The recently organised Tamil Nadu Story from YourStory took a comprehensive look at why Tamil Nadu was a favoured destination for businesses and how successful brands from the state and beyond had evolved to keep pace with the changing times.

The conference brought together successful entrepreneurs and business leaders to discuss and deliberate on issues that need to be tackled to scale up in the right way and focused on aspects such as marketing, HR, technology, and finances. The parameters of Tamil Nadu’s industrial growth and the policies which fuelled it were also discussed.

The day began with an informative workshop for startups by Zoho on ‘Adopting Technology as you set up, start off and scale up your business – Why, When and How?’

The speaker sessions began on an optimistic note with Rajendran Dandapani, Director of Engineering of Zoho Corporation, who spoke about Tamil Nadu’s statistics in relation to health, economy, education and the happiness index. He also commended the work done by earlier governments on education, social justice and English education.

Next on the agenda was a panel discussion on ‘Key to Entrepreneurship Success in TN-What’s Next?’ The panellists who participated were Rati Shetty- Co-founder of Bank Bazaar, Shajeevana - Additional Director - EDII (TN), Sivarajah Ramanathan - Founder & CEO - Native Leads, Manikandan, Director Kindle -Amazon, Sridhar from Great Lakes Institute of Management and Kuppulakshmi, Global Head for Startups, Zoho. The discussion was moderated by Balachander, Founder of WASSUP Laundry. Rati spoke about the improvement in finance and credit facilities in Tamil Nadu and India as a whole. She also commended the paperless journey that the state has embarked on. There was a consensus among the panellists that people are ready to buy products if they bring value. They also discussed the need to impart skills to graduates which would bring out the best in them.

CK Kumaravel, Co-Founder of Naturals, received a rousing reception when he came on stage to speak about the need for big companies to support smaller companies in areas other than investment. He also called upon the youth to dream big.

A discussion on Industrial Growth was moderated by GV Anand Bhushan, Partner - Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas where Vikram Cotah, CEO - GRT Hotels reminisced about the early days of the hospitality chain which started in 1996. “It was a 3-star hotel then and a 5-star product,” Vikram said. Anusha Ravi, CEO - Park Group of Institutions and Founder of DoAram & Resorts spoke of the available schemes to drive growth and said that they had reposed their faith in today’s students to take India forward. Srinivasa Raja, Managing Director of Adyar Ananda Bhavan or A2B, spoke fondly of the chain which started in Chennai in the 1980s and also highlighted how they worked to accommodate the changing tastes of people over the decades.

Suhail Sattar, Co-founder of Basics Hasbro Clothing Ltd, also remembered their early days and shared how they built a rapport with their consumers. He spoke about the need for innovation and adaptation, especially now that they had over 1,000 outlets across India. Suhail also mentioned the importance of being humble and choosing the right man for the right job. Srini V, Director and Partner of Peepul Capital, spoke on the need for availing venture capital at the right time, keeping in mind the responsibilities that came with these funds.

Shri. M.C.Sampath, Minister of Industrial Department, Government of Tamil Nadu was also present on the occasion and was felicitated. Mr. Sampath touched upon the evolution of the state’s industrial policy. Taking pride in the fact that Tamil Nadu had recorded the second-highest growth rate in India, he spoke about new policies in the fields of bio-technology, aerospace, IT (revised), electric vehicle, online business facilitation and many others which were propelling this growth. Mr. Sampath highlighted the advantages which Tamil Nadu has enjoyed over the years, from logistics, ports that are available and an uninterrupted electricity supply. He had also touched upon the case-to-case incentive available from the government.

The minister also presented awards on the occasion. The recipients were:

1. Srinivasa Raja, CEO of Adyar Anandha Bhavan, who was awarded the YourStory Inspiring Entrepreneur Award
2. Nalli Kuppusamy Chetty, founder of Nalli Silks, was awarded the Brand Of Tamil Nadu Award.

Other award winners included Pratik Shah, CEO of Specsmakers and Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, Founder of Digi Corp, who received the Rising Entrepreneur Award, and Abhinash of EDII and Priya Mohan from IIT Madras who received the Ecosystem Enabler Award.

On the occasion the DoAram.com platform was launched by Anusha Ravi along with Balasubramaniam of Black Board, Sunil Kumar of the World Bank, Veena Kumaravel of Naturals, and Kuppulakshmi of Zoho. Karthik, the Chief Strategy Officer of DoAram.com, shared how corporates, individuals and NGOs can benefit from the platform.

During a discussion on why TN is the favourite investment destination and how can it be improved, speakers mentioned the fact that the state recorded the second-highest growth in India and the third highest GDP for an Indian state. Anthony Lobo – Honorary Consul of Spain, also commended the availability of educated manpower and also lauded the state for using English as a standard form of communication which makes it a favourable business destination. The speakers also highlighted that TN was the first state to bring about an e-waste policy.

Other dignitaries present on the occasion included Mark Ven de Vreken, Consul-General of Belgium to South India, Akhila Rajeshwar, Executive Director, TiE Chennai, Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner, Speciale Invest and Purushothaman, CEO - K7 Computing.

The event also had a startup arena, curated by SPI Edge, which provided a platform for cutting-edge and innovative startups to showcase their solutions.

Flipkart's the Big Billion Days (TBBD) festive sale, 2019, saw 50 percent growth in the number of new customers compared to the previous year’s edition. According to Flipkart, this was powered by participants from Tier II and beyond locations.

Flipkart’s TBBD was spread over six days between September 29 to October 4, and it clocked 70 billion views, according to a statement issued by the company.

The key thrust area of the ecommerce major in this year’s festive sale edition was to bring the sellers and buyers from the Tier II cities and beyond location.

“With a purpose to bring the next 200 million consumers to the ecommerce fold, TBBD saw Bharat inch closer to India by showing confidence in categories and affordability offerings,” Flipkart said.

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Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said, 

It has been a fantastic start to the festive season. We set out with an aim to bridge the gap between India and Bharat. TBBD 2019 has proven that Bharat has moved closer to India in more ways than one. Whether it is the uptake of the Hindi interface or the adoption of our affordability constructs, engagement constructs like gaming, consumers have engaged with brands they love like never before.”

Among the key highlights of TBBD 2019, Flipkart said September 30 was the single largest day for commerce in the country. More than 50 percent of Flipkart Plus shoppers are from Tier II cities and beyond, and units from Tier III cities grew by 100 percent on a year-on-year basis. Over 40 percent of transacting sellers during TBBD were from Tier II and beyond.

“We take immense pride in making ecommerce more inclusive through the introduction of some top categories, which during this festive season, have been able to cater to the needs of Tier II markets and beyond. The Big Billion Days has also brought our entire ecosystem together from our seller partners to artisans, weavers and consumers; who were all able to spread festive cheers across categories,” Kalyan said.

Flipkart said it was the biggest festive season for mobiles till date, with brands achieving more than 2X growth over TBBD 2018. More than 20 models sold over 100K units each during TBBD’19, which is a first for any event, it said.

In the fashion category, TBBD 2019 saw 70 percent growth in sales when compared to last year, and 40 percent of the new customers to Flipkart came through this segment. Women customers contributed 45 percent to the overall fashion sales in terms of units sold.

Artisans and weaver partners through Flipkart Samarth programme witnessed over 100 percent growth in sales during TBBD.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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Like last week, this week's funding activity was devoid of venture debt deals. But with the help of three late-stage deals, the total funding secured in the Indian startup ecosystem reached $474 million. The three late stage deals raised $380 million, with Udaan providing the strongest tailwind. The balance amount was raised through early-stage and other deals.

Deal of the week

The bellwether startup this week was Udaan. The B2B ecommerce platform raised another funding tranche of around $286.6 million led by Tencent in its ongoing Series D round. In August, the online marketplace for small and medium businesses' Singapore-based parent entity raised a funding of $300 million.

Founded in June 2016, Udaan began its operations a year later and achieved the coveted unicorn status in September last year. So far, it has been one of the few startups to achieve a private valuation of $1 billion in the shortest possible time.

Early stage deals

KhataBook, a mobile app that enables SMEs to record and track business transactions, raised $25 million in Series A funding from Partners of DST Global, GGV Capital, Sequoia India, Tencent, and others. Prominent investors like Kunal Shah, Founder, Cred; Kunal Bahl, Co-founder, Snapdeal; Jitendra Gupta, Head - LazyPay; and Anand Chandrasekharan, ex-Facebook; were among others who participated in this round of funding. 

Pune-based digital lending startup LoanTap raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Avaana Capital. The round also saw participation from existing investors including 3one4 Capital, India Quotient, Shunwei Capital, and Kae Capital. 

Bengaluru-based Datasigns Technologies Private Limited, which operates loan platform Shubh Loans, raised Rs 34 crore (or $4.78 million) as a part of its Series A2 funding led by Omidyar Network India. Existing investors Saama Capital, Beenext, SRI Capital, and Pravega Ventures also participated as a part of this round.  

