A Few Tips for the First Time Entrepreneurs & Startup-ers

A Few Tips for the First Time Entrepreneurs & Startup-ers

Starting something new is exciting as well as nerve racking at the same time. While you're looking forward to new experiences, you're also afraid at the same time thinking about the unexpected. Entrepreneurship as a profession might look glamorous and all hunky-dory from outside but this is not the case in reality.

In reality, the profession isn't all about roaming around in expensive cars, staying in five stars hotels or attending Page 3 cocktail parties everyday. The reality involves constant innovation, slogging and planning in order to make sure that your company is able stand out from the rest constantly. In order to help those first time entrepreneurs who are taking their first tiny steps in the startup industry get through an awesome start, we at www.indianweb2.com have compiled a list of a few tips that will help them get through the initial hiccups.

Self-belief -


self belief


This is the least you can do for yourself. Until and unless you believe in yourself and your idea, how do you intend to convince others to believe in your idea and invest their hard earned money in it. Have the courage to think something new and stand by it through thick and thin. Don't ever underestimate yourself as that will be your first step towards failure.

When a young would-be entrepreneur is starting out, he (or she) has not had the time to build his (or her) self-confidence. Our advice is to adopt a positive attitude. When you have a new idea, you will find hundreds of people who will tell you why it cannot be done. Do not give power to invalidating people. Believe in yourself – and believe in your idea. Own it. Everything that you as a new entrepreneur explains should be in positive terms. The learning process is to feel in your gut that you are right and that every obstacle is an opportunity.

Focus -


focus


Have a set goal and work through all your might to achieve it. Don't get disappointed or arrogant too soon because of the initial success or failure that you may face. Always remember "nothing is permanent". Keep working hard to achieve that one goal you have set for yourself and your startup in your mind and don't let any hiccup get in your way.

Working on stuff that doesn't matter will never get you to the promised land.

Staying focused can be tough with a constant stream of employees, clients, emails, and phone calls demanding your attention. Amid the noise, understanding your brain’s limitations and working around them can improve your focus and increase your productivity. Read - How to Stay Focused: Train Your Brain - via Entrepreneur.com

 

Money Is Important -


money

Don't get into the show-off business and over spend on things that you don't need as you never know when the tables might turn. Have enough cash flow ready with you for the difficult times. Yes, we know this means that you can't go out and buy the fancy car, and expense everything to the business right out of the gate. Though, we think that if you stay on top of the previous tips; the fast car, fancy office, and glorious dinners may come!

"Spend less than what you're earning". The advantage of practicing fundamental personal finance in your life is that you'll sleep at ease every night knowing that even if you entrepreneurial activities were to fail, you would be fine in the long run from a financial perspective.

Don't look out for the "Perfect Plan"


perfection

Wise men says "Strive for Progress, Not Perfection." To be really honest, there is no such thing as a "perfect plan". There is no perfect road that you can head down that will grant success. To each to his own. What may work for you, might not work for someone else. So, don't copy anyone else and go with the flow, and the path will pave itself for you. Think well before you act or speak is the mantra you should follow.

Building and improving your small business requires a few growing pains. But dwelling on those tiny slip-ups can stymie the growth of both you and your business. It’s more important to focus on progress, not perfection. Because every entrepreneur must learn to crawl before they can walk.

Here're 6 Indian Startups Inducted For Pitney Bowes Accelerator Program

pitney_bowes_startup_accelerator

There's good news in store for the Indian startup industry. Pitney Bowes, a global technology company has selected four Indian startups for the summer session of its Accelerator Program (accelerator.pitneybowes.com). Pitney Bowes is famous for providing innovative and creative solutions and products that offer a helping hand to commerce. The selected four startups are as follows:


  1. ShipDesk, Bangalore- This is a SaaS-based multi-carrier shipping management platform for e-commerce that helps calculate rules-based lowest cost shippers. It provides online merchants with a cloud-based shipping solution which offers easy multi vendor shipping at the best possible rates.



  2. Fetchon, Bangalore - This is a hyperlocal customer engagement and activation platform that helps brands and retailers to connect with their customers in a geo-fenced area.



  3. Ipsator Analytics, Bangalore - iPsator provides its patent pending product to empower decision makers have access to consumer's mind from across the stores.


  4. Kayeura,Bangalore - This innovative startup provides an in-store proximity and right-time marketing solutions for brands and retail stores. The company's flagship product is called - mtailer, a mobile shopping platform which delivers an exceptional shopping experience with no-line checkout and detailed analytics.



The above mentioned four startups would receive mentorship, easy access to venture funds and networking to startups in the areas of data analytics, customer information management, mobile, ecommerce management, location-based services and machine learning etc., under the Pitney Bowes Accelerator Program.

In addition to these four startups, the technology company has also inducted two more startups that will help the company in testing and marketing the solutions. The two selected startups for this work are:



  1. PrimaSeller, Bangalore - A SaaS-based platform designed especially for retailers that helps them in managing orders and inventory across multiple offline and online sales channels.


  2. Loginext, Mumbai - This is a location-based analytics platform that makes use of Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) to collect location data from packages, delivery vehicles or personnel, to provides real-time analysis of the delivery network.




The Accelerator selected startups will gain a full access to Pitney Bowes' application programming interfaces (API's), data and software for a period of six whole months.

The tech company has also entered into partnerships with Microsoft and Gurgaon-based 91springboard. This means that the startups selected under the Pitney Bowes Accelerator startups will have full access to Microsoft's BizSpark Plus program which awards Azure credits worth up to $120,000 to each of its participant. Pitney Bowes and Microsoft will together also facilitate market and customer access programs, and a mentor exchange. Further, Pitney Bowes will also work with 91springboard, the startup growth hub based in India, to support the startups through joint access programs and networking events.

Coming Soon Microsoft WiFi, A Service To Provide Wi-Fi For Users Everywhere

microsoft wifi

With the internet age, nothing can be kept a secret for long anymore. Microsoft, the technology giant, had a first hand experience of this when the details of its still work in progress service Microsoft WiFi were leaked online at a website called microsoftwifi.com.

The first one to spot the website was a Twitter user with the Twitter handle @h0x0d. He's apparently the same guy who had discovered Microsoft Earn in the past.

The website, microsoftwifi.com, before it was pulled off the net, described the new service as an offering providing "hassle-free Internet access around the world” in order to make users more productive on the go. The new Microsoft WiFi app in all likelihood will be a cross-platform affair. Before the website was pulled, one could see Microsoft WiFi app downloads links for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.

With Microsoft WiFi, Microsoft has just one mission in mind and that is to make sure that you’re always online no matter where you go.

The webpage before it was pulled down gave a detailed explanation of how one needs to be "eligible" in order to download and use the app. Apparently, at the service launch, Microsoft WiFi will only be available to active Skype WiFi subscribers, employees of organizations with Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprise and customers who have received a special WiFi offer from Microsoft.

In case you've never heard of it, Skype WiFi is a service that lets users get online at over 2 million Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide, paying with Skype Credit for the minutes used. The main pitch there is "no more fumbling with credit cards or long sign up processes when you're on the move," according to Skype.

microsoft_wifi_website

Venturebeat.com managed to grab the image above before Microsoft took down the website. As you can see, the point of the service is to make sure you’re always online no matter where you go:

[cp_quote style="quote_normal_light"]Don't waste time filling forms with personal information or managing different carriers to get connected. Sign in once and you are done: you will automatically be connected to a vast range of WiFi providers around the world.[/cp_quote]

Microsoft WiFi appears to be the same idea (a pay-as-you-go service that automatically connects you to free public Wi-Fi hotspots), but this appears to be more than just a rebranding, as it targets a much bigger audience: 10 million Wi-Fi hotspots in 130 countries.

As of now, Microsoft isn't sharing any more information right now, keep watching this space for more updates when it is available.

This New VC Firm Only Wants To Fund Billion-Dollar 'Unicorn' Startups In Asia

Unicorn funding

The startup scene is getting fiercer than ever. With a new startup being launched every day, it has become a tough battle of survival of the fittest. This mad race has resulted in the birth of a new kind of startups called the unicorn companies. Sounds bizarre? Well, it's funnily not.

