With digital platforms transforming the way learning happens, experts from Udacity, Vedantu, Springboard, and DADB discuss what the future holds for edtech.

“These days students prefer online learning as they can’t wait to gain knowledge through multiple channels. That’s where education is changing; edtech is redefining that,” said Mohan Lakhamraju, the Founder and CEO of Great Learning. He was speaking at a panel discussion on the Future of Edtech at the 9th edition of TechSparks, YourStory’s flagship event and India’s top startup conference.

He was joined by Dr Carsten Schröder, Co-Founder and CEO, DADB; Parul Gupta, Co-founder, Springboard; Ishan Gupta, MD India, Udacity; and Pulkit Jain, Co-founder and Product Head, Vedantu  at the discussion where they shared their share their learnings.

This is a time when digital platforms are transforming the way learning is visualised and presented, be it distance education or cultural preservation.

Adding more perspective to this was Pulkit Jain, Co-founder of Vedantu and an IIT Roorkee alumnus, “I am the only K-12 (Class 6 to 12) teaching platform here. We are trying to solve two problems: access to quality teachers and education at affordable costs. We are addressing this to make the entire online system more effective.”

The technology perspective

Adding more colour to the conversation from a technology perspective in different geographies, Ishan Gupta from Udacity, said: “A lot of behavioural issues have been witnessed despite the course in India and in the US being the same. Udacity has always kept students first, and makes sure that they spend their time along with the money. Time is extremely important; the programme might take 8-10 hours or even span three to six months of commitment.”

Is India the big market for most of these edtech biggies, asked Dipti Nair, Editor at YourStory.

Dr. Carsten Schröder, Co-Founder and CEO, DADB, replied: “India is facing an industrial problem that even other nations are facing; classes aren’t able to keep up with the trends. We provide niche resources.” Giving the example of one of his German professors, he says the professor was extremely popular but could not find the time to teach at many universities. “The same day, I completed my work on an augmented reality studio. The professor said let’s broadcast my classes to all those universities that need me,” he said.

Springboard, which has over 10,000 students across hundred countries in the world, has seen a rise in the number of students looking for employment opportunities after college and those considering online courses.

Parul said: “The answer to why most students or professionals are opting for online courses is because they want to escalate their knowledge or seeking a job.”

“The second thing I would say is that the faulty educational system could be bridged with technology through personal assistance. Through technology, one can understand a person better as everyone has their own issues in understanding. This will lead to more effective learning,” she added.

Speaking about the right ingredient mix of quality education, Mohan added: “Experience is not the only thing. You have trust, assessment, and feedback in a college-based programme. Great Learning provides you in this in an online format at your comfort.”

 YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

Every year since YourStory’s flagship event TechSparks was launched, we have proudly presented a carefully chosen list of Tech30 startups - 30 young and promising startups that we believe have high potential.

At the ninth edition of TechSparks conference, YourStory unveiled the much-awaited list of the top 30 technology startups that promise to shape the narrative of the global startup ecosystem with their innovative ideas in various industries across healthcare, technology, finance, consumer internet, social, marketing, and real estate.

This year’s Tech30 companies are the cream of the crop. Literally! They are the 30 startups that were selected from around 3,000 applications. The verdict – from a jury comprising veterans from the startup ecosystem, and YourStory’s own team of senior editorial and research staff – was based on a range of factors, including the potential impact of the technology, the team, adoption and traction, scalability, addressable market, and revenue model.

“This is our ninth edition and we’re really proud of the legacy we have built in terms of the TECH30. The talent we see in India continues to amaze and inspire us. I ask you to read all the profiles in detail and get to know these passionate entrepreneurs because some of them will go on and define the narrative in the coming years,” says YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma.

The theme of this year’s TechSparks summit was ‘Winning in the world’s fastest growing economy.’ In line with this theme, our Tech30 list for 2018 reflects our search for entrepreneurs that can create scalable, profitable, and real-world solutions for the next generation of Indian consumers.

It’s no wonder then that our latest crop of Tech30 startups focus on new and emerging technologies ranging from robotics to artificial intelligence, self-driving, clean tech, augmented reality, virtual reality, big data, and analytics. To know more about out Tech30, keep reading YourStory.

Proud to present the Tech30 for 2018:

1. Aryabhatta Robotics Private Limited

2. Bon Happetee

3. Cradlewise

4. CricHeroes

5. Dose FM

6. FirstHive

7. Fitso

8. Fyle

9. Gmetri

10. Hizen Intelligence Systems (FITBOTS)

11. Innov4Sight

12. iThink Logistic Quick Services LLP

13. Jumper.ai

14. Matrubharti

15. MedCords

16. Mobycy

17. PregBuddy

18. Recruiterflow

19. Scapic

20. Slang Labs

21. Streak

22. Swaayatt Robots

23. Swajal

24. Trashcon Labs Private Limited

25. Uncanny Vision

26. Unifie

27. Unilodgers

28. Vyuti Systems

29. Waani.io

30. Worxogo

Stay tuned also for a full and detailed coverage of each of the Tech30 startup companies over the next fortnight.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

The Central government has rolled out numerous growth initiatives for the micro, small and medium enterprises through new policies and support systems.

India is all about small enterprises that reside in its many cities, small towns and villages. And the government wants to help such entrepreneurs continue with their startup journey by providing a platform with a special support structure.

On the first day of YourStory's flagship tech conference Techsparks 2018, Ram Mohan Mishra, Additional Secretary to the Government of India and Development Commissioner for the Ministry of MSME, reiterated the government's plan to co-invest in micro, small and medium enterprises.

Mishra remarked that centuries ago India was known across the world for its art-based enterprises through the export of its products, but the segment declined with the entry of mechanisation. “Art-based industry is still alive in India and we would like to revive them,” he says.

As part of its plan to give a boost to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the government has come out with various schemes. Among them is Udyam Sathi and Udyam Sakhi, with the latter being devoted to women entrepreneurs.

“Entrepreneurs need motivation so that their dream does not die. We will hand hold a lot of companies,” Mishra added.

Among the various initiatives taken by the government to boost MSMEs is the creation of India Enterprise Portal, which functions as a knowledge portal to provide information on FAQs and best practices.

Mishra also said that the government plans to provide a helpline for the owners of the small enterprises to discuss their various challenges with successful entrepreneurs.

The government is looking at ways to engage with CSR labs as well, so that some of the MSMEs' technological innovations could be commercialised.

Mishra pointed out the government's plan to set up enterprise centres to create greater awareness on the potential MSMEs hold. These centres are in the pilot stage in a few locations but plans are in place to scale them across the country.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

In February this year, Samsung Next, the Silicon Valley-based investment arm of Samsung, announced it was entering the Indian market with an investment in Healthify Me, an app that uses both artificial intelligence and human coaching to help its users lose weight.

And this is only just the beginning. Outlining the global investment firm’s plans in India and other markets was Brendon Kim, VP, MD, Global Head of Ventures, Samsung NEXT, one of the key speakers at Techsparks 2018, who also addressed Emerging Technologies.

“As Samsung Electronics’ software and services innovation arm, Samsung Next is looking to work with startups, because that is where the innovation is happening. We have a number of teams that are partnering with startups to help them build, grow and scale their companies,” said Kim.

“Samsung Next has an internal development team that is building innovative products and services for consumption within Samsung. If you are an early-stage startup and you are looking for capital, we make early-stage investments around the world to help businesses accelerate, partner with Samsung. If you're ready to scale globally with Samsung, we also have an M&A team, and that team has been responsible for most of our large software acquisitions over the past 7 years. We also have a partnership team, if you interested in building an ecosystem within the Samsung Ecosystem,” he added.

Speaking about his firm’s interest in India, he said, “We chase innovation wherever it is happening around the world, and India is certainly a big centre for innovation. We have offices in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Tel Aviv, Europe, and Korea, and now in India. We want to make sure that we are taking advantage of the innovations that are happening here and we want to grow our presence.”

A growing influence

With over 370 million devices sold per year, Samsung Electronics is one of the largest companies in the world, with a massive hardware ad IoT footprint, which it is looking to expand to enhance user experience.