Fyle, the Bengaluru based expense management startup, raised $4.5 million from Steadview Capital in its Series A funding round. According to media reports, the company plans to use the funds to invest in product development and expand its global market footprint.

Blockchain startup InstaDApp on Tuesday raised $2.4 million led by Pantera Capital. Investors including Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase Ventures, IDEO Colab, Robot Ventures, and Kyber Network’s Loi Luu also participated in the round.

Mumbai-based Sleepycat, an online direct-to-consumer mattress and sleep-solutions startup, raised Rs 11 crore in its first round of institutional funding led by DSG Consumer Partners and Sharrp Ventures. The round also saw participation from Gemba Capital and other angel investors.

MetroMedi, a Hyderabad-based online pharmacy and e-health store, said it has raised $1.5 million in seed round from TK GP Rao, a high networth individual, who is also the founder of the TMT Group of industries.

Bengaluru-based payments app TWID has received Rs 10 crore, or about $1.4 million, from SCV LLC, a family-owned business of tech entrepreneurs, as part of its seed round of funding.

ScaleneWorks People Solutions, a Bengaluru-based talent solutioning organisation, on Friday announced that it has got into a definitive agreement to raise about $1 million from its existing investor, Hallmark Group (HG). The firm plans to use the funding towards technology adoption and expansion.

Ahmedabad-based Matrubharti, a vernacular content startup, announced that it has raised Rs 3.24 crore in an angel round of funding from US-based Gujarati NRI angel investors.

Jaipur-based MEngage, a platform which builds customised engagement apps for doctors on both Android and iOS platforms, raised an extended Seed round of $100,000 from Bollywood singer Sukhbir and other angels.  

Bengaluru-based fintech startup FinBox raised an undisclosed amount as part of its pre-Series A funding led by Arali Ventures. The round also saw participation from marquee angel investor Anup Pai, Founder of financial services company, Fintellix.

Vernacular social ecommerce platform CityMall said it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a clutch of angel investors including Jitendra Gupta of Citrus Pay; Alvin Tse of Xiaomi; Manish Vij and Harish Bahl from Smile Group, Rishab Malik, ex-co-founder of Droom; Rajesh Sawhney of GSF and M&S Partners among other marquee investors.

Late stage deals

Technology-based real estate startup NoBroker.com said it has raised $50 million as part of its Series D funding led by Tiger Global Management, along with its existing investor General Atlantic.

With this funding, NoBroker.com has raised a total of $121 million in equity funding. The latest round of fund raise comes within four months of the startup raising $51 million in Series C round, which was led by its existing investor.

Concierge cum hyper-local delivery app, Dunzo, has raised $45 million in its Series D round. Media reports said that new investors – Lightbox, South Korea’s STIC Ventures, and US-based 3L Capital – have joined the round where Google also participated.

Other deals

Clix Capital Services Pvt Ltd – one of India’s largest digital lending NBFCs – announced its latest round of capital infusion of $40 million, or about Rs 280 crore, from its existing investor AION Capital Partners Ltd, as well as its promoters Pramod Bhasin and Anil Chawla.

Mumbai-based entertainment firm Rainshine Entertainment picked up a significant stake in media company All Things Small this week to foray into new genres, as it looks to strengthen its global content business. All Things Small (ATS) was co-founded by media executives Supriya Nair, Sidin Vadukut, Gaurav Vaz, and Devaiah Bopanna.

Rainshine also picked up stake in Bengaluru-based FirstAction. It is a creative content and film production company led by Saad Khan and Maaz Khan. 

Social venture capital investor Acumen also invested an undisclosed amount in Pune and Boston-based refrigerated solutions provider, Promethean Power Systems Private Limited.

Bengaluru-based Orb Energy, which provides solar energy solutions in India, announced that Shell’s New Energies business has acquired an almost 20 percent stake in the firm in its latest funding round. In a statement, the company said the fresh investment would help more Indian SMEs – a largely underserved part of the market – benefit from lower-cost solar power.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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Greytip Software Private Limited (GSPL) which operates a HR automation and payroll product, GreytHR, has raised a Series C funding of Rs 34.5 crore from Info Edge. 

The round also saw participation from existing investor MegaDelta Capital. 

As part of the deal, Info Edge has come onboard as a new investor. Lincoln International were the exclusive advisors to this fundraise round.

Girish Rowjee, CEO, Greytip Software said, 

“We strongly believe that this fundraise is pivotal in accelerating Greytip’s growth story. We look forward to working with Info Edge given their deep understanding of the HR business and the SaaS space, as we chart out our next wave of growth plans. We also want to thank the support from our existing investors Mega Delta Capital (previously NEA India) and Blume Ventures.”

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In a statement, the Bengaluru-based company said it will use the funds for sales and market expansion and for new product innovations. Greytip already has a presence in 150 cities across India and the Middle East.

With over 9000 customers and 1 million pay slips being generated on the platform, Greytip claims to be one of the largest players in the SMB HR tech space in India. 

Chintan Thakkar, CFO Info Edge (India) Ltd said, 

“We are excited to partner with Greytip. We believe Greytip has built a strong B2B SaaS business in a segment which has been traditionally underserved and have been tough for technology companies in India to penetrate.”

Apart from this, Info Edge has made investments into startups such as Zomato, PolicyBazaar, Meritnation, Printo, Happily Unmarried, NoPaperForms, Shopkirana, Univariety, Medcords and ShoeKonnect.

Tarun Sharma, Managing Director at MegaDelta Capital said, 

“Since our initial investment in 2016, Girish and the Greytip team have built a best in class SaaS business. Through a strong combination of product architecture and go-to-market strategy thoughtfully crafted for India, the company is successfully delivering on the massive opportunity of digitizing Indian businesses.”

With over two decades of market presence in this space, greytHR, with this new round of funding will now be able to further cement its leadership in the SMB segment by reaching out to millions of SMBs in India who are keen to adopt such digital products but are currently not served.

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A whopping 230 million internet users, who shop, eat, and entertain themselves online, prefer to consume content in Indian languages, according to a RedSeer report titled Vernacular is NOW, Not the Future.

In fact, a recent InMobi study estimated that over the next five years, nine out of every 10 users in India will “prefer vernacular internet access”. Capitalising on this is Bengaluru-headquartered Vidstatus, an app that caters to the diverse vernacular audience using social media, especially WhatsApp.

Flipkart, Bigbasket, Meesho, celebrate joy of giving with Daan Utsav

Observing Daan Utsav week, the festival of philanthropy, which commences on Gandhi Jayanti every year, companies like Flipkart, Ola, Bigbasket, CRED, Meesho, Snapdeal, and others are promoting daan and offering help to those in need.

Cake artist Joonie Tan combines her love for baking and art

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Quick Heal is solidifying its cybersecurity presence

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Meet Rakhi Khera, a Myntra top seller who made Rs 3.4 Cr this year

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Potafo is giving a tough fight to Swiggy and Zomato in Kozhikode

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Nishith Rastogi was working with Amazon India in Bengaluru before starting Locus. Here, he was working on AWS’ machine learning and credit card fraud. During his stay at the startup capital of India, Nishith’s sister planned to visit him, and she was supposed to arrive late in the night. It was 2014, the time when the infamous Uber Delhi incident took place.

Speaking to YourStory, Nishith, Co-founder and CEO of Locus.sh, says, “An irrational fear gripped me as I was extremely worried about her safety. I kept calling her every 10 minutes to check on her.”

At the time, Nishith and Geet Garg, now CTO of Locus.sh, were building Pinchat, a platform dedicated to build communities.

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Keeping the safety issue in mind, the duo initially built RideSafe, a real-time route deviation detection application for women’s safety. The duo was pleasantly surprised when foodtech startups adopted RideSafe to track the delivery fleets in early 2015. 

Delving a little deeper, they realised a massive opportunity in unifying logistics with automation. And this led them to start Locus.

The objective was simple - to automate and optimise logistics operations with technological solutions of scale and reliability. Being the unorganised market that it is, the common and obvious challenges for companies in the space were scheduling, managing, and tracking the operations. 

“The technology that existed was not up to the mark. With Locus, we wanted to offer end-to-end logistics automation and minimise human intervention at every mile of the supply chain.”

 Locus users get a suite that comprises of propriety route deviation engine, order dispatch automation, field user app, route optimisations, scheduling, tracking for end-customer, consulting services, and predictive analytics.

Started in May 2015 by BITS Pilani alumni and ex-Amazon employees Nishith and Geet Garg, Locus has today evolved into a holistic B2B enterprise platform. Nishith says the company wants to reduce the element of human decision making in the moving of a package from point A to point B. 

