If we pack the page with more dots, more possibilities emerge. The more the dots, the more variety one can have in one's life or career
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Lalit BhagiaMyrefers is a referral based marketplace for jobs powered by social media intelligence and big data. This was funded (Pre-Series A) by Bedrock Ventures and touched a break even few months earlier. Speaking to BW Businessworld's Manish Kumar Pathak, Lalit Bhagia, Founder and CEO, Myrefers, discusses the uniqueness of this model and how useful this set-up is for the marketplace. The introduction of the company (www.myrefers.com), says data intelligence. What exactly is data intelligence and how is it used?Data Intelligence is the core of www.myrefers.com, one of India's leading referral based marketplaces for jobs. Our unique big data engine lets our referrer networks identify the best fit for a particular job available on the platform, ranks applications based on skill and culture match, leading to formation of a trust circle that further combines with user intelligence. The data intelligence is also not just limited to the data on myrefers platform but also gathers data from the open web, from all other online social mediums an individual is connected with. That is what makes the platform so unique.The resume is what you want others or rather hirers to perceive about you, but all online information about you blends with what you really are, hence the ability to rank and match people to jobs becomes much trustworthy than any other platforms in the world and this means quality data for recruiters. What convinced you that this model will be successful?There are explicit business reasons to believe this model is already doing well elsewhere in the world. In India, you may find more players joining the bandwagon. Today 70 per cent of all company hiring takes place through employee referrals and HR Consultants. These are not only two of the biggest sources of hire, but also the sources of hire that gives best quality i.e. less number of resumes further leading to large number of closures. We realized two very important opportunities: A) To extend referrals to external world as we use them in everyday life B) The ability to organize and help facilitate the highly unorganised HR consulting market Myrefers is a force multiplier, the above is already taking place, and we are enabling structuring and collaboration integrating it with elements of social big data intelligence. The results are qualitative candidatures, passive reach through a faster seamless process. They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. One of our clients Umang Kumar, President, Cardekho shared his feedback that our platform (www.myrefers.com) is helping them for product and tech hires as the referral model is ensuring the referrers are disincentivized to send them junk profiles. This evidently saves his team good amount of time spent in scanning irrelevant profiles. The curated marketplace model also allows the platform to rapidly scale hiring capacity for Cardekho as and when they need. Cardekho closed nearly 40 per cent of their tech hires last quarter through Myrefers. What is the technique of Myrefers?Myrefers works just like any other marketplace, a commodity is replaced with a candidate, companies seeking hires form the buyers and they get to pay Myrefers on closures only. Then there the vast pool of sellers or resellers typical in a marketplace, at Myrefers sellers comes from the entire referral network available on the platform. It is made up of individuals referring friends via their social connections, email connections and phonebook, HR consultants referring candidates from their databases and freelancing recruiters referring people from their personal connections that form the sellers network. We are trying to incentivize quality leads or referrals through two kind of rewards posted against each job on the platform: an intro reward and a refer reward. Every time a relevant reference takes place, the referee is rewarded and every time a refer gets hired referees make a bigger reward. We share a large part of the rewards companies put on the platform with our referral network and keep a small commission as platform fee. Are there any competitions around, if yes then how do you plan to evolve?At one end every business in the recruitment space is a competition, but honestly no-one is similar to us in our approach. Our unique approach of curating jobs and profiles blending it with social big data intelligence allows us a distinctive position and is a big game changer. How is a network built, considering that many people seeking jobs share common interests?We are not really building new networks. We are focusing on existing networks of people on our platform which may or may not be online. Current online network is what we call as the primary network and the current offline network is the secondary network. Because only when a refer X happens from a user Y's current networks whether offline or online, the inbuilt myrefers algorithms and inevitably the recruiter comes to know of X too. For instance, our platform encourages and prompts every user to bring in their email and LinkedIn networks when they enter or register on the platform, this where they bring their primary network. We further help them make referrals from even a secondary network that our sophisticated algorithms backed by data sciences bring forth. The secondary network is a comprehensive and may sometimes be overlapping connections that come from people belonging to same campus / alumnus or workplaces, hereby helping tap into a much wider web of secondary known network. How are you different from job portals available out there?www.myrefers.com is a curated marketplace while the job boards are classifieds businesses. The big difference is that we deliver a very select and highly organized list of 8-10 profiles instead of 100s of junk, uninterested and irrelevant