The technology industry is a driving force in the modern economy, continuously innovating to address the increasing demand for convenient and secure solutions. From AI-powered systems to robust secure delivery solutions, technology shapes the landscape of modern service interactions for businesses and individuals alike. As customer expectations evolve, the focus on scalability, user-centric design, and privacy intensifies, driving professionals to redefine the limits of technological possibility.
Sibin Thomas, a leading engineer in the field, has pioneered transformative advancements in secure delivery systems, enhancing both security and user convenience. His expertise has led to the development of a cutting-edge technology stack that powers seamless, no-contact delivery and service solutions.
“My vision was to create a system that prioritizes user convenience while fostering trust and empowering individuals with greater control over their experiences,” he explained.
He spearheaded the development of a dynamic ecosystem that allowed customers to securely avail deliveries and access services in their homes, cars, and garages without being physically present. “The goal was to provide users with flexibility while ensuring their security was never compromised,” he shared.
Under his leadership, this project revolutionized the industry, becoming a benchmark for competitors. By collaborating with over 15 engineers across global regions, the initiative not only enhanced operational efficiency but also saved the organization millions annually. His ability to influence the broader technological landscape within the company has resulted in the widespread adoption of his methods across multiple teams.
His contributions have yielded significant improvements in security and user engagement. Notably, package theft decreased by over 30%, while user adoption of secure delivery services surged by more than 22%. Furthermore, his solutions fostered a notable 18% increase in user interaction with other company products. “These outcomes underscore the transformative power of innovative design,” he commented. “By prioritizing user experience, we can redefine industry standards and create solutions that deliver tangible benefits.”
The journey presented significant technical hurdles. Creating a scalable and secure architecture that seamlessly integrated with a wide range of smart locks, security cameras, and service providers required ingenuity and meticulous attention to detail. Building a sophisticated platform capable of supporting a diverse product portfolio, while ensuring secure integration and adhering to stringent data protection standards, posed a considerable challenge. “Every obstacle was a chance to innovate and redefine the boundaries and raise the bar of what could be achieved,” he reflected.
One of his groundbreaking contributions was implementing a service mesh architecture augmented with stream processing capabilities, optimizing both micro-service communication and real-time data handling, which became a foundation for future innovations. Additionally, he defined software standards for service providers with privacy and security at the forefront, ensuring seamless, scalable integrations within the ecosystem. His efforts transformed the solution into a critical product, shaping customer experiences while influencing industry practices.
Looking toward the future, his insights continue to drive advancements in secure systems. He advocates for Augmented Reality with Predictive Analytics, enhancing customer satisfaction and security. “This could be a game-changer in balancing functionality with user privacy,” he suggested. He also recommends the ecosystem could be expanded to create a marketplace for service providers which would help scale the solution globally and provide customers with much more options and convenience. Furthermore, his vision includes using AI and machine learning for personalization, anomaly detection, and analyzing real-time data to address potential security risks dynamically.
Through his contributions, Sibin has not only advanced his organization’s objectives but has also inspired a wave of innovation across the industry. His focus on building secure, scalable solutions reflects a commitment to both technological excellence and user empowerment. At its core, success is about staying ahead of the curve while keeping user trust at the forefront.
Startup Leadership Program(SLP) is a 6-month program with the cohort-driven ecosystem that uses the collective energy of the group to help the talented pool of entrepreneurs to scale to greater heights. During the course, the fellows invite mentors, select topics of interest and build a network of trusted engaging entrepreneurs.
SLP program is a highly selective, world-class training programme for outstanding founders, leaders, and innovators. SLP Fellows have founded nearly 1,700 successful startups and raised more than $650 million in funding. SLP has chapters in seven cities in the US, six in India, four in Europe, two in Australia, and five elsewhere in Asia. There are around 3000 fellows across the globe and 25 in Bangalore this year.
Startup Leadership Program – Leadership
With the non-conventional school walls, there is a lot to learn from different aspects of the program that the entrepreneur can take away.
Power of Network
The power of communities is not unknown to humankind. The colonies of ants and bees build esoteric structures to mesmerize the landscape and why not. “it truly takes a village” to nurture, to enhance and to paint vivid dreams. With the cohort and the networking opportunity, the village is easily accessible. Not just the cohort, but entrepreneurs from across the globe – current and the alumni network are reachable.
Community Driven
To create a well planned, structurally mesmerizing piece of art in the form of hives is no joke. The bees build every corner of the architecturally and structurally marvelous honeycomb. Community-driven ecosystems work similarly, involves people from across the group. Right from choosing the syllabus to deciding the topics to inviting speakers is all run by the members of the cohort. The cohort includes relevant topics and addresses the current issues faced by entrepreneurs during the sessions.
Diversity
The uniqueness in the coloured mosaic does not come from similar stones or pebbles. The random structures and different textures together portray the marvel. With the selection criteria, the cohort has individuals from different age groups, various stages, varying domains and with different skill sets. Diversity puts together different voices that uniquely flatter and create pathways for amplified growth. The culture of the inclusive and diverse troops builds strong complimentary perspectives that help the startups and their founders.
Learning
Schools are not the only place to learn from; teachers are not the only people imparting knowledge. The essence of education starts with peers and resonates by observing. Throughout the program, the cohort has access to mentors and has access to each other that provides opportunities to find solutions to their business bottlenecks. With intense discussions, access to best practices, business leads or to a different way of doing things is possible via peer learning. With the structure of the program, a score-board with assignment score and attendance score makes learning fun and keeps the cohort engaged in gaining points – hence gamifying the learning paradigm.
