones to acknowledge a digitally connected buyer by adopting Inside Sales Technology. The traditional businesses like manufacturing companies in US are exploring how Inside Sales tech may add value to their sales process.

However, in the Indian market, mainly SaaS industry is at the forefront on trying their hands on advanced Inside Sales Technology for accelerated sales. The others in the technology industry are going to follow this trend in near future in India. Traditional industries are going to take some time to change their sales processes as their buyers are slowly becoming internet savvy for business purchases.

Inside Sales to Play Significant Role in SaaS India

As per Google Accel SaaS Report 2016 – SaaS India is expected to grow to $50 billion in next 10 years while Indian SMB SaaS is expected to rise from current $600 million to $10 billion in the said period.

Source: Google Accel Report – SaaS India, Global SMB Market, $50B in 2025

SaaS industry has a strong need for inside sales professionals. As per the report, strong workforce in the BPO sector gives access to talent pool of around 6,20,000 Inside Sales professionals, out of which 1,20,000 are inside sales ready and 5,00,000 are skill ready.

Source: Google Accel Report – SaaS India, Global SMB Market, $50B in 2025

I personally believe that 6,20,000 from the BPO sector, who are assessed as ready for SaaS as per report, need to be groomed for making them sales skill ready as only telecalling skills don’t make a professional acceptable for Sales Development Rep’s role in SaaS Sales.

Inside Sales Talent – A Key Challenge for SaaS India

SDRs are expected to understand the Sales Processes. They should have the knack of using Inside Sales Tools like Social Media, Email, Phone, CRM and other smart selling tools. The working environment of B2B Inside Sales teams is significantly different from BPO scenario, where the reps are much more controlled, the jobs are temporary, the performance metrics are more around calls numbers and talk time, the customer engagements are very short lived, and end consumers are served with products & services.

This vast difference would require a complete psychological shift in the skills of a BPO professional who aspires to work in the SaaS sales space. They would need to be trained on Inside Sales function from scratch to be helpful, empathetic, B2B marketing and sales process oriented, B2B product/services domain expert, and digital sales intensive to successfully become an SDR. SDR will progress to become an account executive with quota around end closures and finally managing SDRs.

Aspirants looking to fill Inside Sales Talent Gap

There is a need to align the professionals by training for B2B Inside Sales function to serve the evolving SaaS industry in India.

I am associated with AA-ISP, American Association of Inside Sales Professionals as the President for India Chapter. The mission of AA-ISP is to advance the profession of Inside Sales. AA-ISP Gurgaon and Noida Chapter is supported by Inside Sales Box to create an ecosystem for Inside Sales professionals for businesses.

If you are a BPO/ Inside Sales/ Marketing and Sales professional or a Technology Entrepreneur, who is aspiring to stay abreast with best IS practices, discover digital sales tools & technologies, and explore jobs and business opportunities locally and globally – I welcome you to be a part of AA-ISP India.

15/03/201616/03/2016

A payment gateway that onboards you in less than a week: Razorpay

If you are a startup looking for payment gateway integration and the process adherence is killing you, Razorpay might save the hassle.

Founded by Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur in 2014, Razorpay is positioned to provide you with a payment gateway solution within a week’s time. Shashank shares that his inability to find a gateway to accept international payments and the enviable ease with which it could be done in US, drove him to start Razorpay.

Here are some interesting bits from iSPIRT’s interview with Shashank:

What triggered you to start up?

SK: “My co-founder and I know each other from college days. After we graduated, we kept working on side projects, mostly for fun. For one of our side projects, we wanted a payment gateway to accept international transactions. However, it had a bunch of requirements like we should have a proper office space, past operational record as a company, fixed deposit of over 1 lakh, and more. Even after fulfilling those requirements, it would take 1 to 3 months for activation. Overall, we had a negative experience. We went online and found that most people, mostly startups, shared a similar experience.

There were 2 issues. First, it was a technical challenge. But more importantly, it was a startup challenge. The gateways, at least at that time (2013), were not ready to serve the startups. The issue needed to be addressed with a fresh mindset. We thought we could do something about it.”

What has been the role of the accelerators in shaping your journey?