Unicorn companies are startups with billion dollar valuations. Though they are very few and rare to find but they surely do exist in the market. What is more bizarre is that there is a new venture capital in town called the Unicorn Capital Partners which is only focused on funding unicorn companies. Yes, you read it right. A unicorn Venture Capital to fund Unicorn companies.

According to some reports going around, the China-based Unicorn Capital Partners have already raised a whopping $12 million to fund tech startups in Asia.

According to the Venture Capitalist's LinkedIn page, it "focuses on investing and partnering with the leading and emerging venture capital fund managers at the start of the Age of the Unicorns."

The term "unicorn" first came into existence in November 2013 when Aileen Lee used it for the first time in a post for TechCrunch. Lee, back then, narrowed down some 39 unicorns. All these unicorn companies were United States based software companies founded in the year 2003 or later, with valuations from public or private market investors worth $1 billion or more.

Currently, according to the Wall Street Journal's "Billion-Dollar Club" list, there are about 100 of such Unicorn companies.

Some Silicon Valley investors and observers see this sudden increase in numbers of tech unicorns and their startups' valuations, and the amount of money being raised by Silicon Valley startups as a dangerous signal of a looming tech bubble. According to a a few, this tech bubble could possibly mirror the dot-com bubble that originated in the late 90s and fizzled out by early 2000s.

Recently, investors like Y Combinator's Sam Altman and Benchmark's Bill Gurley have opinionated their concerns about the current condition of venture capital funding. Altman recently reminded the startups the need to keep their burn rates low as high startup burn rates is one parameter that investors are using to conclude if or not the tech-bubble talk is something real and substantial.

This Husband-Wife Duo's Startup Is Exclusively For Expats & Diplomatic Community In India

expats

A New Delhi-based startup called Primo Privilege is here to help the expat and diplomatic community solve the problem of finding top businesses in India without having to go through the traditional and risky 'trial by error' process.

Founded by a husband wife duo, Prashant Kalra, an ex lawyer and Ayesha Garewal Kalra, an ex communications trainer, Primo Privilege boosts of being the only privilege program in the Country which is officially recommended by Diplomatic Missions and Expat Bodies. All the vendors that are selected to be a part of the program, are subjected to go through a rigorous vetting process before their partnership applications are accepted by Primo Privilege. Notably, over 40% of the vendors that apply for partnership are rejected through this vetting process.

The Primo Privilege Membership comes with a privilege card that can be used by the members to get discounts at restaurants, spas, shops and even airline tickets. The startup is openly and officially endorsed/recommended by the trustworthy Australian High Commission, the British High Commission, the German Embassy, the US Embassy, the High Commission of Canada and all of Delhi NCR's major expat groups as their official privilege card.

Primo Privilege not only helps out the expat and diplomatic community but also help businesses like restaurants, Bars, Spas, Luxury and other such services acquire a user base that is quite elusive and impossible to consolidate.

Currently, the startup has tie ups with all of the city's top brands like I Say Organic, Fabfurnish, Yauatcha, Artusi, Sarita Handa, PCO and many more. "In the coming months, these tie ups will expand into 5 star hotels and leisure," says Prashant.

Launched on 24th May, 2014, the startup has acquired quite a number of milestones in a short duration of time. Within almost a year of its launch, the startup enjoys a membership of almost over 1000 members. Further, they have become the only privilege card in the country to get a flat 10% off on all Air France KLM flights across all cabin classes over and above the existing promotions. They even have an exclusive tie up with Fratelli wines wherein all their new members receive a complimentary bottle with their privilege card.

The founders have taken a conscious decision to keep the startup completely self funded and turned down several funding offers as they prefer slow but organic growth.

The capital based startup's future plans includes expanding its customer base within Delhi NCR beyond its current expat and diplomatic clientele.

This Startup Wants To Be Zomato for Beauty and wellness Industry

skinsecrets

An Ahmedabad-based startup called Skinsecrets.in is here to become the Zomato of the Beauty and wellness Industry. Just like Zomato has single handedly taken over the online discovery space for restaurants in India, Similarly, Skinsecrets.in aims to become everyone's one stop shop for any type of beauty or wellness need.

Skinsecrets.in provides its consumers a platform to search for spas, salons, skincare clinics and even purchase products from it. Over and above this all, in order to make things easier for their customers, they provide them with real customer reviews and exclusive special offers from their business partners.

Tejash D Mehta and Dhaval Shah, co-founders of Skinsecrets.in, both have more than 12 years of professional work experience in the corporate background. In the next two years, they plan to have more than 50,000 spas, salons and skincare clinics on board and book 100000 appointments through their platform each month.

"Due to increase in spending income and awareness about beauty and wellness treatments, there has been tremendous growth in number of spa,salon and skincare clinics in India. Consumers often do not try new place or postpone their next service since they are not sure how good a particular spa,salon or skincare clinic vendor is." said Tejas, co-founder of SkinSecrets. Skinsecrets.in helps consumers read details of the spa,salon and skincare clinics vendors like avg ratings from real customers who have been there , current offers , address , operation timings and consumers can also book their service right from the mob application. Our end users are male+female in age range of 25-45 , spending Rs 15-7500 on an average per month for beauty and wellness treatments in India, he added

The one thing that makes Skinsecrets.in stand out is the exclusive offers that it gets especially for its customers. No where in the physical market or in the online market will you be able to find such amazing offers and discounts. Further, if you download the Skinsecrets.in mobile app and write a few reviews and book your appoinments online using the app, then you will get a deal/offer from all of their vendor partners which is not available for their normal customers. They also aim to provide their customers with 100 percent data accuracy i.e. updated and correct contact number and addresses of their vendors.

Connect2MyDoctor Wants To Tame Telemedicine By Making Doctor's Visit An Online Affair

connect2mydoctor

In this fast paced world where everything is moving online, from your accountants to your shopping guides to your nearby grocery store; why should your doctor be left far behind?

Connect2MyDoctor is an online platform removing the boundaries of quality healthcare between the patients and doctors by the medium of online video consultations. Not only this, it even manages patients medical and personal records in a HIPPA secure server and syncs data from multiple sources – all stitched together with an intuitive user experience across tablets, computers and mobile devices.

Most of the currently existing healthcare startups only offer services like doctor listing or
functionality to ask a doctor or solutions with a substandard experience. But, Connect2MyDoctor.com aims to democratise the process of telemedicine by simplifying the so called white elephant 'Telemedicine' and large computers, specialized devices, audio visual rooms etc. to a more simpler, easy to use, secure solution across multiple platforms (commputers, mobiles, tablets) to get quality health care.

Connect2MyDoctor.com allows Doctors to:

  • stay connected with their patients no matter where they are

  • build a channel for the first touch point with patients who are residing far and making their in clinic visits more effective

  • perform second level follow ups etc. online after the initial in person consultation, freeing up time for more deserving patients in the clinics. This would also restrict the need for patients to travel to the doctor to just show a test report etc. A great boon especially for the geriatric care

  • monetize the time spent on answering questions which would otherwise be a bothersome telephone call from a random person (increasingly patients are looking to doctors for pre-treatment advice and counsel for which they are happy to pay)

  • manage patient records in a central location thereby making is accessible from where they are

  • set your consultation fees and time of consultation


Connect2MyDoctor.com allows Patients to:

  • stay connected with their doctors no matter where they are

  • search, book appointments for a quick online consultations (add a carer to the video consultation if required)

  • store medical records in a secure cloud environment, ensuring secure access wherever they are

  • get reminders of the appointment via email and SMS

  • save time and effort and money





Coonect2mydoctor is not a replacement to visiting a doctor but as a handy option for the patient to reach out to their doctor from view the doctor schedule, book an appointment, share health reports, make payment for consultation, and get access to the doctor via video, audio or chat.

The startup can act as a boon for patients all over the globe having issues getting access to specialists, care for non critical ailments, consultation for loved ones with special needs, aged care, access to their doctors when they are away from home and that too at an affordable cost.

The platform can be accessed by both the patients and doctors for follow up, first time consultations, second opinions and a lot more through video consultations. The service in no way aims to replace the personal in-clinic visit, it is only meant to be a complementary service with the doctor being accessible both online and in-clinic.

The Currently Bootstrapped startup has a team of three enthusiastic co-founders, Pramod Kutty - CEO, Jayaprakash Menon - COO and Nelby Joseph - CTO. The startup's future goals includes expanding into other markets, increasing scope with existing and new Target Audience and adding more product features.

