Hitesh Sarda » Entrepreneurship

Interesting new business ideas for India

Hitesh — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:42:57 +0000

A short post about interesting business ideas, I came across in the last week or so.

Lost-key drop service

A service, that sells numbered key chains, which has something like this written on it:

When the key is lost, the owner will contact the service hotline to ascertain if the key, with id number 123654789 in the above example, has been returned. If yes, he can pick it up or have it mailed for a fee. Works best if the operation is distributed having franchise operators in each city. Thus the turnaround time between losing the key and regaining it can be minimised.

A customer can register the key code online, to get an email / SMS whenever the key is returned.

Help and advice to DIY farmers

About 6-months ago, I discussed with a friend on, how I am interested in growing a vegetable garden, but have no clue where to begin. I was interested if someone will give me advice on what to grow, when and how as well as supply the needed materials. Six month later, I read about sproutrobot, on techcrunch. Sproutrobot, is a US based start-up, pretty much doing what I described above. Now if someone can replicate this for India.

DIY greeting cards

Create an online service that allows users to create a greeting card selecting the paper, design and wordings. This is then handmade and either mailed to the user or distributed to the list provided. There are a few similar services, but none having the refinement and social integration of the “new web”.

This is the one I am most likely to try out, just for the technical kick. I also intend to concentrate on a very specific niche to be able to provide templates to best match what the user might want.

Hausmeister service for India

Hitesh — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:10:14 +0000

Thanks to the company I keep, online and offline, the only entrepreneurial ventures I see are tech related. Everyone wants to be the next viral sensation and make pots of money. Hardly anyone wants to add real value to the life of others and improve the community as a whole.

Rant aside, I recently came across a very interesting piece from Vivek Wadhwa titled Replicators, Innovators, and Bill Gates. The form of ventures I described above might be of innovative type, but there is no harm in starting a replicating venture. Especially if it brings in a steady stream of income and gives stable employment to a few people.

One such service I see in Germany which can be easily replicated in India is the ‘Hausmeister’, literally a house master service. For a fixed fee from each resident, a company takes care of all the common issues with a housing apartment. Whether it is cleaning, sanitation, repairs and other forms of maintenance.

With the several million apartment complexes in India, this service could organise and streamline the ‘building maintenance’ nightmare and make decent money, while generating employment for several people of varied skills. People who desperately need a job that they can do with dignity.

The occupants also gain as they have one throat to choke and do not need to deal individually with a number of service providers. The last such venture I saw, was the greatly successful cable wallah. No reason similarly spirited individuals can’t make this service a success too.

20 Qs with Puneet of Young India

Hitesh — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:54:33 +0000

Introduction

Q. In your own words, who are you and what is your business?

I am just a young creative mind, who feels that everyone can sell anything; but the only reason why everyone doesn’t become a businessman, is that they don’t have a product to sell. Since they don’t have anything to sell they sell somebody else’s product. All one needs is to be creative, a little passionate and definitely risk taking.
My business is www.yindia.co.in. It is a new and a creative website which give a purpose to networking. It is a place where creative minds will compete and get recognition. It may not be a very big recognition like any reality show that makes you an overnight star but it will make you realise the star potential in you.

Q. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Well a very less famous person once said that the best of business ideas come from ones own need. If you really want to start a business then just think is there anything that you want or ever wanted that you couldn’t get because of unavailability and that’s where you create a product.
My business idea comes from my own life. As a young guy I have many creative interests and dream, but I never could pursue them. May be because of lack of knowledge and may be ‘coz I never knew how good I am outside the boundary walls of my school and college. So I thought of giving the young generation something I did not get. It’s less of a business idea and more of an initiative.
By the way that less famous person is nobody else but me.

Q. Is this your first business?

Well definitely yes, it’s my first business. I would prefer to call it an initiative than business. It’s my way of changing the systems and things that are currently there in India.

