GPT-3 and Speech AI powered Babblebots.ai Raises Funding from Founders of GupShup, Junglee.com, Others; Launches Voice Powered Interview Platform

Babblebots.ai, a first-of-its-kind interview platform powered by GPT-3 and Speech AI, has come out of stealth after a year of development and testing with early design partners. Battlebots' raised an undisclosed amount in pre-seed round by Rakesh Mathur (Founder/Chairman Gupshup, and Founder Junglee acq. by Amazon), and Rishi Deshpande (Founder/CTO of Chalo, acq. by Booking) and a few HNIs. The company plans to raise a seed round to continue investing in a product-led-growth model and further develop the AI/ML capabilities to deepen its technical differentiation.
Founded in 2022 by Roli Gupta and a team of IIT Bombay Computer Science graduates, Babblebots.ai is revolutionising the recruitment and talent acquisition industry with its AI-Recruiters. Under the hood, Babblebots uses state-of-the-art voice technology, and conversational intelligence using proprietary AI algorithms and GPT-3 (the technology behind ChatGPT), to interview and assess candidates for both technical and non-technical roles. The AI-Recruiters conduct near human-like interviews using Long Form Conversation voice-bots in 20+ languages and are fully customizable for job roles, questions and company branding. This reduces hours spent in scheduling, and the number of interview rounds, thus increasing the speed of hiring.

Companies traditionally conduct 3-5 interview rounds to find the ideal candidate, and report spending more than 50% of their recruiting team’s time conducting screening interviews. This is a worldwide problem, and Babblebots is eyeing the $500B recruitment market globally.

Since its beta-launch in Q3 2022, the company’s AI-Recruiters have conducted thousands of interviews for trial partners and customers. These include enterprises like Mahindra Holidays (travel), LG Soft (electronics), Great Learning (Ed-tech), Paramount TPA (insurance), public institutes like IIT Bombay, and fast-growing startups like SustLabs and Oorjan. Data from these deployments show a 10x decrease in end-to-end hiring times, from 30 days down to as few as 3, and a 500% increase in the offer-to-interview ratio from ‘1-in-10’ to ‘1-in-2’. Meanwhile, job applicants have appreciated the flexibility of talking to AI-Recruiters anytime they want, without needing to schedule an interview. Additionally, one can try out an AI-Recruiter interview on the website to understand the conversational capabilities.

Babblebots’ AI-Recruiters can evaluate communication skills (e.g. English-speaking skill, energy level) using proprietary deep-learning AI models. They can also evaluate technical skills and domain-knowledge, by processing long-form conversation itself, thus going beyond traditional multiple-choice and coding challenges. A single, convenient, 15-minute interaction results in this comprehensive assessment, as well as information about candidate preferences, such as location, compensation expectations etc. Talent acquisition teams can listen to recorded conversations, and view assessment reports and transcripts at their convenience.

In a statement about the launch and funding, Roli, Founder, Babblebots.ai said, “The technology stack of the world is finally getting an AI shot-in-the-arm with GPT-3 and other generative AI models. We will see hundreds of AI applications power end-user applications which will make human-machine interactions delightful, like we are doing with our AI-Recruiters”

Recruiters Opt for Virtual Interviews & Assessments as the New Way of Hiring on Campuses; Firstnaukri.com Survey

Firstnaukri.com, India’s largest end-to-end campus hiring platform from the house of Naukri.com, conducted a survey with over 1,300 students across campuses in India. The survey was rolled out to understand their sentiments about placements and internships amidst the current crisis. The survey revealed that the pandemic has adversely affected the campus-hiring scenario. Amid the panic of unemployment & lay-offs, only one-third of the students confirmed that they have a job offer at hand. Out of these students, close to 44% reported that their joining dates have been delayed while another 9% confirmed that their offers have been rolled back. Close to 33% said that the employers are not responding to them on the status of their job offers. Now, a majority of students are fast switching to online job portals to hunt for a job while another 17% are taking the referral route and connecting with their college alumni. 

The companies are postponing campus drives and resorting to new age technology solutions, including virtual interviews and online assessments to recruit candidates from various campuses. It will be imperative for students to start preparing for remote interviews as the new way of being hired. 

Commenting on the survey, Sharad Sindhwani, Business Head, Firstnaukri.com said, “The pandemic has hit placement prospects of the 2020 batch across 82% colleges. It has further impacted internship offers of 74% pre-final year students. However, students are not losing their morale and going virtual for their learning as well as job interviews. In fact, most companies are also using new age technology solutions to hire remotely.” 

In these tough times, online courses and certifications are the first choices amongst freshers to bridge any skill /knowledge gap. 70% of college students have already subscribed to online courses. Interestingly, the current pandemic has not impacted the higher education plans of 80% surveyed graduates. A large majority of students are also considering freelancing as a viable future career option.

Methodology

The COVID-19 jobseeker study was done to gauge the impact of ongoing pandemic on fresher placements in India. The survey was carried out with the college students of all batches (2020 to 2023) across several courses. The results are based on over 1300+ responses out of which 80% are responses from students pursuing BE/B.Tech degree. Based on this data, we have arrived at insights that we hope will shed light on the current campus placement scenario in India. 

About Firstnaukri.com

Firstnaukri.com is India’s largest end-to-end campus hiring platform from the house of Naukri.com. The brand digitizes and automates campus recruitments for campuses and connects them with potential recruiters looking for fresh talent across courses and across campuses. As of now, the brand has over 8000 associated campuses and has serviced close to 5000+ companies. Firstnaukri organized close to 35,000+ placements last year. 

4 Helpful Questions to Ask When Interviewing

When it comes to employing the best staff for your company, you have to carry out thorough interviews so that you can determine the best candidates for whatever job openings your company has. Just as a candidate prepares for an interview, so should the interviewer. As such, you need to know the right kinds of questions to ask your interviewee so that you can extract as much professional information from them as possible. You need to be conversant with the right way of carrying out a professional interview session.

So, what are some of the interview questions that you need to ask your interviewees? Well, we shall discuss some of these questions here. You want to ask your candidates the right questions that can determine if they have what it takes to be of use to your company.

