Posted on

fluxday — the internal task management & productivity tracking app of Foradian is now opensource

A no-nonsense, free & opensource task & productivity management tool for growing startups

fluxday was developed by Foradian starting in 2013 and was a critical part of Foradian’s hyper growth and success as a B2B software startup in EdTech space. With a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 323 per cent Foradian was listed in Deloitte Tech Fast50 India consecutively for two years. We secured $2mm in funding and grew the company from a small town startup to globally recognized product company. Behind all these success and growth was a small internal app custom developed by our engineering team and adopted by all team members — fluxday

fluxday is engineered on the concepts of OKR — Objectives and Key Results, invented and made popular by John Doerr. OKRs and OKR tools are used today by many companies, including Google, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you are new to OKR read these article 1, article 2

View tasks and work logs for a selected day. You can switch between month and week views.

In fluxday, you can start by creating the departments of your organization and adding the teams in each department. Add users to each team and assign team leads. Each user in fluxday has an OKR that is created for a particular duration. Tasks are created by leads, aligned to an OKR and assigned to team members. A task could be a redesign of your product or trying out a new tool to drive more traffic to your blog. You can also add comments and subtasks on each task. Users log in work done for a task and number of hours put in each day. Team Leads can see tasks assigned to each team member and the number of hours put into it.

View details of tasks like assigned users, duration and priority. You can also add subtasks from here.

With textual and graphical reports from fluxday, get insights into the time put into each task, check the performance of your team members, calculate ROI on that new feature change, take quick decisions and grow your business. Fluxday is designed to provide a simple productivity solution for fast growing teams. Fork it, add features to it, tweak it to your liking and start using it.

Generate visual and textual reports to view performance of users. Chose between OKR, Worklogs, Tasks and Assignment based reports for an employee or employee groups.

fluxday is “your favorite task management system on steroids” with freedom of customization and private hosting

Checkout the official website and/or download and fork fluxday atgithub

Story of fluxday

We started Foradian in 2009 as first generation entrepreneurs without any experience in building and growing a company. First 3 years was about the usual startup struggles, surviving the startup-valley-of-death and establishing product market fit. By 2012 product-market fit was proven forFedena and certain predictable revenue stream was established. That is when we felt the need for a tool to coordinate the tasks of all the team members so that each and every task will be aligned to the goals of the company.

The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison. — James Cash Penney

That is when we learnt about OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) and other startups using OKRs. We started implementing the concept through spreadsheets and it picked up momentum. Next step was to choose an app for task management and productivity tracking so that we can reduce the number of daily interruptions to employees to check their work progress. We tried different apps available. There are thousands of apps for managing tasks and projects. But we needed something unique that matched with our culture and process. So we decided to develop a small custom app and fluxday was born. Sooraj T P developed the app based on the design byDeviprasad and guidance by Arvind(co-founder & CTO). I had observed this pattern in other successful companies also. Great leaders develop their custom app for their mission critical system. Read “How Elon Musk Approaches IT at Tesla”

Lessons learned

Implementing a productivity tool is not an easy task. You need a lot of discipline and motivation to use even a simple personal to-do list app daily. So making sure your team members use the productivity tracking system effectively is a herculean task. We understood it, accepted it and simply executed the implementation. That made all the difference.

There will be team members who will hate the system and will not use it. Let them be. But if you can get 90% of the team members to adopt it, you got the greatest law of universe in your favor — mathematics.

Productivity tools should match with your personality type. A planner and visualizer can’t use the same productivity tool to maximum potential.

Are you a prioritizer? A planner? An arranger? Or a visualizer? Once you know, you’ll be able to more effectively manage your work and home life and achieve your goals much more efficiently. Read this HBR article and try the assessment to discover your personal productivity style. Don’t force a productivity system on your team. Develop an organization habit of using a common system with patience, compassion and respect.

Next steps

Today fluxday is not foradian’s secret tool. It is freely available to everyone. You can use it, customize it, enhance it, build a business around it, learn from it or if you don’t like it you can dump it and build another tool from scratch. Fluxday is available under Apache License 2.0 — so that you have the choice to keep the customization done by you as private or public.Download and fork fluxday

“through discipline comes freedom” — Aristotle

Team Foradian

If you liked the story of fluxday, you must checkout what we are doing with Fedena and Uzity. We are always looking for ideas and partners to help us achieve our vision.

Guest Post by Unni Krishnan, Foradian Technologies

Posted on

Finance Secretary – interacts with Product Industry in Bangalore.