The startup has registered office at Singapore with subsidiary offices in Bangalore, India and Melbourne, Australia.

5 Effective Google Marketing Tools For Startups & SMEs

google_marketing_tools

Google, the search giant, isn't just a search engine. This best friend of students all around the world is also a great resource in the hands of people stepping their first foot in the world of startup industry. With their limited budget and manpower, they can always back on Google to be there for them and makeup for both, the limited budget and the manpower.

Here, we have compiled a list of five Google tools that all the young entrepreneurs can use to make their lives easier and merrier.

  1. Google My Business - Anything free is always good. Isn't it? And, when the free thing is free advertising, it is even better. Yes, it is actually a thing. With Google My Business, one can easily claim their business listing by updating all their profile information to provide potential customers all the information they are looking for when they are considering to do business with you. By completing your profile, the chances of your business getting listed higher in results is much higher when customers are searching something related to your industry.See what we mean when we searched for 'web development company gurgaon' below:

    google_my_business_example

  2. Google Plus Page - A Google+ page is a must use tool for every business. Regularly updating content on your Google Plus page will help you rank higher in search results. Each post/content that you post on Google + has a unique URL, that can be easily found by someone searching for similar keywords. You are also provided with the luxury to design your page according to your brand, and connect with people of similar interests with the potential of turning into positive leads. Further, if you enjoy an active audience on Google+, you can also make use of the share button and have it on your website. This is because, the search giant uses social signals as a ranking factor, so if people are sharing your content frequently, you will start to see positive results.google plus

  3. Google AdWords - If you were looking to give a little push to your business appearance and visibility, then Google AdWords is the tool for you. This online advertising program helps you reach your customers and grow your businesses image much faster. Sign up on AdWords, select where your ad appears in the search results, set a budget according to your comfort and then just start measuring the reach and effectiveness of your campaign.adw-example

  4. Google Drive - This is a hot favourite tool among businesses nowadays. Its ease of use, and the ability it provides to share information rapidly among numerous users is the reason for its huge success. Google Drive is basically a cloud storage service that allows one to store and share documents, photos, videos, and much more online. With 15GB of free storage, Google Drive reduces the workload of sending those scores of emails back and forth.google drive

  5. Google News - In such competitive times, one should always remain updated on what's happening around in the world in general and what's new within the industry they're working. Google News is a great tool to remain updated on all the current events and news.google news

Rural India's Broadband User Base At 25.51 Million As Of End-March

rurral_broadband

While the Indian Prime Minister keeps raving about the wonders of Digital India, there are still areas in this country which are totally untouched by this social wonder.

"Rural broadband Internet subscriber base is 25.51 million as on March 31, 2015, as reported by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)," said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and Information Technology in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

This 25.51 million figure stands a tall 73.69 million subscribers for the urban counterparts.

Related - Social Media Usage In Indian Villages Grew Two Times In A Year

Karnataka has acquired the top position with the highest number of broadband users in rural areas at 2.77 million users. This was followed by Kerala at 2.52 million and Tamil Nadu at 2.27 million.

The total number of broadband Internet users in India was 99.20 million for the quarter ending March 2015. Out of this, Delhi stood first with the highest number of broadband user base at 8.7 million, followed by Tamil Nadu at 7.56 million and Maharashtra and Goa at 7.44 million.

Poor infrastructure and power supply, combined with low levels of literary and computer penetration are some of the central reasons for low penetration of broadband in Indian rural areas.

"Scarcity of relevant content in local/regional languages and Right of Way permission for laying of optical fibre and poor availability of poor optical fibre connectivity are also some of the issues," added Prasad.

According to Prasad, the government has already been working on getting hold of the situation and had already released funds worth Rs 26.75 crore in 2014-15 for State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) project.

[Top Image - Claude Renault at Flickr]

Twitter Launches Safety Centre Tool To Prevent Online Abuse

twitter_safety_center

Anonymity is one of the most famous advantage and disadvantage of social media. While some use this anonymity to their advantage by using it for the good causes, others, on the other hand, end up abusing it by using and spreading derogatory statements about something/someone. In order to help its users be safe from this social media evil, Twitter, one of the most famous social networking site has launched a new resource called the Safety Centre.

Safety Centre will act as a great resource for anyone and everyone who wants to learn about online safety on Twitter or on the web in general.

It is interesting to note that the Safety Centre has been launched just a few months after the now former CEO of the micro blogging site Dick Costolo commented about how the social media site "sucks" at dealing with online abuse.

The Safety centre has three main sections, namely, Tools, Policies and Enforcement. All these sections give a detailed information about how one can customise the site to suit themselves, the rules and regulations that the site applies, and how the site enforces these rules.

"This resource is a result of our work with online safety experts who continuously help us to promote good digital citizenship," said Twitter in a blog post on the launch of the new safety centre.

"Your online safety is a shared responsibility, and digital citizenship is essential to fostering a safe environment for all. As Twitter evolves along with the world of online safety, we will continue to create new materials for the Safety Centre," the blog post added.

The safety centre contains pages aiming at different Twitter users; from parents to teenagers and educators, Twitter has made a special effort to cover as many as it users as it can. Each of these sections has special customised advice for that group on how to get the most out of Twitter, with the Teenagers section having a special focus on privacy, thinking before you share, and dealing with online bullying.

Not many people know but reporting feature already existed in Twitter where one can report Twitter accounts that are harassing, bullying, or threatening you or someone else, especially if block and mute don’t fix the issue. Twitter will then investigate and determine the appropriate response.

Facebook had created a similar site earlier this year to clarify its users about how the site dealt with different types of content.



[Top Image - Slashgear.com]

Ridengine Is India's First P2P Bikes & Car Rental Platform

ridengine

A Hyderabad based startup called Ridengine is here to make renting Bikes and Cars a much cheaper, easier and friendlier rental experience than it ever was. Understanding the trust and security issues that Indian people face while renting their vehicles or renting out a vehicle, Ridengine solves this major problem by allowing Bikes & Cars rentals only to and from people one knows.

Ridengine will be India's first peer-to-peer bike & car rental platform i.e Rent a car or bike from some one you know. It is currently ready for beta release with minimal features.

Started with funding of just Rs.20,000 from family and friends, the startup is founded by three Johns Hopkins University(US) graduates - Dinesh Rao, Harish Chandramowli and Narayan Gowraj, the startup not only aims to overcome the challenges specific to Indian car rental Market but also act as act as a medium of communication for non-tech users to connect with tech-savvy population and make use of the services they have to offer.

"We want to introduce a peer-to-peer vehicle rental service that will help the owners share their vehicle with their friends and trusted corporate employees. Further Indian population consist of tech and non-tech users. Our platform, we will act as a medium through which non-tech users can communicate with tech-savvy population,"
said Dinesh, co-founder, Ridengine."We want to revolutionize the Indian bike & car rental space by bringing transparency and help people rent bike/car to a trusted user," he added.

Touted as India's 1st peer to peer (P2P) car and bike rental platform, Ridengine is unique but somehow competes with other niche players in India such as - Zoomcar, which have self driving fleet of cars but not bikes and moreover, does not have peer-to-peer model, another one is Bangalore-based Wikedride.in which offers Bike rental only and is non-P2P.

Calling themselves the 'RelayRides' for Bikes and Cars in India, Ridengine is in the market to revolutionize the Indian bike & car rental space by bringing in transparency and helping people rent bike/car to a trusted user.

Having spent 20+ years in India before moving to US, the three founders are well aware about the advantages and disadvantages of peer to peer rentals, both in USA and India and they have tried to solve this in Ridengine.

The startup has divided its future plans into four phases. Phase 1 includes the beta release of the website. This phase also includes an optional corporate email id verification step. Phase 2 includes integrating the website log in with facebook login and connecting the users with their facebook friends , which will allow them to control the visibility of their bikes. Phase 3 includes employing a small call center to connect tech friendly and non-tech friendly users.

And, finally, Phase 4 includes launching an android and iOS app for the startup.

Kolkata Ed-Tech Startup Arch Is A Safer Networking Of Teachers, Students & Parents

The primitive years of a child are the foundation of what he/she will grow up to become in future. These are the years when they need extra attention, guidance and care to grow up to become a successful individual. In order to help parents and teachers achieve this for their children and students respectively, a Kolkata based startup has developed an app called Arch-The Way.

