Spark of InspirationAlumni-Start-ups: Show inspirations of start-ups
Oct 27, 2014
Hey Studentpreneurs!
I’m
2011 BE CSE passout
Mohankumar Swaminathan
CEO & Co-founder, DoPartTime.com
A product of Tinywall Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (TTPL)
How I met your mother
• Fully Residential college (just hostel & college)
• More than 5K+ students
• Free Wifi across campus
• No access to Social Networking Websites
• so, obviously had lot of time
my Co-founder
Developing Tinywall
• Classmates notes sharing web app
• Joined hands and decided to make together
• Naming Tinywall (Guess why!)
• Students Social Networking Engine v1.0
Team building
• Passion
• Fire in the belly
• Thirst for knowledge
• Wave length match
• Encouragement
• Sharing
• Trust
• Lean team is much better
• Open up
• Discussion is always better than argument. Because argument is to find out who is right ! Discussion is to find out what is right.
Team work
• Ran around most of the national level symposiums
• Organized seminars and workshops in colleges/universities
• Worked on lots of freelancing works
• Started a blog Tinywall.info
• Created Identity
Making our first $$$$$
• A Norwegian had came to know about us via Twitter.
• Connected with us via Facebook
• Discussed in Skype
• Sent our first payment using PayPal
• Purchased Android mobiles
Career path
Start-up Company
• Joined Globals Inc.
• Solutions Consultant
• LAMP Stack
• Customer focus
MNC Company
• Joined TechMahindra
• S/w developer
• Java
• Product focus
Team Timeline
2010
• Developed Tinywall v1
2011
• Partnership with Norway
• Career path
2012
• Brainstorming ideas
• Understanding MNC and start-up
2013
• Market research
• Developed MVP
2014
• Incubated in StartTank
• Won TiECON 2014 CBE
• Beta release of DoPartTime.com
2009
Started Class portal
Business vs Startup
MNC
• Bench - project
• On-site
• Green card
• NRI
• Retirement
Start-up
• Just You + Your Idea
• Scaling – User base - Transaction
• Fund raising – Acquisition – Exit
• Make in India
• Entrepreneur journey
Wanna be Entrepreneur?
Be ready to face,
• First your girlfriend will leave you (If you have one)
• Mom will have hypertension and will tell you that you are going nuts.
• Father will ask you to grow up.
For the first generation entrepreneurs
• Stop worrying someone will steal your idea. Worry about how to get customers, a team & funding.
• If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way!
• There is no shortage of money on this planet, only a shortage of people thinking big enough.
• Entrepreneurs are rock stars. Entrepreneurship is ‘the’ most courageous thing to do. It takes a lot of courage to startup.
• Flat, marriage and family – 3 reasons why young Indians don’t turn entrepreneurs! via @AbhinavSahai
Best time to be an entrepreneur
My Learnings
• If you have work-life balance, you are not serious enough about your start-up.
• Anything that you would be doing as a start-up entrepreneur is selling, a lot of selling.
• Do Shameless networking, follow up desperately. Even a simple chit-chat would help you connect dots.
• You may even hire who is lazy; but for sure not an irresponsible idiot
• Study empathy for your audience
• Success will come slowly, and cash will burn fast. Be smart – plan from day one.
• Lack of innovation is death for the company.
• Don't improve by adding features, improve by solving problems
• According to our own experience, an excellent programmer can do in half the time and with better quality what an average programmer does.
• A Good User Interface has high conversion rates and is easy to use.
• Automate
My Mind voice• The only comfortable place was next to my few entrepreneur friends. It was true, only an entrepreneur
could understand an entrepreneur.
• Either you sell the client something or he sells you a reason he can't. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is going to close?
• Security doesn’t have to last forever; just longer than everything else that might notice it’s gone.
• Entrepreneurship is all about customers, revenues and profits, and funding is optional
• Stop being so perfect I have parents to answer
• A person never gets tired working for himself.
• Valuation is not a science; it's an art.
• You only have to be right once!
• Fail Fast, Succeed Faster
• Been there, done that.
• Best Motivational Video For Startups And Entrepreneurs -YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NxDO6fA5rU
Building while at Karunya?
• It’s easy to find a girl friend; but not a co-founder – start working now
• Awesome climate; free users; cool infrastructure – don’t miss it
• Stop Counter stick game (may be some new one now) – save time & energy
• Learn to Unlearn
What are we building now?
www.DoPartTime.com
an online portal that facilitates hiring and finding of part-time work in India
• Ideal for students, house wife, freelancers & retired professionals
• Search based on time, day
• Search based on vicinity (location)@doparttime
fb.com/doparttime
Thank youLife is short; just startup!
Contact me:
@smartmohi
http://blog.smartmohi.com
