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Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

Schbang

SCHBANG- INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS UNDER ONE ROOF

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A company needs a variety of marketing resources for its proper functioning. Designing a proper website, frontend development, creating a mobile application, etc are the basic requirements of any company. From an apparel company to a software company, a strong technical back-up is always on demand.

Most of the companies tend to hire freelancers and assign projects. But, a separate team is needed to supervise the tasks as well. So, what can be the best solution than getting everything done under the same roof? Schbang, a Mumbai-based technical agency is providing marketing solutions for a wide range of audiences.

Harshil Karia, Sohil Karia, and Akshay Gurnani established the company in 2015. Since then the company is trying to provide the best advertising solutions to its customers.

About the Founders

After graduating from high school, Harshil went to the University of Mumbai. He studied advertising, media, and marketing and graduated in 2008. In 2009, he went to the University of Toronto to learn more about finance.

During his bachelor’s degree, Harshil was an intern at Dentsu Marcomm Pvt. Ltd as a trainee copywriter. In January 2007, he started a job at LifeStyle Networks Ltd as a marketing executive. He continued for six months and shifted to WATConsult in November 2007. In 2008, Harshil co-founded FoxyMoron, a digital agency. He co-founded Schbang in 2015 and currently serves as the managing director of the company. He is also the CEO of Proof Analytics.

Sohil went to Greenlawns School, Worli and then completed his bachelor’s in commerce from Podar College of Commerce and Economics. In May 2010, Sohil joined FoxyMoron as a junior visualizer and finally became the senior art director before leaving the company. After co-founding Schbang, he became the chief design and technology director.

Akshay went to the same school as Sohil and completed his higher studies from H. R. College of Commerce and Economics. In June 2010, he started a job at TresVista Financial Services as a financial analyst. He worked at FoxyMoron for four years and currently serves as the CEO of Schbang. All three co-founders decided to start their journey while working for FoxyMoron.

The Decision

The trio started planning the layout of their future business before resigning from FoxyMoron. But, when Harshil stepped down it was a shock to the world because till then media had no information about Schbang. Harshil also said that they chose not to involve media and it is the reason they became successful in launching the product.

Everything is Planned

Resigning from FoxyMoron wasn’t an impulsive decision for any of them. Because they planned and strategized for eight long months before launching Schbang. So, when they founded the company it already had sixty good numbers of employees. The main office was established in Mumbai. And, apart from that they also had an office on Delhi.

When Schbang was launched, it already landed many lucrative clients like BBlunt, Good Knight, FirstyCry.com, Sequoia Capital, and many more. When Harshil was asked why they kept themselves shrouded, he said they were busy creating partnerships with big companies. This proves that Harshil is good at marketing and strategizing.

Passion

The co-founders try to create a very positive working environment with brimming passion. The founders are also deeply indulged in spreading social awareness in any kind of necessary situation. It also promises good quality product which is budget-friendly as well.

The Journey of Four Years

Within the span of four years, the Schbang community size has expanded both in terms of customers and employees as well. Currently, some of the top-most clients of Schbang are Baskin Robbins, Mattel, Castrol, etc.

One can provide better solutions for their customers when they understand them well. This is one of the main strategies rather fundamental rules of Schbang. Since the entire business depends on better marketing on behalf of their customers; they try to maintain a very friendly relationship.

Apart from keeping its customers close, Schbang prioritizes technology. Because let’s just admit what’s more important to a company than tech when it is providing IT solutions. The two main targets of Schbang for the year 2020 are growing to a family with more than 500 members and hitting a net revenue of 100 crores.

Freshworks

The Indian Co-Founders Took Freshworks To A Whole New Level

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Indian engineers have their demand all over the world. Both the quality and quantity of engineers our country produces every year contributes to a massive part in overall development. And, among all fields, the demands of IT people are at peak. With the new start-ups in any sector, engineers are required very much. The story of Freshworks narrates the tale of two Indian engineers and how they established a company. Freshworks is a software company based in the United States. Founded in 2010, the company got into the uniform club in 2018. Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy founded the company in 2010 as Freshdesk.

About the Founders

Girish graduated from high school in 1990. He went to Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy and studied Electrical & Electronics. He graduated in 1996 and then went to the University of Madras for pursuing his MBA.