“But, we know that the future is also in software services. And for us to continue, it means we need to bring that software and services innovation that all of you are working on and integrate that with our partner. And that's why we're making such a big push in software,” said Kim.

He said that from an investor’s perspective, Samsung Next believed that the world is becoming increasingly decentralised whether that's in terms of computing architecture or terms of business models. “In computing architecture, we see a pendulum going from a centralised architecture to a decentralised one. The question is what might happen in the future. We have seen a move from an era where corporations held all of the value to a world where platforms held value to where value is in the network. There has been an explosion of IoT and Data,” said Kim.

He said 30 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. “These devices cannot all possibly connect to the internet. We need Edge Computing. Data Security also becomes an issue. We are looking at the future through that decentralised lens and applying it to the investment focus areas that we have. One example of that is AI. A lot of AI is done on the cloud and we're interested in continued innovation in the cloud. We're also interested in how you take good AI to the edge where you have to use less compute power and less data.”

“We believe that is where the world is evolving to. How do you make good decisions at the edge? Our brains work on 20 watts and process much less data and yet we make pretty good decisions most of the time. There is so much more data on the cloud. But how can we take less data and less processing power and apply it?”

The India experience

Kim said there were a lot of things that they were hoping to learn from India. The top three among these were:

- Understanding the next billion internet users: Samsung Next was learning how different the next billion users in India were going to be from users in other markets, how they would use technology, and how this opportunity could be monetised. He said that the lessons learned here in India would be applied around the world

- The opportunity to leapfrog technology: The desire to rethink the way things are done is happening across the world. India is not going to see desktops, landlines or checking accounts. Samsung Next is learning from rapidly developing economies and seeing how they can apply these learnings across the world.

- Full funding experience. India has seen a cycle of success and failure and there is a whole generation of successful entrepreneurs who can now give back. The Indian startup ecosystem is getting better very quickly.

Future focus

“We have over 55 companies in our active portfolio. This has happened over the past seven years or so. Samsung Next is planning 20 investment globally this year and we hope to maintain the same pace over the next few years,” said Kim.

Addressing the kind of support Samsung Next offered startups, he said, “We are very hands on. Whether you looking for help with design, access to technology, go to market, and many other things, we can provide all that.”

“Finally, being good partners in the Indian ecosystem, we want to make sure we do one thing really well. We want to be good partners, add value. We will do this through collaboration. As strategic investors, we want to add value to the startups we invest in. One of the things we bring is access to the Samsung platform. We become your advocates in the Samsung ecosystem. We are a global company and can provide international access to wherever we have offices. We want to give you the right opportunities to meet the right people at the right time.”

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

“Be obsessed with your customer. Really try to understand the problem you're trying to solve. Be obsessed with the problem, and not the solution. Solutions might change while the problem is the fundamental thing you're trying to address. And as you're addressing the problem, do it in a manner to delight the customer.”

This is what has made Intuit tick for the last 35 years, said Sanket Atal, Vice-President and Managing Director of Intuit India. Sanket was talking on ‘Powering Prosperity, One Customer at a Time’ at TechSparks 2018.

He spoke about two fundamental concepts that are helping the leading accounting software company in its mission to power prosperity around the world: CDI (customer-driven innovation) and D for D (design for delight).

When the problem is not actually the problem

He went on to explain how customer-driven innovation works through a well-known example. When astronauts wanted a pen with which they could write in space, people spent time and money trying to design a pen that could be used upside down. The solution, however, was simpler - they could have just used a pencil.

“These people were solving the wrong problem. So, first understand the problem deeply. Sometimes what the customer says is the problem is not the actual problem. You have to truly understand the situation, go behind it and figure out the crux of the entire situation. Also, equally important is to understand yourself as a company and whether the solution to the problem you're trying to solve lies within your core competence. Next, you’ll need to evaluate whether the solution will give you a competitive advantage. The intersection of these three areas can guarantee success,” said Sanket.

An open mind can open doors

Apart from being customer-obsessed, Sanket also spoke about the need to empathise with the customer and understand their situation by looking at all aspects of how they run the business. Then he advocates coming up with solutions that “break out of the box”.

“Don't put any guardrail on your thought processes. You have to think big, think crazy -- that's when great things happen. Keep an open mind and you can come up with great solutions with which you are able to actually help the customer.”

The next step, according to him, is to whittle down the probable solutions. “Once you have narrowed down the solution space, do your best to solve the problem like nobody else can. Implement a solution, work with the customer, experiment on it and refine it. Do it over and over again until it's the best.”

It’s this relentless combination of CDI and D for D that is the special sauce that Intuit has, and the secret behind the company’s resilience, said Sanket.

Powering prosperity by nurturing startups

On the occasion, he announced that Intuit was about to launch a programme to work with startups. “Most startups, almost 90 percent, fail within three years of founding. Everybody starts off with a great idea but the fundamentals are what determine the success of a company and not just the product.” A majority of these failures are related to how these startups manage their finances.

Intuit’s goal is to help startups with the best and easy to use solution that will help them take care of their finances in a structured manner while at the same time being able to focus on their core competency. “This way, the chances of success go up exponentially, and if you don't do that you're heading for disaster.”

Sanket said the details of the programme would be available in a few days and added that it was absolutely in tune with their goal to power global prosperity.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

Should a designer think with her heart or her head? Mayukhini Pande, Co-Founder and Head of Research, Greenopia, spoke on ‘The Designer as a CEO’ at YourStory’s flagship event TechSparks.

Mayukhini started Greenopia, a company that uses design and technology to bring back plant-care into urban lives, with Mani HK in 2015. As a designer and co-founder, much of Mayukhini’s time is spent in understanding what people don’t know about gardening.

Mayukhini confesses that she herself was not born with a green thumb, but was passionate about gardening. "I wanted to know which plants to choose for your home: a self-watering planter bursting with flowers, a crop of tomatoes in your garden, or a bamboo shoot pinned down by a magnet on your refrigerator?"

She says:

“I kept asking experienced gardeners why my plants were dying all the time. On checking various social media posts, I realised there were many other people like me and that was when I decided that it was time to examine how to reduce the ambiguity in gardening.”

Since Mayukhini did not know the exact answer to this question, she decided that it might be best to put the question to her customers. She sent out a number of questionnaires to her clients and people responded saying edible plants are the best as they were healthy, followed by air-purifying plants because they help prevent pollution.

However, later that year, when Greenopia displayed its products at a fair and its flowering plants’ collection sold out in the first 40 minutes, whereas only one edible plant was sold and the air-purifying plants did not find any takers at all. What happened? Where did the research go wrong? On thinking the dilemma over, Mayukhini realised that when people saw flowers, it appealed to them instantly, compelling them to choose with their ‘heart’ and not with their mind.

“When you break things into parts, like in the case of a questionnaire, people think they are rational and they like to say they want to invest in things that are sensible,” she says. “But when they see a pretty flower in a vase, displayed in its entirety, they are instantly drawn by its beauty. I like to say -- ‘Part speaks to the mind, but whole speaks to the soul’.”

Thinking with your hands

Mayukhini recalls an incident that occurred nine years ago when she received an interview call from the National Institute of Design (NID). “I went to one of my seniors to ask for help with some of the questions that might be asked at the interview. He asked me an interesting question: what would I do if I was faced with a dirty classroom and I had 15 minutes before the class would start. I told him, I would find someone who was in charge of cleaning to clean it for me. He told me this answer was wrong because at a design school, the answer always is – ‘I will do it myself’.”

From that moment on, Mayukhini experienced a complete reversal of her world view. She says,

“I used to think smart people think things, and others do it. But at that defining moment, I started my journey of thinking with my hands.”

So, what does a day look like for a designer who is also a CEO? "Most of the time my co-founder and I are on the ground where our products are being made," she says.

“We have a rule – when we design a product, the first 100 products will be made by my co-founder or myself. It actually translates into efficiency at some point in time. Doing things with your hands not only helps you, but helps others as you have discovered a more efficient way of doing something. Your staff will watch you work and learn too. Eventually, the last man standing next to you will also be a designer.” Mayukhini adds that the process of generating ideas does not involve thinking about profits and losses.

