From making payments using sound to using Internet of Things (IoT) to track plane terminals, to using quantum cryptography to protect enterprise data - Cisco's fourth cohort of startup graduates showed investors and enterprises that India can be a product nation.
So far, 24 startups have graduated from the Cisco Launchpad. “We believe many of them can become partners in the long run. What is good about the programme is that about six of them have gone on to raise pre-Series A funding,” says Krishna Sundresan, VP-Engineering at Cisco.
Krishna Sundresan, VP, Engineering, Cisco
In the Fourth Cohort, the eight startups that graduated are – Minion Labs, Qunu Labs, Schrocken, Squad Cast, Trilbit, Uncanny Vision, Velmenni and ZestIOT.
Here is what these startups do:
MinionLabs: It helps businesses reduce their electricity costs and improve their productivity by providing real-time device-level electricity consumption insights using a smart energy device using its analytics platform.
QunuLabs: The quantum security technology company offers solutions and products to provide hack-proof data security.
Schrocken: It helps OEMs protect contractual commitments such as warranties, operations and maintenance agreements, and equipment rental contracts for connected products.
Squadcast: Offers a SaaS solution for tech teams to minimise unplanned downtime and improve system reliability with better incident orchestration.
TrillBit: A cross-platform solution that connects businesses and people in real-time through a proprietary acoustic technology to make payments, and engage people over mobile phone.
Uncanny Vision: It helps systems integrators in smart cities and smart infrastructure applications with real-time, edge-powered, AI-based vision for surveillance cameras.
Velmenni: It chases 10x speed of current day data communication through illumination, with a technology called Li-Fi or light fidility.
Zest IoT: Uses IoT to help airlines and airports improve on-time performance of flights by improving departure schedules, transferring data in real-time to the command and control system.
“We have focused on deep tech and entrepreneurs with experience. There is a lot of maturity in the startup founders we are picking. They understand problems of industry. At Cisco, we help them work with our clients, and hopefully in the long run, all of them become our partners,” says Sundresan.
In its previous cohorts, Cisco has mentored the following startups:
● First cohort: AlgoEngines, VuNet, Teslon, Torchfi, Navstik Labs, haltDos, Astrome, and IQLECT
● Second cohort: App Knox, Mishi Pay, Dataglen, Pickcel, Entrib Technologies, Pycno, Imaginate, and Spectral Insights
● Third cohort: Asquared IoT, Atoll Solutions, Exabit Systems, FluxGen, SenseGiz, Talasecure, Planetworx, and Ziroh Labs.
“The few months we spent at LaunchPad, we learnt the value of scaling and partnering with larger clients,” says Mrigesh Parasar, Co-founder of TrillBit.
Held at VR Bengaluru, the fourth annual edition of the Whitefield Art Collective (WAC) features a range of established and emerging artists. The exhibition is part of an initiative spanning four cities, with the works of 200 artists (see our coverage of the WAC editions in 2018,2017 and 2016).
The exhibition this year is titled ‘Connecting Communities through Art,’ and is showcased in Part I,Part II, and Part III of our photo essay, along with insights from the artists and the curator, Sumi Gupta.
“The public role in public art is absolutely essential to me as an artist. People enliven my work, I’m eager to see how people are inspired, intrigued, motivated and provoked,” said artist Sapna Dube, in a chat with YourStory.
The works on display at WAC 2019 are part of her collection ‘Elephant As God’. But though the elephant god is worshipped in India, atrocities against elephants in the guise of religion and tourism continue. “Through this Ganesha series, I want to create awareness and inspire activism about elephants in captivity,” Sapna explains.
She commends VR Bengaluru for fostering a sense of beauty, pride, and ownership in the community. She sees art as a vehicle for communication as well as memorialising stories, emotions, and dreams. “Art is a chronicler of society. Art is also fun and therapeutic - both the making of it and the viewing of it,” she adds.
It is hard to define success for an artist – it could be from invitations to exhibit, sales, or the passion of the journey. “It’s not about whether I succeed or fail as an artist. It’s about the kind of person I become as I do the work. Does it make me feel more authentic? Am I coming from a place of integrity? Do I share generously? Am I grateful? And most importantly, am I actually making art, good art,” Sapna asks.
She has been awarded a grant by Art In Transit in association with Bengaluru’s Namma Metro to develop a site-specific, interactive public art installation. Art In Transit is a public art project, an initiative of Srishti Institute Of Art, Design and Technology. Titled Letter, Sapna’s work will be inside the Cubbon Metro Station, located next to the GPO.
“In the age of instant everything, I want to revive and remind people of the beauty of a short, simple, personal, handwritten note that is irreplaceable,” she explains.
Artist Kalyan Rathore sees art as an exploration of the unknown, a medium through which many aspects of abstraction can be reached. “Some may be fascinated by its beauty, some by its power to communicate an idea and some in how it evolves oneself,” he explains. His exhibited works reflect the beauty and symmetry in geometry and mathematics, balanced with elements of change and chaos.
Success for Kalyan is having enough work so that the next idea can take shape; it also comes through inspiration and recognition, whereby money becomes a by-product. “Art is meant to be a friend and not a snob. Art in VR Bengaluru is like a friend you bump into when you least expect it. To view and enjoy art in the Whitefield Art Collective is like eating when you are hungry,” he explains.
Both exhibitors offer a range of tips for aspiring artists. Sapna stresses the importance of articulation, technical mastery, business networking, and financial planning. “An artist today has unfettered access to the who’s who of the art world, all thanks to the Internet. Make the most of that. An artist needs to be more than an artist - be well read and well informed, and that will come across as being a better, larger, and more impressive artist,” she advises.
The creative journey calls for continuous learning and skilling across fields and languages. “Read as much as you can - stories, self-help, science, psychology, current affairs, history, criticism, everything, every day. The successful artist is the person fully living the contemporary life. Embrace that. Most of all - keep making art, lots of it,” Sapna urges.
“Have self-value and work by connecting within your deepest self,” Kalyan advises. “It helps to be able to switch modes and play the role of a thin-skinned learner and a thick-skinned doer. Wisdom, however, is to know when to be thick-skinned and when to be sensitive,” Kalyan evocatively signs off.
Now, what have you done today to appreciate the beauty and power of art, or to expand your creative self?
See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.
In 2014, like any new comer in the city, IIT Kanpur alumnus Nikunj Batheja was faced with the problem of finding a furnished home in Bengaluru. There was born the idea for Homigo, to help others like him. The startup was launched in 2015, along with batchmate Jatin Mitruka as Co-founder.
We first wrote about Homigo on YourStory in September 2015. Since then, it has expanded across Bengaluru and even raised $200,000 from undisclosed investors. The team has also got the likes of the online home furnishing startups Livspace and Mebelkart as its investors. Mebelkart, which was part of AskMe, shut shop in 2016.
A few days back, a number of rumours surfaced: that Homigo was in talks to be acquired by Nestaway, a bigger player in the space. And that Homigo's tenants had been asked to vacate their homes by the landlords of the buildings they were staying in. There was also talk - and even a screenshot of an email - that said Nestaway would be dealing with the deposit refunds of Homigo's tenants. YourStory itself received more than one such email, and then discovered similar complaints on Quora and Facebook groups.
With regard to the takeover, however, Nestaway Co-founder Amarendra Sahu told that they were not acquiring Homigo.
“There were a few initial talks with the team, but after a few checks and due-diligence, we decided not to acquire the company. There were several discrepancies, which we didn’t want to associate with.”
Another source at Nestaway, who was part of the team exploring the acquisition, said that Homigo had come to them with a proposal where they would “transfer 540 beds to Nestaway” and Homigo would only take a commission on these.
Homigo founders, in a happier time. Akash Verma joined in as founder in 2016
Tenants in a soup
Back to the tenants. Reports emerged on social media – mostly Facebook groups – where Homigo customers were escalating complaints that they had been asked to vacate these homes immediately by the landlords. There are tenants who have also suggest that the founders will not be available for the next two months.
A group of Homigo's tenants has also filed an FIR with the Mico Layout police station in Bengaluru saying that Homigo’s founders are absconding. (YourStory has copy of the FIR.) Speaking to YourStory, one of the tenants said on condition of anonymity: “We have repeatedly tried reaching the team and the founders. I have a deposit of Rs 16.5 lakh with Homigo, which I am yet to receive. The founders are yet to share anything. This is a lot of money at stake.”
According to his lease agreement shared with YourStory, the said deposit was 3-year lease period.
A post on the Facebook group Flat and Flatmates states that a customer’s Rs 50,000 deposit has been with Homigo for over three months now.
An email sent by a group of tenants to YourStory says that many tenants are facing similar problems. Most are waiting to get a refund on their deposits. In some cases, tenants have not heard from Homigo but the original owners of the properties who had leased these out to Homigo. A tenant shared an email they received from Homigo, dated February 24, 2019, with YourStory. It says:
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, Homigo had to temporarily halt all its operations across Bangalore for 2 months. This is due to lack of funds and the decision by the board is to stop all losses and money burn for a couple of months, while we work on arranging more funds. We would like to request your support in this hard time while we do our best to revive our company.
“We request you to not believe in any rumours and stay calm. As on date, there is no money that is due from Homigo to you, the money is only due after a move out notice and vacation of the property.
“Due to the spreading of the rumours and turbulence in the market, the owners of the property are getting worried and taking measures to hamper your stay. We certainly don’t want that to happen and we are trying our best to sort the matter with the owners and keep your stay peaceful, as it has been over the years.
“If you have any queries, feel free to mail us at ‘legal@homigo.in’. Our legal team is working of sorting each and every case amicably.
Some media reports have suggested that the original owners of properties leased by Homigo have told tenants that the startup has not paid them the said lease amount, and that is why they are asking tenants to vacate. YourStory was unable to confirm this.
Multiple emails and text messages that YourStorysent to the founders of Homigo remained unanswered at the time of publication. We will update the story as and when we receive a response. There have also been reports of resignations of two board members. We were unable to conclusively identify these board members.
What put off Nestaway?
A highly placed source at Nestaway, who was part of the due-diligence process when it was considering acquiring Homigo, told YourStory,
“The problem isn’t just the lack of funds. When we began to dig deeper, we realised that there was mismanagement. In our due diligence, we also noticed that the red in the ledger was more than what the team had initially claimed.”
It was one of the primary reasons for the deal to fall through in the last moment, the source added. Further, the main problem also was how the properties were being managed.
“In our tests and checks, we realised that the basic amenities and services needed to ensure a pleasant living experience were lacking. The main reason for startups like us to survive and thrive is not just funding, but also a quality experience” added the source in Nestaway.
The Facebook group and complaints on Quora also indicate that many of the premises that Homigo rented out were not furnished the way that had been promised to customers.
Running a rentals business can be an expensive proposition
But the business of running a rentals business is not easy. The furniture needs to be in order, the food arrangements in place, housekeeping and maintenance of the property to be taken care of, as would be the most important draw for the millennial customer: Wi-Fi. All of these aspects form a significant part of the operational expenses for a startup.
As per Homigo’s filings with the Registrar of Companies, the company’s revenue has been climbing steadily, but so have expenses and losses. With no funding raised, it was becoming all the more difficult for Homigo to keep operations going.
The challenge for a business like co-living – in order for it to be lucrative – is to control the experience, backed by offline service and a strong technology backbone. An investor told YourStory on condition of anonymity,
“Homigo, from what I gather, focussed on building a great platform and tech behind it. But like any startup that has a first-time entrepreneur, without the balance of a management co-founder it is possible that they could’ve missed out the operational parts that would be a part of a co-living business.”
Co-living: a growing, lucrative market
Co-living as a market is fast growing and expanding. The global sharing economy is believed to touch $335 billion by 2025. A KnightFrank report says that co-living today is one of the biggest bets for businesses targeting millennials today.
“Millennials or ‘Generation Y’ are the population group belonging to the 18–35 years of age bracket. Of the total global population of 7.4 billion, millennials account for a substantial 27 percent forming the largest demographic group worldwide,” the report said.
It is to address this market that several startups have ventured into the space. There is Delhi-based CoHo, Bengaluru-based StayAbode, YourOWNRoom and SimplyGuest, Noida-based Placio, Gurugram-based Flathood and Co-Live. Bengaluru-based ZoloStays, which recently raised $30 million in funding. And of course, the hospitality heavyweight OYO too has entered the market.
