How Will Startup India Help You?

In order to give a boost to the culture of entrepreneurship at a mass scale, Prime Minister launched the Startup India program on 16 January with a number of initiatives and perks for startups.

In last few years, India has witnessed boom in the etail or ecommerce sector. Thanks to the startups which manifested risk-taking ability and defied the tradition by adopting innovative ways to run business. Because of their unprecedented feat, India could surpass China for the first time in the race to garner the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Ecommerce is one part of the story which certainly boosted the morale of several individuals to experiment. As a result India has seen a wave of startups in many areas. Until now startups took the risk on their own, with little help from the government. Of course, venture capitalist have begun to invest and promote Indian startups. Largely young entrepreneurs have embarked upon the entrepreneurship on their own. However, it is important that this culture is preserved, prevailed and promoted. There is no one better than the government to do so.

The Startup India – a visionary program of the Narendra Modi government – can succeed in giving the much-needed boost. The Startup India includes new policies and initiatives that are aimed at making it easier for investors and startup founders to incubate their venture in the country. It is expected that the initiatives can bring a wave of innovative startups in the country.

Startup India: 12 Big Announcements

1. Rs. 10,000 crore fund for startups 
2. single point of registration for startups
3. simplified regulatory regime based on self-certification
4. fast-track mechanism filing patent applications
5. credit guarantee fund for startups
6. Three year tax exemption
7. Startup India Hub
8. Relaxed norms of public-procurement
9. Faster exits for startups
10. Atal Innovation Mission – Sector specific Incubators
11. Encouraging Innovation among students
12. An annual incubator grand challenge

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Why and How this Indian Realty Portal Exploits Data Science

While banks and ecommerce companies have tried their hands at data science and are benefitting from their initiatives around it, real estate appears to be the next big vertical that intends to leverage data science.

Housing.com, the Mumbai-based startup, is one among the top Indian online businesses that bet on data science and machine learning algorithms as a core priority. The realty portal, which raised $190 mn from Japan’s SoftBank, has come up with many tools such as Traffic Flux, Heat Maps, Listing Decay, and more in their efforts to present information to users in a visually appealing way that is more interactive than traditional plain listings.

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5 ways technology will disrupt commerce

In the final flurry of Christmas shopping last year, a buyer in Miami snapped up a new, 18-carat rose-gold men’s Rolex watch for $29,000 on the eBay iPhone app. The watch, which sold at 9.30pm on Christmas Eve and came with free one-day shipping, may have made a welcome last-minute gift for someone.

It was just one of the over 100 million items we sold via mobile on our platform between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The transformative effect of smartphones and tablets, not just on our business but also on the entire retail sector, has been staggering. Nobody understood the degree to which these devices would explode distribution and access points, and fundamentally change commerce.

The mobile phenomenon demonstrates how interwoven technology and commerce have become. But what we’ve seen is only the beginning. I believe we are standing on the brink of another secular shift in technology, a new age of connected commerce.

I anticipate over the next five years, we’ll see the impact of five trends that will further re-order the commerce landscape. These trends are: the age of everywhere, truly global trade, virtual reality as a retail tool, on-demand inventory and supply, and sustainable shopping.

1. The age of everywhere
2. On-demand inventory and supply
3. True global commerce
4. Virtual reality gets real
5. Sustainable shopping gathers momentum

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The world at our fingertips

The mobile phone has helped India leapfrog both the landline and the Internet. What exactly does this mean for a country with one of the largest and fastest growing mobile user bases in the world?

Writing for McKinsey in December 2013, tech entrepreneur Vinod Khosla recalled having said at a telecommunications seminar in Delhi in 2000, “If I were in India, I wouldn’t worry about adding ten million more copper lines. I would go straight to voice over Internet and mobile.” He added, “I didn’t have it exactly right; I missed how big mobile could become and how quickly.”

Between the time of Mr. Khosla’s article and now, India is estimated to have added over 80 million mobile subscribers and mobile Internet users. That’s roughly the same number as the total number of mobile subscriptions in the U.K.

In recent years, mobile phones have twice helped India largely bypass existing technology platforms that would have, on their own, taken decades of effort and billions of dollars of money to touch large sections of the population. The first time, it was fixed telephony. The second time, it was fixed Internet. Mobiles have helped India leapfrog them both.

An app for everything

With mobiles seemingly ubiquitous, Indians seem to be increasingly crafting their lives and work around apps. From tracking pollution in the Ganga (Bhuvan app) to alerting a Kerala snake catcher (King Cobra), there seems to be an app for everything. This is especially true of urban lives. Pick a need, and there are loads of choices: music (Wynk), commerce (Paytm), education (Coursera), groceries (BigBasket), cab (Uber), self-drive cars (Zoomcar), retail (Flipkart), price discovery (OLX), friends (WhatsApp), social networking (Facebook), professional networking (LinkedIn), security (VithU), and so on.

Read the feature in The Hindu dt. 28th Jun 2015

Indiaplaza.com: How an Indian e-commerce firm ran out of cash

Kothandaraman Vaitheeswaran and Indiaplaza.com, among the first e-commerce firms in India, survived the dotcom boom and bust but failed later due to lack of funds.

He had been contemplating it for a while.

After all, there is only so much a man can take.

The office rent was overdue. For three months. Almost Rs.6 lakh. The landlord had run out of patience. So had the 10-month deposit money for the lease. There was money due to suppliers as well—some 50 of them. Almost Rs.60 lakh. The suppliers had waited long enough. And now their pestering calls had taken a slightly demanding turn. Customers were complaining—on social media, review websites and to whoever cared to listen. They had ordered things and paid online, but they had not been delivered.

