Friday 22 July 2016

Entrepreneur's Speak : Sharat Potharaju, CEO & Co-founder, Mobstac

                                                     
About Mobstac:
MobStac started with a simple mission: to connect the digital and physical worlds through the use of innovative technology. With worldwide smartphone usage skyrocketing, co-founders Sharat Potharaju and Ravi Pratap realized that they would first need to address the world of mobile in pursuit of this goal. In June 2009, they founded MobStac in order to improve the accessibility and quality of mobile experiences offered by businesses and brands around the world. In these early years focused on helping publishers build adaptive mobile sites that would work seamlessly across multiple devices.
Sharat Potharaju, CEO & Co-founder, Mobstac
Sharat is responsible for crafting the overall strategy and execution at MobStac. In 2011 Businessworld ranked him among India’s Hottest Young Entrepreneurs.Prior to founding MobStac, Sharat spent several years working in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in New York.Sharat has a Master’s degree in Engineering Management from Duke University and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.
 
Please tell us how it started and what was the inspiration?

MobStac started with a simple mission - to connect the digital and physical worlds through the use of innovative technology. With worldwide smartphone usage skyrocketing, we realized that we would first need to address the world of mobile in pursuit of this goal. And then, in June 2009, we founded MobStac in order to improve the accessibility and quality of mobile experiences offered by businesses and brands around the world.

Could you please describe the early years and the preparations you undertook before you embarked ?

Prior to Mobstac, I spent over 3 years in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in New York. And it was during those three years that I was bit by the entrepreneurial bug. As a result, I took a break and came back to India to think through a few startup ideas that I had in mind. Since Ravi, my Co-founder at MobStac and I were quite clear about the fact that we wanted to start a product company that builds products that will impact the lives of people across the world, we got on with it quite quickly.

Back then in 2009, access to the internet was not affordable or easy for all, because of the exorbitant prices that laptops and desktops came for. This is one of the primary reasons why PC penetration was quite low in most of the emerging markets such as India. This made us realize that mobile is the only mass medium through which the promise of the Internet can be realized. Therefore in the early years, we focused on helping publishers reach out to their audience by building adaptive mobile sites that would work seamlessly across multiple devices.

What has changed since you started the business between then and now ?

Well, given that mobile is a very volatile market, quite a number of things have changed since we started out with MobStac in 2009. For example, during the early days, we had focused all our efforts on building adaptive mobile websites and apps. However, things changed around early 2014. Apple’s introduction of iBeacon protocol at WWDC 2013, led to a rise in demand for proximity marketing. Looking at the overwhelming interest it garnered and the huge opportunity it presented, we shifted our focus from adaptive mobile websites and apps to the emerging field of proximity-based marketing and analytics as a new way to bridge online and offline experiences.

Today, MobStac helps businesses and brands leverage BLE beacon technology to deliver context-rich experiences to their end users. Whether these are shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores, customers at restaurants or users interacting with your business in a number of other ways, we are excited about the possibilities for enhanced customer engagement with beacons. We’ve seen that all components of these proximity marketing strategies must act in harmony in order to succeed, which is why our product Beaconstacoffers hardware, software and a cloud-based platform to intuitively manage everything in one place.

What are the most important ingredients that make your business successful ?

Persistence is the key to business success. Period.


What are the major success drivers that you believe worked for you ?

Well, I truly believe that it is the team that drives a company to success. And Mobstac has been very lucky with respect to hiring the right talent. Other major success drivers would be taking quick decisions and acting on them. Agreed you might make a few mistakes on the way, but the trick lies in making new mistakes every time and learning from them faster.

What word of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs embarking on the Startup journey?

Well, the one piece of advice that I have is something that most entrepreneurs already know about but it is essentially the most critical part of running a startup - Build products you are passionate about. However, it is equally important to understand that it’s impossible to do everything by yourself. You will need an awesome team by your side in order to overcome all the obstacles that come with running a startup.

Which are the most common mistakes or pitfalls that budding entrepreneurs need to avoid ?

One of the most common mistakes is compromising on the quality of hires. As a startup, it’s difficult to attract the best talent, because most of the candidates wouldn’t have even heard of you. Inspite of being faced against such odds, make sure you hire candidates with the right balance of competence and culture fit as the success of a company truly depends on its employees.

Another common misconception among budding entrepreneurs is that if they build a product, people will come. In reality, this rarely holds true for most startups. No matter what type of business you're running, to make a business work, you need more than just a product or service. A business requires that you go out there to market and build connections with your target clients.

 How do you keep ahead of the technology and what are the measures you take to make your business future-proof?

I would not say we are totally 'future-proof' but as a company, we try and keep ourselves up to date with the changing trends in the market. For example, the decision to switch from mobile publishing (which we were quite successful in) to proximity marketing wasn't easy, it was like moving out of our comfort zones but I am glad we did it.

Another aspect here is the constant need to improve on your product. Very few products are so good that they cannot be continually improved upon. This process is often neglected or even abandoned at established companies. At MobStac, we make it a point to constantly ask ourselves how we can take the company’s offering to a whole new level.

