StartupTalky

Tag: founders

  • Kavin Mittal: Founder and CEO of Hike Messenger

    Social media is a platform dominated by various countries. The most prominent ones are based out of the United States, with China at second. However, we’ve seen a thing or two from the Indian sub-continent as well. Hike is the most popular one amongst the few Indian startups that have left a dent on the social media circuit. The Hike messaging is an Indian app and was developed by Kavin Bharti Mittal.

    Quick Facts
    Family Background
    Entrepreneurial Ambitions
    Kavin Mittal’s Hike Messenger
    Success Mantras

    Quick Facts

    Name Kavin Bharti Mittal
    Born August 31, 1987
    Age 33
    Education University of York, Imperial College London
    Occupation Founder and CEO of Hike Messenger
    Net Worth $150 Million

    Family Background

    Founder of Hike Messenger
    Kavin Mittal – Founder of Hike Messenger

    Kavin Bharti Mittal is the son of Bharti Mittal, one of the richest Indians. Kavin charted out his own path despite a solid business background. He grew up in a family where business was omnipresent.

    Kavin found it much easier to set foot in the startup circuit when compared to his father due technological advancements. Moreover, entrepreneurship has undergone drastic changes after the nineties.

    Entrepreneurial Ambitions

    Apps, both mobile and web, are the basis for several ventures today. The introduction of the iPhone paved way for development of new segments hitherto unknown. Kavin Mittal picked up the basics of entrepreneurship from his dad. The father-son relationship was also a mentor-mentee relationship that helped groom the lad in various ways.

    Kavin witnessed the launch of applications like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube while in college. These platforms and the digital world in general—inspired Kavin to launch his first venture, Appspark. He saw an iPhone during his internship at Google in New York and was in awe of the device’s potential to change lives of people. Apple’s App Store was still in infancy, and Kavin thought of launching one idea every month, thereby creation and launch of eight apps on the App Store in eight months. This dream remained elusive as Kavin witnessed the hurdles transforming an idea from a figment of imagination to reality. After eight months of struggle, Kavin created his first app, Movies Now. It was the first-ever movie reservation app on the App Store. It allowed users to stream trailers both in HD and SD prints. Since the number of competing apps was negligible, Movies Now never received real competition.

    The introduction of the iPad saw Movies Now improvise and get enhanced. It functioned much better than the earlier versions. While Movies Now was popular, it wasn’t an actual money spinner. Kavin had to think of another way to prove himself as a successful entrepreneur.

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    Kavin Mittal’s Hike Messenger

    Hike Logo
    Hike Logo

    After returning to India, Kavin was living a normal life in New Delhi, the nation’s capital. He saw majority of the people in Delhi own the iconic Nokia 1100, the phone which set the ball rolling for the technology revolution in India. However, the phone had its limitations since it could only send SMS and be used for normal calls. Internet access was impossible. This limitation spurred Kavin’s willingness to bring Indians and internet closer, and inspired him to create a messaging platform—Hike. His team received funds worth $7 million from Bharti SoftBank, a collaboration between Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank, a Japanese telecom company.

    After a series of developments, Hike was officially launched in the year 2012. Within two years, Hike Messenger became the most downloaded application on the App Store (in India) and the Play Store(in India).

    Kavin’s smartness and strategy had a major hand to play in this achievement. After launching the app, he introduced the concept of “stickers”. This concept was recently implemented by WhatsApp—another messaging platform. The stickers in Hike were catchy and innovative, and attracted the youth. Thus, these stickers were imperative for surge in Hike’s popularity. While the platform was gaining prominence throughout India, Hike tied-up with Airtel and launched a policy in which if a user had an Airtel postpaid connection, the service provider gave free mobile data for 3 months to use Hike.

    To keep up with the trend, Hike also launched unique two-way chat themes that were liked by many Hike users and attracted several new customers. This proved to be a master strategy since the company got a solid 15 million users strong base by the end of its first year. Hike gave stiff competition to other messaging apps like WhatsApp.

