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basecamp

Basecamp, A Company that Created Mystique in the World of Web Applications

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Every business, rising from a small start-up to a flourishing company needs smart management tools to become more efficient and work in a proper hassle-free manner. The main problem that arises when you don’t have appropriate tools for managing a project is the communication gap between the company and the clients. And, this is the biggest threat to any existing business which can lead to extreme loss and even dissolution.

But, how about a web application where everything from creating your schedules to managing multiple chat heads of clients can be carried out? Basecamp, a private company, is one such platform that provides web applications where every necessary tool is combined together in a single software to make your work much easier and better.

Though Basecamp released its first web application publicly in 2004, the history of the company dates back to 1999, when a company named 37signals was formed with just four team members.

basecamp
Image Source: basecamp.com

37signals

In 1999, Jason Fried, Carlos Segura and Ernest Kim founded 37signals in Chicago, Illinois, as a web designing firm. The main motive of the company was to help other business companies improve their websites and make it less complex.

Initially, the company was doing quite well, but as the number of clients started increasing, the founders found themselves in a much-disorganized situation and started losing the demand for its service. As the trend of business communication follows, 37signals also marketed and managed projects through emails. And, this is what needed a very significant change to bring them out of the dealing topsy-turvy. 37signals realized that the method of getting updates via emails isn’t efficient enough, and it hinders proper communication. So, they planned to create a project management tool, which will have features like tracking progress, alerting deadlines, bookmarking important messages, managing emails, receiving notifications and much more. Basically, they started working on building up a web application with an arsenal of perks for every businessman around the globe.

After building the application, they started implementing the features, while interacting with their clients. This way, they received feedbacks of the tool internally, which was exceptionally positive. Realizing the demand for it, the company finally released Basecamp publicly in 4th February 2004. This was the first step towards something way bigger and over the years updated version of Basecamp like Basecamp Next and Basecamp 3 were also released.

The Growth

After the release of the application, they offered everyone one free project, in order to give clients the experience of management. And in case they still wanted to continue, they were asked to sign up for any one of the three paid packages.

Their first target was to make $5000 a month, which means $60,000 annual revenue. But they achieved it within six weeks only. This triggered their determination, and they realised that they are on the right path. Since the business was increasing rapidly after the launch of Basecamp, 37signals wanted to shift their field of interest from web designing to building web applications. So, they stopped taking any more clients for web designing and fully focused on modifying Basecamp. Today, Basecamp is used by the majority of firms and is the best project management tool across the world.

The tool became so popular that everyone starting from the business firms, software developers, educational institutions, and even, the non-profit organizations used this application to make their projects better. In 2014, the company was to Basecamp, after the software package (flagship product) Basecamp.

In 2004, David Heinemeier Hansson, partner at Basecamp, created Ruby on Rails, a free web application framework which was later released as open source.

In 2015, Basecamp 3 was released which the founders claim to be the best ever version of Basecamp with maximum modification and features.

When Basecamp was released in 2004, only 45 clients signed up for it. But the numbers started increasing so gigantically that by the next ten years 1,544,456 clients signed up, and, the number has almost doubled by now.

The Success

Basecamp and Ruby on Rails are two of the most successful products of 37signals (now Basecamp). Most popular sites like Twitter and GitHub use the Ruby on Rails framework.

Today, Basecamp has around 54 employees dealing with a diverse population working for the same goal that is creating better projects. Several books have also been published by this team like Zero to One and Rework.

UrbanClap

UrbanClap : One of the Most Successful Hyperlocal Startup in India

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The past decade has been the decade of startups, and India has been one of the booming industry for them. From Flipkart, Paytm, Yatra, Oyo, Faasos to Unaccademy, all are some of the names that are the most successful startups in India. Their unusual idea helped them emerge as the biggest companies in India. UrbanClap is a similar startup that is originated in India and was one of the newest ideas in the field of startups.

Early Life & Career

Like every other freshly graduated person, the bug of entrepreneurship had also bitten the co-founders of UrbanClap Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra. Bhal and Khaitan were college friends, who always thought of starting up their own business. After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, the two started working for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) at their U.S. office.

During their time at BCG, Bhal and Khaitan often talked about starting their own business, but none of them had a clue that what they would be doing. Instead, they used to casually ignore the thought. But one fine day, they decided that if they want to do something, they have to start it very next second. They just can’t only daydream about it.