Locus optimises logistics operations for enterprises across sectors to improve efficiencies, resulting in higher profitability. It is a decision-making engine that uses deep learning and proprietary algorithms to provide intelligent route optimisation, real-time tracking, insights and analytics, fleet optimisation, efficient warehouse management, vehicle allocation and utilisation, intuitive 3D packing, and measurement of packages.

Some of its prominent clients in the Indian market include Delhivery, Urban Ladder, Quikr, and Lenskart.

In May this year, Locus secured $22 million in its Series B round of funding,  led by Falcon Edge Capital and Tiger Global Management, and also saw participation from existing investors Exfinity Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.

The deal took the valuation of the company to nearly $100 million, and the total funding amount added up to $28 million. Nishith says the startup will soon touch $10 million in annual recurring revenue.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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For Venkat Maroju, growing up in the hinterlands of Karimnagar in Telangana made him witness and understand farmers at close quarters. Something that has always been on his mind. When the engineer saw an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of smallholder farmers, he was only happy to help.

Today, as the CEO of SourceTrace, a digital agritech platform that helps capture information regarding agriculture, financial services and retail through existing mobile and wireless data networks in developing economies (even in the most remote areas), Venkat is following his heart, and he is changing the lives of farmers with agritech.

SourceTrace targets cooperative societies, NGOs, commodity companies and government agencies to work with smallholder farmers. It also provides farmers a direct link with buyers who can source products, enabling a sustainable and ready go-to market for organic produce.

Venkat says, "The company had minimised deforestation and child labour, and increased the incomes of 230,000 small cocoa farmers in West Africa who supplied to Cargill. In a case study, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) used the SourceTrace platform to disburse agricultural loans to rice and maize farmers at scale."

Without digital technology, the bank was unable to scale due to a lack of trust in the loan disbursal process, and uncertainty while reaching out to the right farmers.

From the hinterland to progress

Venkat’s humble rural background has only made him more determined. His lack of English communication skills could have been a deterrent as he recalls that when he joined college, he could not speak a sentence in English.

Also weighed down by the tag of being from a backward section in the society, Venkat reveals,

"I went to government schools and studied in Telugu medium until 12th grade. In those days, when it rained, classes were cancelled, so I was surprised when I got into Osmania University Engineering College through a state-wide common entrance exam. Anyway, with a bit of luck and affirmative action, I made it," says Venkat.

In 2009, the engineer quit his job at Bose Corporation as the divisional CIO, and returned to Karimnagar to start the for-profit seed multiplication company Factum Ventures. After three-and-half years, faced with numerous challenges, and little success, he joined SourceTrace as CEO.

Financial services to digital agriculture

US-based SourceTrace was started in 2007. It was initially in the financial inclusion space, where it focused on branchless banking and agent banking. Venkat Maroju was then an advisor to Gray Ghost Ventures, an impact investment firm that had invested in SourceTrace.

In late 2012, SourceTrace found itself in limbo, with investors clueless about what to do next. Venkat was asked to help strategise during the period. He suggested focusing on agriculture instead of financial services. The board then asked Venkat to take over the reins of the company.

SourceTrace then underwent major management changes in 2013. Venkat Maroju took over as a turnaround CEO, and focused on digital agriculture. The new objectives centered around sustainable agriculture, and the development team created a software-powered digital platform that would bring predictability, transparency, equitability and sustainability to the agricultural value chain - from farm-to-fork.

The idea was to digitise the entire agricultural value chain by creating capabilities to capture information from remote and scattered locations, to provide real-time analytics. It also brought in complete visibility of the supply chain, and enabled a plethora of solutions like farm management, farmer-advisory services, traceability, certification, supply chain management, monitoring and evaluation, market linkage and financial services.

"When we started digital agriculture in 2013, there were only a handful of providers working in this domain. However, in the past three to four years, agritech has attracted many new entrepreneurs and we now have decent competition working on digital agriculture," Venkat adds.

The underlying technology comprises mobile applications, remote sensing, blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The solutions by SourceTrace claim to increase farm productivity, farmer income, and enhance their livelihoods. It also alerts farmers on weather, market pricing, pests and diseases, and helps them conserve resources like water, fertilisers and pesticides.

Financial services like crop insurance and crop loans are also provided with the digital platform that has farmers’ data integrated with financial institutions.

The model and the market

SourceTrace now functions on a SaaS-based model. The pricing includes a one-time on-boarding cost, followed by a monthly subscription which is dependent on the number of farmers. For a few cases, the pricing is based on the number of acres under management. The company is now present in 27 countries over three continents, impacting a million farmers.

"SourceTrace has now reached profitability and decent scale, while doubling the number of farmers and revenue as of 2018," Venkat reveals.

SourceTrace is now active in Asia, Africa, South America, and has offices in USA, India, Costa Rica and Bangladesh, where its technology team and professionals of sustainable agriculture work together.

Reported to have customer retention at 95 percent, one of the best in the industry, the company claims to have been acquiring users, using its competitors’ solutions and benchmarking its products.

"Our solutions are being used to manage over 120 crops. We are targeting a footprint of 10 million farmers in the next three years," says Venkat.

According to a NASSCOM report, India currently hosts more than 450 startups in the agritech sector, growing at a rate of 25 percent year-on-year. It is estimated that by 2020, the agritech sector will be at the centre-stage of innovation and lead India’s journey towards overall transformation.

With players like Oxen Farm Solutions, Agribolo, Gold Farm, Trringo, farMart, and Agri10x, the sector has received more than $248 million in funding as of June 2019, showing a growth of 300 percent as compared to the previous year. With the recent rise in funding, 48 percent of agritech CEOs believe to have the next Agritech unicorn in the coming three years.

(Edited by Suruchi Kapur Gomes)

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Australian chef and former Masterchef star, Sarah Todd, has been very busy of late, preparing for one of the biggest culinary events, the 2020 Australian Open Chef Series. This year, she will be part of an all-female lineup, which features names such as Donna Hay, Tasmanian star Analiese Gregory, and Thailand’s Michelin Star chef Duangporn ‘Bo’ Songvisva.

While it's a huge leap in her career, Sarah's journey so far has been nothing less than colourful. From modelling to competing in MasterChef Australia and owning multiple restaurants in India, she has done it all.

Don’t miss this exclusive interview with Sarah Todd, where she takes us on a journey from Australia to India, revealing all the toughest parts of running a successful business in India.

Wondering how to spend the long weekends that are coming up this month? Why not do some binge watching on TV? There is a slew of new web series on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hotstar this month that you must watch.

Right from spy thrillers like Bard of Blood and The Family Man to the second season of the Indian adaptation of The Office, there is so much to enjoy over this festive weekend.

So, whether you want to watch Manoj Bajpayee in The Family Man, who is trying to save the nation but is unable to save his marriage, or whether you settle down to watch the mission of RAW agent Kabir Anand in Bard of Blood, there is enough to keep you glued to your electronic screens for the better part of the weekend. So, bring out the popcorn, pour out the wine, and get started!

Want to lose weight and not sure how to go about doing so? Don’t go on crazy and useless diets, says our guest columnist, who is a well-known nutritionist. Find out where your problem areas are. Each person stores fat in different places in the body; some people struggle with belly fat, while others struggle to lose fat on their hips and upper thighs and arms.

The region you store your fat can tell you a lot about your body biochemistry and physiology. No diet exists that will work for all weight problems. Your approach should vary according to your problem zones. Read this article to find out more.

Do you love gourmet beers? If so, don’t miss the story of a young couple who launched a microbrewery in Chandigarh. Priyanka Gupta, entrepreneur, restaurateur, and medical doctor, along with her husband, Amritanshu, gave North India its first microbrewery called Hops n’ Grains, 10 years ago.

Those were the days when ‘microbrewery’ as a concept was relatively new to India. Despite the innumerable problems they faced, they stayed in the game, and today, despite the growing number of microbreweries in Chandigarh, they believe that Hops n Grains has its own market.

Even now, they keep improving their food menu by adding new flavours of beer to their menu and seasonal lager on tap.

What were some of their challenges? Read this interesting first-person account of their entrepreneurial journey to find out.

You have head of Latin dance moves. But what about Afro-Latin dances?

Find out all about this popular dance style just as Mumbai gets ready to celebrate an Afro-Latin dance festival from October 10-14. Entrepreneur Shital Joshi, who is a Latin dance enthusiast and the Founder of Pure Latin Fever, will be bringing the ‘Indian Afro-Latin Sensation 2019’ to Maximum City.

If you are in Mumbai, drop in, join in and enjoy a taste of Latina fever with the pros.

Do you love Munshi Premchand’s novels? Are your favourite authors Albert Camus and Gabriel Garcia Marquez? If you agree, you would love to meet Kewal Kapoor, Director & Creative Strategist, CHAI Kreative and Return of Million Smiles.

This writer, journalist, producer, and director has worked towards creating an amenable environment for the elderly through his initiative, Return of Million Smiles. He believes happiness is a state of mind and body when both work in tandem.