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    Success Mantras

    • According to Kavin, an entrepreneur must have a clear idea about their field of work. They need to decide between offline and online space. Finalizing the idea of the startup is one of the most important aspects for creating a business, Kavin mentions.
    • Failures and mistakes accompany growth. Learning from mistakes is the most important quality an entrepreneur should possess. As errors are an inevitable part of business, one should be ready to withstand them and grow as a leader.
    • Another important mantra is to strive to achieve one’s goals. Despite failures, an entrepreneur should work on improvement and not stop until the target is achieved.
    • The fourth mantra of success according to Kavin is passion. No one can become successful without having a passion about something. That’s the key to making it big.
    • The fifth of his mantras is patience. Patience has taken successful entrepreneurs to unfathomable levels of prosperity. Success is never achieved overnight; one has to wait for the right moment and work tirelessly to achieve fame.

    FAQs

    Who is Kavin Mittal?

    Kavin Bharti Mittal is an Indian internet entrepreneur. He is known for having founded and led Hike Messenger, a now-defunct platform that was once the world’s sixth-largest mobile messaging application.

    Is Kavin Bharti Mittal Indian?

    Yes, Kavin Mittal is Indian.

    What is the net worth of Kavin Mittal?

    The net worth of Kavin Mittal is $150 Million.

    How old is Kavin Bharti?

    Kavin Bharti is 33 years old.

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  • Mr Shankar Krishnamoorthy: Cofounder & CEO of Synergita Software | Startuptalker

    StartupTalky is one of the strongest community in India and we have a  lot of professionals who are doing great in their lives. To share their  learnings and inspire as many people as we can, we are interviewing all  the StartupTalkers in our “Know the StartupTalker” series.

    Today, we have Shankar Krishnamoorthy as our interviewee. Shankar Krishnamoorthy is the co-founder and CEO of Synergita Software . You will learn a lot  from this story of Shankar Krishnamoorthy in his own words.

    Quick Facts

    Name Mr. Shankar Krishnamoorthy
    Age 58
    Education Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, The University of Texas at Austin
    Occupation Sr. Vice President, Digital Implementation at Synopsys Inc

    1. Tell us about yourself, your professional background and how you got to where you are today. What keeps you motivated at whatever you do?

    My name is Shankar Krishnamoorthy.  I am a co-founder and CEO of Synergita Software.  Gowri Subramanian and Bhoo Thirumalai are the other two co-founders of this company.  We have also co-founded another company, Aspire Systems prior to Synergita.  Aspire is a software services company which has global customers and rated as great place to work for the past 10 years consecutively.

    My professional background is a mechanical and CAD/CAM engineer.  Gained good software development experience during the early phase of my career; built several software products for our customers at Aspire.  Our experience in building software products for our customers & instilling best people practices paved way for Synergita.  With Synergita, we are able to help several of our customers incorporate best practices and help them create peopleMAGIC in their organizations.  Seeing their success and opportunity to help them through our product really motivates us in whatever we are doing.  Plus, opportunity to build a great product company.

    2. What are your job responsibilities and how they have changed over time?

    I am responsible for driving Synergita business and making it a leader in our space.  We currently have about 200K+ users across 100 customers.  We are managing about 2.2M+ goals and competencies for our users on our platform.  So, product is evolving and growing.  5 years back, when we started Synergita, it was a small team – each of us were doing everything whatever we can do.  Now, the team has evolved into multiple streams.  Product management, engineering, implementation, support, customer success, sales, marketing, etc.  Each team is driven by a leader who brings in lot of rigor and passion.

    3. Tell us about Synergita

    Synergita office
    Synergita office

    Synergita is an award winning, continuous employee performance and engagement software.  It helps in managing employee goals (KPIs), competencies, have ongoing feedback between managers and their team members, peer recognition, 360 degree feedback, employee engagement survey, etc.  Automates employee performance review process and saves significant time for HR and managers.  Employees love this as they get continuous guidance from their managers and there are no surprises during the appraisal time.  This increases employee engagement and reduces attrition.