Here are 4 helpful questions to ask when interviewing:

1. What skill makes you more qualified for this position?

This is a very important question that makes the candidate talk more about their core competencies. This question also enables you to confirm if the candidate understands what the role entails. It is possible for a candidate to tout skills that are impressive but irrelevant to the role they are applying for. This means that the candidate does not understand the major roles that the job entails. As such,  you would not consider such a candidate for the job.

2. What professional achievements, to date, are you proud of?

All candidates show up for the interview with intentions of impressing you. As such, they are ready to show you some of the accomplishments that they have achieved to date. When a candidate details some of their professional achievements, you will be able to tell what their strengths are. This question helps the candidate to boost their confidence and they should actually be ready for the rest of the interview.

3. Have you ever overcome a challenge? Tell me about it?

Most of the interviewees dread questions that are behavioral in nature. For you, these questions are good to help you gauge how their experience translates into their natural problem-solving abilities. This is a common question but it is relevant since all new employees will have to face some roadblocks that require them to overcome the challenges.  When you get a grasp of how the candidate tackles difficult situations will help you to get the best talent for the position you have.

4. How can you describe your style of working?

Even though you are not after building a completely homogeneous team, you want to be sure that the new team you are going to engage will not do things completely different from the established team. Here, you want to know if the new employees are collaborative or if they rather work independently. This information is invaluable for you to engage staff that matches the philosophy and teamwork amongst all of your employees. If for some reason some of the candidates display a little bit of deviation from your team spirit, you could still think of how they can be incorporated and matched with your team without negative impact overall.

Interview With Founders Of ABLab, The Best Robotics & Embedded System Company In India

ABLab Solution is a leading technology solution provider in the field of Robotics, Embedded System & Automation. Started in April 2010 by Shakti Abhishek and Arun Kumar Garg, this startup is based out of Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

"ABLab Solutions is more than a mere technology development company, it is a movement. A movement to empower people with real innovation, thereby enabling the creation of a knowledge society which in turn shall propel the economy through knowledge based interlinked eco system," says the founder Shakti, the CEO.

ABLab Solutions has rolled out many products and services in the learning space to make learning pervasive in a very short time. They provide product design, development and related services with end-to-end solutions in Robotics, Embedded System & Automation along with a platform in the educational robotics & embedded system in the higher education segment.

Founders:

Shakti Abhishek is a serial entrepreneur, tech enthusiast who loves speaking, selling, mentoring & exploring new things. He started his first company in third year of his B.Tech & failed with the other two ventures (ITCSINDIA, Mechahwaks Engineering Pvt. Ltd) gaining experiences of failure.

Arun Kumar Garg is a passionate embedded programmer, tech lover & an AVR enthusiast who loves to play games, follow politics & do business. He works mostly on embedded technology and has written many tutorials as an author.

"When we were actively making and learning about robots in beginning of our college days, we faced many difficulties in finding proper resources. We were really sad by looking at the scope of Robotics & Embedded System in India. Robotics & automation is the future of technology and a need of next tech generation which is being exercised and even taught at grass root level in countries like China, Japan, USA and Germany," says Arun, the director. They wanted to have a technologically advanced country where everyone knows robotics and embedded systems. "Today most of the devices in our everyday life from mobiles, laptops, to anything automatic are an example of Embedded Systems," he adds. Thus they started education technology services to help students, faculties, colleges, schools, hobbyists & R&D professionals through various multi-faceted technology programs, online & offline resources and act as a one stop solution provider in the field of robotics & embedded system & automation.

They also provide a one stop online electro-market place known as 'Electroshop' where one can fulfill all his tech needs through wide range of electronic components, hardware, robotics kits & spares, sensors, development boards and much more. They have also initiated ‘Direct to Home’ service in our Electroshop segment which helps customers with easy delivery options. They also offer a unique service, ‘Knowledge Centre’. It is an online web portal for tech savvies & hobbyists which offers sample codes, tutorials, datasheets & software’s in robotics, embedded & automation segment. They have made it easy and simple for all those who want to nurture themselves from a beginner to a tech professional.

They develop & design products on embedded and robotics for educational purpose and also help in device development and making prototypes in embedded & automation technology for private R&D firms and organizations. They have successfully conducted more than 800+ workshops, trained more than 80,000+ engineering students and delivered more than 2000+ engineering projects & are approaching towards an exemplary achievement. After providing training in the best colleges in India - IISc Bangalore, IIT Guwahati, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Kanpur- the company has been awarded the ‘Best Educational Technology Company in Eastern India 2013-2014 @ Global Education excellence Awards 2014’. They have also emerged as the ‘Best Robotics & Embedded System Company in India’. They have opened their wings for International Tie-ups with organizations like KCST Nepal, RAN Nepal etc.

This team of 15 people is working on technologies like Embedded C, Java along with manufacturing different kits, circuit boards and sensors. For their testing and analysis, they use PCB designing tools and simulation software's. They plan to launch few products on home automation & security systems through a separate product division next year. They also plan to take up few govt. projects and implement innovative education schemes to enhance the quality of education by making it more practical and technological at lower and untouched level of youth.

The company is bootstrapped. The founders share a little story of the first few month into starting up. "We slept on our office floors up to 4 months and we were staying there. We actually started with nothing and no support from people," says Shakti. "There was lack of motivation and technology exposure among students, faculties and college management in Odisha. This was a big hurdle for us. The response from people initially was very slow. Unavailability of resources in Bhubaneswar added on to the pain," adds Arun. It took them time to make their base strong. As a message to future entrepreneurs, Shakti says, "Perseverance and Self-confidence are the two most important things. This is what is going to take you to moon."

Conversation With Sanchit Goel, Founder of PepperScript - A Publishing Startup

Please give a brief about yourself, your co-founder and your startup.

My name is Sanchit Goel, I along with my college mates- Prateek Verma and Anubhav Goel co-founded PepperScript. The three of us have known each other since the very first day of our engineering and have been great friends since. In 2012, Prateek and I decided we would do something of our own and not work for others, and we roped in Anubhav who was always eager about entrepreneurship. He had to be, we spent the final year discussing all our fantasies about new businesses. Prateek completed his Environmental Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (Now DTU) in 2013, while Anubhav complete Electronics and Communication Engineering and I, Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Krishna Institute of Engineering and Technology in 2012; and have been involved in PepperScript ever since.