Read all about his loves, his regrets, his heroes, and values in his responses to our Proust questionnaire.

And his motto in life - ‘Age is just a number. It’s never too late to follow your passion’ - is the best way to enjoy life and live it to the fullest.

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 385 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath recently hosted an exhibition in Bengaluru, titled Asmi (‘strong, proud, confident’), featuring the diverse works of 30 women artists. Many of their artworks are featured in this photo essay.

“Art is not just about exploration or creativity but is meant to serve a purpose,” says Infosys engineer and artist Vyshali Acharya, in a chat with YourStory. She lost her father to cancer two years ago, and donates all her art revenues to help poor cancer patients.

“I work in the IT sector as a software engineer during weekdays, and I dedicate my weekends completely to art. I am able to balance this since I have a very supportive family and peaceful workplace,” she explains.

Vyshali has completed over 250 artworks over the years, priced from Rs 1,000 to Rs 30,000. She has exhibited her works on campus at Infosys as well.

“Since smartphones have decidedly made photography a whole lot more accessible, this might explain why hyper-realistic painting feels especially interesting and impressive these days,” she observes, as trends in art. She agrees with studies which show that art has the potential to impact a person's long-term happiness.

Vyshali has a group of artist friends who conduct workshops on weekends and help NGOs on initiatives like painting government schools. “For me, success is when I will be able to serve our society at my best,” she proudly says.

She encourages audience to expose themselves more to the multi-dimensionality of art, and also support artists by buying their works. At the Asmi exhibition, Vyshali showcased yakshagana painting from coastal Karnataka.

“Every artwork has soul, it’s up to individuals to connect to it. Art helps expand the boundaries of the imagination, and has healing power during busy and stressful periods,” says Vyshali.

“Art is beauty in the smallest of things in life. Art has vast meaning, beyond definition,” explains Milna Sajee, a full-time art teacher who has been painting since childhood. As trends in art today, she notices an abundance in depictions of religious figures.

“I am hoping that they reach the point of a more personal meaning rather than just delivery of what a vast majority of the public wants,” Milna says. “To me, success in art is personal satisfaction and inner peace with what has been created, as well as being able to make an impact,” she adds.

Milna’s artworks are priced from Rs 5,000 upwards. “Be true to yourself and don’t let the market define what you put out,” she advises aspiring artists. “And definitely practice,” she adds.

“Art is one's inner thoughts expressed without words, and devotion without prayer. It is so powerful that it can transform an individual,” explains Swaroop V, curator and artist.

Her artworks, priced from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000, reveal a play of light and shade with effects of simplicity as well sophistication. For the exhibition, she displayed a series drawn with colour pencil on paper, embellished with multiple textures via burnishing and layering. Themes were centred around Hampi and Hoysala art.

“I have been a software consultant by profession for the last 20 years and artist by passion for the last 30 years,” Swaroop explains. After hectic 10-hour days, art is a way of unwinding and finding peace.

She has created over 100 artworks in various mediums and styles over the years. As trends in Indian art, she points to trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural amalgamation. “There is also a distinct focus on ultra realism and traditional art forms,” Swaroop adds.

She cautions that many rich traditional Indian art forms are “fast evaporating.” This calls for more artists and experts to conduct workshops, and also redefine art to keep pace with contemporary thinking.

“Success for me is internal passion and exploration. Recognition and accolades have helped boost my morale,” Swaroop says. To improve art appreciation in India, she calls on senior artists to encourage budding artists with an open mind.

“Many artists are lost in their own exploration. They should form open networks and promote youngsters,” Swaroop urges.

She also offers tips for budding artists. “Never stop aspiring. Success is defined by one’s own satisfaction. Enjoy every small milestone and move ahead with confidence,” she advises.

Swaroop says the exhibition drew a good response, with many visitors asking for custom art creation. Many first-timer artists asked for tips on improving their style and for commercial success.

“I got overwhelming comments. But that's not the end. I want to work harder to reach the peak. I want people to know me for my artworks, to understand art, and buy art,” says Sarbani Bose, artist and homemaker.

“I learnt long back that we are the medium for the divine. Art for me is an expression of what I understand, a creation from heart on canvas,” Sarbani explains. It takes a lot of practice and experience to develop one’s own style, along with learnings from senior artists, she adds.

Sarbani’s artworks at the exhibition featured Rabindranath Tagore and Mother Teresa. Her works are priced from Rs 50,000 Rs 75,000. She has won a range of awards and participated in exhibitions by Akanksha and Vasantha groups in Bengaluru, as well as Gandhi Art Gallery in Delhi and Vermezo Galeria in Budapest.

“Use your own imagination, don’t copy other artists. Bring out something new, think out of the box. Only then will the standard of art change and more people will appreciate art,” she advises aspiring artists.

“Just go with the flow. Art has many meanings just as a hand has many different-sized fingers. Practice makes perfect, so keep practicing,” Sarbani signs off.

Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule, and find ways to uncover and harness your real creative side?

Got a creative photograph to share? Email us at PhotoSparks@YourStory.com!

See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.

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Verizon Media’s MAKERS, a digital and video storytelling platform, that has accelerated the women’s movement in the US, is finally here in India.

As it expands its footprint, MAKERS India has entered into a strategic partnership with YourStory to help connect the MAKERS India community with women changemakers - both online and on the ground. 

Launching the platform in New Delhi, Shradha Sharma, Founder & CEO, YourStory, said, “magic happens when we tell real, authentic, natural, and imperfect stories and stories of women who might not be picture-perfect, but they are one of us”.

“We as women should feel good about ourselves, our own journey, and our achievements. We need to recognise how extraordinary we are and how we have been able to inspire others to be the same,” she added. 

The inaugural event also launched the campaign #OurTimeIsNow. MAKERS India will power this campaign that urges Indians to take a stand and collectively raise their voices, both online and offline, to accelerate the women’s movement in India. #OurTimeIsNow will amplify the voices of women breaking down cultural and societal barriers. It will give a powerful voice to women who have till now gone unheard of or not had the opportunity to make bolder choices.

“With the launch of MAKERS India, we are proud to accelerate the women's movement in India. It is upon all of us to take the pledge and accelerate the movement," said Guru Gowrappan, EVP & Group CEO, Verizon Media, over a video message. 

The inaugural event kick-started with a fireside chat by Shradha Sharma with a panel including Rose Tsou, Head of international, Verizon Media; Rico Chan, Co-head - APAC, Verizon Media; and Nikhil Rungta, Country Manager, India, Verizon Media. Verizon Media is home to widely-used consumer brands like Yahoo Cricket, Yahoo Mail, HuffPost India, and now MAKERS India.

Speaking during the discussion, Rico said that he pledges to bring pay parity in his organisation, and help women to have equal opportunity for career advancement and development. Rose said that at this moment, she wants to ensure that we should become a source of inspiration and support and provide mentorship to women. 

The panel discussion was followed by a candid conversation with International Emmy nominated actor Radhika Apte, where she asserted that stories need to be told without compromise.

“Whether we like it or not, Bollywood influences a lot of people in our country. Hence, they need to represent something that we want our society to be like,” she said. Taking a pledge at the conference, she said, "I will take a pledge to fight my fears and not succumb to it". 

Another panel discussed the state of women in India. The panel included Rekha Sharma, Chairperson of National Commission for Women; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, Paytm; Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC TV18, and was moderated by YourStory's Shradha Sharma.

During the panel discussion, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said that he will create 100 million bank accounts for the unbanked women in India. He also said that as an economy, we won't grow if we treat every woman by default as a homemaker, especially if their constructive inputs are not taken into consideration.

National Commission for Women (NCW)’s Rekha said the commission does not want to be a complaint redressal system, but a system to empower women so that there are no complaints. She said there are many ways the NCW is helping women to have financial independence, and are conducting programmes on entrepreneurship for women; helping them start businesses, and encouraging skill development.

The next panel discussion was with India’s fastest woman - Dutee Chand, along with acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, and Chayya Sharma, Deputy IG, NHRC, and the woman who was in-charge of Nirbhaya case.

In a candid chat, Dutee said that she had never considered anyone as her role model, but it's amazing to see others consider me as their role model.” She also said sports has changed her life in a big way.

“We can now afford a house, education for my siblings, and also I now have a job. I think I have fulfilled every dream of mine which I had as a kid," said Dutee. 

Pouring her heart out, Laxmi narrated the story of how it has been a long journey for her - from being a victim of acid attack to being a survivor. She said that it was her father who once told her that she doesn't have to look anywhere for strength. “Your family is there to always support you and stand by you. My strength will always be with me in these words by my father,” she said.

Speaking about the judicial system, society, and redressal regarding crime against women, Chhaya Sharma said, "We need to make the policy more sensitive towards women and professionals so that the work ethics and deliverable by the offices get improved."