    We have customers in India, Singapore and the US.  Some of our customers are Capita, Indegene, Brakes India, Lucas TVS, Vedanta Resources, Future Group, Yokogawa, NTUC Learning Hub, American Micro, etc.

    Also Read: List of Top Startups in Bangalore

    4. What are your plan for the company in 2020?

    Our Northstar is “creating peopleMAGIC” for our customers through employee best practices on performance, engagement and development.  We are constantly enhancing our product with newer capabilities along these lines.  This year, we have OKR, deeper employee engagement capabilities in our plan.

    We have recently moved to a nice, new open office @ Navalur, Chennai.  https://blog.synergita.com/2020/01/happy-new-start-at-new-location-synergita/)This will help us in better collaboration among our team.

    From the customer base front, we are investing on the US geography to get more customers there.  We have local sales presence in Chicago and we are hoping that these investments would produce results in 2020 for us and get new customers, increase customer satisfaction, etc.

    5. How do you see the Automated HR processes market growing in India?

    It is fast growing.  Organizations are investing in digital transformation to increase employee productivity.  If employees get good care from their company/managers in terms of setting expectations, guiding in their work, their performance will be better.  So, it helps both employee and the organization.  That is what Synergita is doing.

    Plus, there are lot of expectations from employees in using better HRTech products for their day-to-day worklife.  People are expecting the same sophistication that your Gmail and Facebook provide in their work as well.

    Also Read: Deepinder Goyal: Zomato Won’t Let You Have A Bad Meal!

    6. Do you think Employee Engagement & Performance software is a must for every organization?

    Yes.  It is a must.  Employees are critical for any organizations’ success and growth.  Lot of organizations put “Employees First” philosophy.  Happy and engaged employees will take care of the customers and hence the business.  If you want to do these, you need a good software which helps in performance and engagement…automates the process, proactively help all the employees in their work, etc.  So, it is a must in our opinion.

    On a lighter note, no point in doing performance appraisals manually anymore.  Major frustration for HR is the amount of time it requires to do one appraisal and they are not able to focus on strategic activities.  It is high time they transform their performance management with Synergita.

    7. Mention Struggles/Challenges faced in your professional/ startup life and how did you overcome it?

    Synergita Team
    Synergita Team

    In a startup life, there will always be bandwidth challenges in all angles – be it funding, engineering bandwidth, marketing, sales.  There will be conflicting priorities, lot of things to do in a short time.  You just have to prioritize to meet these challenges and move forward.  Perseverence is the key.  In case of Synergita, we have been fortunate to have a great set of team with us.  Driven and capable team.

    8. Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

    We are a cloud company.  We deliver Synergita as software as a service for our customers.  We use cloud tools for our own requirements such as Freshdesk for customer support, Leadsquared for marketing automation, Amazon AWS for our cloud, Knowlarity for telephony, WordPress for our content blog, Office365 for our email and team collaboration, Zoom for web conference, etc.

    9. Where are your long term and short term goals? What are you doing to achieve that? It is sufficient?

    We want to make Synergita a leader in talent management space.  This space is evolving and there are plenty of opportunities in this space.  Every functionality – performance, engagement, development, OKR, compensation, recruitment, etc. are enticing.  With artificial intelligence capabilities, we can do so many things.  We need to do this meaningfully and bring in business sense to grow the product.

    As a startup, we are currently focusing primarily on one year goals for us and work hard to reach these goals.  These goals include customer acquisition, product capabilities, funding, etc.  For 2020, we have set 300K as number of users on our platform; add OKR and Employee engagement as product roadmap priorities; focus more on customer success.

    Whatever we are doing is not sufficient.  So much to do and so little time and resources 😊.

  • Mr Sainath Maharatta – Founder of StrongHumanNetwork | StartupTalker

    StartupTalky is one of the strongest community in India and we have a lot of professionals who are doing great in their lives. To share their learnings and inspire as many people as we can, we are interviewing all the StartupTalkers in our “Know the StartupTalker” series.

