Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

To come out with a solution one has to be equipped with a crystal clear problem statement document . My experience in QA/Testing role taught me how to describe a bug clearly in other words how to reproduct the bug. QA person use the product as a end user and can clearly point out the problem in the product. This experience really helped in product management work while defining the problem statement, gaps, pain points in the market.

Well written problem statements help product managers communicate both the difficulty faced in the market and the potential reward for solving the problems. If you stop and think about it you’ll see that problems are actually opportunities. New features, new products and even new industries spring up from people who see problems and find ways to solve them.

The key to successfully solving problems is understanding them. The following steps will help you express problems clearly and help you identify solutions:

1. Define the problem: Understand the nature of the problem and articulate it clearly so you understand its effects on the people you are trying to help.
2. Produce ideas: Make a list of things you can do right away to solve the problem. Be aggressive in finding the right solution.
3. Test the ideas: Discuss the best ideas with your team and test them with customers. Find out which ones resonate.
4. Choose among ideas: Choose the idea that will best solve the problem.
5. Plan for action: Write a plan to solve the problem. This plan will most often come in the form of clear product requirements that will guide the development, QA, marketing and other teams to successfully implement a product (or new product features) that solves the problem.

Well-written problem statements are an important communication tool for product managers.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Ericsson has acquired a minority stake in Novatium Solutions Private Ltd. with an aim to speed up the broadband enabled user services in emerging economies. Novatium launched its commercial service in November 2009 and has 40 employees in its Chennai office and 35 employees in the field throughout India. Novatium offers a PC together with cloud-based services via telecom operators gives Ericsson exciting opportunity to support an innovative local business in a fast growing market that will further increase the need of mobile broadband

Via agreements with various software companies, Novatium offers a PC together with cloud-based services through telecom operators and distributors’ network, where the consumer buys his or her choice of a service-package, for example anti-virus, photo editing or office programs, as a thin client on a monthly basis. Primarily, this service addresses the needs of first-time Internet and PC users, both from simplicity as well as from an affordability perspective.

With Ericsson acquiring a minority stake in Novatium, the company will have funding and competence to further develop the offering and grow outside India in markets with similar needs. For Ericsson the agreement offers an exciting opportunity to support an innovative local business in a fast growing market that will further increase the need of mobile broadband.

Acknowledging the importance of cloud based services, Gowton Achaibar, head of Region India, Ericsson, said, “The business concept PC as-a-service is a strong offering addressing an important growing segment in the Indian market. With this engagement I see potential business synergy benefits to both Novatium and Ericsson and our respective customers.”

Alok Singh, CEO Novatium Solutions Pvt. Ltd. said, “This strategic relationship with Ericsson encompasses a great opportunity for Novatium as we are partnering with a global organization with the best technology know-how, which will help us develop our offering and introduce it to new markets.”

The middle income consumers and the first time PC owners are the primary contributors to the growth of PC usage in India, while connectivity to internet and cloud based services are important enablers.

The PC-as-a-service with cloud environment also brings a business opportunity to the telecom operators as it provides differentiated broadband pricing based on what services the consumer wants to have access to. This not only allows operators to increase their revenues from a service revenue share but also increases the addressable broadband market by lowering consumers’ entry barriers with affordable PC’s and related services.

Novatium has contracts with some of the major Indian telecom operators like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), Bharti Airtel and TATA.

StratosHear, a leading mobile media company, yesterday announced the launch of MobiAdz, its premium mobile advertisingnetwork. With MobiAdz, StratosHear has expanded its mobile advertising offerings from rich audio advertising to include mobile Internet ad formats—such as banner, video and text—and has emerged as the one-stop solution for all advertisers embracing the mobile medium.

StratosHear has deep experience working with leading telecom operators to ad-enable their subscriber base through its multi-channel, telco-grade ad platform. StratosHear has worked with top global and national brands to deliver excellent brand campaign results with its AdRBT product that delivers radio-style ad placement on caller tunes.

The company has leveraged this experience in designing MobiAdz from the ground up. Furthermore, they have incorporated artificial intelligence—or self-learning—into the proprietary algorithms that power MobiAdz and that are used to ensure optimal ad targeting and strong campaign results. As such, the MobiAdz engine goes beyond the traditional ad networkapproach to deliver advanced campaign optimization techniques for its publisher and advertiser partners.

MobiAdz has received an incredible reception from the marketplace. Over 100 publishers across various verticals have registered with MobiAdz, which is now serving tens of millions of ad impressions per month across 200 countries.

MobiAdz uniquely positioned to offer the broadest set of mobile advertising solutions that can reach the breadth of mobile consumers, from the entry level handset to the highest end smart phone user, and from a rural village in India to anywhere in the world.”

