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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

shareit

The Success Story of Michael Qiu, the Co-founder of SHAREit

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When a software or a product is launched in the market, within a span of one or two years, a handful of the modified versions of the same are also released. This means we get technically outdated before we can explore every aspect of a product properly. So, in this era of digital phase, it becomes important for everyone to get smarter and use smarter tools to keep up with the fast-moving world.

For example, in the beginning, when smartphones just started heating up the market, we used Bluetooth to share files, such as the pictures, audios, videos, etc. But with time, Bluetooth was replaced by applications like SHAREit. SHAREit is an offline file transferring tool that works with speed 200 times more than the Bluetooth and Near-field communications.

SHAREit was founded in April 2015 with Michael Qiu as the co-founder and CEO of the company, SHAREit Technologies Co. Ltd. Whether it is an image, an audio file, contacts or even an app, one can send anything with the help of this amazing tool.

Lenovo and SHAREit

Michael Qiu
Image Source: iamwire.com

SHAREit was a product developed under Lenovo apps and at first, got introduced in the markets of China, before any other country. After its launch in India in 2013, it became one of the most efficient wireless file transfer tools. Within a year of its launch, SHAREit bagged 150 million Indian users and 500 million users around the globe. Within one year, SHAREit was already available in 30 different languages, and today, it supports over 45 languages. Apart from android, the SHAREit app is also available for both Windows and iOS.

After receiving a huge number of users from India, Qiu wanted to invest more in the Indian market rather than the Chinese market. Since India is a developing country, he saw a lot of scope for the future in India, rather than in China or any other nation. So, after a year of the launch of SHAREit in India, Qiu announced the opening of a new SHAREit office in Gurgaon in 2017.

At the same time, the company also focused on launching the series of ‘it’ products, which included LOCKit, CLONEit, CLEANit, WRITEit, etc.

Strategies of Qiu to deal with Indian start-up ecosystem

Qiu mentioned in an interview that after China and the U.S, it is India that is leading in the start-up community of the world. But, belonging from the start-up culture of China, initially, it was a bit tough for the SHAREit team to understand the business environment of India, as India is so diverse ethnically.

So, the first strategy of Qiu to grow firm roots on the ground of India was to create a simple tool that would bind the entire country’s smartphone users to a single thread. And, the second strategy was to invest more in India as technology here is developing at a remarkably fast rate.

Since India is a developing country, companies from developed nations try desperately to expand their business in India, which makes it a place of demand and also increases competition among different nations. But, Qiu being enough confident about his strategies, and how to deal with the business ecosystem of India, succeeded both on establishing a firm grip on our market and bridging the gap between two different cultures.

The team also focused on building a very simple and easy-going user interface, with no learning cost. And, when it comes down to publicity, they shared about their products on websites, like Quora and Facebook, the ones mostly used by the Indians.

Success of SHAREit

Today, SHAREit has reached beyond just India and China, with its wings spread over in more than 200 countries. In India, apart from Gurgaon, it also has its office in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of Asia. According to recent statistics, SHAREit has more than 1.8 billion global users, among which, 33% of the users are from India and Indonesia.

Currently, it is the leading platform for digital content throughout the world and is considered as the ‘Nationally Favored App’ in many countries.

Future Plans of Qiu

Qui learned that Indian start-ups lacked infrastructure, so he, and his team, planned to build a foundation for investing in the Indian start-ups. His plans are more than just expanding the user base of SHAREit, thus, building a strong relationship with the Indian start-up community. He is willing to offer everything which is lacking in Indian start-up society, and the government is unable to provide. And, above everything, he is keeping his product simple and efficient.

magento

Roy Rubin : The Founder of Magento, the Open-Source E-Commerce Platform

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With the advent of new technologies and rapid development in our world, especially in terms of science and technology, tech-savvies are crawling all over the surface. And, this rapid growth in technology and the development through it, can mostly be witnessed amongst the school and college students.

The most obvious evidence of scientific and technical development in our society is the innumerable establishment of tech-related start-ups, like e-commerce platforms, digital payment platform, Open-source community, online market place, etc., taking place currently.

Magento is one such gigantic open source e-commerce platform that was created in 2008 by a student, Roy Rubin. It all dates back to 2004 when Varien, the company that owned Magento overtook one of its competitors and changed the status of the business forever.

Varien-From Where It All Started

Roy Rubin
Image Source: powerretail.com

Since childhood, Rubin had a great interest in the development and technical stuff, and he was completely engrossed in the idea of the subject. He made his mind to pursue engineering, and alongside, he also grew an interest in starting a business of his own.