profiles that job boards usually do. People referrals and our big data algorithms are making this possible; our growing client list is also an authentic indication of the success the concept has delivered. Along with providing high quality matches, we also facilitate our client companies to access a wide target of passive candidates who are connected with the referees or users on our platform. (78 per cent of jobseekers are passive) .The job boards only give recruiters active profiles (not more than 5-6 per cent of job seekers). This also is a reflection on the revenue size of this industry where job boards are making only 8-10 per cent of the overall recruiting industry revenues, while the consultants get the remaining 90 per cent of the pie. With our model we are taking away a large pie of all of these current sources very openly i.e. bringing in transparency and accountability. Are you mentoring startups on best way to hire? What can you say about startups hiring, is it different from hiring for established or well run companies.Yes, startup hiring is very different. There is no doubt that startup recruiting is hard. And time and time again, the #1 challenge that most startup founders speak about is recruiting right set of people. It's not raising money, closing deals, doing sales, finding partners. It's hiring people. I bet if you polled a bunch of startup founders the data would be very conclusive. Their business needs grow fast. Best suited people hiring is the most important aspect in helping them scale their businesses quickly. They look for trustworthy source of hiring that provides faster results. MyRefers therefore works really well for them. One can only imagine the enormity and abundance of the networks open for exploration. Referrals are backed by trust, hence for a startup it is all the more important that they get trustworthy employees while they hit the ground running. However this also means startup CEOS need to be very clear about what they expect and wish to offer to potential employees. Given that we work with so many startups, we talk to the CEOs and founding teams very often, continuously storing their feedbacks and putting them into action to improve various aspects of the recruiting method. We tell them when is the ideal time to hire for their startup, when a need to invest a significant amount of time on it. I'm speaking directly to founders and not delegating the task. It is super critical We are also helping them create strong employer brands through our proprietary on- ground employee outreach program 'startup mashups' (hiring in office campuses via coding challenges where we create a large amount of buzz for startups working with us), giving them detailed inputs on hiring process, persuading them to writing blogs to attract talent, doing HR workshops, ways to interview, refining offer letter process, forming an employee friendly culture and so on. We are in it together, I tell my startup clients.
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Off the 5000 odd startups in India only 500 will survive and only 50 will become large companies generating a loss in jobs for many in the short run, write Vishal Krishna and Paramita Chatterjee
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Vijay Shekhar Sharma built Paytm in 2010. Five years on, he has invested in more than 32 startups. He talks to BW Businessworld’s Vishal Krishna about the opportunity in consumer-based businesses. Excerpts:Q. How is your role as an investor shaping up?I invest anything from Rs 25 lakhs to Rs 60 lakh in a venture. A decade ago, I made the mistake of giving more than 40 per cent of my company, for some seed money. I had a bitter experience when I bought the investor out. I don’t want startups to face that problem. I also mentor them on building a sustainable business. A decade ago, people like me did not know what valuations meant. But things have changed. Startups are living in very interesting times. With a lot of support from the ecosystem in the future, we will see great companies being built out of India.Q. What should startups focus on, given the hype about the smartphone market and the Internet?I do not follow research reports when it comes to looking at consumption on the mobile Internet. I look at what is happening to my target audience. I look at family, my old neighbourhood in Aligarh, and how they are consuming technology. The numbers will grow. I only focus on my target consumers and check if they are using technology. Only then do I know if consumption is happening through smartphones.It is inevitable that people in India will go mobile. In my hometown, a lot of them have mobile Internet. How does it matter if there are 125 million people or 150 million people using mobile Internet today? It is a target. India will have 500 million consumers of mobile Internet in five years. Can we build a much better product in that time period? The market is moving fast. It’s a race against time when you work in India. Such mobile Internet growth is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we have to be the technology company that makes it happen.Q. Many startups in India are B2B. Why do people seem more hesitant to get into consumer businesses?Payment solutions from the consumer side need a lot of innovation. The problem is that tech companies in India fear that consumer business is extremely difficult. We have remained tech producers, and not become consumers of tech. We have built very few consumer technology companies.Consumption will grow with local languages. All startups in the consumer industry must have local-language services if they have to grow in India. Q. Are funds controlling the fate of startups in India? Any advice regarding this?There’s no doubt that funds have smart people, and they will tell startups to follow a particular vision. The funds have put India on the map. They will inevitably control some decisions. But what stops an entrepreneur from disagreeing with investors? The entrepreneur is supposed to be confident enough to run his company, because he knows what works and what doesn’t. The fund is a guide. It is like in life: you listen to many people, and in the end, you have to make the decision that is right for you. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 02-11-2015)