SK: “We started from Jaipur to save cost and were working from home initially. Soon we started looking for co-working spaces and came across Startup Oasis, which had come up as an incubator and a co-working hub. Other startups there were also our target market. So we got a lot of first had feedback on our product as we grew. The team at the incubator also made a lot of introductions for us.

When YCombinator happened, they changed our entire thought process on how the company needs to work. They helped with our initial launch, raising money, hiring, managing ESOPs, etc. Also, people took us more seriously now since we were a YC company. We were thinking in terms of how big the space is and taking care of our core business, while the accelerator helped us with the other roles.”

What was your most prominent roadblock?

SK: “We went and talked to multiple banks for offering payments. However, since we did not have any prior experience they were averse to us. Given the failure rate of startups I think it is understandable, since they are accountable for everything. Slowly things are changing, but even now it is very difficult for banks to take early stage startups seriously.”

What would be your advice people who want to startup?

SK: “Pick up a problem that you yourself have experienced; that is the perfect place to start solving. If you become your own target market, it helps. Once you go deep into the domain, you will realize if the problem is big enough for you to solve it. It should be a problem that your network or peer group is facing so that you get your initial set of customers and are able to validate your product.

Have set timelines. It helps to know what you want to do. When we started, we had zero domain knowledge, but our vision was very clear. Once that is clear, one can define the current situation and set future timelines. It will take time to achieve whatever you aspire, but you need to put those numbers on paper first. Figure the knowledge gaps and put timelines against them. If one approach does not work, try something different and see how you get to it. The idea is to not get stuck and keep moving on instead.

It would be great if you could get a mentor at an early stage. Even otherwise, there are a lot of resources online that might help. The idea is to understand what problem exactly are you trying to solve, and then creating a framework around it. It gives a very reliable structure to be able to solve the problem.

Apply to accelerator programs. There application process itself will push you to answer questions, you thought you already had answers to.”

After having raised a round of funding, Razorpay has been aggressively growing in the market with encouraging customer response. We wish them a long and sustainable growth.

10/03/201610/03/2016

Getting loans for SMEs is now simple: Getfiscal #FinTech

Getfiscal was started in May 2015 to help SMEs manage their cash flows and simplify the process of raising loan. It already has about 100 costumers on the platform, and has helped raise loans worth over 1 crore. Before starting up, co-founders Aditya Tulsian and Baskar Ganapathy, were a part of the team responsible for launching Intuit’s accounting and tax software in India.

Here are interesting excerpts from the conversation with Co-founder and CEO, Aditya Tulsian, who shares what it takes to quit a good job and startup.

Why Getfiscal?

“When we took Intuit’s software to Indian SMEs, we found two things:

First, Indian businesses are not looking for full-fledged accounting software. They want a simple way to manage the basic cash flow – the money-in and money-out.

Second, whenever the business wants a loan, it is a big problem. In India the entire cash flow is being managed on excel sheets. It is cumbersome, time consuming. The amount of effort for a bank to underwrite a loan for 10 lakh is the same as that required for 10 crore, which made the banks completely ignore this segment. That’s where we wanted to create a simple but robust platform to help SMEs manage cash flows, and then use that data to enable an NBFC or a bank to give out a working capital loan.“

What was your inspiration behind leaving your job and starting up?

“For me, both my father and my wife have their own businesses. I was closely involved with them, right from forming their company to managing their finances. So it only seemed natural.

Second, we felt that the opportunity was so phenomenal, and both Bhaskar and I had spent enough time in this ecosystem in India, that we could quickly go in, use our knowledge and experience and create a business out of it.”

What do you look for in new hires?

“We are a team of 11 people at this point. We look for 2 things:

We look for passion in the idea. The person has to believe in the idea because the journey is going to be anything but easy.

We are looking for a person who is willing to learn. Though different flavors of this have been done across the globe, the approach that we have taken, where product led financing is the key, that is, we bring the small businesses on the platform and then help them get a loan; this has not happened. Therefore the team needs to constantly have a learning mindset.”

How difficult or easy is it to onboard the SMEs in India?

“Very clearly, they have a genuine problem of managing everything on excel. Excel though flexible, in the end is manual and very error prone. So we see a lot them adopting our platform, even if they do not need a loan.