For Homigo’s tenants, these are uncertain times, and it is a tough job to separate rumour from fact in such an environment. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a startup to face a cash crunch or have to shut down because a business has become severely unprofitable. We can only hope that the founders of Homigo are able to find a solution that does right by their tenants, and is right for their company and themselves.
An aspiring entrepreneur or someone who has met with startup failure in the past will agree that starting a business on your own can be intimidating. Not all of us have the financial means or courage to quit our jobs and get started on our dream ventures right away. Adding to the self-doubt are the well-documented risks in entrepreneurship, the stories of startups that crashed and burned, and elusive success stories
The question then we often find asking ourselves is – How can I translate my brilliant ideas into a successful early stage startup?
Well, there is no easy answer. There is no one way.
But, the fact is you need to prepare, launch and grow a business. For this, you need to develop entrepreneurial skills and expertise. You need to learn the necessary startup tools and frameworks. You need to articulate the vision for the startup. All of which will help you take the first step with confidence and greater chances of finding success.
The Entrepreneurial Edge programme by London Business School has beendesigned to help aspiring or first-time entrepreneurs.
An intensive 12-week venture development journey with mentoring and support, The Entrepreneurial Edge helps prospective entrepreneurs kickstart successful early stage ventures. As part of the programme, participants build and launch business ideas, learn tools and frameworks, evaluate market opportunities, create a viable business model and financial plan. The programme also helps you ask and get answers to the important financial questions that you need to know to write a business plan and win over investors.
Interestingly, the programme not only helps aspiring entrepreneurs create their first startup, but also aims to help serial entrepreneurs refine their techniques, as well as corporate professionals reinvigorate their career with entrepreneurial thinking.
Discuss: Interactive sessions with your course director
Apply: Prepare one pitch deck slide
Pitch: Share individual submissions and pitch to your mentor
Refine: Evolve the idea based on feedback from your mentor and support group
A programme where the course director plays a key role
Adam Davies, the Programme Lead of the View Entrepreneurship course at University of Oxford, who is also the visitor professor for entrepreneurship at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and Programme Lead at Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, Spark Accelerator, heads The Entrepreneurial Edge programme as the course director and lead mentor. Each week Adam will take the participants step-by-step, through the key concepts, including live online sessions, before opening access to a wide range of exclusive insights and support.
Weekly feedback from expert mentors
The London Business School’s Entrepreneurship Edge provides participants with weekly feedback from experienced mentors. The programme offers 12 weekly live interactions with the mentor and support group for feedback and guidance. The mentor guides, motivates, supports, encourages and holds you accountable for ongoing progress towards your stated goals. The mentors hold the weekly online sessions in small groups (maximum five participants) to go through the week’s learnings, provide feedback on slide decks and other assignments, and answer participants’ questions.
Founder’s insights, Live mentoring and learnings from industry experts
The programme offers 12 weekly, 75 minute interactive online classroom sessions and 200 exclusive videos from leading experts. Eight startup founders from across various stages will also share their in-depth insights and learnings, bringing a real-life context to the theories and academic research, and respond to detailed interview questions. Startup advisors will also share their experience, learnings, and tips to simplify tricky areas such as investment, intellectual property, and legal structuring.
Weekly pitch practice
If there’s one thing that is a key challenge for most aspiring entrepreneurs, it is to create a winning investor pitch deck. With everyone having a different perspective of what should go into it, creating this deck can be a Herculean task for first-time entrepreneurs. That’s why the programme has been consciously designed to include an iterative pitching process, wherein the teams evolve their business ideas, launch strategy and venture’s structure. Mentors will provide feedback on participants’ slides and their developing pitch decks. Participants will also have the opportunity to provide and receive constructive criticism to/from their support group each week, and even work together on preparing slides, in some instances.
Pitch to global investors
The programme culminates in a ‘Pitch-Day’ where selected teams are given the opportunity to present their venture to an Investors’ Committee consisting of active venture capitalists, founders and angel investors who invest in new ventures from around the world.
Strong cohort culture
Participants work in virtual groups with other founders, providing feedback and support, and help with weekly assignments. This enables a strong cohort culture with a network of peers, who often remain lifelong friends.
A well-designed weekly module
The weekly modules have been designed to help the participants identify legitimate business opportunities, gauge market demand and size of the opportunity, define the business model, build an early stage management team, identify an appropriate business plan, create a robust set of financial projections, prepare a go to market strategy, acquire initial customers and pitch for, and negotiate investment. The modules not only introduces foundational frameworks and techniques on market research, revenue models and cost structures but also covers concepts such as opportunity costs for entrepreneurs, alternative financing methods, including convertibles, crowd-funding and ICOs, among others
Seasoned mentors
Richard Branson, business magnate and Founder, Virgin Group, once said, “If you ask any successful business person, they will always have had a great mentor at some point along the road.” This quote resonates with many entrepreneurs. That’s why London Business School’s The Entrepreneurial Edge programme ensures that participants have access to stalwart mentors. This includes the leading authority on owner-managed entrepreneurial businesses, Rupert Merson is the programme director and lead faculty. Rupert is also the Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship BA and MA at Oxford University. The other key mentors include David Arnold, Adjunct Professor of Marketing and a well-known academician who is also the author of a number of books including The Handbook of Brand Management; John Bates, the founder and a director of Sussex Place Ventures Ltd and manager of London Business School’s in-house venture capital fund, and Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and the Academic Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Commitment that is practical
One of the key reasons why so many people fail to complete online programmes is because of the extensive commitment it requires from participants. Often, participants have to spend many hours each day doing coursework and reading. This is where the Edge programme stands apart. Understanding the challenges of working professionals, the course demands about five to eight hours of commitment every week. Most of the learning happens within this time frame. If you were to break it down, it doesn’t require participants to spend more than an hour each day, making it feasible for working professionals.
Lead by the world’s learning company
The Entrepreneurial Edge programme by London Business School is being brought to you byPearson Professional Programs (PPP), one of the world’s leading learning company. PPP is recognised world over for partnering with leading global educational institutions, faculty and providers to help working professionals update their skills and progress in their careers.
As with the Edge programme, Pearson is known for deploying cutting-edge learning technology, classroom infrastructure and pedagogical methods and each programme is carefully contextualised to speak to local business realities.
With courses tailored to factor in the time that working professionals can realistically commit towards learning, accompanied by byte-size content, a high-touch learning experience, and experience, PPP scores high on completion rate. In fact, its success has been high on this front, with a 94.31 percent completion rate.
Ashish Kumar’s life changed at the age of nine when an incident in school left him with partial speech and hearing loss. Not knowing what the future held, his family was worried. A few years later, his father heard about a programme run by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) as part of the Skill India initiative and enrolled him in one of the designated centres, where he underwent training to become a Retail Sales Associate.
A training session in progress
He learnt sign language and other necessary skills needed for the role, and today the 25-year-old from Uttar Pradesh is employed as a Retail Sales Associate in global food services company Compass Group, earning a modest but steady income.
“Through the training, I gained a lot of confidence. The entire learning process, and especially the mock interviews, helped me crack the interview with Compass Group. Today, I am a strong and independent person,” says Ashish.
Like Ashish, 26-year-old Neeraj is also speech and hearing impaired. The youth from Haryana lost both his parents at an early age and was brought up by his elder sister. In the midst of abject dejection, he got to know about the NSDC-affiliated training centres. He enrolled for a two-month course, and today he is employed as a Housekeeping Associate in a luxury hotel in the NCR.
“Thanks to this training, I am earning well and contributing financially to my own home and buying all the things I desire,” he says.
These initiatives and certification programmes run by NSDC in collaboration with training partners across the country aim to make India’s youth more employable and financially independent through high-quality, market-relevant skill training.
It is estimated that India is set to become home to the world’s largest workforce by 2027, one of the key reasons why equipping the millions of youngsters and making them competent and confident to be a part of this workforce is crucial. These programmes are designed to do exactly that, while also ensuring that the trained candidates get placed in well-established organisations, including hospitals, MNCs and star hotels.
Another beneficiary of one such skilling scheme is Ramya, who battled gender stereotypes with her father’s support and is a successful micro-entrepreneur today.
From Shayampet, a remote village in Warangal district of Telengana, where the norm is to get girls married as soon as they turn 18, Ramya and her father bucked the trend. With his help, Ramya enrolled in a skill development programme in eye care, after she completed her PUC. She successfully completed the course and became a certified refractionist. Today, she owns and runs an Eye Mitra optical store in her neighbourhood, with a monthly turnover of Rs 25,000 and a profit of Rs 10,000-15,000 a month. In addition, she was selected for an EMO adoption programme that involves sponsorship of micro-entrepreneurs and eye care practitioners to help grow their business.
Ajesh, another micro-entrepreneur in the making, is a school dropout from Kerala’s Kannur district who was not interested in academics. While he wanted to pitch in financially to help his five-member family where his elder brother was the sole earning member, no job interested him. That was until he attended a skilling fair in his town organised under the Skill India mission.
“The event gave me and my friends exposure to various opportunities for a livelihood. The beautician’s course interested me and I immediately enrolled for the programme,” he says. Although the role of a beautician is typically oriented towards women, Ajesh’s family and friends encouraged him to break the stereotype and pursue his interest.
“Besides the skills for becoming a beautician, the course also prepared me for the job market and taught me customer relation skills, business skills and communication skills. I got placed with a good beauty parlour and spa, and one day I want to start my own salon,” says Ajesh.
Like Ajesh, 20-year-old Adil is realising that he doesn’t need to limit the scope of his dreams because he wasn’t born in a big city. “Little could I have imagined that a two-month course as part of the Retail Sales Associate programme, that too in my home district, would open new windows of opportunity for me,” says this Bundi resident. “The course gave me confidence about my own ability to do well and taught me how to handle situations and evaluate opportunities. IT skills, spoken English and confidence in communication were the best things that I learned, apart from the main course.”
Today, he has come a long way from a small town in Rajasthan to being employed in one of India’s leading fintech companies.
These are but a few of the millions of such stories of youngsters who are getting a new lease of life and a chance to explore opportunities to improve their lives and that of their loved ones, and helping power the dream of a New India.
Mary Kay Ash, Debbi Fields, Anita Roddick, Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Brownie Wise…women entrepreneurs have consistently and constantly pushed the standards of their fields to make an impact. Among them is Lillian Vernon. Lillian who, did you say?
Born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1929, Lillian Menasche moved to the US in 1937 when the Nazi threat intensified. In 1951, she decided to start a small mail-order business – it combined her name and the name of her Mount Vernon, New York, home.
Lillian Vernon converted her idea of selling monogrammed belts and purses into one of the US' most popular mail order catalogue businesses. Photo courtesy: www.chicagotribune
In 1951, Lillian used $2,000 of her wedding gift funds to set up a mail-order business, andshe began by placing an ad in Seventeen magazine to sell matching purses and belts. Her small enterprise soon grew into Lillian Vernon Corporation, an American catalogue merchant and online retailer for household, children's and fashion accessory products.
“Toughness is a good thing, yet it is considered good only in men. When a woman is tough, men can't stand it. I like being tough and smart,” Lillian famously said. She strongly believed that you shouldn’t “try to be all things to all people. Concentrate on selling something unique that you know there is a need for, offer competitive pricing and good customer service”.
By 1970, she hit $1 million in sales. When the company went public in 1987, Lillian Vernon was the first company traded on the American Stock Exchange founded by a woman. Woohoo! There were challenges, of course. The greatest, according to Lillian, was “staying alive as a business, staying ahead of the game, and melding my business life with my personal life”.
If that doesn’t inspire you this fine Monday morning, we have something more. Our stream of startup stories. Read, share, and get ready to rock Monday.
Mosquito-repellent creams, lotions, and patches on newborns and babies? Ugh. Indore-based Shreshtha and Mayur Malpani faced the same problem and wondered if there was a way out. In 2017, they launched Clothing Innovation, which aims to reduce the spread of vector-borne diseases in India with a patent-pending formula that helps it make mosquito-repellent clothes. Now, that's innovating!
Shreshtha and Mayur Malpani founded Clothing Innovation in 2017.
A book is a labour of love for every author. But helping the right set of readers to discover the book isn’t easy in these times when a new title is released almost every day. That’s why Noida-based AllAuthor believes writers shouldn’t go by the book when it comes to branding and promotions. Started by brothers Naveen and Madhuker Joshi in 2016, the online platform wants to let authors focus on what they do best - writing.