Publishers too will benefit from StratosHear’s launch of MobiAdz. The company’s approach of having a strong media sales team in-house to reach the broadest set of advertisers for both brand and performance campaigns, will help publishers to more effectively monetize their inventory.

The idea of most consumers having their mobile device with them at all times coupled with the emerging technologies being built into today’s devices, bring a wealth of opportunity to marketers. With MobiAdz, advertisers are able to fine-tune their campaigns based on their needs and to measure performance based on metrics and real-time reporting. The ultimate result? More effective campaigns and a stronger return on investment.

Direct Competitors - AdMob (bought by Google) and Inmobi (backed by Sherpalo ventures and KPCB)

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Citrix Systems today announced its strategic expansion plans for India, including moving its research and development (R&D) team to a new facility in Bangalore, second in size only to that of the US R&D organization, as well as expanding its sales team and opening to a new sales office in Mumbai to accommodate them.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton today opened the new R&D centre and detailed the company’s expansion plans for India. The new facility will handle all aspects of research including design, coding, functional testing, engineering, management. As a result, Citrix can better partner and interact with its customers as early as the product development stage, in order to provide them with the best solution to meet their business needs.

“India has some of the best information technology talent in the world and the expansion of our R&D team here ensures we can take best advantage of this highly regarded expertise,” said Templeton.

Citrix has five R&D centres worldwide, with other facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.

Rakesh Singh, Vice President and Managing Director for Bangalore Research and Development said the local team was responsible for the development of key products for Citrix and that they were extremely proud of the leading edge products that were conceived, developed and ultimately brought to market due to Indian know-how.

Sanjay Deshmukh, Area Vice President, India Subcontinent at Citrix, said: “As a rapidly growing market, India holds immense potential for our company and we are proud that we can meet the demands of this dynamic, expanding market with a strengthen sales and R&D team.”

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

iWebNotes is a mumbai based startup which offers SaaS based ERP cum CRM solution targeted at small and medium enterprises.

iWebnotes facilitates SMEs in their ctivities such as accounting, invoicing, sales, stock keeping, projects, tasks and HR related activities. I like their pricing strategy kept it very simple and have adopted only one pricing which is 299/month/user, it won’t confuse the common user. One can see their demo and can as well signup for a 30 days free trial for the hands on experience.

The workflow and functionality are very basic and high level features which should suffice 70-75% of their work, which is good to get started  but i doubt whether this simplicity will draw users since most of the SMEs want rich features at low price.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Shopping for facility management services was never so easy before, AppartmentAdda launches marketplace for vendors and associations called Buzaar.  You can use Buzzar to shop for facility management related services and products for your apartment community.

Pain points AppartmentAdda found out, majority of the Associations felt that enough information is not available on

1)      The existing and reliable vendors who provide service

2)      The Apartments, the vendors are serving/have served

3)      The experience of other association owners about the vendor’s quality of service

4)      Availability of Quotes in standard formats, and in a central space where all MC members can review.

Buzzar addresses the issues mentioned above and aims to reduce the time taken for evaluating facility management vendors by

1)      Sharing exhaustive list of VERIFIED vendors who provide wide range of services related to facility management.

2)      Providing DETAILED information of vendors , the gated communities they have serviced

3)      Making the Quotes sent by Vendors available in ‘Admin Files’ of your Adda.

Buzzar provides the following features for Associations -

1)       Shop for facility management related services/products

2)       Provide/View feedback on existing vendors

3)       Refer a vendor

Buzzar allows you to request for quote for variety of services which are generally used in gated communities. Those are Housekeeping , Security, Pest control, Upgrade/AMC/Repair for Sewage treatment plant , Swimming Pool , Generator , Transformers, Bore well/Pumps , Gym equipments.  Buzzar will be expanding to more categories under facility management and we look forward to your active contribution towards this.

You can even earn reward points for your Association for utilizing the Buzzar services. These reward points can be encashed for premium SMS , Free Add Ons or substantial discount for Premium Adda subscription.

Certainly a very useful utility for associations to carry out facility work in their complexes. Give a try and share your feedback.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Entrepreneurs think that their business idea is very good and will manage to attract VCs. For VCs, more than the idea its scalability that matters. Its a very common reason for VC to turn down your business proposal stating your business venture is not scalable. 90 out of 100 business plans are rejected citing lack of scalability, and questions hovering around scaling. So what is scalability and why is necessary to attract VCs.

Classic example i can quote is movie rental service. I worked in a  movie rental startup company, they started with Bangalore centere and within 6 months started operating in Mumbai and Delhi, this is scaling. In order to run operations/stores in multiple location it requires a head office cost and costs to develop and deploy ERP/SCM/CRM solutions. Thats is why each additional center will contribure much higher amount towards profit. This movie rental service company scaled to 8 cities and successfully raised $21M.

