experience – AppiVa Software Pvt Ltd

October 22, 2020May 4, 2022

Arrogance: its impact on business

Multiple times I have experienced how the arrogance of business owner impacts the business, as well not having a good marketing strategy can bring bad results for your company,, you need make that your social media grow for this you can check this advises for getting more TikTok likes. This is one of my recent experience that further strengthened my belief on things a businessman should avoid to have a successful business. Also I have experienced how a bad manage of a payroll can bring problems to your business so getting rid of your payroll inefficiency can be something very bad for your organization.

Recently there is a fish shop opened in our area, the owner of the shop known to me. They provide home delivery services. Earlier I used to go out and purchase any fish , but with this shop nearby, I get delivery at my home. The price also comparatively cheap and quality is good. My neighbors also started visiting the shop as quality is good. I generally call him and order the quantity and get it delivered.

And then suddenly one sunday, he disconnected my phone. I thought he must be busy and after 30 mins, I again called him and still he did not pick up the call. I then messaged him in whatsapp that I want to order some fish. Then I got a message back that to order any fish for home delivery you need to call another number. I tried to reach other number and did not have much satisfaction the way it happened. I also felt little bad for not picking up my calls. I finally decided not to order anything from this shop and started again ordering any non-veg items from a local shop nearby.

This seems to be a common phenomenon in my of the businesses. In the early days, they were quite approachable and nice service. But when they grow bigger, during growth period, they started neglecting their core early loyal customers. In turn, loyal customers shift their loyalty, and that is when downfall of the business starts.

In my opinion, a business should always respect and take care their loyal customers. Early stage customers have bigger role for the success of any business. They not only help generating revenue but also fine tune product and business idea.

In our case, one early adopter of ezTask.io, helped creating robust reports and based on these reports, we got some more customers too. I am always pickup any call or whatsapp message from our early customers. In the current situation, Social media has revolutionised the way marketing is done, the best strategy to acquire customers during early days is through work of mouth and it can happen through your loyal customers.

January 8, 2018

Are you scared of starting your own, then this post is for you?

Start your own business

Happy new year 2018 and its time to live your dream. Are you planning to start something new in 2018 and have already thought pros and cons about it. And finally family life, EMIs etc. Finally concluded lets wait for some more time and then will think of my own. Then this is the post for you. Here are collection of 37 quotes from famous people and will definitely give you adrenaline to get started.

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” – Pablo Picasso
“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield
“You can’t plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.” – Jim Butcher
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Start before you’re ready.” – Steven Pressfield
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown
“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury
“You don’t have to be good to start … you just have to start to be good!” – Joe Sabah
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“The hardest thing about getting started, is getting started.” – Guy Kawasaki
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London
“The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.” – Dawson Trotman
“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
“If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.” – Drew Houston
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Les Brown
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tsu
“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” – Henry James
“The beginning is always NOW.” – Roy Bennett
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
“The only thing that stands between you and grand success in living are these two things: getting started and never quitting!” – Robert H. Schuller
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The greatest time wasted, is the time getting started.” – Dawson Trotman
“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.” – Vance Havner
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Sally Berger
“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.” – Horace
“The distance is nothing; it’s only the first step that is difficult.” – Marquise du Deffand
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” – Calvin Coolidge

August 7, 2017

Recruitment: A risk

Though this is not the first time I had been into recruitment of resources but this time I am recruiting for my startup. The risk doubles when you recruit for a startup because we lack in remuneration, facilities but only thing that is guaranteed is challenging work. If a person passionate about the work, the project then definitely he would be interested to join. Unfortunately finding such resources is not easy at all and a wrong choice or two will derail the whole project, efforts and noble intention behind startup. And then there is google, which tries to be master of everything, you just need to know how to search intelligently. Here is one answer from a candidate, who has less experience in python but s/he has good confidence

I consider myself as an intermediate in Python knowledge but I am very comfortable with it as long as I can access google.

Thank you

Look at her confidence, I decided to give her a chance. But this is not the solution to knowledge, experience, capability or learning. Searching google and getting your job done will work as long as you understand the problem and you know how to write programs in any language to solve it. But blindly using search will not yield any result. It will give short term solution to get recruited but in long run, you will be thrown away unless you learn and show your capability.

Its my nature to not to give more importance in face to face interview, rather I give a task and ask the candidate to solve it within stipulated period. I expect honesty on solving, though completion of task is not the priority, rather I look at the approach of the solution. But honesty is very expensive and some time its not available so cheaply. I had such experience where I waited 8 months for two resources to be productive, gave lots of chances to show result. Finally, there is a limit to it. And I had to take tough decision, though it was not easy. In a startup if you are recruiting then please focus on problem solving in front of you and face to face interview. Otherwise you have to suffer a lot.