Team AllAuthor is on a mission to make the life of writers' easier.
To vote is a given, but for whom? As India gets election fever, this Jalandhar-based startup helps with ratings and reviews of your Netas. Started by serial entrepreneur and Wharton School graduate Pratham Mittal, the Neta app aims to make voters more informed about their political leaders, and let them express and share their feedback with ratings.
The Neta app is a spin-off of Pratham Mittal's earlier venture, outgrow.com.
In the last article in our India’s EV Story series, we talked about how bike-sharing/rental platforms were moving to using electric vehicles to help them become profitable. Today, we talk about what they need to become widely available and compete effectively with their petrol/diesel-powered counterparts.
Electric vehicles are all the rage, at least in a part of the public transport space. Bike-sharing platforms like Yulu, Mobycy, Rapido, ONN Bikes, Bounce, Vogo, and Ola’s new EV venture, Ola Electric, are all looking to go electric in order to survive and thrive in the $300 million ride-sharing/rental market in India.
They’re not the only ones. Bus aggregator ZipGo and car rental startup Zoomcar are also looking at electric. Mahindra & Mahindra, owners of the all-electric e2O car, too has entered the ride-sharing business with its electric car hailing service Glyd and a fleet of 10 e-Verito cabs in Mumbai. And then there are the electric three-wheeler operators such as SmartE, which address last-mile connectivity. Mahindra has recently released 10,000 electric three-wheelers, while SmartE plans to release 10 times as many by 2022. Even Ashok Leyland announced its foray into electric buses a year ago, and is now ready to launch 50 e-buses.
But while the supply of electric vehicles is growing, the supply of electric vehicle infrastructure has not been able to keep pace. What’s more, the jury is still out on which type of infrastructure will work best.
Worldwide, electric vehicles have two common charging options: charging stations and swappable batteries. A fixed charging system is made up of a permanent docking system that can be set up in malls, homes, and offices. The vehicle can also be fast-charged depending on the technology available. Luxury sportscar maker Porsche, for example, is experimenting with a 450 KW charger. German luxury carmaker BMW has similar technology - both can charge a car for 100 km in under five minutes. Tesla has charging stations with fast chargers, but continues to work on swappable batteries.
Batteries today are increasingly lithium-ion, rather than lead acid, which fell out of favour because it drains faster after eight months of use.
Orxa, GoGreenBov and Ultraviolette use swappable batteries. Strom’s car platforms are ready for both fixed and swappable ones. Bikes from Tork and Ather’ need fixed charging docks. Street bike companies like Ultraviolette and Orxa, both based in Bengaluru, are ready with their swappable battery ecosystems.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal with a fleet of Ola Electric vehicles
What the current infrastructure is like
Today, 80 percent of electric vehicles are charged at homes and offices; however, this form of charging is slow because it typically takes eight hours for a full charge. Further, these basic charging amenities do not always exist at offices, hotels, and malls.
For players in the public transport space, however, the infrastructure needs to be easy to set up, low-maintenance, cost-efficient, and quick to use. It needs to be both widespread and convenient. A highly placed source at Ola Electric told YourStory,
“The problem needs to be addressed simultaneously. You need EVs on the road and to ensure they continue to be on the roads, you need the infrastructure. It is one of the core tenets of establishing Ola Electric Mobility. As a company, Ola Electric will not only ensure that vehicles are on the road but also that there are different modes of infrastructure available.”
For ebike-sharing companies, it is the classic chicken-and-egg problem. To build scale, more EVs need to be on the road, and, for more EVs to work, there need to be enough charging stations or swappable batteries.
Anil G, Co-founder of bike-sharing platform Bounce, says the problem now is that there aren’t as many charging stations as petrol pumps. As soon as players that have scale work on it, consumer behaviour will shift.
“Highway charging today has DC (direct current) fast charging, which is capital-intensive. So the market for EV charging infra is expensive. For residential and personal use, it makes sense to use solar plus net metering plus EV charging,” says Maxson Lewis, Founder of Magenta Power.
Magenta's AC (alternating current) community charger costs Rs 19,750 plus installation costs (i.e., wiring, which is variable) and takes the cost to approximately Rs 25,000. It is also developing an AC charger specifically for India for under Rs 7,000. The company also has a DC fast charger for cars, which costs around Rs 5 lakh.
Currently, Magenta is working to set up charging stations for electric vehicles, which would help buildings monetise the electricity they produce through solar energy. Explains Maxon,
“Over the next decade, as the presence of solar electricity increases, every house can become a charging station, which means anyone can provide power to owners of electric vehicles. This can be managed through the Magenta app, which will match demand and supply of charging stations and vehicles that need charging.”
Magenta aims to set up over 450 charging stations by next year. Currently, it has 32 in Karnataka. Magenta has also set up a solar power-based charging station for electric vehicles on the Mumbai-Pune highway. “We have installed India’s first EV billing meter. We will soon also install charging installations in Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad,” he adds.
The startup also has a fast-charge solution that can charge an electric vehicle of 15 KV capacity in half hour, which can give a car a range of around 140 km.
…or a swap story?
On the other side are companies like SUN Mobility, co-founded by Chetan Maini, the man credited with building India’s first electric car, the Reva (now part of the Mahindra group). The company is working on setting up swappable battery infrastructure across the country for electric bikes and electric auto-rickshaws.
SUN Mobility believes that a swappable battery is best for these vehicles because riders won’t have to worry about range anxiety and stopping to charge their batteries. All that these vehicles owners have to do is go in to a SUN Mobility station and get their batteries swapped.
“By creating a swappable battery ecosystem, we bring down the cost of the vehicle,” Maini says. SUN Mobility recently partnered with SmartETM, India’s largest electric vehicle fleet operator, to deploy its universal energy infrastructure to support SmartE’s growing EV operations.
Goldie Srivastava, Co-Founder and CEO, SmartE, told YourStory in an earlier interview that the new system would help the company rapidly scale their vision “without having to worry about the energy infrastructure”.
As a pioneer in the electric mobility service space, SmartE plans to roll-out 100,000 vehicles by 2022. At 100,000 vehicles, SmartE says it will help reduce close to a million tonnes of carbon emissions, the equivalent of planting 17 million trees per year.
Goldie Srivastava, Co-founder and CEO of SmartE
As Chetan explains,
“Conventional electric three-wheelers that run on lead-acid batteries usually require eight hours of overnight charging and four hours of opportunity charge during the day. The assets remain idle half of the time during the day and could only cover 60-80 km, which cause a loss of potential revenue. Our solution, through swapping, enables them to realise the full potential of last-mile transport and clock more than 150 km per day.”
Ashok Leyland too plans to keep its electric fleet going with swappable batteries. The company has 32 fast charging options and is working on its first pilot in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It also looking at launching in Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh.
Industry sources say that a fixed EV charging station for a bus costs Rs 15 lakh to set up. But, Ashok Leyland plans to have stations where batteries can be swapped out in seconds rather than stopping the buses to charge for eight hours. The company has reportedly earmarked Rs 500 crore for this.
For EVs to have real impact, they have to work well in the public transport space. India’s EV story, therefore, is still being written, but what we have so far makes for fascinating reading.
Close to half of India’s population is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Add to that, with 157.35 million hectares under cultivation – the second highest in the world – there is enough scope for technology to not only make farmers’ lives easier, but also increase yield and output.
DeHaat, founded by IIT Delhi alumnus Shashank Kumar and IIT Kharagpur alumnus Manish Kumar in 2012, aims to do just that.
“Hailing from a farming community in Bihar, I had exposure to the difficulties faced by farmers on a day-to-day basis, even though I didn’t have direct experience in farming,” says Shashank. Having earlier worked as a consultant, he used his experience for DeHaat to create a sustainable business model. Manish, however exited the company in 2015.
What does the platform do?
Patna-based DeHaat is an online platform that connects small farmers with a network of micro entrepreneurs – suppliers of various farm input and equipment – who procure various inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, and even equipment, as well as offer crop advisory and market linkages.
DeHaat on Thursday, announced it had raised pre-Series A funding of $4 million led by Omnivore and AgFunder. Pankaj Chaddah, co-founder of Zomato, and another Indian family office also invested in the funding round. Manish exited the startup in 2015.
Today, DeHaat claims to have over 150 micro entrepreneurs who serve more than 55,000 farmers in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. The platform has over 520 different agricultural inputs listed, and has partnered with the likes of UPL Ltd, IDBI Bank, IFFCO, DuPont, Pepsico, Bayer Ag and Yara International.There arealso more than 100 institutional buyers associated with DeHaat to facilitate procurement of agricultural produce directly from farmers.
DeHaat claims to have clocked a revenue of Rs 45 crore so far. It closed the last fiscal with a revenue of Rs 21 crore and was positive on the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) level.
Shashank says,
“With the current round of funding, DeHaat is targeting growth of 3-4X over the next 18-24 months. The funding will help us deepen out network in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha to reach 250,000 farmers, supported by 550 DeHaat micro entrepreneurs by March 2020. We are also a launching farm credit and crop insurance services in the coming year."
Currently, DeHaat focuses on three major services – agricultural input, crop advisory and market linkage for farm produce. Farmers can place orders through the DeHaat helpline, the mobile app, or a physical centre. Orders are then sent forward to DeHaat’s micro entrepreneurs, and fulfilled the same day. Each DeHaat micro-entrepreneur caters to 600-800 farmers in a radius of 3-5 km.
Shashank says,
“These micro-entrepreneurs use our ‘DeHaat for Business’ application to enroll farmers, to aggregate demand, visit farms, capture crop-based queries, and aggregate the farm produce."
The startup also takes in queries from farmers and sends them to experts who address them in real time. It also houses an exhaustive crop-pest database, which has been developed in house for current crops.
Working around the challenges
“The primary challenge is access to the right data in remote areas. While there are several reports and journals, the information is basic and doesn’t capture farm-level data. This meant we had to collate the data on our own,” says Shashank.
DeHaat, an online platform, had to work extensively to bring farmers and micro entrepreneurs on board. Shashank says that getting the right people on board, especially in rural areas, is a game of trial and error.
The core founding team includes IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus Shyam, who has worked with Reliance Industries for over two years. Adarsh Srivastava, Abhishek Dokania and Amrendra Singh form the rest of the team.
“Our revenue comes from sales of farm produce to institutions and sales of agricultural inputs to farmers. We don’t charge farmers for crop advisory. Close to 72 percent of the overall revenue comes from the market linkage of farm produce and the rest from agri inputs,” says Shashank.
Over the last seven months, the platform has handled over 20,000 tonnes of agricultural output like corn, wheat, chilli, litchi and vegetables, while connecting farmers with institutional buyers, says Shashank. “At the same time, DeHaat has delivered more than 26,000 orders related to agri inputs, and 86,000 advisory inputs to farmers over three months,” he adds.
The funding round also saw the participation of existing investors Accel, Chirate Ventures and Aavishkar Bharat Fund.
According to YourStory Research, at least 13 agritech startups raised a total of (disclosed amounts) around $65.6 million in 2018, up over 21 percent from $54 million across 18 deals in 2017.
Jinesh Shah, Managing Partner of Omnivore, on the investment in DeHaat said, “Increasing the profitability of smallholder farmers is the most important priority in rural India, and DeHaat has developed a scalable, sustainable model for doing exactly that.”
On the company’s core differentiator, Shashank says, “DeHaat has a unique model and technology to provide end-to-end agri services to farmers”. Using the DeHaat platform, Shahsank says, farmers can benefit in three ways, a) cost reduction while buying inputs b) improvement in farm productivity with timely and customised advisory c) better farm gate prices.
Future plans
“Our internal data creates visibility on yield projections, estimated harvesting time and quality for other stakeholders,” Shashank says.
Michael Dean, Founding Partner of AgFunder, noted, “DeHaat team has built a platform that will continue to materially improve India’s rural supply chain and deliver meaningful benefits to smallholder farmers.”
“We aim to serve 250,000 farmers by March 2020 in the same geography, and expand the farmers’ network to 1 million in others states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra by 2022,” Shashank says.
A common saying goes that advice you pay for is always dearer than what you get for free, especially when it comes to money. Former Citibank employee Sousthav Chakrabarty piloted his advisory model in the wealth space way back in 2007. The non-technology proprietorship had its own challenges, but Sousthav laboured on. The breakthrough came in 2016, when he backed the idea of a personal finance advisory platform by technology, and Capital Quotient came to being.