His first job was in HCL Cisco ODC as technical staff and he worked there for a year. In 2000, he joined eForce Inc as a senior software engineer. He also worked at AdventNet as a product manager. Before co-founding Freshworks, Girish was the Vice President of product management at Zoho Corporation.

Shan studied mechanical engineering from Vellore. He graduated in 2001 and joined Zoho right away. He worked there for nine long years and then co-founded Freshworks with Girish.

Founding a new company

Girish hovered here and there a few times before establishing Freshworks. Before joining HCL he also taught Java and wanted to open a training institute. But, the idea wasn’t productive for a long time because one time he had plenty of students and next to the moment he had to convince people to learn it.

In 2010, after Girish returned from the U.S. he suffered some trouble with a company. The customer service of the company was poor and he got frustrated by it. This is when he realized that a proper helpdesk still has a lot of potentials. So, with his prior knowledge from working at Zoho, Girish decided to build his own company.

But, he needed a co-founder at the same time. This is when he contacted Shan who is a good friend of him. As he agreed instantaneously, the duo started planning for the company. But, both of them were married and had a family. It’s a huge risk to quit your well-paid job when you have to take care of your family. But, they finally went with their guts and made Freshworks a grand success.

The Beginning

Girish didn’t have good exposure to the business world. So, finding big venture capitalists was a hard task. He started landing investors after his blog on the Freshworks start-up story went viral. The blog was such a big hit that customers started signing up before the actual product was ready for launch. Anand Daniel offered Freshworks a helping hand during this time and finally, the company launched its product.

Surprisingly, the company landed its first customer from Australia. And, the following six customers were also from different countries making it an international company from day one. Many customers signed-up just after trying the trial version.

Funding and Acquisition

When the company was founded, it had six team members. With no outside funding, the team spent $160 each month as rent for their new office. Girish didn’t take any salary back then.

In 2011, Freshworks won $40,000 from the Microsoft BizSpark contest. Since it was a new company then, contests like this helped in gaining exposure followed by good funding. In the same year, the company raised one million from Accel Partners. After from Accel, Freshworks also has investors like Tiger Capital and Sequoia Capital.

In 2018, Freshworks raised $150 million in the Series H funding round. The main investors were Sequoia Capital, CapitalG and Accel. This year, the company received the unicorn tag and it became the third Indian company to receive the same in 2018. After the Series H funding, the company’s total valuation became $1.5 billion.

Success

The main products of Freshworks include Freshdesk, Freshcaller, Freshsales, etc. The company has over 250,000 customers to date. Freshworks made a profit of 21 crores in the financial year 2018. It has also acquired companies like Natero and CanvasFlip.

razorpay logo

Razorpay- A Company Leading In The New Digital Payment System

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With the developing tech ecosystem in India, competitors are also increasing in the market. Previously, very few people had the guts to take a risk and do something unconventional. But, once a company achieves success, competitors keep on increasing because everyone wants to follow what’s trending. With the developing tech ecosystem in India, competitors are also increasing in the market. Previously, very few people had the guts to take a risk and do something unconventional. But, once a company achieves success, competitors keep on increasing because everyone wants to follow what’s trending. Similarly, only a few years ago who would have thought about money transfer with a swipe of fingers. But, now so many companies are trying to establish easy and secure online money transfer facilities. Razorpay, a company founded in May 2014 and promises a secure, developer-friendly payment system for every Indian user. The platform can access any kind of payment method through Razorpay which includes net banking, debit card, credit card, and also wallets like Ola Money, Airtel Money, etc.

About the Founder

Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur are the founders of Razorpay. Shashank did his schooling from St. Xavier’s High School, Patna. He went to IIT Roorkee and completed his bachelor’s in Computer Science and was also a part of Y Combinator 2015.

While his time at IIT, Shashank worked as the summer intern at the University of Minnesota and also at Microsoft during the next summer. He joined SDSLabs and worked there as the Vice President for one year. Before founding Razorpay, Shashank worked at Microsoft as a software development engineer.

Harshil also went to IIT Roorkee and was an employee at SDSLabs. He also worked at Schlumberger as Wireline Field Engineer for nine months. Currently, Harshil serves as the CEO of the company, Razorpay.

