Mompreneur Pallavi Utagi Is Creating Sustainable Living With Her D2C Brand of Reusable Cloth Diapers - SuperBottoms

The disposable baby-diapers available in the market, that claims to be super absorbent for a night-long sound sleep of your baby, are one of the biggest cause of land and sea pollution as these are getting into the sea in vast numbers, blocking drains, harming wildlife and spreading diseases. Disposable diapers are mostly made with nonrecyclable polyethylene plastic, which breaks down over hundreds of years and contains toxic chemicals and microplastics.

These single-use throwaway diapers contain variety of components comprising wood pulp, plastics, tissue paper, or polyester nonwoven fabric, nonpermeable film made, e.g., of polyethylene or polypropylene, adhesive, or hook tapes, etc.

Observing this, Pallavi Utagi, who had a previous stint as the category manager for World’ no.1 Feminine Hygiene Wash brand -'Lactacyd', has launched SuperBottoms, which is currently the forerunner in creating cloth diapers as a category in the baby care segment.

Unlike synthetic baby-diapers, which are made of SAPs (Super Absorbent Polymer, now present in most diapers), SuperBottoms Diaper are made with organic cotton and thus very gentle and safe on baby’s delicate skin. With a one-size-fit-all functionality, it has a patent pending for its innovative buttoning system that enables the same diaper to be used for babies up to 3 years. The brand is a leader in the cloth diaper category in India and a bestseller on marketplaces like Amazon India.

Founder & Mom-in-chief, Ms. Pallavi Utagi

With key interests in sustainable, zero waste living and gentle ways of parenting, Pallavi Utagi is an engineer and marketer by education. She has earlier worked in the similar industry with a proven experience in launching the brands like i-can, i-pill and i-sure.

Pallavi is instrumental in changing the mindset of mothers who emphasizes on using the fancy products available in the market , and are ignorant towards the otherwise harmful effects on the babies' skin. Her constant efforts into bringing in the social change has also generated employment opportunities at large for women.

Run by a core team of parents, 90% of whom are mothers, the SuperBottoms brand diapers are trusted by 20 lakh+ parents. SuperBottoms UNO, the company's flagship product is an organic reusable diaper with the capability to stay dry all night.

SuperBottoms has raised 2 million in Series A from Saama Capital & DSG Consumer Partners and another half a million in debt funding from Alteria. Company is already INR 50 crores and aims to achieve 100 % year on year.

Do You Believe That You Too Can Start a Modern-Era Digital Transformation Business from Just INR 4000?

On January 11, 2018, out of the blue, a Pune-based digital transformation agency, Pharoscion, got a call from Noble Park, Australia. The call came from the owner of an e-commerce portal, seeking assistance for his online business. The agency accepted the offer without hesitation and, with the assistance of a web developer, delivered the solution flawlessly. As we all know, if you complete a project neatly and long before the deadline, it creates a necessary buzz, leading to more and more projects in the pipeline from different clients. 

And, that’s exactly how Pharosion Global became a modern era digital transformation agency with a global presence—a bootstrapped agency profitably running the business. Without taking any funding from any investor, the agency has been able to make its footmarks in Australia, Nepal, India, the UK, and the USA and is now trying to embark on its journey in other countries as well.

Pharoscion Global is a modern-era cloud and analytics-based digital transformation agency that focuses on the modern-era needs of businesses and startups. With a team comprising minds from IITs, IIMs and other experienced scholars, Pharoscion is your partner in areas (not limited to) like Cloud-based IT Products and Services, Digital Marketing, Branding, Data Analytics, SEO/SEM, as well as in Creative and Ads. Since January 2018, the agency has been following the "4Cs" strategy: curiosity, curation, commercial, and commencement, which has helped ventures achieve 10x growth. Just like any other business enthusiast, Pharoscion’s too is passionate about changing the world for the better.

Just the way Pharos, "The Lighthouse of Alexandria City," was built to help guide ships into port and Julius Caesar, in his Civil Wars (Part III, 111-112), describes the strategic importance as, "Now because of the narrowness of the strait, there can be no access by ship to the harbour without the consent of those who hold the Pharos." Likewise, in the 21st century, every Pharoscion has pledged to help businesses globally.

This journey has started with just INR 4000. Yes, that is the exact amount the agency spent on its very first project, bestowed by the Australian company – Everstore Australia Pty Ltd. This success is the result of the combined efforts of every Pharoscion. After helping Everstore Australia with its other portals (evertyres.com.au, Everstore.com.au, Everracer.com.au), one of its Pharoscion co-founded The Pizza Central, a franchised based pizzeria chain. Pharoscion Global provides services in the areas of Digital Marketing, Branding, Software for Cafe Management, Business Development and Sales, Content and Copywriting, Website and App Development for The Pizza Central. When the winning streak continued for The Pizza Central, the agency expanded its business deliverables to the next level by launching multiple cloud-based apps like Food Khazaana, King Mechanic, Pharo Assist, Pharo Bill, Branding and Digital Marketing, and tech products like ERP and CRM Solutions for big companies, which are running in multiple countries successfully.

With a vision of being the Pharos of the 21st century for to-be and existing brands, Pharoscion Global also geared up to team up with various prestigious institutes of India like IIMs and IITs with its flagship internship program, "Get Hands Dirty."

Agencies Its mission of helping startups and businesses like the sun by day and fire by night makes it drive its sensible approach towards social responsibilities. By collaborating with Dadheech International Trade Foundation, Brahmani Welfare Foundation, Sounds of Nidra, and many schools, it is doing its part in uplifting society and humanity.

Every Pharoscion believes what Bertrand Russell says.

Do not fear being eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

With a hybrid work culture since inception, and keeping the above quote in mind, the agency is helping as many ideas as possible to become successful start-ups and businesses with its state-of-the-art solutions in areas like cloud computing, data analytics, software and web development, marketing, branding, and artist management. In this pursuit of excellence, it has also collaborated with its global partners – NxtGen, HostingRaja, and 3dotcommunication – and firmly believes in making Pharoscion Global a brand that people around the world trust.

Every Pharoscion on the team is a proud supporter of the Union Government of India's # MakeInIndia, # VocalForLocal, and # StartUpIndia initiatives.

India’s 1st Agency-styled Digital Marketing Institute That Changed the Way of Learning - the Story of Digital Scholar

Digital Scholar, founded in the year 2019, is one of the best digital marketing institutes in India. It was founded by Sorav Jain, one of India's top 10 digital marketers and a global Instagram influencer. He launched Digital Scholar as an educational extension of his digital marketing organization, echoVME Digital. The institute provides comprehensive online and offline digital marketing courses to enable aspiring digital marketers to achieve their goal of becoming industry leaders.

Few Digital Marketing Statistics to showcase that it is a need of the hour

• The Digital advertising industry market value accounted for nearly 199 billion Indian rupees by the financial year 2020. It was 47 billion Indian rupees in the financial year 2015, and this shows that there is a gradual growth.
• It is projected to go up to 539 billion rupees by the financial year 2024.
• The Digital Advertising industry has grown by 15.3% and has reached Rs 15,782 crores by the end of 2020.
• By the end of 2021, the digital marketing industry is expected to grow at 20% and reach a market size of Rs 18,938 crores.
• In India, Digital Advertising contributes to 29 percent of the advertising market, with the market value being Rs 15,782 crores.
• The last few years have been an age of rapid digitization in India, and by the end of October 2020, nearly 734 million users have come online. This accounts for 53 percent of the nation's population. This shows the need for digital marketing.