MAKERS India launch comes at a pivotal moment in the women’s movement in India, championing issues like gender equality and inclusivity in the workplace. Through visual storytelling, podcasts, live events, documentaries, and award-winning digital content, MAKERS India will lead conversations that nurture an inclusive, empowered community of women in the country.

The platform will create new avenues for women to come together as a community. It will also offer brands the opportunity to engage meaningfully with women audience in India through relevant, interactive forums and events, and on themes that matter to women here.

The inaugural ceremony ended with a speech by transgender rights activist Akkai Padmashalli, who highlighted that a woman is beyond her biological entity. Being a woman is about expressing herself, it's about accepting your gender what you are feeling to.

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Gurugram-based foodtech unicorn Zomato recently turned 11. On the official blog, Co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said this “makes us proud of what we have achieved yet, acutely aware of how much there is left to do”. 

“We achieved tremendous results in optimising our costs, without affecting new product launches or innovation," Deepinder said, adding, “we will shoot for market leadership, and simultaneously steer the business towards a more sustainable P&L."

In the past six months, Zomato has executed over 65,000 orders for 2,200 restaurants across Delhi and Bengaluru. The revenue from its warehouses in H120 stands at $6.5 million, as compared to zero in H119, with a FY20 projection of 10x growth. The food aggregator acquired Hyperpure in 2018 to provide fresh and clean ingredients to its restaurant partners. 

The company has been growing significantly in the past 11 years, and has been in news constantly. Many things have changed significantly, but one thing has remained common: even today, Deepinder goes to work with the same vigour and passion. 

Being hands-on for 11 years 

“Even today, I miss nothing. I am still as hands-on as I was when the business first started. And it isn’t really that hard. I start my day by making a list of 40 small and big things I need to do that day. And I end my day by 7-8 pm,” he says. 

So what keeps him going? “You always need to be truthful to yourself and, by that virtue, to everyone else around you. Posters don’t define culture; what you do defines culture.”

He adds that intellectual honesty is the most important thing “When the going gets tough”. “You aren’t blaming circumstances, things, or others; you are looking inwards on what needs to be solved and what you need to do differently or better.”

In line with this belief, the team has built the ‘Founder Programme’ for people who have contributed to Zomato, have helped build or scale businesses, and have demonstrated a founder’s mindset. 

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Every year, the company will assess and announce deserving individuals as founders at Zomato. 

“Being a founder gives you the privilege of serving our employees, customers, and business partners from the highest possible level. It is a privilege to play a cornerstone role in building out our ambitious vision: better food for more people,” Deepinder says. 

While Zomato may have built a programme for their partners and employees, Deepinder Goyal believes that every founder and aspiring entrepreneur needs a few attributes to be successful. 

16 must-have ‘values’ for a good founder 

“What does a ‘founder’ mean? According to me, it just means that you have now earned the leadership team's trust to be able to take decisions on behalf of the company. Simple, but not easy. Over time, after speaking to, hearing from, and reading about other founders, I have developed a set of founder ‘values’ that I think are necessary for someone to be a good founder,” says Deepinder.  

Commitment

You realise that as a founder, your commitment is not only to the role you play, but to the vision and mission you share with thousands of people who work with you every day. You value the opportunity to serve millions of people, and the responsibility that comes with being a founder. You deeply understand the commitment and sacrifices it requires to live up to the responsibility.

Resilience

When we are rejected, the door before us becomes a wall. We can either push against the wall, pretending it's a door, and tell ourselves that those who rejected us made a mistake. Or cry over the wall, bemoaning our lack of talent. Or try to scale the wall, realising it is unyielding. Or we can walk away and look for another door. A founder finds other doors. Those new doors mean resilience. When you address uncertainty with flexibility, you exhibit resilience.

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Culture driver

You are an embodiment and evangelist for the company’s culture and values, both within the company and externally — to employees, customers, and business partners. 

Sunshine test

You are mindful of the sunshine test - that is, everything you do should be able to stand public scrutiny.

More hits than misses

Founders have strong business and people instincts, and make decisions that are mostly right.

People first

You prioritise your actions along the interests of the community of employees, consumers, and business partners.

High standards

You uphold the highest standards for quality of work for yourself and your teams. You stay connected to details, and only have tolerance for well-intended mistakes.

Personal mastery

You have a learning mindset, are intellectually honest, and open to new ideas and change. You proactively seek feedback, take everything positively, and invest in your own learning and growth.

Eye for talent

You not only have the ability to hire people better than yourself, but also invest in converting people’s capabilities into their abilities. You bet on exceptional talent, irrespective of their age and experience, and put these people at the right places where they can add the most amount of value.

Go wide, and deep

Founders have a reasonable amount of meaningful input for each aspect of the business. When required, founders can quickly master any topic that they need to (irrespective of whether they like that topic or not).

Self-confidence 

Founders are fearless and comfortable to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree. They do not submit to authority and operate from deep-rooted, mission-oriented convictions.

Ambition

You create and communicate a bold direction that inspires extraordinary action. Then you inspire people to execute and beat these goals.

Humility

You look into the mirror and take ownership for negative outcomes, and look out of the window and give credit to those responsible for positive ones.

Prudence

You do more with less and maximise the output of your own and your team’s work, while keeping budgets and costs as low as possible.

Source of energy

A founder is a source of energy for everyone around them. Founders have to energise, and build morale around lots of stakeholders. They know that if they are drained of energy, then people around them will also feel drained.

Ignorance

Founders tend to be blindly ignorant to the challenges around the problems they’re seeking to solve. That means they think outside the box and are undeterred by the failings of those who have tried before them. 

Deepinder adds that this is not an exhaustive list. “I can add more points, but, in my opinion, these are the most important aspects of a founder’s mindset. If you zoom out and look at this list, operating with a founder’s mindset is simple, but not easy.” 

“It just needs you to detach from yourself, and bring your soul to work. Also, it is not necessary that you are in the founder’s mindset every day; what’s important is whether the days you are in the founder’s mindset are significantly more than the days you are not. All growth begins with discomfort. Without it, there is no reason to change. We mature when we finally realise that life is not about achieving absolute peace but about effectively managing tension,” Deepinder says. 

(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)

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Bounce is a smart mobility solution, with a mission to make daily commute stress-free, time-saving, reliable and, convenient. The bike-rental startup is taking lessons from cities like Amsterdam to popularise riding instead of using automobiles. With presence in 11 cities, there are many conscientious individuals ready to ‘bounce’ on to their commute.

Pick up a bike through the app, and drop it anywhere after a journey, those yellow scooters are everywhere.

Be a part of this eco-friendly company and its concern for cleaner air with these new positions as senior managers that help enhance consumer experience.

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Here’s YourStory’s curated list of jobs that will help you be a part of the new wave of responsible businesses.

Group PM – IoT

Experience needed: 4-6 years

Bounce is looking for a responsible candidate who excels at understanding the needs of the customer and innovating to satisfy those needs. They should lead the strategy and development of an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, including defining platform requirements and customer experience. Simply put, they must be able to devise plans to improve IoT services.

Group PM – Transactions Platform

Experience needed: 4-6 years

The primary requirement of the candidate is to understand in depth financial markets and customer needs. They should also be able to identify market opportunities and find ways to bring in more revenue streams by modifying features. If you are capable of adapting and troubleshooting in a technically complex environment, you could be the ideal candidate for this role.

Group PM – Analytics & Customer Lifecycle Management

Experience needed: 4-6 years

The candidate should be able to work towards reducing customer churn and sustaining the existing customer base. They will be responsible for analytics, customer insights, and revenue opportunities. They must also be able to charter customer segmentation and drive customer lifecycle growth.

Group PM – Partner Ecosystem

Experience needed: 4-6 years

As a group PM for the partner ecosystem, the candidate will be responsible for entering into strategic partnerships and managing partner relationships. They need to provide support on product propositions across ecosystem partners. Additionally, they will be expected to interact with the partners about the company’s strategies and ideas.

Senior Director/ Director, PM – New Initiatives

Experience needed: 6+ years

The company is on the lookout for a director for new initiatives who will take ownership of new business initiatives, and strengthen existing assets. They must track, report, and optimise the metrics for business. Bringing in independent and original ideas will be a prime requirement.

Senior Director/ Director, PM – Operations/ Supply Chain

Experience needed: 6+ years

The selected candidate’s responsibility will revolve around planning new product processes to facilitate customers. They should manage inventory and establish controls to ensure proper operation and minimised supply chain risk. They will have to develop practices that ensure reliable quality and service performance from suppliers.

Senior Director/ Director, PM – Data Products

Experience needed: 6+ years

The selected candidate will have to build, develop, and maintain data models, design technical processes to address business issues and optimise data intake at Bounce. They should be capable of anticipating future demands of initiatives and work collaboratively to implement solutions for the same.