Funding
Like finding a treasure, the sweet honey from the honeycombs can be relished after journeying into the maze. With applied learning throughout the sessions, the entrepreneurs are motivated and groomed to pitch to an expert panel of investors that include VCs and Angels. Access to investors gives them an opportunity to demo, familiarise, seek advice and seek investments. The history of fundraising by SLP startups has been sweet as the entrepreneurs have raised over $650 million through the years.
Bathrooms are no longer those dirty and stinky corners of the house. With increasing awareness about sanitization and cleanliness and increase in income bathrooms have now transformed into a spot where one can relax, refresh and get rejuvenated. Owing to this changing trend, the demand for bathroom fitting and sanitaryware has increased in India. However, shopping for these materials is still a daunting task. To simplify the process of buying bathroom fittings and bathroom ware, entrepreneurs, Harsh Sethi and Mitesh Kumar founded Construmart in the year 2016.
Construmart ’s mission is to –
To act as a catalyst in the sanitation economy
To become an alternative, as well as an easier and faster option for sourcing complete bathroom suite or all kinds of genuine washroom material in one place at a standardized price
Construmart’s long term vision is to position itself as India’s leading specialist bathroom retailer with offline stores pan India.
Construmart – Industry Details
The sanitaryware industry is no longer a segment that is unorganized or not important. It has become an intrinsic part of every urban household that adds definition to the way of living. The sanitary ware industry is witnessing unprecedented growth in India as well as globally. The growth is driven by the high demand for fixtures and components used for sanitation purposes. These include a wide array of products like washbasins, water closets, bathtubs, toilet bowls, faucets, among others.
According to Invest India, the construction market in India is growing at a fast pace and by 2025 it will be the 3rd largest construction market in the world.
The sanitaryware industry in India is experiencing a growth of 12-15% CAGR and it is expected that by 2021, the market will grow to approximately $31 billion (source toiletboard.org)
The global ceramic sanitaryware market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.4% approximately
Harsh Sethi and Mitesh Kumar founded Construmart in 2016.
Both have hands-on experience with B2B e-commerce companies, traditional trading companies as well as manufacturers.
Harsh Sethi has over 15 years of experience working with emerging brands operating in the B2B construction domain. He has held critical positions across portfolios including internal systems, telesales, and marketing. He has worked with renowned new age companies focused on real estate space, including Power2SME and Tolexo.
Mitesh holds extensive experience in housing material sector and has held critical roles in companies like Buildzar, Power2SME and RAMA TMT in his previous jobs.
Construmart currently has a 13 member team.
Construmart Team
Construmart – The Idea and Starting Up
While scouting for materials for repair work for our own houses, we noticed that the market of construction materials is extremely unorganized and scattered across the city. The story is the same across the country. The customer needs to do a lot of running around to collect various items in case there are getting their houses constructed. We found that particularly sourcing stuff for a washroom is far more cumbersome than the kitchen and any other interiors.
It is interesting to note that on an average a typical washroom will have 52 different SKUs ranging from floor tiles, wall tiles, sanitary ware, bath accessories, bath linen such as bath towels, waterproof doors, washroom mirrors, lights, holders, cabinets, handles, latches, locks, to name a few. Construmart aims to emerge as an alternative as well as an easier and faster route for sourcing complete bathroom suite at a standardized price.
Construmart – Name and Logo
We aim to be the one-stop destination for all construction materials, running on a smart hybrid offline and online model. Hence, the name ‘Construmart’’ – mart for construction material is an apt one
Construmart’s founders have a vision of creating India’s leading specialist bathroom retailer, that offers complete washroom suites at a standardized price. Besides bathroom fittings and bathroom ware, the company also delivers electrical, tiles, plumbing materials, building materials, paints, construction tools and gensets.
Harsh and Mitesh have learned from customer feedback that one of the key pain points in this industry is material delivery from different vendors. Many times there is no synergy between material deliveries and it is a hassle to receive the material from different vendors at different times.
At Construmart, we are committed to solving this. We offer a single-shot delivery for all material ordered through us. This has received a great response from our customers.
Construmart – Business and Revenue Model
We understood that this sector is relatively unorganized and has little cognizance with technology. Hence, we decided to begin our entrepreneurial journey with a concept that will provide a solution to the hassles of procurement.
Construmart aggregates demand and places orders to the lead stockist of the area, this aggregation leads to better negotiations and benefits are passed on to the customers. The company has a hybrid model. Unlike other online players in this domain who have an online-only mechanism, Construmart provides samples of actual products to the customers so that they are able to take a more informed decision about the material while building their dream home. Construmart also has extensive tie-ups with local distributors which gives it a clear edge over competitors. It delivers all kinds of building materials ordered by a customer. The company picks the materials from different vendors and then deliver them in one single shot to the customer.
Construmart – Customer Acquisition
Initially, we were just 2 of us working on meeting customers personally. Since the entire process of procuring construction material is very cumbersome, people were more than happy to give us a chance.
It is only after 3 months of coming into existence, that Construmart hired sales teams and manpower for accounts and purchase. After 12 months of operations, the company set up a telesales team as well.