He didn’t have greater plans when he was working on this business plan of his, as he only saw it as an opportunity to gain more knowledge, more professionalism and enough money to maintain a sober lifestyle of a student.

Initially, he started making small progress with web development, web applications, e-commerce, and content management, as he wasn’t selective about picking a single domain. But soon, he felt like everything was going topsy-turvy in his business, and eventually, he realized that it’s important to be focused on one single thing to achieve success.

While Roy Rubin was making step-wise progress, a major breakthrough took place in 2004, when he started his own company named Varien and also got a job at OsCommerce. With a few weeks of studies related to OsCommerce, he concluded that the company shared mutual goals with Varien, but the former lacked better quality of services and enough employees. He saw it as a golden opportunity to stream down customers to Varien, which was better than OsCommerce in every aspect. Thus, he invested some of his own money in Google AdWords, and the result was unexpected.

This decision of Roy Rubin changed the future of Varien forever and gave him a better scope to expand his business.

Releasing Magento

After releasing an advertisement in Google AdWords, Varien landed its one of his biggest clients. Rubin, in one of his interviews, said that if it hadn’t been for the advertisement, the company could have never managed to launch a product like Magento. Because, that specific company was entirely responsible for the funding of this e-commerce platform, now known as Magento.

The first public beta version of Magento was released on 31 August 2007. Varien launched Magento, an open-source e-commerce platform, as its product. It was written in PHP, and the first general availability of this software was released on 31st March 2008.

Ownership, Growth and Success of Magento

In February 2011, eBay bought a 49% share of Magento, followed by the entire acquisition of the company on 6th June 2011. But, Rubin continued to work as the CEO of Magento. But, in 2013 he stepped down and left the company.

On 3rd November 2015, Permira acquired the company, and finally, on 19th June 2018, Adobe took the ownership of Magento for $1.68 billion.

On 17th November 2015, the company released the second version of Magento, i.e. Magento 2.0. Since then, Magento is considered as the top digital e-commerce platform around the world.

On 19th October 2016, Rubin joined Magento Board of Directors, and he said that the pace at which Magento was growing was really commendable.

Rubin and Akeneo

Rubin joined Akeneo, a French company for open source product as an advisor in 2016. Since, Akeneo was also a company related to open source, the CEO of Akeneo mentioned that they were grateful to have a person like Rubin in their team. In Akeneo, Rubin is responsible for making the strategic decisions for the short-term goals of the company.

Roy Rubin is a true businessman, and a visionary, who keeps inspiring every start-up related to open-source platform out there. His role in Magento followed by his strategies in Akeneo is incredible.

MobiKwik

Bipin Preet Singh : The Journey from IIT Delhi to Founding MobiKwik

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Here’s a story of another successful IITian whose name got added to the already glorious record of entrepreneurs from IITs. Bipin Preet Singh has become quite a significant figure in the start-up society after he launched MobiKwik in 2009.

MobiKwik is a Gurgaon based Indian start-up which provides a mobile application to carry out online payments. Hence, it contributes largely to the initiative taken to digitalize the payment system in the country. The company also built its Lite app in 2016 so that anyone with poor internet connectivity can also access the application.

Before founding MobiKwik, Singh explored different kinds of job which included Training Facilitator and SoC Architect.

Early Life and Early Career

Bipin Preet Singh MobiKwik
Image Source: inc42.com

Bipin Preet Singh graduated with a B Tech degree in Electrical Engineering in 2002 from IIT Delhi. Soon after graduating from college, he started working for Intel as the Senior Design Engineer. He worked there for three years in the Whitefield Project in Bangalore which has Intel’s first-ever project, including the server microprocessor designing. He worked mainly on circuit designing and formal modelling of microprocessors.

After leaving Intel in 2005, Singh joined Janaagraha in 2006, as a training facilitator. During his time in this company, he worked to build up a social awareness program (India’s first such program), which was mainly targeted to motivate the students and IT professionals to think of democracy beyond voting. This was a bit unusual profession to be picked up by an IITian, but he conducted training series in companies like Dell, NVIDIA, which exposed his skills and helped him fetch better career opportunities.

Bipin Preet Singh joined NVIDIA as a Platform Architect in 2006, while he continued working at Janaagraha. He worked there with a high-level global architecture team and dealt with some of the most complicated projects around the world. He also developed architectural infrastructure for RAID and SATA/AHCI.

In May 2007, Singh joined Freescale Semiconductor as an SoC Architect and worked there for two years. His main work in this company was to generate and analyze performance models, work on memory technologies, propose new features for Motorola Chipsets etc.