On average Indian consumers spend at least 3 hours on social media a day, which shows the need for brands to have a social media presence.

A little about our journey

Sorav is a leading digital marketer who started his career at the age of 17 as an SEO executive. Sorav completed his Master's in International Management from Leeds University Business School. He then decided to launch echoVME digital, an award-winning agency. echoVME is one of the best Digital Marketing agencies in the country and has provided marked digital marketing solutions to numerous thriving brands.

During the hiring process, he noticed that many people interviewing were not digital marketing industry ready, and he decided to do something about it.

After a lot of contemplation and research, Sorav Jain decided to launch a Digital Marketing Institute along with his brother Rishi Jain. He was sure that the institute will provide the right platform for digital marketing enthusiasts.

He decided to bring together the best digital marketers who have great expertise in digital marketing, and then Digital Scholar was launched in 2019.

Digital Scholar has been one of the best places that has helped many digital marketing enthusiasts to find a place for themselves.

Why Digital Scholar?

Digital Marketing is a highly competitive and demanding field. Digital Scholar trains their students in multifarious ways, encourages them to think out of the box, and makes them industry-ready.

The digital marketing trainers in Digital Scholar have years of experience in the field. They are on their toes to deliver the best experiential training that the students can ever get.

Creativity and innovation is the key to digital marketing. Digital Scholar is the place for creative souls and helps students to unleash their creativity. From social media marketing to content creation, creativity is the key, and the students get to unleash their skills.

Digital Scholar is also a place where analytical minds get to play their mind. Right from the lead generation to running Facebook ads, students get exposure to learn, analyze and implement all the needed analytical strategies.

Digital Scholar offers an agency-based approach in which students are branched into teams and get to learn and work with their team like in a digital marketing agency.

Digital marketing is a field where professionals improve their expertise by learning and implementing what they actually learn. So, Digital Scholar offers internship opportunities worth Rs.5000, which the students can take up while getting trained in Digital Scholar. Students can take up the internship in echoVME, the extensive Digital Marketing agency owned by Sorav Jain. Digital Scholar also offers free domain and web hosting services for its students.

Digital Scholar provides 100% placement assistance and trains students to help crack the interviews.

At Digital Scholar, the students get to be involved in a fun, creative, and vibrant community where the students will get to be a part of numerous workshops, festival celebrations, and more.

What do the students get to learn?

The students are given a warm welcome and a clear orientation, and Digital Scholar makes sure to give a gist of all the Fundamentals Of Marketing.

Personal Branding is the key to establishing oneself and gaining a place in the digital marketing field, and the students will be trained to master personal Branding.

Agency Management skills are important life and career skills which the students will get to learn here.

Usage of Automation tools and all the required digital tools will be mastered by the students.

The art of Content Writing and Content Creation will be taught to the students. Blogging and WordPress Management are taught along with it as well.

Email Marketing and commercial messaging tactics will be mastered by the students.

Students are taught to run Facebook & Instagram Ads and generate new leads.

Learning to make use of Sales Funnels to generate quality leads.

Students get to learn Search Engine Optimization for ranking websites higher and driving better traffic.

Social Media Marketing is a vital part of digital marketing, and the same will be mastered by the students.

Instagram Influencer Mastery teaches the skill of becoming a resourceful influencer.

Students are taught to use tactics for doing International freelancing and work independently. LinkedIn Marketing is taught along with it to help the students pitch to international clients.

The above are a few of the things that Digital Scholar trains its students in. The students are taught by the best faculties who have great expertise in digital marketing. They have a wide range of information and skills to share with the students and make sure that the students are well equipped with all the information that is needed to find a place for themselves in the digital marketing field.

The pandemic is no excuse not to learn Digital Marketing.

Digital Scholar had its first batch of students graduate in the year 2019, and the response we got from them was amazing. Many of our students got a firm place for themselves in the digital marketing field. And then, when the second batch kickstarted its digital marketing journey diligently, the pandemic happened, and people were bound to stay at home. But this was no excuse not to learn Digital Marketing.

Digital Scholar shifted its presence online and started to conduct online digital marketing classes. This came as a boon to many international students. This has enabled students from all over the world to enroll in Digital Scholar's digital marketing course. Now, time and space is not a constraint to get trained in digital marketing. Students from Canada, Dubai, Srilanka, Nigeria, Germany, Portugal, and many more places have enrolled in Digital Scholar's digital marketing and benefited from it.

The numbers speak for themselves.

In the last 2 years, we have hosted 340 workshops, completed 20,000+ hours of training, worked with 10,000+ paid students, 400+ students got placed, And our students have generated over 5cr+ revenue.

• Digital Scholar has trained nearly 1,00,000 students in both their offline and online modules.
• Nearly 400+ students have been placed in both national and international companies, and their salary package is a handsome amount.
• Did you know that the highest placement salary of one of our Digital Scholar students is 10.5 Lakhs?
• On graduating, most of the students have gotten an average salary hike of 70%. The Digital Scholar students have been placed in many national and international agencies.
• Digital Scholar has gotten an amazing response from its students and has a google review rating of 4.9 stars from more than 1700 students and a rating of 4.8 stars on Trustpilot from more than 200 people.
• Digital Scholar is an official partner of Google and Facebook and has helped nearly 1,00,000 + students get certified.

Digital Scholar has been a career breakthrough and a life-changing place for many students. Digital Scholar has come a long way in facing all the odds that the pandemic had to throw. Digital Scholar strives to provide the best of digital marketing training through both online and offline courses. Digital Scholar is overwhelmed by the response, engagement, and love it has received from the students and will continue to provide remarkable digital marketing training.

Collegedunia.com: Journey from a Flourishing Startup to Leading College Review Portal

Searching out colleges to take admission post 10+2 is something through which we have all gone through. As a student, you need to know four basic things about the college/university before taking a call. These four things being quality of education offered, fee structure, views of current students and the alumnus, ranking/rating of the institute.

However, it is a difficult task to garner this basic information about the colleges/universities. The idea of getting all this information in regards to colleges and exams across India and abroad at one place is something that student community wanted badly. To bridge this information gap and to help students, parents and teachers get all the necessary information about colleges and universities at one place Collegedunia.com emerged as an idea.

The vision of empowering students with the knowledge to help them take a wiser decision in regards to choice or career and alma mater paved the way for its establishment. Collegedunia.com comes as a comprehensive repository of college/universities and career-related information like exams for both parents and students. Students can search the colleges based on the alumni reviews about the colleges.

Since its inception, Collegedunia.com has guided lakhs of students across India (and abroad as well) in making smart and rational decisions in regards to their career and institute selection. From a limited number of colleges and courses, Collegedunia.com has become the segment leader in the country. The platform is the leading college review portal of the country at present.