Construmart has raised seed fund and also angel fund in December 2017. Construmart has utilized the seed capital and some part of the angel fund to scale up the business, acquire new customers, and build a team in line with the business requirements.
Construmart – Challenges
There have been numerous challenges that we have faced over the last 3 years. Hiring and retaining the right talent is one big challenge that all startups face & we are no different.
In order to address this, Construmart has introduced innovative campaigns for better skill development, employee growth, and team bonding. The company takes initiatives like knowledge sharing sessions and at least one customer interaction per month for all employees. The idea behind the customer interaction experience is to give everyone in the company a glimpse of customer expectations so that the employees can align their actions as per customer expectations.
Construmart – Competitors
The company does not have any direct competition as the company is unique in its own way. Unlike other start-ups in this space, Contstrumart is not a marketplace. The company is trying to create a platform focused on sanitary ware & washrooms, at the click of a button.
We want to leverage the best of technology for a seamless and hassle-free experience in the designing/renovating and buying via our innovative, interconnected concept of experiential store and online purchases.
Construmart – Achievements
Construmart is a new age company with the vision of acting as a catalyst in the sanitation ecosystem in the country. It is committed to transforming the washroom economy in the country, by leveraging the best of technology. Some major achievements of Construmart are-
The company is growing at a rate of 100% YoY.
The company reached the break-even stage in the 1st year of its operation.
Construmart is a solution-focused company and it is witnessing good traction. Over the past 3 years, Construmart has sold products across categories including Electricals, Plumbing materials, Water tanks, Gensets, AAC Blocks, Bathroom fittings and Accessories, Sanitary-ware, Tiles, Flush-doors, and Hardware items.
Construmart – Awards & Recognitions
Construmart has been awarded ‘Innovators award – 2018 in an event in Gurugram.
Construmart – Future Plans
Construmart is proposing to set up ‘Experience Centers’ and display multiple options of complete pre-set washroom designs, across price points, so as to be able to cater to diverse customer requirements. In addition to the displayed preset bathrooms, the Experience Centers will also have the facility to create live/ on-the-fly 3D designs as per customer feedback/ requirements. These experience centers will also be integrated with the Construmart website where the customer will have options to choose across price ranges and see the preset washrooms available for that price point.
Soon Construmart is planning to expand to other parts of the country via its experience stores in a franchise based model.
Efficiency is crucial in the field of child support systems. Both managing massive amounts of data and making sure that payments are made on time and accurately present opportunities as well as challenges. This case study focuses on the effects of automation in the child support industry, particularly in relation to the child support project for one of the states in the USA. By incorporating automation, significant strides have been made in operational efficiency, reducing manual intervention, improving accuracy, and ultimately creating a more reliable system for both families and administrators.
In the financial domain of the child support project, Prathyusha Kosuru, a major project delivery specialist, made significant progress in this area by designing and implementing automated batches. Previously, these tasks were manually handled, which resulted in slower processing times and a higher chance of errors. With the introduction of automation, batch runs were streamlined, leading to a reduction in manual intervention and processing times by over 60%. This not only allowed for more timely reporting but also enhanced the accuracy of financial data, ensuring the correct amounts were collected and disbursed.
Further advancements were made when the project team, led by Prathyusha Kosuru, focused on improving system reliability. By integrating fault-tolerant mechanisms into batch jobs, such as retry and skip policies, the team ensured that transient errors could be managed without restarting the entire process. This enhancement led to an impressive 99.9% job success rate, significantly reducing downtime and improving the reliability of the system. Additionally, the mean time to recovery (MTTR) for job failures was reduced by 40%, further contributing to the overall efficiency of the system.
The impact of these improvements extended beyond just system reliability. By integrating real-time monitoring tools like Prometheus and Grafana, the team was able to track performance metrics and address issues as they arose. This proactive approach to monitoring reduced the time required to detect and resolve job failures to less than five minutes. Such improvements are essential in a system where delays can have a significant impact on families relying on child support payments.
Scaling the system to accommodate growing transaction volumes was another challenge that had to be addressed. The automation framework implemented for the child support system was designed to handle a 100% increase in transaction volumes without causing downtime. As a result, the system could scale seamlessly, ensuring that growth in demand would not lead to system failures or delays in payment processing.
One of the largest obstacles encountered was managing large datasets, which often led to memory bottlenecks and long processing times. By adopting chunk-oriented processing and partitioning techniques, the team was able to break down large datasets into manageable chunks, improving memory usage and reducing the overall processing time. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in nightly processing times, from six hours to just 2.5 hours, ensuring that the system could handle future data growth without compromising performance.
The implementation of these solutions did not come without challenges. One of the major hurdles was dealing with job failures, which previously would have required the entire batch to be rerun, wasting both time and resources. By incorporating Spring Batch’s retry and skip policies, as well as a checkpoint and restart mechanism, the team was able to ensure that the system could continue processing from where it left off, rather than starting over. This innovation helped reduce downtime and reprocessing costs, making the entire system more cost-effective.
The result of these efforts was not just a more efficient system but one that could provide a higher level of service. With automated processes in place, system reliability improved, downtime was minimized, and transaction processing times were drastically reduced. This led to a smoother operation and greater satisfaction for families and administrators alike. As a crucial member of the organization, Prathyusha’s work demonstrated how automation can be leveraged to drive operational efficiency in public sector systems, such as child support.