The Initial Stage Of Razorpay

The start-up started through the Y Combinator program and initial it raised $2.5 million in the seed funding round. The seed funding round was led by Matrix Partners along with other investors which includes Jeff Huber, Justin Kan, etc. In 2015, the company raised another $9 million from the funding round led by Tiger Global.

The founders started the company in Jaipur and in 2015 they shifted the headquarters to Bengaluru. The company had a fifteen-member team by this time. The money that was raised in this round was planned to invest in exploring other segments of the payment industry and building other products.

Baby Steps

When Shashank and Harshil co-founded Razorpay, a lot of competitors were already present in the market. So, they set small goals and gradually expanded the company. The best thing about using Razorpay is the user can carry out a transaction using the 2G net. So, within a couple of years after founding Razorpay, the users witnessed a 30% higher success rate. By the end of 2015, 1,800 merchants were using the platform of Razorpay.

Many start-ups also started using Razorpay as their primary money transaction platform. The start-ups include Lookup, LocalOye, NeoStencil, and many more.

Getting Bigger

In 2016, Mobikwik came into a partnership with Razorpay. This gave Razorpay access to Mobikwik’s Power Wallet API and the success rate increased. By this time, Razorpay did business with 3,000 merchants and they were expecting 1,000 more by the end of the year. After the partnership with Mobikwik, the business deals of Razorpay increased geometrically.

The code of conduct

Shashank said that his time in Microsoft taught him the quality of leadership. The one thing and the founding rule of Razorpay are that be honest with your clients. Shashank follows it strictly and he expects every employee of his office to maintain this standard.

Success

In 2018, Razorpay raised $20 million from Tiger Global and Matrix Partners. In 2017, Razorpay came into a joint partnership with Telegram for chatbot payments. This Company came up with its advanced version of Razorpay 2.0 during this time.

In 2019, the company raised $75 million from the funding round led by Ribbit Capital. After this round of funding, the company raised a total funding of $450 million. They have also declared that the new funding will be invested in new sectors of the company. Currently, they are focusing on the neobanking platform Razorpay X and its lending arm Rayzorpay Capital. This strategy is a part of Rayzorpay 2.0.

Zoomcar

The American Duo Launches Zoomcar i.e A Self-Drive Car Rental Start-Up In India

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American start-up culture is more developed than the Indian start-up culture. Recently India is making big news on this ground. But, the start-up ecosystem has not been this strong in our nation since the beginning. It took years for entrepreneurs and visionaries to establish a rigid concept of start-ups in India and eradicate the orthodoxy.

Since India is just at a budding stage for young entrepreneurs to shine, the potential is extremely high. So many business ideas and resources are left unturned. But, a perfect business mind always finds a path to achieve the goal.

The unexplored market of India attracted the American duo to our nation and establish a start-up. Greg Moran and David Back were fascinated by the potential business market in the field of transportation in India. They decided to open a business for car rentals and kudos they made it. They founded Zoomcar in February 2013 through the market research that was going for a long time.

About the Founders of Zoomcar

Greg Moran went to the University of Pennsylvania and acquired his bachelor’s degree in international relations. During his time at this university, he worked as a summer associate in Cerberus Capital Management. After graduating, he joined Fieldstone Capital Private Group as an analyst and worked there for almost two years.

Before pursuing his master’s he worked at International Power America for a year. In 2011, he joined USC Marshall School of Business for acquiring his MBA. Greg worked as FloDesign Wind Turbine as a summer associate in 2012. While pursuing his MBA, he developed a very keen interest in the market of India. Hence, one fine day he decides to fly to India with David and plan a business.

David has a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He also went to Harvard Law School and he completed his MBA from Cambridge University. In 2006, he worked as a summer research intern at the American Enterprise Institute. He also has teaching experience at the University of Pennsylvania.

David also has working experience at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs. He resigned from Zoomcar in 2015 and joined Idein Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence. He was a speaker at The London Speaker Bureau for four years and in 2019 he became the managing partner of Icarus Ventures.

The Beginning

Intrigued by the potential of the Indian market, Greg, one day decided to take a vacation and explore business opportunities. David accompanied him. It seems Greg saw a huge scope in the car rental sector and started planning seriously about it. The duo was in a dilemma between the transportation business and renewable energy space but decided to pick the former one.