    Today, we have Mr Sainath Maharatta as our interviewee. Sainath Maharatta is the founder of StrongHumanNetwork. You will learn a lot from this story of Sainath Maharatta in his own words.

    Who Are You?

    I am a millennial kid born in 1990 in Hyderabad. My schooling and college and 1st 2 years of my professional experience have been in and around Hyderabad. I have graduated in computer science. I was preparing to pursue MBA since my college days. Later I worked with an IT company and then became a probationary officer in state bank group. While I was working as a probationary officer in the state bank, I got admission into IIM Calcutta.

    At IIM Calcutta, I was very active in campus activities through quiz club, marketing club and hostel activities which helped me sharpen my leadership skills.

    I Interned in a sales & marketing role in a Startup and FMCG environment in Mumbai. Later I was hired as a manager reporting to the founding team at stayzilla.com ( which was a direct competitor to OYO while I was working). After a year stint at stayzilla, I moved to Hyderabad in a sales role at Paytm.

    I was responsible for building the distribution network of Paytm in AP and Telangana upcountry and was at the helm of things during demonetization. I got an opportunity to see and work on things on the ground during demonetisation. I saw how the whole country, administration and private sector players like Paytm were mobilized and worked during this time which gave me a hope that anything can be changed if we know how to do it.

    How did you come up with the name of your Startup?

    I was working with a lot of youngsters during this time and was very successful in my work. During this time I went through a deep introspection phase where I recognised the core qualities in me which were making me successful across all the aspects of my life. One day I wrote all these qualities on a board – confidence, self-awareness, fair world exposure, willingness to work on myself, chasing excellence. When I thought of an adjective which I would like to identify with, “Strong” came to my mind. That was a key moment in my life where I discovered the StrongHuman Framework.

    What did you do just after getting the idea?

    During my discussions with friends, I found that this framework can be a universal formula which can help anyone to improve their lives. Also because of my business and startup background, I could see that a profitable organisation can be built around this concept and hence StrongHumanNetwork was born.

    In the last 2 years, we have taken SHN’s concept to thousands of people across the globe and it was received with open arms and warmth across. People were inspired by this idea and a lot of people invested in this idea. Till date, people have invested more than 60 lakhs (Excluding my investment) into this project.

    As we are a sustainable profitable organisation, our main aim from the inception was to find out the right product-market fit. During this process, we did a lot of product-market trails through an offline sales team-driven model, college workshop, corporate training models and finally found our product-market fit through the digital lifestyle membership model executed through a 5-level structure which is open for individuals across the globe.

    As of now, we have 100 paid members spread across the globe who come from very highly acclaimed educational & professional backgrounds. Most of our members have a Postgraduate degree from reputed colleges and have management experience. Many of them are located in countries like USA and Australia apart from India. We are currently offering lifestyle memberships to select professionals, senior professionals, Life coaches and world-renowned leadership experts at Level 3,4 & 5.

    To become a lifestyle member, one has to accomplish the StrongHuman Challenge – a 21 day paid self-awareness challenge.

    One can register themselves on www.shn.life in the suitable category, we will review their profile and if they are eligible they would be invited to take the StrongHuman Challenge.

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    What is Your Typical Day Like?

    I generally start my day with meditation, walk in nature followed by listening to Carnatic music. Then I read the regular newspaper and economic times to stay up to date with current happenings. My work starts with talking to highly accomplished individuals through networks like LinkedIn where I bounce ideas and perspectives and identify the right individuals to join SHN.

    As an entrepreneur, I deal with uncertainty on a day to day basis and I need to be aware of the situation and not let the situation control me. Whenever I feel overpowered by situations, I go to meditation or listen to inspiring talks by Sadhguru, J Krishnamurthi, Tom Bilyeu, Gary Vaynerchuk etc.

    What are your job responsibilities and how they have changed over time?