“But once we are done, we put on our blue caps of business and narrow down the ideas and think about the costs and our bottomline,” she says.

A blue cap, Mayukhini explains, is the business cap, while the yellow cap is the design cap. “There is a right time to wear each of these hats and once you learn it, I like to call it being a ‘Master of Business Arts’. We all know the value of the blue cap because business has been around for ages, but I have learnt that wearing the yellow cap is also important and it can be fun too,” she says.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

A helpless farmer sitting on parched land is the image that comes to most of us when we talk about farmers and rural India. Now, think a rural healthcare unit and the image changes to a helpless mother with a child at an old and dilapidated primary healthcare unit.

To break these stereotypes, social entrepreneurs, tech startups and impact investors want to leverage technology to ensure simple and automatic solutions to daily problems. A panel discussion on ‘How can technology cater to the next billion’ at YourStory’s flagship event TechSparks 2018, saw the participation of Srikant Pati, Head of Digital Strategy, CropIn Technology; Prateep Basu, Global Head - Strategy & Partnerships, SatSure; Dr Gopi Nallaiyan, Founder Trustee, Little Moppet Heart Foundation; Ritu Verma, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Ankur Capital.

“Technology has already reached remote parts of India. People in rural areas may be unpadh (illiterate), but they are not anari (dumb). They are very smart and they know what they want. If they see value in technology, they will adopt it,” said Ritu Verma, Co-founder of Ankur Capital.

Over the past decade, India has witnessed disruption in the agriculture space through technology and innovation. Agri tech startups have leveraged technology to remove uncertainties of weather and climate change through IoT and satellite imaging. Even healthcare enterprises like Little Moppet Harts Foundation have brought surgical support and tech-enabled testing to remote villages.

Innovation has helped farmers not only understand the temperament of the soil, but also gauge the crop that is most suitable to grow in the land available.

Technology is enabling rural India

While India has fertile lands, the crop yield is very limited. Srikant Pati, Head Strategist, CropIn Technologies, says:

“This is because we are not using technology efficiently. Farmers know many things. But the problem is when they grow crops, they forget how the soil temperament changed with the previous harvest.”

To bridge this data gap, CropIn Technology developed a Smart Farm app. This helps to bring affordable state of the art technology in agriculture, remotely monitor farms, make every farmer adopt the best global agricultural practices and make every crop traceable so that harvested crops meet the global quality standards.

Technology and data analytics have also resulted in the financial stability of farmers. Over the past three years, Bengaluru-based SatSure has demonstrated a strong correlation between satellite-derived proprietary crop-related parameters and ground data, which can be exploited by the agri-insurance sector.

“While the farmer requires timely crop intelligence, crop insurance companies need highly accurate assessment of the risk involved. The satellite imaging analytics serve two purposes - First, it ensures the farmers receive a fair and immediate compensation for crop loss due to adverse climatic conditions. Second, it enables insurers to settle claims speedily due to the availability of data in near-real time without any manual intervention,” explains Prateep Basu, Co-founder of SatSure.

SatSure is building a 15-year archive of remotely sensed satellite images over the Indian subcontinent, using images from multiple satellites that have been operational since 2002.

Bringing last-mile connectivity

Dr Gopi Nalliyan, Co-founder of Little Moppet Heart Foundation and a pediatric heart surgeon, who provides financial and medical support to every child who suffers from congenital heart disease (CHD), believes the future of India lies in villages. He says, 

“All that is required is education and awareness. People are ready to adopt technology. And once they see value, they will spread information about your work through word-of-mouth.”

With more startups foraying into rural India, technology and innovation is becoming more accessible and affordable, reaching remote parts of India. However, Prateep believes that India, being a diverse country, continues to suffer from development in many parts of the country.

“Access to information depends on telecom and road infrastructure. While infrastructure is very critical, it is very poor in the eastern part of India such as Jharkhand and Odisha. The cost of living and the income is not the same as the western and southern parts,” Prateep says.

Technology for the common man 

Prateep says with the government’s thrust towards digitisation, things are changing. “With Jio, things have changed. There is an increased access to internet and the people in rural areas are using smartphones actively. Hence, now is the time we have to bring in all the technology convergence to create services to make it accessible, affordable, and bring it to the people who belong to the bottom of the pyramid,” he adds.

“Our country adopted BT cotton the fastest across the world. The farmers saw value and it grew like wildfire. So I think it is about understanding who is the customer and what do they want. But they lack this attitude, and I’m working to educate them on this,” Ritu concludes.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

 On Day 2 of TechSparks 2018, the excitement continued unabated. Intriguing panels that probed the disruptors of the startup ecosystem, talks that broke myths, and some new and old tricks of business. And of course, there are 30 new stars  - presenting YourStory's Tech30 2018!

If Day 1 had the likes of Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Kishore Biyani, Divyank Turakhia, Ashish Bhasin and Team BigBasket wowing the audience, Day 2 started with your daily dose of news - and what will drive the next 500 million Indian users  - and it’s not porn! Yes, we started bright and fresh as YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma and Dailyhunt founder Virendra Gupta and President Umang Bedi broke down how they were using AI, ML and deep learning to bring you your daily dose of content.

If content is the new favourite child, the one that's been around it commerce - and its new buzzword is ‘O2O’ or online-to-offline. Future Group’s Kishore Biyani underscored the importance of building a “digital layer on top of physical retail” on Friday, and today Rajiv Srivasta, Founder and CPTO of Urban Ladder, and Ramakant Sharma, Co-founder of Livspace, decoded the biggest conundrum faced by ecommerce today. And the verdict was - 'Online is great to start a business, but offline is better to build trust and value.'

“Around three years back, we decided that we were more a brand and not just a marketplace. A brand needs to be where the consumer is. And today, consumers for this category are 99 percent offline. They ask us where our store is even as we deliver their online orders,” said Rajiv.

A bright spark was Ajey Gore, CTO of Go-Jek, who said that though his company had started off as a ride-hailing startup, it now delivers 100 million monthly orders spread across 22 products or services.

Arvind Mediratta, Managing Director and CEO of METRO Cash and Carry India had many founders queueing up to partner and be associated with him, while Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO of PhonePe spoke about how he aced the unusual combination for success.

Goa’s Minister for Revenue, Information Technology, Labour and Employment, Rohan Khaunte told the audience exactly why they needed to head to the state - and no, it was not only to enjoy its pristine beaches and bebinca cake, but because it made business sense. Manish Ghosal, Senior Consultant, AP Innovation Society of Government said entrepreneurs need to start up in Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

Simple and unassuming, the c0-founder of India's fastest Unicorn and yet, the boy-next-door - that's Udaan’s Sujeet Kumar! In a fireside chat with Shradha, he shared his experiences and the company’s growth to be the fastest growing B2B commerce network in the country.

So TechSparks is not only about startup founders - a peek on the other side of the table would show the toughest part of an investor’s job is to say ‘no’ to entrepreneurs. Six investors representing the crème-de-la-crème of India’s VCs discussed what they liked, and hated about their job. While new age entrepreneurs made them happy, refusing investments was declared as the inevitable ‘Debbie Downer’.

If you have seen Zomato’s “Get bhel delivered faster than bail" ad, you already know this guy. Internet personality and Zomato’s Art Director, Akshar Pathak enthralled the audience with his witty stories, comical designs, and insights into designing for new age brands. A word of caution though - “Something funny to me, might be offensive for you," he says, adding he believes in being between the 'safe' and 'offensive' zones.

The niche area of deep science startups is oft unexplored and speakers at TechSparks demystified it for keen listeners. While Siddharth Pai, Founder and General Partner of Siana Capital, explained how investors need to tap this space for greater impact, Prasad Kompalli, CEO and Co-founder of mfine elaborated on how AI will power the next generation of doctors.

“We are creating a virtual doctor which will help infinitely scale doctors' reach and supplement as their assistant so that more people can be diagnosed and treated quickly,” he said.