April 1, 2017

Hiring for a Startup : A challenge

Hiring resources is always a challenge for recruitment team. But when you are hiring for a startup then the challenge is doubled and risky too. The very first thing for an early stage startup is to have good resources for product development. A good resource also needs too remuneration, package in addition to good facilities. However for a startup, such facilities are not available and its difficult to provide such packages to attract talented resources. But one thing that is guaranteed in start is challenging work. A startup can challenge an established enterprise in terms of innovation. Big enterprises always advocate for innovation but when it comes to actual implementation, they look for a case study or two for the idea to make sure that the idea can work. But when you are executing an idea after verifying case studies then its not innovative idea. As per wiki “Innovation can be defined simply as a “new idea, device or method”” that means its “new”. When we are talking about a “new” entity, then its quite difficult to get case studies. But big enterprises cannot work, AFAIK, on an idea which is not implemented or its not proved that this will work. But startup are completely different, they are headed by people of ex of some big enterprises where they failed to convince their higher authority to implement the idea. Then they start a startup to execute the idea, which is innovative. Coming back to my hiring strategy, its always a risk. In the beginning, I started working with freelancers. One good thing about freelancers is that they will create an impression that they can take you to the moon and its their pastime to do that. However, it reality its quite opposite. I remember, I once recruited a freelancer from Delhi to create REST apis using PHP. Though I had to throw the whole code base into dustbin due to poor quality of code but I still remember her words “If you pay for a maruti car, you cannot ask for a BMW car” that means the buggy code is fine as the payment for the work is less, but it was a good payment too. What a logic. I then started working with interns, in the beginning got some good interns from KIIT University. These guys are really good and created a framework for my android project within 6 weeks, thats truly an achievement from a student in final semester. After interns I tried to recruit full time employees. It was a good experience. In Bangalore, there are lots of fresh engineering graduates looking for job. But all of them cannot be recruited and cannot start from day one. They need training and mentoring to be productive. I generally dont conduct interview, rather give them some assignments and based on their performance I take decision. When you know how to use google then its almost not an issue to do any assignments, thats exactly happened. Some candidates beautifully completed assignment in technology which they dont know anything. I was happy that I got some good candidates but alas. That is the experience, I have till now. But some engineering graduates are really good and I can say its luck that matters to get a good fresh engineer for your startup. That is the story.

March 15, 2017

Rome was not built in a single day but everyday

I attended a seminar organized by successgyan at hotel Vivanta by Taj, MG Road, Bangalore. It was well attended by leaders across domains and age groups. Though I generally don’t pen any blog about any seminars or conclaves but this seminar has its own proposition and it gives an insight of how to look everything from a different perspective. One of the important phrase we generally say for any task is “Rome was not built in a single day” that indicates any beautiful creation cannot be completed overnight and it takes time. And this phrase was beautifully modified with “Rome was not built in a single day but everyday”, that adds positivity and inspiration with proposition of slow and steady behind every successful creation. The success of any individual is driven by the continuous improvement in every front be it finding new opportunities, learning new skills and steadiness in execution. The moment we stopped increasing our area of influence then we stopped our growth, its a continuous process of learning that brings more opportunity in different ways. However, we are now so much stressed in our work, we simply forget to brush up our skills, improving our abilities and learning new technologies. This impacts not only our development but also the environment in which we work. This is also same with enterprises too. I always compare between FlipKart and Amazon. Both these companies started with retail market and however Amazon increased its portfolio into Cloud Computing, Tablet, etc but FlipKart failed to diversify its business. Continuously FlipKarts market valuation is going down and down. Same thing happened with Nokia too. These are few lessons for everybody to keep on expanding their area of influence in different ways and then only you can succeed.

March 2, 2017

Choose yourself :: Can it be possible?

Its been a while since I last time wrote a blog, though I want to pen thoughts in different platforms but running two families, my family and my startup, at a time squeezes my time.

Recently I started reading a book “Choose Yourself by James Altucher“, a nice book for aspiring entrepreneurs. In childhood, we do what our parents want us to do, then in young age, we again by parents, teachers and also a part by girl friends. In the process, we got accustomed to other’s command and wish that we forgot about what exactly we want. In the job, we just got carried away against our wish by project, manager, work pressure etc. Our very own desire gets covered by parents, teachers, girl friend, manager, etc. And finally when we try to start our own venture, we try to do things based on our past experiences, always seeking others instruction, permission and approval. But when somebody rides a boat, then its captain to decide the direction in smooth ride ans also in rough sea. It’s like telling someone with hundreds of thousands’ worth of plastic surgery to instantly go back to looking how they used to look. Their body no longer knows how. I kept kissing ass. I kept falling down. I kept being dishonest to my needs inside.