Looking to the future, several trends are likely to shape the evolution of automation in child support systems. One such trend is the increasing use of AI-based observability tools that can predict potential failures and dynamically optimize job execution. Additionally, advanced orchestration platforms like Apache Airflow and Prefect are becoming more popular for managing complex automation pipelines, providing even greater control over job execution and dependencies.
To sum up, the automation enhancements made to the child support project for one of the states in the USA offer a striking illustration of how technology can revolutionize the dependability and efficiency of public sector systems. By reducing manual intervention, increasing scalability, and ensuring fault tolerance, automation has played a key role in enhancing the child support system’s performance.
As we look to the future, the continued integration of advanced monitoring and orchestration tools will likely bring even greater efficiencies to such systems. The future of public service delivery will be shaped by the deeper integration of automation technologies into these systems as they develop further, offering even more efficiency, scalability, and dependability.
Do you have a decent Social Media reach? Do you want to become a Social Media Influencer and earn some bucks? Somo might help you to start your journey. Somo is the world’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform headquartered at Delhi. Somo connects business as advertisers with social media users as influencers. Thus, helping companies to reach out to closer to people at micro level and at the same time helping social media users to earn some money.
We interviewed the Co-founder, Mr. Sooraj Singh to learn about his journey of building Somo.
Every brand owns a digital space in today’s time. It is because digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market in a cost-effective & measurable way. According to IAMAI Report, “The growth in spends on Digital Advertising is expected to continue at a CAGR of 30% to touch INR 12,046 Crore by December 2018 in India”. However, the existence of Ad blockers, Blind Spots & Bot Traffic has stopped the communication between digital marketers & their targeted audience, thus jeopardizing a brand’s overall success.
Also, there is no platform that enables social media user to become an Influencer immediately & to monetize the profile. Micro users are always most influential in order to promote services or products of brands. Furthermore, Somo mobile application is the world’s first mobile application that not only helps users to monetize their social media profiles but also quantifies the influential power user has on social media.
Somo’s long term vision is an expansion on all social media platforms as well as global expansion.
Somo – Founders
Somo is a venture by two young & passionate entrepreneurs, Saurabh Goel & Sooraj Singh. Saurabh is a serial entrepreneur with years of experience in marketing & sales. He is an electrical & electronics Engineer. He started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18. After working with Simpli5d Technologies for almost 2 years, he had an idea of starting his own digital firm along with his college friend Sooraj Singh. Sooraj Singh is a Computer science engineer & coder since childhood. He has significant experience in different technologies and blockchain.
Somo Founders
Aditi Sharma (VP Marketing) – She has a master’s degree in Science. She has significant experience in Business Development & Digital Marketing.
Somo – The idea and starting up
We were always passionate about building something that can make an impact and contribute effectively to the existing problems around. We believe problem itself is a solution and that is why we started our first venture together named as WebAssets in 2016 with a vision to transform the digital marketing industry. Through WebAssets, we provide very economical services to startups, restaurants and schools so as to fulfil their digital requirements. We initially developed our expertise towards digital marketing and sooner figured out declining effectiveness of digital marketing. We then worked towards innovating new generation of digital marketing. Finally, we are up with Somo: World’s first social media advocates driven marketing platform. We have already gained early traction through Somo.
Somo is the World’s first Social Media Advocates Driven Marketing Platform. In the word Somo- “So” represents Social & “Mo” represents Monetization. We are quantifying the influential power of Social Media users in the platform & helping them to monetize their influence on Social Media & Let them begin the journey of a Social Media Influencer. Thus the Name “Somo” Social Monetization.
Somo Logo
Somo – Industry details
According to reports, India holds the total potential market size of Digital Marketing as INR 19,000 Cr. with CAGR of 28-32%. We believe it is high time to bring in a new generation of digital marketing as internet user’s communication with digital advertisement has gone tremendously low and it is need of the hour to uplift dying traditional media.
Somo is a Patent Pending Technology, registered under “Startup India Program” & “MSME”. The mobile app of Somo lets brands go viral on social media when thousands of KYC verified Social Media users share their content. After the “Sign Up” on the Somo Application, user gets to see several posters of various brands which they can share directly to their Social Media profile. Once they share a post, they earn a certain percentage of revenue which brands pays. Through this model, the user can start monetizing their Social Media profile directly from the very first day.
Once a user shares a post, our integrated algorithm starts tracking several factors to understand the influential power of the user on Social Media. These factors include the number of engagements, number of clicks, number of views etc. This way we put Social Media users in different leagues of influencers like the Bronze league, silver league, gold league etc. This solves a big problem of monetizing Social Media profile for users as well as to understand the influential power one can have on Social Media.
For Brands, with the declining effectiveness of native digital advertisement & the rise of bot engagement on Social Media, it is the need of the hour to take a step forward. Somo plays an important role here by getting the brand’s post shared by multiple users directly from the app. This burst of posting organically on Social Media ultimately delivers high ROI as content now goes in a more integrated and a recommended way on Social Media channels rather than going like a blind spot ad. Also, the chances of bot engagement become negligible because of the KYC verification of Micro-influencers. Brands also get deep insight reports on the performance of the campaign. KPI is delivered through a user-friendly dashboard consisting of graphical analysis representing important KPIs like number of shares, comments, views, etc.