Arch is a safe and free way for teachers to connect with their students & parents on their smartphones. Not only will the teachers be able to maintain a constant contact with the students and their parents but they will also be able to share files and broadcasts messages to the entire class. Further, the students, teachers and parents will also be able to share feedbacks privately with each other.

With Arch, Teachers can broadcast messages & files to the entire class or receive feedback from the student parents privately. Some of the other feature of Arch are:



  • Messaging: Teachers can send messages like major class updates homework reminder, exam updates, emergency messages etc to their students or parents. They can also send messages to individual Student/Parent for sensitive issues like fees reminders or complains.



  • Files: Teachers have ability to send Images, audios, video, along with Ppt, Doc & Pdf up to 100 mb. This makes sharing study resources very easy for them.



  • Future Scheduling: Teachers can plan their week ahead. All future updates will be sent automatically as scheduled.



  • Feedback: Teachers can receive feedback privately from the students & parents & respond to them, if necessary, at their convenience



The app is based on the principle of simplicity, safety & privacy. Therefore in keeping line with this principle, parents/students and teachers aren't required to exchange phone numbers in order to connect on the app. Every teacher is assigned an unique class code to which the student/parents can subscribe via the app.

The app which is available on Android, Windows & iOS helps teachers to send major message updates regarding some important project work, assignments, class tests or emergency messages like extension of holidays and rescheduling of a major school event etc.

Arch-the way is a product of hard labour of Rudresh Chowdhary, Nikhil Bajoria, Soumya Malani, Abinash Biswal & Nitesh Agarwal. The comfortably bootstrapped startup isn't looking to raise funds for now as currently they just want to stay completely focused on their product.

"We cater to the problem of communication between teachers and their students or parents. There is a disconnect between them due to limited time and communication. We are trying to bridge the 'Gap' and increase the engagement. Our 'Feedback' feature actually helps an Educator to grow," said Rudresh Chowdhary, Arch.

Incubated At PayPal's StartTank, DoPartTime Is Naukri For Part-Time Jobs

doparttime

If you're student or a homemaker or basically anyone wanting to make use of those extra hours you get off in the day to make some extra bucks for yourself, then you must be knowing that finding a part-time job in India ain't an easy task. With the internet filled with exciting but fraudulent part-time job offers, one needs to have an eye of an eagle to filter the good ones from the bad. Making this taxing process much more easier and sorted for you is a Chennai based startup called DoPartTime.com.

DoPartTime.com is an online portal that facilitates employers to hire and job seekers to finding the perfect part-time jobs. It is basically a marketplace where anyone and everyone can list their openings which are micro, contract, temporary, part-time and one time tasks.

The main idea behind DoPartTime.com is to help organize part time and flexi works in the country and make the best use of the untapped – skilled human resources, who aren't able to take up a regular job due to certain circumstances and societal/social conditions.

The newly launched platform helps part- time job seekers search jobs on the basis of location and timing preferences. Part-time jobs are listed on the platform on a freemium model in order to get more and more opportunities listed for the job seekers. DoPartTime is also available as an Andriod App.

DoPartTime covers vast geographical locations of India as one can find jobs from Chennai to Gurgaon or Mumbai to Bangalore.

doparttime_website

The currently lean bootstrapped startup which is incubated in StartTank, Chennai, has been co-founded by two enthusiastic individuals, Mohankumar Swaminathan and Arun David. Mohan is a computer science graduate with almost three years of experience in IT / ITES / Public sector / Transport industry. David, on the other hand, is a Programming, Technology, and Internet enthusiast with ample of experience in software engineering having worked as a Software Engineer for a leading Indian MNC.

So, if you have a relative, friend or any acquaintance, who has been looking for "the perfect part-time job" forever, then go recommend them DoPartTime.com right away.

EarlyByte Wants To Be India's ProductHunt Or Betalist Focussing Just Indian Product Startups

earlybyte

If you're not able to market your product/startup to the right audience then it really doesn't matter if you have the best quality or features on offer in the market. In this highly competitive market, being visible and being able to market your product well is all you need to survive nowadays. So, in order to help those early stage startups dealing with their initial marketing hiccups is a Jaipur based startup called EarlyByte.

EarlyByte gives a curated overview of the early stage Indian startups. It helps young entrepreneurs show off their startup to an audience of early adopters and receive their valuable feedback on the products and services offered.

EarlyByte is essentially a place for early adopters to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech-creations.

With the Indian startup industry booming like never before, a new startup is being launched almost every day. But, the bad news is that most of these startups aren't able to survive the initial few months and die an untimely death as they're not able to target and captivate their right audience. This where EarlyByte comes to picture. Since the platform's audience consists of early adopters, startup founders & other entrepreneurs coming to the website only to sign up for new services, this makes it "the" platform to advertise for new product or services. In addition to this, getting featured on their site is absolutely free of cost.

earlybyte screen

EarlyByte's main competitors are International companies like Beta list and Product hunt. These international companies have international audiences too but the main thing that makes EarlyByte score against them is that the startup's main audience are Indians who are the main focus of any Indian startup in the initial stages.

The currently Bootstrapped startup is the product of the geniuses of an IIT Roorkee Computer Science and Engineering graduate, Anshul Garg.

"Indian Startups can get publicity with Product hunt and BetaList but they don't get potential customers. Also It would be bizarre if any early-stage Indian startup decides to pay for example $999 for advertising on them for -
2 weeks site ads, 2 weeks newsletter ads or 2 tweets for audience who are not even their potential customer." says Anshul. EarlyByte's main audience are Indians which are the main focus of any Indian Startups in their initial days, he added

SoftBank Will No Longer Invest In New Startups; To Wind Up Its VC Arm

softbank

According to a recent report on a website, Japan based SoftBank Corp., which is known in India for its generous investments in several Indian startups, is planning to close down its venture capital arm and avoid making risky investments in early stage startups. It plans to shift its focus from early stage to more established and less risky companies.

By pulling the plug on SoftBank Capital, the parent company has decided to ditch the approach that resulted it in yielding record returns in China based Alibaba Group, one of the world’s most valuable Internet companies now. SoftBank Capital was one of the initial backers of the China based Internet startup in 2000 when the startup was just a year old.

The Japanese based firm is the biggest investor in two of India's most valuable and famous startups, cab hailing service app Ola and e-commerce site Snapdeal. SoftBank has already invested more than $1 billion in these two startups till date.

According to SoftBank president Nikesh Arora's statement to a website, “As we look at the future for the next tens of years, we believe that the way to preserve the long-term sustainability of SoftBank is to be large, minority shareholders of many assets. We believe that it’s less crowded in the large-check marketplace."

“As we build SoftBank 2.0, we increasingly believe that our future lies in a smaller universe of companies, which pioneer breakthrough innovation and have the potential to be market and category leaders,” said a spokesperson for the Japanese firm. “We want to work with them closely and guide and support them to success, as we have done with Snapdeal and Ola, and many others. We also think having a diversified portfolio including mature companies and in some cases, exceptional early-stage companies, is key to SoftBank’s long-term viability. We continue to be very excited by the possibilities that India offers.”

SoftBank Capital’s early-stage team, will not raise any new funds and nor make any new investments out of its $100 million 2014 investment fund. It will, however, continue making follow-on investments in current portfolio companies.

How does SoftBank's this change in strategy going to affect India is a little early to predict. Keep watching this space to know more on the same.

Bro4U Is New Hyperlocal Open Marketplace For Almost Every Household Services

bro4u

Didn't you always needed a friend/person on whom you can completely depend on and ask for favours? Someone who would understand all your feelings and needs and get them completed even before you get home from office? Well, if you have desired any of the two things mentioned above, then, viola, a Bengaluru based startup called Bro4Uhas answered all your wishes.

Bro4U is a first of its kinds open marketplace for service. They not only just book services for their customers but also stay with them until the job is fully completed. Their services includes, Purohits Booking, Plumbers, Carpenters, Electricians, Car Wash, Water Tank Cleaning, Painters, Home Cleaning, Cakes and flower delivery, Pan card and Passport consultants etc.

By providing real time data to its customers, Bro4U has been able to service more than 2,300 satisfied customers within just 3 months of its Beta launch. The figure holds testimonial to the customers confidence in the startup.