The point here is that if you are seeking external investment from people other than friends or family, they will want to know how they can exit from their investment - which will be from building a business that is sellable. To be sellable, you have to be scalable. Make sure you are clear about this and your business plan should reflect that.

For dotcoms, the ability for a Web site to grow at a rate comparable to that of the business itself is known as scalability.The website should be able to serve all users request seamlessly with increasing volume of online traffic. For ecommerce its just not your technology but their complete business model has to be scalable as well by entering into new product category or new market.

So assess your business plan well on scalability factor before pitching it to VC.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Finally Nokia has come out with dual sim based phones in order to regain its lost market share and also check its yearly revenue. Worried by the run away success of local mobile manufacturers -micromax, spice, maxx etc which offer dual sim based phones from 1.5k-5k price range Nokia has been contemplating to launch dual sim phones

According to IDC research, Nokia’s market share dipped from 64% in 2008-09 to 52.2% in 2009-10. The company’s revenue too fell from Rs16,567 crore to Rs14,100 crore during the same period.

Nokia launched C1 and C2 dual sim phones to attract the users primarily from tier 3 cities and rural sector where demand is high for dual sim phones. Nokia claimed that these models, especially Nokia C1, will provide a standby battery time of up to six weeks, the longest ever for a Nokia phone.

The Nokia C1 is a basic model without much multimedia features. The users can only use this type for voice and SMS. It has a FM radio, a flashlight and colour screen. The ‘call divert’ feature will help the users not to miss a call from either of the two SIMs.The users can switch between the two SIM cards by simply holding down a key. Users can buy Nokia C1 at just Rs 1999.

Nokia C2 has features like Ovi Mail and Ovi Life Tools, which provides information on healthcare, agriculture, education and entertainment. The memory capacity can be expanded upto 32 GB using Micro SD cards. Users can buy this dual SIM phone at just Rs 2500.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Immense hectic activity going on in the group discount space in India. Some new group discount portals like lootmore.com have sprung up with sole intention of getting acquired, portals like Taggle and Snapdeal have able to raise Venture Capital and some players like Grabbon have merged themselves with bigger player Snapdeal.

Coming days you may witness further consolidation is this space. There is a strong buzz in the market that one of the prominent player from NCR in group discount space going to be acquired by bigger player or it could be an internet company interested in getting a pie in this group discount space.

Lets look at their monthly traction wrt unique visitors -

In my view Mydala and koovs are doing extremely well in terms of cracking number of deals and also the size of deal. I had a word with Anisha Singh CEO of mydala and as per her most of their deals are above 500 bucks and sells well which implies more margin for mydala. I had chat with Manish Tewari of Koovs and as per him most of Koovs deal are below 300 bucks and they offer maximum discount on the original value, clearly they are targeting the lower base of pyramid.

Lets wait and watch this space.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Wyncomm telcom has launched India’s first Hindi QWERTY keypad Y-45 mobile phone targetting youths at Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India and thus enabling texting in Hindi.

Y-45 also allows a consumer to send free SMSes across India, the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines instantly with an in-built soft key for 160by2 — free mobile phone application that allows users to send free SMSes via the Internet.

Other features are It has a dual SIM (GSM+GSM) capacity with a 2.2-inch 262 TFT colour screen. It supports social networking sites like Opera Mini, Snaptu, Nimbuzz, Facebook, Twitter, MSN etc and also has a geographic location finder – Saarthi, 1.3 MP camera,  Bluetooth with A2DP, e-mail facility, PC Sync, video recording and Playback.

Its clearly a smart move by Wyncomm to target youths In smaller cities where English language is a big hurdle for communicating over SMS, Y-45 will definitely overcome this problem and can make texting hasslefree.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Generally so much is written about the founders/cofounders of a startup and growth stage companies including this blog and founders gets all the recognition for their vision and endeavour but there are set of people which goes unnoticed every time and they are first keys in that company.

I always believe more than the management and executive team company culture and work style, product mojo is set by these key early employees. No doubt Management has an impact in the organization, they drive the vision but execution is the key which is taken care by the first key hires.

Few bunch of people can really lift the team spirit and is so fascinating to see how well product development happens thanks to seamless coordination between teams. Those first three to six non-management hires in a startup help set the tone for how things get done and how people behave while they are doing it.  One super charged bloke in those key hires can really energize the office environment. First employees also should understand that they going to make a profound impact in the company’s growth and they also should get the feeling of ownership rather than thinking just a job. Also founders and management team should give due credit to the first hires at appropriate time.

I was one of the first hires in a Indian startup which has raised $21M so far.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

In general Infosys is identified as one of top IT services company in India but we tend to forget they have highly scalable robust finance product called Finacle which has been implemented by global banks and financial instituitions worldwide.