Senior Director/ Director, PM – Consumer Experience

Experience needed: 6+ years

Bounce is a consumer-friendly company and aims to enhance this every step of the ride. The new director for consumer experience will be responsible for checking service quality, and working to enhance service delivery to consumers. They will have to define and implement segmented engagement strategies to understand and solve the consumer’s problems.

(Edited by Suruchi Kapur Gomes)

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Verizon Media’s MAKERS, a digital and video storytelling platform, that has accelerated the women’s movement in the US, was launched in India on Friday evening. The inaugural event initiated a dialogue on how we can accelerate the women’s movement in India.

A panel discussion on the state of women in India, chaired by YourStory's Shradha Sharma, saw participation from Rekha Sharma, Chairperson of National Commission for Women; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, Paytm; and Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor, CNBC TV18.

The panel deliberated on guidelines to empower women and increase the possibility of success on how barriers and challenges can be addressed through changes at multiple levels.

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CNBC TV18's Shereen Bhan asserted that for any successful organisation, the culture has to be built on equity, where meritocracy is nurtured, encouraged, rewarded, and recognised.

“So today, when I say that at CNBC TV-18, we have a lot of women in leadership roles, it's not because I'm a woman on top, it's because we have used the lens fairly and with only merit being the driving factor, and the dominating force,” she said.

She said that more and more organisations need to exemplify that kind of structure. “And that's what drives you to bring your best self to work every single day and that culture is perfection,” she said.

To a question on what are the things that NCW is doing on this front, Rekha said that NCW is often considered as a complaint redressal body, but it is not that. It is working to empower women so that the complaint should not come to NCW. 

“Complaints are coming to us because women are not empowered. They don't know how to take care of themselves, they don't know the relevant laws, and they don't know how to approach the body which can help them. So from taking complaints and making them aware of the laws, we are also talking about the changes in the laws, where we think that the laws are not according to this time, as some laws are made long back and now the condition is changing,” said Rekha.

NCW is trying to change various laws such as Section 6(a), which makes father the first natural guardian and then the mother for children born within wedlock. The provisions lay bare the prejudices of the society behind the law. For example, within a marriage, a father’s right is given primacy.

The NCW is recommending a change in this section in line with the rights to equality and against discrimination enshrined in Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. The natural guardian, according to NCW, shall be the father or the mother, and not the father and then the mother.

Other laws it is working towards are the sexual harassment at workplace. The NCW has recommended that the number of members in the internal committee probing sexual harassment at the workplace should be increased to an odd number so as to take a majority view. The present composition of the internal committee mandates a minimum of four members. The NCW also recommended the period of reporting about sexual harassment should be increased.

“We are trying this because we see that women are not helped by the law,” said Rekha. She highlighted that the biggest agenda of NCW is making women financially equal to make their own decisions, to make their life independent, and for that, NCW has various programmes of entrepreneurship. Last year, NCW had partnered with hospitality company Airbnb to create livelihood opportunities for women in India as a step towards their empowerment.

Agreeing to financial freedom and empowerment of women in India, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, Paytm, said “as an economy, we won't grow if we treat every woman by default as a homemaker, especially if their constructive inputs are not taken into consideration.”

“If we believe that India will be a $5 trillion economy soon, and I call upon every woman to be the biggest contributor,” he said. He added that women going out to work should be a revolution that we bring in this country.

He also reiterated that women empowerment should be a mainstream agenda for all of us, and not just a couple of associations. Adding to which Shereen added that this is something that the government, civil society, the social sector, and the private sector must come together and address, and this has to happen at the grass-loot level.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma also said that he will create 100 million bank accounts for the unbanked women in India. 

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We kick-started this week by talking about Udaan, the fastest Indian startup to have achieved the coveted unicorn status. The B2B online marketplace, which has set its sights to conquer Indian retail, was incorporated in June 2016. Udaan launched its operations a year later to create waves in the Indian startup ecosystem by achieving a unicorn status in September 2018, with a private valuation of $1 billion and above.

The founders – Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta, former Flipkart executives, understood the big picture of India’s retail industry, and realised that technology could be a game changer. They say Udaan’s journey has just begun.

The pulse of India’s economy, to a large extent, rests on the retail industry as the nation is driven by consumption, which is expected to touchfrom $1.8 trillion in 2017 to $3.6 trillion by 2020. Powering this consumption will be the retail industry, which is expected to cross $1.1 trillion by 2021. The driving force behind this is consumption of goods like food grains, fruits and vegetables, medicines, clothing, and even mobile phones. Read the story here.

This week, Udaan again raised funding of $585 million led by Tencent, Altimeter, Footpath Ventures, Hillhouse, GGV Capital, and Citi Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global.

With this fund raise, Udaan’s valuation is now believed to be nearly $2.5 billion to $3 billion. Since 2016, Udaan has so far raised $870 million in funding.

And technology cannot exist without engineers, who are building these unicorns. They say knowledge is power. Fifty-five-year-old STS Prasad, the SVP of Engineering at business software company Freshworks, is a firm believer in this. Prasad believes that there’s only one truth to engineering.

“Get your basic mathematics and logic right. Then you can apply any engineering language for any given problem statement with experience and practice,” he says.

Read his story here.

After talking about Udaan’s fund raise, we cannot miss mentioning NoBroker.com.

Started by Amit Kumar Agarwal along with Akhil Gupta and Saurabh Garg, the one factor which makes the tech-based real estate platform stand out in the already over-crowded real estate market is the complete absence of any kind of brokerage. Meaning, an absolute broker ban – a feature that is plugged in with the help of algorithms and other tech tools.

“A broker cannot post his property. A broker cannot fetch an owner’s contact,” says Amit.

Watch Amit Kumar Agarwal talk about the many hurdles which shaped their success.

After ecommerce and real estate, now let us talk about an upcoming idea in the edtech space. Get Me A Course is an online aggregator of both online and classroom courses, curating courses from various learning platforms and bridging the gap between learners and trainers.

“The model is very similar to travel aggregation sites and apps that list all the different airlines, hotels, and travel service providers,” says Rohan Krishna, the CEO and Co-Founder of the Bengaluru-based startup.

GMAC’s inception has its roots in personal struggles. Launched in 2016 in Bengaluru, the startup is the brainchild of Rohan, a serial entrepreneur,and four others - Kshama Bhatia, Shashwat Swaroop, and Ammin Rajqotwala. All of them had personally faced the dilemma of finding the right skills and upskilling as they navigated their careers.

Asthe edtech space disrupts education and teaching, many foreign companies are now seeing opportunities in India.

The Lambda School, for example, believes India has an enormous need for engineering and technical talent. While the HRD Ministry says that more than 1.5 million students graduate from engineering schools every year, not many of them get employed.

It is to change this that Austen Allred and Ben Nelson started Lambda Schoolin 2017. It is an online coding bootcamp based out of San Francisco. It offers technology courses like Data Science, Full-stack web development, iOS development, and UX Design, owing to high demand for engineers armed with these skills. These courses last from nine to 18 months.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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Back in July, Motorola came out with the One Vision, and just over a month later, its cheaper sibling, One Action, has been unleashed in the market.

The ‘Action’ in One Action refers to the third camera: A dedicated ultra-wide-angle lens with a 117-degree field of view. Motorola put it there to target those who like to shoot with a GoPro.

Motorola has made sure that when one holds the One Action vertically, the smartphone records the video horizontally (and vice-versa). There’s also a software-side feature called “Enhanced Video Stabilization” that helps reduce the shakiness when shooting videos.

Will the action camera, along with a 21:9 CinemaVision display, help the Motorola One Action stand out in the crowded budget market?

Before we take a deep dive, let me just appraise you of all the specifications.

Specifications

The One Action comes with 6.3-inch FHD+ punch-hole display (2520x1080 resolution and 21:9 aspect ratio). It’s powered by Samsung’s Octa-core Exynos 9609 chipset and comes with 4GB RAM + 128GB of internal storage and a 3,500 mAh battery with 10W charging. There are triple - 12-megapixel primary lens + 5-megapixel (depth sensor) lens and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens - cameras on the back and a hole-punch cutout for a 12-megapixel camera.

There is a USB-C port on the bottom along with a headphone jack at the top. The One Action is an Android One phone (clean minimalist look along with superfast updates) running Android 9 Pie out of the box, with an update to Android 10 coming soon.

One Action vs One Vision

While the One Vision and One Action are nearly identical, the One Vision doesn’t justify the higher price - by Rs 6,000 - of the two. There are subtle differences that aren’t noticeable at first but it quickly becomes evident that Motorola has cut corners - a plastic body, 10W charging, no Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), and IPX2 instead of IP52 rating - to bring the One Action to the market at such an affordable price.

With the One Action, Motorola has decided to address a specific need - videos - rather than making a phone that is above average in many different areas.