We are solving for the entire value chain of financial management, for today, when one wants to create an invoice, he manages it on one excel sheet, and then tracks it on a different excel sheet, checks the status in the bank and then gives all this data to the chartered accountant who then files a tax. So there are multiple platforms that have to be touched for a single invoice. So the pain point itself is huge for them.

The other thing everyone losses their sleep is for money, and we are helping them get a loan. So it is simple logic to adapt it.

Now, onboarding has 2 aspects to it: mind set and migration.

To address the mindset issue, we are targeting SMEs who are less than 4 years in business, because that is where the adopters lie.

For migration, we provide a 5 minute mapping, where you can upload your existing excels. For majority of the existing software, you will have to go out and adopt their invoicing format, but not so with us.”

What tips would you share with the people who are looking to quit their jobs and start up?

“Everyone has his or her own journey, but here is what I think it takes:

You have to have passion for the idea. If you don’t believe in the idea, there is no point in working on it. The passion can be for any reason; it could be for the huge amount of money, or it could be for the pain point, or you yourself feel the need for it.

Before you start off, you have to think about a team. While working on the idea, also look for a team. They will help you not only when the chips are down, but they will also complement you. Only then you can go out and create a business, knowing that even if you are not there sometimes, things will be taken care of.”

The idea and its implementation so far looks very promising. We wish Aditya and his team, all the luck in their endeavour.

07/03/201608/03/2016

List of 11 #Madeinindia Applicant Tracking Software

Applicant tracking systems are great for HR professionals and recruiters. Even though there are disputes about their effectiveness as they target keywords more than candidate skills, it greatly helps recruiters to minimize the size of talent preposition without wasting their precious time and energy. Statistically speaking, ATS has saved over 20% of companies’ precious time during the recruiting process. Moreover as per careerealism “75% of large companies uses ATSs to review a resume before a recruiter sees it”. By seeing the above stats you can easily analyze how ATS is a must for every organization in this highly competitive business scenario.

To simplify your talent pool acquisition, here is a list of some of the Top Indian Applicant Tracking Software (In no particular order):
Resumefox: It is an innovative and easy to use recruitment software that saves the hiring time and cost by a whopping 70%. Moreover, through its comprehensive modules an organization can simplify its recruitment process by a great deal. Here are some of its notable features.

It helps in building searchable resume databases with zero manual efforts.
Reformates multiple resumes at one go and has a strong duplicate resume detection system
Generates comprehensive and insightful reports in real time
Creates recruitment life cycle and offers detail analysis of employee until joining.

Price:

Lite: $699
Standard: $899
Enterprise: $1199

TalentRecruit: TalentRecruit is an end-to-end solution that integrates and automates your entire recruitment processes. It helps your company grow by streamlining the recruitment process and reduces operational cost with increase in recruiter’s efficiency. It is highly customized so can fit in any organization. Some of its most enterprising features are:

Provides candidate screening and evaluation facility
Enrich with facilities such as candidate sourcing, resume management, tracking candidate progression, etc.
It provides advanced search algorithms to locate the right candidate.
Has an efficient and agile management of jobs and candidates in order to reduce the “Time to Hire”

Price: Rs 1000-1500/user/month

99ATS: It is a web-based recruitment system that helps organization to stream line and manage their recruitment process. Moreover it has easy migration and avoids resume duplication. Here are some perks :

Has built-in bulk email to reach out to maximum number of candidates.
Imports resumes one by one or in bulk from external resources and organizes with the applicant tracking system.
Has comprehensive and reliable social media integration which helps in providing jobs and requirements at one click. (Learn More: How ATS Systems Integrate with LinkedIn)
Provides an authentic resume extract facility which by parsing extracts accurate information about the candidate.

Price: Contact the Website

Zoho recruit: It a Saas based online recruiting system software. Moreover it helps staffing agencies and recruiting departments to track job openings, resumes, candidates, etc. quickly and efficiently. It provides features such as:

Automatically captures and import resume information from email attachments, outlook inbox, etc.
It lets the recruiters to post job opening on popular sites such as CareerBuilder, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.
Manages candidate activity effectively from one location inside Zoho recruit.
Provides facilities like event management and candidate source tracking.