Somo builds up a win-win situation for both brands as well as Social Media users. It gives a dual opportunity for both users & brands. Users can monetize their social media profile & start the journey of being a popular social media influencer and brands can get an organic shootout through the power of these engaging social media profiles, along with the real engagement. Somo mobile application monetizes the users’ basis upon their influential power on social media and ranks them in the leaderboard for them to stay rewarding.
Somo – Revenue model & Sources
We have two revenue models. The main being, we retain a percentage spent by brand as a platform fee and share the remaining revenues with brand advocates. In the SaaS model, we give the control of Somo platform to the brands. We charge a particular fee from the brands to use our model and brands decide what they have to pay to the Brand Advocates.
Users acquisition is done through both online and offline activations. Online activation includes digital campaigns executed through Somo, Google Ads, Facebook etc. whereas offline activation is carried through the student ambassador program at the mass level. We are doing brand acquisition through e-mails and agency connects.
Somo – Current achievement
Somo has already started shaping up the new generation of digital marketing. The company has already collaborated with popular brands such as Mamaearth, Travelur, Milaap, Evibe, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory, MomsCo and a lot more! Just within the first month of the application’s launch, Somo received an enormous response . More than 10000+ downloads were done and it had more than 7,000+ registered users.
Somo – Work Culture
We believe in learning and innovations can go hand in hand it can build a fantastic environment for a company. We intend to build a team that works with the company and not for the company. And we will ensure this by providing limitless learning and growth opportunities to our team and respecting everyone’s opinions,
Somo – Funding
We are into the closing phase of our seed round.
Somo – Competitors
We do not have direct competitors. The ones we have are indirect competitors but we are very much different in terms of customers segmentation, business model and execution strategies.
We are very much clear with our future plans. Once we integrate all the relevant social media platforms, we look forward towards global expansion via licensing our technology to various parts of the globe.
We are planning exponential expansion across different Social Media platforms & geographies in quick time. We are expecting more than 1 Million downloads in the next 12 months.
Somo – Awards and recognition
Soma has recently been awarded with Kotler’ Excellence Award at the World Marketing Summit, 2018.
Somo – Founders’ Advice
Today’s youth especially Indians needs to learn the risk-reward system. Going with the safest thing for the career is not always the right one. Most people during their teens aspire to have a completely different path then what they end up doing because they think it has the most career stability. There is a part of life which for taking risks and it is the youth. However, the risks should always be calculated and should have a good risk-reward ratio.
Zently, a rising innovator in the prop-tech space, is simplifying rental management with the launch of its renter app, designed to address the financial and logistical challenges faced by modern renters. The app, which streamlines peer-to-peer payments and expense sharing, has quickly gained traction, particularly among young professionals and college students. Led by Venkat Kalyan Uppala, co-founder and Head of Engineering, Zently has also secured $1.6 million in seed funding from Montage Ventures to expand its platform offerings.
The Zently app focuses on easing the pain points of renters, offering a seamless way to split household expenses and manage rent payments. Through its peer-to-peer payment system, users can connect their bank or credit card accounts, flag shared purchases, and automatically calculate balances owed among roommates. The app consolidates rent payments for master tenants, removing the need for multiple payment tools like PayPal or Venmo, and ensuring timely, hassle-free rent transfers to landlords.
“At Zently, we’ve worked hard to build an app that resonates with the needs of today’s renters,” said Venkat Kalyan Uppala, whose engineering leadership has been critical in shaping the platform. “We wanted to create a tool that makes managing shared expenses intuitive and efficient, while also addressing the unique challenges of paying rent in shared living situations.”
Venkat’s technical expertise has been instrumental in defining the app’s core features, which aim to create a seamless and user-friendly experience. His leadership was pivotal in building the app’s infrastructure, focusing on scalability and functionality to meet the diverse needs of renters.
The app has already begun to establish itself as a popular choice among renters, particularly young professionals and college students, who appreciate its ability to simplify shared expenses, from grocery bills to rent payments. “We’re seeing incredible engagement from users who are looking for a streamlined solution to the everyday complexities of renting,” added Venkat.
Zently’s early success has also caught the attention of investors, with Montage Ventures leading the $1.6 million seed funding round. This investment will be used to scale the platform further and expand its offerings to include property management services for landlords. The company envisions a comprehensive platform where landlords can efficiently manage tenant communication, rent collection, and maintenance requests.
“Property management is the next natural step for Zently,” said Venkat. “We want to create a platform that is as beneficial for landlords as it is for renters, bringing innovation to both sides of the rental experience.”
With plans to introduce property management tools, Zently aims to become the go-to solution for landlords looking to streamline their operations. Features such as automated rent collection, tenant communication tools, and maintenance tracking are in development to complement the existing functionalities for renters.
Zently is emerging as a transformative force in the rental industry, driven by user-focused design and a commitment to addressing real-world challenges. Under Venkat’s leadership, the company is well-positioned to scale its platform and deliver value to both renters and landlords.
As it continues to evolve, Zently is poised to reshape the rental experience, offering innovative solutions that make life easier for renters while empowering landlords with modern tools for property management. With its strong initial traction and growing user base, Zently is a name to watch in the prop-tech landscape.
Office applications are one of the most sought after software segments for all platforms. In recent years, accessible tools for working with documents such as Microsoft Office and Google Docs have become widespread not only on PC.
Manage Your Documents Efficiently by Using These PC applications
Document management software is focused not only on the convenience of reading and editing data but also on a comprehensive online functionality for synchronizing content and multi-user interaction.