The startup is lead by it founder Pramod Hegde, an MBA graduate with 3 years of experience in Asset Management Advisory in State Street Corporation. He's currently leading Bro4u team in terms of planning, overall product development, and other areas.

With Bro4U, the founders main aim is to provide real time data to the customers and help local service providers get their due by providing them maximum exposure through a detailed listing on the platform.

With a vision of becoming the single largest technology platform globally for wide variety of services, the currently bootstrapped startup is considering raising funds and is in talks with various Angles and Early Stage Investors for the same.

Currently, operational in Bangalore only, the startup's immediate plans include entering the competitive Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad markets and adding more service categories to its service.

So, if what was missing in your life was a Bro4U, on whom you could completely depend on, then Bro4U is the Bro that you never had but always wanted. Go, try the amazing service now.

This Special Delivery-Startup Is All About Pampering Your Dog

barkloot

To all those dog lovers and owners out there, there's an amazing online service in store for your best friend. Meet BarkLoot, a monthly box delivery service that treats your dogs – anything from toys, treats, bones, chew sticks, accessories to grooming products.

Founde in January 2015, this Bangalore based startup understands your love and concern for your furry best friend and does everything it can to provide them a monthly box of full of happiness. They combine together perfect products every month which will keep your dog happy, loved and entertained. Further, every month the box is made up of different products in order to give them variety and keep them entertained and excited.

barkloot boxUsha raghav founded BarkLoot out of love and concern for her own pet dog, ATOM. As a pet parent, she used to shower her ATOM with all the amazing treats and toys that she could find but one day she realised that her dog wasn't that much fond of these toys and also there were instances when a particular toy would leave ATOM with bleeding from the gum. This is when Usha realised that just like her there would be several pet parents out there who want the best of things for their pet and won't mind paying for it. This is how BarkLoot came into existence.

Usha recalls -"My own pet dog was playing with a particular toy and suddenly he started bleeding from the gum.That’s when I realised that there might be many such pet parents like me who might be compromising with the products they provide to their dogs. Our pets love us so unconditionally and make us feel so special every day, it’s our responsibility too to provide them the best of everything. That’s when we thought we have to come up with something that will help the pet parents to provide the best of the products and at affordable cost."

"We at BarkLoot scout for pawsome products which are not only safe but will also benefit our pooches both stimulation wise and health wise," she said.

Usha has 7 years of working as a Senior Software Engineer at Infosys, Mysore. According to Usha, While some believe in luck and destiny, she isn't one of them. She is a go-getter who believes in taking charge of her own life. That's why she didn't even think twice before starting BarkLoot.

Funding of BarkLoot was done from personal savings and from her parents. So far the startup has invested around 7Lakhs INR, in which around 2 Lakhs were spent on the products, 1 lakh on Website and social media advertising and remaining on boxes and other infrastructures.

This completely self funded startup is slowly becoming a hit among all dog owners and has the potential of becoming a huge hit in the coming future. So, if you think your dog deserves the best, subscribe to BarkLoot right away and give your dog a box full of happiness month after month.

Ed-Tech Startup TutrApp Wants To Democratize The Learning For Students In India

tutrapp

Social Media is the language of the new generation. They are practically 24x7 online, chatting with friends, browsing through websites and apps or playing their favourite hi-tech games. A Bangalore based startup called TutrApp understood this quality of the current generation and integrated it within their app in order to combine their two most important essentials, education and social media.

A strict follower of the philosophy “A mind is a terrible thing to waste but a beautiful thing to invest in," the startup aims to democratize the learning for students even in the most far flung of corners of India. Every child in India has a fundamental right to education and people at TutrApp believe that every child should not only have a right to education but every child should have a right to quality education.

TutrApp is basically a mobile application that helps school going children, aged between 12 and 17, engage in a one on one learning session with educators on chat. It is first educational app in the country that provides chat based live interaction and works on GPRS connection.

TutrApp essentially wants to change the entire concept of 'Tution Classes' by digitizing & democratizing it for all irrespective of their locations and economic status. As, not every one in developing country like India afford tution classes and even if they could there are demerits and pros. for a typical tution classes, such as - a student, while sitting in a typical brick-and-mortor class with bunch of other students might feel overshadowed by loud students or may feel hesitant asking questions or might not ask questions frequently because of language barriers or compulsion.

With TutrApp, however, any student can chat with tutors/experts in Hindi, English or Hinglish and the discussion will be confidential. Moreover, students using Tutrapp get more time to discuss their questions and doubts without worrying about time and enjoy noise free interaction. And above all, Free!.

TutrApp claims to be first educational app in India that provides chat based live interaction and works on GPRS connection also.

The app is currently available for Android and iOS devices.

This self funded startup aims to solve the queries and curiosity of students regarding a particular topic then and there by chatting with an educator rather than have to wait for an entire day to go to school the next day and solve it.

Founded by IIT-Varanasi (BHU) alumnus Abhishek Gupta, Manoj Kumar and Kumar Deepak, the startup wishes to help students even from the rural of the rural villages to get access to quality educators on their side. The startup also wishes to empower thousands and thousands of those girls and women who are educated but remain out of the ambit of formal workforce. It also acts as a platform for young adults to add to their incomes by answering queries of the children on the chat.

"we want to help students even from villages to get access to quality educators on other side, we wish to empower thousands of girls and women who are educated but remain out of the ambit of formal workforce. Beyond the gender diversity it becomes an open platform for young adults to augment their income by investing time in answering queries of children.," said co-founder Manoj Kumar.

The startup's future plans includes adding more classes and subjects in the coming months and enable educators to work from anywhere in the country. They will also provide career counselling services to students through their app very soon.

This Delhi-Based Startup Wants To Rejuvenate Your Expensive Leather Items

theleatherlaundry

Is the question of giving your expensive leather jacket to laundry giving you nightmares? Have you had a horrible past experience with your favourite leather skirt going in the laundry looking like one thing and coming out looking like something else entirely. Well, we all leather lovers have been caught in the above two situations at some point of times in our lives. To all these people, I have one answer and that is The Leather Laundry.

Founded with a mission of fulfilling the huge dearth of professional leather care facilities in India, this New Delhi based startup is slowly becoming a hot favourite among all leather owners. Leather is an expensive investment that many of us make for the love of the material. Therefore, it physically hurts and sadness us if anything ever happens to this expensive investment of ours. Mallika Sharma, a leather lover herself, understood the grave situation of all leather lovers in the country and came up with the idea for The Leather Laundry, a Laundry especially conceived for authentic & expensive Leather items.

Leather is an expensive item and needs professional care. Instead of discarding it or trying home remedies without proper guidance, its best to avail the services of professional leather cleaners such as this new startup.

The Leather Laundry (TLL) is a second-generation initiative using environment friendly practices, equipment and processes to ensure the highest quality cleaning for your leather be it leather jackets, boots, shoes, bags or even belts TLL can repair, clean, color, revive and replenish them all. Though they don't have anything unique in terms of services they provide to their customers when compared to their contemporaries but they make up for everything in terms of quality of the services they provide. They guarantee fast, courteous and knowledgeable service, value for money and 100% customer satisfaction. The ulimate tranformation of leather items after being revived at TLL can be seen here.

However, one unique thing about TLL is they upcycle leather scrap/waste to craft small leather goods which avoids the scrap from ending up in landfills. Thus, the startup wittingly helps in providing gainful employment, save water, mitigate wastefulness, reduce pollution and above all gratify consumers with its stellar products.

The fully self funded startup has currently partnered with 3 brands, The leather boutique from Bangalore, AQ from New Delhi and Theo and Ash from Chennai, who will promote the Leather Laundry in their respective cities and re-direct all their Laundry requirements to them.

Founder of TLL, Mallika Sharma is a certified professional leather care technician who has trained with the globally reputed leather care company, LTT in the UK. LTT is one of the most coveted leather care brands in the world today. She learnt everything, from adopting the best practices to clean and care for all types of leather to colour mixing, repairing and leather restoration and recolouring. She did her under-graduation from Delhi University followed by an Msc in Finance and Investment from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She currently chair the garments division of her family run export house that has been manufacturing and exporting leather garments for the last 25 years.

Mallika has huge future plans in store for her startup. She intends to tie up with more and more leather brands across India by the end of this year, extend TLL's services to countries like Dubai and China and open up a brick and mortar shop for the startup's services.