Over at the HerStory track, women leaders explained why true victory lies in the success of women, how women need to take charge of their money, and shared tips on dealing with corporate politics.

A power panel saw Naiyya Saggi, Founder of BabyChakra, Shalini Prakash, Venture Partner of 500Startups, Sivareena Sarika, Co-founder of PregBuddy, and Kalyani Khona, CEO and Co-Founder of Inclov came together to hash out how women need to stop shying away from the spotlight, and own their success.

We love stories - but of course, we are YourStory! YouTube celebrity and “Mostly Sane” Prajakta Koli said she never expected her channel to be as popular, and that brands are now more open to non-traditional advertisements, reshaping content as we know it.

Day 2 at TechSparks is when we reveal our Tech30 startups - a list of 30 young and promising startups that we carefully handpick. Each startup founder oozed confidence as they delivered their pitch in style. For a complete list, check this and stay tuned to YourStory for details on each of our super startups.

Not all the action was in the auditoriums  - intriguing products, and fun experience zones made exhibitor stalls a hit among all, and each saw an average of 200 to talk shop. The buzzing courtyard witnessed not many future business deals, but also some cool collaborations.

ChaiPoint created a massive experience zone, serving beverages from its latest IoT enabled coffee/chai machine, ‘boxC’ that comes with a cloud-based dispenser and your own barista. NetApp had some great leads for new channel partners, and Zoho was overwhelmed with the footfall they received. Rumours are, their business card bowl is overflowing!

LiveVR More wowed their visitors with a 2-minute showreel of their creative content and managed to impress almost everyone. Like all good things, the ninth edition of TechSparks has come to an end, but we will be back next year, with more energy, more enthusiasm, and yet the same soul - trying to be the storyteller for each entrepreneur.

For more details on TechSparks, check our coverage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

Dr Anju Sood, Co-founder, Rejoov Cold-Pressed juices who loves running with a passion takes to the road at a brisk pace every morning. A long run is often considered one of the best ways to increase your overall level of health and raise the levels of good cholesterol in your blood stream. For Anju, it has been a fitness journey of two decades, and even after she began to run her own company, she made sure she always set aside time for a run in her neighbourhood so that she could unwind and de-stress for the day.

In the third part of the series on Buddha in Business, we will discover how to woo and engage your customer and make him a committed partner in selling your product. You need to remember the fundamental principle of branding. It is not you, the entrepreneur who creates the brand. It is your customer who makes your product a brand. He will walk ten miles, if need be, to buy your product - but will not settle for your competitor’s product even if it is available at his doorstep. He makes it a brand with his unswerving loyalty.

‍As the festive season rolls around this October, our food columnist Ajit Saldanha talks about the most magnificent sweets in the country. During this month of celebrations, take a sweet trip across the country. Start with Kashmiri phirni, a delectable blend of basmati, saffron, sugar, milk and pistachios, then move on to Kolkata where you could try the most divine Nolan gur ka sandesh, made with the jaggery harvested from the palm tree or just have rosgollas and rasmalai.

Padmaja Nagarur is the Co-Founder of Artflute.com, India's most loved online marketplace for world contemporary art with a strong drive to take art beyond traditional auction houses and galleries and make it part of living room conversations. She was recognised as the most promising woman entrepreneur at The Women Entrepreneurship Quest. Here are her answers to our Proust Questionnaire. She speaks about her greatest loves, regrets, her favourite journey, her heroes in history and much more.

Reeta Gupta, author, ‘Rescript Your Life presented her book at the United Nations in Geneva. This book has a foreword by Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore and blurbs by Kapil Dev, and Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi. She wrote this book to remind us that there is so much the universe has already done for us. All we need to do, is to take care of where our mind wanders, what it imagines, and what it acts on. She began writing about the need for self-awareness in 2014 when a near-death incident in Dec 2016 made her realise she must work faster.

If Switzerland was a startup, what would its history be like? Read this short excerpt from the Swiss National Day address by Sebastien Hug0, CEO of swissnex India and the Consul General of Switzerland in Bengaluru, for an interesting take on the history and evolution of Switzerland on the history and evolution of Switzerland.

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Try these easy and effective content marketing tips to establish your brand image and build an audience. Even on a shoestring budget!

Most startups shy away from content marketing, assuming that it will be expensive and overwhelming.

We get queries and concerns from a lot of startups: “Is content marketing really worth the expense?” “We are bootstrapped. We are not ready for content marketing yet.” “How can startups manage funds for content marketing?”

The truth is, content marketing costs much less than half of conventional marketing and, if done right, generates about three times as many leads.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, 88 percent of B2B companies were using content marketing. Why?

Because content marketing is the most efficient and highest ROI marketing vehicle for small and big businesses. Contrary to popular belief, you can spend as much or as little as you want on content marketing and still achieve your goals. What you need however is a long-term vision, clear goals and great content, of course.

Now that you are convinced that your bootstrapped startup needs content marketing, let’s see how easy and cost-efficient it can be to get started:

Set clear goals and measure them

• Understand your audience and their needs to reach your ideal customer and help target their pain points.
• Write clear goals. It could be improving visibility, generating brand awareness, improving traffic or increasing conversion rate.
• Break down a high-level goal into smaller measurable goals.
• Write down how you plan to achieve these goals. For example, if you need to improve brand awareness, you would need to post at least once a week, share your content on social media channels and reach out to an influencer in your niche.
• Measure the success of your strategy to understand and improve. It’s easy to take into account some high-level metrics with tools like Google Analytics. For brand awareness you could consider metrics like the number of readers, a number of page views, best-performing pages, and time on site.

Identify the most effective content type for your business

• There are tons of content types you can produce, including blog posts, videos, infographics, slideshows, e-books, and podcasts. Evaluate the performance of each type of content type by looking into your competitors’ posts and determining how much views each content type fetches for them on an average. But if you’re just starting out, a blog is the easiest way to get your content out there and start building your brand.
• Now reach out to freelancers or content marketing agencies and get quotes for top performing content type.
• This research will give you a ballpark figure for the expected cost.
• Do not settle for a writer because s/he is quoting a lesser price. Be sure to ask for a portfolio, previous works, and samples. Check if the work suits the style, tone, and quality you are looking for at the price.
• Start by going to the biggest platform for each type of content, for example for posting videos you could target YouTube.

Quality trumps quantity

This is where most startups make a mistake. You do not need to post every day in order to reach your goals. What you need is high-quality content that engages and entertains your audience. Keep in mind what value your content is providing your reader. Nobody wants to read an advertisement, self-appreciation, or a sales pitch.

Guest posts

What if I told you that it is possible to get good content for free? Yes, accepting guest posts is an easy way for content generation. The only catch is that it is difficult to find the right fit in terms of quality and purpose.

However, do not accept posts that do not match your requirements. To make things easier, create a page for guidelines on contributing guest posts along with topic ideas, format, and what to expect in return. Add a guest post page on your website to let writers know that you are accepting contributions and you are set. Contributors will find you when they do their potential research and start sending pitches.

Also, write guest posts yourself. If you get published on elite websites with a huge audience base, that increases your credibility.

Repurpose existing content

Get creative and use your existing content to create amazing posts or formats that will connect with your audience. For example, you might have a company brochure or About Us page, break that information into 10 social media posts to improve awareness about your brand.

This means that you research only once, reformat the same content, and target different channel audiences.

Content marketing needs patience and consistency. It is a very crucial step in establishing a brand image and building audience. Start with a strategic mindset, and get over the myth that it depends on a big budget.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.) 

Late-stage deals stayed in focus last week, with the biggest one being used car marketplace’s Droom’s $30 million Series E round. According to YourStory Research, a total of $68.96 million was raised across 10 deals.

There also was a mix of different stages - two small-ish Series B rounds raised $10.5 million, two pre-series A rounds $300,000, and four other rounds amounting to $28.16 million. Dockless scooter sharing platform Vogo raised Rs 8.5 crore in debt funding, led by Alteria Capital.

According to a report by VCCircle, logistics startup ElasticRun raised $8 million co-led by existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital. Foodtech startup InnerChef  raised $1.76 million. We’ve accounted these announcements in the total funding raised this week.