Collegedunia.com is a brainchild of BITS Pilani Alumni Sahil Chalana. Founded in 2014 the company began its work as a niche startup. As per Sahil Chalana, there exists a huge gap in regards to the data and its quality that students and parents look out for in the pre-admission phase. Due to which he stepped in with the idea of Collegedunia.com and built a team of young and motivated individuals. With an average employee age of 25 years, Collegedunia.com is a team of 250 plus youths who want to contribute to the society meaningfully.

Lack of information can be detrimental for career and institute selection, and that’s where collegdunia.com comes in to guide and aid the students. Its large community of students and alumni help in decimating useful knowledge to the students.

The information available on the website is quite extensive. From popular courses like medicine and engineering to vocational and study abroad information you can find it all here. Collegedunia.com comes as a one-stop destination for all your searches related to career, college, courses, admission process, etc.
At present, the website houses information about more than 15,200 colleges and over 16,000 courses and 330 exams. From rank, location, to ratings one can find all the specific information related to colleges/universities on the website.

Keeping in mind the ease of accessibility and the popularity of mobile apps Collegedunia.com has come up with an app based interface as well. Students can access all this information easily and effectively with the mobile application of Collegedunia.com.

Collegedunia.com also collaborates with the college fests through which students come up to the platform and give reviews about their colleges. With ever expanding information base and popularity, Collegedunia.com wants to take its vision to the next level shortly. The long term vision of the firm is to deliver to the admission needs of the students in an end to end manner. For that involvement of the student community with the platform is the plan ahead.

Collegedunia.com has already started the student engagement process with its reward-based mechanism. The platform offers attractive cash prizes to students who provide valuable information about their college/universities. So, more colleges, universities, and career guidance is what you can expect from Collegedunia.com in the future. From a start up to an established company of more than 250 members, Collegedunia.com established its own individuality as a most trusted college search portal due to its strong database.

Inspiring Story of Mr.Paanwala - Serving Traditional 'Paan' In An International Perspective

The ‘Paan’ is a well-liked thing in India.And the salient fact is that you will hardly find a market without a ‘Paan’ shop in India.There are songs like ‘Khaike Paan banaraswala’ depicts the traditional Paan and it won’t be wrong enough to regard it as an integral part of Indian culture & society.In this write-up, we have the story of Mr.Paanwala, a business platform of Paan.

Mr.Paanwala is a Philadelphia-based business started in 2009, because of their pure dedication to the quality and excellence.They also have received numerous recognition. All their products are made traditionally and authentic way from homemade recipes.The three guiding principles make Mr.Paanwala’s passion of making Paan more popular: Make everything from scratch, Use the best ingredients and Try everything.

“We just don’t sell PAANS but we offer a concept – unique and exceptional Live Events. Making a Paan is not just a business but it’s a passion, we are a proud business that makes any event absolutely memorable for you and your loved ones” – this is how they describe themselves.

The Man behind Mr.Paanwala

Mehul Patel, who hails from Vadodara, Gujarat is the man behind the platform Mr.Paanwala.Mehul shared his story of going forward with the idea of serving the traditional Paan in an international perspective.

It was when Mehul Patel was only 12 years old, he learnt all the ways of making a the Paan.It was all easy for him as his Grandmother used to make Paan in front of him.At the age of 15, Mehul started eating paan.

“But when I came to USA in 2009, i didn’t many resources of paan available around me so I started making my own paan.And that’s how I developed this business” – says Mehul Patel.

Mehul served people with his wonderful Paan for more than 7 years.And now he started charging the money so whatever he can earn out of it, he can put that money in some good causes in India for people who’s in need.

Mehul goes for events and also caters them for people who do not have big events but still wants Paan.He also ships them overnight in USA only.Mehul is now set to expand his business in India too.

As we always say, we invent something new and unique when there is a need, He started following his grand mom’s steps in 2009, making PAAN at home. He simply followed his internal guts, feelings and kept the positive attitude to take this little steps to big platform and it was that start of his journey in to this business- since then he never looked back and developed so many new unique desserts out of this simple thing called PAAN.

Mr.Paanwala serving our community in their all the event types, they just literally go to the event and make all their PAANS live in front of guest the way they want, they offer customized PAAN on their menu. All their varieties are completely hand crafted from scratch and uniquely made, taking our Kalkatta Sweet Paan to the different level and have created 35+ varieties. Some of his very interesting varieties - Thandai Mousse Paan, Coconutty Fudge Paan, Boondi Fusion Paan, Cookies & Cream Paan, Mojito Mint Paan (Non-Alcoholic), Maza Mango Paan and many more.

They have recently come up with some very rock-hard and unique PAAN Desserts that not anyone may have seen before.



"Crispy Creamy Paan” The Innovative Paan completely created from scratch to give our classic Paan a Unique twist on a wafer cone; a combination of smooth and sweet nutty Ice Cream with our Traditional Paan, gives a tribute to our Authentic Paan served with ice cream on wafer cone.

“Paan Truffle Strawberries” This Treat will take your Strawberry and Paan obsession to the next level; Strawberries are infused with our Meetha Paan Ingredients and turned them in to delightful dessert for both Strawberry and Paan lovers.

“Paan Cup Cakes” Very unique Petite size dessert with it’s Beautiful Paan Flavor Frosting and it’s ability to light up a smile, Paan Cup Cakes really do have ultimate treat for everyone!

This brand is going at the sky-rocket speed in USA with their pure dedication, hard work, creativity in PAAN and Unique varieties.

How A Harvard Alumnus Went on To Become India's Largest Organized Chai (चाय) Retailer

There's nothing that a cup of tea can't solve, and according to Amuleek Singh Bijral, Founder and CEO of Chai Point, India's very first Chai startup, this is the situation all around the world. While it might come as shock to many of you but tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water.

In a bid to know more about Chai (चाय) and Chai Point, IndianWeb2 recently had a quick telephonic interview with the Chai king himself. Here's what we found out.

Why Chai?

According to Amuleek, when he started Chai Point in 2010, there wasn't a single tea venture in the country delivering door-to-door tea. While the nukkad tea stalls were there, many white-collar workers didn't enjoy the hygiene and the quality of tea being served there. Seeing that there was a huge market that craved for such a service, Chai Point was born in Bengaluru, then Bangalore.

What Does Chai Point Do?

Running on the slogan "India runs on chai", Chai Point brings its users a perfectly brewed cup of Chai made with fresh, natural ingredients to homes, offices and working professionals around the country. Starting their first pilot store in Bengaluru in April 2010, Chai Point has rapidly grown to become the go-to brand for a perfectly brewed cup of Chai. It is currently present in eight cities - Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. The tea Startup's beverage offerings includes varieties of hot Chai, Iced Chai and shakes.

Chai Point has so far raised $10M (about Rs. 64 Crores) in single round from three investors -- DSG Consumer Partners, Eight Roads Ventures and Saama Capital.

The Reasons Behind Chai Point's Success

1) From Garden to Glass



As a matter of fact there is no single organised player in India's Rs 33,000 crore chai market and Chai Point targets white-collar workers across the country who are fast on technology and love the new experience of sipping tea.