By this time, Singh already gained a work experience of 7 years, and the learning phase was about to get over. Moreover, the companies he worked for gave him a pretty dominant position, so he wasn’t looking for a promotion at all. This is when he thought of building something of his own, something more challenging and daring than regular 9 to 5 job.

From Designing Engineer to an Accomplished Businessman

In his entrepreneurial journey, Singh approached and got rejected by many people. But, finally, an old friend of his was very impressed by his idea and agreed to join him in this venture. He kept meeting people and built up his own team from scratch.

Finally, in April 2009, Singh along with his wife, Upasana Taku, founded MobiKwik with a motto to improve the payment system and money transfer scenario. Initially, MobiKwik only had a closed wallet facility, but later the company launched a mobile application for the same. When Singh and his wife founded the company, he invested eight lakhs from his own money and rented an office in Dwarka, Delhi.

Success of MobiKwik

MobiKwik was started as an initiative to eradicate all the payment problems and set up a hassle-free environment for the transaction. They set up a wallet system, where after saving the money, one can use it for different purposes like phone number recharge, payments to online merchants, and different service providers.

In 2012, the company launched the e-wallet system of MobiKwik, and in November 2016, it brought the MobiKwik Lite mobile app to the market. In 2014, the company won the mBillionth Award South Asia in the category of mobile business.

By April 2015, MobiKwik had around 15 million users, and according to Forbes magazine, one million new users were added every month. MobiKwik also started giving loans of a small amount (500-2,500 Indian rupees) in partnership with CashCare. By 2016, the number of users hiked to 55 million from 15 million. In February 2017, MobiKwik announced that the company is going to invest more in expanding the user base to targeted 150 million. By 2017, maximum e-wallet transactions in our country were done through Paytm, ITZCash and Mobikwik.

Today, MobiKwik connects 105 million of its users to over 3 million merchants providing a huge spectrum of services including insurance, investments and loans. MobiKwik’s next target is to reach a billion Indian users and hit $20 billion by 2022.

UPI

Mandar Agashe : The Man Who Brought a Revolution in the Indian Digital Payment System

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Receiving rewards for paying your bills is like the smartest scheme ever to digitalize the payment system of our nation. Most of us make payments through UPI apps like Tez to earn digital scratch cards and cash backs. The growth of UPI has been unbelievable from only 92,000 transactions in August 2016 to 105 million transactions in November 2017. Today, almost everyone with a smartphone uses these UPI apps for the transaction. And, the biggest advantage of UPI is you don’t have to walk to your bank to deposit money into someone’s bank account. From transferring money to bank accounts to paying for movie tickets, UPI has become the most convenient and the most successful initiative in terms of online banking.

But, who is the person behind this massive success that turned the entire scenario of digital payment in no time?

Mandar Agashe, the founder of Sarvatra Technologies, a company that provides financial and payment solutions to the Indian banking sector, came up with the idea of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and launched it in 2016.

Early Life of Mandar Agashe

Mandar Agashe
Image Source: Facebook

In 24th May 1969, Agashe was born into an influential family of Mumbai to an Indian businessman, cricketer and philanthropist, Dnyaneshwar Agashe, and Rekha Gogte. Agashe had two other siblings, Ashutosh Agashe and Sheetal Agashe.

When Agashe was pursuing his B.E. degree in Computers, he created Musicurry.com, an online radio website. After completing his college, Agashe joined his family business in 1994 and started working in the firms. By 2000, he established EBZ Online in association with Oracle, followed by establishing Brihans Natural Products Ltd., and finally, Sarvatra Technologies in 2000.

Sarvatra Technologies

Agashe established his startup in Pune. The startup was basically to provide payment solutions and promote online banking through UPI and IMPS (Immediate Payment Service). The main goal of the company was to get the rural and semi-urban population connected to banking as well as the system of digital payment and get every citizen of India accustomed to EFT (Electronic funds transfer).

Since Mandar Agashe belonged to a family full of successful business tycoons, he had a clear idea of how the corporate sectors function. He wanted to come up with a solution that can be affordable to every single person out there and can easily carry out online transactions with minimal knowledge.

Oracle was the first company to invest in the strategies of Agashe, and eventually, investors like Vallabh Bhanshali and ICICI Bank participated in the following funding rounds. By 2018, the company brought 450 co-operative banks on National Financial Switch.

Agashe realized that both, the banks and the customers, faced a lot of issues during online transactions because of the poor connectivity. So, he provided the banks with SaaS-based technologies to enhance better performance, and also, reducing the operating cost at the same time.