Market

Q. Who are your customers?

My customers are the young creative minds who have dreams, who don’t want to follow the rat race. We all are following a rat race due to which we couldn’t follow our heart and dream careers for which we blame our society, our parents but the reason why we could follow is that we never tried because of lack of self belief. One needs to go through a competitive environment to get this self assessment and self belief.What I never appreciated in my life is the follower approach. Because following curbs creativity
This site is for those young minds that have that creativity to do things differently. They can try and test out there skills. Have you ever thought the reports and presentations we have made in our college life how good they are? Its not always about marks. If you want to check it then check it on www.yindia.co.in where you’ll know how useful it is. We click photographs in daily life, have you ever thought how beautifully and artistically these photos have been taken by you? If you want to, then check with YIndia.
Everything and anything can have creativity in life; I just tried to give opportunities to creative mind to understand their creativity and its importance. We promote talents, individuals, ideologies.

Q. What are your most significant products or services?

My most significant product is the creativity of my users.

Q. How has your market changed in the past few years?

Well the market is growing. This attempt is more like an initiative which is have not been tried.

Q. How has your business changed to keep pace?

Well the business is just in starting phase so changing environment has not been faced.

Growth and Revenues

Q. How many employees do you have? Full- or part-time?

Well we have 6 full time and around 20 part time employees.

Q. How did you finance your business? What have been your most effective sources of financing over the years?

Well finance remains an issue for a start-up forever. The terms like venture finance sound good but it is not as easy as it sound. When you come up with some new and different plan you are always circumspect about sharing your plan and your idea. I am still working on high end loans and personal savings.

Q. Is the business profitable? Still investing, cash flow positive, profitable?

Well it’s just started so there’s still time.

Q. What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Well for a journey of the thousand miles the most important step is the first step.

Q. What plans do you have now to expand your business further?

I have plans to make it global as website don’t have boundary but definitely have to have a service that caters to global audience.

Your management style

Q. What is an average workday like for you? What systems have you used to automate your business to give you more time for business planning and development?

I don’t really know how much I work. In a start-up you have to work like a clerk, peon, receptionist, customer care, sales executive, manager, CEO Keeps you occupied.

Q. What has been your biggest challenge to date?

Well I am enjoying this feeling of doing what I am and following my dream that I have stopped rating things as challenges but I take them as ladders to climb through the success.

Q. Have you ever felt like giving up?

No not even once

Q. What has been your biggest mistake in business?

I don’t consider them as mistake but errors as its better to find as many errors as possible to achieve the level of perfection for success

Q. If you were starting again, what would you do differently?

Don’t know if I start again than I would definitely do and work on different product. I won’t restrict my creativity again.

Q. Words of advice to fellow entrepreneurs.

You are all alone when you do something. So everything you do, you have to do all alone. Don’t expect anything from anyone. You have to have confidence in yourself. Don’t do it just ‘coz you don’t want to do anything else but do it coz you want to do it.

For our readers

Q. Do you have any opportunities / offers / partnership ideas about which you want to put a word out?

Well so far I don’t have but yes I am definitely looking for a person who wants to work hard and creatively. Do all works of a CEO at a salary of a sales and marketing executive.

Also please promote this website www.yindia.co.in to as many people you can.

Q. Best way to reach you (IM/email/twitter/social media/blog)

You can reach me through facebook YINDIA fan page / or www.yindia.co.in Gtalk : puneet26dec9jan@gmail.com

My take on iPad

Hitesh — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:30:19 +0000

Ever since the iPad was announced, the internet is clogged with updates, analysis and impressions on iPad. But I saw very little talked about what this means, or how this could affect the way we do business. The guys with the biggest megaphones are either reporters or tech gurus, who are far removed from the trenches of enterprise application development.

Full disclosure

The only Apple product I own is the iPod touch. It rocks, itunes sucks.

Initial impressions

I was a bit underwhelmed and I doubt I will acquire an iPad. But that does not stop me from believing that it will be a big hit.

What could be better?

Personally, I would have loved the device if it came with multi tasking and maybe a camera. But this post is not about it.

Then what is it about?

This is about the big disruption the entire tablet computing movement could cause to the current state of art. How the relatively low price, the interactivity and the right size makes it suitable option in a lot of never before situations. And about how, Apple could leave a gaping hole for another Microsoft to capitalise on.