Here’s a quick look at the top deals of the week:

Droom raises $30 million in Series E, led by Joe Hirao and others

The Gurugram-based used car marketplace raised $30 million in a Series E round led by Joe Hirao’s family office fund. Another Japan-based family fund office also participated. Media reports suggest the fund will primarily be used to develop its used vehicle loan marketplace, Droom Credit.

9stack raises $3.84 million led by Waterbridge Ventures, Astarc Ventures and existing investors

9stacks, the online skill-based gaming startup, has raised a Series A funding of $3.48 million. The round is said to have been led by WaterBridge Ventures. Existing investors and Astarc Ventures also participated. The funding will be used to build technology, grow users, focus on product and market expansion.

KOOH Sports raises $10.17 million from PE firm Gaja Capital in exchange for a minority stake

The sports training and education company raised $10.17 million from equity firm Gaja Capital. The PE firm is reported to have taken a significant stake in the sports startup. Reports also suggest that KOOH sports investment will now be a part of SportzVillage, Gaja Capital’s integrated sports management platform.

GoBolt raises $5.46 million led by Aavishkar Impact fund

B2B transportation provider GoBolt has raised $5.46 million led by Aavishkar to strengthen its team and expand its presence across the country, increase its fleet size and further develop its tech platform.

Vahdam Teas raises $2.5 million led by existing investor Fireside Ventures

The online tea startup has raised $2.5 million funding led by existing investors. Vahdam now intends to expand its presence in the US, and also acquire customers and explore new markets.

In other news

Exits also the limelight this week. Future Group acquired a 54.98 percent stake in Mumbai-based digital payments company LivQuick for $2.71 million. According to its BSE filings, Future Group has also committed additional investment of $679,900 in LivQuik.

In addition, Indonesian point-of-sale startup Moka, which recently raised funding from Sequoia Capital, also acquired Mumbai-based Getinfocus, a contextual marketing platform. Amazon, meanwhile, pumped in a whopping $79.8 million into Amazon Pay for its growth and expansion.

A couple of investors announced they had closed new funds for India, including Alteria Capital and Blume Ventures.

Long-term investments often mean real estate, but how do you take care of bungalows and apartments if you don't live in the country? Real estate startup Indiassetz, which manages property worth Rs 2,000 crore, is helping NRIs maintain their properties and keep them safe from trespassers.

Ramaswamy Iyer wanted to help SMEs with working capital loans to tide over payment cycles, and realised the first step lay in proper documentation. His Pune-based startup, Vayana Network, can ease bottlenecks enables small and medium scale enterprises get short-term working capital loans from its lending partners.

The future of the workplace means different things to different people. To Vishal Jain, 33, it translates into an IoT solution that optimises energy, space, and productivity of people. That is what drives Synconext, an IoT platform that transforms real estate infrastructure to help businesses achieve better efficiencies.

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The Turakhia brothers - Divyank and Bhavin - joined India's billionaire club in 2016 with the tech company they founded in their teens. At the ninth edition of TechSparks, Divyank took centrestage in a fireside chat with YourStory Founder Shradha Sharma. Like his brother, who gave entrepreneurial insights at TechSparks 2016, Divyank spoke about how their bootstrapped company led them to a multi-million-dollar exit. The insights were many; the tone was spirited.

“So how many private jets do you own?” Shradha asked. Divyank immediately responded: “I fly them all!”

The story of the Turakhia brothers is legendary. With a loan of Rs 25,000, the brothers went on to start media.net, the sale of which put them on the Forbes' list of Indian billionaires. The advertising technology company is, however, only one of the several successful, mainly bootstrapped, ventures to Bhavin and Divyank’s credit.

There is something powerfully inspirational about founders who build businesses from the ground up and with no backing. How do you build businesses like that without any funding?

What decisions do you take every day?

“Different businesses require different manners of funding. There are businesses that require funding from the very beginning, some much later, and some never,” said Divyank, who is known for scaling businesses to great heights. Some of his other businesses, apart from Directi and media.net, include Flock, Zeta, and Radix.

Explaining what really matters in building a business, Divyank said, “It really doesn’t matter when you start, everybody has ideas. And every idea and industry has a lot of money. Whether it is ecommerce, power or oil, all of them have a lot of money. The way to think is any of the top 500 companies in India aren’t from one particular sector but from across. What actually matters is the amount of time you take to execute the idea. It’s the decisions you take on an everyday basis that matter and make you successful or not.” 

Different strokes for different folks 

What also matters is how one looks at different solutions for the same problem. Divyank says that in school, all of us are taught that there is one right answer to one question. “But the reality is every question has multiple answers. During different times and circumstances, different solutions work for the same problem,” he said.

He adds that whether one is a two-people startup or a 10-person startup, that’s just starting up - the answer to how one grows from a 10-people company is different from how one scales a 200-person company. The access, ability, resources... everything is different, says Divyank. 

"Therefore, when you’re an early stage startup, it’s important to focus on resources and how you use them," Divyank says that the most important resource is your personal time, and hence one needs to delegate quickly.

“Whatever you can hire someone else to do, hire immediately, especially if they can do it with 70 to 80 percent efficiency. As you scale, you need people to help. Twenty-people startups becoming unicorns is rare. You need to add people and grow on a weekly and a monthly basis,” Divyank said. 

Bootstrapping all the way 

"So, did you not go looking for funding or did you not get funding?" Shradha asked. Divyank affirmed he didn’t look for funding because the businesses they built were profitable and didn’t need funding. 

Bootstrapping and growing startups take time. Divyank believes that many startups fail because the founders give up along the way. Things take time. “When we started our first business it took us six years to get our first 100 customers, and the next 100 took a few more years,” he said.  

These days, people just want to grow faster. “You can raise money and grow faster; many feel that this will allow you to reach your vision faster, people are valued-based on how much they raise, but the Indian startup ecosystem is in its very early stages. For most companies, local markets are still developing. There is no other benchmark that you can use,” Divyank said. 

But have all his businesses been profitable? “Well I didn’t have any choice. I had no money when I started; from that point the only option I had was to make the business more profitable,” Divyank said.

He says he would keep building rules on the runway they needed. Initially, it was 12-18 months of payroll, and to hire more people. Hire the right talent and train them to grow with you. It was a continuous cycle. 

“We focused a lot on how to help people grow from a learning and career standpoint along with us and continue to motivate them. This helped us manage more and be able to retain great talent. In product companies, value creation is done by people who have been with you,” Divyank said. 

You can’t really time an exit 

“The timing is never in your hands. Eventually, when we did do the exit, we had seven offers; we had a lot of backup options. We had a much lower offer that we were happy to take but didn’t get through. The idea is to build a business thinking that you will own it forever, and not that you will exit in three years,” Divyank said. 

If a strategic partner can add value and if it’s an opportunity you want to explore at that point in time, go for it, said Divyank. Most exits take five to 15 years. The founder should continue building his or her business because s/he wants to irrespective of that exit.

“In this time frame your company can be 10x or maybe even half, and it’s the case for every company.”  

As a startup founder you are working 12 to 15 years in a day for a long time, but what matters is what you spend time doing. “One of the things I possibly got right was the ability to ask myself what can I do to create more value, and ask that question at the end of each week,” Divyank recalled. 

How often do emotions drive your business?

It is important to analyse what you could have avoided doing, could have done more efficiently, and what you want to pay more attention to, he said. 

“Everyday in the morning I get up and think of the 1,000 things what are the super-critical four or five things I want to focus on. And how do I plan my day accordingly. It always is in a descending order and I never drop the ball. Even if everybody else drops it. You are the one who has to make sure no matter what happens you pick up and help people figure out how they do it better in the future,” Divyank said. 

“Passion is important to build and to win. From an emotional standpoint, personally, I am more emotional about people than things. I am not emotional about my business. I am emotional about the people I work with; the business I look at from a numbers perspective.” 

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers and, of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

Content businesses, especially those that focus on users coming online for the first time, need to be built with quality content, says Umang Bedi, Dailyhunt President.