The success of UPI and other payment solutions

After UPI was launched in 11th April 2016, the transaction volume increased unexpectedly. Transactions through the leading UPI apps like Google Tez, PhonePe and BHIM increased exponentially. By 5th December 2017, two months since the launch of Tez, the transaction volume hit 140 million, and the amount processed through PhonePe summed up to 100 crores per day.

Another advantage of Tez which accounts for 70% of the total UPI transaction is that the money one pays through it directly gets credited in one’s bank account instead of getting dropped into the wallets. By 2017, the apps that use UPI reached 20 million downloads from Play Store.

In the financial year 2017-2018, Mandar Agashe announced that they had a gross transaction value of 27,000, and by the next financial year, they will be going to make it 40,000 crores.

Agashe’s Musical Career

Apart from being an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and a successful businessman, Agashe is also a renowned singer. Releasing Musicurry.com was his first step towards the musical world, which led to launching his very own music album. His first role in the world of music was as a co-director with Pandit Hridayanath. He sang his first playback song with Asha Bhosle, and in 1998, his album ‘Nazar Nazar’ was recorded and released in Hindi and English. In 2005, another album, Jaan Le was released followed by 82 in 2016.

kik

Ted Livingston : The Journey of the Founder of Kik Messenger

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Establishing a new innovative start-up is the ultimate dream of every young entrepreneur out there. And, especially, if a mind has both excellent technical skills and impressive business strategies, wonders can be created. But, how many of us realize that the real voyage begins after one has accomplished his or her dreams? Because with great power comes great responsibilities. Reaching the zenith is easier than holding onto it. It is obvious that one will face ups and downs during the entire journey of success, but one must be strong enough to not give up or choose a wrong path.

Ted Livingston, founder of Kik Messenger and an incredible tech genius, was sentenced to death in 9th June 2019 for committing fraud, drug trafficking and an endless chain of illegal activities. He confessed all of his crimes saying that he did everything to save his company from bankruptcy, though the press release gives enough evidence of Kik’s short-term success. He started the company after he was rejected by RIM (Research in Motion), which led him to join the Velocity program, and finally, open his own start-up. So, let’s have a look into Livingston’s life before he hit such a massive crisis.

Early Life

Livingston was born in 1987, in Toronto, Ontario to a prosperous family. His father was a financial advisor, and his mother worked in the advertising sector. From a very young age, Livingston showed a great interest in building robots, and he joined the robotics team of his school. He went to Crescent School in Toronto and graduated from there in 2005.

Higher Studies and Early Career

Ted Livingston founder kik
Image Source: Twitter

Livingston pursued a Bachelor’s degree in mechatronics at the University of Waterloo, but he dropped out later. During his time at the university, he took part in the Waterloo co-op program and landed placements at Honda and City of Toronto Government.

In 2007, he started working as a Systems Engineering Project Coordinator at RIM, and then, as a Technical Product Management Coordinator. The internship was a part of his engineering course, and, Livingston once said about it that the best part about the internship was having a smartphone with a full data plan which was very expensive at that time.

Since he acquired a very lucrative position at RIM, during his internship, he got to work with every product manager individually and learnt a lot of new things. He was so good at his job that his boss advised him not to go for a full-time job in RIM and rather open his own company. This was all the motivation he needed, and hence, he turned down the job at RIM in 2008.

Founding KiK

Ted went back to Waterloo to complete his Bachelor’s degree, but somehow he ended up participating in the Velocity program followed by founding KiK. At first, Livingston created KiK Music, which was then known as Unsycned for RIM (later known as Blackberry). The app was connected to BBM to allow users to share soundtracks via messenger. But, KiK had bigger plans, which were blatantly turned down by RIM. So, Livingston and his team started working on the Kik messaging app on their own, and it was released on 19th October 2010.

While messaging apps like WhatsApp and Ping were already ruling the market, KiK hit one million users within 15 days of its release. Pretty impressive for an infant company, isn’t it? Though KiK was initially released for iOS and BlackBerry, BlackBerry removed it in November 2010 from BlackBerry App World followed by filing a lawsuit against KiK, which was settled later in 2013.

Success of KiK

In 2014, KiK raised $38.3 million from Series C funding followed by $50 million in the next year, thus resulting in KiK’s total worth to $1 billion. Gradually, KiK decided to raise funding in cryptocurrencies, and it raised $125 million cryptocurrencies through an ICO in September 2017.

In June 2018, Kin Coin (for cryptocurrencies) was released officially in Beta version, and in the next month, Kinit Beta App was released which was exclusively for the US residents.