In this review, we are presenting the list of the best applications for document editing & management.
Editpad lite There are good and bad notepad programs, and there is EditPad Lite. This is a powerful text editor for the Windows platform, supporting dozens of useful features. Consider its capabilities in more detail.
If you are the content manager of an online news portal and, as a result of your service, your main task is to edit text material in several tabs at once. In EditPad, you can open them three, five, or more – as much as you want. Using bookmarks allows you to switch between them quickly enough.
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office 2016 is a robust set of office applications for working with text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It is the latest release from Microsoft. It supports modern operating systems Windows 7, 8, 10 and Mac OS X.
The latest version of the software contains an advanced text editor that provides a comfortable workflow, thanks to many features. When processing text, you can add media files of various types and formats. Naturally, when it comes to document management, people often install complete Office, but if you work only with text – you can get word download separately without other applications.
You can send documents to print, by e-mail or to popular social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedln and so on. A complete set of components includes Microsoft Excel, Word, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, OneNote, Visio, PowerPoint Viewer, Outlook. The only drawback of the program is the rather high system requirements.
Sumatra PDF This utility has been developed for portable use. This means that it can even be launched from a regular flashcard. It can be made the default viewer – then all PDF files will open automatically in this simple program.
The design of the application is minimalistic, and you will not find any extra options here. Everything is as simple as possible: open the file, view, close. In general, even these features will be sufficient for most ordinary users.
STDU Viewer STDU Viewer is a universal electronic document viewer. Thanks to it, you can open almost any text or graphic file, while choosing a convenient page layout, adjusting brightness, contrast. STDU Viewer is a completely free application, so you do not need to pay money for downloading and installing it.
As you know, there are dozens of different file formats. If you need to open each of the formats, there is a separate program. STDU Viewer opens PDF magazines, multi-page TIFF documents and supports DjVu, JBIG2, XPS, and WWF without problems.
Scribus Scribus is a free program with which you can perform a wide range of various tasks on typesetting documents. Scribus allows you to create a wide variety of printing products from simple texts to full-fledged magazines, corporate brochures, and even books.
Scribus helps the user to make his work unique by managing large arrays of text and graphic content. The application has a wonderful beginner’s guide, which will become a real guide to the desktop publishing system and will help you understand how to achieve professional-looking results.
The program contains templates of documents ready for printing various layouts, which significantly facilitates the creation of new brochures. In addition to being open-source Scribus, it is also cross-platform, and you can use it on many operating systems.
The world of business travel is rapidly changing and keeping up to date with its latest trends and shifts can help startup companies and small businesses alike to identify the opportunities and capitalize on it. Without further ado, here are the top ten trends in business travel you must be preparing for this year.
Top 10 Trends in Business Travel
More Startups and SMBs to Participate In International Travel
Startup companies and small and mid-size businesses are expected to become prominent players in the corporate travel sector in 2019. This is due to the increasing number of employees being employed by these companies – according to the October 2018 Small Business Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) – “small businesses continue to support the 3%+s growth of the economy and add significant numbers of new workers to the employment pool.”
As this sector thrive and flourish, we can expect that more startups and SMBs will increase their investment in business travel in order to support their growth and build relationships with like-minded companies around the world.
Sharing economy to gain traction among C-Level executives
One of the biggest trends that have shaped the business travel landscape for the past recent years is the sharing economy. Sharing economy companies such as Airbnb and Lyft have evolved from niche disruptors into a mainstream leader for both consumers and even companies with C-level business travelers. In fact, the 2018 Business Travel Ridesharing Habits Survey from Skift revealed that a whopping 90.3% of employes now allow their travelers to use ridesharing services for work.
While slower to advance, shared economy lodging options are also gaining measurable traction, especially among the younger generations. According to TripActions 2018 State of Business Travel Report, more than one-third of surveyed travelers said they book Airbnb-type accommodations, along with boutique hotels as a way to fulfill their desire for a unique travel experience.
Personalization as the most important loyalty driver in business travel
Gone were the days when companies only use earned points in flights, hotel stays and car rentals to keep their employees engage with their business travel initiatives. Nowadays, more and more travel managers are shifting their focus from earning points to providing more personalized travel experience for their road warriors.
This is according to the same 2018 survey from TripActions, which found that 21% of business travelers don’t belong to any hotel loyalty program and are less interested in loyalty programs in general. Instead, these travelers seek more hands-on experience with their business trips, with many seeking self-booking capabilities in their hotel, car rental, and flight service companies as a way to ensure they’ll receive services tailored to their business travel needs.
A Mix of Artificial Intelligence and Human Touch to Power Travel Services
Self-booking and automation are without a doubt the biggest disruptors changing the way business travelers fulfill nearly every aspect of their travel needs these days. However, more organizations now realize that while these technologies can be efficient, they can’t solve all business issues without help from a human being.
To address such conundrum, most travel managers are now seeking to achieve a balance between tech-assisted and human-focused services. One of the solutions being eyed to achieve such balance is through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-powered algorithms. Through this solution, companies will be able to make sound decisions fast about when to provide assistance and will help them prioritize the most pressing issues facing their travelers by predicting their needs.