How so?

By not allowing custom built apps from being installed on the iPad. This will rule out iPads adoption in the enterprises and also cool new ideas and mashups. Large companies could use an iPad for several clever niches, but needing to install custom IP on to the iPad via the app store is out of question.

Are there any examples?

Sure, several.

Team of financial advisors carrying a tablet for explain various insurance or investment options to average Joe. Imagine how good the apps could be made to look and how interactive they could be. It would go a long way in closing the sale.
A restaurant replacing the boring menus with interactive ones on a tablet. Hell, they could even just ‘add to basket’ then and there. If there is a waiting time, people can pre-order their food and also surf while waiting.
Replacing the dull and expensive kiosk with a 350$ tablet. This might still happen, but by playing a keynote presentation.
How about the classic ‘travelling salesman’? Does he really need a laptop?
Medical staff carrying a tablet instead of the physical patient files.
I haven’t even begun to think about industrial applications

I think you get the picture. Not only can the tablet replace a laptop, but also paper in several cases. People more creative than me will find several more creative uses of a tablet. This brings me to mashups.

What about them?

The thing about mashups, they are obvious in hind sight. But it takes a creative mind and an open ecosystem to dream and create one. But I can imagine a few hacks / mashups surly.

How about a tablet controlled robot or speed boat?
A tablet replacing the entire instrument panel of a car
Tablets used in performing arts
Tablets used in science and education
Tablets used by NGOs in rural upliftment

The possibilities are limitless. But the artificial limitations imposed by Apple, will leave the door open for a highly hack-able, maybe android based, tablet provider. Whether that’s a known brand like Asus, who spearheaded the netbook revolution; or an unknown startup like NotionInk remains to be seen.

Sure, Apple will sell millions of these devices and make tons of money, but saying that there is no room for another player is a false assumption.

Biz plan: Build a better Craigslist

Hitesh — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:40:01 +0000

I am surprised that I haven’t come across a voice based classifieds system. Well creating one from scratch and reaching critical mass is difficult, but leveraging social media and Craig’s list should not be difficult at all. So, here’s the idea.

User calls a premium number and speaks the advert.
The server processes the voice and tries to understand the message.
If the message is correctly understood, it will post an appropriate ad on Craig’s list, with the user’s phone number and an auto generated email id.
If the message is not fully understood, it is passed to a call centre for transcription.
The message is then transcribed and posted to Craig’s list.
Any email received on the auto generated email id is sent as text message to the caller.

The above set up allows the user to place a classified ad in under 2 minutes with no unnecessary steps required. The calls are placed to a premium number thus generating revenue.

I am surprised no one has thought about it or maybe I didn’t dig into it enough.

Teaching kids (& adults) about climate

Hitesh — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:51:57 +0000

With Copenhagen behind us, it makes me wonder is there something we as individuals do to help the climate? On one such thought tangent I wondered if it possible to teach kids about climate using a simulation game like Civilisation? On cursory search I could not find anything that could entertain and educate kids.

What would it be?

An empire building game that needs to balance technology, way of life and climate to achieve sustainable conditions. The players will need to move from stone age to iron age to industrial age to knowledge age. All this is well covered by games in the Civilisation series. The difference is, to advance in the technology tree, they will need to consume resources and they need to understand that resources are limited and that consuming them is not without consequences.

Learning

A game that will show the interdependence of several factors like:

Exploitation of natural resources (wood, coal, oil, gold, diamonds, animals, fishes etc) for technical progress and their costs in terms of environmental impact
The long term implication of the such impact
Investing in technology to achieve sustainable development
Also the flip side of not consuming natural resources and it impact on growth and empire building
The need to consume resources to ‘unlock’ next levels of technical innovation
Trading of resources amongst empires which have surplus of something
I would probably underplay the option of war and more of foreign trade as a means to acquire scarce resources.

What next?