PepperScript began with re-publishing of our own book ‘The Bachelors Theorem’ as ‘The November Note’, a temporary frame to our regular lives where investing time delivered learning. But sooner than we thought it took over us and became something much more than just temporary. Today, PepperScript, less than 2 years old is publishing English novels, Hindi novels and Comics, PepperScript has its own design concern and is developing to cater to the design requirements of people which is going to be very interesting.

Whats your vision ?

Vision is the trickiest part of a new venture. You think your vision is the one that you think, but when you are 1/3rd into it, your vision is bit different-more or less. Our vision when we began was to build a publishing house that would not only publish but also nurture young writers into their dreams. With easy process and accessibility, writers could get to proper publishing platform. Now, our vision is to build a publishing house which is diverse and all of the above. With PepperScript’s ‘hindi’ and ‘comic’ publishing imprint, the vision is to rise and shine.

What are the things that Pepperscript is doing different from other publishing houses, your USP ?

There isn’t much different to do in a traditional business like that of publishing, but yes, PepperScript is quicker and cooler. PepperScript is not confined to language and format, we are publishing English, hindi and even comics. We are open to ideas and new concepts of stories. We are not lineated to follow an order or publish only a specific genre. Clearly it is, PepperScript- Publishing with Perspectives. We consider all perspectives and still stay afloat publishing them.

What's the philosophy behind your name?

This, I personally feel is very interesting. We were looking for something that was a little fancy as well peculiar. ‘Pepper’ is like a flavouring agent, adds extra taste while ‘Script’ is the base of our every work. There is nothing more satisfying than a good script. The philosophy, thus, is simple and outgoing, to publish scripts with style, for everybody.

What made you plunge into such an unexplored territory in India?

With exponential growth in Indian publishing sector in the last 5 years, it will be unfair to call this territory unexplored. I think, Indian publishing industry is growing and soon will take a different shape. We had our own experience of being published and the realization of efforts put in not being enough led us to founding our own publishing company. We hope to make a difference to all those new writers and make their dreams come true.

What challenges you foresaw and what surprised you in the journey ?

There were many challenges we foresaw. Two major challenges we thought that would be tough were- brand build up and team build up. Today, PepperScript is working with big names and has a very dedicated and hard working team. All obstructing factors kept aside, PepperScript is fortunate to have walked through the doors of opportunity that came our way. The big surprise was marketing, it is not as easy as assumed. There is so much more to it than what is seen from the outside. Conviction is what keeps you going and your authors are your assets, and collecting such assets is another task. You have to win their trust and respect it, for their scripts is their baby and should be as much loved by the publisher.

How did bringing cartoons back to comic books come to idea ?

There is only one thing that we don’t have when we grow up- childhood. I remember how we watched cartoons endlessly, without a blink as kids, carefree and so happy. Now, it is just work and socializing. The whole idea to bring cartoons to comic form was like a result to our own requirement. Comics don’t need time and lots of concentration, they are easy and absolute fun, and then nothing better than the evergreen Cartoon Network shows, and now the most loved series from Sab Tv.

What are the operational and strategic challenges that you're facing ? and tell me something about your personal challenges ?

We have resources and a confident set up to take care of operational challenges. As per strategic challenges, there isn't any fixed pattern that we follow because, with time we have to evolve and work on our strategy. I believe that rework is a challenge.

Life is a gigantic challenge in itself, and if you want to do something different, you will be surrounded by challenges. Personal challenges are inevitable, but there is one thing I have learnt in course of 2 years. Everytime you come across an unwanted black screen, do not take off your glasses, face it, let yourself grow with difficulties and failures because they will keep you on ground and still flying.

How often do you and your partners fight when there's a difference in opinion ? and what keeps you together there after?

Hilarious. No matter how much I tell you about us, it will be less. Yes, our opinions do differ on a few occasions but at the end of the what matters most is PepperScript, so we come to a common conclusion. PepperScript keeps us together, indefinitely. We have faith in each other and make sure to take one another’s place when one of us goes missing.

Conversation with Founders Of Mondoboards, Startup That Connect You With Local Sports Community

Mumbai-based startup MondoBoard has launched an app lately that helps you connect with your local sports community by discovering who is playing near you and let you join them. Currently available for Mumbai city only, the startup will be opening in other cities for your favorite sport shortly.

We spoke to co-founders of Mondobard - Arvind Eashwar and Pratik C. about their journey as entrepreneurs and their future planning.

How would you like to introduce yourself and your Co-Founder Pratik to our readers?

I have been an entrepreneur since I was just 9 years old when I started a company that sold class management excel workbooks to teachers. I did my college in Economics from Loyola College, Chennai, and then worked with McKinsey and Company before founding MondoBoard with Pratik.

Pratik returned to Mumbai after completing his masters from the University of Illinois and working in the Silicon Valley. He has worked on US defense projects and also with gaming companies like Zynga and IGT.

What does Mondoboard mean?

Mondo means big. The name came when we were trying to keep a domain name which we wanted to be something big. Board came up because all our events are typically pinned on a board. Hence, Mondoboard! It's supposed to signify big board.

What made you start with Mondoboard and what's your vision?

I used to play a lot of tennis and basketball when I came to Mumbai a year ago. I didn't have anyone to play with and I was looking around trying to find people and it took me 6 months to find a tennis partner. Eventually, the more I thought about it I figured out that there are a lot of people who face this challenge. Wherever you're today and if you are moving to a new city or you are doing something new, you need to build new connections.

 

What is your "Why" behind your vision?

I really think that as much as social media has made communication easier, it has made people lonelier to a large extent. Because of Facebook and Whatsapp people aren't physically meeting each other, and hence, people are getting lonelier. So, social media isn't solving this challenge; it's actually when you meet people that you're solving the challenge of loneliness.

My ultimate vision is that anyone who wants to do anything she loves should be able to find a partner on Mondoboard; to leave a legacy behind where no one is left lonely and be a guy who made the world a happier place.