More Travel Managers To Focus More on Comfort of Travelers
While ever-changing, the issues facing business travelers in 2019 will remain the same – canceled flights, jet lag, adapting to a foreign culture, and security and safety risks. Countering these issues, therefore, will be the utmost priority of most travel managers as they plan to revise their travel policies in order to cater for more enjoyable, healthier, and more productive trips.
Corporate Travel as a Major Employee Perk
Another new trend in business travel is the greater collaboration that is taking place between travel managers, HR managers, and recruiters.
Travel is fast becoming a perk new employees are working for – according to TripActions 2018 survey, 92% of all business travelers said they want to travel for work, 90% said they see traveling as a perk of their job, while 80% feel more excited about their job after traveling. A separate study from Hilton Hotels and Resorts also revealed that 39% of respondents would not join a company that did not offer travel as part of the job.
With these statistics, we can expect that more organizations will take advantage of this trend to attract new talents in 2019.
Bleisure As the New Norm
Mixing leisure and business travel has become a widely-adopted practice among most corporate travelers nowadays.
Recent research from Expedia revealed that on average, bleisure travelers take more than six business trips per year, and more than 60% of business trips in 2017 were extended for leisure purposes. In the U.S., the number of business travelers opting for bleisure is on par with the multi-national average of 60% – a nearly 40% increase in bleisure travel since 2016.
Interactive Solutions as Key To More Simplified Experience
According to a 2017 survey by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), program simplification is a strategic priority for corporate travel managers heading into 2019.
The rationale behind simplification includes the benefits that both the organization and employees can gain, including improved traveler satisfaction, reduced cost, and time savings. This growing demand for simplified travel experience is leading to more request for interactive tools which enable travelers to book, manage, customize, and monitor their trips all in one place.
Managing Cost to Continue as the Major Challenge
As the costs of airfare and hotel lodging across popular business travel destination continue to increase, we can expect that managing travel cost will remain a hard issue to tackle for most organizations in 2019. According to a recent GBTA Forecast Report, hotel prices can be expected to rise by an average of 3.7% in 2019, and flight costs will increase by 2.6%.
Face-to-Face Meeting To Become More Critical
Despite the rise of new communication platforms such as video calls that allow virtual interaction, many organizations still say face-to-face meetings will continue to play a critical part in their organization’s success. While virtual communication has significantly improved, most executives are still seeking the authentic human connection present during face-to-face meetings, as it enables them to build lasting business relationships.
In fact, according to Harvard research, face-to-face requests were 34 times more likely to garner positive results than emails. A global survey also revealed that 67% of senior executives and managers also said their organization’s productivity would increase if superiors communicated face-to-face more often.
With all these trends taking place nowadays, it is more imperative than ever for both travel managers and employees to keep an open eye on the shifts that are most likely to impact the efficiency of their business trips this year forward. Above all, startup company owners and managers should continue focusing on ensuring the safety, productivity, and comfort of their travelers each time they hit the road.
This is a guest post by Reza Choudhury who runs an international chauffeur company that helps facilities managers, travelmanagers, event managers, executives assistants, c-level executives and office managers, arrive at their destination on-time and stress-free. He does this by providing an app & online platform that allows users to schedule multiple bookings while watching chauffeur’s arrive in real-time. His passion is spending time with his family and playing table tennis.
In 2019, one challenge that took the social media world by storm is the 10 Year Challenge. Fortunately till now, this challenge hasn’t caused any kind of accidents, unlike the Kiki Challenge. Therefore, people loved this new challenge. However, it is not just fun to do this kind of challenge, but they can help in earning you some bucks as well. The trend is something that keeps the business running. If you are up-to-date with the latest technology and trends, you will never be out of your established business, but grow. So, we have come up with some ideas for you to take advantage of this trend and generate some leads.
The 10-year challenge is a very simple challenge in which you have to post your 10-year-old photo along with your latest photo. Therefore, it is also known as the “2009 vs. 2019 Challenge”.
So, basically, it’s just another way to show off your wealth and glamour. These pictures show how you have evolved in the last few years and what has changed. Many celebrities are posting their old and new photos and their fans are going crazy for this. This trend got viral and people started sharing pictures in social media related to this trend.
Origin of 10 Year Challenge
All this started when the TV meteorologist, Damon Lane posted his photo on January 11th, 2019. He compared his photo with the 2009 version of himself. However, we cannot blindly say that he is the one behind all this, but he is the first known celebrity to do it in 2019. Hence, we can say that he is the father of 2019 challenges. However, it is not the first time 10 year challenge or How Did Age Hit You Challenge or #2009vs2019 or GlowUpChallenge (Phew!) is trending. Many such picture comparing challenges have already taken place on the internet in the past. However, this time, it is booming.
How Can This Challenge Help You in Business?
As already said, a business exists if it follows the trend. So, this is another trend. If you create a good post, there is a strong possibility that it will go viral. Everyone will be searching for posts related to this challenge. And if they are potential customers, you can even generate some leads. Moreover, if your post is interesting, then bloggers will also feature them on their websites.
What Can You Do to Take Part in This Challenge?
Many entrepreneurs must be sharing their personal and financial growth in this campaign. But if you want to market your company in this campaign then post something related to your product and services. You can:
Show your service- If you provide any service which solves any problem, then share the old look and the look after your service. Bimbra 4×4, which is a car modifying company, did it great.
Show your growth- Show how better your product has become in all these years. In this way, you will be targeting your old customers. Window Developer’s tweet did it in a simple but cool way.