Mr. Rajiv Mehrishi promises deeper Institutional Reforms

Mr. Rajiv Mehrishi, Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance for Government of INDIA, is a pro-reforms, vocal advocate of institutional transformation of the Financial System in INDIA. Additionally, he is also  the Secretary, Department of Economic affairs. Mr. Mehrishi and his team – Mr. Manoj Joshi (Jt. Secretary), Mr. Ajay Shah (Head, Macro/Finance Group, NIPFP), Ms. Ila Patnaik (Principal Economic Advisor) and Mr. CKG Nair (Advisor, Capital Markets) – specially traveled to Bangalore to understand the software product industry landscape and discuss ways to make India go cashless.

The 4 hour interaction was at ITC Windsor Manor. It was chaired by iSPIRT Mentor Mohandas Pai.  iSPIRT Governing Council members Bharat Goenka (Tally), Vishnu Dusad (Nucleus) and Sharad Sharma (BrandSigma) were also there along with Fellows Avinash Raghava, Nakul Saxena and Sudhir Singh. Shekhar Kirani who had planned the industry landscape showcase had to skip the meeting to be at his daughter’s music recital.

Showcasing behind the scenes transformation of India

The first session focused on bringing the software product industry landscape to life through a carefully curated showcase of 10 product startups. Each startup is a story of dreaming big about transforming India and the world. The goal of this session was to showcase India’s under appreciated prowess to shape industries and tackle deep rooted problems through its tech startups. The companies that participated in this carefully curated showcase were Ezetap, Instamojo, Capillary, PeelWorks, InMobi, Foradian, Team Indus, Forus Health, OlaCabs and Practo. The session went well and was an eye-opener to the policy makers. It helped them understand the breadth and depth of the emerging software product industry in India. One of them remarked that this was “one of the most awesome afternoons of his life”. They found the session to be “revealing and energizing”.  Everybody felt more optimistic about India’s future after this session.

Making India go Cashless

The next session was a thoughtful discussion on how to make India go cashless in 4 years. It was led by Bharat Goenka and Sanjay Jain (iSPIRT Open API Expert Team member, former Chief Product Officer of Aadhaar). They presented a comprehensive approach and suggested a new Program, Jan Samridhi, for the Government. This builds on the Open API work that iSPIRT has already done (in eSign, UPI and GTSN) and proposes specific and inter-related policy and regulatory changes. This benefits of going cashless are many. It’ll curb black money but will also expands micro-credit to small businesses in a big way.

Tax Friction for Product Startups

The final session was about tax friction for software product companies. Most of these are arise from poor definition of software products within the Finance Ministry. Mr. Mehrishi promised a quick resolution of these issues.

Conclusion

It was a very collaborative and interactive session. It showcased how India has emerged as the 2nd largest software product startup ecosystem in the world. It also brought attention to this new paradigm of creating Public Goods with a Social Commons model (open source model) and how this approach would be instrumental in India going cashless in a short period of time. Mr. Mehrishi and team suggested that deeper institutional mechanisms are required to bridge the intellectual distance between Delhi and Bangalore.

These powerful dialogs that iSPIRT is fostering with key policy makers (e.g. SEBI’s UK Sinha, RBIs Raghuram Rajan) are making a difference. They are helping us rewrite the script of the nation. And they are taking us closer to making India a Product Nation! So go ahead, spread the word.

Posted on

How Foradian has established its position in school management software with an innovative product

Kerala based, Foradian Technologies that began as a web development and services company, soon emerged to be one of the fastest growing firms in the field of school management software. What came as a small software requirement to store school records and procedures soon caught the attention of the State Government of Kerala, which deployed Fedena in all their schools under the Project Sampoorna. Founded in 2009, the company has a rapidly rising business and a global presence in 200+ countries that uses its solution.

In an interview with ProductNation, Arun Raveendran, Cofounder, and Director, Foradian Technologies, says, he is upbeat about the future of the company. Foradian has already recorded profits. Moreover, with fresh funding early this year, the company is ready to expand its operations to markets like USA, Canada and the UK. 

ForadianWhat was the mission behind forming Foradian Technologies?

Foradian was established in 2009, by 8 childhood friends who met at various points in their lives. Formed in a small town in Kasargod, Kerala, we wanted to do something different from our peers and decided to start a company. We had no concept plan for a product or which market to cater to, just a dream to be entrepreneurs.

What were the driving factors to build solutions for school education market?

Foradian was started as a web-development services company. During the course of the work we came across an educational institution that wanted to implement a school management system. In our search for an available school management solution, we realized that there was a huge gap in the market as the only available solutions in education software were from big players and they were costly. That is when the idea of developing Fedena School ERP software came into force.

What was the technology adoption scenario in schools before you entered this market?

It was very narrow as it still is. Schools, especially in India, were not very comfortable with the idea of having paperless records and procedures. It’s not the same now. Schools want to adopt technology as it is the right thing to do.  But still there are managerial challenges in making the teachers use it.

How will specialized solutions change the education sector?