I believe it's great to make technology which helps people to meet each other. Today, we are making people meet for sports like cycling, basketball, etc., but tomorrow, if someone is fond of painting or other art forms, they could meet each other regularly using Mondoboard.

 

What's your definition of an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is someone who's trying to find water in a desert. He's the leader of people, who is guiding them to find water in a desert. The way I define it is like this - think you are in a desert and there are a bunch of people out of whom none of them can find water. An entrepreneur is the leader of that group who makes them go to a place where they can get water and this group of people is his consumer base.

 

What have been your biggest challenges so far?

Building a product that people really love has been a challenge in itself. It is very hard to find out what product we should build that people will love. We have already made 6 versions of our application but we still haven't really built a product which people truly love.

There are 2 aspects to building a great product:

1) What problem do you wish to solve? This could take a lot of time. It's hard to identify the right problem.

If Henry Ford went and asked people as to what he should make for them, people would have told him to make a faster horse as they knew that the problem was the current transport wasn't fast enough. Hence, he built a car.

2) People should love your solution.

 

Has any funding been done so far?

We are currently bootstrapped. Funders are speaking to us but we aren't going to raise money for the next 3 months until we get the right product that fits the market.

Can you share your revenue model with us?

Right now we aren't charging people. But, the way we are going to make it is - whenever an activity is performed it is performed at a particular venue and you need to book a venue. So, we are creating business for them. So, we are going to take a slice of that.

Second way is - sports are highly competitive. Even when we were small we used to play cricket match for money or we used to bet with each other. We plan to make the entire betting process through the application itself. So, we will be taking a small portion of that.

 

What are yours and Pratik’s responsibilities in the start-up?

Pratik takes care of technology and coding (80% of it). I engage with the users and try to figure out what they want as I understand the user data.

What are the most important traits a person should have to launch a start-up?

1) Knowing your "Why?" - what you want to do keeps changing but ‘why’ really builds inspiration, makes you rush through hard times, makes you work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

2) Flexibility and being determined - The biggest mistake one could do is over relying on one’s gut and intuition. You need to be open to what the market is saying and improve or change your product based on the feedback.

See success as FLEXIBILITY × DETERMINATION × LUCK.

Luck could range from anywhere between 0 and 10,000. But, if you are determined to hang in there for long enough luck will obviously become positive at some time or the other; it will come in your favour and you'll make it big. There's a famous saying- "If you hang around in a barber shop long enough, sooner or later you will get a haircut".

3) Hustle - If you want to get through to somebody, are you willing to call her/his receptionist 50 times?, are u willing to go door to door speaking to customers, and probably, being rejected by most of them? Hustle is the will to do it when the outside world says that you shouldn't do it.

What are the lessons you have learnt so far?

• Patience - The ability to work hard consistently for long till you get to it.
  
  2) You'll never have all the skills that you require to do a start-up or get to your vision and there are two ways to accomplish this:
  
  You can learn those skills. (OR)
  
  • You can create some kind of distortion field, become inspirational and you can draw people with skill sets and make them a part of your vision.
  
  Ideally, it should be a mix of both.

 

Which is your favourite quote/inspirational statement?

This comes from the movie "Rocky Balboa" when Rocky is speaking to his son, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place. And, I don’t care how tough you are; it will beat you to your knees and keep you there if you let it. You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.” That's how I want to do things.

One more thing that I wish to share about how I feel about myself and what I want to do is - I don't want to be an icon. I want to be an idea. I want to represent possibility. I want to represent hope. I want to represent magic. People think 2+2 is 4. I want to make sure that 2+2 is what I want it to be and I want to make it whatever I want it to be.

What message would you like to impart to our readers?

If you have a vision and a dream and you don't know how to get it, don't worry! As long as you know why you want it and you are willing to be there long enough to get there you’ll achieve it for sure. Start working towards it and the answers will come to you.

ZipOut's Runjhun Gupta Speaks How She Quit Her Job To Start An Innovative Fitness Startup

1. Please tell us something about "ZipOut" and how did your journey start?Back in 2008, I was working with a reputed MNC, just stuck in the rat race like everyone else! After office I used to generally take dance classes at home out of passion, 3 times a week. One day I realized that instead of cribbing about Mondays and my work pressures, and especially because I look forward the most to those 3 days of dancing, why not make every day of my life worthwhile and happy! While I was trying to make this plan concrete, something very drastic happened. I fainted in office! There was so much stress and so many expectations – and I hated the fact that I had to work so hard for someone else, and I wasn’t even enjoying it!
   That was the trigger! This pushed me to take the plunge, leave the corporate life all together, and then just do what I really love to do - to be happy, to dance and spread this joy to as many people as I can. I figured that like me, there are a million others who are stressed out and if I can somehow touch as many lives, I’ll be able to do something extremely fulfilling.
   Now, the biggest challenge was how to spread happiness to so many. Because of my educational background and upbringing, I knew that I had to create a value-based system where like minded people could come, de-stress, and enjoy life. And what better way other than my core passion and strength – dance! Thus began the journey of my venture, ZipOut , where zip stands for Zindagi In Pajamas.

 

2. How difficult the decision was to shift from a currency trader to a dance therapist? What is the role of your family in what have achieved today?
   
   I am really glad to have made this choice of leaving the corporate world and pursue my passion. It feels wonderful to further inspire so many others to start their passion. I could perform anything on stage, but could never speak and that too extempore, never! But because of my venture, ZipOut, today I am an entrepreneurial speaker and I enjoy it. To top that, I am the author of my upcoming book (a little secret, I always used to get butterflies at the mere thought of writing and never could write!). This decision has helped me explore myself, helped me venture into fields that I could have never imagined, like marketing or networking. It’s taught me what I’m great at and where to improve. It’s given shape to my dreams and aspirations. It’s given me very lucid clarity!
   My family has always been very supportive of my endeavors, right from the day I decided to quit my job. From brainstorming to emotionally supporting me, they have faith in me and that is what counts.

 

3. Having come so far in your venture, what do you find most rewarding?
   
   I want to mention that it has been a really tough and bumpy entrepreneurial ride so far, where challenges ranged from managing time, prioritising, work-life balance, creating a name in an unconventional field, being a rebel to limiting thoughts, but when I feel that through our venture, Zipout, we have made ourselves and people experience true happiness and when I get that earned respect and appreciation from people, it all seems worthwhile.

