‘I’m live blogging, excuse lapses of grammar, spelling errors, typos and all the bad jokes. I will clean this up later. Maybe not the bad jokes.’
Its D-day and I’m here at BKC nice and early as we get ready for TheRodinhoods open house. Disclosure: This is Shwaytaj here and I’ll be your live blogger today. Enjoy the blog and feel free to donate to the “Improve Shwaytaj’s grammar foundation”.
This is my first open house ever. So double the reason for me to be excited here!
For everyone who doesn’t know where “here” is, it’s at:
Time: December 6, 2014 from 2pm to 5:30pm
Location: NSE – National Stock Exchange, Ground Floor, Exchange Plaza,
Street: Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra East,
City/Town: Mumbai – 400 051
(special thanks to NSE for having us here)
Still time to join in! Here’s a grand view from the podium. The volunteers are here setting things up!
P.S: I can book seats for you for a pair of Tacos. (Something like this)
The atmosphere is getting warmed up here at the open house. People walking in nice and early and the seats are filling up – somehow everyone is in a hurry for the open house to kick off!
(I got a similar feeling when I was sitting in iMax for Interstellar this week. 🙂 Not too sure I can say the same for ‘Happy New Year.’ :/)
Please say a big thanks to our photographer: Karan. (He is the one getting us all the cool snaps that you see in the blog!!)
Tanya is on stage with Asha setting things up! The session is about to kick off!
(Side Note: To make sure that the quality of the snaps stay good and to avoid general public backlash he has been instructed not to take my snap at any point of time.)
Alok, (for those who came in late – founder of The Rodinhoods and also founder of other million $ companies) starts off the sessions with a welcome address.
He begins with the story of why he started Rodinhoods.
– He speaks about why he wasn’t getting a kick out of what he was doing
A beautiful answer: “His glass was already full. And he needed to empty some part”
We finish the customary national anthem. Alok thanks his gurus – Guruji and Babaji.
And now we are on live!!
– Alok has a quick chat with Imran and gets us introduced to Nimbus. (a kind of pre-cursor to whatsapp)
– Tanya introduces Parzen Patel of Bawi Bride, Sangram (from Pescafresh) and Nik from PartyMap.
– Imran now starts of his keynote session on CatchIt – his mobile app.
For android – https://www.getcatchit.com/
For iPhone – https://catch.getcatchit.com/
About Imran:
– Worked for 14+ yrs in startups
– College dropout
– Tried starting 4 times
– Father used to say – “Tu Mochi banega!!” 🙂
(talk about having a great story!)
So how does GetCatchit work. Its used for sharing content or files quickly.
1) Select files
2) Choose how far do you wish to ‘throw’ it
3) Find people
4) Throw to 1 or all
5) People can catch the files to receive content
They have tied with more than 200,000 outlets with brands like McDonalds, Costa Coffee, Subway, KFC and Pizza Hut!!
“Catchy Names ” right there!
Imran asks everyone to download the app – and does a demo by sharing his presentation deck with everyone and does a perfect demo!
What’s the plan ahead? – Brands can throw coupons and users can catch them!
Sidenote: It’s filling up here! Still time to join in though!
Next up: Perzen Patel from Bawi Bride
Here’s the link: do check it out – https://www.bawibride.com/
So why did she start the Bawi Bride blog? –
Answer: To make notes of recipes and keep records of Parsi recipes!
However, writing wasn’t enough – (like any entrepreneur) she wanted to make money! 😉 🙂
What is she doing now:
– Catering
– Parties
– Personalised parsi cooking classes
– Pop-up stores
– Parsi food parties
– Corporate gifting
Achievements:
– Completed 120+ orders
– Media coverage in more than 50 publications
Vision: Make parsi food available to people across India !
(She is one of the few / first ones to have Parsi food online for everyone to order!)
Next in her plan: Parsi food truck! (That’s one truck I’m looking out for)
Perzen sent out a beautiful message in her talk- of sharing her recipes online regardless of whether people buy from her or not!
“If making money is the priority, get funded! If making food is the priority, stay bootstrapped!” Says Rudrajeet!
Cheeky side note: Her husband is referred to as “Bawa Groom’!!
Next up is Sangram Sawant from Pescafresh!
– Sangram, as Alok introduces him – is the model that married a model and has a business model!
– Here’s a look at their site: https://www.pescafresh.com/
– Sangram starts off with the missing link between why consumers don’t get amazing seafood.
– Sangram’s Brand Proposition from Pescafresh: Pescafresh is built on freshness at the core with all the auxiliaries around to amplify the offering to its consumers.
– He mentions his grand vision – Making seafood available to all houses in India!
Challenges:
– Perception: He speaks about a customer who called him and says : “Saala Chor!” and tells us how that story went! (You needed to be here for this. I can’t type so fast!)
