Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Nadhi Technologies, a 2.5yr old Chennai based SaaS startup has developed  lightweight, easy-to-use construction supply chain solutions for real estate and infrastructure construction projects.

Nadhi.in is founded by two civil engineers – Vaidyanathan and Ravi. S. Mundoli from IIT-M; Both have worked in manufacturing SCM at i2 Technologies before founding Nadhi.  Nadhi is incubated out of the IITM Research Park.

Nadhi provides easy-to-use supply chain management (SCM) tools toreal  ensure the synchronous on-site arrival of labour and materials per the updated construction schedule through the life of the project.

Nadhi’s core solution is a project monitoring and control solution with a mobile extension  – nPulse™ that reduces the information latency between various stakeholders in a construction project to zero and transitions business from reactive to proactive. Nadhi has built the industry’s first procurement planning solution that uses inventory management theory to optimize material procurement costs in construction.

In short, Nadhi builds solutions that complement ERP systems. Nadhi offers business process consulting to help transition companies to a managed platform. Nadhi also offers lean construction consulting practice.

Nadhi’s target customers are EPC contractors, infrastructure project owners, real estate developers. The market size for IT in construction is estimated to be about $5 billion and the potential to expand worldwide also exists. Nadhi’s revenue sources are software revenue – both subscription (SaaS model) and enterprise license options are available and consulting services.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

a2zbaby, a Mumbai based startup is a new e-commerce player in the baby care product vertical. a2zbaby aims to provide an e-commerce storefront where parents can find and discover products for their baby and buy it at will.

a2zbaby offers, chemical safe products, considering the safety and development of the child at each stage. a2zbaby delivers wide range from diapers to toys, car seats to cozy bouncers, food maker to laundry detergent and specialty child care products to designer cribs.

a2zbaby is founded by Premanshu Singh (IIM-A alumnus) and Kapil Chawla (MDI Gurgaon Alumnus). Premanshu has rich experience and worked in ITC, J&J and Webaroo Technologies while Kapil has worked with Infosys and Webaroo. Since they being the parents of new born babies they felt the need of an online store where user can find different brands under one place.

a2zbaby has more than 2500 SKU’s, across more than 25 brands, on offer now. Parents can visit the portal, explore products, talk to a product expert and buy it online. a2z doesn’t levy and shipping charges, Cash On delivery is available for orders above 999, provides 24*7 customer support and delivery time varies from 3-7 days depending on the user location.

a2zBaby, is very fairly simple to use. They have well planned page layout with neat categorization. Checkout is very easy and simple and works like a breeze.

a2zBaby directly competes with Hushbabies, Babyoye, FirstCry.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

BizHobNob, is an global online platform that enables people to find service providers they can *trust*, based on recommendations from within their communities and friends. BizHobNob is a network of service providers. It can be used by anyone to find an appropriate service provider for their business or personal needs. BizHobNob is deeply connected with existing social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Trust is emphasized by recommendations from family, friends and communities.

Very often, when looking for a service provider, we either call up our friends for recommendations or turn to the yellow pages. While the former is a very trusted model, but limited in scale, the latter scales very well, but is untrusted. BizHobNob seeks to fill the gap in between.

Bizhobnob is a Bangalore based startup and was launched in Beta stage in December 2010. Bizhobnob is founded by Sapna Chandiramani, an alumnus of University of Rochester and also a Yahoo Veteran where she headed global engineering team and hold multiple patents.

Bizhobnob is an invite-only platform, it thrives on referrals. Popularly referred to as a “LinkedIn for Service Providers”, it does not seek to build another social network, but to simply leverage existing ones.

While the platform is free to use for anyone looking for a service provider, and even for service providers looking to list themselves on BizHobNob, the latter can benefit greatly from the paid subscription, priced attractively at Rs. 100/month!

Bizhobnob indirectly competes with Yellowpages like JustDial and classified sites like Craiglist etc.

So, the next time you are seeking a service provider – be it a party planner for your kid, or a web designer for your firm, you know to look no further!

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Travelomy is a next-generation travel guide that packs features based on rich content, geo-location and social media in a way that provides practical, useful information to a traveller.

Travelomy is product developed by Ciafo, which is a technology startup based out of Bangalore,  Co-founded by Gurjit Sidhu and Amarpreet Kalkat in April 2010. Both Sidhu and Kalkat have spent the last 10 years building internet products at some of the most admired companies, earlier having graduated from IIM Calcutta and IIM Kozhikode

Travelomy has rich content (currently delivered through 6000+ photos and videos) virtually brings places alive for the traveller even before getting there, geo-location coordinates for all places (currently ~5000) and the user himself ensure that he always knows what exactly is around him, and what is the best way to reach there.