Specialized solutions can enable the education sector to deliver a lot more than what they are delivering now. A school with online ERP system can perform tasks like: collaborating with parents anywhere and anytime, go paperless, plan timetables and examinations months in advance, inventory management and a lot more. Technology in any sector is a tool for solving business problems as well as an enabler of progress, so is the case with education sector.

What is the potential of this market and who are the players who are leading in it?

Fedena being a flexible product can be customized to cater to all geographies, types and institutes, irrespective of size. Therefore our market is huge. There are millions of schools, colleges, universities, evening schools, learning centers, etc. worldwide, which makes it a very big market for us. Most of the big players in the market, who offer ERP solutions to education institutes, do not offer specialized products but only a modification of a general ERP product. Also, their solutions are expensive. This gives Fedena an edge over them as we provide a specialized education technology product at much lower cost.

Tell us about Project Fedena and Ruby on Rails (RoR)? How successful did it prove to be?

Project Fedena is the open-source version of Fedena Pro. It comes with only the core modules. In the initial deployment of Fedena, we realized that every school had different requirements and required extensive customization. For scaling up the product, we were required to offer one product that fits all. In 2010, Project Fedena – a free, basic version of the product was rolled out. The basic version of Fedena was free and whoever wanted a customized product had to pay a fee.

We decided to go with RoR because it is developer friendly. All our technical employees were beginners and it took them only 2 months to start coding in our system. Since RoR is widely used nowadays, we get fantastic support online. Also there are plenty of plug-ins and gems available for specific requirements.

What is the story behind creation of Fedena? How did you get the funding? What were the challenges faced in developing and marketing the product? 

Foradian was started as a web development and services company. Fedena was developed after a school raised a requirement for school management software. Soon, Fedena caught the attention of the State Government of Kerala which deployed Fedena in all their schools across the state under the Project Sampoorna.

Foradian received a funding of $2 million earlier this year from William Bissel of Fab India who had a very keen interest in the education sector and saw the potential in us. The funding came at the right time as Foradian, which was already running into profits now wanted to expand its reach in countries like USA, Canada and UK.

Were you able to breakeven with Fedena? How early? What were the challenges faced in selling the software product? Do you sell direct or through channel partners?

It took us about 2 years to break even. The main challenges faced by us were need for customization and limited usage. Every institute is different from the other, so are their requirements from their ERP software. Therefore we started Fedena ecosystem which consisted of many resellers, IT professionals and developers. This ecosystem helped us provide customization and after sale services to all our institutes.

Most management information systems are difficult to learn and configure, so many schools don’t use them. Fedena was designed to be easy to use. It is so user friendly that anyone with a basic knowledge of computers and email should be able to use it within 10 minutes.

What is the company’s turnover today? What’s your next project? Have you explored the overseas market?

Last year we closed around $1 million. We are also under the process of launching Learning Management software called Uzity. It is a global university where you have the ultimate freedom to teach and learn anything you want in any pace you prefer. It is still in testing phase.

Fedena has a global presence. Currently Fedena is being used in 200+ countries.

How favourable is the eco-system for development of software products in India? What is needed to make it more conducive?

Software industry in India is booming. The eco-system for development of software products has gained momentum. There are new pro-active policies by government being introduced to enable the incubators and accelerators and also to impart skill development which will make the work force in this industry more employable.

As a product development company what learning would you like to share with others? What are the highs and lows of product development?

The high side is that you get to introduce innovations in the industry. Once you find a scalable model for your product you earn high profits, high margins. There is a chance of explosive growth with a disruptive product, like it happened in our case.

In contrast, product development can sometimes run into high development costs like R&D, human resources deployment etc. You can sometime run into dead ends where you spent a lot of time, effort and money on product development and the market doesn’t respond to your product.

A through market research is a must before you start developing a product. Best approach will be to find a gap in the market and develop a product that fills that gap.

Is the team still managed by the ‘eight childhood friends’ or has the equation changed?

We are 6 full time Directors now, handling various verticals of Foradian.

Tell us about how you started Tintumon.com and how it ended up being so popular?

Tintumon.com, a social networking website for Malayalees was launched as a leisure pursuit project and it went viral. The user base of Tintumon.com grew radically and was soon reported by all popular media in Malayalam. It was celebrated as a cult by the youth of Kerala.

You have received numerous awards and accolades. How would you describe the journey so far?

Even though Fedena is a simple yet powerful product, it got the right kind of attention from the tech world. Awards bring a sense of confidence that we are on a right track and that has greatly helped us in moving forward.

Our journey so far has been very rewarding and fulfilling. There is a new challenge everyday and it is this challenging nature of entrepreneurship which makes it so exciting and worthy. Fedena as a product has gone places and with the funding in the picture we are at a very exciting point in our journey and we wish to make the best of it.