Co-founded by Gautam Reddy, Anil Bhat and Ajay Prasad, Capital Quotient’s core proposition is advisory. And what sets it apart is that it charges clients for it. Most advisory startups don’t charge individual retail customers for financial advice. Instead, they execute investments for their client, for which they are paid a commission by the mutual fund house or stock broker.
Two of the founders of Capital Quotient (L-R): Gautam Reddy and Sousthav Chakrabarty
Relying heavily on machine learning (ML) algorithms, Capital Quotient claims it offers advisory on different asset classes on the platform, including mutual funds and stocks. In fact, investments in these assets can even be automatically synced on to the platform if users give Capital Quotient permissions to their emails and messages. Sousthav says manual intervention is needed to add investments like real estate and PPF, on the platform.
“Most individuals do not know what their past investments are worth. The consolidation not only allows them to assess that, but also provides their family a ready reckoner in case of any mishap or untimely death of the person.”
A customer’s financial health is assessed by Capital Quotient’s AI-driven algorithms, which then offer a plan to reach specific financial goals. Sousthav says 90 percent of online advisory on the platform is automated. Customers also, of course, have the option to seek a personalised approach; 10 percent of the cases involve a personal wealth manager.
A wealth manager, once assigned to a customer, keeps a check on their goals and tailors a financial plan to achieve that. Capital Quotient released its personalised advisory in December 2017.
It also offers a subscription model. Currently, for a wealth manager, the platform charges a one-time advisory fee of 0.25 percent for the wealth managed. Customers are charged Rs 299 per month for the automated AI advisory and a three-year subscription comes at a fee of Rs 10,300.
Advisory is Capital Quotient’s sole revenue model.
Interestingly, the trend among digital advisory firms is to offer free advice. On this, Sousthav says,
“What we are trying to build is accountability. We want to ensure that the products we recommend are giving the customers the returns they expect. While most advice is generalised, our advisory is trying to give customised and tailored advice, which will be scalable in the future. Also, we are committed on understanding the purpose behind the user’s investment while assessing their true financial worth when they sign up.”
He points out that most digital platforms facilitate investments in mutual fund schemes and their revenue model includes commissions from asset management companies.
“To hedge our dropouts, we launched the three-year subscription, which currently includes perks like an additional degree of personalisation and online meetings with our wealth managers. Also, we are gamifying the platform for new customers. So, they can get to use the AI advisory tool free for three months if they achieve certain tasks,” Sousthav explains.
Demonstrating the popularity of the plans, he says 15 percent of those using the AI advisory tool had opted for the subscription model on the platform. To boost stickiness, the platform is also looking to provide real-time feedback on a customer’s financial plans based on any event, as well as an analysis of long-term implications of short-term events.
Capital Quotient’s revenue stood at Rs 3 lakh in the first year of its operations, FY17 , and grew to Rs 30 lakh in FY18. Sousthav expects turnover to grow to Rs 1.5 crore in FY19.
The startup has a team of 55, including 14 full-time wealth advisors.
Capital Quotient, at present, largely caters to customers looking to pay back their loans by making smarter investment choices. There are four primary steps in a financial advisory service:
a) Planning: Here, the platform quantifies the financial goals of an individual
b) Consolidation: An individual’s assets are brought together on a single platform for assessment
c) Advisory: Includes a plan to help reach set financial goals
d) Execution: Buying financial products. However, Capital Quotient does not sell any financial products as it only has an advisory licence from capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India.
Capital Quotient has tied up with various mutual fund houses, and puts customers in touch with other financial institutions for transactions.
The team at Capital Quotient
Stacking up
According to the founders, 90 percent of their customers are in the age group of 25 to 35 years, while the rest are aged 45 to 55 years. The total assets under management (AUM) for customers using the AI route stands at Rs 60 crore, and is spread over 3,500 unique users. Personalised wealth management has a higher AUM of Rs 210 crore, spread across 120 active high net worth individuals.
The company claims it has acquired 1,000 users in the last two months.
Explaining the slow growth in user addition, Sousthav says,
“We haven’t had exponential growth on the platform since we have maintained a low profile until now. This is because we wanted to fully develop our AI, which requires constant teachings. The second reason is that we don’t have a mobile app. We aim to launch the same in the next three months, with our AI models running live on the app.”
Capital Quotient has raised around $900,000 from strategic angel investors, and is now in talks with multiple investors to raise another $1 million, over the next three to four months.
The company is targeting a 7x annual growth rate, and aims to clock revenue of Rs 10 crore by FY 20. In addition to Tier I cities, it is also betting heavily on the Tier II and Tier III cities. Sousthav says the company plans to set up physical operations in 40 cities this fiscal. The advisory currently has a presence only in Bengaluru and Bhopal.
The founders also estimate that the startup will have close to 120,000 customers by the end of the next fiscal year, and advise on AUM of Rs 500 crore to Rs 600 crore by March 2020.
Competition in the wealth management space is rife, with bigger players like PhonePe, Paytm, and MobiKwik having got their foot in the door. One97 Communications, which owns Paytm, launched its mutual funds investment platform, Paytm Money, in September last year, while Gurugram-based MobiKwik entered the wealth management space with the acquisition of mutual fund platform Clearfunds in October last year.
Flipkart-owned PhonePe also started its wealth management arm PhonePe Wealth Services Pvt Ltd in November last year. Early this year, Scripbox raised Rs 151 crore as a part of its Series C funding. Other competitors include Nivesh, Groww, Orowealth, and Sqrrl, all of who have raised funding demonstrating investor faith in the space.
On the stiff competition in the sector, Sousthav says,
“Essentially, MobiKwik and Paytm are looking at convenience and we can have a co-branded approach. They are focused on transactions and we can route the investment through their platforms. Also, I feel that there is also a possibility for small players to band together, and launch co-branded products built on each other’s strength.”
Capital Quotient is also looking to counter competition by launching exclusive products on its platform. The first set of these products will be released in the next six to nine months.
Managing money is never an easy task and often carries a significant amount of risk. What remains to be seen now is how the wealth management space will pan out in the future.
It was 2007, and Prateek Singh had to let go a year of his college after his parents had to relocate to India from Malaysia. No school would admit him because it was the middle of the semester. The boy definitely had a lot of time on his hands. While his parents thought of different ways to keep him occupied, it was his father who casually asked him one day, “Why don’t you start trading”.
This was 12-years-ago when Prateek was just 17. So, when other students his age were dreaming of living their college life, Prateek started trading in markets.
Prateek, under the tutelage of his father for the past 12 years, has now become a seasoned investor. During the course of time, he also founded four startups, which were around educating the investors about markets and investing. According to him, it was not easy and he had to learn the hard way.
“I failed four times. But, I always made up for my losses because I was an active investor in the markets. However, I decided to start up for the fifth time, and this time around, I realised entrepreneurs need the best advice from senior people in the industry, and launched LearnApp to bring global business leaders to the doorstep of the entrepreneur,” says Prateek.
Launched in 2018 in Noida, LearnApp is an education portal that offers interactive courses on markets and investing through live videos. In just eight months of operation, its revenue stands at Rs 1.14 crore.
Prateek Singh (second from left) along with LearnApp co-founders
LearnApp has so far registered 16,000 users with over 1,10,000 unique visitors who have visited the website without running any ads, and the company says it has acquired users mostly through social media and referrals of existing subscribers. It charges its users Rs 500 per month to access all 50 courses/live-classes on the platform.
Apart from Prateek, the LearnApp founding team includes Swati Sharma, Sohail Alam and Ankush Oberoi.
The Genie in the Lamp approach
Speaking about the initial days Prateek says: “In 2018, when we created the first version of 'LearnApp' on a PPT presentation, it had eight courses, all taught by me. Our adviser, Nithin Kamath, Founder of Zerodha, assured me that he would support me in whatever that I do, but, he said, this looks like a pretty bad idea.”
Prateek says, his adviser was completely right, and so they had to re-imagine the platform using the genie-in-the lamp framework. The Genie in the Lamp Framework means writing down why your business benefits users in bullet points and then writing the 10x version of it.
For example, the original plan was the LearnApp founders would teach, and then the team would film videos at a home studio and charge Rs 3,000 per course (around 50 live classes).
And their 10x plan was theCEOs, their team and practitioners teach, LearnApp would hire and train an in-house movie crew to film and create stories to engage the learners, and they would charge Rs 500 per month to access all 50 courses - i.e., Rs 10 per course.
“We created an imaginary homepage on PhotoShop with eight leaders to make our vision believable. Currently, we have 25 leaders teaching including everyone we first imagined. The Genie in the lamp framework worked for us and we signed in some big names,” says Prateek.
Today, they have signed in stellar people on the LearnApp platform, which includes:
A Balasubramanian, CEO of Aditya Birla AMC, teaches ‘How mutual funds work’
S Naren, CIO of ICICI Prudential AMC, teaches ‘Value Investing’
Ashish Chauhan, CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange, teaches ‘Capital Markets’
Tom Basso, CEO of TrendStat Hedge Fund, teaches ‘How trend trading works’
Ashish Kashyap, Founder of Goibibo, teaches ‘User retention’
R Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of Tata Sons, teaches ‘4 A’s of Management’
These industry experts conduct classes for 12 weeks, and the course work involves online tests and there are no repeat questions. The videos once subscribed to are available to individuals as long as they subscribe to the platform.
“What’s more is that each leader and the team contributes knowledge with no expectation of anything in return,” explains Prateek.
He says, this model led LearnApp to raise Rs 2 crore from Rainmatter as seed capital.
According to KPMG, the market size for online education in 2017 was only $245 million, and by 2021 it is predicted to be $2 billion.
The problem LearnApp solves
Prateek says, LearnApp brings down the cost of learning because financial education costs anywhere between Rs 30,000 to Rs 3 lakh per course. Even the instructor may not be credible and the platform solves this issue by bringing in industry leaders.
There are also a lot of false promises (tips, guaranteed returns) in video education, but here you learn from the best, he says. “We are also launching a Hindi version of all video courses,” says Prateek.
Prateek believes he has the right business model. He says:
“There is no major player for online video in financial education at this price point to my knowledge. It is fragmented mostly through workshops, webinars, and low-quality screen capture type video series priced extremely high.”
LearnApp currently competes with Udemy, Udacity, and Upgrad, but they are massively open online courses.
“Our biggest challenge has been to work with leaders to carve out several hours to design the course and then a few hours to film them. But this is the most fun part and we can develop long-lasting relationships and become friends with smart people,” says Prateek.
The good part of the journey is that the founding team has built the learning management system from scratch on a VueJS for the front-end and Amazon Web Services and NodeJS for the backend.
Its plan for the next 18-months is to aim for 45,000 registered users.
Prateek says, although subscriptions costs are very low, it is extremely important for them to make LearnApp sustainable.
So far, the company has proved that without advertising and high-quality content you can create a win-win situation for the learner and the platform. It has grown organically, and hopes to soon become the MasterClass of financial education.
Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous post here). Share these 55 gems and insights from the week of March 11-17 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights. See also our compilation of Top 50 Quotes from 2018here.