The social media integration enables the traveller to seek and share latest information over the social streams, thereby making sure that he is never out of touch with his social graph.  For the more outdoorsy or adventurous traveller, Travelomy provides activities, where rich information like dynamic route maps, itinerary, gear, tools, expertise level is put together for things like trekking, biking, rock climbing, river rafting etc.

South Asia is the first step for Travelomy and an opportunity to validate its unique concept; it would gradually be expanding globally over the next few quarters.

How Travelomy is different:

While online travel guides have existed for long, Travelomy aims to challenge the status-quo by virtue of the way it leverages web 2.0 technologies to provide simlified travel information. It focuses on four key aspects – rich content, geo-location, social media and activities; and uses them effectively to build a truly valuable information source for the user.

Travelomy also differentiates itself in the way it collects and presents information. Almost all of the content on Travelomy is crowdsourced in a wiki format and can be updated by any user who is signed-in.

Travelomy competes with prominent players like MustseeIndia, TripAdvisor, WikiTravel, LonelyPlanet.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

If you are starting up a venture and you are not very competent in terms of writing code, should you outsource the development work or set up a tech team to do it. I am often asked by business entrepreneurs if they should outsource the development of their initial prototype. Outsourcing is considered cool as it can be a relatively inexpensive and fast way to create a product.  Though cost savings are real but there is level of risk associated with it. There could be scenarios where entrepreneurs can find themselves with a product that needs to be rebuilt, often from scratch. The cost and time savings can go for a toss completely and all your plans of initial launch will be blacked out .  But having said that I know many entrepreneurs that successfully outsourced development.

So question arises how do you decide whether to outsource the early development of your technology?

There is no simple and straight answer for it, there are a few considerations which could help you make that decision. If your technology is an original technology or depends on complicated logic or algorithms you may want to avoid outsourcing at least that portion of the project. The vision for the product is always partially lost in translation when a business team tries to communicate with a tech team. This dynamic, however, is further amplified when describing the product via video chat and even more challenging when there is a middle man or a development team with a limited mastery of your native tongue. While these challenges can be mitigated by robust product specifications and wireframes, an already challenging process is even more challenging.

This isn’t to say, however, that you can’t get a great product from an outsourced shop. You can. The key is to outsource elements or even entire projects that are more limited in their logic or algorithmic complexity, to over-communicate your specifications, and to practice careful, diligent project management.

Your sensitivity to this risk should be heightened if you don’t have a technical lead inside your company. If you consider your outsourced provider to be your CTO, you’ll have a difficult time vetting the progress of their work and may find that they’re off course too late in the development cycle. Furthermore, evaluating the product will likely be challenging without an engineer on your side, making it even riskier to completely handoff the development of complex logic.

To summarize, if you are planning to build a very simple technology, outsourcing development work can be a great strategy. If your venture requires a great deal of technical work you may be better off building it in-house.

-This is a guest post by Nitin Yadav, Nitin held various senior engineering positions in companies like Microsoft, PiCorp and lastly he was CTO of Seventymm

The Morpheus,  has closed their third round of funding ‘The Morpheus Tritiya”, and this time is bigger and way better in terms of size and LPs. The Morpheus Tritiya should close around Rs 4-5Cr . Morpheus is India’s leading Startup Accelerator, helping over 30 startups at various stages of their adolescence, for the last 3.5 years. As per Nandini, Cofounder of The Morpheus “The Morpheus Tritiya”, which brings an amazing set of LP’s on board & gives us the ability to micro fund 60-70 startups for the next 3-4years.

All of the existing LPs have participated in this round and interestingly there are new LPs like Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder & MD of One97 Communication; Pallav Nadhani – Founder & CEO of fusion charts. These new LPs are successful entrepreneurs and have built their companies from scratch. Besides capital they bring extensive experience on the table in running a startup which is priceless.

Pallav Nadhani says “I decided to invest in Morpheus because I like the way it operates. Hand-holding the aspiring entrepreneurs in what they call the “treacherous phase” is invaluable. Giving them little cash up-front teaches them how to stay lean, bootstrap and get money from the most important source – customers. Being a bootstrapped entrepreneur myself, I find this approach highly effective.”

In terms of engagement and investment nothing changes in the model with closure of new fund. Morpheus will still follow the same accelerator model, select teams once in 6 months via call for applications and provide them with: 4 months of intensive engagement, induction into the exclusive Morpheus Gang (a community of 70+ portfolio founders, investors & partners), 5 L INR funding per startup & life long support. We run 2 Batches each year & can accommodate upto 10 startups per batch.

Some of popular companies from Morpheus earlier batches are – Instamedia, Deskaway, Commonfloor, InterviewStreet, Practo.

-Hitesh, vcBytes

If you are a shopaholic and wants to do a smart purchase and would like to know all the promotions and discounts at one place, Wooqer is here to address this need of yours. Wooqer, is a bangalore based startup which is trying to connect manufacturers, brands and retailers with the end users. Wooqer offers a ‘searchable interface‘where customers can find the best deal in their cities.

