sharatthakur.com

The first month of my software startup business

So finally, my company operations started after nearly 2 weeks of infrastructure set up. The first month has been one of the most crazy times I ever have had in my life. But as a matter of fact, I enjoyed it to the fullest. Real joy comes in life, when you know that you are able to realize and utilize your fullest potential.

As far as work statistics are concerned, we had a stupendous success in first month itself. We were able to sign up 6 projects in software - all related to web development. My recruitment division also had a gala time with 3 active customers, where in we are working on nearly 40 open positions. But the main highlight of all, was the marketing strategy we employed in garnering new clients. All assumptions proved right, and we were able to reach more than 50 customers, and submitted our proposal. Since our business model is to do volume business, so we seem to be right on track of generating volume projects. With the current marketing strategy in place, we expect to reach more than 150 customers per month. Considering that the conversion ratio is/ will be around 10%, we should be able to get around 10-15 customers per month, which I suppose is a good amount of business for a startup company.

Hiring of the first set of people proved to be a smooth ride for us. We have access to all major database portals in India, so we were able to hire 10 resources in less than 2 weeks of record time. Definitely, the major advantage I had in hiring was the back up, expertise and support of my company’s HR Head, who also happens to be my wife. Currently, we are 14 member team, and raring to increase our headcount, as the work assignment increases. We hired resources keeping in mind their skill set, attitude and their commitment and motivation level. We have a nice blend of experienced and fresh faces. Bottomline is all resources are the most capable ones in their own areas, and I have utmost trust on them and their abilities.

I have put a special focus on implementation strategy. With the limited set of resources that I have ( though for a startup, it seems quite decent ), I have made tie ups with some companies and individuals, to help in execution of the projects. We have expertise in our own area, and we want to remain specialized in that area itself, at least for couple of years down the line, before we leverage ourselves to expand into other technological skill sets. But, our philosophy is that we will not let go of any project opportunities, irrespective of whether we have the skill set to execute it or not. Hence we have partners to take care of that.. This strategy seems to have worked on a win - win basis for us.

There is an economic recession happening globally. The first question everyone asked me was why this stupidity of launching a company, when the economy is sinking. But the truth is, though the economy is sinking, there are still lots of customers available in the market, and what you need is to have a marketing strategy which will make you reach those customers. Identification of the target market customers is very crucial, specially in the initial phase, else the business can go hay wire. Our business philosophy has been very simple - to bring technology to the masses, hence we are into volume business, though the size of each assignment may be relatively small. Our goal is to establish ourselves in the market, with a huge customer portfolio, before we begin to bid for bigger assignments. Meantime, we want to spread the word in such a way, that if somebody has anything to do with web application, they will have only one name in their mind - Shapia Software. That’s what the brand equity is all about. The moment you are thirsty, you visualize about Pepsi or Cola. So whenever people are “web” thirsty, we want them to think about Shapia - that’s our eventual goal. But we understand it will take some time, before we reach that level. We are planning to come up with a mass campaign, where in we will play the brand building game in such a way that masses will become tired of hearing the name Shapia.