 

4. Dance is a medium, an expression of connecting mind and body. What are your views?I took professional training in creative style of dancing, where the entire focus was on the very essence of dance. It made me understand the beats, the rhythm, and the soul of music, and how to create that aura and mood, and also express through graceful and rhythmic body movements. I would say, this particular style helped me create many fusions, using various styles of dance, for example, we have created belly dandiya , bhangra cardio, modern bollywood, belly hiphop, etc. Today, I am well versed with 9 styles of dance, from belly, salsa, tango, zumba to bollywood.

 

5. From where did you develop such interest in dancing?
   
   Even though no one in my family is an artist by profession, but we all share the love for music, dance, and adventure. At the age of 6, my parents put me in a professional dance school, Ananda Shankar dance academy, where I had the opportunity to learn from the legends in dancing. It was because of my mom’s dedication to take me to dance class every Sunday for whole 7 years, that I got umpteen stage performances at the school and college level, and that I am here today spreading the joy to so many others. But right from childhood, the focus has been on education, learning, and widening my thinking horizon, and so I had to maintain a very good balance between education and my passions. Because of this when I did decide to pursue this direction, they had faith and confidence that Runjhun will excel in whatever she pursues.

 

6. How would you like to describe ZipOut’s role in de-stressing today’s working woman?
   
   In my journey, because I personally taught so many students over the last 4 years, I could identify over-weight, lack of ‘me’ time, work life pressure as the major cause of stress in a woman’s life. So based on observation, constant feedback and experimentation, I can today proudly say that we have found the solution. We developed the most effective program for women, called Curv’It – get curvy and be fit. In this many have lost around 8-10 kgs in 6-8 months only through natural and fun ways, and have also attained toned figures.

7. Do you follow any mottos in your life?
   
   There are 3 mottos that I follow:
   i)“If it is to be, it is up to me” .These are 10 most powerful 2 letter words, that were advised to me, by my close friend,  Pranav Chaturvedi, who himself is a very successful serial entrepreneur and has been my mentor in setting up zipout.ii)“Do different things, or do things differently”
   
   iii)Love yourself just the way you are and simply ZipOut.

8. What advice do you have for all the aspirants out there?I want to mention that, if we can identify the root problem people are facing, and can create an innovative service/product to solve that problem, then we have a success recipe with us.

Future Of Car Pooling Startups In India - Interview With Anurag Rathor, Founder Of Zify

1) A brief description about yourself.

A computer science graduate from Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology having 6+ years of working experience as Technology Specialist with Wells Fargo. Born in Varanasi and bought up in the beautiful city of Guwahati, Assam. Also a core member of The Hyderabad Entrepreneur Society

2) Why did you start with Zify ? What’s your vision ?

Zify was started with the vision of making people’s daily commute simple and fun. With the rise in income and various finance schemes, private vehicles are becoming more common and increasing in number where as the road infrastructure remains the same. The traffic congestion is getting worse every day and the rising fuel cost is adding to the higher vehicle ownership cost as well. With all these factors, the daily commute for an average office goer is becoming an unpleasant and hectic experience. Most of the people today are suffering from TSS or the Traffic Stress Syndrome, resulting in unnecessary honking, rash driving, road rage and accidents. People are becoming more disconnected than ever. We want to change that. We want to provide an alternative mode of daily commute option which is comfortable yet affordable for the passengers and gives the car-owner a platform to recover their vehicle ownership cost. People need not travel alone and can meet great new people daily and make their daily commute much more fun and a happy experience along with contributing towards a greener environment.

3) How do are you making Zify reliable, structured and flexible ?

At Zify, we invest a lot of time, effort and money in making the whole ride-sharing community more safe and secure. We have few mandatory requirements from the customers who register with us and our 3-Step verification process makes sure that each information provided by the customer is verified. For car-owner, we even do an in-person vehicle safety inspection to check the worthiness of the vehicle.

Our solution is designed using cutting-edge and industry proven technology which is capable enough to handle huge no of concurrent transactions in a speedy manner. Since our customers are going to be the ones who are travelling and are on the move, we need to make sure that the information or response reaches faster on our customers device and don’t make them wait.

4) How do you make customers trust the people they are travelling with ?

We are letting them know who they are going to travel with and what does that person do before even they travel! Also, the customers have an option to choose from a list of similar drivers and use their logical and emotional thinking to make the decision of whom to travel with. We harness the power of social media to create our user profile coupled with certain mandatory information which is verified by our customer on-boarding team. Once the submitted is verified, every user is given a “Verified by Zify” badge. We do have some other patent pending processes to add up to the overall security aspect of our complete business model.

5) Whats the future of car- pooling in India and what is this industry lacking right now ? what is needed to accelerate it's growth rate ?

The future of car-pooling in India in a way looks bright. It is still an unexplored area and at a very infant stage. People were unresponsive to idea before due to various factors ranging from security, timing or the basic hygiene facts involved. The existing solutions are not as dynamic as they should be in order to fully tackle the nuisances of a dynamic ride-sharing network. While the industry or the market in large has matured to a large extent in terms of affordable smartphones, accurate and inexpensive GPS services, I believe, there is still a lot that needs to be done from an Infra point of view. Unlike the other developed nations, where you have a dedicated carpool lane or a more dynamic government IT infra for background verification, things are changing for the better. It would be a matter of time when these things become more accessible and flexible to be used as a service by various companies which would in turn make the whole ride-sharing experience even more flexible, dynamic and secure.

6) How does Ubers ban and stuff like that impacts your industry ?

While the operating model of Uber and other similar taxi aggregator services are very different from our model, but it definitely has taken a toll on the overall market. However, it is very interesting to note that there has been an increased amount of response towards carpooling & ride-sharing services. The increase is because of the fact that we do not deal with taxi services or cab companies and all our service providers are normal working class folks who own cars. Majority of them are from the IT & BFSI domain who travel daily to office and back home. But not only we are putting in more efforts to win customer confidence and trust we are also relooking and re-evaluating all our processes to make sure there are no loop-holes or if anything has gone unnoticed

Interview With Co-Founder of DesiDime, India's Largest Online Shopping Community

Based out of Mumbai and founded in 2010 by Mr Jimish Jobanputra and Mr Mehul Jobanputra, DesiDime claims to be India's largest online shopping community are among the top 200 websites in India with about 70K people visiting the website on a daily basis.