How should a new founder start building a team ? Would you like to share your experience?

Building a team for a startup can be quite an uphill task. Some of the questions that a new founder is bound to have include: ‘How do I get people to join a company that no one has heard of?’ and ‘What  will make them come back each day?’. The way I see it, recruiting your first few employees is kind of a marketing exercise that you need to think through in detail before you head out. Particularly because it is highly critical for a new founder to leverage media to influence the perception about his/her company.

For example, one of the things that we did at that stage was to create a prototype of the product that we wanted to build. We had actually taken the time to think through what a minimum viable product would look like and built a prototype that could be shown to investors, friends and potential employees. This worked really well for us, because when a person sees something tangible and that they can interact with, it really changes the way they react to your proposition or product.

Another problem that most new founders are faced with is that they, in most cases, don’t have a successful track record or reputation that they could showcase. One of best ways to address this issue is to leverage elements from your background that you think are relevant to your product or company. For example, you could use your academic background or the kind of work that you have previously been involved in or the venture capital funding that you recently raised. Once you have that in place, you could probably get a website running and talk about your product and your vision in your blog. You could even approach media publications like NextBigWhat or YourStory and get them to cover your company.  This will help you reach out to potential employees more effectively.

 What qualities do you look for in angel investors ?

Following are a few qualities of an ideal angel investor:
  1. Appetite for risk (does the angel understand that startups are not a different class of investments?)
  2. Does the angel understand the concept of product-market fit ? Startups typically go through several iterations before hitting growth hence this is important.
  3. Can he/she add more value than just capital?

Friday 15 July 2016

Entrepreneur's Speak: Sanket Shah & Pankit Chheda, co-founders, Massblurb

                                   
About Massblurb: 
MassBlurb is an online automated platform that helps restaurants manage their end to end online presence. We are a venture backed, rapidly growing organization with a 100+ restaurants in Mumbai in less than six months of operations. We have recently expanded our operations into four cities in India- Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune.
Sanket Shah, co-founder, Massblurb
Sanket has his Masters in Engineering from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. His high is taking leap of faith and living in uncertainties. The moment things become certain, they become mundane. 
 
Pankit Chheda, co-founder, Massblurb
Pankit has his Masters in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon. He is a quite techie who is soon getting married, so he will become quieter moving forward. Super practical as a person overall.
Please share how it all started and how the inspiration or the idea to start happen ?

I (Sanket) was looking to move back to India and start a tech business, Pankit had just moved back and was heading tech at Coupon Dunia. We were exploring the SME space considering our families have struggled with the digital piece for SME's. It was more like a personal problem. However, SME's are too different, depending on their verticals. We saw there was a boom in the restaurant sector and started selling it to them. The inspiration was to provide a perfect digital presence to SME's. We had explored education business as well, probably we will pick it up the next time we start something!

Could you please describe the early years and the preparations you undertook before you embarked ?

 We were moonlighting. We had our day jobs and coded in the evenings. We also found a couple of people in the Bay Area who were ready to work for us for a small fees - Basically we paid their rent. They were MS students and couldn't intern because of the US laws :D That was our jackpot. You see, people have to hustle and I guess we hustled a lot. Moving back to India was also in a good leap of faith.
In terms of preparation - I think a lot of things come back to you when you start something - education, culture, mindset etc. One of the best preparation was we both were raised in upper middle class - stingy families. Well that is what you need - to be stingy. This was my best preparation.

What has changed since you started the business between then and now ?

 A lot, well we have experienced relativity - We grew 5 years in last 2 years as professionals and probably even when it comes to our health!
On a serious note, all of this is hypothesis when you start - then you meet the customer and realize, you don't have what they need. In the order of importance, things that changed were
1 - Focus on a single vertical
2 - Field sales force is a mistake
3 - Hire properly - even if it costs more

We made all the mistakes, when we changed these the business changed.

What are the most important ingredients that make your business successful ?

Hustle, Impatience, Persistence and ability to take a chance. I feel, it's all about this sentence 'I will figure it out'
The other important factors are:
  • Market Size - When we went vertical, this suffered and our cost per acquistion went high
  • Team 
  • CashFlow
What are the major success drivers that you believe worked for you ?

We execute!! Everything else is intellectual masturbation that cannot take you anywhere.

What word of advice would you give to young entrepreneurs embarking on the Startup journey ?

Too young and not so successful for that - But
'Mere yaar to patang udaya kar, kat jaaye toh gham na khaaya kar' is my favorite quote. Also, delay your gratification and execute quietly. All I mean to say is - Start, execute, fail, learn, make new mistakes the next time and repeat. Anyone who is persistent enough will always do well. I wanted to start a company, raise funds and get acquired since last 8 years.
Also, Quoting Haresh Chawla - The startups that are being built smartly and profitably all have one thing in common. They do it quietly.

Which are the most common mistakes or pitfalls that budding entrepreneurs need to avoid ?

Not having a big enough market size, wrong co-founder or not knowing the customer. Also, keeping your eyes off cashflow will mean you are hallucinating - You are not doing well, you are about to die.