UrbanClap Founders
Image Source: livemint.com

The two had no idea what would be their startup based on, but after working for two years in BCG, they had figured out they want to start an ‘enduring business’. Both were ready to take the plunge. So in 2013, 0they left the job and came back to India to start their business.

Bollywood and movies being the biggest interest in India, Bhal and Khaitan launched their first startup named Cinemabox. The company made entertainment devices for public transport like buses, trains and planes. They invested about INR 10 Lakh in the startup on their own.

On the other hand, Chandra received an engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. After completing his college, he worked for some major companies like Infosys, Yelp, and Twitter. Chandra had a similar dream as of Bhal and Khaitan, so he also came back to India, in 2013. Here he started an online-autorickshaw booking platform Buggy.in.

But both the startups could not do well and were shut within seven to eight months of their inception. Despite the failure, the three budding entrepreneurs were not in the mood to quit and were still looking forward to establishing a successful startup.

Most of the times, the better startup ideas are the result of the necessities one faces in real life. This way, the foundation of the startup is always strong, and the results are the most fruitful. After failing once in the business, they were looking for that necessity-driven idea.

Meanwhile, during the wedding of Khaitan’s sister, Khaitan faced a lot of problems in hiring people and local vendors for various tasks. This hit the pinpoint, Khaitan and Bhal were certain that creating a platform, where people could find service providers at a reasonable cost will be their next startup idea.

Founding UrbanClap

The two now needed a tech guy, and eventually, got to meet Chandra through their common friends. The three of them discussed the idea, and after, contributing INR 10 lakh each, they started UrbanClap in October 2014.

They met with professionals from the different fields and shared their idea with them, such that to make them register to UrbanClap. Upon meeting those professionals, the three co-founders got to know that these service providers also faced various problems with their customers and payments.

The Success

The company was an instant hit, As you could hire people from various fields, like a Yoga teacher to a plumber, through the UrbanClap app. In two years, the company expanded to six major cities of India, including Kolkata, Jaipur, Chandigarh. UrbanClaps received its first investment of $10 million from SAIF Partners, and by 2015, it had raised $37 million, SAIF Partners, Accel, and Bessemer Venture Partners, being the major investors. In December 2015, Ratan Tata from Tata group also made an undisclosed investment in the company.

The UrbanClap app lets the customers book a particular service through the app, the professional go to their home and complete the task. The customers make the payments for the service through the app. The company deducts 20 per cent of the payment and rest go to the service provider. This way, many of the registered service providers even make a lakh a month.

In 2018, the company expanded to Dubai, UAE and also closed a $50 million Series D round for expansion. By this time, the company revenue started growing three times a year.

The three co-founders seem to have no plans of going public in the near future. They want to make the company, and its services, future-ready and with their hard work as well as their strategies, it looks quite promising as well.

faasos

Faasos : The Biggest Cloud Kitchen Restaurant Company in India

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Most of the times, the low phases of a person’s life help him/her discover the right path for their future. But what if you are already on the right path, but this very path does not interest you anymore? Same happened with two friends, Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, from Kolkata, India, who though were working with one of the finest companies, but still, something they always felt was missing. So what one should do in such a situation? Discover the right thing to do, and that is what they did, they founded Faasos.

Faasos is an online restaurant service, biggest in the world, that provides its customers with on-demand food delivery services. Seems similar? But it is not, the business model of Faasos is way different from Grubhub, Uber Eats and Zomato.

The Founders

Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, both belong to Kolkata and have been friends for over two decades. The two, after completing an MBA course, started working for different firms. Meanwhile, one evening sitting at their Pune apartment, the two decided to launch a restaurant as a part-time business. But the uniqueness of the restaurant has to be Indian cuisine and no foreign brand food. So in 2004, the two started Faasos, a restaurant with the touch of Kolkata’s taste in Pune.

Faasos Founders
Image Source: inc42.com

The restaurant was running side by side, and the two started another management course at INSEAD. After they completed the course, Barman joined the consulting team at Mckinsey London, and Banerjee moved to Singapore to work for Bosch.

Alongside their job, they anyhow managed to open five more Faasos restaurants in Pune. While working with the two leading MNCs, they had to live separate from their family. Wives of both friends worked in different countries. It was quite hectic for the two to manage their job and family, all together. So one fine day, they decided to leave their jobs and come back to India to expand their restaurant business.