DesiDime.com is providing shoppers a platform not only to discover great bargain via deals, coupons and price comparison but also helping them interact with other users to discuss their shopping decisions by creating the biggest shopping community in India.

However there are plenty of coupon/deal website so how DesiDime doing things differently and how the startup manage to differentiate itself with the crod, having these questions in ming we got a chance to ask few questions to Mehul Jobanputra, CEO and Cofounder of DesiDime and below are the responses.

1). What is the source of Idea for creating DesiDime.com ?
Ans: My Cofounder Jimish while in US observed that there were shopping communities which were helping users in making a shopping decision and these where very vibrant in terms of the discussions happening. When he looked closely he found that in India there where communities for car, travel, education but there was no such community for online shopping which could be compared to our international counterparts. That is when we decided to start desidime.com. Also the Indian ecommerce industry was at a very nascent stage so we decided it was a perfect time to start DesiDime

2). What (and Whose) problem are you solving and who are your end-users ?
Ans: We are providing shoppers a platform not only to discover great bargain via deals, coupons and price comparison but also helping them interact with other users to discuss their shopping decisions by creating the biggest shopping community in India.

3). How do you differentiate from your competitors like Cashkaro, Coupondunia etc. ?
Ans: One thing which differentiates DesiDime.com from players like Cashkaro.com, Coupondunia.com is that we not only have deals and coupons listed on our forum but we also have one of the largest forum where shoppers interact with each other. We have nearly 1.6 million user comments till date right from our inception since 2010. We also have a price comparison feature on our website.

4). What makes your industry noteworthy?
Ans:
1. We contribute nearly 10% to 15% of traffic to various e-commerce sites
2. None of the e-commerce players is profitable whereas in our industry couple of players like we have registered growth and profit year on year. What is more astonishing is that this feat has been achieved even without funding.

5). What makes DesiDime.com one of the industry spokesperson in deals and coupons industry?
Ans:
1. We have the largest online forum in the deals and coupons industry with about 1.6 million post submitted till date.
2. We have been bootstrapped for last 4 years but still have registered profit and growth year on year.
3. We have helped online shoppers save more than Rs 300 crore in last 4 years.

6). What are you future plans ?
Ans: We intend to continuously add more features to DesiDime.com like the price comparison feature added recently. Our future plan is to be among the top 100 websites in India.

7). One of piece of advice to budding entrepreneur
Ans: "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" one of my friends had suggested this Steve jobs quote while I was starting my first venture DesiDime.com is the best advice I have ever got.
Thanks

The Story of 91Mobiles, India's Largest Gadget Research Site

[caption id="attachment_96387" align="alignleft" width="700"] Bharanidharan Visvanathan (Founder) & Nitin Mathur (Co-Founder), 91mobiles.com[/caption]

91mobiles.com (91Digital Web Private Ltd.) is the largest gadget research site in India, with over 7.5 million visitors per month providing information & interactive tools to help users research which mobile phone or gadget best suits their needs.

Launched in mid-2010, with a small team of 4-5 people, the website was able to build reach to 30,000 users per day in its first year of launch. The user-base has doubled every year since then, to reach over 250,000 users per day in 2014. 91mobiles was borne out of the huge need to provide a comprehensive gadget research portal for India with emphasis on local brands and retailers. Since the idea was specific to India, they even went on to add "91" which is the ISD code of India and isn’t that just enthralling?

The company was founded by Bharanidharan Viswanathan (ISB-Hyderabad alumnus) and Nitin Mathur (IIM-Calcutta alumnus).Bharani was earlier the Co-founder & CTO of Accentium Web, where he was part of the team that built sites like Gaadi.com (later acquired by iBibo Group) and Secondshaadi.com. Nitin had earlier founded an online loyalty & reward venture, Privilege Corner, which was acquired by corporate gifting company, eYantra. Nitin started his career in investment banking with ICICI Securities & Lehman Brothers.



On asking what prompted them to start this venture, Nitin says "Though there are many related sites solving part of the problems, there was a missing need for a solid research portal that can definitely answer the questions such as 'What gadget should I buy?' and 'Where can I get the best deal?' under the same roof. We were confident about pulling this off based on our rich experience and understanding of Indian consumers. But, while beginning we wanted to take a measured approach and started off with a shoe-string budget, a small team and couple of use-cases. The idea was to rapidly iterate and reach the product-market fit. Once we had a solid understanding of the market needs, we invested behind the team, product and marketing. Also, while there are gadget news sites that cover the latest happenings in the space, and price comparison sites that help users research the best price, what's missing are good sites that help users research the best device for their needs, from among the many options. 91mobiles fills this gap by providing users tools & content to help research available gadget options and narrow down to the most suitable choice."

91mobiles is now a 45-people strong team, and is head-quartered in Gurgaon, along with another office in Chennai. Also, the company has raised close to USD 1 million in a pre-Series A round from a set of investors led by India Quotient. The entire website is powered by open source technologies such as PHP, MySQL, ElasticSearch, MongoDB, REDIS, MemCache, and NEO4J&NODEJS.

Bharani shares his ideas for future expansion saying "We intent on developing even better research tools & content for the mobiles & tablets categories, and building a similar research experience for other gadget categories like wearable, laptops, cameras, and accessories. We will also be upgrading the existing mobile site and launching an Android application, as close to 50% of 91mobiles' traffic is already coming from mobile devices. Also, it is always easier to launch. The challenge was to get the product out in the hands of users. We promoted the website within our network and went after social media marketing. We also did some legwork to get traffic from search engines. We had sleepless nights while we waited for the adoption to grow. Eventually the traffic growth was seen on our portal after 4 months. The traffic and adoption has been growing ever since."

With a word of advice for future entrepreneurs, Nitin says, "Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to persevere and believe in yourself. So going after something you love naturally keeps you going for a long time. Also, you need to stay focused on the problem at hand and not get distracted by opportunities that pop up all around."