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Kavin Bharti Mittal, son of telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal, has decided to chart his own entrepreneurial journey. His startup Hike — a messaging platform — has grown 100 per cent year on year, although detractors credit that to help from Airtel. Mittal Jr talks to BW Businessworld’s Suchetana Ray about Hike, the challenges that entrepreneurs face and Over The Top (OTT) players, among other things. Edited excerpts:Q. You’re a startup, and India is going through an interesting period in that space. Is this an ideal environment for a startup?Today, more than ever, is the ideal time. There is a market. Infrastructure is getting better. You can see the first wave of Internet startups in India happening. There are a lot of people working on ground-breaking technology here. More importantly, it’s the environment, the mindset. In Silicon Valley, it’s ok to have 10 failures. You really should see failure in a company as a comma, not a full-stop.Q. What are the biggest challenges young entrepreneurs in India face today?To sum it up in a sentence, everybody seems to be looking for a quick fix. You’ll go through more downs than ups in your life while building a startup. Don’t build a company to be successful and famous. If you do that you’ll face a quick death. Start a company if you’re inspired by an idea.Q. What are the challenges that Hike faces as a ‘Made in India’ brand?One of the biggest challenges we faced was, “Arre yeh toh Made in India hai, yeh kharab hoga.” We’ve had to fight that again and again. Today, we’re the 38th most exciting brand in the country. If people see companies like us growing, providing them with great experiences, then that perception will go away.Q. India is a market where most users are on 2G and entry-level smartphones. So how can one enhance the Internet experience for such users?There are cheap smartphones with small real estate that can’t handle too many apps and services, 2G which is worse than dial-up in a market where the tangibility of data is unknown. If you take away all devices from the world, what’s left with the human species is communication. Could we use that to build something very powerful?Q. Do you give feedback to your father about data packs available in India and its limitations?I think everybody knows about this. It’s nothing new. Airtel’s been trying to solve it in their own way by launching sachet packs and so on. People keep talking about Airtel, of course, for obvious reasons. However, it’s important to understand we talk to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea all the time. Messaging is driving revenues for telcos today, which is why we must work together and foster a great ecosystem.Q. Major telcos in India are demanding regulation of OTT. Don’t you think regulation will violate the spirit of net neutrality in India?The best part of the Internet is that it is not at all regulated, else we cannot come out with an update every 7.5 days. As long as we have that, we are fine. The reason people buy data packs is to consume Internet services offered by OTT players. If we were not there, people would not be buying data. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 02-11-2015)
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A study conducted by The Lemelson Foundation reveals that India’s entrepreneurial space falls short of its potential due to the fragmented nature of networks and knowledge systems coupled with gaps in financing and technical support structures.By Simar SinghFocusing on initiatives and inventions that create a positive social impact, are environmentally responsible and financially self-sustaining, the report claims that while India was an early entrant in the growing global movement towards impact-driven entrepreneurship, it fell short of making the best of its potential somewhere. “In spite of the numerous university curricula, business competitions, and enterprise incubators anchoring the sector, Indian entrepreneurs still struggle to transition their ideas from compelling concepts to viable businesses,” it says. Undertaking a field study to examine the impediments in the country’s “impact ecosystem”, Lemelson observed the broad network of existent businesses, funders and intermediaries that enable a social enterprise. During the course of this exercise they realised that, “networks and knowledge platforms in India are fragmented and weak” and that there are “numerous financing and technical support gaps’ which are making it difficult for invention-based enterprises to find investors and mentors, particularly at the business’ early stage of development. One of the study’s key findings is that there is a disconnect between the expectations of entrepreneurs and investors, with investors often shying away from putting in money at the blueprint or the development stage, where monetary backing is direly required to kick the idea off the ground. Instead, investors, behaving cautiously, prefer coming in at the validation stage which is when the product has already been created. Titled ‘Catalysing Capital for Invention: Spotlight on India”, the report makes recommendations to fill ecosystem, financial and capacity gaps that adversely affect the mobility of impact based enterprises in the country. It suggests the development of an early stage grant facility, the creation of an affordable capital fund, the establishment of a fund to finance intermediary services such as helping in the raising of capital and investment attraction, and facilitating access to financial expertise through targeted mentorship.