Content is king - With over 460 million internet users, India is the second largest online market, ranked only behind China. And with this number expected to go up to 635.8 million by 2021, the demand for content will soar.

So, how does one target the next 500 million Indian users? "Definitely not with porn," said Virendra Gupta, Founder and CEO, and Umang Bedi, President, of Dailyhunt, the app that publishes and aggregates news in 17 languages.

Speaking to YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma at the ninth edition of TechSparks, the duo tried to define what makes content businesses in India tick. Especially now that there's a new buzzword in town - Bharat or India 2.

“Today, there is this new craze for content in Bharat, but when you open any of the content in these apps, the quality is low, and many times there is adult content. What is happening?” Shradha began.  

Umang, who was the head of Facebook India before joining Dailyhunt, chose to respond by asking the audiences candidly: “How many of you choose to see video adult content?” A brave few raised their hands. Umang said:

“Sex sells, and it is great way to start a business, but not a great way to build a business. If you look at all the different new apps that are coming up, the kind of content that is coming is racy and raunchy or super-low quality."

He added that investor focused on DAUs (Daily Active Users) and MAUs (Monthly Active Users) and did not understand that businesses, especially in content and with a focus on the users who are coming online for the first time, need to be built with quality content. 

Started as NewsHunt in 2009 by ex-Nokia employees Chandrashekhar Sohoni and Umesh Kulkarni, the platform was acquired by Verse Founder Virendra Gupta in 2012. The struggle for screen space and time spent was tough, but is one that Dailyhunt can claim to have conquered.

Dailyhunt has, since the very beginning, aimed to be the largest Indic platform, empowering the next billion Indians who come online to “discover, socialise, and consume content that informs, enriches and entertains”. 

Build a business on a long shot 

In July 2018, Dailyhunt added over 12 million net new monthly active users; in August, it beat the previous month’s performance with the addition of 15 million net new monthly active users. The total monthly users on all platforms put together as of September 2018 was 138 million, of which Dailyhunt accounted for 100 million. Moreover, the time spent per daily active user is over 27 minutes per person per day.

“The idea is to take a long shot in the next five years. You need to look at India from its social fabric perspective and not build anything looking at the West. We, as Indian founders, understand our business better and need to build our business accordingly. Just because Jio has made data cheaper and there's a new world to conquer doesn’t mean we don’t build our business with a long-term vision,” Virendra said. 

“But all said and done, every startup needs funding and to get the investors, you need the DAUs and MAUs. So when you have raunchy content, the cost of acquisition of customers becomes lower and makes it easier to get customers, isn’t it?” Shradha asked. 

Umang responded, “Keeping the issue of data privacy aside, if you look at Facebook and Google, they have built great businesses with time. They have issues of their own - live user-generated content, which could at times be illegal or immoral, needs to be monitored regularly and consistently. They have made a bunch of investments in AI, ML, and technology to ensure the content is moderated.” 

Don’t be myopic 

The problem, according to Umang, is that investors are being “myopic.”

“How can you build a business with content like that? It will just get the initial MAUs, but will any advertiser or brand want to advertise their brand where there is raunchy content? Is there any model of monetisation? And how are you valuing entities with a fad like this?” he asked. 

The user base for non-English content is high. Reports suggest India’s internet community adds over 1 crore, or 10 million, daily active users (DAUs) each month. From autorickshaw drivers to shopkeepers, from college students to homemakers, content consumption on the mobile is on the rise, and skewed towards video and news. 

The number of users on Dailyhunt grew by 25 percent month on month, and 145 percent year on year. At this rate, Dailyhunt could comfortably cross 150 million MAUs by March 2019, and over 200 million by October 2019. It is currently in the process of raising Series E funding round, and is valued at a pre-money valuation of $400-$500 million.

“To monetise the content for this segment you need to take a long shot and focus on content you know businesses and consumers will pay for,” Virendra said. 

Focus on quality 

Dailyhunt has a strong focus on video, including auto-play video in feed, unique video content, and content partnerships that help drive growth. Dailyhunt’s strategy entails not only providing informational news content, but also content across diverse genres like entertainment, lifestyle, astrology, Bollywood, sports, divinity etc.

Umang said personalisation goes a long way in creating value for the customer and Dailyhunt is doing this with AI, ML and deep learning technologies. Today, the platform has over 1,500 publishing partners, and hosts over 2.5 lakh articles and videos a day, of which 1 lakh are new articles and videos. 

“The idea is to build a great business in the long term and focus on giving new internet users good high-quality content,”  the Dailyhunt duo stated. 

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

“When I was in Flipkart, I took delivery to 500 cities; and my city was not one of those,” says Udaan Co-founder Sujeet Kumar on how small his hometown is. His B2B ecommerce company has been in the news for all the right reasons - it is India's fastest unicorn, having achieved the coveted $1 billion valuation in a short 26 months.

At the 9th edition of TechSparks, the calm and very charming Sujeet gives the audience a glimpse of what passion, hard work, and drive can do. The young man from Bhabua, Bihar, shies away from the praise he gets, but is honest in telling all he did not make it to the UPSC exam - not once, but twice.  

“It isn’t a journey of how we achieved unicorn status. Behind the 26 months, there was eight years of different people’s efforts,” says the IIT Delhi alumnus.

Founded in late 2015 by ex-Flipkart executives, commonly know as ex-Flipsters, Udaan is a B2B marketplace that connects manufacturers and wholesalers with retailers online. At Flipkart, for eight years Sujeet built operations, supply chain and logistics, while his Udaan Co-founders Amod Malviya was the CTO, and Vaibhav Gupta, was senior VP. 

Why startup the second time?

Through their talk, Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO, YourStory, asks what everyone wants to know - “You had a good exit (with Flipkart), why did you start again?” Pat comes the reply - "It is not about money, it is about wanting to make more money," amid laughter and cheer from the crowd. 

On a more serious note, he adds that after exiting Flipkart, there was no plan of starting up. The trio turned angel investors, and Sujeet also consulted with Tiger Global for three months helping the investor’s portfolio companies. 

“I realised I was a person of execution. Every time I would consult with the portfolio company on execution I would feel I should execute it. Then I thought I needed to start again. We nailed down B2B ecommerce in India because it is a unique proposition were 50 million small businesses are there with an easy internet play and yet it is hard to execute.”  

While most are trying to connect people in the B2B space, that is only one part of the problem, says Sujeet, adding transactions and service credit were others. “Therefore, while Udaan is an open marketplace, we are ensuring logistics for every transaction, if there is a need for credit we provide the same as well,” he says. 

The B2B opportunity 

Startups are increasingly focusing on the large, and largely unorganised, enterprise and small businesses market. A study by industry body Nasscom in 2017 revealed that 40 percent of Indian startups are focused on the business-to-business segment. This, of course, includes pure tech companies, especially in the SaaS domain. 

In ecommerce, too, there is a shift towards B2B commerce. This could be because the B2C space already has massive marketplaces in the form of Flipkart, Amazon and Paytm Mall. The B2B segment still has many opportunities, despite early players like Power2SME being present in this category.

In late 2016, Sujeet, Amod and Vaibhav launched the beta version of Udaan. They announced a Series A fund-raise of $10 million at the same time. Lightspeed led the funding. The company saw a wider launch in June 2017, but was still curating users. A few weeks ago, it raised $225 million led by Yuri Miller’s DST Global. 

As of February this year, the company delivered to over 500 cities, and picks up from sellers in over 80 cities through third party logistics. Even while it works with third-party logistics firms, Udaan keeps control over the experience as it owns the tech platform. It also offers order management, accounting, and payment management solutions to merchants on the platform.

Bringing the speed up 

“Our experience, and the execution efforts we put in at Flipkart helped. We focussed on building teams fast, a lot of people who were a part of Flipkart heard that we were starting, and came onboard. At day zero, we had strong founding team. And that is super important. Then we focussed on system thinking how to scale tech, how to build processes.” 