According to Amuleek, in order to provide its customers with the best brews, the company ensures that they source the highest quality tea from tea estates around the country. The tea leaves used by the company to make Chai are absolutely free of artificial colours and flavours as they are sourced from exclusive estates and companies in Assam, Darjeeling and the Nilgiris.

2) Made For Your Chai



What's Chai without some accompaniments, right? Chai Point also takes care of this aspect of Chai drinking culture. In addition to its beverage offerings, Chai Point retails its own brand of consumer packaged goods, Made-For-Chai, which are bite-sized snacks that acts a perfect accompaniment to a cup of Chai. The offerings include Multigrain biscuits, Mathri, Cake Rusk, Quinoa Puff, Gud Chana, Masala Peanuts and Cornflakes Mix.

Technology Being Used By Chai Point

In order to stay true to its commitment of offering its customers with the best Chai experience anywhere and everywhere, Chai Point makes use of technology to solve the issues of convenience and accessibility in the South Asian country.

The technology being employed by the beverage pioneer are:

SHARK

A cloud-based platform, SHARK allows for fast and seamless integration of billing and tracking across all Chai Point outlets, through mobile payment and Wi-Fi based setups. It also offers a delivery management platform that is integrated seamlessly with its POS and SCM service layers. The cloud-based platform also has a device management layer to manage IoT-enabled dispensers.

boxC.in

India’s very first cloud based beverages service platform, boxC.in provides IoT-enabled tea dispensing machines to corporate offices that provides freshly brewed Chai and coffee to office employees. The machines are connected to a cloud-platform which are accessible to customers who can keep track on the functioning of the machines as well as the billing process. The Tea retail chain startup Chai Point charges the corporates availing the service a monthly maintenance fee.

Meet The Man Behind Chai Point

Hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, Amuleek did his electrical engineering from Punjab and then went on to do his MBA from Harvard University. After his MBA, though he had several offers from big corporates, he decided to come back to India and follow the entrepreneurial route and started Chai Point in 2010.

Future Plans

According to Amuleek, the tea industry in India is a huge market and they are still a small company in this huge market. Hence, they wish to ensure proper and faster execution of their plans and acquire quality customers.

Story of India's First Online Interactive Education Firm TalentEdge Using AI and IoT in Learning Delivery

If we look at the edtech standpoint, India is on the cusp of growth. With the rise of internet and smartphone penetration, it is seen that digital education is getting tremendous adoption in last few years. If we talk about figures, online learning space in India is estimated to grow from current $4 billion to $40 billion by 2030.

And you know what contributes to this number? It is the need for working professionals to continue to upgrade their knowledge. Yes, with the evergreen subjects like marketing , HR, finance going strong and with the advent of new areas like big data, data science, digital marketing, working professional needs to upgrade their knowledge and emerging startups in edtech help them to learn from the convenience of their home or office.

The online learning space was revolutionized by the introduction of recorded lectures by players like Coursera and Edx. A participant enrolls in the course and by its completion time, there are hardly 10 % participants left.The completion rate is poor. This is a challenge for the ed-tech companies as they fall into the bubble of providing just the study material and not the experience.

Beyond the bubble of edtech companies providing course material online, players like Talentedge are offering interactive learning solutions to the participants.

Inception

Founded in 2012 by Aditya Malik, Talentedge is present in Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bengaluru and has a strong international presence in over 12 countries. Company provides value-adding, premium and affordable education solutions to students, institutions and enterprise workforce through its interactive technology platform ‘Direct to Device’. It claims to be India’s first company to provide this technology solution that enables virtual learning anytime and anywhere.

Offering a suite of online programs, the company is disrupting the conventional brick and mortar format of learning, to offer a progressive interactive virtual classroom environment that is better than a real classroom.

The participants have the professor online at the same time and can ask questions using message board. Since it is an interactive session- students don’t miss out the experience of making friends like we do in regular classroom. Participants can interact with themselves over the message board too.

“Our platform is completely based on a service oriented architecture which gives us the flexibility and agility to port the functionalities on all the devices and across all the businesses. With our kind of experience, user data in the domain and technical expertise in general there's no one in the edtech segment who have exploited big data, ML, AI, Virtual and mixed reality together collectively to achieve one goal - "put a highly effective learning eco system in place,” says Aditya Malik, CEO and MD of Talentedge.

Meet The Brains Behind The Company

Malik, is a successful tech-entrepreneur. The diversity of roles that his career spans across fields like sales, ops, risk management and HR, at the national and international level, has endowed him with a 360 degree experience. This has held him in good stead in his startup entrepreneurial journey. Talentedge is Aditya’s third venture after leaving a corporate job to join Lumis Partners. His strong process orientation skills thanks to his strategic knowledge of Six Sigma has further anchored him in handling the operations of Bank of America and GE SBI’s consumer finance segment’s establishment in India, before he went on to foster a new enterprise with Talentedge.

Technology- Facilitating Flexible Learning For Professional

Talentedge’s technology enabled infrastructure ensures state of the art synchronous e-learning, collaborative learning management system, with online assessments and peer-to-peer collaboration, thus facilitating flexible learning for professionals as well as students as per their comfort and preference.

Malik believes that they use best of the technology to make the platform competitive and completely in-align with newer capabilities and this is the reason why they have been distributed technology platform to build the platform.

“Our platform is completely based on a service oriented architecture which gives us the flexibility and agility to port the functionalities on all the devices and across all the businesses.
With our kind of experience, user data in the domain and technical expertise in general there's no one in the edtech segment who have exploited big data, ML, AI, Virtual and mixed reality together collectively to achieve one goal - "put a highly effective learning eco system in place", says Malik.

Take on Using AI & IoT

A typical learning ecosystem will have diverse forms of learners. Different learning styles/ preferences, varying IQ s, attention span etc. are serious challenges which need addressing in order to confer effective and uniform learning experience on an edtech set up. The same platform needs to adapt and guide individual learners differently in a manner suiting their learning preferences, biases and existing knowledge. It’s like having 1:1 teacher to student ratio in a physical classroom, in terms of personal attention being given to individual student.

“At Talentedge we have provided certificates to 0.5 million students on various professional courses, in the process we have acquired good amount of data which has led us devise number of predictive models with respect to difference learner sets (across all courses) around effective learning paths with a goal for the learner to improve upon his/ her performance in terms of his/ her assessment performance and course involvement, says Malik.

Talentedge has developed machine learning framework using AWS lambda framework which tracks the actual learner scores vs the predicted learner scores and guides the learners through effective learning paths thereby ultimately providing a highly effectively learning delivery.

If we talk about Internet of Things, it will globally play a vital role in enhancing UX in the edtech domain, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the learning process. “We at Talentedge are leveraging embedded technology to provide companion apps on apple and android watch. Apart from keeping an enrolled user updated on day to day updates related to the enrolled course the companion apps shall also keep the user updated on the relevant happenings around the user and globally as well,” says Malik.

With the advancements in the field of big data, IoT, ML, AI, VR and mixed reality edtech domain per se is witnessing rapid evolution in terms of learner experience, communication and collaboration (Instructor - Learner, Learner - Learner) etc. And therefore many startups are mushrooming in this space to tap the untapped market.