– Supply chain inefficiencies
– Bandwidth
– Funding / Financing
– “You are not a sexy business – fish??” (…. wait, what?)
– Standardisation – best practices
Sangram wraps up an electrifying session and has everyone “hooked”! Its now over to Alok and Sangram for their Q & A session.
Key takeaways from the Q & A:
– Sangram wants every employee of his to ultimately grow and own his own store.
– He comes from a construction background but has learnt the fish business by himself, with his wife.
– How expensive is pescafresh against usual fish markets: in home delivery between 10-15% premium and in hypermarkets even less than that.
So long, Sangram and thanks for all the fish!
Next up is Nameet Potnis from SellMojo and Apptuse
About Nameet:
– Nameet is a journalist & photographer
– He is also an Entrepreneur who has dabbled in multiple things like
– Events
– Restaurants
– Tech: SellMojo & Apptuse
About Sellmojo.com & Apptuse.com
– Sellmojo Empowers companies with Fcommerce and provides logistic and payment gateway solutions
– Full-fledged ecommerce store within facebook
– Transaction happens within FB
– 1500) merchants globally
– Apptuse enables business with MCommerce
Challenges addressed
– Users signing up but staying dormant (People need to use – to get paid- to pay sellmojo!. Follow the money!!)
– Customising a shop on the mobile
– Demo available immediately from the app store for a quick view (So, you don’t need to wait 8 days to see a quick demo of how your app will look like!)
Cheatsheet ! (Product Builders- DO READ THIS PART FOR SURE!!)
– Design for the novice, configure for the pro (I’m putting this as quote of the day from now)
– Speed wins in the marketplace
– Make product development as frictionless as possible
– If heavy lifting is undifferentiated, don’t do it
– Create patterns and then automate
Quote of the talk: Nameet says “People all over the freakin’ country are buying men’s undies at 3 am in the morning!” 😉
Slight change in agenda: Next up – Keychat Satyen Kothari from Citrus Pay
– (Secret Side Note: Satyen was initially setup to be co-founder at G2W )
– Satyen starts with an amazing quote:
“Your wealth is not defined by how much you have but how much you don’t want.”
– Satyen is a Stanford graduate
– ….and has worked with Apple
– …as a UX designer!!
– ..and worked designing video games!!
So what is he building at CitrusPay?
– Simple consumer payment
– Fast payment checkouts
– Their wallets have a unique model where you can withdraw money when you want! – That’s a classic example of ‘Keeping your user before your business”
– Helps your money manage itself
Alok and Satyen enter a Q & A session.
Awesome quote by Satyen: “To a founder, his startup is his own kid. VCs are like school teachers, the startup is like one kid in your classroom! So you, as a founder, need to decide the future of your startup”
Next: Rudrajeet Desai has a really ‘quickie’ demo!
– He runs a successful business (www.ideacts.com)
– wants to build a simple movie app related to movies
– Came up with MovieBuddy (android)
– You can follow all movies here -english , hindi, marathi
– Get ratings, recommendations from friends
– Get movie alerts
– Watch trailers and songs
– Make movie plans with friends
– It has around 1,000 users!
– He has a product but not a company.
Learning in 6 months of making an app: (MUST READ)
– Apps succeed when they become the first choice to users
– Apps need to make doing something very easy
– Center around one thing
– UI/UX more important than content (sometimes)
– One action, one click, one button can make or break your app
– Apps become addictive when they match real-life behaviour.
– Don’t ask users what they want – ask them which one you like?
Rudrajeet is looking for people to test this app!
If you want to test it, write to: contact@moviebuddy.com
It has a cool “Bug pe Mug” contest – if you find a bug, you will get a mug for finding it!
Quote of the talk: I have very limited amount of knowledge about very few things in life.
Alok fires up next with his talk on – Firing up app download & engagement (Growth Hacking for apps!)
Alok’s talk is on “The seven deadly sins to generate downloads and engagement’.
To all of us who aren’t aware of what the original 7 sins are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins.
( I , personally, won’t have much to do in a day if I completely let go of all 7 of these :/)
Use the 7 deadly sins to market your app!
– Alok explains how each sin can be used to drive engagement, downloads and revenues from your app.
Next up: Nik Talreja – Founder & CEO @PartyMap Education
– He is also a techie at PartyMap.in
PartyMap (https://www.partymap.in)
– Platform to book talented artists.
PartyMap DJ Academy
– Professional DJ & Electronic Music Production Academy (Become an AR Rahman in your own house)
Post this, we will have our *customary* group photo and networking!
So that’s a wrap from the open house here in Mumbai!
Thanks for being such amazing readers. *High fives all over.*