How do you keep ahead of the technology and what are the measures you take to make your business future-proof?

That's a tough one. I feel it is just about the mindset - Pick up the things that customers want and move them from zero to one. For eg: We tried to remove the need of a graphic designer for a restaurant. Pick up things that take the most time and money and automate them - Do it constantly.

How should a new founder start building a team ? Would you like to share your experience?

Hire people who are better than you at what they will be doing. Also, deep dive into their resume - For eg:
If they say, I like directing movies - Ask them:
1 - Have you ever done that?
2 - What are the cameras they use while shooting a film
3 - Where should be the light-man be placed?
4 - Give me the name of camera models or their rental cost
Now, when a person has done real stuff - They can deep dive and answer things, when they haven't - They can't. Deep dive into everything they say.
If they say - I want to go to the US for MBA ask them - the top 10 B-schools in US, Gmat scores you will need to enter. If they say - Michigan - Ask - Michigan State or UMich.
People who are good, no their shit.

What qualities do you look for in angel investors ?

They should either add value or not bother you. Ideally, stay away from people who want to make money immediately.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

Digital Marketing start-up MintM raises angel round from Mumbai Angels

                                                      
Digital Marketing start-up MintM raises angel round from Mumbai Angels and Times Internet for its cloud based smart signage solution.
In the era of digital innovations, a cutting-edge solution for advertising is bridging the huge gap in the brick and mortar world,which was earlier possible only online. MintM, a startup which is a straight comparison to the Google ads has come up with a crowd pulling platform - Magnet, a cloud based, responsive, and analytical solution in the brick and mortar world.

MintM has recently raised its pre Series A funding to grow its smart signage platform Magnet across the world. This funding was co-led by Mumbai Angels and Times Internet following MintM's step out from TLabs, the leading startup accelerator.  The funds will be used for making the product more intelligent and expanding its already fast-growing international markets where Magnet is witnessing significant traction.

MintM has come a long way and has bagged a lot of awards and recognitions through it’s journey. It was among the top 50 start-ups by TiE Silicon Valley and was also NASSCOM Emerge Top 50 most promising start-ups. The company has the world's first smart signage platform - Magnet (http://magnet.mintm.com/) which sees and responds to people. This cloud based platform is a simple app that brings the capabilities similar to online advertising to the physical world.  Much like a digital advertisement, Magnet's signage software brings context, tracking and analytics to any digital screens installed in spaces in the real and physical world. A lot of leading retailers, banks, brands, salons and spas are already using Magnet to increase the engagement with their audience, measure it along with the revenue generation possibilities. 
Sundeep HolaniDeal Lead, Mumbai Angels –  “Traditional advertising suffers from a few handicaps – it’s consumed far from the point of purchase, it’s impossible to do in a highly targeted way and it’s hard to measure impact. MintM beautifully addresses all these shortcomings… and ushers in the digital age’s analytics driven, pay per view model into the old-fashioned retail world. We’re very excited about the possibilities this creates!”
Sachin Garg, CEO, MintM and the brain behind Magnet says "This platform has been described as a peep into the future by prominent people in the industry. It gives me great pleasure to provide a solution to advertising that is not just displaying relevant content but also responding to the people who are in front of it, tracking their response and ultimately generating valuable statistics for the advertiser to compare and compile."
Garg says "The fact that Magnet can analyse its audience, respond to them and allow the ability to be run remotely on a cloud has been greatly appreciated.  There are other players in the digital signage play field but none have the capability to be contextual and generate instant, intelligent feedback tracking.  If I have to put it in simple words- Magnet is installed on a screen that is looking at you- real time, responding to you and gathering feedback, all at the same time, without intruding your privacy! This kind of contextual advertising was earlier only possible online. Being cloud based, the end user is able to access and deploy content on Magnet anytime and from anywhere. Ever pictured being on a beach in Goa while running a display on a busy Bangalore shopping mall? Not just that, you can react to your audience in real time and change your content depending on the response or timing. All this just using a friendly app that makes it look like a game, except it's as real as it gets."

Magnet provides an unparalleled level of engagement as compared to online channels with many of the customers getting around 20X engagement as compared to 1-2% by other platforms. The adoption of this technology can be seen in big branded outlets like Star bazaar, Jawed Habib, Spar, HyperCITY, Aviva Insurance, Printo and many overseas outlets including Target, the retailing giant. Several brands and advertisers like Harpic, lizol, L’Oreal, Tata tea, Himalaya use it to engage customers regularly.

About MintM
MintM is world's fastest growing In-store customer engagement company. It was recognized by TIE50 and NASSCOM among "50 Most Promising Global Start-ups of 2015". With presence in US, India, Brazil, Ireland and Dubai, MintM helps global brands and stores reach customers at the last time of truth.

About Magnet
Magnet is an intelligent customer engagement platform, bridging the huge gap in the brick and mortar world, which was earlier possible only online.

About Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors:
Mumbai Angels (www.mumbaiangels.com) is one of India’s largest angel networks with 300+ members across three active chapters - Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Their portfolio comprises of 80+ ventures across multiple sectors focused primarily on seed and early stage companies.