On asking Ajay Revaila, Head-technology at Talentedge about the challenges they face, he said, “All of these much evolving technologies collectively firing to achieve evolution of the learner quality along the highly effective learning process. For us in terms technology the biggest challenge is for us to keep pace with the growth we are getting. It is an exciting place to be in and we are enjoying our work everyday to exceed expectations of business growth”.

But company’s world class learning pedagogy, best-in-class interactive IP solutions, cutting edge, Direct to Device technology, alliances with top institutes, in- depth industry expertise and gamified assessments and intelligent analytics are the path-breaking attributes that keep the company at an edge over its peers.

Road Ahead

Talentedge’s target audience falls under the age group of 18 to 40 years and is present in India as well as abroad. Also, the company’s prospective customers include aspirational and progressive, tech-savvy individuals, new age learners, students and young professionals. Talentedge has a tie up with the following institutes XLRI Jamshedpur, IIT Roorkee, IIFT New Delhi, IIM Kozhikode, MICA and SMU to provide seamlessly education to its users.

Malik plans to carve a niche place for Talentedge as India’s first online interactive education company. He wishes to achieve a phenomenal growth rate of 35% every year for the company by changing the way India learns while disrupting the category. With a bandwidth of 150 to 200 employees, he wishes to double the consumer-college partnerships from 6 to 12, which will eventually lead to an increased consumer business. Besides this, he also envisages working with top 15 organisations across sectors like FMCG, Telecom, BSFI and IT.

“We are growing at the CAGR of 100% year on year. In this FY 2017-18. We are also looking to expand inorganically and are looking at some opportunities to acquire few businesses which complement our offerings," concludes Malik.

This Mompreneur is Offering Friendly Platform for Women with Infertility by Disrupting $775Mn IVF Market

At the age of 23 Gitanjali Banerjee got married to the man in Olive Green and from here her journey to unknown and unexplored began. As every other married girl Gitanjali next phase after marriage was the phase of being mother. But for her it turns into pain of 10 long and gruelling years of fighting infertility. Post 5 miscarriages, 3 molar pregnancies, 1 failed IVF, a brush with ovarian cancer; she finally succeeded on second IVF attempt.

I had a long and roller coaster journey towards motherhood. The pain and the social disdain that a woman undergoes during infertility journey is unimaginable and humiliating. Society, on the other hand has no idea about the pain of infertility and people end up hurting by passing shallow comments. It is startling that there is no neutral platform and especially no woman who comes up and says, “Yes, I have gone through it, I know it is not easy but got to keep going”. 1 in every 4 couple in India is fighting some or the other form of infertility. There was a need to come out of the infertility closet,” shares Gitanjali.

For Gitanjali her personal fear was the biggest challenge. But once, she overcame it and shared her story with people, it simply warmed up her which landed her into the land of entrepreneurship. She founded inFertility Dost to reach out to women who suffer in silence, bring real stories, make the society aware and acknowledge the pain, and most importantly to help patients find the right doctor.

“No, entrepreneurship was not in my mind but it became the need, a tool to reach out to millions of people who were sailing in the same boat like me. It became a tool for help others and thus social entrepreneurship project, inFertility Dost came happened to me,” says Gitanjali.

Bridging The Gap

It is believed that nearly 15% of the Indian population suffers from some form of infertility. Research in fact indicates that India has witnessed a 20-30% surge in infertility cases in the past 5 years. The volume of people affected by it sums up to be more than 150 million. Every year 10 million new cases are adding up in India. Gitanjali with her startup aims to cater this growing market. The target group for them including preventive healthcare of infertility stands at 460 million.



InfertilityDost, is an online platform that facilitates couples to brave infertility with support and knowledge. They hold hand, facilitate right guidance so that couples can take good decisions and stay away from misleading advertisements and fraud clinics, answer their queries by connecting them to experts, keep them motivated throughout this tough phase of life, reinforcing their strength and hope and enable them to fight with society’s stereotypes and prejudices.

“InfertilityDost fills the need to handhold a patient through the journey and bring everything under one portal to save time, cost and harassment. The social impact that we can create is huge leading empowerment of women. Also, the IVF market currently is unregulated, unorganized and not transparent. We aim to digitize atleast 10% of this market,” says Gitanjali.

InfertilityDost aims to build a complete ecosystem for infertility patients making support and knowledge accessible so that they can stay informed. There are many pain points in the journey of an infertility patients and InfertilityDost wishes to handhold at each stage, guide and provide services that can alleviate the ignorance and discomfort faced.

Currently, for Gitanjali the challenge is to find the right fit team where she is struggling.

Providing Emotional Connect

Startup is a patient-provider platform exclusively for the infertility and IVF patients. inFertilityDost provides handholding for patients with care, support, information and ancillary preparatory services.

“Our patient base is approx 5000. We conduct around 5 awareness campaigns and talks per month. We are focussed on building a community right now. We plan to leverage this power soon,” says Gitanjali.

Competing with startup like Practo, Gitajali says, “Though they are just listing and there is no emotional connect with patients. Our differentiation point is our community building, content and accessibility of all information in one portal.”

Future Plans:

Gitanjali believes that by using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool can to do predictive analysis and serve the patients better in customized environment. Currently been incubated at IIT Delhi under their WEE program ( Women empowerment entrepreneurship), Gitanjali is looking to raise Rs 50 lakhs. Being India as their core focus, inFertilityDost get a lot of traffic from metros especially Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Delhi. Startup plans to expand its geographical reach to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where treatment information is hardly available.

“Egg and sperm donation market is marred with irregularities that often lead to violation of government rules. Often, samples are passed without proper medical testing leading to occurrence of genetic and other problems in IVF children at a later stage. We aim to bring pre-tested and verified samples to the market. We will take this awareness among corporate to help them balance their biological clock and career better with options of freezing,” concludes Gitanjali.

Sector Overview:

Rise in the number of couples suffering from infertility, owing to urbanisation, pollution, stress, and lifestyle patterns has led to rapid growth of Indian market for IVF services. If we look at the figures stated by a report of Allied Market Research (AMR), IVF services market in India is projected to reach US$ 775.9 million by 2022, registering a CAGR of 16.6 percent from 2016 to 2022.

Further, owing to low service cost and availability of skilled workforce, India is becoming one of the preferred destination for medical tourism. Cost of IVF treatment for infertility in India is one-fourth as compared to the developed countries, as per the government of India’s Medical Tourism Department.

Not only this, clinics operating in the UK, Australia, Spain, Denmark, Israel, and France find it difficult to provide their patients with donor egg IVF services. Therefore, these patients approach India, where donor egg IVF is more convenient. There are several hospital chains like Apollo; Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd; Cadila Healthcare Ltd; Trivector Origio Scientific; Lab IVF Asia Pte Ltd; LG Life Sciences;, Bourn Hall Clinic; Morpheus IVF Fertility Center; Cloudnine, a multi-city hospital chain for women and children specialising in obstetrics, gynaecology, fertility, and neonatology have come up to capitalise this untouched market.