Price:

Free edition- Rs. 0 for 1 recruiter
Standard edition: Rs. 1500/recruiter/month
Enterprise: 3000/ recruiter/month

RecruitPro 360: Highly customized, RecruitPro 360 enhances recruitment process, synchronizes workflow and increases productivity. Moreover it provides high level automaton process which makes the recruitment process burden free and less time consuming. Here are some of its notable features

Provides intuitive user interface and automated resume import facility
It has comprehensive internet search and match capabilities.
It has a sophisticated tracker which tracks the candidate in an unique and user friendly manner
Has easy to use data migration facility with zero data entry

Price: Contact the Website

Talentpool: It helps in executing better joining ratio by quality and streamlined recruitment process. It empowers front line users with better profiles, getting real time visibility of resumes and track key metrics. Take a look at its features:

It helps managing multiple sourcing activities, including marketing campaigns to access more candidates.
Imports candidate resumes from job portals directly into its centralized database.
Works seamlessly with agencies to manage vendors thus reducing time spent by recruiters on candidate status update.
Provides effective and authentic duplicate resume detection.

Price: Contact the Website

employAstar: It’s a cloud-based applicant tracking system that gives a 360-degree view of client, candidates, requisition, etc. Its cloud-based solutions are focused shrinking efforts and time of the recruiters while the process is going on. Here are some of its most enthralling features:

Provides email alerts and approvals so that organization can send automated emails to their corresponding candidates.
Has quick and advanced resume searching technique.
Facilities effective vendor management system.
Provides easy and integrated platform to simplify the process of corporate internal hiring.

Price: Contact the Website

Adrenalin Recruitment Management: It is the most effective hiring platform which facilitates in tracking of individual skills and transforms recruitment into more simple and effective process. Moreover it effectively manages employee talent thus solves employee retention problems. Some of its noticeable features are:

Provides intuitive interface which requires minimal training which makes it easier for candidates and recruiters to operate.
Has an unique feature of marking out ideal candidates as per company requirements
Provides seamless integrations with job portals and consultants with a single click.
Has comprehensive requisition (official order) management and secure data access.

Price: Contact the Website

TalentCube: TalentCube emphasizes on making the recruitment process simple, easier and cost-effective for organizations. Moreover with the facility of mobile apps, it completes a one-stop solutions regarding recruitment for its users. Take a look at its features:

Provides comprehensive sourcing of candidates which reduces the “Time to Hire” scenario by 30-40%.
With an extensive social media campaign feature, organizations can connect with their candidates and improve candidate experience.
Reduces cost of Hiring with integrations with job boards, social media, email campaign, etc.
Has a user centered design which provides complete analysis, user feedback, prototype structure, etc.

Price: Contact the Website

iHIRING: It is a cloud based assessment platform with in-built applicant tracking system. Moreover with iHIRING candidate assessment can be done in all possible formats viz. code simulation, running text, video and audio. Here are some of its salient features:

Provides large database storage so as to maintain the records of past candidates for future referrals.
Has IP address blocking facility which prevents unsolicited or unwarranted candidates from accessing published assessment.
Provides intuitive dashboard which allows the recruiter to view the entire running process and control hiring process in real time
It is the best deal and a comprehensive solution for corporate or in-house HR teams

Price: Contact the Website

Talentnow: It is designed with a view to manage the entire recruitment cycle of job creation to candidate finalization with minimum human intervention. Moreover it is a boon for direct employers, staffing companies and permanent placement agencies. Some of its notable features are:

Automatically imports resumes from third party job portals, social networking websites, etc. with almost zero data entry
Reduces portal cost by building your own resume database
Implements different workflows for different jobs and increases workflow efficiency.
Provides team/user-level dashboards of activities to track performance, revenues, usage of resources, etc.

Price: Contact the Website

For most staffing agencies and recruiting companies, analyzing optimum keywords for candidate search is been a tedious task. But with the increase in usage of comprehensive and authentic ATS systems not only candidate search but also the “Hire to join” time has come down to a great extent. Storing databases and automating the recruitment process has become easy and less time consuming. Moreover before buying any ATS Software you should check this amazing Applicant Tracking Software Buyer’s Guide by Greenhouse, Inc. If you are looking for an open source ATS Software you can find it here.