I am not a game developer so wouldn’t know how to get about doing it. But may be some like minded people will come together and look at it. Maybe Freeciv can provide a starting point. Maybe it even becomes successful and makes some money for the creators.

Micro ISV jump start tool kit

Hitesh — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:24:07 +0000

Every micro ISV needs several standard things to get started. Few of them are:

A web host
A web site, including a blog
A store front
Email
Customer support infrastructure like forums, CRM, Chat, etc.
Bug tracker
Source Control
Build environment

Apart from these, some software related bits

Common controls / Custom controls
Framework things like:
Installer
Auto updater

And if your software is not open source, then

Obfuscater
Software copy protection
Licensing
Payment provider

And some marketing related:

Software submitter
Ad network

What I could come up with so far are:

Trac: Issue Tracker
VersionOne: Hosted Agile Project Management
GetSatisfaction / UserVoice: Forums
DreamHost / Google App Engine / Amazon: Hosting
Google Apps: email and collaboration
PayPal / FastSpring

I would update the list as and when I find more resources.

Is anything available integrated out-of-the box for a micro ISV to jump start, drop a comment below.

20 Qs with Sudhir of vfreshers.com

Hitesh — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:33:16 +0000

In the second interview, I get to interview Mr. Sudhir of vfreshers.com. He runs a website that provides info about fresher jobs.

Introduction

Q. In your own words, who are you and what is your business?: A. I am an IT Professional having worked in Software industry in India & USA for 4-5 years. I have been working on Vfreshers.com along with my wife who is a law graduate and left her career to pursue my dream.I have also left my full-time job 3 months back. Vfreshers.com is a platform for all the fresh graduates in India.
Q. How did you come up with the idea for your business?: A. I myself used to look for this kind of information when I passed out of University. Initially, I started with a website on Walk-in Interviews and then later on started Vfreshers.com
Q. Is this your first business?: A. Yes

Market

Q. Who are your customers?: A. Our Customers are both Fresh Graduates & all those corporate who are seeking to hire Entry Level Talent in their organization.
Q. What are your most significant products or services?: A. We are giving an opportunity to Freshers to find for all kind of Freshers Jobs at a single place. In addition to that we also write on other stuff like Resume Writing, Latest Career Trends & other Career related information which is very useful for Fresh Graduates & Entry Level Jobseekers.
Q. How has your market changed in the past few years?: A. The Market has become more competitive with the entry of more such websites. Even big companies like Naukri.com are entering this space now.
Q. How has your business changed to keep pace?: A. We have been trying to keep ourselves distinct by keeping our website as user friendly as it can be. It is very easy to search jobs in various categories and apply for the same.

Growth and Revenues

Q. How many employees do you have? Full- or part-time?: A. We do not have many employees right now we are in “start-up” mode. All of the employees are “part-time” and work from their own locations.
Q. How did you finance your business? What have been your most effective sources of financing over the years?: A. Bootstrapped
Q. Is the business profitable? Still investing, cash flow positive, profitable?: A. Yes – the business has been profitable so far.
Q. What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?: A. Invested lot of time and believed in it from day one.
Q. What plans do you have now to expand your business further?: A. Plans to cover more segments other than jobs too & take it to the next level.

Your management style

Q. What is an average workday like for you? What systems have you used to automate your business to give you more time for business planning and development?: A. When you are pursuing a dream or passionate about something, it is difficult to keep work-life balance. I work for minimum 12 hours each day.
Q. What has been your biggest challenge to date?: A. To find talented people to work with us.
Q. Have you ever felt like giving up?: A. Never
Q. What has been your biggest mistake in business?: A. Started Late. I wish I had started during my college days.
Q. If you were starting again, what would you do differently?: A. I would have avoided partnering with anyone in a project.
Q. Words of advice to fellow entrepreneurs.: A. Never Give Up

For our readers

Q. Do you any opportunities / offers / partnership ideas about which you want to put a word out?: A. We are always open to any business opportunity proposals that come our way.
Q. Best way to reach you (IM/email/twitter/social media/blog): A. vfreshers(AT)gmail.com (Gtalk)

20 Qs with Mr. Kadiyala of fullhyd.com

Hitesh — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:53:37 +0000

In a planned series of interviews with Indian entrepreneurs, here is the first one. I got in touch with Kishore, an old friend and associate, and talked to him about his venture fullhyd.com.