Despite of all these encouraging factor, IVF market struggle to grow due to ethical and legal issues related to surrogacy. Apart from this, lack of established regulations and reimbursement policies leading to manipulative practices (such as sex identification and sex selection), also restrains the IVF market growth.

But mushrooming of startups like inFertilityDost has come as ray of hope of the IVF market. Now time will tell, how best these startups can capture Indian and market and provide people with sigh of relief.

With Network of Over 34K Cities, Indore-based Golofty Aims To Disrupt India's $120 Bn Bus Ticketing Market

If you are planning a trip, what is the one task which keeps on bothering you the most? Booking a bus ticket? Standing in a long queue to book a ticket could be a trying process. And when you are living in a digital world where you can access anything anywhere by just clicking a button, in such a scenario how can travel industry lack behind.

The bus travel industry in India is unorganized and highly fragmented. According to the reports, it is a $120 billion annual turnover industry with a growth rate of 25% per year which indicates that it is growing at a rapid pace. There are around 2000 private bus operators which function with almost 20, 000 buses on point to point routes.

Sensing the opportunity to tap the untapped market various players like redBus, Yatra.com, Travelyaari, Makemytrip etc mushroomed up. Despite the online bus ticketing market being dominated by these big players, yet there is another startup which is trying to make its place in the market and that is Indore-based startup -- Golofty.

Founded in December 2016 by Aman Khurana, Golofty is a hub for all your bus booking needs.

Hailing from a business background, Aman always wanted to to do something different that leaves a trail. Obsessed with the transportation sector, Aman, after completing his graduation started bidding in various schemes of government and private tenders in transportation space. While working in the industry, he observed that people are still facing problem in booking bus ticket or hiring a bus for their family trip. And this is where Aman stumbled upon the idea of Golofty.

“I always wanted something that describes some exclusive quality which differs from all which is something related to high-rise, elevated and "Buland" that is essential in every business and so I decided the word LOFTY that describes all this in one word. For finalizing and combining it to tourism, I launched it with GoLofty,” says Aman Khurana, founder, Golofty.

Business Mockup

[caption id="attachment_116848" align="alignleft" width="317"] Aman Khurana, Founder - GoLofty[/caption]GoLofty.com is a hub for all bus booking needs covering over 75,000 routes in India. The startup claims to have more than 2500 bus operators along with the specialists constantly to help its customers avail great deals. “Our network of bus ticket bookings and bus hire spread in 3440 cities across India which are growing every day too,” informs Aman.

Having a presence on both mobile and desktop, Golofty is experiencing express checkout of 10 seconds on both the platform by making booking hassle free from its customer. Talking about how secure is the site, Founder claims that portal is also fully secured with green lock and comply with all regulations.

On asking about the response from the customers, Aman says,“The customers are really liking the simple and attractive format of our website due to the ease it provides in booking tickets. Since our inception, we have seen the significant rise in our customer base which are hailing from all major cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Aurangabad, Pune, Mumbai, Coimbatore to name few,” says Aman.

Starting with the initial investment of INR 10 -15 lacs, Golofty has achieved a massive increment in its sale in a short period of time.

What Makes Them Unique

Talking about their competitors, Aman believes that Golofty doesn't have any direct competitors. But they do have indirect competition with startups like Redbus, Yatra.com to name few.

“All the features which we have introduced are launched for the first time in its category. We expertise to offer our premium customers the power to search for group tours. If one is planning to hire a bus for any marriage purpose, corporate tour, outing or any pilgrimage purpose, Golofty is here to find it for its customers with ease. They just need to give us their details and we will get back to them with the best offers from major operators near them,” says Aman.

Another interesting thing that stands them aloof from their competitor is the advertising. Golofty has designed an advertising campaign, especially for the bus operators. According to Aman, bus operators are given the option to advertise with them through which they can list their newly launched buses and also promote their routes

Road Ahead

As Golofty continues to grow in India, Aman is already eyeing opportunities beyond online bus ticketing. In near future, Aman plans to introduce several other services like rail reservation, flight booking, cab/taxi booking, tour/holidays packages, hotel booking, mobile/DTH recharge, bill payment and domestic money transfer for its users.

Not only this, the bootstrapped startup is planning to raise its angel round to strengthen its technology and to expand its category. “I am currently looking to raise around INR 3-5 Mn to increase our market size and make people aware about are features.Our ambition is to bring every bit of available routes online and to create the easiest and cheapest way for customers to book it,” concludes Aman.

With Network of Over 34K Cities, Indore-based Golofty Aims To Disrupt India's $120 Bn Bus Ticketing Market

If you are planning a trip, what is the one task which keeps on bothering you the most? Booking a bus ticket? Standing in a long queue to book a ticket could be a trying process. And when you are living in a digital world where you can access anything anywhere by just clicking a button, in such a scenario how can travel industry lack behind.

The bus travel industry in India is unorganized and highly fragmented. According to the reports, it is a $120 billion annual turnover industry with a growth rate of 25% per year which indicates that it is growing at a rapid pace. There are around 2000 private bus operators which function with almost 20, 000 buses on point to point routes.

Sensing the opportunity to tap the untapped market various players like redBus, Yatra.com, Travelyaari, Makemytrip etc mushroomed up. Despite the online bus ticketing market being dominated by these big players, yet there is another startup which is trying to make its place in the market and that is Indore-based startup -- Golofty.

Founded in December 2016 by Aman Khurana, Golofty is a hub for all your bus booking needs.

Hailing from a business background, Aman always wanted to to do something different that leaves a trail. Obsessed with the transportation sector, Aman, after completing his graduation started bidding in various schemes of government and private tenders in transportation space. While working in the industry, he observed that people are still facing problem in booking bus ticket or hiring a bus for their family trip. And this is where Aman stumbled upon the idea of Golofty.

“I always wanted something that describes some exclusive quality which differs from all which is something related to high-rise, elevated and "Buland" that is essential in every business and so I decided the word LOFTY that describes all this in one word. For finalizing and combining it to tourism, I launched it with GoLofty,” says Aman Khurana, founder, Golofty.

Business Mockup

[caption id="attachment_116848" align="alignleft" width="317"] Aman Khurana, Founder - GoLofty[/caption]GoLofty.com is a hub for all bus booking needs covering over 75,000 routes in India. The startup claims to have more than 2500 bus operators along with the specialists constantly to help its customers avail great deals. “Our network of bus ticket bookings and bus hire spread in 3440 cities across India which are growing every day too,” informs Aman.

Having a presence on both mobile and desktop, Golofty is experiencing express checkout of 10 seconds on both the platform by making booking hassle free from its customer. Talking about how secure is the site, Founder claims that portal is also fully secured with green lock and comply with all regulations.

On asking about the response from the customers, Aman says,“The customers are really liking the simple and attractive format of our website due to the ease it provides in booking tickets. Since our inception, we have seen the significant rise in our customer base which are hailing from all major cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Indore, Aurangabad, Pune, Mumbai, Coimbatore to name few,” says Aman.

Starting with the initial investment of INR 10 -15 lacs, Golofty has achieved a massive increment in its sale in a short period of time.