Udaipur-Based Niki Is Smarter Version Of Siri For E-Commerce

niki

Do you keep uninstalling applications and clearing pictures from your smartphone because of the memory restraints you face on your device? Do you have to uninstall an old application in order to install a new one? Well, with different applications available nowadays for day-to-day chores like grocery shopping, booking a cab, ordering a pizza etc., a phone with a dinosaur sized memory is what we need. If you're also facing all these issues mentioned above, then, worry no more, because we might have an awesome solution in place for you. The solution is called Niki.

Niki is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered Automated messaging platform that can process customer orders and boosts of being a one-stop destination for ones all commerce needs. All one has to do is chat with Niki and one can recharge his phone, book cabs, order pizza, book travel tickets, book hotels, order food, laundry, appointments and do other such activities in a fraction of a second and that too on one single platform. Not only this, Niki will also provide you with recommendations, offers and arrange products and services especially tailored made according to your needs. It does so by learning your preferences over time because of its machine learning build.

With AI assisted buying experience, Niki aims to solve the problem of users where in order to fulfill all the commerce needs, every user need to install over 30 Apps which eats up the phone memory, slows the phone down and is extremely uncomfortable to use so many Apps. On the other hand users love to chat where-in they have forcibly adopted to web and App interfaces. So Niki is driving commerce via chat.

Currently, the startup is entirely focusing on developing the product at hand, as up till last three months, they were in stealth mode. Niki has just been launched a couple of weeks back. It is a preview release with invite codes being given to only a limited users. The startup is hopeful of starting in full force from July start and provide its user base with more than five services.

What makes this Udaipur-based startup's platform different from any other chat commerce platform already available in the market, is the fact that Niki is the only one that is able to process orders without human intervention. Additionally, they offer fast interface with no lag in response whatsoever.

niki app screens

Niki is founded by four IIT Kharagpur wonder brains, Sachin Jaiswal, Shishir Modi, Keshav Prawas and Nitin Babel. Sachin has worked at Oracle and co-founded a database management startup called Innovaccer, Shihir has founded IndiaReads.com and worked at Energo while Keshav is an ex-Amazon employee.

Targeted at huge 950 million mobile user base of India, Niki will soon be available on sms in the near future in order to benefit those without an internet facility. Currently, it is only available on Android.

So, if you're looking for a chat-based personal shopping assistant who is at your service 24x7, then NiKi is the app to download.

With Over 1.4 Mn Chats Every Month, QuackQuack Is India's New Genuine & Clean Dating Platform

quackquack

In this fast paced life, where we often don't even get a chance to sit down and catch our breath, it comes as no surprise when people prefer spending their evenings in front of the TV with a big bowl of popcorns and soft-drink rather than going out and wasting time in meeting new people. Adding some spice to these otherwise monotonous,dull evenings is QuackQuack, a Hyderabad based online dating platform available for use by singles across India.

Ravi Mittal, a serial entreprenuer, who started working from the age of 16, founded QuackQuack.in with an aim of helping genuine Indian singles meet each other.

Online dating has always been a strict no-no for a lot of Indian singles because of the fear of security and genuinity involved. Mittal has taken all these concerns into consideration while designing QuackQuack.in. Unlike most of the online dating apps and website currently available in the market right now, this one is not a clone of the much famous international dating site Tinder.

The site which already has over 830,000 users on board with over 1.41 million chats exchanged every month has adopted various security measures in order to make sure that the users find QuackQuack.in safe and comfortable to use. For example, all the photos and content is first approved by the site's moderation team, so the chances of finding indecent photos and content is almost nil. Further, in order to make its Female user base feel more secure using the platform, they proactively block any kind of spam and abuse when someone chats or messages.

The currently bootstrapped startup which is now looking for funds has special algorithms to detect abuse and spam messages, which are then flagged for their moderators to take action. Every new sing-up has to verify his/her mobile number while signing up at the website. They also have Facebook verification to verify users and ensure safety and security.

The startup plans to have a huge network of 500,000 users by the end of 2015 and complete 500,000 downloads for their Android app.

India Among Worst Countries For Women Entrepreneurs, But Why ?



It's 2015 and you would expect men and women all around the world to have equal rights and opportunities. But, sadly, the reality isn't even close. While certain countries seemed to be doing slightly better than others, the situation overall is discouraging and has a lot of potential to improve.

Adding to this, is a newly released study by Dell, which reveals that the location and gender of an entrepreneur have a huge role to play when it comes to starting a business. Countries like the U.S., Canada and Australia acquired the top positions for best countries for female entrepreneurs in the survey, while the lower ranks were reserved by Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. I had myself had a first hand experience of the issue while researching for my Top 10 women entrepreneurs of India article last year.

Dell's Global Women Entrepreneur Leaders Scorecard report also showed that how challenging it could be for a women to succeed in launching her own venture, even in some of the top-rated nations in the survey. All of the 31 countries evaluated in the survey were given an overall score, based on their access to resources, business environment, the pipeline for female entrepreneurship, and several other parameters. The United States emerged with the best grade with a mere 71 out of 100 possible points. While, more than 70% of the countries evaluated scored below than 50.

Let's have a look at some of the reasons for such horrific scores.

1) Aspirations - They say when you aim, aim for the stars because only then would you reach closer to the sky. But, the situation with women entrepreneurs is not the same. The study revealed that only 21% of entrepreneurs included in the study had aspirations to grow their ventures by 50%. Undercapitalisation is the root of the cause of such modest aspirations of the female entrepreneurs. Even in the best of the best countries, with best of the best business environments, there is a huge gap to access to capital for women who want to scale their companies. It is sad to note that Women-owned companies are 50% less capitalized than their male-owned counterparts.

2) Emerging Economies - Emerging economies with their lack of basic business resources also pose as a big hurdle for female entrepreneurs. In some cases, these lack of business resources is joined by cultural restrictions. For example, Nigeria, has the highest percentage of women who think they have good business acumen and skills to run a successful venture, but the business environment offered to them in their country along with the high corruption level, discourages them to pursue their dreams of owning their own business.

While, in countries like India and Pakistan, women can be seen owning micro businesses. This is possibly because of the social norms that diktat and limit the number of large businesses run by women. The cultural restrictions imposed on women in these cultures further adds to the worsening condition of women entrepreneurs. According to Dell, only 10% of Pakistan women have access to the Internet and only 3% of them have a bank account.

3) Role Models - Lack of role models, people to whom they can look up to, is also one of the reasons for such discouraging figures of females entrepreneurs all around the world. Lack of female role models has a direct impact on the entrepreneurial pipeline. That is, the less people you see in top positions, the more you are convinced that even you can't achieve that amount of success or reach that position.

4) Government's Role - One of the important role in entrepreneurship of any country is play by its government. Notably, only 1% of the public procurement contracts that account for 30% to 40% of GDP in developing countries and 10% to 15% of GDP in developed nations, go to women owned companies. Of the 31 countries studied by Dell in the survey, only South Africa and the U.S. had public procurement programs actively promoting female entrepreneurs. Further, only four countries tracked the growth of women-owned companies through an annual census, and only one country—Chile—had both a general census and did a specific tracking of gendered data of all government-funded entrepreneurship programs.

Data collection is important, as it provides a strategic roadmap for the governments to handle the situation at hand.

This New E-commerce Startup Exclusively Sell 'Made In India' Products

gruhudyog

With India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, promoting his pet project the 'Make in India' initiative with all enthusiasm and determination, how could the industry remain far behind ?

GruhUdyog.in, an Ahmedabad based startup has jumped right in, in order to show its support for PM Modi's ambitious initiative by launching an e-commerce portal meant exclusively to sell 'Made in India' products. The portal will offer all types of Made in India products from Home, Artisans, Community, Groups, Local Shops, Cottage Industry, Handloom & Handicraft enterprises, MSME establishment, NGO, and Co-operatives etc.

With westernisation, modernisation and the flowering of various e-commerce portals, our very own Indian artisans have had a hard time competing with their western counterparts. By providing them a platform similar to the one provided to their western counterparts, GruhUdyog.in is making sure that the Indian artisans, manufacturers and producers finally get their long well deserved due.

