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Team YTS

Multi-million dollar start up that just works 4 days a week without any managers

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Today when most startups tend to burn the mid night oil and work even on weekends, this organization works typically for 4 days a week (Mon-Thu), more specifically 32 hours a week and has grown exponentially from a start up to become a leading global multi million dollar Ed-tech company offering online professional training & courses. The organization is Treehouse, headquartered in Portland, Ontario. Employing 110 employees, Treehouse operates just 32 hours in a week.

The secret recipe to rousing success

How come a company working less than 32 hours a week with around 100 employees is so successful. The reason for this is amazing work culture of Treehouse.

No Managers

Treehouse is a flat organization with no manager controlling employees or their work. Each employee is responsible for their own work. Earlier Treehouse was also like any other company having typical org structure. Internal politics, grapevine and rumors were hampering its growth cycle. It’s then company decided to do away with org structure and have a flat hierarchy. Going flat has increased the productivity of the Treehouse staff and enabled them focus on the activities they are hired for. The flat organization enabled the employees to implement their own ideas in the work they were assigned instead of depending on the typical managerial hierarchy to work on it.

The career growth of the individual employee in the company in absence of the managers is set up on the basis of how proficiently a employee delivers the work assigned. Breaks are encouraged during the working hours to have personal communication between colleagues. The employees work from Monday to Thursday and the offices are kept closed on Fridays and weekends, thus enabling them to spend more time with their families.

This work culture has helped create a complete work life balance and almost 100% retention of the workforce.

Less emails more productivity

Employees are discouraged from using emails. Ryan Carson, the founder of Treehouse says that emails distract employee and instead they use HipChat which keeps them focused on their work schedule.

For the discussion on the ongoing projects Convoy, an internal discussion forum is used. These tools have increased employee productivity since they don’t have to go through each and every email. Treehouse discourages any sort of official communication on off days that is on Fridays and weekends.

Less meetings, less interrupts

Treehouse team believes in less face to face meetings. Most of the communication is written either on Convoy or HipChat which reduces unplanned meetings or interrupts. Employees can plan their work and also choose to respond to written communication as per their schedule and availability.

All these things have resulted in increased productivity, less attrition, high employee morale. Treehouse in the year 2012 received initial funding of 4.75 USD and one year later in 2013 received 7 million USD funding from Social+Capital and Kaplan Ventures. It has been able to garner a monthly revenue of $1.7 Million with a subscriber base of more than 1,00,000 and recurring monthly sales of $1,42,000. The number of its paid subscribers is increasing by an average of 46%.

Today, Treehouse provides technical, skill enhancement, app development and other learning tools via  iOS and android apps at affordable rates both to the individuals as well as organizations and learning institutes like schools at affordable rates. It offers choice of the subject from its extensive library and has a point based system within the apps that measure the progress of the skills learned by its subscribers.

Weekend projects that became million dollar products

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As they say, ideas come to many but there are few who go ahead and give them a try. Similarly most people never pay a heed to their hobbies. Hobbies always take back seat given the time and money constraints. But those who fulfill their hobbies, live a life full of energy and satisfaction.

Hobbies if executed with passion, can be rewarding too. Like Walt Disney whose hobby of doodling and sketching turned into a multi-billion dollar business or for that matter Bill Gates whose hobby of programming turned into what we know today is Microsoft.

Here we are talking about two side-projects that were created and executed over a weekend which later turned into million dollar businesses. Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky & Noah Kagan, If you don’t know them and what did they do, read on. All these turned their side projects in great startups  worth millions of dollars.

AppSumo: Noah Kagan
AppSumo is a daily deals website that promotes great digital products (application software, eBooks) and online services (online training courses). Founded in 2010 by Noah Kagan, AppSumo today has more than 700,000 users and revenue in millions.

Noah Kagan once a top performer in Facebook held 20,000 shares (0.1% of the company) which would have made him millionaire. However, as the fate would have it, he was fired in less than a year. Noah always wanted to do something of his own. For the same reason he left Mint forfeiting his shares worth $1.7 million. Noah Kagan started a gaming company KichFlip (Gambit) which probably got shut down due to Facebook’s policies.  Gambit was created over a weekend by Noah and his friends which grew to $1,000,000 plus business by end of year.

During his stint with Gambit Noah realized that it’s pretty difficult to get customers and he decided to do something for apps to get customers. He realized that people were discussing different products on forums like Reddit and would love to get those for a discount. This led to creation of AppSumo. AppSumo the core product was built over a weekend by hiring freelancers from Pakistan for $50.  Noah

AppSumo started listing products for some commission which  would help startups that needed such platform to market their product. He struck his first deal for selling ‘imgur Pro’ and made his first dollar. He validated the idea with 200 sales and thereafter never looked back. Today, AppSumo lists tons of apps and online training courses.