Death Sentence of Livingston

The news of Livingston’s death sentence hit like an unexpected jolt to the world. He was accused of multiple reasons which included conduction of an illegal ICO, drug trafficking, prostitution and fraud. And finally, he was given a death sentence by an SEC Commission.

shopclues

Sandeep Aggarwal : Serial Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and the Founder of Shopclues

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The emerging Indian start-ups are bringing a great revolution in the entrepreneurial world. The young Indian minds and their untamed passion is creating history in the 21st-century economy. But, it isn’t always the young minds, because it is known that experience makes you wiser.

Sandeep Aggarwal is one such passion-driven entrepreneur who has successfully launched two start-ups, Shopclues and Droom, and now is one of the most influential men in the business world. The idea of Shopclues was pondering in his mind since 2010, but finally, he founded it in July 2011, followed by the launch of Droom in April 2014. The entire business was set up in Silicon Valley, and later, it shifted to India. Aggarwal faced a lot of difficulties and failed plans before he finally founded Shopclues.

Early Education

After passing school, Aggarwal pursued a degree in B.Com followed by a master’s from Indore. While doing his master’s, he also interned with Kotak Mahindra, Mumbai.

The First Step into the Professional World

Sandeep Aggarwal Founder Shopclues
Image Source: techcircle.in

Aggarwal first stepped into the professional world when he landed an internship in Kotak Mahindra, in 1995. The internship was in Mumbai, and it was his first chance to interact with intelligent minds around him and learn from them. He was perfectly groomed in this duration of his internship on how to deal with people and work at a professional level. He realized that most of us might have proper skills and knowledge, but only a few knew how to expose it professionally. Aggarwal, in one of its interviews, said that this internship also helped him strengthen his analytical skills and strategic thinking, apart from business communication and personality development.

Life before Shopclues happened

After completing his master’s degree, Aggarwal worked in the field of investment banking. While working in it, something changed his mind, and he decided to move to the US. He joined the Washington University, St. Louis, USA to pursue an MBA degree, and after receiving the degree, he worked for two different companies. After leaving these jobs, he joined Wallstreet and served eight years as an internet analyst, where he was given research covers on companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo! etc. Aggarwal is also a chartered member of TiE Silicon Valley.

While Aggarwal was still working as an internet analyst, in 2010, he visited India quite a few times to launch research coverage for MakeMyTrip. It was the time when the idea of launching an online marketplace clicked in his mind. He started planning about his business with a website called DealsClues.com, but finally, he settled with Shopclues.com, in 2010 and established this marketplace in Silicon Valley.

Founding of Shopclues.com

With Radhika Ghai Aggarwal (Sandeep Aggarwal’s wife), Mrinal Chatterjee and Sanjay Sethi, he started his new business in Delaware. By September 2011, the team moved to India and permanently settled in Gurgaon. At the very beginning of Shopclues, Aggarwal raised $1.95 million from his social circle.

In 26th January 2012, the public beta version of Shopclues was released, and by next month, the team size expanded to 25 from only 3-4 members. The Alexa ranking dropped from 14,000 at the beginning of the year to 200 only in August of the same year. The company started making a jaw-dropping profit with more than 2 million monthly visitors.

In January 2013, Shopclues has ranked as the fifth largest e-commerce companies in India, and the Alexa ranking dropped to 90. The business was progressing swiftly, until, July 2013, when he found legal charges filed against him for the time he worked as an internet analyst in Wallstreet. Aggarwal said that it was a time of sheer crisis in his life, and it almost took a year or so for him to get back on track. He didn’t have any choice other than avoiding the press and any other formal role in Shopclues. His family suffered, too. But today, Shopclues, his first company is worth $1.1 billion, and it is one of the largest online stores to serve in India.

Droom

Aggarwal founded Droom in April 2014, and it was the first-ever online platform for selling and buying automobiles (used and new) and services related to the same. Droom has a very strong founding team with more than 75 years of experience in technology. It was only after a year of its founding that Droom raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Lightbox.

Even today, it is India’s most trusted platform for automobiles.

The emotional outburst

In 2017, Aggarwal was in the spotlight for posting about a private matter in social media which was concerning his wife, Sanjay Sethi and Shopclues. An emotional outburst in social media is often not considered as a very clever judgment especially for business tycoons like Aggarwal. But, he said it was a very fragile moment for him and it was definitely a mistake to attract negative attention. Though he went through an emotional turmoil, the companies didn’t suffer any such loss but his personal life is still a very big question mark.