"We always focused on assembling a great team and then empowering them. There never was a doubt in our minds whether 'We were doing the right thing', but the only thing that sometimes bothered us was the question that 'whether we are doing it the right way?' adds Bharani.

With a strong desire to make 91mobiles the starting point of gadget research, the team is all set for enthralling journey that lies ahead of them and we wish them all the very best.

Interview With Arsh Shah Dilbagi, The 16 Year Old From Panipat Who Invented 'TALK' which Turns Breath Into Words

Last month we published story about young inventor Arsh Shah Dilbagi who was among finalist of Google Science Fair 2014, for his invention called - 'TALK', a device which converts breath into words and enables mutes to communicate in normal form of speech.Arsh has won the Voters Choice Award in Google Science Fair 2014. (Find more information on device - 'TALK' Here)

Arsh was visiting his family doctor when he saw a man sitting in the waiting room crying for long time. In a conversation with his doctor, he understood that the man was suffering from a developmental disability and was unable to express himself to anyone. Arsh thought, 'Why can't technology solve such problems for us?' After 3 months of research, Arsh started developing 'TALK', a device which converts breath into speech. 7 months later, he came up with a product which could be used by anyone suffering from any kind of speech impairment.

In an interview with him, we understand all about his journey, inspiration and his future plans.

IndianWeb2: Tell us a little about yourself and your achievements.
Arsh: I'm 16 years old and studying in 12th Grade at DAV Public School, Panipat. I like Photography, Cinematography, Web Designing, 3D Modelling & Rendering and Swimming. I am very fascinated by the power of Science and Mathematics and love 'Making Things'.

I conceived and designed a working prototype of an Autonomous UGV for which I was honored by the President of India. I won IRO 2010 at National Level, IRO 2011 and FLL 2011 at Regional Level. I have also made a Home Automation System using Arduino, WordPress Plugin and designed a Quizzing Social Network. I started researching and working on talk in 2013.

IndianWeb2: Tell us a little about your product ‘TALK’ and how it works.
Arsh: TALK is basically an AAC device for people suffering from Developmental-Disabilities. Talk expects a person to be able to give two distinguishable exhales (by varying intensity/time) for converting into electrical signals using MEMS Microphone. The signals are processed by a microprocessor and labeled as 'Dots' - for short exhales and 'Dashes' - for longer exhales.

These are further interpreted as Morse Code, converted to words/sentences and sent to another microprocessor for synthesizing. Talk features two modes - one to communicate in English and other to give specific commands/phrases, and 9 different voices.

IndianWeb2: How is ‘TALK’ different from the AAC devices available in the market?
Arsh: Talk has made two major breakthroughs by increasing speaking rate and becoming the world's most affordable AAC device. The device was tested on a person suffering from SEM and Parkinson's Disease. Stephen Hawking has been suffering from ALS from the past 7 years. The speech generating device which he uses is very expensive, bulky, slow and consume a lot of power. ‘TALK’ is generic, affordable, has faster speaking rate, portable and consumes less power. The cost of the device (when made available in the market) would be Rs 5000 only.

'TALK' used pressure sensor which can be used to monitor variations in breath and generate two distinguishable signals. These signals can be further processed as a binary language and synthesized into speech accordingly.

IndianWeb2: What stage is the product at? When can we expect it in the market?
Arsh: The product has been tested on patients suffering from the diseases and improvements have been made in the product. I have filed a patent for it, which is in process right now. I am also waiting for certification to come along so that the product can be launched by the end of next year. It will be available for Rs 5000.

IndianWeb2: Who are your mentors?
Arsh: My parents are my mentors. They have been the biggest strength for me and are very supportive of my decisions. They have always inspired me to do better. Apart from them, I do not have anyone mentoring me in the project. This has turned out very well for me as I do not have someone redirecting me to a particular path. There is Google to always help out if I need anything.

IndianWeb2: Describe a typical day in your life and how has it changed since you have won the award.
Arsh: It has pretty much been the same. I start my day early around 5am. I go to my school (DAV Public School, Panipat) and come back around 1pm. I study for a while, play for a bit and then come back and do my research. Work a little on making ‘TALK’ better. ‘TALK’ has changed from a research project of my own to a social responsibility now. So many people have people have pinned up their hopes on this and are looking forward to the device coming out commercially.

IndianWeb2: Tell us for instance about people’s reactions.
Arsh: While a lot of people have congratulated me on making ‘TALK’, a lot of people are also looking forward to the product coming out in the market so that their near and dear ones can use it. I received a mail from a father congratulating me and thanking me for coming up with this idea. I got to know that his son was suffering from Developmental disability and the father was happy because he finally would get to listen to his son's voice. It feels very good to see how happy this will make people.

IndianWeb2: Tell us a little about your future plans.
Arsh: After I finish my class 12, I will not be joining a college, instead keep working on the product, trying to make it better and better. The patent for 'TALK' is currently processing. I am not sure about which college I would be in a year, or if I would attend a college. I would like to add auto-predictions to my Computing-Engine and integrate Talk with modern technology like Google Glass to make the world a better place to live people with Developmental-Disabilities.

IndianWeb2: Give a message for future entrepreneurs
Arsh: It all depends on how you see things in life. Don’t ask 'What should I make?', instead ask 'What should I do to solve a problem?' When there is a cause or purpose behind what is being done, things will come in place.

Interview With The Founders Of Traffline, An App Which Gives Birds Eye View Of The City’s Traffic

Traffic has forever been a stressful thing to handle. We all have been through traffic jams and long waiting lines at signals. "We want to help people plan better & work around the stress caused by Traffic in the cities. With features like travel times and live alerts that we offer, commuting is so much easier for the people," says Ravi Khemani (founder). Birds Eye System’s product Traffline aims to provide real time traffic information to road commuters in India and streamlining traffic flows.

"The endeavor was to build an App for the city masses, which will enable them to plan their city travel with all the necessary information on the mobile phone," says Ravi. It is an easy to deploy solution which specifically addresses the nuances of commercially fast growing cities with increasing vehicular traffic.