As an early mover consolidator for local stores & brands with technological and application integration strength the startup offer unique solution for multi model markets (B2C, B2B and specialized products).

gruhudyog website

Co-founders Amit Patel and Jayesh Gohel, came up with the idea for GruhUdyog.in after they realised that people are in desperate need of a single platform from where they can enjoy India’s famous local brands & products that too from within the comfort of their homes. Amit has over 15 years of rich experience in the industry- managing teams with over 35 people. Jayesh, on the other hand, is a recognised tech expert – with an experience of managing teams with over 50 people.

"Customers need single platform from where they can enjoy India’s famous local brands & products. Customers are also looking for better insight of city special products & offerings from households, artisans & other stake holders from every corner of the country." said Amit in a statement to IndianWeb2.

On GruhUdyog.in, buyers have web and mobile access to nearby local stores as well as famous stores across the country. The self funded startup aims to cover as many local stores / shops and households / artisans products possible from across the country in well defined category.

So, if you're a lover of Indian products and want to make sure that the art and the love with which they manufacture their products never dies, log on to GruhUdyog.in right away and shop your hearts out.

TruckSuvidha Aims To Uplift Truck-Drivers & Modernize Transportation Industry

truck

Trucks are the underrated lifeline of this economy. It's through this means of transportation that a major chunk of our daily need goods like vegetables, fruits, clothes, cement etc. are transported from one part of the country to another. They, with their bright colours and witty one liners on their back also add the much needed fun and spice to our times spent on roads starring behind their back. But, it is sad to note that even in 2015, the trucking and transportation industry has still not adopted themselves to the technological innovations being made every now and then in the country. This hasn't only affected their income and services but it has also had a huge impact on the income and needs of the needs of the nation. But, this won't be the case anymore because a new startup called TruckSuvidha is here to rescue the trucking and transportation industry in the technological rut they have been for years.

TruckSuvidha is a Yamunanagar, Haryana based online startup connecting transporters, truck drivers, customers and other related entities. Their services have been designed for the brokers / transporters / logistics heads / delivery heads in order to encourage them to make the use various technologies available nowadays.

According to trucksuvidha, their mission is upliftment of truckdrivers as well as the modernisation of the whole transportation industry in India.

With one of its kind TruckSuvidha, one can avail services such as free listing, online directory, load post, load board, truck post, truck board, distance calculator, Web profile service, etc. It's like all freight transport solutions all under one single roof.

Anyone and everyone from a customer, transporter to a packer or mover can register on the portal and list their company and services absolutely free of cost. Founded by Amit Punaini and Ishu Bansal, the startup is currently self-funded by the these two founders. Amit Punaini is a businessman by profession who is always passionate about new ventures. Ishu Bansal is a software engineer by profession who had a vision to own a startup that makes a difference.

[caption id="attachment_100181" align="aligncenter" width="600"](L-R) Amit Punaini, Ishu Bansal - Co-Founders, TruckSuvidha (L-R) Amit Punaini, Ishu Bansal - Co-Founders, TruckSuvidha [/caption]


According to them, there are three main things setting them apart from others in the market. Firstly, they focus on transportation industry only. Secondly, in order to screen out the fraudsters, the portal authenticates the information of customers (transporters, individual/industries, packers & movers) who make registration on their site by verifying his/her mobile number and by taking pan card and service tax no. Thirdly, they make it a point to constantly update the content on the portal in order to provide its customers with the best of the best experience possible.

"Earlier the transporters are not even ready to get registered but now they are doing self-registration and calling us for the services. To educate them about the use of internet. To simplifier the work of transporters by the use of our portal. The companies post their load on trucksuvidha for the search of truck. This way technology simplifies their work." said Amit Punaini.

So, if you're a transporter or a person looking for truck transport services on regular basis, then trucksuvidha is the place to be.

TruckSuvidha Introduction Video (In Hindi)


Cisco Launches Internet of Things (IoT) Systems

cisco iot system

By developing a new system targeting smart city infrastructure, Cisco has finally set its first foot in the happening and high growth potential Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Launched with an aim of "turning data into action", Cisco’s new IoT System consists of 15 IoT products. This new IoT treat from Cisco consists of everything from 4G modules to mass-transit WiFi access points to security cameras.

According to Kip Compton, VP and GM of the IoT Systems at Cisco, “The Cisco IoT System provides a comprehensive set of IoT technologies and product that change and accelerate the deployment of infrastructure for the IoT. This new systems approach delivers a framework that creates it attainable to deploy, accelerate and innovate with IoT.”

Cisco recently unveiled its 1st IoE Innovation Centre via a WebEx media conference hosted by the CTO of the company Kevin Bloch on 3rd July, 2015.

The new line of products includes a variety of 360-degree 720p Internet Protocol(ip) cameras and the IW3702 wireless access purpose for mass transit and city transport.

cisco-iot

Hyderabad Startup Introduces Search & Comparision Of Online Cab Services In India

cabdekho

Are you always looking for the cheapest and the safest way to commute? Are those daily cab rides from your home to workplace and workplace to home burning a big hole in your pocket? If the answer to both these above questions is a yes, then you are at the right place, at the right time.

Cabdekho is a Hyderabad-based startup, that promises to be a one stop shop for everyone looking for a hiring a cab. Cabdekho is a perfect concoction of the best of the best features of all the cab hailing apps currently available in the market put together such as Ola, MeruCabs, Uber etc.

Cabdekho.com is a smart taxi fare comparison website & app. It helps calculate the distance between two places and then provides you a list of available taxis in the area and how much each of them charges you based on the distance, time of the day and other factors(wait time, etc). It currently offers comparision of major cab services providers in over 30 cities of India including Delhi, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyerabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Nagpur and Tiruvananthpuram, among others.

The startup has developed an app to compares all the cab service providers in order to bring to you the cheapest and the nearest cab from a range of providers. On the top of it, they also provide its users with all the offers being provided from each cab service provider, so that they don't have to look elsewhere.

cabdekho_app

Co-founder Karthik, who was working for TCS pitched this idea to Sharath, who was visiting India at the time and they wasted no time working on Cabdekho.com. With much needed support from friends and family, Karthik quit his job at TCS and along with Sharath proceeded to build an android application for the same. The android application hit Play store on 7th March.

Karthik Vyas and Sharath Dudala, started Cabdekho, with a motto of making life easier and cheaper for the everyday commuter. In order to reach out to as many people as possible, they have made a conscious decision of keeping the user interface as simple as possible. Cabdekho has the widest selection of cabs for the user, so that they can find the cheapest and the safest ride to their destination.

Karthik Vyas and Sharath Dudala, partners by profession and cousins by relation, came up with the idea for
Cabdekho after Karthik Vyas was entangled in a difficult commute situation where he had to download and open 4 different apps (Ola, Uber, TFS, Meru) to find the nearest and the cheapest cab in the area. This tiresome process encouraged him to bring a solution to this everyday commuter problem.

"Everyone who is looking for a ride in the cab is our user, infact if you are planning to take an auto, pause for a second, open the app and check – because you never know you could find the cab to be cheaper option!"said Sharath.

The startup founded on 20th December, 2014, is currently on a lookout for funding as they plan to expand and add up more awesome features to the app.

This Unique Startup By An HCL Employee Allows Working Professionals To Swap Their Locations

swapieze

There are migrations of employees to various organization locations all over the world, one may find difficult to work because of the circumstances of being in a location where it is strenuous to adjust, either due to language, weather, food or any other factor.

Swapieze.com, a young Bangalore based startup, that is helping working professionals find their swaps to and from the location he/she would like to switch from. The startup is making this possible by working with technologies like IoT, Big data and other web based solutions. The main aim is to provide employees with options to where they can swap and get to a location they like.

Harshil Shah launched Swapieze in the early part of this year. Shah, a BE in computer science engineering, is currently working with HCL Technologies.

Shah came up with the idea for the startup as he observed there are migrations of employees to various organisation locations all over the world and because of this, many of them find it difficult to work there because of the circumstances of being in a location where it is strenuous to adjust, either due to language, weather, food, distance or any other factor. The main aim behind Swapieze is to provide employees with a luxury to swap and get to a job location they like.

The service is extremely easy to use and avail. One just needs to go to www.swapieze.com now. Sign up and fill all your details carefully. The second step involves, finding your equivalent swapper/swap from the location where you would like to swap. And, lastly, both the swapper and the swappie should get in touch with organisation's management for the approval of this swap.