What Makes Them Unique

Talking about their competitors, Aman believes that Golofty doesn't have any direct competitors. But they do have indirect competition with startups like Redbus, Yatra.com to name few.

“All the features which we have introduced are launched for the first time in its category. We expertise to offer our premium customers the power to search for group tours. If one is planning to hire a bus for any marriage purpose, corporate tour, outing or any pilgrimage purpose, Golofty is here to find it for its customers with ease. They just need to give us their details and we will get back to them with the best offers from major operators near them,” says Aman.

Another interesting thing that stands them aloof from their competitor is the advertising. Golofty has designed an advertising campaign, especially for the bus operators. According to Aman, bus operators are given the option to advertise with them through which they can list their newly launched buses and also promote their routes

Road Ahead

As Golofty continues to grow in India, Aman is already eyeing opportunities beyond online bus ticketing. In near future, Aman plans to introduce several other services like rail reservation, flight booking, cab/taxi booking, tour/holidays packages, hotel booking, mobile/DTH recharge, bill payment and domestic money transfer for its users.

Not only this, the bootstrapped startup is planning to raise its angel round to strengthen its technology and to expand its category. “I am currently looking to raise around INR 3-5 Mn to increase our market size and make people aware about are features.Our ambition is to bring every bit of available routes online and to create the easiest and cheapest way for customers to book it,” concludes Aman.

Bill Gates Has Entrepreneurial Advice For Wanna Be Startup-ers

In a world where everyone has opinions and is ready to give you advice at the drop of a hat, you should only listen to those who have lived the experience that you're looking to live. And, when it comes to career advice, who better to take inspiration than from the "Bill Gates" himself.

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates recently took to the 140 characters social networking site Twitter to offer advice to the new graduates getting ready for their journey ahead in life. The richest man in the world, who has been on the Forbes’ top spot for four consecutive years now, was able to pack his rich career advice in just 14 tweets, which can be considered a feet in itself.

Gates' 14 tweets, which some have even called a tweetstorm, offers students advice on how they can avoid making some of the same mistakes that he had made in his career. He also offered the newly graduated an inspiring pep talk about how in order to do well in their future, they need to surround themselves with good people, value family, and always believe within that if there are problems there is a way to solve them. According to Gates, if there is one graduation present he could give to each graduating student this year, it would be to read Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature. He feels that the book is the most inspiring book he has ever read and shows how the world is getting better.

The core of Gates' advice was to get into the science fields, especially artificial intelligence, biosciences and energy. According to him, one needs to use their talents to fix the problems in society and make everyone's life easier and better.

He signed off the tweetstorm by acknowledging that now is a great time to be alive, and everyone should try to make most of it.

Gates is a visionary person, who has worked extremely hard to be where he is today. According to people close to him, he doesn't believe in mere luck or God’s grace, but believes that those who employ intelligence and hard work on a regular basis are the ones who make it big.

1/ New college grads often ask me for career advice. At the risk of sounding like this guy…https://t.co/C68mjJ5g44

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

2/ AI, energy, and biosciences are promising fields where you can make a huge impact. It's what I would do if starting out today.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

3/ Looking back on when I left college, there are some things I wish I had known.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

4/ E.g. Intelligence takes many different forms. It is not one-dimensional. And not as important as I used to think.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

5/ I also have one big regret: When I left school, I knew little about the world’s worst inequities. Took me decades to learn.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

6/ You know more than I did when I was your age. You can start fighting inequity, whether down the street or around the world, sooner.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

7/ Meanwhile, surround yourself with people who challenge you, teach you, and push you to be your best self. As @MelindaGates does for me.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates 8/ Like @WarrenBuffett I measure my happiness by whether people close to me are happy and love me, & by the difference I make for others.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett 9/ If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this--the most inspiring book I've ever read. pic.twitter.com/P67BuvpELJ

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett 10/ @SAPinker shows how the world is getting better. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is the most peaceful time in human history.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett @sapinker 11/ That matters because if you think the world is getting better, you want to spread the progress to more people and places.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett @sapinker 12/ It doesn’t mean you ignore the serious problems we face. It just means you believe they can be solved.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett @sapinker 13/ This is the core of my worldview. It sustains me in tough times and is the reason I love my work. I think it can do same for you.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

.@melindagates @WarrenBuffett @sapinker 14/ This is an amazing time to be alive. I hope you make the most of it.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) May 15, 2017

[Top Image: Tukaramatthews]

Journey of mShipper, A Startup Which Just Got Recognized Under 'Start-Up India' Program

Founded in Sep, 2015, mShipper has now been recognized as a Startup by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion under Startup India Program. Based on a disruptive concept of crowd-sourced logistics, mShipper competes with @Shadowfax, @Opinio, @Quickli and @Gopigeon. Last month, FBStart Program accepted mShipper under its Bootcamp Acceleration Program which offers credits worth upto $40000 to be used on AWS, Facebook Advertising , DocStoc and other associated partners.

The Delhi-based startup was also recognized in IndianWeb2's list of 2015's 10 Promising Delhi-Based Startups.

The startup states that it’s one of the largest communities of verified freelance commuters who are ready to carry other’s stuffs during their trips within city in India. Adding further, the company registered more than 10000 freelance Shippers in Delhi/NCR from Nov, 2015 to Dec, 2016.

The growing stats are self-explanatory hence mShipper was awarded with HOT 1OO: RACE TO GRACE 2017 Award. Winners of the HOT 1OO: RACE TO GRACE 2017 Awards were determined by public voting coupled with scores from an imminent pan-India jury panel. The panel comprised industry stalwarts—CIOs, Investors, Analysts, Commentators and Industry Leaders—who allocated scores and basis their expertise finalised the winners. Selection is made by evaluating the startup’s technological innovation, team strength, opportunity size, and product value proposition. The HOT 100 Awards are a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit, and seek to recognise and reward India’s most dynamic enterprise-focused startup businesses. Having earned this validation and honour, startups have a platform through which they can introduce their company to the world.

mShipper works with SMEs , leading E-Com Marketplaces, online Pharmacies and retailers to deliver their orders within Delhi/NCR. It is currently doing 60% of its number of orders what it achieved last year.

Recently, Mr. Subinder Khurana , a Serial Entrepreneur, an IIT Delhi Alumni and Charter Member of TIE has shown his interest to serve the board as an advisor and the documents are supposed to be processed to ROC very soon.
So far the startup worked in the territory of Delhi/NCR, but now they are planning to start their operations in 5 more cities including Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The technology is being enhanced and more security/verifications APIs are being implemented & integrated to minimize any risk for both, merchants and the freelance shippers.

How This Ahemdabad Based web portal help users find a private accommodation

Ahemdabad based startup BeHomey is a web portal which help users find a private accommodation like a full house/a room/a tent/a balcony/space for camping/a bed for rent. From crowded tourist spots to uncharted exotic locations, there is always a home and there is always a family that is ready to let you in.

BeHomey aims to create more options for a traveller/tourist to stay than just budget hotels, service apartments, lodges, hostels, etc. BeHomey will empower locals and standardize their property to a level where a traveller/tourist will get most of the basic necessity fulfilled.