The women’s wellness space is in great need of being invigorated and catalysed. - Prashant Mehta, Lightbox
The $1 billion plus market for functional foods and beverages is still coming of age in India. - Sanjot Malhi, Matrix India
Millets grow easily in many parts of India and use less resources, such as water, when compared to many other grains. - Prashant Parmeswaran, SoulFull
The cost of electric bikes or cars will drop rapidly because the government is already pushing to set up of EV infrastructure. - Maxson Lewis, Magenta Power
There are 70 million people with disability in India, and over 1 billion, or close to 15 percent of the world’s population, lives with some form of disability. - Prateek Madhav, Assistive Technology Accelerator
The Indian market is so large that no player can provide everything and everybody can co-exist. - Manoj Modi, Reliance
Despite being such a large part of the overall spend, banquets that cater to the middle class are often poorly maintained. - Sanna Vohra, The Wedding Brigade
We have a $1 trillion opportunity for SaaS industry. If we get our act right, India can aspire to remain in global game in software industry. - Suresh Sambandam, OrangeScape
India has a plethora of students with enormous potential. They all tend to score really well in their board exams. The only aspect that hampers their growth is the lack of funds. - Sudha Kidao, Foundation for Excellence
Just as we rate Uber drivers and restaurants, we should be able to rate leaders as well. These will also help voters decide who they want to vote for. - Pratham Mittal, Neta app
The next PM should work on real developmental issues and not distract or get distracted by unimportant issues related to religion or national ego-boosts. - Kamalika Ghosh, Cognizant
AI and robotics offer the opportunity for Indian agriculture to leapfrog into the future, bypassing legacy technologies. - Mark Kahn, Omnivore
The toy industry is very unorganised and around 80 percent of the industry is in unaccounted trading. - Moiz Gabajiwala, Zephyr Toymakers
The ecommerce sector in India is an increasingly important part of India’s economy, unlocking tremendous value for buyers and sellers. - Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal
Technology led insurance is expected to play a significant role in growth of the underpenetrated insurance sector in India. - Binny Bansal
A rapidly growing Indian economy with fledgling infrastructure needs a different approach to delivery of payment solutions. - Rajeev Agrawal, Innoviti
Fintech-fuelled allegiances are helping banks to bridge the gap of Old vs new and big vs small. The limitations and divisions are fast dissolving in the digital age. - Anand Kumar Bajaj, PayNearby
People are actually in need of a platform where they can receive all forms of services - financial and healthcare. - Pravin Agarwala, BetterPlace
The events industry in India is expected to surpass the Rs 10,000 crore mark in two years. - Shank K Vasudev, Tosshead
Cognitive computing systems can help enterprises stay competitive and propel higher revenues in today’s data-driven economy. - Rama Krishna Kuppa, ONGO Framework
The true value of Blockchain is in its innovations that go beyond database technology, and can create consensus and trusted transactions between entities that do not know or trust each other. - Srikar Varadraj, Dunya Labs
Working on new technology and products means there is a lot of hype and expectations. Delivering on those fronts can get challenging. - Joby James, BORQS
Automation has provided a clutch of tools for SMEs to ensure smooth shipping of their products and services. - Vikas Garg, EzySlips
The noticeability factor makes DDoS attacks the most popular choice for most types of cyber-attackers including extortionists, hacktivists, cybervandals, etc. - Venkatesh Sundar, Indusface
Just as the revolution towards 'mobile-first' apps got everyone to prioritise mobile-optimised user experiences, “chat-first” will drive a new breed of apps prioritising conversational user experiences. - Rajesh Shanmugam, Troopr
Voice-based user experiences can truly democratise digital life and create a whole new wave of digital citizens – something with immense potential for the economy and for societies. - Sharan Grandigae, Redd Experience Design
We're living at a time when we're talking to one another from across the globe using audio-visual language. - Bhushan Kumar, T-Series
The challenge that authors face today is the lack of time to promote their work. - Naveen Joshi, AllAuthor
Kids tend to outgrow furniture every 1-2 years. Hence, it makes more sense to rent than to buy. - Neerav Jain, CityFurnish
Even when we sleep, our bodies’ parameters are being tracked and monitored by our fitness bands. When we are not at home, our smart devices – if they are on – are accessing our environment. - Shivangi Nadkarni, Arrka
Be deliberate about taking breaks from media and devices, and carve out time to be alone. - Aytekin Tank, JotForm
While there is a debate around various types of mattress for achieving the best sleep for every individual unique sleeper, pillows are an indispensable constant of the sleep equation. - Shashank Palli, Cuddl
Keep moving forward while listening closely to your market, not the naysayers or even your own preconceptions. - Douglas Bakkum, Shift Cryptosecurity
Do not undermine the power of good communication skills. At the end of the day, you are selling an idea, a product. - Dishan Kamdar, FLAME University
Building brand and winning the trust of the consumers will also take a lot of time for new players who will enter the market. - Vijay Mansukhani, Onida
All working professionals need to understand that learning is now going to be a lifelong experience – almost equivalent of going back to college without actually going back to college. - Ronnie Screwvala, upGrad
More often than not, it is the small companies (not the large ones) that produce innovative products. It is better done outside the existing infrastructure in a large company; that environment exists in startups. - Devangshu Dutta, Third Eyesight Consulting
It helps to be able to switch modes and play the role of a thin-skinned learner and a thick-skinned doer. Wisdom, however, is to know when to be thick-skinned and when to be sensitive. – Kalyan Rathore, artist
Conceive, believe, and achieve. Conceiving big dreams is important, but working hard enough to believe in oneself is even more important to achieve and realise the dream. - Ravindra Kumar, first IAS officer to climb Mt Everest
A startup is a rescue. The founder is one who converts a pain into a gain. - Yasin Patel, AccuraScan
YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple,Android).
Perhaps now more than any other time in our history, we are realising the importance of technology in social service delivery, and its role in enhancing the general quality of life. Growing up in India, where the majority has minimal access to basic public amenities like healthcare, one develops an appreciation for the value of enabling such technologies that assist and scale service delivery in the context of developing countries.
Technology can be transformative in delivering healthcare services, where the density of doctors is one per 1,000. A strong imbalance exists where urban areas have four times as many medical practitioners compared to rural areas, making rural India grossly underserved. The quality of education of providers (allopathic, ayurvedic, unani and homeopathic) is not comparable between rural and urban centers. When 58 percent of the doctors in urban areas had a medical degree, only 19 percent of those in rural areas had that qualification. Hence, the rural healthcare infrastructure story is significantly different.
A FirstPost article published last year states that “India compares unfavorably with China and the US in the number of hospital beds and nurses. The country is 81 percent short of specialists at rural Community Health Centers (CHCs), and the private sector accounts for 63 percent of hospital beds, according to government health and family welfare statistics.”
The opportunity
The healthcare sector represents a huge opportunity to leverage technology to improve critical processes that today pose a big challenge in the delivery of quality healthcare. These include reaching millions who are geographically spread across the country, providing better and more accurate diagnosis, managing operations and facilitating effective collaboration and dialogue between doctors and healthcare workers.
The question remains, how do we use technology to improve healthcare delivery for everyone in India. Individuals, especially people living in rural areas, face challenges in gaining access to healthcare. The diversity and vastness of the country can pose some of the hardest problems to tackle, but can technology be part of the response to these challenges?
The convergence of technological solutions with data analytics, cloud computing, telecommunications, and wireless technologies will improve accessibility and manage labour shortages more efficiently in the healthcare industry. Benefits derived include easy accessibility irrespective of geographical location, fewer errors, fast response for emergencies, and improved patient experience. The cost of providing medical services has also been rising steadily. As technological innovation better integrates with healthcare delivery, it will enable scale and lower costs, driving up adoption. And adoption will be further driven by the automation of critical processes at hospitals in administration, finance, billing, patient records and pharmacies.
Telemedicine and remote advice
Even though telemedicine has been receiving a lot of interest lately and feels like a recent phenomenon, it has been around for over three decades. According to an NIH report from 2008, NASA played an important role in the early development of telemedicine to provide healthcare to astronauts when they were in space. Today, it serves a similar purpose - providing healthcare to those who lack access.
Telemedicine is a powerful tool that allows medical expertise to be received beyond the boundaries of a medical facility. It saves millions of dollars in patient travel costs and missed appointments. However, telehealth is not new to India, and has been around for over a decade now. Health systems across the country have the opportunity to create meaningful impact by adopting scalable telemedicine technologies.
This can be done by entering into public private partnerships so as to provide the project more sustainable financial support. We are already seeing such models emerge that can be gold standards for implementation of telehealth in India. One such model is the recent PPP entered into by Apollo Tele-Health Center. A Hindustan Times article describes in detail the telehealth centers set up by this partnership in Kelong and Kaza in Himachal Pradesh that have facilitated more than 3,000 consults and provided emergency care for over 200 people in the region.
Adoption of technology also comes with its share of challenges. Ratan Jalan, the Founder and Principal Consultant at Medium Healthcare Consulting, a boutique consulting firm, and the CEO of Apollo Health and Lifestyle Limited between 2000 and 2008, understood the challenges first hand having tested such models.
He states that:
Most of the tele-consultation providers haven’t really taken off because they haven’t adequately addressed the challenges at the ‘receiving’ end - where the patient resides. A patient is less likely to take up complete control of the patient-physician dynamics with a ‘remote’ physician and would like to involve the ‘local’ physician whom he trusts. And unless that physician is adequately compensated and integrated in this solution, I don’t see it taking off. In fact, that was the challenge we faced, even when I was looking at telemedicine project at Apollo almost a decade ago.”
Jalan’s concerns are valid. Firms in the space must consider physicians in the community and find ways for them to adopt such technologies.
Lybrate, a Delhi-based healthcare startup, was started with the vision to bridge access to healthcare. The direct-to-patient mobile app is a healthcare delivery platform providing health tips customised to a user and access to an online database of physicians. Its closest competition is Practo, backed by the likes of Tencent, one of China’s biggest internet investors, and Google. Practo is designed to be a platform company connecting you to multiple healthcare services such as booking appointments, diagnostic tests, and obtaining medication to name a few. This is a promising start to what could be a high impact, widespread use of technology to improve healthcare delivery.
Home and elderly health
The idea of nuclear families has been rising in India. Younger couples move to cities away from home to be closer to work, leaving parents to live on their own. Culturally, India has not yet bought into the idea of nursing homes, and hence the emergence of home care services is more popular. Some interesting models have already been making their way into this space – Life Circle Health Services is one such company that provides trained, professional caregivers to seniors. This model, like many other service-oriented models in India, can be logistically challenging, operationally expensive, and very dependent on the availability of the right type of talent in the area.
Anant Kumar, the Founder and CEO Of Life Circle, has been able to overcome some of these challenges by adopting technological solutions. He says, “With services provided in hundreds of homes across multiple cities, technology plays an essential role in the maintenance and tracking of service quality. Some of the areas where Life Circle has deployed technology are:
An algorithm to help match most suitable caregiver or nurse with patient requirement – language, stature, skills, budget, duration, and distance.
Life Circle’s digital “Patient Care Plan” module helps nurse manager prepare a customised plan for every patient, which is shared electronically with the family members.
The caregiver’s background is verified with the national court case registry, and identification data matched with national identification database.
Caregivers work can be tracked using any feature phone. All attendance validated with the patients in real time.
Senior’s health condition remotely tracked and validated by a team of senior nursing staff.
The caregiver can accept work, review care plan, check their payment.
Anant’s vision for the future of home healthcare in India is exciting, as he see’s technology being a critical part of the puzzle. He says “Today, 15 percent of seniors in India are staying alone, and this number would rise in the future. With the rise in nuclear families and with the absence of traditional family caregivers, Life Circle is actively working towards “Ambient Assistive Living” where sensors would play an active part in care provisioning by being less intrusive. The sensors would help with emergency calls, falls detection, environment sensing (light, humidity, temperature).”
Shifting gears to a focus on policy and how we can learn lessons from Japan, which has the highest proportion of people aged 65+ years. Japan has a universal mandatory long-term insurance care system, partly paid by payroll taxes and partly by the general tax revenue. The primary caregivers remain the family, but they are offered subsidised services of daily home care, visiting nurses, etc.
Policies have always been the biggest influencers to enforce behavioural change, but technology can be as impactful when it comes to changing the way services are delivered. Some technology-enabled services that may complement elderly care are - emergency caregivers, medication delivery services with trackable reminders, and ride access facilities. Technology can play a big role in providing doctors with frequent updates of their elderly patients, allowing them to manage their care plans better without visiting the patients at home or having them come to the clinic premises.
Some models that are operating well in the US are HomeTeam, Capsule, Honor. HomeTeam, a New York-based health technology startup providing home care to the elderly and chronically ill, focuses on giving the health aide technology enabled tablets to track their schedules and home visits. Capsule is an upcoming healthcare company that calls itself the new kind of pharmacy with medication delivery. Honor, also a San Francisco-based startup, focuses on specialised training for its caregivers and provides the patient and their family a care platform, giving them more control over managing their own care plan.
Today, we are living healthier and longer lives. Building a healthcare system that effectively manages care for the elderly is inevitable. Even though we’re among the youngest country in the world, this is a certain state and is only a matter of time before it becomes a priority.