Where the One Action excels

The One Action comes with a dedicated wide-angle action camera and a 21:9 CinemaVision display at just Rs 13,999. The display, design, and especially the action camera give the One Action the upper hand in the below Rs 15,000 segment.

Watching videos on the One Action is a treat for the eyes. That is if you can find videos shot natively in the 21:9 format. It was a struggle to find many such videos on any of the OTT platforms and Motorola is hoping 21:9 video library improves in the near future.

The One Action looks quite good from afar and has a solid build quality to it with an excellent grip. I accidentally dropped it a few times with absolutely no damage. In my two weeks of usage, it never felt like it would fall out of my hands.

The One Action also has the upper hand in the camera department. It’s Motorola’s first smartphone with three rear cameras (good on them for finally catching up with the competition). There’s a 12-megapixel primary camera along with a 5-megapixel depth sensor.

For video enthusiasts, this is where things get very exciting. There’s a 16-megapixel ultra-wide-angle ‘Action Camera’ with a 117-degree field of view.

The One Action lets you shoot not just in ultra-wide mode but also in portrait mode and this is one of the handiest features of this smartphone. One can shoot a video vertically and have it played back horizontally. The quality of the video was impressive - keeping in mind the price tag of the smartphone - especially when the lighting was good.

The 12-megapixel front-facing camera took some impressive selfies. Over a cup of coffee, two of my friends had taken the smartphone and were happily snapping selfie after selfie. They were quick to comment that they liked the photos that came out. Indeed, the day-time selfies were impressive as they looked vibrant and sharp.

Where the camera faulted was when taking low-light photos. Unlike the One Vision, the One Action lacks a dedicated low-light mode, and that puts a dampener on what could have otherwise been a solid camera at this price point.

Where the One Action falters

The rear panel of the One Action attracts smudges, which is always a downside on any smartphone. The triple-camera setup also bulges ever so slightly, making it sit unevenly when kept atop a flat surface like a table. The punch-hole camera on the display has a thick black outline and this makes it hard for one to ignore.

The One Action, with its 3,500 mAh battery, delivers strictly average battery life - barely lasting a day - with no support for fast charging. The polycarbonate back, while looking good from afar, doesn’t deliver the same premium feel like the One Vision.

The One Action is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 9609 processor and is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (there is only one variant). It reveals a similar performance to the One Vision but feels laggy as compared to the Xiaomi’s and Realme’s, despite an uncluttered stock Android experience.

On a day-to-day basis, you won’t notice any significant stuttering, but if you load a lot of apps, webpages and games, then the phone can slow down to a point where one would get really annoyed.

Last but not least, the One Action lacks any sort of waterproofing.

A crowded budget segment

India is a price-conscious market. With that in mind, the sub-Rs 15,000 segment is the most crowded out there. The likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro, Realme 3 Pro, Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2, Vivo Z1 Pro and Xiaomi Mi A3, have been selling pretty well, and none of the manufacturers can complain.

With the One Action being added to the mix, Motorola is pitching the smartphone as an alternative to the Xiaomi’s and Realme’s with it’s two USPs - 21:9 CinemaVision display and the ultra-wide-angle ‘action camera’. While these features help it stand out vis-a-vis the competitive landscape, it is the regular smartphone features - primary camera (disappointing low-light photo), battery life (lasting under a day) and performance (stuttering quite a bit with heavy usage) that make the One Action a hard sell.

The Redmi Note 7 has a 48-megapixel camera that takes much better photos, the Realme 3 Pro and Vivo Z1 Pro look classier, and the Mi A3 is faster in day-to-day usage, with all four of them lasting longer on a single charge.

Is this phone worth it?

The Motorola One Action is a hard sell. One can easily recommend the One Action over the One Vision. Can the One Action stand apart from its competitors? That answer would be no.

Motorola, for what it’s worth, has got the pricing bang on for its feature set and knows how to stand out of the crowd. Only time will tell whether this ‘limited targeting’ will be a successful strategy.

In a nutshell, it’s a phone for vloggers Android purists.

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‘Ghar ka khana,’ has always been associated with home sickness, and more so, if you happen to be living abroad. Many times, even if you try out your favourite dishes from YouTube, it does not come out as you envisioned. 

This led Ragoth Bala to start The Cumin Club that delivers easy-to-make Indian food meal kits across the US, in June 2019.

An Indian who had moved to the US in his early 20s, Ragoth, a vegetarian, had always found it difficult to eat healthy food. It is not uncommon for restaurants and office lunches to 'feature' vegetarian options such as a sandwich with just cheese, tomatoes, and a potato-patty burger. 

Why meal kits? 

“It wasn't easy to make all my meals either. I was working full-time and attending school in the evenings and weekends. Time was the most precious commodity, and preparing a meal from scratch was impossible. My parents came to my rescue by sending curated ingredients to me, that I could make a meal out it of in five to 10 minutes,” Ragoth says. 

He soon realised these home recommended meal kits were not just healthier, but also cheaper than the other available options. 

“I realised that what benefited me could benefit thousands of Indian students, working professionals, and dual income households, who all have a busy lifestyle and find it difficult to eat healthy. I truly believe that 'hasty, yet healthy' meals are possible, and started The Cumin Club,” Ragoth says. 

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Building the team 

Ragoth floated the idea among friends, classmates, and ex-colleagues. Soon, his friend from India - Anand R liked the idea and joined as the Co-founder of The Cumin Club. 

While Anand is an electrical engineer with an MBA degree in operations from SP Jain College, Ragoth, an electronics engineer, holds an MBA degree in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management from Chicago Booth. The team currently is five people strong. 

The US-based bootstrapped is both a product and a service. The platform offers meal kits with an assortment of over 25 vegetarian dishes from five different regional cuisines of India. The main ingredients include lentils, millets, vegetables, wheat, and rice. They also have recipes for popular Indian dishes such as poha, pongal, kichdi, pav bhaji, bisibelebath, and dal makhni. 

Customers can fully customise their meal plan by picking a cuisine and adding their favourite dishes to the plan. With just 5-10 minutes of effort, customers can turn these meal kits into authentic dishes, using just the appliances and utensils that are commonly available in Indian households.

What does it do? 

Explaining how The Cumin Club works, Ragoth says, 

“The Cumin Club meal kits are different from frozen food or instant food brands whose products are preserved for several months, sometimes years. Our business model is direct-to-consumer, with a turnaround as short as 10 days, from meal kits being curated in our chefs' kitchens to meals being served at dinner tables, around the world. We have achieved a shelf life of 4-6 weeks for our ingredients, using advancements in food science (such as cryogenic freezing), instead of relying on harmful preservatives. We provide an easy and healthy alternative to restaurant food and packaged instant meals.”

The market 

While still a new concept in India, the concept of meal kits is picking up fast. Being Chef, a Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) recognised startup, also follows a similar model. 

Japan-based platform Cookpad also began its operations three years ago. It enables close to 58.8 million users to share and find over 6.8 million recipes to cook at home. The company went public in 2009 and has reported a profit of $19 million. Blue Apron, a US-based platform, is also known for its meal kits. 

The Cumin Club follows a subscription-based model. The meal kits cost $5.5 to $7 each, with free shipment. Each pack of 5 or 10 meal kits is marginally profitable, and the team is looking to spend more on marketing to grow the subscriber base further, to gain economies of scale in different areas of its operations.

“Since our launch in June, we have served over 4,000 meals to customers across 30 states in the US. We have also evolved our offerings from two cuisines to five cuisines from across India. The subscriber base has grown 200 percent month-over-month since launch and continues to grow as our early customers are helping us spread the word,” Ragoth says.

Future plans 

It takes a deep understanding of the customer base, especially for the Indian expats around the world, and a ton of experimentation with different menus from across cuisines, to see what fits the meal kit model, Ragoth explains.

Speaking of the future plans, he says, “We are planning to expand our offerings to include dishes from two more Indian cuisines and we are planning to add desserts, as well. We are also planning to expand to three more countries soon, and plan to serve a total of eight countries by the start of next year. We hope to be the go-to place for all things Indian, for Indian expats around the world.”

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 390 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

Located just off 100 Feet Road in Indiranagar, Bengaluru, lies a gallery specialising in ceramic art. Gallery Manora this weekend kicked off a month-long exhibition titled ‘Waning,’ featuring ceramics and photographs by four artists: Vivek Mathew, Shonali Madappa, Anubha Jaswal, and Gomathi Suresh (see earlier interview here).

The idea for the exhibition was hatched a year ago, says gallery founder-director-curator Gomathi Suresh, in a chat with YourStory. She is a ceramic artist herself, and the exhibition showcases some of her work using techniques like soda firing.

The theme of the exhibition is the weakening of nature due to global warming, pollution and rampant development. Charred and burnt trees, some with oozing gum, are reflected in her ceramic artworks, Gomathi explains.

