sahil parikh’s work+life stream

Will your work mail morph into a social networking platform in the next four years? A recent Gartner report suggests a fifth of business users will adapt features from social networking sites for inter-office communication by 2014. In India, the real change is expected when the digital generation rises to senior levels in the workforce

I am quoted in this article (March 2010). Let me know what you think.

Company: Synage Software Pvt. Ltd.

Founded in: March 2005

Head Quartered in: Mumbai, India.

Industry: IT/Internet/SaaS

The Team:
Our small team comprises of people who are interested in web technologies, collaboration and helping small business simplify teamwork. We also work with freelancers and consultants virtually.

No. of employees: 8 to 10
Company Address & Contact:
Synage Software Pvt. Ltd.
Great Western Bldg, 1st Floor,
130/132 Shahid Bhagat Singh Marg,
Near Lion Gate, Fort
Mumbai 400023, INDIA
Phone +91.22.2285.4133
Fax +91.22.2284.6553
Blog: http://www.deskaway.com/blog

Synage is a web startup, passionate about making the workplace better by the use of simple, powerful, safe and affordable software. The build software to automate work, enhances accountability, provide clarity, organize information and provide a friction-less form of working. Their flagship SaaS product, DeskAway simplifies teamwork. DeskAway is a web-based project collaboration service that provides organizations a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects and work.
They work with small businesses, groups within larger organizations and startups from all over the world. Synage was started in 2005 as a design and development agency and transformed itself into a pure-play web company in 2007. Currently one of the best positioned (price, support, features) in the small business online project collaboration market worldwide. DeskAway combines a mix of simplicity, feature-richness and affordability into its project collaboration service with a focus on key social features in the SMB project 2.0 space. This time around TechnoFIRST catches up with Sahil Parikh, the founder of Synage Software Pvt. Ltd as he talks about his startup story.

The Motivation
When I moved back to India in 2005, there were just too many service companies floating around. Plus, I never liked, and completely disagreed with what people abroad thought of India: a low-cost service country, perfect for off-shoring and incapable of building a quality product unless directed from abroad. This fueled my desire to grow a product-based software business that had the potential to affect tens of thousands of small businesses and teams globally.

Major Steps
The major step for me was to hire talented, long term thinkers. That was really hard to find back in 2005 when the outsourcing and call center frenzy hiked up basic salaries.

The Funding
DeskAway was funded initially from:
- Revenue from web design and development (services)
- Personal savings from the US
I chose to build a less capital-intensive yet scalable business.
What could have been a better way of proving that you believe in your business, than when you put what you have at stake? This funded DeskAway’s setup, development and initial marketing.

The Most Valuable Asset
We try to keep things simple, build powerful features month to month, and have an affordable pricing strategy and an amazing customer service standard. This translates into a very positive experience that a user has with our application and company.

The Support
In early 2008 we were one of the finalists for the Proto (www.proto.in) event held in Chennai. Later that year we were chosen as one of the top 30 hottest startups of India by Tata NEN (www.hotteststartups.in). This kind of support helped spread the word about our company, team and our global reach.

Major Challenges
Switching from a service business to a product business was the biggest challenge. A service business lets you start earning revenues almost from day one. Whereas in the case of a product, you need to put in a lot of time, effort and money at the beginning that slowly starts to pay off at a later stage. Since we had to get out of our comfort zone, this was difficult initially. We would take up 1 or 2 web development projects on the side. This would take our attention away from DeskAway and take up time and energy. It reached a stage where I took the critical decision to stop all service projects and concentrate 100% on DeskAway. This has been my best decision till date. Getting Indian customers to try DeskAway during the Summer of 2007 was another challenge. We would be called into ad agencies, design and PR firms for presentations, and finally they would want to buy the software to install on their own machines. They didn’t understand the business model, or ironically, why the software was so affordable. We spent quite a lot of time educating companies here about the online model, how it is beneficial to them in the long run and how they are actually saving costs by not buying expensive, clunky software. This is quite a challenge when you are small and are pressed for time. We now run multiple online marketing channels and have a robust online help & video section where prospects and customers can learn about DeskAway before using it. This has drastically reduced our cost of customer acquisition.
While we have been fortunate with our core team, we do face difficulties in peripheral talent acquisition. We are looking for quality and quantity and a long-term mindset. Working in a small growing product company should be a passion for them and not a job! Hence, I have been involved with all interviews personally, trying to understand the candidate better (from a non-technical standpoint) and showing them what’s possible if he/she were to join our team. You have to show them the bigger picture and the light at the end of the tunnel.

Vision and Future Plans
DeskAway is headed to become India’s top project management or collaboration product; and among the top 5 products world-wide. In the coming years, we will be extending DeskAway to other apps, getting third-party applications integrated within DeskAway, adding more social features and also come out with a mobile and iPhone version. One the marketing side we are looking at more partnerships and a full fledged affiliate program.

For the Future Entrepreneurs

> Focus on the Core
In early 2005/06 we were doing a bit of everything like most web design/development firms. What I learned was that you should focus on one thing and try to do it well. That’s when we phased out the service side and concentrated completely on building, growing and scaling DeskAway, even if it meant taking a risk and plugging our immediate source of income.

> Talk to yourself:
Ask yourself as to why you want to start a new venture? Is it only money or is there a higher purpose attached to it? Are you solving a need or just following a fad? It is important to answer these questions before you jump full time into starting out.

> Do not Hire Experts
I have had better luck hiring people who want to learn than people who already come with “expert” skills. It is a joy in helping a developer to learn new things – to create a win-win situation. Things change so quickly that you require people, who are willing to learn, unlearn and re-learn. In a nutshell - build a small, motivated team, keep things simple, stay focused, use less capital-intensive methods, outsource what is not core, and monitor and measure everything on a daily basis.

Follow DeskAway on twitter: http://twitter.com/deskaway

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