Data and analytics
As the healthcare sector in India becomes more prominent in terms of its revenue generation and its need for a strong labour force, innovation in the sector is not far behind. According to a paper by the International Advanced Research Journal in Science, Engineering and Technology (IARJSET), the Indian healthcare sector is expected to witness a growth of $220 billion by 2020, and a workforce of $7.4 million by 2022. Building infrastructure so as to leverage data to make healthcare decisions can be a powerful endeavor. Starting small, this article talks about two such opportunities - personal wearables and electronic health record systems that are widely used across developed nations.
A paper focused on the Indian wearable market titled - ‘Wearables, The Next Big Thing in Smart Healthcare’ by the IARJSET states that 2016 witnessed $2.5 million units of wearables shipped across the country, $.675 million of these alone in Q4 of 2016. The wearable market in India today is immensely popular with not only younger audience, but also those paying more deliberate attention to their health.
Wearables provide easy access to data, ability to self-monitor health, and track progress over time. Community level data analysed correctly could help predict the level of incidence of disease and offer opportunities for preventative healthcare in the medium to long term.
For healthcare providers, this means lower error rates in diagnosis and other medical errors, fewer visits to the doctor saving time and money, and better overall care for the patient population.
Source: Wearables, The Next Big Thing in Smart Healthcare’ by the IARJSET
Though more challenging to implement, electronic medical record systems is another big opportunity for India to leverage. This makes healthcare more efficient, safer, and cost effective over time. Having everyone’s medical records electronically saved has far-reaching impact that outweighs the heavy cost of this transition. India, today, is not far behind to adopt electronic record keeping in medical facilities and is further along the pathway of digitising healthcare records.
The Aadhaar card system can be the catalyst to a strong electronic health record system in India. Even though Aadhaar today focuses much on linking income taxes, passports, bank accounts etc., this will only serve as a foundation for a stronger medical record system.
Doxper is trying to simplify the way healthcare data is recognised and digitised. It has a few different offerings catered towards health systems, physicians, and patients. The marketplace for electronic medical records is ripe in India and companies such as Practo and DocEngage are vying for space.
Some of the biggest benefits of having access to electronic health data through an EMR is being able to mine the data at a larger community level and understand the incidence of chronic diseases.
For example, understanding the prevalence of diabetes and the need to set up dialysis centers in otherwise out of reach communities in India is invaluable. Similarly, malnutrition cases among children who live below the poverty line can be analysed based on location and specific measures can be taken to help those in need.
Given the vastness of the country, we have gotten good at managing otherwise complex distribution networks, but to make these more effective, community healthcare workers can be equipped with better data on where they should spend their time. In an ideal world, we would have more real-time data on incidence of community level disease prevalence and would be able to do so much to improve the quality of life for these communities, but the opportunity to do so still stands before us.
Mental and behavioural healthcare
According to the World Health Organisation, the incidence of depression in India is extremely high, putting it at the top of the list of the most depressed countries in the world - 36 percent of citizens are likely to suffer from depression at some time or the other. The same Forbes article that quotes the WHO stats above, also states that a new study by The Lancet found that despite the rising mental health disorders in India, only about one in ten people receive evidence-based treatment. This may be due to access to services based on location and or stigma attached to behavioural and mental health in India.
Technology enabled service models in the US have come a long way in tackling mental health problems. Some of them give the provider access to better tools and resources to manage mental health for their patients - one such model is Quartet Health, a New York-based startup that just raised a series C of $40 million. The company focuses on the primary care provider or family physician having access to tools that allow them to identify mental health needs, have access to qualified mental health providers and methods to monitor patient progress.
It is fascinating how much your family doctor or primary care physician can control your overall health, even though they end up being in a low-cost setting. Additionally, there is a sudden surge of apps that allow people to manage their own mental and behavioural health issues. Two apps that are popular are Calm and Headspace - both of which use mindfulness and relaxation to bring you to your best each day. They help manage stress - such technologies are easier to market to the millennials in India, they may also be the ones who need it the most. Unfortunately, the problem is not acknowledged in India, as there is a lack of recognition for mental health issues, and depression more specifically.
A news article in the US from 2016 provided a table showing countries with the highest burden of disease for mental disorders, in terms of most years of life lost due to disability or death adjusted for population size, according to WHO.
All said and done, the road to greater technology adoption is not going to be without its share of challenges. Currently, the IT budget for Indian hospitals does not exceed 10 percent of their revenues, substantially lower than allocation to technological investment in hospitals in the west.
Adoption of technology has a long-term impact on cost, and hence there needs to be more intended effort to invest in technology and adopt this high up-front. It means investing in training and hiring manpower, paying for servers, adoption and implementation costs at the healthcare facilities, which will pay for themselves in the long term.
Additionally, clinical transformation, which involves assessing and continually improving the way patient care is delivered at all levels in a care delivery organisation, can also be a challenge to implement. Given how busy clinicians are, there is a natural tendency to resist change and often, incentives to adopt technology at an individual level are limited. For those who see the longer-term benefits will also be early adopter of these technologies, improving the overall business environment and patient care.
As we dig deeper into the potential technology has to disrupt age-old practices in healthcare, it brings up important legal and ethical issues to the mix. With global conversations around data privacy, patient and related healthcare data could peak that data hierarchy debate. Recently, a Business Standard article stated that India’s Health Ministry has proposed a law to govern data security in the healthcare sector, giving individuals full ownership of their data. It said individuals would have the right to refuse or allow data to be generated, collected, accessed, transmitted, or used.
Hospitals would not be able to refuse patients any treatment or care if they did not wish to share such data. Laws will always favour individual privacy over benefits to the establishment, and in this case the decision then lies in the hands of the individual. There is also always a risk in electronic communication of healthcare diagnosis, plans, prescription etc., which could magnify if not properly conducted.
There is no dearth of research studies, relevant data, and true humanitarian stories that prove to us the impact technology can make to healthcare delivery. It requires sustainable funding sources, a deep understanding of the complexities of service delivery in India and a will to see it through. We have favourable government policies that are sure to enhance and encourage such partnerships, and entrepreneurs who understand these challenges first hand and want to bring sustainable solutions to real problems.
Such transformational forces all happening together can take decades to produce real and meaningful change in a country’s economy. India does not need to start from scratch.
We’re well positioned in terms of being one of the youngest countries globally – ‘India has more than 50 percent of its population below the age of 25, and more than 65 percent below the age of 35. It is expected that by 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and by 2030, India’s dependency ratio should be just over 0.4.’
The last two years have seen record numbers of venture capital and private equity funding in the country. According to E&Y’s report last year, the country received $26.5 billion in 2017, 35 percent higher than the previous high in 2015, and 63 percent higher than the previous year.
If planned and implemented well, technological progress can make a significant contribution to India’s healthcare needs. Such an investment would impact generations to come with lower healthcare costs and put India on the world map as a country to be reckoned as a thought leader in adopting digital health.
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
Listening to stories and telling them comes naturally to people, and deserves a systematic process in today’s businesses as well. Putting Stories to Work: Mastering Business Storytellingby Shawn Callahan is a practical guide based on two decades of work in storytelling in companies across dozens of countries.
The 11 chapters are spread across 270 pages, and make for an informative read. There is also a five-page story index which effectively illustrates the principles of story tagging and taxonomy.
Shawn Callahan is a storytelling author, trainer, and coach. Based in Melbourne, he has worked with companies ranging from Danone and Allianz to SAP and Tesco. He is the founder of Anecdote, whose consulting programmes are delivered in eight languages. Shawn holds a bachelor’s degree in geography and archaeology from the Australian National University.
“Smart organisations are investing in helping their people to systematically and purposefully find and share effective stories,” Shawn begins. In the worlds of film executive Peter Guber: “Storytelling is not show business. It’s good business.”
Storytelling via miming and drawing predates the spoken word. “Writing now dominates corporate life. Yet, at our core, our innate communication skills are miming and oral storytelling,” Shawn explains.
He cites the definition of ‘story’ by Richard Maxwell and Bob Dickman: “Stories are data, wrapped in context, and delivered with meaning.” Shawn adds: “Stories are a user manual for life.”
A business story has a time and place marker, a sequence of connected events, dialogue, and a business point. A good story conveys description, visualisation, and empathy. It should have an element of surprise, and depth in its characters.
Stories in business contexts are unfortunately dismissed by many leaders because stories are perceived as a waste of time, not business-like, something which only children or entertainers do, a way of manipulation, or are made up. Instead, Shawn calls for leaders to take the right attitude and actions towards effective storytelling.
“Sharing real-life oral stories bestows on a leader the superpowers of memorability, meaningfulness, and emotionality, all of which are essential in a business world where relationships, trust, and the ability to adapt have become crucial capabilities,’ Shawn emphasises.
The book focuses extensively on oral storytelling and opens the door to more research on written stories and digital media. Storytelling in the business context is like “corporate anthropology,” and making it a regular productive habit calls for motivation, skills, and a diverse repertoire of durable stories.
Deliberate practice, mindful development, and a focus on the human element are key for storytelling. Having a “story buddy” or trusted inner circle helps test stories in this regard. Stories can be classified into three types on the intimacy spectrum: front porch stories (for everyone), kitchen stories (for the inner circle), and bedroom stories (the most intimate ones). Practice helps determine how much of oneself the story should reveal.
Powerpoint presentations and CEO roadshows are not as effective for communicating business strategy as a memorable story with an overarching narrative. By answering the Why question, such stories help the strategy to be remembered by employees and retold to others (even with their own additions woven in).
Engaged employees will go above and beyond their call of duty; it helps if leaders share stories about the organisation’s purpose, progress, and organisational trust. It is important for leaders to also trigger and hear stories from their employees - this helps understand perceptions and commitment.
“Stories of remarkable efforts are great fuel for inspiration,” Shawn explains. For example, based on customer feedback, Apple asks employees to share stories about how they effectively served customers each day. “To inspire at work, leaders must share stories of events big and small,” he advises.
Experiences framed by a series of stories reinforce better decision-making practices. Relevant lessons learnt can be shared by stories and drive behaviour change. Truly engaging stories not only draw listeners in, but increase empathy and even lead to prediction of what happens next.
Story listening helps unearth half-truths, misinformation and lies (‘anti-stories’) in the corporate grapevine and need to be countered not just with facts but better alternative stories or replacement stories.
II. Story mastery
To be a successful storyteller requires separating stories from non-stories (opinions, facts, timelines), having stories in your “mental back-pocket,” narrating anecdotes and broader patterns in the company, and having a diverse range of fresh stories (see my summary in Table 2 below).
“Spotting stories is the fundamental narrative intelligence you need to become a business storyteller,” Shawn emphasises. This involves drawing connections between lived experience and business ideas, and includes identifying “rough diamonds” that can be polished to become good stories.
In the entertainment industry, stories of power, death, children’s safety, and sex make for “sticky stories” that strike a chord with our reptilian brains. Movie scenes and ads offer good story elements.
In the business world, stories can be spotted where periodic meetings are taking place, during crises, when people are under pressure, or where new things are happening. They can even be spotted wherever the “quirky, eccentric mavericks hang out.”
Story-eliciting questions are useful in this regard. Artworks, images, and photographs, especially of people in action, can be evocative tools as well; so are artifacts such as sketches, maps and other physical objects. However, stories need not be over-dramatised or made into performances; the best communicators are conversational, Shawn explains.
Stories can help leaders show that they care, have character and purpose, and have learnt lessons from their experience. For such stories to be memorable, they have to be visual, emotional and interesting, Shawn advises.
Stories can be remembered via effective tags, with many examples illustrated in the book: CEO rejects bribe, The lawyer with integrity, Shifting the factory, The Xerox repairman story, Refugees demanding a library card, The Zen master and the professor, and The Apollo 13 scene.
Rather than relying only on big stories, it helps to tell a lot of small but vivid, relatable and emotional stories. At the same time, telling stories all the time without a business point risks making the narrator sound like a “gasbag,” Shawn cautions.
Stories help ideas spread like a virus (Malcolm Gladwell) or even a forest fire (Duncan Watts). Founder stories are particularly powerful in reinforcing the company’s origin, early struggles, hard choices, core values, and changes in direction. For example, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he trimmed down the focus to only four products in a 2X2 matrix (Consumer and Pro; Desktop and Laptop).
“A value is not a value until it costs you money,” Shawn explains; values stories should illustrate the tradeoffs made during decisions, and make values like honesty and integrity come real.
Vision stories should build on desired futures, and have phrases like What if. Connection stories establish rapport through the human element, particularly when addressing new audiences; they build on turning points in personal events or work occurrences.