The free-service is only available to working professionals. Swapieze currently have 20 companies listed in its family and looking forward to add more.

The startup became a member of Microsoft Bizspark program in February this year. Hence, the startup's infrastructure services are funded by Microsoft support.

Swapieze

5 Must-Have Software Tools for Startups and Entrepreneurs

5_tools_startups

Innovation is the key to survival nowadays. With new apps and technologies being invented every now and then, being technology advanced is the way to stay ahead of this mad race of achieving the numero uno position. If you're startup and have no clue of this new world of software and technology that you're just about to enter, then don't worry at all. Because, we, at www.indianweb2.com have complied a list of top five must have software platform tools for entrepreneurs and startups.

Here we go!

1) Salesforce - This is a must, must have software for startups. Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management software that offers its customers multiple features such as managing contacts, potential clients and opportunities, tools to automate the workflow as well as collaboration tools for their team members. Further, you can customise your subscription plan according to your needs and budget.

2) HelpScout - Being a startup startup who has just put its first foot in the industry, you have a limited budget in hand. In situations like these, providing customer support to your customers can become a little pain in the neck. But, being a startup, you can afford to neglect this as a startup a lot of success depends upon the reputation you have among your customer base. This is where HelpScout comes to the rescue. HelpScout provides online support to customers by providing them solutions online through tutorials, instructions, documents and more.

3) FWI Content Manager Web - The Content Manager Web being offered by FWI can act as a great backup buddy when you're stepping your infant steps into the industry. This Content Manager Web gives its customers the facility to access their network, at anytime, from anywhere and from any browser or device of their choice. It further allows them to stay in touch with their data sources, so that they can easily display the content on screens across all their networks.

4) Web Analytics - Web Analytics are another must haves for the startups. The web analytics provided by the search giant, Google, is absolutely free of cost but can prove as a good analytical tool for all the happenings on your website.

5) TribeHR for Human Resource needs - In various startups, due to the money crunch problem, the top management doubles up as the HR Managers. In such situations, you can give cloud-based software options such as TribeHR a try.

This App By Ratnagiri Startup Allows You To Track Your Vehicles & Loved Ones

Does your job profile include attending late night parties or returning home at the wee hours of night? Do you have to then sit through long lectures of your loved ones who are always concerned about your whereabouts and stay awake till the time you have safely returned home? If this is an everyday occurrence in your life, then we just have the best solution which will put all the worries of you and your family regarding your safety when you're outside to rest for once in for all.

Operating out of a small town called Ratnagiri, situated in the Konkan regions of Maharashtra, the team of Kidhar Hai is providing people with a complete location ecosystem for people, vehicles and assets.

Kidhar Hai is a simple location tracking app for tracking the location of your friends, family members, vehicles and other kind of important things. The features of this app have been made by keeping personal safety and family safety in mind.

Searching for one single person in a crowded street, among a sea of people isn't only a little intimidating for the person standing there but it is equally a scary situation for the person searching for his/ her acquaintance. In such situations, we usually stick to the conventional phone calls and try to follow up with SMS’s and texts. But in reality, during such situations, such mediums come of a little help as both the communicator and the receiver aren't able to apprehend what the other one is trying to convey. This is where the Kidhar Hai app comes to the rescue.

The thing that sets the Kidhar Hai App apart from all its counterparts is that it gives us the luxury of using one single app to track our vehicles and loved ones. It's simple UI and battery saving options are an added advantage.

The app comes with a SOS button and a Real Time Location Update feature that helps your family know about your location 24x7. Further, it also comes with a Location sharing feature, using which you can help a person locate you easily in a crowded place.

Top 5 things that 'Kidhar Hai' app is trying to resolve through the application:

1. Increasing crimes against women
Solution – SOS Button
In case of help, women can tap the SOS button on the application and an alert with her location details will be sent to her near and dear ones as well as Kidhar Hai members in the vicinity.

2. Worried family and friends when you are travelling in an unknown city or area
Solution – Real Time Location Update
Users can allow family members or friends to get real time location update ensuring their safety.

3. Searching for someone in a crowded street or fixing a vantage point for car pooling.
Solution – Share a Location
Allows everyone a stress-free and hassle free travel to any new place through the application.

4. Managing on-field task force
Solution – Real Time Location Update
Kidhar Hai application fetches you real time location of your sales force thereby allowing you to access their location and assign them tasks accordingly.

5. Unnecessary delays, over speeding, maintenance eats up Fleet business profits.
Solution – Kidhar Hai Vehicle Tracker
You can even manage your logistics by embedding GPS enabled Kidhar Hai device in your vehicle and minimize their maintenance costs as well optimize their routes to ensure efficiency and better productivity.

The Kidhar Hai team has also considered the needs of non-smartphone users. They can get location updates via missed calls or SMS feature.

So, if you want to feel confident and safe, no matter where you go, download the Kidhar Hai Android/iOS App here.

Madhur Jain and Razin Naik came up with the idea for Kidhar Hai after witnessing the alarming rate at which crimes against women in our country were increasing. Madhur has previously worked with eNTesla and Infosys Technologies while Naik was an employee of HDFC Bank and Tata Consultancy Services.

Google Launches Urban Innovation Team

sidewalk labs

Living in an urban setup like New Delhi, New York has its own advantages and disadvantages. While the growth, the speed is what attracts the most, the cost of living, pollution and population are some of the factors that drive many away from their urban dream.

In order to address these urban issues, technology giant Google has launched a new venture called Sidewalk Labs. This New York based venture is being regarded as an urban innovation firm that aims to develop new technologies that will make both living in big cities and as well as running these big cities considerably an easier task.

Sidewalk will be run by Dan Doctoroff, ex-deputy mayor of economic development of New York city under Michael Bloomberg.

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company devoted to improving city life for residents, businesses and city governments, in particular by developing and incubating civic technologies.

According to Google's CEO, Larry Page, "Sidewalk will focus on improving city life for everyone by developing and incubating urban technologies to address issues like cost of living, efficient transportation and energy usage."

With the urban population growing at an exponential rate every year, it has slowly become a popular field of study. What will Google be able to bring to this area of research with Sidewalk will be an interesting thing to see.

“Making long-term, 10X bets like this is hard for most companies to do, but Sergey and I have always believed that it’s important,” said Page at the launch.

"And as more and more people around the world live, work and settle in cities, the opportunities for improving urban environments are endless," he added.

Google hasn't yet disclosed the amount of money it has invested in Sidewalk. What it has revealed is that the investment amount is relatively modest when compared to its other projects.

Founded By IIT-Kanpur Alumnus, Gapoon Allows To Hire Servicemen Within 5 Seconds

gapoon

The next time you need a plumber to fix a leaking tap in your kitchen, or a carpenter to fix that ever loose nail in your dresser, you won't be required to go through that thick yellow book of yours. All you will have to do, is to reach out to your smartphone and open the app called 'Gapoon' and Voilà, all your problems have been solved.

Gapoon is a Bangalore based startup with a mission to organise the highly disorganised home maintenance services market in India. The startup helps both the service providers and service seekers through its vendor and user app respectively.

Gapoon provides users with the luxury to hire servicemen on-line and thus provides quality leads to service providers and helps them in promoting their business and in the end, saves both the users and the vendors, expensive time and money.

With Gapoon's vendor app, it connect local service providers to the users on a one to one basis based on their required attributes. And with its user app the 4-months-old startup facilitate users to book a service within 5 seconds, confirm the appointment within 10 seconds and get the job done as per their convenience.

Currently Gapoon is available as an Android app offering its services for Bangalore city only as of now.

gapoon_app

What makes Gapoon different, is it isn't like a regular online directory app that just fixes up an appointment with the service provider and that's it. Gapoon not only fixes up the appointment but also follows it up like your very own personal assistant. It provides its users with guaranteed quality service and punctuality.
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Gapoon was founded in Bangalore in February 2015 by Ankita Asai with 2 of his IIT Kanpur batch-mates Apoorva Mishra and Ankit Bindal. They currently hold the profiles of CEO, CMO and CTO of Gapoon respectively.

The startup which has received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from angel investors, has huge plans in store for the future. The startup plans to expand to other major cities of the country in the coming quarter and offer services other than plumbers, electricians, house-cleaners, all types of appliance repairs, laptop and printer repairs.

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