    Post-MBA, my primary job has been problem-solving through planning, execution and people management. Before my startup journey, I was solving problems in a controlled environment of the company. Now as a startup, it is like transitioning from a man-made park into a forest – the real world. Now I solve things in the real world. When you are facing the real-world you need much more awareness to understand the situation and do the right thing.

    In a corporate environment, you have a certain power which comes through the position you are placed in the organisation and you need to act according to that and people’s behaviour is also shaped by your position of power.

    As an entrepreneur in real-world, your designation has no values unless backed by legible, constructive behaviour and results. Everyone around you behaves the way they want and it is your job to carefully analyse people and situations and do your best.

    A startup goes through different phases, such as zero to one phase, 1 to 10 phase, 10 to 100 phase and so on. You need a different skillset at each level. Zero to 1 phase is the toughest which builds you as a person and lays the foundation. 9/10 entrepreneurs don’t make beyond this phase due to multiple reasons, but a major reason is a lack of adequate self-awareness and awareness of people and the world around. Some times you learn it the hard way and luck also plays a role in this journey.

    Any Struggle/Challenges you have faced in your professional/ startup life and how did you overcome it?

    When we were at the inception stage of SHN, I tried to move as fast as possible with the given resources and people. Also, I believed that you can motivate anyone to be the best version. Later I came across situations which made me understand that there needs to be an innate willingness from the person, without which nothing can be done. Some times when someone has already come to certain conclusions, things won’t move despite your best efforts and intentions.

    I understood that team building needs a lot of judgement and forming the right team is also a time taking process as we have to nurture the relationships and trust.

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    What are Your Superpowers?

    Self-awareness is my superpower. Over the last 2 years, this has improved more. I can see situations just the way they are and this gives me an immense power to handle it the way I want to.

    World-exposure is also a big strength. I love to read and consume content from very different subjects starting from business, international & national politics, spirituality, history, artificial intelligence and other technologies. This helps me in connecting the dots – a very important skill in the current situation.

    Another important skill I have is problem-solving. I can analyse any kind of problem and can say what kind of solution is required and come up with probable ways to solve it.

    Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

    YouTube & LinkedIn are 2 of the most important tools I would recommend. YouTube has a lot of thought-provoking content which can blow your mind. You need to tap into the right channels. LinkedIn is a very important tool for anyone who wants to grow professionally. It allows you to participate in sensible, thought to provoke discussions and develop the right professional network,

    Who or what has shaped who you are?

    If I have to speak of personalities who inspired me and keep inspiring me, I would say as a child, APJ Abdul kalam inspired me a lot. His book “Wings of Fire” was the 1st book where I learned about leadership. Also a lot of contemporary personalities who have worked through the tough times to success such as our PM Modi, K Chandrashekar Rao, who lead a long Telangana movement to become the current CM of Telangana inspire me.

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    Any hack/ learning which make your professional life easy/productive?

    Put your ego aside and start thinking from the opposite person’s point of view. This will give you solutions to most of your problems and expedite things.

    What’s your workspace setup like?

    It consists of visuals which inspire me and a board where I write the most important thoughts which drive me.

    Fashion Day
    Fashion Day

    What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? Or a quote that inspires you the most?

    A quote which I read during the initial phases of SHN –

    I always wondered why somebody didn’t do something about that. Then I realized I am somebody

    What are you currently reading, or what do you recommend?

    I am deeply researching on yoga, consciousness and future of humanity through the content of people like Deepak Chopra, J Krishnamurti and Yuval Noah Harari

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    How do you keep track of what you have to do?

    I love using boards. Whenever I have a lot of things to do, I write them on a board and prioritize and get it done.

    If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

    I would not do anything different as I believe I got the perfect launchpad for what I am currently doing

    Anything else you would like to share?

    StrongHumanNetwork is a lifestyle concept and a global network of individuals focused on personal growth. It helps individuals transform their career, relationships, health & fitness through StrongHuman Lifestyle which enhances one’s confidence, self-awareness, emotional intelligence and world exposure. SHN offers lifestyle membership to individuals who accomplish the StrongHuman Challenge.