Clarity stories strengthen logical reasoning through narrative structures like <In the past> <Then something happened> <So now> <In the future>. It acknowledges past problems and the complexities of change, and then describes desired states and steps.
Imagery and elements of contrast are important in clarity stories. Involving a team in developing clarity stories helps make them all attached to it (the ‘IKEA effect’ of loving something you create).
A strategy story must not come across as too smooth or slick (a ‘Pollyanna story’ where everything is good). It should acknowledge earlier anti-stories, and the leaders’ behaviours should be aligned with the story.
Influence stories can use the ‘story before argument’ principle to help overcome confirmation bias in listeners; they should not feel opinions are being pushed at them. The structure should be <Acknowledge the anti-story> <Share the new example or story> <Make the case> <Reiterate the point>.
In other words, the influence pattern has a negative story followed by a positive story, which together offer the solution. The influence story must be true, relatable, credible, simple, and verified.
“Anti-stories reflect the true concerns of employees and they must be addressed. Consequently, it’s vital that leaders know about the anti-stories in their organisation. They need to be connected to their workforce, have their ears to the ground,” Shawn emphasises.
Case studies can be livened up with human elements such as emotions and names of people involved (even if the names used are not the actual names). Analogy stories bring in symbols from other fields (eg. Ryan Lochte beating Michael Phelps by inventing a new kind of dolphin kick), or from parables (eg. bringing Zen stories into Western culture).
Presentations can be simplified by structuring them into three sections: What, So what, Now what. Sales pitches can draw on the clarity story pattern, and even include failure stories and lessons learned; clients should also be invited to share their own stories.
III. Stories in action
The book is packed with a number of personal and business stories, drawn from Shawn’s extensive experience. Narrative intelligence in a company changes the culture for the better.
For example, the Victoria Department of Education has monthly teleconferences where teachers share stories of innovative practices, and discuss how to replicate and scale them. Ritz-Carlton asks employees to submit ‘Wow’ stories of great customer service every two weeks; and the HR department selects one for sharing across the hotel chain.
Wynn Resorts has established a story programme that runs every day. In groups of 6-12, employees are asked each day to share stories of something special that happened with guests. This makes successful employees feel like heroes, and spurs them to be exemplary and develop their own stories as well.
Home appliances company PIRCH has developed a manifesto of 23 aphorisms such as Honour your promises,Be real, Slow down, and even You have a great bottle of wine, drink it. Its showroom is like an amusement park for adults, where they can “nude up” and walk under a 15-metre row of showerheads to decide which one to choose.
New employees are exposed to good customer practices and storytelling in companies such as Nordstrom, Tesla, Tiffany, and Lululemon. They then form a circle to share stories about the company’s aphorisms based on a collection of artifacts. Informal sharing of stories also happens around beach bonfires, where founder stories and local leader stories are narrated. Exemplary workplace stories are shared each week on the intranet, and are called Manifesto Moments Online.
The book ends with a maturity framework of storytelling excellence, and tips on ethical guidelines. In sum, the material is useful, insightful, compelling, and even fun to read, and provides a wealth of resources for those wishing to master business storytelling.
In the aftermath of the horrific Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, social networking giant Facebook has removed millions of graphic videos and violating content of the terror attack from its platform. The action was taken by Facebook within 24 hours of the attack, as the company explained how it’s taking active measures to block these content right at upload.
“In the first 24 hours, we removed 1.5 million videos of the attack globally, of which over 1.2 million were blocked at upload,” the US-based tech giant announced via a tweet late Saturday.
Facebook added that it’s been working “around the clock” to remove such violating content using “a combination of technology and people”. Additionally, the platform has also been proactive in removing edited version of the video, that does not show graphic content, keeping in mind the concerns of the local authority and out of respect for the people affected by the tragedy.
Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video. We're also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware.
This comes after a hate-filled terror attack targeted two mosques in the Christchurch city of New Zealand. As of Sunday, the death toll was reportedly 50, while another 50 were claimed to be wounded, as per CNN. Media reports said that the gunman who attacked the mosques – identified as 28-year-old Brenton Harrison Tarrant – was to be charged with murder.
The accused live-streamed the terror incident using a heat-mounted camera on Facebook. Since then, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been struggling to curb the spread of the violent content. Even though they have taken down several of these violent content, TechCrunch reports Facebook was unable to block 20 percent of the shooting video at upload.
On Sunday, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the issue, adding that social media giants have to face “further questions” regarding the live streaming of the incident.
During Budget 2019, it was announced that Indian customs plans to fully digitise its transactions and utilise RFID technology to improve export logistics. This, along with a few other developments such as the grant of ‘infrastructure’ status to the logistics sector and a substantial increase in the number of tech-focussed startups has spelt great news for Indian logistics in recent times.
A largely ignored and conventionally-run industry dominated by a number of small players and inefficient operations, logistics has turned a digital leaf, considerably boosting India’s prospects when it comes to building a sustainable supply chain.
Ecommerce: driving the change
The growth story of Indian ecommerce during the last five years is nothing short of a fairy tale. Along with its sprawling success, ecommerce has also immensely boosted the prospects of logistics sector. This is further complemented by the implementation of GST, which streamlined the state-wise tax structure and ensured seamless movement of goods. According to Economic Survey 2017-18, the Indian logistics market is expected to reach about $215 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 10.5 percent.
The growth is driven by emerging ecommerce retailers from Tier II and III markets, a corresponding increase in demand and the entry of more foreign corporates in the FMCG segment, propelled by India’s upward movement in Ease of Doing Business Index. With a favourable regulatory environment highlighted by the grant of infrastructure status, Indian logistics enterprises can now have easier access to funding opportunities to drive technology driven operational transformation.
Developing an integrated framework
However, cohesion is still lacking in Indian logistical growth. Smaller, unorganised players still eat up a large segment of the customer base, setting a lower benchmark for operations while influencing pricing as well. The inefficiency of these players has even encouraged ecommerce players such as Amazon to develop their own cutting-edge logistical fleet, equipped with drones and RFID/sensor-based technologies that optimise the entire process. Such a trend enhances competition for the dedicated logistics players, and only those which are able to incorporate digitised processes driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be able to thrive through this onslaught.
Existing infrastructural and cost inefficiencies need to be addressed as well. This includes a fragmented warehousing and inadequate material handling infrastructure and a still poor integration with modern information technology. One of the main points of focus, however, is the improvement of last-mile delivery framework.
According to industry experts, a significant part of the inefficiency creeping in today in the logistics segment is due to a faulty last-mile connectivity framework.
However, few players have managed to develop a robust last-mile delivery structure, through a strong franchise-based model that involves constant engagement with the franchise owners to offer a unified consumer engagement experience.
Logistics forming the backbone of Indian economy
The Indian logistics sector provides a livelihood to over 22 million people, which in the next couple of years is expected to grow significantly. Equipping the sector with the latest digital technologies and automation in operations would lead to a 10 percent decrease in indirect logistics costs, placing India in good stead with countries like the US, China and Japan when it comes to both domestic as well as international trade.
The recent opening of ports such as Chabahar further promise a growing international trade setup for India, particularly with high potential markets such as Iran and Afghanistan and other middle-eastern countries. An integrated logistics policy that removes hierarchies and interactions with multiple agencies, effective monitoring and a complete tech-driven approach can help India’s logistics sector leapfrog into becoming one of the most promising sectors of the Indian economy.
The government has already formed a national committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to reduce the logistics cost from 14 percent currently to 10 percent by 2022. Such constructive steps, if taken frequently and with solid intention, leveraging the best of technology, can surely develop a strong, efficient logistics sector, empowering the Indian economy to achieve the goals it has set for itself.
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
Online daily fantasy startup HalaPlay has raised Rs 40 crore Series A funding in a round led by Nazara Technologies, and Delta Corp India, two veterans in the Indian gaming world. According to a press statement shared by Nazara, the company has been looking at different opportunities in the interactive sports verticals and has also invested in the likes of Moonglabs Technologies, and Mastermind Sports Limited.
Nazara also has majority stake in Nodwin Gaming Pvt Ltd, and Next Wave Multimedia Private Limited. It has also invested in CrimzonCode, and NZWorld (NZWorld Kenya Limited), to set up operations of real money gaming in Kenya.
Founded in 2017, HalaPlay was stared by BITS Pilani alumni with the first product in the fantasy sports segment focused on casual and serious sports fans. The platform currently covers kabaddi leagues, football, and cricket, and is looking to venture into other sports.
In the press statement Swapnil Saurav, CEO, HalaPlay, said, "Fantasy sports has been on the rise, with the market being estimated to be $1 billion currently and is expected to go up to $5 billion in the next two years. Hence this boost could not have come at a better time ensuring and enabling our growth along with Nazara, and Delta.”
The online platform uses real money and claims to have seen growth in its user base. Previously, it had also raised investment from Kae Capital, Angel List, and Nazara Technologies. The startup claims to have seen 10x user growth in a year, and is expected to touch one crore active players by the upcoming cricket season.
In a statement shared by the company, Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Technologies Ltd., said, “Nazara invested in HalaPlay in 2017 and we continue to be excited about the growth story of HalaPlay. We are confident that HalaPlay, with this fresh round of funds, will ride the explosive growth of fantasy sports in India.”
Based out of Mumbai, Nazara is present in across 61 countries, and is also engaged in acquisition and distribution of games from markets like Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa, apart from India.
A statement by the company said Nazara has filed a Draft Red Herring Prospectus (“DRHP”). Prior to the filing of the DRHP, IIFL Special Opportunities Fund, and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala had purchased the shares of Nazara. With Electronic Sports League’s (“ESL”) investment in Nazara, and Nodwin’s securing exclusive rights of using the ESL system, Nazara is poised to exploit the expected opportunity in the e-sports business.
On the funding, Ashish Kapadia, Managing Director Delta Corp, said, “Delta believes in the HalaPlay team and their ability to innovate in the daily fantasy sports industry. Their viral growth is proof that they have been able to build a differentiated product that users love. We are excited by their potential, and are confident that this round of funding will help propel them to even greater heights.”
That WhatsApp revolutionised global communication cannot be debated. Next up is payments: an area the Facebook-owned company has been quietly working on in recent years.
In early 2018, WhatsApp rolled out its payments feature for one million users in India, its largest market (with 210 million monthly users). While a wider rollout of WhatsApp Pay is still awaited, industry experts reckon that the feature has the ability to disrupt small-ticket merchant payments in India.
A joint report titled Credit Disrupted: Digital MSME Lending in India by consulting firm BCG and impact investor Omidyar Network reveals that there are close to 60 million MSMEs in India, which will have improved access to credit with WhatsApp Pay. At present, 45 percent of Indian MSMEs borrow credit from informal sources because they do not have a transparent transaction history.
Solutions like WhatsApp Pay, and even Google Pay, would incentivise MSMEs to go digital because doing so would allow them to maintain a steady record of electronic transactions that will improve their creditworthiness. This, in turn, willmake it easier for them to borrow credit from formal sources like banks and NBFCs, possibly at better rates.
According to the study, close to 50 percent of the MSMEs said that they would use WhatsApp payments once available. The report notes,
"WhatsApp and Google have the potential to catalyse a step change in digital payment adoption, with small-ticket merchant payments likely to migrate to these platforms in large numbers."
Consequently, the number of "digitally sophisticated MSMEs" is expected to double over the next three years, reflecting a rising digital maturity. "With the increasing adoption of digital devices and platforms in people’s personal lives, MSMEs are becoming more ready and comfortable with digital transactions, and they are increasingly willing to share their data," the report states.
This transformation would be particularly rapid when the payments feature is enabled in WhatsApp Business - WhatsApp's B2B offering, which counts over five million merchants in India.
The changing landscape of digital lending
In an interaction with YourStory, Saurabh Tripathi, Senior Partner, Director & Asia-Pacific Leader, Financial Institutions Practice at BCG said,
"WhatsApp Pay will change the digital lending landscape in India. Say there's a newspaper seller who accepts monthly payments from his customers through WhatsApp. When he goes to a formal lender, he has a digital transaction history and a steady set of customers to show. This transparency will help the lender assess his creditworthiness."
He adds, "Free platforms like WhatsApp, Google and others will actually help MSMEs become more credit-worthy."