The same old quality- If you think you are providing the same best quality over all these years then you can do something creative. Post 2 same photos and captions something like “always like new”, or others. This will be kind of funny for your followers. Moreover, you can use this idea to show the durability of your product.
Achievements: You can show some of your company’s achievements. This is another way you can show your growth. You can show what awards you got or how you became better, or how you have evolved. This way it will show them how your product and services have better themselves.
Solving problems- Take an old picture of your customers or your product and a new one showing how you solved their problem. This will give your customers insight, into why they should buy your product.
Meme- A meme is the best content to share with everyone it can actually attract attention to your product and can be a great way of marketing. Create a meme based on your product and share it on social media, it is oneof the best ay to get viral
Customers love for your brand- Another thing you can do is share the love your customer has shown to your product as it is still in here and thriving in the industry.
A trend is the easiest and best way to go viral ofcourse it has to be interesting one. If you are reaching millions of people, then there are at least thousands of potential customers and hundreds of lead generations. #10yearchallenge is just one of the dozens of trends in 2019 that has gone viral. So, if you missed this chance, there is nothing to worry about. You just have to think creatively. Create something which everyone will like and relate to. This is one of the best marketing tools in the modern days, use it wisely.
FAQs
What is the 10 year challenge?
The 10-year challenge is a trend where individuals have to post their picture of 10 years ago and a recent one in a collage.
Who was the first person to start 10 year challenge?
TV meteorologist, Damon Lane started was the the first person to take part in this challenge.
Maruti seems to be on a roll in India with the launch of the Dzire facelift in the first quarter of 2020. Now, very soon the automaker is going to launch the third generation Maruti Swift Facelift. The new Facelift has already been launched in Japan, taking cues from which we have gained some idea about the changes that we can spot in the facelift version.
Maruti has been delivering smooth family rides in the hatchback segment for quite some now and has been leading the hatchback space. One of the reasons for its popularity is easy maintenance. Also, the easy availability of parts helps in the maintenance process. You can check out the link here https://boodmo.com/catalog/3691-rear_lamp/m11290-maruti-swift_dzire/ for scanning through the catalog of easily available spare parts.
Now it’s the right to uncover five things that we know about the 2020 Maruti Suzuki Facelift.
Subtle exterior changes
The dimensions of the facelift version remain the same, so there is no such change on the boot space. The major changes can be spotted in the front, as the facelift version has a honeycomb grille design with a chrome line running in the middle. The updated grille design gives the hatchback a sporty look and the Suzuki badge screams out at the center of the grille mesh. Another change is the inclusion of multi-spoke diamond-cut alloy wheels from the 5-spoke diamond-cut alloys.
Engine changes
Both the 2018 and facelift versions are powered by 1.2-liter petrol engines. But the current engine belongs to the hybrid family. The newly incorporated smart hybrid technology engine brings into play the Idle start-stop functions. it is one of the major reasons for the improvement in fuel economy numbers from 22.05 kmpl in MT to 24.05 Kmpl in MT. The fuel economy number gets even better with 25.2Kmpl in the AMT setup. The engine turns an increased power of 90bhp, while the torque remains the same of 113Nm.
The increased fuel economy is supported by a smooth drive thanks to the powerful engine and the five-speed automatic and manual gear transmissions. Further, the newly designed engine adheres to the BS-VI emission norm compliance. It is already known that the automaker had discontinued the 2.3L diesel engine, which had not been upgraded to BS-VI from BS-IV, and thus we see a new hybrid petrol engine.
Added tech and comfortably designed cabin
On the inside, the hatchback has a similar cabin with similar material used for seats, largely the upholstery has no major changes. Though we have a welcome change, with the addition of a 7-inch smart play studio infotainment system, which supports the Apple car play and Android auto.
The newly added infotainment is quite responsive and smooth to use. Other features of the infotainment system remain the same. Like navigation, and Bluetooth connectivity.
The instrument cluster receives enhancement with a 4.2inch multi-information display, which provides various key information like distance to empty fuel and all other relevant details. The instrument cluster is neatly designed. Every element inside the cabin is placed aptly, so the driver can easily control and use them. On a side note, the Swift facelift comes with a cruise control just like the Dzire.
Safety features
Let’s pick out some of the safety features which are available on both the original and the facelift version and then see the major changes included. So, below are the common safety features.
Dual front bags
Rear Parking camera
Front fog lamps
Iso-fix child seating
Rear Parking sensors
Speed-sensing auto door lock.
Speed Alarm
Some of the safety features mentioned above are common in most of the hatchbacks. But safety feature additions in the new Swift facelift include ESP or Electronic Stability Program. The second addition in the safety feature category is the Hill launch assistant. One important thing that you need to note is that the additions are available only in the Automatic variant.
Price upgrades
The addition of new features in the facelift, especially on the engine and safety side of things hints towards an increase in the price by nearly ₹ 20,000 to 25,000. The final price of the automobile may range from ₹ 5.19 lakh to 8.02 lakh. It was estimated that the facelift car, in a normal situation, would have been launched in August. But as we all know the situation is nowhere near to normal, so the launch date cannot be pinned down.
Conclusion
Maruti Swift facelift has made decent changes to give the hatchback an upgraded feel. Two major changes which include engine and safety that can bolster the performance of the new vehicle in terms of sales unit. The only thing that could be tweaked around was the interior design, as it largely remains the same.