Wooqer is one of the newly launched multi-channel shopping information networks, helping its consumers in saving money and time by organising all promotions of products, both onlin.

Wooqer is founded by Vishal Purohit, Pavitra Saxena and Harish Reddy, Also Vishal has invested in Wooqer through Garage Again Ventures which he manages. Trio has earlier worked together in product development company CoreObjects.

Wooqer is free to use for the end customer and user can save his searches, create a list and can able to customize the searches. User can get information through sms and phone also and they can share the promotion with their friends Wooqer services are available in Pune and Bangalore currently, merchant pays in between 5-10k per month to list their promotions on Wooqer. Wooqer currently has more than 50 categories are now available on Wooqer.

Wooqer runs multiple B2B interfaces on the site targeted at OEMS, retailers and for the brand managers. For OEMS its oem.wooqer.com, the pbox.wooqer.com is for small retailers; and the aida.wooqer.com for the brand managers of various products. AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action; a common template used to design the sales pages.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Wouldn’t be nice on sharing the experience of your favorite hangout place with your friends and get rewarded? also getting recommendation on new hangout places you may like all through SMS. Good news is Revu.in has arrived.

Revu.in is a customer engagement plus reward platform on mobile. Revu.in is an innovative way to publish reviews about anything you like in real time by just sending a SMS. The platform enables businesses to build and engage with their community.

Revu.in is a Bangalore based startup founded by Mayank Sharma, Ishwar Sundararaman, Jaishankar Jayaramakrishnan. Revu was started in June 2010 with an idea of using mobile phone as a platform where consumers can talk about places they have been to and immediately promote it within their social media.

Revu bridges the gap between businesses and consumers using an existing device that consumers anyway use today – Their Mobile phone. Businesses run their mobile loyalty, engagement and informational programs and consumers subscribe to them with just their mobile number.

For users Revu.in provides a platform for them to share their experience in a restaurant/pub/concert plays etc with their friends on twitter/facebook and also let them socialize with other people in platform with similar interests.

Revu.in monetizes from the business for deploying its customer reward platform. For businesses Revu provides platform to offer rewards and discounts to their customers.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Startups are high risk high gain game and more often startups fail, 98% of startups fail and close down. But why do they fail, lets look at the prominent reasons behind its failure -:

1. The idea is poorly executed. Sometimes the idea is great but the execution process makes it fail.

2. A lot of ideas fail to cover a market size. Sometimes there is no market at all. Such ideas are bound to fail. It is important to make the product or the service useful to the consumers.

3. Leveraging costs could do the damage. It is better to keep most of the costs in the variable mode.

4. Making profit or breaking even immediately after the start should not be the goal. Making a good foundation should be. Moreover, making profit could wait at least for a year.

5. Sometimes the idea is already in the market. If there is no innovative or competitive advantage, the startups could face severe challenge.

6. At times, too much passion or enthusiasm could mean downfall. Without scale, it is not prudent to compete with industry leaders.

7. Sometimes the idea does not have space to grow-it suffocates itself when the matter of scaling up comes up. So, entrepreneurs need to make sure that they do not pick up a niche that has no or very little growth potential.

8. Pricing strategy is very important. As mentioned earlier, at the beginning, entrepreneurs should try to limit the profit that they are looking to earn from products or services. Making a trusting customer-base is more important for startups.

9. As the idea moves forward, sometimes the founding team breaks up. This is a terrible time for any startup-make sure that the founding team remains intact.

10. Sometimes, with initial success, a rapid growth is achieved. Entrepreneurs should remember that with growth, scenario could change very widely and this could mean blockage and lot of pressure on the founders. Controlled growth should be the idea approach.

- Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Cyocs enables you to create your own classified site to meet your needs, Its totally free to create a classified site and it will be a sub-site of Cyocs and other users can post in the classified site.

Cyocs has pretty simple registration process, User interface is highly intuitive. User can create a classified site and can invite other members to use it and also members can access any classified site by searching, and can post it. There is no restriction on number of classified sites a user can join, but user can post only in those classified sites which user has joined. To know how many sites user has joined, user can click ‘Manage’ tab in the dashboard.

Cyocs also provides editable templates to users to speed up the site creation process, template auto fills the needed data.

Like other classified sites, CYOCS intent to monetize from advertisements and primarily through Google Ad-sense. It encourages Ad revenue sharing from the classified site owner,

Subsite Owners can earn revenue using their Google Adsense account. Subsite owners must have a valid adsense account; and they must provide your Adsense Id to Cyocs so that ads shall be served in the Cyocs sites you have created. Cyocs will allocate a certain number of ad slots for the subsite owners in the sites they create. Not all ad spaces/slots available will be provided to subsite owner. Cyocs reserves some slots for itself and some slots will be allocated for subsite Owner.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com