Overall digital-friendliness of MSMEs has increased nearly 100 percent in three years.The BCG-Omidyar report indicates that smartphone adoption among MSMEs has grown from 45 percent in 2015 to 85 percent in 2018. This is led by the widespread availability of budget handsets and access to cheap mobile internet. Nearly one-third of the MSMEs are now acquiring customers digitally.
Anuradha Ramachandran, Investments director at Omidyar Network, shared withYourStory,
"About 60 percent of MSMEs in the under-Rs 10 lakh bracket are now digitised. Beyond that, in the larger brackets, coverage is much more substantial. If MSMEs see a benefit, they will comply, and improved access to credit helps create a virtuous cycle."
BCG-Omidyar projects that over 85 percent of lending to MSMEs could be formalised by 2023. Additionally, MSME digital lending has the potential to increase 10-15x to reach Rs 6-7 lakh crore in annual disbursements by then.
“Digital lending has the potential to propel the productivity of India’s MSMEs to global leadership,” Roopa Kudva, Partner & MD, India at Omidyar Network stated.
We are sure you’ve heard this before, and we’ll tell you why.
Rising fuel prices and increasing environmental hazards associated with petrol and diesel vehicles have led to a pressing need for cleaner, greener, and more affordable mobility solutions worldwide. Over the last few years, there’s been a significant buzz around Electric Vehicles (EVs), which, until not too long ago, was just a pipe-dream or something only Elon Musk spoke about.
But they say that ‘today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s reality’, and several Indian startups are, in fact, out to make EVs mainstream in India. These include vehicle manufacturers, mobility aggregator platforms, as well as makers of vehicle components like batteries, chargers, etc.
Mumbai-based Gegadyne Energy is one such startup that is riding NITI Aayog’s Electric Vehicle Mission 2030, which states that India can create a $300 billion domestic market for EV batteries by 2030. Gegadyne makes proprietary battery technology for EVs, and is readying for a commercial rollout in early 2020. Its current prototype has a capacity of 1 kWh.
Jubin Varghese (right) and Ameya Gadiwan, Co-founders, Gegadyne Energy
The concept originated back in 2014, when two mechatronics engineering students, Jubin Varghese and Ameya Gadiwan, were inspired by the launch of Tesla’s Model X and Model S cars. Jubin was a car enthusiast; Ameya was into hard tech. Both decided to make an EV for their final year project at NMIMS.
They went about collecting spare parts from Mumbai’s junkyards, but hit a roadblock when they realised the battery required to power the EV was 3X more expensive than the entire cost of building it. Jubin and Ameya dropped out of college soon after, and started Gegadyne Energy in 2015.
They began with lead-acid batteries, which were cheap but took almost forever to charge. Then, they switched to lithium-ion batteries (typically used in EVs), which were quick to charge, but lost some battery life with every charging cycle ala iPhones. “That is when we stumbled upon supercapacitors, which already existed in the market,” Founder-CEO Jubin tells YourStory.
Supercapacitors have quick-charging capabilities, come with a longer battery life than lithium-ion batteries, and are much lighter to carry around. But they too have their share of problems. Supercapacitors are usually low on energy density (the amount of energy stored in a given space), and have a high self-discharge rate (the power which drains out without any external load).
Jubin and Ameya decided to fix this. Jubin explains,
“There was scope to build incremental battery tech instead of creating something from scratch. Since India doesn’t have an established battery supply chain, we decided to work on materials that are widely available in nature.”
The battery prototype developed by Gegadyne Energy has a capacity of 1 kWh.
The founders enhanced the performance of supercapacitors by mixing
graphene, composite nanomaterials, and Artificial Atoms - quantum physics, basically. They managed to increase the energy density of the batteries, and bring down the discharge rate. Today, this tech forms the core of what Gegadyne does.
The startup claims its technology can charge EV batteries from 0 to 100 percent in just 15 minutes. It also makes the batteries cheaper, lighter, and greener. Plus, it improves the battery life cycle by 50X compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, it claims.
Powering EVs, and ‘Make in India’
Gegadyne’s tech is being indigenously developed in line with the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. Batteries account for one-third of the cost of an EV. At present, India imports lithium-ion cells, which increases the cost burden on vehicle manufacturers. And, Gegadyne wants to correct that.
Jubin says,
“Making in India allows us to change the unit economics of EVs and everything else associated with them. Unless the batteries get closer to $100/kWh, it will be a daunting task for EV manufacturers to compete with petrol-based vehicles. At present, it is about $300-350/kWh.”
Gegadyne offers a range of products and services related to energy storage, including battery packs, individual cells along with battery management systems and auxiliary analytics solutions. Essentially, it is building an entire energy ecosystem around EVs, which is expected to take off by 2021-2022.
Patent portfolio, and commercial launch
The startup has filed a portfolio of patents, a few of which are awaiting approval. It wants to be deemed as India’s first supercapacitor-based battery manufacturer, not only for EVs but also for consumer devices eventually.
Jubin says,
“We are taking on traditional lithium-ion batteries not only in terms of utility, but also cost, convenience, and environmental-friendliness.”
In early 2018, Gegadyne raised an undisclosed seed round from the Mumbai Angels Network. It is using the capital to set up R&D facilities and labs in Mumbai, and to refine its technology for a commercial launch in early 2020.
“Our product has gone through multiple iterations. We are looking to scale it up now, and are in talks with various OEMs for pilots,” Jubin reveals.
Gegadyne’s investors expect it to become a name to reckon with in the sector of sustainable technologies.
“With the world moving towards electric vehicles and efficient low-cost batteries, Gegadyne’s patent pending supercapacitor graphene-based battery would be the game changer replacing lithium-ion batteries.”
Last month, both founders also made it to the ‘special mentions’ section of Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 List.
Not everything has been smooth, though. The founders admit their biggest challenge has been to “define the success metric for investors”.
“The market is playing a wait-and-watch game, and energy startups are dependent on government incentives for growth,” says Jubin, adding, “Don’t know if they are waiting for Tesla to come in and scale up the ecosystem, but increasing battery production is the only way to popularise EVs in India.”
Building a “solid team” has been tough too.
Since Gegadyne deals with core material science, it requires highly skilled people to lead the charge (pun intended). The startup has a team of five PhD scientists and researchers, who specialise in various aspects of material science and energy storage. They hail from renowned institutes including IIT-B, DRDO-DIAT, the University of Madras, etc.
Jubin says, “We were clear from the beginning that the next generation battery needs to be not only superior than the existing one, but also more affordable.”
Gegadyne Energy has managed to successfully test an electric scooter using its battery tech. Now, onto other journeys!
India’s edtech ecosystem, ruled by the likes of BYJU’s, UpGrad, Simplilearn, Toppr, Vedantu, Great Learning, and Unacademy, has raised millions of dollars in VC funding over the past five years. But it’s not only Indian startups that are keen to take a bite out of the $215 billion education pie in the country; international platforms are also eyeing a slice. In fact, Poland-based startup Brainly has quietly been making waves over the past two years.
Michal Bowkorski, Co-founder and CEO of Brainly.
Brainly was founded by Michal Bowkorski, Lukasz Haluch, and Tomasz Kraus in Krakow in 2009. The startup has raised $38.5 million (the most recent round being Series B) from seven investors, including Naspers (it also funded India’s first edtech unicorn BYJU’s).
Catching up with YourStory in Bengaluru, Co-founder and CEO Michal recollects that it was a different world when Brainly was launched, with not many global edtech companies, and little investment from VCs. The entrepreneur trio, however, was willing to risk it all.
Michal, who has a degree in corporate finance, recounts, “My parents, who were small-scale entrepreneurs, encouraged me to take risks.
Their motto was: if you are facing a tough decision, fast forward five years. Even if you fail, would you prefer to fail and learn, or never to take the risk?”
The decision to take the risk seems to have paid off. Brainly is now present in over 35 countries, with more than 150 million active users. It claims to be the world’s largest social learning community for students.
In India, Brainly has more than 15 million active users, the same as India’s first and only edtech unicorn BYJU’s. Brainly says it has witnessed 200 percent annual growth since it entered India in 2016, and claims to be the number one education website in India in terms of number of visits it gets. Indian students who use the platform comprise 42 percent secondary and 39 percent higher secondary grade students. However, Brainly is not monetising in India right now. Michal stresses,
“We are in the growth stage; we want to reach every student in the world, and India specifically. We are not focusing on profit; we are still working on our business model.”
In Asia, Brainly is also present in Indonesia and Philippines, two countries that Michal claims have great push for education and a sizeable population to scale up.
How Brainly works
Brainly aims to help students with curriculum-related, specific questions, unlike most edtech startups in India that focus on test preparations and personalised learning programmes. Students connect to their peers to help strengthen their skills, from mathematics and science to history and more.
Michal reminisces that as a teenager, he found essays hard to write, but was too embarrassed to ask for help. “It was frustrating for me. In the online world, the process is much easier.”
Lukasz Haluch, Co-founder of Brainly, is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.
A question from a student of Class 10 can be answered by another 10th grader or a 12th grader. Michal claims students all over the world have one common trait – they help each other in doing homework and answering each other’s doubts.
“By engaging students into that collaboration online, we take every question and answer, and store it in our knowledge base. So in a way, we are extracting the smartness of every child who uses Brainly. We make it accessible to everyone, no matter where they are or how much money they have,” he adds.
To ensure the quality of interactions and accuracy of answers, Brainly moderates all the content with their own algorithm. Users can also rate the answers.
In addition, experts also review the knowledge base to check the quality. If they are not satisfied with the quality of the answer, they ask the person who gave that answer to improve it (with explanation). If there is still no improvement, Brainly removes that answer from the database, Michal says.
India’s push for education
India focuses greatly on education in general, which means the rise of edtech companies is not surprising. Michal says Brainly has been looking at the India market since 2014.
“The market is huge in India. People here are more willing to pay for education compared to most other markets; the highest spends from parents’ salaries often go into their children’s education. There is huge pressure on students to succeed. Using Brainly expands their knowledge and reduces frustration,” he points out.
In Brainly’s survey of more than 3,000 users in India (in January 2019), more than 50 percent students said their schools were not helping them enough to prepare for their careers and the real world, and hence they needed additional resources. They were striving to attain a deeper understanding of subjects, and more than 40 percent respondents started using Brainly to go beyond homework assignments. Around 12 percent students claimed that they started using Brainly because their grades were suffering and they needed additional support.
Brainly is a peer-to-peer platform where students can help each other online. (Image: Shutterstock)
Brainly had also asked what sources of information are referred to by teachers – digital or offline. Apparently, digital is picking up now. “Our users in Bangalore are using us almost every day. The most popular subject among Indian users is maths,” Michal tells YourStory.
Plan for India
Brainly’s strategy is to build the student community and work on the content to ensure best quality. But India poses many challenges. For instance, internet penetration is still poor in some areas outside metro cities. Michal says their engineering team, comprising 65 people, is constantly working to ensure that their app runs well and fast even in areas without 4G.
On the other hand, Michal claims Brainly had to spend little on marketing in India. “We did some digital marketing to gain visibility initially. But our growth is mostly organic. Students often refer us to each other; sometimes they search for information online and then they find us. The bigger the knowledge base gets, more people come in,” he says.
Since schools in India do not follow one unified syllabus, Brainly does not follow a specific curriculum. The company wants to have the highest coverage of all school subjects.
In a multi-lingual society like India, regional language content is essential for the penetration of online education platforms. (Image: Shutterstock)
Venturing beyond English speakers
The majority of Brainly’s current user base in India is English speaking. As part of their expansion plan in India, they have launched in Hindi, and will soon launch in Bengali and Kannada.
Michal explains the strategy. “Giving content in local language is central in education. We take into account the size of that particular language-speaking community, popularity of the language, and internet penetration in the region of those language users, so that we can scale up.”
But home tutoring is the norm among school children in India. Can Brainly beat this competition with local language content? Michal says that for offline interactions (like home tutoring), the cost is higher since the student or the teacher needs to travel. “With tech, you can create a knowledge base, and give access to students free of cost,” he remarks.
Even though they make tutoring jobs obsolete, Michal feels that tech platforms like Brainly improve the quality of education. He elaborates, “Students routinely have to attend home tutoring after school, then do homework for school, and study on their own for understanding the topic. We make that learning more efficient by helping them understand topics faster.”
Michal hopes that one day “Brainly” will replace the word “Brainy”. “When a student is smart, he is a Brainly one!” he says.
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