Suppliers wouldn’t ship incoming orders unless their dues were cleared. But customers didn’t care; they wanted to know why the products hadn’t arrived. They kept calling customer support, the office landline. Relentlessly. And they wanted their money back. But nobody would answer.

Over the last 18 months, almost 95% of the staff at Indiaplaza.com had quit. Taking up whatever assignment came their way, leaving behind a sinking ship where they were tired of delayed salaries, and for some months, no salary at all.

Kothandaraman Vaitheeswaran, the founder and chief executive officer of Indiaplaza, had nowhere to go. Nothing left. Except a modicum of dignity.

Read the story published in livemint.com on 3rd Jul 2015

Jeff Bezos’s 7 Secrets to Running the Internet Retail World

For those people outside the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) employee world (read: most of us), CEO Jeff Bezos remains somewhat of an enigma. The man is, of course, known for his ability to take an online bookseller and turn it into a multi-billion-dollar “Everything Store,” but few really understand the nature of the executive and what goes on inside the walls of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters that make it so wildly successful.

the following are Bezos’s business strategy and how he operates with his employees and competitors.

1. Bezos is Ruthless
2. Bezos Recruits Talent, Doesn’t Stand for Complacency
3. Bezos Inspires Fear in Employees
4. Bezos Relies on Consumer Anecdotes
5. Bezos Relies on Numbers
6. Bezos Employs Competitive Intelligence
7. Bezos Nukes the Competition

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China’s e-tail revolution

Almost overnight, China has become the world’s second-largest e-tail market, with estimates as high as $210 billion for revenues in 2012 and a compound annual growth rate of 120 percent since 2003. The country’s retail sector already is among the most wired anywhere—e-tailing commanded about 5 to 6 percent of total retail sales in 2012, compared with 5 percent in the United States—while it is distinctly different from that of other countries. Only a small portion of Chinese e-tailing takes place directly between consumers and retailers, whether online pure plays or brick-and-mortar businesses on retailers’ own Web sites. Instead, most occurs on digital marketplaces. What’s more, Chinese e-tailing is not just replacing traditional retail transactions but also stimulating consumption that would not otherwise take place. Finally, e-tailing may catalyze a “leapfrog” move by the broader retail sector, putting it on a fast track to a more digital future. These are among the key findings of China’s e-tail revolution: Online shopping as a catalyst for growth, a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

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10 Platforms for Obtaining Customer Feedback

To keep an e-commerce store running at peak-performance, merchants need to pay attention not only to analytics, but also to customer feedback. While analytics are a good starting point for figuring out which site elements need to be revamped or tested, customer feedback gets straight to the point by telling merchants exactly what a site visitor liked or disliked about their shopping experience. This type of insight can be used to quickly implement adjustments to a Web store in order to optimize the user experience.

There are many ways that merchants can obtain feedback from their customers, from social media to surveys and forums, which is why Website Magazine has compiled a list of platforms that merchants can leverage to gain insights into their customers’ shopping experiences.

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13 E-Commerce Trends for 2013

2013 is here and it's slated to be the biggest e-commerce year in history. Consumers will demand more from the digital properties they visit and businesses will race to not only provide a streamlined user experience, but also one that is personalized and intuitive. To ensure your enterprise gets its piece of the digital pie, prepare it for these 13 e-commerce trends for 2013.

Trend 1: Personalization for Everyone
Trend 2: Personalization Moves Beyond Retail
Trend 3: Share More; Browse and Buy Better
Trend 4: Personalization in Real Time
Trend 5: Loyalty Will Be Rewarded
Trend 6: Mobile Grows Up
Trend 7: Getting It Right on Every Device
Trend 8: The Same Consumer, Many Channels
Trend 9: Seamless Experiences Across All Channels
Trend 10: Big Data Done Better
Trend 11: Big Data—A Consumer’s Best Friend
Trend 12: Social Media Comes in from the Cold
Trend 13: B2B As the New B2C

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The Tech State of E-Commerce

New technologies are evolving the Internet, and are also assisting in the growth of the e-commerce industry. Since everything from product images to promotions can impact a retailer’s success, merchants should focus on the five key areas in order to gain the best return on investment (ROI) in the current state of e-commerce.

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Interesting articles to read -- 24-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 24-09-2012

Can Crowdsourcing Bring Unused Patents Back from the Dead?University patents often sit there on the shelf. One startup thinks crowdsourcing could revive them. Read

Putting quality back into education. By P.V.Indiresan, Former Director of IITM Read

Nurturing the family: TVS group has never faced a labour problem Read

Click & Mortar: Web stores get popular - Tips to set up your business online Read

The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs (HBR article) Read

Music Therapy: An Ultimate Remedy for Many Diseases Read

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12 Leading Payment Services for Your Online Business

12 Leading Payment Services for Your Online Business

In this article, we take a look at some of the leading online payment services that you can integrate to your website to receive payments from your customers and clients.

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Amazon.com's domain power play: We want to control them all

If Amazon.com gets its way -- and that's still a big "if" -- it will soon control 76 new domain extensions on the Internet. Most observers had expected the company to apply for .amazon and .kindle, but it seems that was just for starters: Amazon's ambitions also include a host of generic terms, including the likes of .free, .like, .game, and .shop.

Amazon is looking to nab a slew of compelling names, and if things unfold the way Amazon hopes, the outcome of this power play could reshape the world of Internet commerce -- at least as it relates to the behemoth that is Amazon. Here's the roster of terms Amazon is hoping to grab, excluding some non-Latin names:....

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