Infosys launched financle analyz and when integrated with Finacle provides holistic customer analytics for banks, through both insightful business reports and rigorous statistical models. This enables the business to cross leverage analytic output to strengthen its customer engagement and management strategy, resulting in institutionalization of customer relationships and differentiation of service experience.

Finacle analyz solution, with its rigorous statistical models and library of reports, helps banks analyze customer behaviour and take customer-centric decisions. In addition to back-end reporting analytics capabilities, bank staff can view diagnostic output like customer scores for efficient decision-making during customer interactions. It also complements the Finacle operational data store (ODS), an enterprise wide data warehouse for a comprehensive data and business view across customers, products, transactions and channels.

The solution is modular and can be fully integrated with a banks existing technology framework. Rapid deployment capabilities ensure immediate benefits, at the same time minimising cost and disruption to existing infrastructure and services. Finacle analyz solution provides 100+ predefined reports and preconfigured statistical models that employ predictive analytics.

To summarize the business benefits from this product -

• Robust Framework for Customer Acquisition, Development and Retention
• Enhanced Customer Value
• Improved Decision-making Support
• Reduced Time to Market
• Low Total Cost Of Ownership

Yes you seeing it right, Facebook is valued at $33.7B ahead at the likes of Yahoo and eBay which are valued at $18.3B and $31B. Iinvestors paid up to 76 dollars for a share in the company ahead of its much-hyped flotation on the stock market, according to a report.  Facebook is currently financed through a mixture of investment firms and venture capital companies.

Facebook, which registered its 500 millionth member last month, is currently financed through a mixture of investment firms and venture capital companies. Facebook surpasses orkut in India as per Comscore which is one of the biggest market.

Now, with Orkut, you can bundle your friends into groups enabling you to manage your social interactions on the site a lot more easily. The way Google implemented the groups feature is rather flexible.
Users can create groups and assign their friends to any of them. These groups are only visible to the users that created them and they can easily modify the groups and the settings, as well as add and remove people from them.

Google has launched another interesting add-on to Gmail, that offers the possibility of a true “Google call”.
Google Talk now includes, via a simple plugin installation, voice chat.
Basically, you have a service that offers you the possibility of calling almost any phone number in the world, be it a landline or a mobile phone. The rates are quite good and the most interesting part is that US users can call domestic numbers and numbers in Canada for free until the end of the year.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

iLogo, a B2B online merchandising portal is a Mumbai based startup founded by Amit Arvind a year ago. iLogo offers a very easy, unique and most superior online tool for mass customization of products.

iLogo is founded by Amit Arvind in Nov 2009 and he is a retired Ltd Cdr from Army, a top naval cadet at NDA and also an international sportsman in Sailing.

iLogo supplies a wide range of top quality customised products for promotions, events, business identity, or as gifts. iLogo lets you create T-shirts online by choosing colour combinations of sleeves, collars and cuffs. These can be completely customised online by choosing from thousands of images & hundreds of fonts or uploading your own graphic.

Amit found during sports competitions at international level, athletes pay high prices for team jerseys and saw a viable business in this segment. Customized merchandise are a highly organised sector with vast revenue potential across the world. He saw the need of high quality decorated custom clothing for small groups, SMEs, events at an affordable pricing in reasonable time.

iLogo Strenghts -

• Global delivery of superior products at highly competitive pricing.
• Easy online tool for mass customization.
• International partners in UK, Aus, NZ, Germany.

Foodiebay, a delhi based startup which offers Food Guide and Restaurant Directory with Reviews and Ratings has received 4.7Cr from Infoedge as strategic investments. Interestingly Infoedge has invested in 3 other internet ventures -policybazaar.com and meritnation.com. It had earlier invested in Studyplaces.com which it has exited.

Foodiebay.com was launched in July 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, an IIT Delhi graduate and is an online food guide and restaurant directory of India. Foodiebay lists menus, prices and contact details of restaurants and also offers discount coupons to diners. Foodiebay apparently earns majority of its revenue comes from advertising and revenue-sharing with restaurants. The restaurants are not charged for listing their menus on foodiebay.

Foodiebay is currently present in five cities - Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune and plans to use this investment for product development, marketing and to further increase their geographic footprint.

Lets look at the traction witnessed at Foodiebay which attracted Infoedge -

Unique visitors (estimated cookies)	63K
Unique visitors (users)	70K
Page views	570K
Total visits	93K
Avg visits per visitor	1.3
Avg time on site	8:20

Average time is 8.20mins which is quite impressive. The main competitors in this space are Burrp, an Infomedia company, bangalore based Hungryzone and Timescity.com

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com