Story of AppSumo and Noah Kagan is not ordinary. After forfeiting lucrative plush jobs and millions of dollars, starting a new business over a weekend and to take that to million dollars revenue is just amazing.

 Image courtesy: http://okdork.com/

Airbnb: Brian & Joe
Two designers unable to pay rent decided to rent out 3 air mattresses along with breakfast to earn some money, that’s how Airbnb was born. In the year 2007 Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia didn’t have enough money to pay rent. Seeing an upcoming design conference in San Francisco as an opportunity to make some quick bucks, they created a website, airbedandbreakfast.com.

After few days, they got their first three customers paying them $80 each. At this moment they realized the potential of this business and decided to take it forward. However, these two entrepreneurs instead of creating another renting website decided to do something different. They decided to enable local people list their rooms for travelers visiting the city for conferences, trade fairs or festivals.

Airbnb

In the initial years, they had no office and they mainly worked from the flat they had. A year later when their team grew to 15 people they set up their first office in San Francisco, California.

In 2008 it was election time in US and Barack Obama was going to address 80,000 people in  Denver at the Democratic National Convention. There was a shortage of hotel rooms in that area. They got a major boost from this room scarcity. They played smartly by offering special cereals in the name of Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s for $40 which generated more than $30,000 which paved the way for expansion.

They expanded rapidly from then on by including properties between market and CouchSurfing. In 2009 they raised an initial funding of $20,000 funding which led to another $600,000 from venture capitalists.

Several mergers and acquisitions of Accoleo, CrashPadder, Localmind paved the way for their international expansions. Airbnb now deals in properties ranging from hotels to islands to bungalows. Today Airbnb have their offices internationally from London to Delhi to Cuba to Singapore and many more.


Video credit: fundersandfounders

There are problems around us needed to be solved. There are solved problems which needed to be optimized. Don’t put that compelling idea which comes to your mind to hibernation. Go ahead and give it a shot. You never know you would end up creating something like Airbnb or AppSumo.

Who invented email? Shiva Ayyadurai or Ray Tomlinson

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A google search for “Who invented email” returns the name of an India-born scientist Shiva Ayyadurai who allegedly invented email at the age of fourteen.

Shiva

Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai was born in Mumbai (Bombay), India. He along with his family left to US at the age of 7. He studied computer programming at New York University and later joined MIT to get four undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in addition to PHD in biological engineering. Shiva as he is popularly known, also founded a company worth $200 million called Echo Mail.

According to various internet sources including Shiva’s own website, at the age of 14 he wrote a software program to automate the conventional paper-based interoffice communication system of University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). While computer to computer communication was already in use, Shiva claims that he was the first to introduce essential email features that we use today in the year 1978. He introduces the email terms like From, To, CC, BCC, Forward, Reply etc in his program.

In the absence of patent laws Shiva applied for copyright for the program called “Email” in 1982. V.A. Shiva still holds the copyright for the program and the term “Email”.

Copyright Email

He has been seeking public support for quite some time to strengthen his claim after there has been a controversy on who invented email. He has also published a book called “The Boy Who Invented Email & His 7 Secrets of Innovation” which talks more about his invention.

The controversy: Is Shiva Ayyadurai the man who invented email?

Critics say that in 1982 Shiva just copyrighted the term ’email’ and a program he wrote and that such digital communication between computers existed long before 1978.

In 2011 Time published an interview with Shiva titled “The man who invented Email” crediting him as the inventor of email. Major controversy started when posts related to email invention on The Washington Post and Huffington post were trolled with nasty comments and facts that refuted Shiva’s claim. The Washington Post updated the post and clarified that Dr. V. A. Shiva was not the inventor of email.

Many people credit Ray Tomlinson of Cambridge-based BBN Technologies as the first person who used @ symbol in 1971 to send messages between computer terminals. Later many others built upon Tomlinson’s work and devised their own methods to share information over the network. Shiva claims that those earlier systems and other ARPANET programs were merely a way of simply sending and receiving text messages. His Email program, on the other hand, was invented specifically to replicate paper based mail system used in office electronically and comprised of elements & features which a standard email system today have.

Noam Chomsky professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at MIT supports Shiva’s claim and was quoted by Wired as-

“Email, upper case, lower case, any case, is the electronic version of the interoffice, inter-organizational mail system, the email we all experience today — and email was invented in 1978 by a 14-year-old working in Newark, NJ. The facts are indisputable”

Chomsky’s argument is that Ayyadurai received a formal copyright registration on his email program in 1982, and that in 1977, David Crocker — who worked on the ARPAnet and has criticized Ayyadurai’s claims — wrote that “no attempt is being made to emulate a full-scale, inter-organizational mail system.”

“Given the term email was not used prior to 1978, and there was no intention to emulate ‘…a full-scale, inter-organizational mail system,” as late as December 1977, there is no controversy here, except the one created by industry insiders, who have a vested interest,”

Whether or not “Dr. E-Mail”, VA Shiva Ayyadurai invented the email, he is an authority on Email technology, e-marketing and biotechnology.