Making Passion the Career

After realising their passion after seven years, they had to come up with an idea that would help support their decision financially. So they thought of an on-demand food delivery model for their business. So they took the responsibility of all the three processes that are the part of an online-food-delivery service, i.e. taking the orders, food preparation and delivering quality food.

The idea was different, and they pitched it in front of Sequoia capital and raised $5 million in November 2011. The main idea that attracted the Sequoias was keeping the fixed prices low.

The Challenge

Soon, the chain had 16 restaurants in Pune and Mumbai. The customers could order from the telephone as well as the Faasos website. But it became quite challenging for them to run their business in Mumbai, as the rents were high in Mumbai, and they did not have any references for suppliers there. The biggest mistake they did was to hire veterans to run their restaurant and the warehouse.

The two concluded that they should hire freshers, who want to succeed in life. So they introduced the FER (Faasos Entrepreneurs-in-Residence) programme. The unique thing they did was posted the job in a blogpost and had asked the aspirants not to send CVs, as everyone glorifies themselves in a CV.

The post went viral, and they received over 1,000 applications. After fifty telephonic and ten personal interviews, they had hired a good team of eight. The team took all the responsibility from running operations to managing the supply chain, etc.

Rise of the Company

The company launched its mobile app in March 2014. The app launch increased the number of orders, and 80 per cent of the orders were coming from the app only. The app was easy to use, and thus, the owners decided to turn their service into app-only service. The app processes over 30,000 orders every month.

In February, the company raised another $20 million in the second round of funding, and in the next funding round, the company raise $30 million, in December 2015.

Faasos as of 2017, was operating in 150 locations in 20 major cities of India, including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Surat, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Indore, etc.

In July 2019, the company received $125 million investment from Go-Jek, Coatue Management, and Goldman Sachs, and now, operates 235 kitchens across 20 Indian cities.

digitalocean

Digitalocean : The Success Story of One of the Largest Hosting Web Providers in the World

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Being one of the top companies in the world should be the result of decades of experience and hard work. But would you believe if you are told that a startup is holding the position of world’s third-largest web hosting company? Quite surprising, right? But it is not surprising for the founders of Digitalocean, the very company holding the mentioned title, Ben Uretsky and Moisey Uretsky, as it is their unique ideas and approaches they used to build their company so big.

Digitalocean is a New York-based company that the two brothers, Ben Uretsky and Moisey Uretsky, founded in 2011.

Early Life and Career

Ben and Moisey moved to the U.S. from Russia, when Ben was only 5, with their family. They started living at Brighton Beach and completed their high school education from Stuyvesant High School.

Digitalocean Founders
Image Source: soundcloud.com

Ben is a Pace University pass out and holds a bachelor’s degree in information technology. He had the experience of 20 years in systems and network engineering in the infrastructure space at the time he started Digitalocean with his brother. He even started another company named, ServerStack, a managed hosting business, before he launched Digitalocean. He drove the inspiration to start the ServerStack from his previous company that got bankrupt due to its bad planning of product development.

Being the CTO of the company, he had gained enough knowledge and experience so that he could start a similar company and established ServerStack.

Moisey on the other hand, despite having an interest in computers went on to get a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from NYU. He also experimented with various startups and gained some expertise in the business incubation and venture investing activities, etc. His first startup was a big data company named CorreGroup.

Both, Ben and Moisey, ran ServerStack successfully for eight long years, and the annual revenue they generated always fluctuated between 3 to 7 million. But, with the rising competition, there was nothing new or unique that they were offering to their customers. So other similar companies, Rackspace being their biggest rival, were also getting their hold on the market.

During the same time, cloud computing started becoming a thing, and Amazon launched AWS. The rise of cloud and the success of AWS made the two brothers think for a new business, and they looked for an opportunity in the cloud.

Founding Digitalocean

As everyone, including Google and Microsoft, was running after the cloud, the two brothers thought of bringing something better and unique. They thought of building a cloud infrastructure that would help developers deploy and scale applications. So they founded Digitalocean in 2011.

To bring their plans into action, they hired Jeff Carr, who is also the co-founder of Digitalocean, for the engineering work. Carr built the entire backend for their company product singlehandedly himself. Later in 2012, Mitch Wainer and Alec Hartman also joined the founding team. Since the Uretsky brothers ran their previous business all by themselves, they did not know any of the venture capitalists. But for their new startup, they wanted a bigger scale and more investments. So in the same year, the co-founders participated in TechStars, the startup accelerator to raise seed funding for the company.