Honestly, the obstacles were immeasurable. They faced a lot of problems initially which included getting a license in the first place. Greg received the seed funding, everything was ready but at the eleventh hour, they weren’t given the permission to have a license. It was a do or die situation for them, but they managed to sign in a deal with someone already having a license. The entire procedure wasn’t a piece of cake but the business kicked off really well.

Investors and Partnerships

The initial investors of Zoomcar include Lawrence Summers, Lady Barbara Judge, William P. Alford, and many more. Some famous companies Zoomcar raised funding from are Mahindra&Mahindra, Ford Motor Company, Sequoia Capital, Nokia Growth Partners, Funders Club, Athene Capital, and etc. To date, Zoomcar has raised total funding of 673 crores.

Throughout this journey of seven years, Zoomcar has established a firm relationship with Mahindra and Ford. Zoomcar in association with Uber has also launched some campaign increasing driving awareness among the public.

Success

Both David and Greg had to overcome a lot of struggles to make Zoomcar a huge success. Firstly, it was a big challenge to make people believe that they were serious about the start-up. Because most of them thought it was just a plan which will never come into play. And, licensing was another nightmare for the company.

But, Zoomcar currently witnesses over 5,000 bookings per day. Their next target is to make 8,000 cars on the road turn to 25,000 cars on the road.

Both the co-founders think that users will increase at a rate more than twice in the following years. Because a good part of India’s population consists of adults aging between 25-30 who believe more in experimenting than having an asset. So, anytime they will pick a car rental service rather than buying one.

Little Yellow Beets

Mallika Bajaj- A Young Entrepreneur To Create Good Content

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After the advent of the digital era, the internet is crawling with millions of content creators. Digital content is a very influential source of knowledge for today’s youngsters. The young generation entrepreneur like Malika Bajaj is delving deeper into this sphere of the web to become influential and earn money as well.

Why good content?

But, there is always a fine line between creating content and creating good content. The digital content affects a lot of people and should be kinder and empathizing. This is the view of Mallika Bajaj, founder of Little Yellow Beetle. Mallika has always been intrigued by content creation. She gained a lot of experience in this field since a teenager. And, after working for many highly recognized news channels and papers, she finally created her website.

And, the main goal she wants to achieve through the website is creating kinder content. According to Mallika, most of the content on the internet is very harsh which pollutes the environment of the internet. Instead of spreading more love and kindness, the content is creating hatred among people. So, she started this beautiful initiative all by herself to make the world a better place.

About Mallika Bajaj

Mallika Bajaj had a very keen interest in media from a very young age. She also appeared on many news channels when she was a teenager. Mallika completed her bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne. She majored in media and communications and completed her master’s from Goldsmiths College under the University of London.

She started gaining fame from an early age. When she was sixteen, she hosted the BNP Davis Cup Tennis Tournament across Asia. She became the youngest host around the world after this and this was her first big achievement. She hostel this tournament till 2014.

While she was pursuing her bachelor’s degree she became the editor on BBC. She used to look after the current affairs and world news. In 2009, Mallika joined INX Media Pvt. Ltd and worked as the sports editor for a year. Before pursuing her master’s she worked at ABC News for some time. In November 2007, Mallika becomes the entertainment editor at Hindustan Times. She worked here for twelve long years. Currently, she is also serving as the chief marketing officer at Maxilion.

The beginning

During this time, Mallika Bajaj decided to open a new start-up. The potential Indian market for digital content gave her the zeal to built something for our country. Thus, in 2014, she founded Little Young Beetle to provide kinder content in many fields and also to help improve India’s position in this digital era.

The knowledge and experience Mallika Bajaj gained before establishing Little Yellow Beetle was more than enough to open a start-up.

The Uniqueness of Little Yellow Beetle

The scope of Little Yellow Beetle is too vast to be described. They digitalize the idea for their customers. Be it a simple idea of an application, a website or an online course, they will digitalize anything and everything for you. The content of LYB contains healthy and kind information as Mallika is inclined towards the quality of content.

The company believes in maintaining a very strong relationship with their clients. Trust is the foundation of any relationship and that’s why LYB always tends to keep their promises. They only promise to deliver as much they can. But, it always delivers more than what they promise to.