“Many people unfortunately think global warming is irrelevant or only a temporary phase,” she cautions. But cities are witnessing dying lakes, and it takes concerted citizen efforts to rejuvenate them.

One of the speakers at the inauguration of the art exhibition is conservationist Anand Malligavad, who has helped rejuvenate lakes in Bengaluru through his Lake Revivers Collective. Gomathi says she is also influenced by the works of Bengaluru-based musician-environmentalist Ricky Kej, who was recently named Global Ambassador for Kindness by UNESCO.

“The exhibition is not about gloom and doom, but about the need to interpret what is happening to nature and come up with creative solutions,” Gomathi explains. Each of the artists in the cross-genre exhibition has responded in their own ways, with photographs of trees in autumn or patterns in water, or showing cracked earth in pottery.

The artworks are priced from Rs 900 to Rs 6,000. The artists show that photographs and clay can play more than utilitarian roles, and serve as symbols that inspire activism. The artists remind us that we can no longer assume “business as usual” and take nature for granted.

“Life may not stay the same as expected. But humans live on hope, and don’t give up. It is time for us to accept that the human race is more parasitic and greedy than other species. We need to begin with this ugly truth, face the harsh reality, and move on to progressive solutions,” Gomathi urges.

Consciousness of our impact on nature should be part of our daily lives, and every small step to reduce our consumption and its adverse impacts will help. “From deliberate to instinctive, our actions should control our needs and wants, and sustainably work for the good of the environment,” Gomathi signs off.

Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule, and find ways to do to your bit for our environment?

Got a creative photograph to share? Email us at PhotoSparks@YourStory.com!

See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.

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Ryan Holmes, the co-founder of Hootsuite, a social media management platform, once said,

“When in doubt, bootstrap. Using your own personal resources is the easiest way to start a business. You don’t have to convince investors about the merits of your idea. You just have to convince yourself.”

Much has been spoken about glory when it comes to startups that scale at a rapid pace and size with the help of fundraising and external capital. It is not overselling to say that this mechanism leads to massive acquisition of users and data, with hopes of making profits and unit-economics positivity at a later stage.

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YourStory lists five companies that bootstrapped from Day 0, and achieved massive scale and profitability.

Media.net

Founded by serial entrepreneur Divyank Turakhia in 2010, Media.net got its exit to a Chinese consortium in 2016, for $900 million.

Divyank started his first internet business in 1996 at the age of 14, made his first $1 million at 18, first $100 million at 23, and crossed his first $1 billion at the age of 34. In 2014, Endurance International Group bought four brands that he co-founded with his brother, Bhavin Turakhia, for approximately $160 million.

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Later, Media.net made substantial investments in its business to build a comprehensive portfolio of advertising technology in the industry across search, mobile, display, native, local, products, and video. Its platform and products are licensed by some of the largest publishers, ad networks, and other ad-tech companies across the world.

Currently, Media.net runs the Yahoo! Bing network contextual ads programme, and also runs contextualads.yahoo.com exclusively across all markets.

Speaking about external funding, Divyank Turakhia once told Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory, that he didn’t look for funding because the businesses he built were profitable and didn’t need funding.

“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.

Great Learning

Claiming to have witnessed a 50 percent increment in the average salaries of its students, Gurugram-based Great Learning has been around in the market since 2013. With an aim to provide high-quality learning based on industry-relevant programmes, co-founders Mohan Lakhamraju and Hari Krishnan Nair bootstrapped the startup in 2013.

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The edtech startup offers courses in business analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, and cloud computing. It will soon offer training in cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain. Most of its users are mid-career professionals who have 4 to 12 years of experience, coming from diverse backgrounds like IT, BFSI, manufacturing, healthcare, automotive, NGOs, and government.

The founder says the startup is now profitable, and is in talks to raise funds with a couple of investors. The startup, which employs over 160 people, is targeting revenues of Rs 100 crore in the current fiscal.

"We have not raised money so far because we did not need it. Now we have new avenues of growth," Mohan says.

Zoho

For 24 years, Sridhar Vembu, the Founder and CEO of Zoho, has spearheaded the software and CRM company, and made it profitable after bootstrapping. While there is speculation on how much revenue Zoho makes, Sridhar puts it to rest by saying that they crossed $100 million in revenue in 2010 itself. He says one can 'work out the current numbers based on market growth'.

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"It is important to raise capital to build a business. However, I often blame the 'financialisation' of the system. It creates an illusion of immediate success and thereby an unsustainable ecosystem. Even banks are giving loans without any measurable metrics. Finance is the most seductive mistress and several startups have been seduced by it. It is like a drug and its addiction destroys the patient."

Zoho counts Salesforce among its biggest rivals, and is now reportedly looking to expand operations in USA and Mexico.

FusionCharts

Pallav Nadhani, the Founder of Fusioncharts, was an accidental entrepreneur, who was just looking for some pocket money. When he was 16, and bored of Microsoft Excel, Pallav thought of creating a better charting solution and came up with FusionCharts. Today, FusionCharts has some of the big names in the industry as its clientele, including the likes of Google and Apple

The company is an interactive software suite that facilitates engaging charts between web and enterprise applications.

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His aim was simple – "Because I wanted money, I needed to build something that people would pay for. And the next challenge was naturally how to get more and more people to pay for it."

The model is based on licensing to sell the software. In the United States, Pallav and team had closed deals worth $500,000 only over the phone, without having to meet the customers. However, he says that the same cannot be replicated in India, considering the fact that customers have the habit of calling twice or thrice if they have to spend $200 or more on software licenses.

QuickHeal Technologies

Started as a bootstrapped startup with a consumer antivirus product in 1995, QuickHeal has quickly evolved into an end-to-end cyber security solutions provider. With its clientele spread across retail, enterprise, SMB and governments, the company is leading the domain with its flagship products - Quick Heal and Seqrite.

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Founded by brothers Sanjay Sahebrao Katkar and Kailash Sahebrao Katkar in Pune, QuickHeal has been a global player in cybersecurity for the past 25 years. In the early 1990s, Kailash realised that computers were eventually going to replace calculators and persuaded his younger brother, Sanjay, to opt for a bachelor’s in computers course.

India has been the primary market for Quick Heal, with more than 90 percent of its revenues coming from the sub-continent alone. The company raised funding of $12 million from Sequoia Capital only by August 2010.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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Turnarounds are always inspiring. Especially if it is just a day away from shutdown. 

“I was a day away from shutting down everything, returning the seed capital that I had raised from the investors, and going back home,” recalls Greg Moran, Co-founder, Zoomcar. This was in December 2012. 

Greg Moran and David Back, who studied together at the University of Pennsylvania, had come to India to start a business, and had zeroed in on the idea of Zoomcar.

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An investment banker, Greg was always intrigued and interested in the Indian market. So, he took a leave of absence from his Wall Street job, and decided to explore India.

After arriving in India with David, the duo realised the potential for car rentals. The two had, in fact, also dabbled with the idea of starting a company in the renewable energy space, but later decided on the transportation sector.

Greg believed the transport sector in India needed disruption, and in 2011, he and David conceptualised Zoomcar as an hourly car rental platform. But they soon realised that while there was a strong business potential for car rentals, there were several infrastructural challenges. 

While owning a car came with a certain snob value, there were also many who said having such an asset was a waste of money. “We actually beat Uber by a couple of months. Ola was already present in the market, and they were following a taxi aggregation model,” says Greg. Apart from this, there were Meru and Mega Cabs. 

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To start car rentals, Zoomcar first had to get a licence, but it couldn’t get one. This was primarily because the Contract Carriage Permit needed the startup to have yellow board licence plate vehicles. And Zoomcar didn’t have a fleet. They needed to tie up with an owner of a fleet soon. 

By this time, they had already raised seed funding and had tied up with several car makers. “I had put in all of my savings into Zoomcar, and it was suddenly a make-or-break situation,” says Greg. The only way out was to work with an existing player that already had a licence. 

“At that point in time, there were five of those (in Bengaluru),” says Greg. Four rejected Zoomcar outright, and it was down to the wire as they met with Ramesh Tours and Travels. If that didn’t work, it meant going back to the US. 

Greg says, “I did not book a return ticket (to India). I had one final meeting with Ramesh. We agreed on the terms and worked out a licensing agreement. I went back to the US the next day, but I could come back and that was a relief. It was extremely nerve wracking and very stressful because it would have been awful to return money to investors before starting a business.” 

Over the past five years, while Zoomcar has continued to rent out cars on an hourly basis, it has also brought in several changes. Today, one can have a car delivered to their location.

Greg says, Zoomcar runs on a different model, and the focus is on customers who want the freedom of having a car any time they require, for a longer duration. 

Today Zoomcar offers services across 50 Indian cities with a fleet of over 10,000 vehicles. It has raised $85 million in funding. With 75 percent occupancy and 1.5 million app downloads, Zoomcar says it is India’s largest app-based self-drive car rental company. 

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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