Introduction

In your own words, who are you and what is your business?: fullhyd.com is a local content and local search company, currently focusing on Hyderabad, India, and planning to scale to all Indian cities soon. We help people find comprehensive details about various businesses and services in their neighbourhood, and help them interact with the businesses, and with each other about the businesses.
We also cover life in the city – events, movies, shopping & sales – and serve as a local community organizer, apart from being a guide for tourists.
Our revenue/business is focused on providing unprecedentedly low-cost advertising solutions to small and medium business enterprises, by helping them reach customers in their neighbourhood, and pay for just that.
How did you come up with the idea for your business?: Through reading about the Internet and the way it is likely to evolve. I felt geographic communities are quite likely to be big.
Is this your first business?: Yes.

Market

Who are your customers?: (1) All people interested in any information about a city, and (2) all businesses seeking to reach any subset of people in the city. The former give us our product (our traffic), and the latter, our revenues.
What are your most significant products or services?: Content about businesses/services/organizations/groups in a city, and the technology to deliver it and to help users interact with it and with each other, is our product to our audiences, and our traffic is our most significant product to our advertisers.
How has your market changed in the past few years?: The emergence of telephones as a key delivery mechanism, and more – and more professional – competitors, have been important changes.
How has your business changed to keep pace?: We overhauled our entire site in a 4-year exercise to get more comprehensive in our content and to provide more features to our users. We continue to evolve every day.

Growth and Revenues

How many employees do you have? Full- or part-time?: About 10, mostly full-time.
How did you finance your business? What have been your most effective sources of financing over the years?: Seed-funding from friends and family in the initial years, revenues thereafter. We seek funding to grow.
Is the business profitable? Still investing, cash flow positive, profitable?: Profitable at the current scale.
What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?: Use innovative approaches – good search-engine-optimization is one example, $2 ads is another – to generate traffic and revenues in the absence of an advertising budget.
What plans do you have now to expand your business further?: We seek to raise funding. Can’t say much more here, of course.

Your management style

What is an average workday like for you? What systems have you used to automate your business to give you more time for business planning and development?: The average workday is mostly consumed by operational work. We are increasingly bringing in good people to manage operations so that I get free to work to raise investment.
What has been your biggest challenge to date?: We are India’s no. 1 local guide for traffic in a city. Achieving that with no funding support, when all competitors have been funded millions of dollars, has been a significant achievement.
Bringing into existence the second version of fullhyd.com, which involved surveying work in the city on a scale never attempted before by anyone, has been a big challenge.
Have you ever felt like giving up?: No.
What has been your biggest mistake in business?: There’ve been plenty. Trying to unveil a magnificent product at once instead of putting up small features one after the other has been a mistake.
If you were starting again, what would you do differently?: Many things – we all evolve over time, and there’s been plenty of learning. Prioritization and compromising are 2 things I’d give a lot of importance to.
Words of advice to fellow entrepreneurs.: Be organized, and prioritize. And get yourself a good team. And be ethical.

For our readers

Do you any opportunities / offers / partnership ideas about which you want to put a word out?: Yes – write to us to partner us in our story. We have stratospheric opportunities to grow and very few people doing it. Join us today for stock when we are small, and we’ll make sure that in time we more than make up for your compromise.
Best way to reach you (IM/email/twitter/social media/blog): email (knkk@fullhyd.com).

Hello World!

Hitesh — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:19:52 +0000

Hi, this is Hitesh. I am here to talk about stuff I like. How do I know what I like? Well I asked myself the same question and like any true geek looked at the data at hand to decide. So I analysed my bookmarks at delicious and the three areas that interest me way beyond others are programming, education and entrepreneurship.

Thus the focus of this blog will remain these three areas of my interest. My plan is to add at least one post per week, let’s see how it goes.

Once again, Hello world!