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The Union government will introduce entrepreneurship education in 3,000 colleges across India in the next five years to support the growth of startups, a senior official said.
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When people hear the name Vir Das — they think of the guy from Delhi Belly or of his comic repertoires. What most don’t know is that he also owns a niche comedy-driven production house Weirdass Comedy, which besides organising comedy festivals, also functions as a brand agency. The artist-cum-entrepreneur in conversation with BW Businessworld’s Shubhi TandonWeirdass Comedy is a ‘comedy consultancy’. As strange as that sounds, there is such a thing. Led by Vir Das, the company started off organising live tours and comedy festivals in 2010. But soon after it was creating comedy content for brands and advertising agencies as they queued up for ‘funny content’ for their campaigns.This led Das to set up production capabilities in-house and offer ‘comedy consultancies’ to brands. The consultancy has since worked with companies such as Travelocity, Flipkart, Micromax and most recently Rebtel for their ad campaigns.“We decided that we should cut out the middleman — the advertising agencies. For example, Rebtel was looking for digital videos and television commercials (TVCs). So we designed their entire digital campaign and directed and edited their TVCs, where I functioned as a brand ambassador. There was no external agency at any level,” says Das.One of the first TVCs that Weirdass Comedy executed was for Flipkart around their Big Billion Day sale ahead of Diwali last year that featured Das. “It is a journey which started off just writing scripts for TVCs for clients and agencies. Then we slowly got into production and started producing videos. And eventually, we ventured into advertising for brands that are looking to get in the comedy space,” he explains.Das calls himself a ‘comedy consultant for brands’. When asked why brands need one, he opines, “A brand is looking to not just reach out to its consumer but also make meaningful content to reach out to consumers. I believe, as opposed to invading your consumer’s digital or individual space, if you can give them something cool, then that positions your brand as witty, and intelligent — and that is basically what every brand out there is going for.”In the ad campaigns for both Flipkart and Rebtel, Das was also the brand ambassador. He feels that having a comedian as a brand ambassador is a very good idea as he/she has a happiness connect with the consumers. He explains, “The minute people think of a comedian as a brand ambassador, they think they are happy to see that person. That is a good, instant connect that comedians have because they do not rely on superficial aspects but on the happiness aspect.”The company has a complete production department that helps in producing TV shows, digital videos and social media marketing as well. It has a talent pool of comedy writers, directors, choreographers, cameramen, etc., who produce videos and content for brands. “We took everything comedy and made a company. We are your one stop shop, we don’t need another agency to come on board. We offer a 360-degree solution — from talent, to targeting different mediums of marketing, to content,” says Das.When asked about what advice he would give to brands or marketing officers, Das says, “Open your minds to comedy so you can reach your consumers in an intelligent manner. You can’t buy ‘cool’ and I think that is something that comedy can do — whether you buy it or not, it just says you are cool.”(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 05-10-2015)
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