The idea of BeHomey was conceived by Kushal Trivedi when he decided on going for an impromptu holiday with his family during Diwali (That’s the time when almost entire India travels and impromptu holidays may not be the best ways to deal with that!). He and his family wanted to go to a famous Gujarati tourist destination – Ambaji few days right before the festival of Diwali.



Here he found the problem which he thought most people face when they go to impromptu holidays. Heading to a tourist destination, without a booking, hoping for a modest room at a decent budget hotel! The Hotel wallahs just said thought he was funny and rest just thought of him as a gullible kid wanting to shell out money. Tired and sad, he and his wife started to discuss a way out and a Local heard them. The local offered him to stay in his house for as long as he was around for a very little money, and his head starts spinning. At first he was hesitant, they all went to check the place and then Kushal took the room and the deal was in place and his family loved the idea

And there was his vision for his venture Behomey in this solution to the problem he faced.

In an epiphany, he realized the 3 core values that define life:

– Adding new stories to your journey.

– Welcoming new people in your life.

– Living in a home away from home.

He came up with the idea of BeHomey and decided to make it real for all other impromptu people out there and to make your travel safe, fun and definitely easy on the budget.



As of today  BeHomey comprises team of three members. Kushal Trivedi (Founder), Dhirendra & Vivek where Kushal and Dhirendra comes with similar background where they worked together at Infibeam.com and Vivek has worked with Kushal in another IT company.

Kushal takes care of  the execution, operations and marketing while Dhirendra looks after sales & business development. Vivek takes care of the technology guy for the startup.

BeHomey differs from the competition in terms of having standardized properties, competitive fares and with all that it is not a marketplace.

They plan to cover all the tourist places within Gujarat, Rajasthan & Maharashtra.

What's your opinion about this private accommodation curator web portal,please write us in comments.

Check their website Be|Homey

Jaipur - A New Buzz in Startup Ecosystem of India

According to Nasscom, India ranks third in global startup ecosystem with more than 4,200 novel companies. The Indian Startup Ecosystem is thriving and has reached to the heritage panorama, the 'Pink City', Jaipur. While India is well-known for its brains and multiple skilled individuals, Jaipur is the new destination of Angel Investors and venture capitalists. They find the city brimming with enthusiastic people and youngsters who are introducing brilliant concepts in technology, mobile development, E-commerce and serving the society.

Cardekho.com, RazorPay, CultureAlley, TaazaSabzi, HippoCabs, Houssup, Streetjumper, Intellipaat, LogicRoots- what's common among all of them? They all originate from the capital of Rajasthan, and the list is comprehensive. The Ratan Tata empowered auto portal listing company, CarDekho (initiated by Girnar Soft in 2007) raised $65 Million expanding to new ventures - BikeDekho, PriceDekho. The company provides a wonderful platform to all those auto buffs as they can gain latest insights into car features, its prices and other specifications.

Having around more than 40 startups under process, Jaipur is receiving the attention of potential angels who are currently powering up the Indian giants, Flipkart and Ola. Razorpay has become the second-largest startup, revolutionizing online payments by offering a simple, cost-effective and secure payment gateway to startups, small business groups, schools and institutes. It is, in fact, listed among the ones chosen by Y Combinator, an American seed fund investor. RazorPay also is excellently motivated and backed up by Startup Oasis - an incubator set up by Rajasthan Industrial Investment Corporation (RIICO).

Besides establishing its name in e-commerce and comparison platforms, the city is bringing learning to people instead of people to learning with the origin of Intellipaat Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Within four years (since its inception in 2011), this Jaipur-based e-Learning provider has developed to the ever-evolving community of 250,000 learners and more than 40 corporate clients including Cisco, Genpact, Wipro, TCS and others. Intellipaat aims at providing high-quality, online learning to students and professionals all across the globe in top niche technologies and business platforms like Big Data, Hadoop, Business Intelligence, Data Science, Programming, Web Development, Database, Digital Marketing and many others.

HippoCabs is again a relaxing, luxury shared cab service on the route of Jaipur and Delhi (capital of India). You can choose your ride from an array of timings and enjoy an affordable drive to the destination.

It is impressive to know that the Silicon-Valley Founder Institute is soon going to launch its division in Jaipur. Many incubators and mentors have lately observed that the state of entrepreneurship has showed a rapid transformation in the city over the last three years. Jaipur consumers find them more trustworthy, and even fresh graduates and experienced professionals out here are favoring startups for employment.

Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) has signed an agreement with Startup Oasis and CIIE to dedicate 10% of its Rs 500 crore third fund for the startups. Jaipur now owns the largest IT SEZ in the country. A home to many engineering colleges, this place is becoming a hub of successful entrepreneurships.

The very reasons why investors and individuals are confident about Jaipur is because of easy commutation from one location to another without any aggressive traffic race like we have in the cities of Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore . Further, the beautiful city design gains people's attention and relatively lowers startup costs is the key factor. To be sure, Jaipur is expected to institute more than ten startups this year.

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.

This Indian Youth's Startup Is The Top Seller Of Silicon Wrist Bands In US

[caption id="attachment_97889" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Azim Makanojiya[/caption]

Silicon wrist bands are one thing that never go out of fashion and have been owned by everyone at least once in their life but no one could have ever imagined that a silicon wrist band company could be worth million dollars. Wrist-Band.com, a technology based startup founded by an Indian American Azim Makanojiya has been successful in pulling in $6.9 million that too in just one year of business. The company has also recently emerged as the largest online seller of silicon wrist bands in the whole of United States.

Makanojiya founded the startup when he was just 19 and studying as a full time student at the University of Houston. Born in Mumbai, India and raised in Houston, wrist bands first caught Makanojiya's interest at a trade show in China and from then, there was no looking back for him.

"I was amazed by how much one could customize the product," said the Wrist-Band.com founder in a statement.

He further added, "There was not a single site in the United States where individuals could tailor bands online. So I created a site that gave the customer the freedom to decorate a band anyway they liked."

Makanojiya also gives the example of the famous LIVESTRONG wristbands idea. "Take the popular LIVESTRONG wristbands idea, make them customizable and deliver them to the hands of the consumers," said Makanojiya in the statement.

Though Makanojiya started the company while still in college, he did his full homework and researched in detail about every aspect of the business. He researched on everything from molding and tooling to identifying the demand of the product through AdWords before entering the market.

Makanojiya also had to face a lot of challenges and initial hiccups that a lot of young entrepreneurs face while starting a new venture. One of the main challenges was that of a limited budget.

At the time of starting Wrist-Band.com, Makanojiya also had a personal challenge of supporting his family as his family was not financially well and depended on his income. He was constantly in dilemma, whether he should focus on his startup or on what he was currently doing.

Before the platform was fully developed and established, Makanojiya and his two member team used to take orders over the phone, note them down on an order sheet created by them and then submit orders every night.

The startup always had a drive to make it big and it is primarily because of its drive that such a small idea evolved into one of the fastest growing promotional product manufactures in the industry.

The startup is one of Houston's fastest growing technology startup. In the year 2011, the company was inducted into the prestigious elite inc 500 companies.