I would like to add a paragraph borrowed from book here

“When you give up searching for frontiers, inevitably you end up stuck in
a swamp, sinking deeper into the mud the more you struggle to get out. I’m not sure that analogy holds, but you get what I mean. Success comes from continually expanding your frontiers in every
direction—creatively, financially, spiritually, and physically. Always ask yourself, what can I improve? Who else can I talk to? Where else can I look?”

This is absolutely correct, its you and you to drive your own boat by looking into opportunities and increasing your boundary in each and every direction, then only your chances of getting opportunity will be more and more. The moment, you stop increasing your boundary then your area of opportunity will get squeezed by others. Others will overtake you and the the era of “Choose Yourself” will be “Let others decide”.

October 9, 2016

Experience at Ezmap

So describing my experience at ezMap is not just a feeling but a great opportunity to thank to my mentor and CEO Mr. Ranjan Baisak. Speaking about our CEO, a man having passion and an attitude towards life that we can see in today’s entrepreneur, SHARP & FOCUSED. Not every person have the courage to support and run a start up, to fight for what he has dreamt of in his childhood, to have a company of his own, but Mr. Baisak, struggled and didn’t lose hope to achieve what he ever wanted. He is very Hardworking and a Tech Enthusiast. He loves working on Linux and have a huge range of Apple products . Now a days we find people who listen just to reply, but there are a few people like Mr. Baisak who listen to listen. He carefully listened to every problem we faced rather than jumping to conclusions, which at the end were really helpful to communicate with each other freely. I was more of a friend to him rather than just an intern. Being at ezMap is just not fun, its a place for both fun & learning.

Staying at a Guest Room in Mr. Baisak’s bungalow with my friend also a fellow intern was indeed a great experience. We arrived in Bangalore on 10th September, 2016. The house was very far from the station and it took 500 bucks with a private cab to reach there, but thanks to Mr.Baisak that he took care of all our expenses. Not even in my lifetime I had such casual journey with a cab and paid 500 bucks. God, Bangalore is too expensive, but I love this place and its people. So it was around 09:00pm when we reached at his house and we had a talk earlier over phone that we will be having our dinner in their place. So Mr.Baisak made all the arrangements but he did know little about me that I was a Vegetarian and he ordered a Non-vegetarian biryani for me. When he knew about this he felt bad and I dnt know what he did with that biryani but in no time he managed for some parathas and we had a great dinner thereafter. And after having dinner we went for a sound sleep.
The next day we all sat together to discuss the plan of our months stay and what we have to build. The business idea was very clean & clear. So from the same day we all started with our work without wasting time. The good thing about the team was they always hated wasting time and pull out the best of it. So I worked around till 03:00am – 04:00am in the morning and managed to build the frame work of the app in few days. Building the framework helped both the web developers and the app developers in a way that it was chosen as standard. With a descent simple UI and feature. Still there are certain things to be build and the work is under progress.
Looking at my work and passion towards it, Mr. Baisak gave me the authority to manage people. We have 2 interns who work from their home and they were helping us in our App. So that I have never managed people before, it was a huge opportunity for me and I took it with great confidence and enthusiasm. There were many times we failed to achieve our given targets but we never lost hope and tried our level best to complete it on time.
We needed to get some people on board because it was getting difficult for us to manage such huge application, Mr. Baisak trusted me and told me to talk to few people I know and bring them on board and even fulfilled watever they wanted.

Being at ezMap.in was like a wish come true. I always wished to work over extended displays but being a student I couldn’t afford one. But as soon as this was reported to Mr. Baisak he then and there bought a 24 inches Monitor for me to work upon and I was so overwhelmed. One more instance was that the room didn’t had any proper table to work on and it was very difficult to work without it. So guess what, a brand new table was ordered the next day and within few days we started working on that. So finally our one month stay got over and were to leave. It was a privilege that Mr. Baisak himself came with me to see me off to station and it is a privilege because on the way Mr. Baisak told me that he never goes out so late at night even when he have relatives to arrive but he did it for me. Thank You for your time Sir ;).

We never felt the shortage of anything at EZMAP. A great CEO, a great place, a great working experience, a great stay. Have a wish come here and it will be fulfilled. Same is being done for a huge mass. Collaborative Community Driven is what we have always believed in. Stay tuned for a revolutionary product in the market. Cheers ezMap.