[caption id="attachment_95307" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Founders of Traffline - Ravi Khemani and Brijraj Vaghani[/caption]

Based out of Ville Parle, Mumbai, the company has expertise in the areas of system design, statistical analysis, data mining and software development. The firm’s primary and niche products is a low cost, real time traffic monitoring system called Traffline for fast growing metropolitan cities, built around its patented algorithms. It was started by Ravi Khemani and Brijraj Vaghani in 2010. The founders worked in NextWave and Qualcomm before taking a plunge into Birds Eye System.

"The response has been immense and there's definitely a need for the App. There are more than 100000 App users, 30000+ on social media and thousands of website hits every day," says Brijraj, proudly.

They provide unique services some of which are below:

1) Dedicated Call center to help users/commuters with on location traffic update. They also assist the commuters to plan their travel time and route according to the traffic congestion.

2) A Timeline on the App which integrates social media, Traffline users and also the traffic police alerts into one place for all the comprehensive information for the user.

3) Real time traffic update is our core value propositions. Their information keeps updating every 1 minute. This helps the commuters to keep a track of the actual scenario on the roads.

4) Service of SMS/ Email alerts. The commuters have been provided with a SMS/Email facility for real time traffic update as per the time and requirement, which stands unique from others.

"We have around 60 employees that include system architects, senior level engineers, mobile application developers, quality analyst, and marketing teams,” says Utkarsh Sharma, SEO Analyst & Developer at the organization. “In 2011 we were incubated by CIIE (Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship). We are currently funded by Indian Angel Network,” says Ravi, proudly. "From the start of this project, we have received a lot of good feedback from everyone. We participated in an event by Qualcomm Ventures in 2009 for which we won a Q-Prize. We also emerged as winners at 'Power of Ideas', an event organized by Economic Times and IIM-Ahmedabad in 2010,” adds Brijraj. We asked them if they had any doubts before starting up, and they said, "We always had a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve. We did have difficulties but never any doubts."

“We have signed contracts with companies and fleet agencies which provide us with GPS Data for tracking traffic updates. Not just this, we also have feet on street along with tie ups with Traffic Police departments in the respective cities,” adds Utkarsh. They are currently operational in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. They plan to add cities like Chennai, Jaipur, Calcutta, Ahemdabad to the traffline network and also launching new apps for Public transport and parking.

Message for future entrepreneurs

Brijraj: "Keep innovating especially when you are a Startup as this will help you capture the Market."
Ravi: "Focus and look at avenue to always add value. And always assume various other challenges. Don't be afraid of taking a different track."

The best advice we got is, "If a user is having a problem, it's our problem." This line quoted by Steve Jobs has been implemented by them very well and they have made sure that no user faces issues.

Short Interview with Explara founders, an online event management site

Explara is an event platform that takes the role of making events simple to organize and delightful to participate in. It was started in 2008 by Santosh Panda and Ashok Kumar, friends since their engineering days. Explara offers an integrated event platform for ticketing-registration, event community membership and events apps to organize any kind of event, conference, webinars, fundraising and RSVP.

Santosh got the idea of Explara while listening to radio. "An ad looking for venues for an event helped us stumble on the opportunity to tap the huge potential of online event management solutions. This was a pure form of accidentally entering a massive unorganized industry ‘Event management industry’," says Santosh. "During 2008, we launched it as 'Venue and Event Listing porta' but we realized that venue booking is complete manual process with zero interest by the venue owners to use any 'technology' as such. However we got strong interest from small event managers for an ‘event registration and ticketing’ solution. That kick started the journey to pivot to ‘Event ticketing & solution platform’ and formally launch during Sept 2009," adds Ashok.

Explara offers both one-off event organizing and community event-organizing solutions. Their event ticketing product provides various unique offerings such as Invitation only event organizing, multi-currency ticket types, integrated support ticketing tools, and team collaboration to manage an event. "We have customizable payment processing for each country/continent. For example in India, we provide TEN types payment processing for online, offline ticket sale/registration. The offline payment processing will be expanded as we expand to south Asian and similar market," says Santosh.

Explara's Apps Marketplace (in Beta) aims to extend apps and tools for pre-event, event-day and post-event end-to-end needs. They have partners located in UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines and plan to take their venture across the globe. Explara has raised angel funding during Jan 2013 from Blume Ventures, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels & Rejan Anandan. Prior to that, they bootstrapped for 3 years with founder's consulting/contracting earning.

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Santosh says, "Starting up is easy, staying put is tough. Place your bets well."

Short Interview with Explara founders, an online event management site

Explara is an event platform that takes the role of making events simple to organize and delightful to participate in. It was started in 2008 by Santosh Panda and Ashok Kumar, friends since their engineering days. Explara offers an integrated event platform for ticketing-registration, event community membership and events apps to organize any kind of event, conference, webinars, fundraising and RSVP.

Santosh got the idea of Explara while listening to radio. "An ad looking for venues for an event helped us stumble on the opportunity to tap the huge potential of online event management solutions. This was a pure form of accidentally entering a massive unorganized industry ‘Event management industry’," says Santosh. "During 2008, we launched it as 'Venue and Event Listing porta' but we realized that venue booking is complete manual process with zero interest by the venue owners to use any 'technology' as such. However we got strong interest from small event managers for an ‘event registration and ticketing’ solution. That kick started the journey to pivot to ‘Event ticketing & solution platform’ and formally launch during Sept 2009," adds Ashok.

Explara offers both one-off event organizing and community event-organizing solutions. Their event ticketing product provides various unique offerings such as Invitation only event organizing, multi-currency ticket types, integrated support ticketing tools, and team collaboration to manage an event. "We have customizable payment processing for each country/continent. For example in India, we provide TEN types payment processing for online, offline ticket sale/registration. The offline payment processing will be expanded as we expand to south Asian and similar market," says Santosh.

Explara's Apps Marketplace (in Beta) aims to extend apps and tools for pre-event, event-day and post-event end-to-end needs. They have partners located in UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines and plan to take their venture across the globe. Explara has raised angel funding during Jan 2013 from Blume Ventures, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels & Rejan Anandan. Prior to that, they bootstrapped for 3 years with founder's consulting/contracting earning.

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Santosh says, "Starting up is easy, staying put is tough. Place your bets well."