The team saw that on the supply chain side, if they had to build a big company, they would have to solve the supply chain and operations problem in totality. “At Flipkart we had realised if we didn’t scale up our supply chain and operations, our last mile delivery we couldn’t be successful. That conviction got us to build everything,” says Sujeet. 

It was the same pattern that they choose to build with Udaan - focus on solving the entire problem. 

Working on a larger problem 

Having built the operations and supply chains in Flipkart, Sujeet stayed at the background, but founding a startup puts one in the limelight.  

“When we were building Flipkart, we got our high not from the limelight but from customer recognition. We were building scale. That was motivating us. Even in Udaan, there has been only three news pieces that have gone out, and everytime it has been during our fundraise - Series A, B and C. It is the first time I am talking on this,” says Sujeet. 

On how Udaan has grown, Sujeet says rather than giving people discounts and  incentives to come on to the platform, the co-founders focussed on predictability, as it is the most important thing in B2B. 

"Buyers want credit with the transaction, and in any new relation, nobody wants to give credit. We were solving the problem. If you see on the platform, buyers and sellers can solve the problem of underwriting. We are relevant for buyers and sellers. The latter wants to sell to more people and buyer wants more selection, quality and price and credit and as a platform we are solving that, and that is why its growing,” says Sujeet. 

Execution, he explains, works on how clear one is about the problem statement. He adds he is open to working with startups, collaborating, and perhaps even investing in them.

“We don’t build everything in-house we do partner, collaborate and work with different startups and entrepreneurs. Udaan is solving credit underwriting problem, B2B logistics, payment and sales and marketing, wherever there is a synergy, we work together.” 

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

Roee Adler, Senior Vice President and Global Head of WeWork Labs, advised Indian entrepreneurs to start with a global challenge that manifests in India in a very unique way.

Indian startups are world-ready, and how. Roee Adler, who joined WeWork in 2013 as Chief Product Officer and now superheads WeWork Labs as the Senior Vice President and Global Head, told us how at TechSparks 2018. On the first day of the ninth edition of TechSparks, he spoke about how Indian startups were ready to take on the world.

Roee has been a part of five startups; of these, two failed while three were acquired successfully. His association with umpteen startups led Roee to develop an interesting perspective on the journeys of entrepreneurs.

Roee's India journey began when he moved from Tel Aviv to Europe with his wife. They had a tiny apartment and Roee needed office space for his startup. A friend introduced him to Adam Neumann, Co-founder of WeWork. Until then, Roee had never heard of him or WeWork, which was then a team of 50 employees. But not so long after, Roee joined the company and went on to make more

He began by speaking about the history of innovation, as he saw it.

The story of crypto-Jews

Towards the end of the 14th century , Roee said the King of Spain had ordered that he did not want Jewish people in his kingdom. He gave Jewish people a choice - to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. The majority of Spanish Jews converted, but followed the Jewish religion secretly. They were, at that time, known as “crypto-Jews”.

When the Spanish king and queen found out about these crypto-Jews, they decided to kill them all. They set up a police force who would find Jewish people pretending to be Catholics and ordered that they be burned them in the Town Square.

For decades, the Jewish people had to develop sophisticated ways to hide their religion. Giving context to the story, Roee says, “This nation and its people had to develop great skills in hiding themselves. It should come as no surprise, that some of the biggest innovations in cryptography and cybesecurity come from these very people.”

Similarly, the British did a lot of things in Israel, including the trade embargo. This meant that medicines could not be imported into the country. The Israelis opted for reverse engineering and developed new medicines from existing ones to help the population.

Joee put this story into context, saying that when generic medicines came up, Israeli companies became the biggest producers.

 “I personally believe that the history, culture, and legacy of a nation and its people are the roots that lead to unique innovation,” Roee said.

Innovation in India

As a global citizen, Roee said one can always relate to India, due to its vastness. The explosion of commerce decades ago forced India to re-invent as there was no other choice. “I have personally known entrepreneurs who are trying to develop innovative ideas to service people who have limited opportunity,” he said.

The vastness of India and the combination of several cities and thousands of villages called for innovation in cheap transportation. “But how does one scale this idea?” Roee asked.

According to Roee, looking at global challenges was the solution. “Indian entrepreneurs must focus on solving world problems,” he added. 

Many global challenges exist in India, and a few Indian entrepreneurs are working on them. If Indian entrepreneurs think about one percent of the unique problems of this country that are common with the biggest multinational corporations and look at solutions, that would help them scale, Roee said.

“The issue of education quality is very unique in India. That said, the solution to this can ideally be leveraged in many other countries around the world,” Roee said.

Indian startups working on solving the country's problems are often criticised for not solving global problems. On the other hand, startups that think globally are castigated for not solving the country's problems first.

Roee advised Indian entrepreneurs to “start with a global challenge that manifests in India in a very unique way”. “Execute locally but keep thinking globally,” he said.

Any Indian challenge that is a global challenge positions the present and future generations of Indian innovators to “change the world”, Roee said.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

With digital platforms transforming the way learning happens, experts from Udacity, Vedantu, Springboard, and DADB discuss what the future holds for edtech.

“These days students prefer online learning as they can’t wait to gain knowledge through multiple channels. That’s where education is changing; edtech is redefining that,” said Mohan Lakhamraju, the Founder and CEO of Great Learning. He was speaking at a panel discussion on the Future of Edtech at the 9th edition of TechSparks, YourStory’s flagship event and India’s top startup conference.

He was joined by Dr Carsten Schröder, Co-Founder and CEO, DADB; Parul Gupta, Co-founder, Springboard; Ishan Gupta, MD India, Udacity; and Pulkit Jain, Co-founder and Product Head, Vedantu at the discussion where they shared their learnings.

This is a time when digital platforms are transforming the way learning is visualised and presented, be it distance education or cultural preservation.

Adding more perspective to this was Pulkit Jain, Co-founder of Vedantu and an IIT Roorkee alumnus. “I am the only K-12 (Class 6 to 12) teaching platform here. We are trying to solve two problems: access to quality teachers and education at affordable costs. We are addressing this to make the entire online system more effective.”

Adding more colour to the conversation from a technology perspective in different geographies, Ishan Gupta, of Udacity, said: “A lot of behavioural issues have been witnessed despite the course in India and in the US being the same. Udacity has always kept students first, and makes sure that they spend their time along with the money. Time is extremely important; the programme might take 8-10 hours or even span three to six months of commitment.”

Is India the big market for most of these edtech biggies, asked Dipti Nair, Editor at YourStory.

Dr Carsten Schröder, Co-Founder and CEO, DADB, replied:

“India is facing an industrial problem that even other nations are facing; classes aren’t able to keep up with the trends. We provide niche resources.” Giving the example of one of his German professors, he says the professor was extremely popular but could not find the time to teach at many universities. “The same day, I completed my work on an augmented reality studio. The professor said let’s broadcast my classes to all those universities that need me,” he said.

Springboard, which has over 10,000 students across a 100 countries in the world, has seen a rise in the number of students looking for employment opportunities after college and those considering online courses.

Parul said,

“The answer to why most students or professionals are opting for online courses is because they want to escalate their knowledge or get ahead with job search.”

“The second thing I would say is that the faulty educational system could be bridged with technology through personal assistance. Through technology, one can understand a person better; after all, everyone has their own issues in understanding. This will lead to more effective learning,” she added.

Speaking about the right ingredient mix of quality education, Mohan added: “Experience is not the only thing. You have trust, assessment, and feedback in a college-based programme. Great Learning provides you this in an online format at your comfort.”

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policymakers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

People across Tier I and Tier II cities in India largely depend on this app for entertainment and social engagement. And no, we aren’t talking about WhatsApp or Facebook. The app is SHAREit.

Today, the startup is India’s largest content-integrated distribution platform, and the app has consistently been ranked among the top 10 apps on Google Play, across various markets including India.

While the rise of the platform’s popularity in its initial days in India can be attributed to its being a sharing platform with an easy interface, today it has evolved into a full-fledged digital content ecosystem.