Right now Shiva is busy with his bio-tech startup CytoSolve. CytoSolve has developed the world’s first computational platform for scalable integration of molecular pathway models. You can read more about Shiva on his website, inventor of email, history of email, Wikipedia and make your own judgement. Shiva’s website is full of documents, web references and scanned newspaper clippings that talk about his side of story.


Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Interviewed on CBS TV

Image credit- http://www.inventorofemail.com/

Moikit: A preventive tech solution to avoid Kidney Stones

Health, start-up, Tech Story / By

There has been a sharp rise in Kidney stones (also known as a renal calculus or nephrolith) cases around the world in recent years. Approximately 1 in 11 people in the United States are affected by Kidney stones.

The leading cause of kidney stones is not drinking enough water. Stones commonly have been found in those who drink less than eight to ten glasses of water a day. When there is not enough water to dilute the uric acid (constituent of urine), the pH level of kidneys drops and becomes more acidic. This acidic environment in the kidneys is instrumental in the formation of kidney stones.

What if there is someone who reminds you to drink water and also keep track of your daily water intake. Moikit a Chinese tech startup has come up with a smart water bottle to track your water consumption, compile your health data and keep you hydrated.

Story behind Moikit

In 2012 Xiaoliang Li’s (founder of Moikit) wife got diagnosed with kidney stones due to poor hydration habits. When Xiaoliang studied more about Kidney stones, he learnt that less water intake leads to a host of other diseases and problems in people all over.

Drinking less water means less frequency of urination. Less urination tend minerals that cause kidney stones to settle down in the kidney nephrons and the urinary tract. When one drinks plenty of water, these minerals get flushed out through the urine instead of settling down.

In order to fix this widespread problem of hydration, Xiaoliang brought together a team to create a smart bottle that uses technology to keep people hydrated. Seed the smart water bottle from Moikit is one of the many products that Moikit is developing to solve the problem of hydration.

Seed’s built-in smart water consumption algorithms compute your body’s hydration needs according to water intake, body composition, daily activity level, and outside temperature. With this information, Seed will custom design a water intake schedule that meets your individual needs. Through small vibrations and the LED display, Seed will remind you when you have forgotten to drink enough water.

Seed using inbuilt Bluetooth transfers your water intake data to Moikit app on your smartphone. Seed also integrates seamlessly with third-party health apps and devices.

InMobi, a company that ran out of money to $2bn acquisition speculations

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Every startup goes through ups and downs. It’s the critical business decisions, tough calls, hard work, persistence that makes startups survive and successful in long run.  InMobi was started  in 2006 as SMS based search platform, mKhoj, that later pivoted to become a mobile advertising platform. Founded by  Naveen Tiwari, Abhay Singhal, Mohit Saxena, and Amit Gupta, InMobi which today clocks  138 Billion monthly ad impressions and has 17 offices worldwide once barely had enough money to survive and was on the verge of possible shutdown.

Since than InMobi has come a long way. Today, company competes with Google’s AdMob, Apples’ iAd and there are speculations that Microsoft is going to acquire InMobi for $2 billion.

How team that built InMobi hopped in together
Four friends came together to build next-gen mobile ad platform. They built the first version mKhoj working out from a rented apartment in Mumbai.  In 2007 when company ran out of money, management ran the company for two months on 14 credit cards without paying bills before they hit a funding of $7 million.

Big leap & the funding
In initial days Mohit and Abhay were themselves doing cold calls to get the business. In 2007 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures invested $7M in InMobi. In 2008 company took a call to go global but decided not to go in a crowded market like US but  in markets like southeast Asia & Africa.

Company growth and culture
From the initials days itself company believed in long term strategy to invest in technology and people. InMobi has built a great culture. Most people in the company has stock options since the founders believe that when company tastes the success, employees too should get rewarded enough for the risk, passion and commitment to stand together in every thick and thin of the company. Unlike conventional HR standards, the company has no standard performance monitoring system, no raking and ratings and believes in employee growth and empowerment.

InMobi’s is a story of passion, a story of commitment, a story of  an Indian company that dared to go global.

Video credit: InMobi YouTube, Nasscom

Watch short films from India on Shortfundly

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Chennai-based startup Shortfundly has chosen to create a niche platform for short film publishers. The startup offers an  online video platform for showcasing curated short films from India.

On Shortfundly users can browse through different short videos based on variety of languages, genres and channels. Shortfundly is currently offered for free. Filmmakers can submit their existing YouTube, Vimeo or Dailymotion work to Shortfundly. Shortfundly is trying to build an online video platform that combines curation and social publishing to distribute the best Indian short films to niche audience globally.

 

 

Current design of platform is in pretty infancy stage and would need lot of improvements in order to get users hooked to its platform to checkout short films which are anyways available on top video platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Read more on Shortfundly blog.