Clients

Little Young Beetle has clients both in India and abroad. They welcome any type of client with just a passion in their eyes to establish something for themselves. LYB extends its hand to any company or individual with a story to tell but with no source to preach. It brings publicity for any brand or product through the power of digital content.

Success

Throughout this span of six years, Little Yellow Beetle has become the Best Digital Media Agency in Gurgaon. Mallika has also received the award, 100 Most Powerful CMO Asia and Women Super Achiever, World CSR Summit.

Today, Mallika Bajaj runs the company along with her mother and sister, Abha Bajaj and Pallavi Bajaj. According to Mallika, she will keep on inspiring people with her strong yet kind and emphasizing content and make digital India better.

udacity

Udacity Is Unleashing The True Power of E-Learning With Moocs

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Most of the students irrespective of belonging from India or abroad prefer learning online over attending classes. Honestly, coaching classes are boring when you have to sit for hours and listen to the monotonous lectures. But, the internet has made our life easy, right? And, the MOOCs (Massive open online courses) has made our lives easier.

Everyone will agree that the academic curriculum provides us limited knowledge. What if you want to learn something new that is not in your syllabus? After all, there shouldn’t be any limit to learning. Udacity, an educational organization founded in 2012 provides online courses for students all over the world. The teaching faculties of Udacity belong to some of the top-most universities around the globe.

Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky founded this organization to spread the benefit of online education among students and every learning enthusiast.

About the founders

Sebastian went to the University of Hildesheim and studied computer science, economics, and medicine. After this, he went for his bachelor’s degree and graduated from the University of Bonn in 1993. He completed his Ph.D. in computer science and statistics. His career started in the year 1995 when he joined Carnegie Mellon University as a research computer scientist.

He worked as an assistant professor at CMU for many years and also at Stanford University from 2007 to 2011. In 2004, he became the director of SAIL. In 2011, he joined Google and founded Google X. And, in 2012 he co-founded the online private educational organization, Udacity.

David is a very brilliant programmer who graduated from Princeton University at the age of nineteen. He acquired his bachelor’s degree in computer science and completed both his master’s and Ph.D. from Stanford University. David is also very much interested in autonomous cars and he created Stanford’s autonomous car team. He became the CEO of Udacity when it was launched.

Sokolsky went to CMU and acquired his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer engineering. He joined the University of Alberta as a research associate and in 2009 joined Stanford University for the SAIL autonomous driving group. He co-founded Udacity and became the CTO of the organization. He left Udacity in 2013 and joined Spire. He co-founded Artificial in 2018 and serves as an Advisor currently.

Educating the mass

Starting Udacity was a part of a small project whose outcome was shocking to Sebastian. When he taught students in his class he didn’t feel satisfied. He wanted not only to teach only 200 students paying a lucrative amount for higher education but to the entire world. So, one fine day he just started making videos and teaches the same way he does at Stanford.

He gave assignments, tests and followed every step he does with the university students. Sebastian was surprised when he found out that the students who topped the examination learned from the internet and weren’t part of Stanford. This led Sebastian to take the next step and finally to establish an organization.

Story of Udacity

Since artificial intelligence and machine learning is grasping the market in the new world, Sebastian decided to offer computer science courses in Udacity. From the basics to the most advanced level courses were made available. A couple of months after Udacity became public, 90,000 students enrolled for two different classes in this platform. Sebastian expected to hit half a million headcount shortly.

The project was growing in size which attracted few big investors like Charles River Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Initially, Sebastian funded $200,000 from his pocket but later in 2012, Udacity received a massive amount of $15 million from Horowitz. After a year, Sebastian said in an interview that his product is very disappointing. Only 5% of the total students enrolling for the courses are completing it.

This is contradictory to his aim for Udacity. And, he decided to shift his focus to the vocational courses for professionals. Udacity expanded its courses and by 2014 it had twelve full courses and, twenty-six free courseware. Within a couple of years, Udacity witnesses 1.6 million users.

Udacity’s next target is to double the headcount in India. Since India is developing exponentially in the digital space more students are expected to sign up for Nanodegree programs on Data analytics, machine learning, etc. Currently, Udacity has 11.5 million users across the world.