Karam Malhotra, CEO, SHAREit, decoded their success story at TechSparks 2018. Defining what the startup is all about today, Karam said, “SHAREit is a platform where users share content and digital products like apps by leveraging social connections. In essence, it’s really a platform where people share, discover, learn and enjoy.”

Referencing the digital revolution in India where everyone has access to low-cost internet and online content, Karam said, “I get asked if people use SHAREit even now. And, the answer is more than ever. People now download more data, watch more content, and share even more.”

He shared some interesting facts about SHAREit:

• 30 percent of SHAREit’s users don’t use Facebook. This makes it a very interesting, different and incremental user base

• SHAREit can monitor all Android app installs in India that take place through the platform. This information helps them decode users’ true interests, and what are the top apps that get shared, installed and deleted.

• SHAREit accounts for 30 percent of all app installs in India

“We use a lot of our technology to understand what people are sharing,” he said.

Making users work for brands

Karam is a serial entrepreneur who is the co-founder of South Indian OTT platform FastFilmz, a startup that SHAREit recently acquired. He also co-founded Greatest Common Factor (GCF), an edtech company. Earlier, he worked as a senior analyst with McKinsey & Company. The self-professed numbers geek said,

“If we look at our growth story in India, it is humbling. Today, we have 400 million users on our platform and we are adding four new users every second.”

SHAREit has 1.5 billion users globally. While it has a dominant presence in Southeast Asia, and has been growing in the US. India continues to remain its largest market, where they have been present since its beginning three-and-half-years ago.

Karam also delved into the four ways in which SHAREit is reinventing user reach. This includes:

• Making their community organically work for brands

• Having KPIs that ads can’t move

• Having a 100 percent share of voice – both online or and offline

• Driving mobile popularity index

Karam shared a number of case studies from clients such as Coca Cola India and Dream11 – a leading fantasy cricket and football gaming platform – to highlight how SHAREit enables brands to achieve reach and omni-channel engagement. This includes offline and online actions such as visiting the brand’s website, downloading the app, or related engagements with task-based activities.

The SHAREit founder spoke about how their MissionClub strategy enables brands to engage users in areas where traditional ads failed, for instance getting dormant users to move from Sim 2 to Sim 1 and getting people to share content. “Essentially, through MissionClubs we are creating tribes that conquer, we drive micro-interaction between brand and users, and users’ tribe who earn rewards together."

He explained SHAREit’s new features, one of which includes enabling ads to work even in the airplane mode. Karan says, “That’s how we are able to deliver on our promise of being ‘always on even when data is gone’.

YourStory's annual extravaganza TechSparks brings together the best and the brightest from the startup ecosystem, corporate world, policy makers, and of course, the investor community. Over the years, it has grown to become India's most loved tech and startup platform for knowledge sharing and networking. The ninth edition of TechSparks also marks YourStory's 10th anniversary. A big thank you for all your support over the years and keep reading and watching YourStory.

We need to inculcate curiosity in our teams to try different things, do things that haven’t been done before and more importantly advocate innovation to be able to succeed.

Bond with the best… Reminiscent of the 90’s TV commercial by Reid & Taylor, isn’t it? But that’s not what I’m referring to here, although in a way I am talking about fabric – but the organisational kind.

We are entering a fast track era where the tagline “move on” is more reflective of the times we live in. In such a dynamic ecosystem, how can we forge bonds that last, especially when it comes to building teams to operate as a single unit? It’s a challenging ask for any leader, as they no longer have the bandwidth to create permanent clusters and need to leverage personnel across a variety of functions to meet goals these days.

Leadership is a tricky business – you need to have a certain knack for boosting human morale. And it’s not just your own. Sports is a great teacher here, more so those where teams are involved. Going solo too does well to build a competitive spirit, but when you introduce other members into the fold – there’s simply a wider expanse of skills that you hone.

If you’ve ever played for a team, you must have realised that each player comes with a unique skill set – so you learn how to manoeuvre the playing field by capitalising on individual strengths while collectively shielding drawbacks.  Eventually, the league which does this most artfully and consistently succeeds.  While business is a seemingly different ballgame, it’s akin to sports in more ways than one; especially when it comes to wielding effective leadership traits.

In the current work context though, leaders are being dealt a spin-ball, as creating teams that are stable is now a thing of the past.  Along with blurring geographic boundaries, when working with globally spread-out teams, there’s a need to work alongside a range of different people to achieve dynamic targets. This isn’t an easy task, because humans tend to find comfort in familiarity – which ironically isn’t exactly the best way to uncover their potential and drive innovation. So how do you get the right talent for the job, to work efficiently and cooperate to achieve a unified goal?

It’s the passion and unified vision to succeed that is critical here. The phenomenal rescue of the 12 Thai boys – the ‘Wild Boars’ and their coach from a water-logged cave was an exemplary act of teaming, by experts who contributed from around the world. They achieved a feat that no one knew for sure they would succeed in – but each member brought in their ‘A-game’ to make it happen.

India’s very own Kirloskar Bros. known for their skills in water pumping got their engineers in as part of the stellar team that saw this through. I digress, but isn’t it a proud moment when our countrymen step in to help? Also, this level of teaming isn’t driven by plain vanilla targets but by a cause that’s much deeper that revenue objectives. And that is where, as a leader, you need to hit the right notes. Driving a more passionate team is more exhilarating than ever, as it’s the sheer will to excel that keeps the momentum going and every person engaged.

The biggest takeaway from this rescue operation is that the objectivity of the team superseded their differences. They clearly didn’t have all the answers – realistically, nobody on earth did. They still took the risk and had a will to succeed when they knew the odds were against them, relying heavily on the expertise of individual members. That is the epitome of how a good team should function. You need to be nimble enough to move with the flow, and incredibly steadfast with your goals, all the while relying on the varied expertise of different members and the ability to trust each other’s judgement. As the work we do today involves bringing in new skill sets and the need to integrate them with the

skills of our existing employees, there needs to be a certain degree of humility to accept that all of us don’t have all the answers.

Today, we need to inculcate curiosity in our teams to try different things, do things that haven’t been done before and more importantly advocate innovation to be able to succeed. Curiosity had the cat done in, but in business, you won’t get too far without it.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

As entrepreneurs, corporates or startup evangelists, there is no doubt that we love the work we do, in spite of all the craziness and stress. While no one can say that our work is monotonous, we all definitely have those moments when all we want to do is disconnect, at least for a while, before we get charged up and get back to work mode.

Disconnect and Rejuvenate

There are many ways you can kill monotony and make your work life more vibrant. Try and make your workplaces more fun and engaging by taking small moments to disconnect from monotony and stress. Here are some ways in which you can do this.

Plug in to music

Studies indicate that music helps people concentrate better and get rid of anxiety and stress. You could also play a song you can dance to which will put everyone in a great mood. Turn DJ, take special requests from co-workers, and play those numbers to boost happiness and productivity.

Organise an office party

There's nothing in the world that food and music can't solve. Organising an office party is a fun way to get colleagues to come together and bond and build conversations around their interests and activities outside of work. Happy and well-fed employees will always get back to work well-rejuvenated.

Take a travel break

Going on a vacation is a great way to leave your office stress and deadlines behind. A stress-free vacation from your stressful job is like recovery time which can positively change your perspective about work. Be sure to avoid or limit communications to emails and voice messages when you take time off. Kick back and relax, experience the magical view that your travel destination has to offer.

Get on your hobby horse

You can also take time out for your favourite hobby, such as cooking, playing a musical instrument, sketching, or learn a new one. Make those dreaded Mondays fun by kicking it off with some sports activities that will help employees get into shape both physically and mentally. Remember, you're not just doing what you love, but unconsciously contributing to your emotional well being.

So, will you dare to disconnect?

If you do (and you definitely should), then participate in Sennheiser’s #DaretoDisconnect campaign. All you need to do is get someone to capture on camera you or your colleagues doing something cool to unwind and destress, take a video and show the world how awesome people in awesome places roll.

So, dare to disconnect from the job at hand, indulge in something you enjoy which can help you refresh and recharge, and come back and do your job better.

It’s time to #DaretoDisconnect! Click here to participate. The last day for uploading your videos is October 15, 2018.