The Success

By August 2012, the company earned 400 customers and launched around 10,000 cloud server instances through the accelerator program. The next year, the company was offering SSD-based virtual machines and became one of the first cloud-hosting companies to do so. The company also established its first European data centre in Amsterdam, leading to becoming one of the fastest-growing companies. The company raised a US$3.2 million in July 2013, in its seed funding led by IA Ventures. In the series A funding, the company raised US$37.2 million in the next year.

In 2015, Digitalocean became the second largest hosting provider in the world, and it raised US$123.21 million in a round of funding. And by 2017, the company had opened twelve data centres in different parts of the world, including Singapore, Canada, London and India.

Digitalocean also hosts a forum for the developer-to-developer forums and tutorials on open source and sysadmin topics. Today, DigitalOcean has got 500 people working for it and records over $200 million in revenue annually.

Ordermark

Ordermark : A Service that Streamlines the Online Orders for the Restaurants

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It has become so easy for us to get things delivered to our doorsteps with just a few clicks, especially food. Numerous food apps provide 30 minutes delivery service, and for us, it is quite easy to use those apps. But for the restaurants, despite the high revenues generated through these apps, it is quite a complex process to keep track of every single app and serve the customers efficiently. Since people are making more online orders, to keep up, the restaurants need to register in all the apps. But some times, it becomes very confusing for them to operate so many apps and carry out the other processes. To deal with this problem, Alan Canter came with Ordermark, a single platform that can connect different apps at one place and streamline the whole food delivery process.

Alex Canter: Early Life and Career

Alex Canter is a native of Los Angeles and a graduate in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the 4th generation owner of the famous nine decades-old restaurant, Canter’s Deli, based in Los Angeles.

As soon as Canter grew thirteen, he started waiting tables at his family restaurant. And after he graduated, he started working full-time at the restaurant. At the restaurant, he handled the post of operation manager and started experimenting on new ideas to grow their business and improve the services. He came up with the point of sale system and also revamped the restaurant website. With time, the online order services also started expanding, and he also registered his restaurant with multiple online food delivery platforms, like Eat24, DoorDash and Grubhub.

Alex Canter Ordermark
Image Source: prweb.com

Initially, he experimented with the various food items that their restaurant could serve fresh, sandwiches being the first item on the menu. In fact, he himself went to deliver over 20 orders a day, through some other delivery services. As time passed by, a larger menu was already built for the deliveries. The online deliveries were getting them 30 per cent more revenue, but soon it becomes quite hectic to handle the online as well as offline customers.

Most of the times, the staff was confused, and the various devices that were logged in to different delivery apps caused chaos among them. There were multiple smartphones, laptops, and tablets, all specially used for operating the various food delivery apps. This way, sometimes the online customer was getting late deliveries or wrong food items, or the live customers were turning back without having their food.

These reasons were enough for Canter to think of a better option, as he could not shut down his four generations old live business nor he could bear the loss that shutting down the online deliveries could cause. He even went to meet the other restaurant owners and discussed the matter with them. It did not surprise him to hear that these restaurant owners were also finding it difficult to manage all the orders online as well as offline.

Founding Ordermark

Canter hired a professional team, and after analysing the problem, got to the conclusion that the restaurants wanted a system that could streamline all the orders at one place and print a similar-looking order summary through a single platform. So the aim was to centralise the online orders from different apps to a single app.

Finally, Canter launched Ordermark in January 2017, with six other co-founders, including Mike Jacob founder of TapInto and Paul Allen. The platform included all the locally running delivery services into one and chose Epson to develop a single printer to print every transaction in a similar format. Finally, Canter launched Ordermark in January 2017, with six other co-founders, including Mike Jacob founder of TapInto and Paul Allen. The platform included all the locally running delivery services into one and chose Epson to develop a single printer to print every transaction in a similar format.

With the Ordermark subscription, every restaurant receives a tablet and a printer. The service provided the users with a single dashboard, from where they could streamline the process of taking and processing the orders, such that there is no confusion and the customer service is improved.

Canter and his team helped restaurants with curating their menu and taught them how to use the platform. Also, the Ordermark created a pick-up zone for the delivery drivers.

Ordermark raised a $3.1 million series round led by TenOneTen Ventures, Act One Ventures, and Mucker Capital and a $9.5 million Series A round led by Nosara Capital in 2018. The company raised to 35 employees and 500 signed up restaurants in the same year serving in twenty states in the U.S.

Ordermark Today

Today the company has got four offices in different parts of the U.S. It has gained over 3000 signups from various restaurants, including TGI Friday’s, Qdoba, Veggie Grill, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, Yogurtland, Johnny Rockets, and Sonic. In July 2019, the company raised an $18 million in a new round of funding. The company intends to target the already running 1 million restaurants, and the ones that will be opened in the coming future.

Alex Canter’s unique idea brought him success in his 20s, which is a great achievement for a person just graduated and a dream for many. For his early achievement, he got his name listed in Forbes 30 Under 30.

Mazda logo

Mazda Motor Corporation : Success Story that Seems Unreal

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Zoom Zoom! This magical sound will invoke a sense of enthusiasm and passion for driving in the minds of all automobile junkies. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Mazda Motor Corporation is one of the biggest Japanese automobile brands which have managed to capture the interest of the market for vehicles all over the world.

The Unusual Beginning

Initially located in Hiroshima, and named as Tokyo Cork Kogyo Company Ltd, Mazda was founded by Jurigo Matsuda in the year 1920. It’s funny how one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturing firm started out as a mere cork manufacturing factory! This is a classic example of how all giants have a humble beginning. Diversification was the concept that triggered their success. The firm slowly started expanding its production from making corks to include machined products. Soon enough, the firm rebranded itself as Tokyo Kogyo, dropping the term ‘Cork’ from it. Later, the company started manufacturing machine tools also.

Cork to Cars

Jujiro Matsuda Mazda Motor Corporation
Image Source: evomalaysia.com

The year 1931 was quite a bit unusual for Tokyo Kogyo. They did something that nobody had ever attempted to do. They introduced a three-wheel truck into the market. The concept was so bizarre yet so catchy. This was crazy enough for the firm to attract the attention of their target customers. The idea took off in 1945 when there was a high demand for military supply production.

It was only in the year 1960, that the company manufactured its very first passenger car, modelled Mazda R360 coupe. This was a major turning point for the company, and soon, it entered into an agreement with Felix Wankel to manufacture the German company’s famous rotary engine. This rotary engine has a lot of significance, as it has given a certain set of characteristics to the vehicles to increase its efficiency.

The Real Revolution

The release of the Mazda Cosmo Sports 110S model, in 1967, brought the real revolution, as the car featured the German rotary engine. Ever since then, the firm started expanding its market across the European continent. Soon enough, after the year 1970, Mazda started expanding their production and reached to the US as well. Later on, the Ford Motor Company purchased a 25% stake in Tokyo Kogyo, leading the two firms to work together.

It was in the year 1984 that the firm officially changes its name from Tokyo Kogyo to Mazda Motor Corporation. Mazda then developed a US production facility, which was located in the suburban areas of Detroit. All these major changes took place in a very short span of time, and the company saw exponential growth in their market value and revenue. The name Mazda slowly began to make a mark in the automobile industry, and it is safe to say that the company has come a long way from manufacturing quirky three-wheeled trucks to becoming the super players in the market.

A major event in the timeline of Mazda Motor Corporation took place, when the firm sold its 50% share of the Detroit plant to Ford Motor Corporation, and thus, created a joint venture named AutoAlliance International Inc.

The Downfall and Rise

After a long success streak, in 1994, Mazda faced its first downfall. The company fell into loss, and this, maintained to be for another 5 years. Following which, Ford took over the major shares of operations in Mazda and named Henry J Wallace as the President. It was for the very first time in history that a non-Japanese had headed a Japanese firm. After a few years, in 1999, Mazda regained its lost glory as the firm attained its profit status after a long six years.

Mazda Motor Corporation Today

Mazda now positions itself as the high-end Japanese Automobile technology giant, which started out as a cork manufacturing factory somewhere in Hiroshima. The firm still has its headquarters in Hiroshima and is headed by Akira Marumoto, who is the Representative Director of the firm. The automobile giant now focuses more on the manufacture and sales of passenger cars and commercial vehicles, with a net worth of 284 billion dollars. With their vision to make driving more fun and carefree, they have developed several successful models that have been accepted wholeheartedly by the customers all over the globe. The network of Mazda has spread over countries like the US, Germany and China. The success story of Mazda Motor Corporation is truly an inspiration for all the beginners, who envision making it big in the business world.