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Techies turn entrepreneurs thriving on non-proven sphere
By Devarchit Varma
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Saturday, 11 July 2009, 04:00 IST
Their inexperience proved a greater challenge for Ashish Kumar, Gaurav Bhatnagar and Manish Dhingra, founders of Tekriti, who had moved from U.S. to India to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams. But they had already decided their way, while working together in the Microsoft. They knew things will be more tough as they were entering the Web 2.0 sphere, which had its own challenges.
The sphere was challenging, and being tech grads, none of them had the knowledge of any business tactics, having the only idea about their core technology and its implementation. Kumar and Bhatnagar are IIT pass outs in 2001, who had moved to U.S. to join Microsoft. Dhingra also landed in Microsoft, as an Infosys assignee. There took the birth of an idea of launching a company, and they returned back in 2004.
The time they ventured into India, most of the big players had already made a mark in different verticals. "There was not enough scope and we decided to gamble on the Web 2.0 sphere. There were not many people talking about it then, this encouraged our idea of having our own company. We took the opportunity with keeping in the mind that we will be the first among the movers, we opened Tekriti," explains Kumar. Their strong background in handling product development and in providing services proved an edge to develop a componentized networking platform on the web by composing all the needs of social networking, content management and online video. The product 'Teksocial' was designed in that specific way. The idea of becoming a complete outsourcing product developer, not as a pure software developer helped a lot. Targeting the Small and Medium size business companies in the U.S., the company develops products 80 percent to the existing needs, and 20 percent customized as per the needs of the particular customer. They have come a long way, with clients like Broadband Mechanics and India Times. "We already have strength of 100 employees, and we are expanding our partner network beyond Travelboutique.com and USource IT," asserts Kumar.
Tekriti has three basic business models, one being the outsourcing model, where they target the SMB sector companies in the U.S. The company also looks for a cash plus equity model for the startups in the U.S., as there are many opportunities. Being less experienced made them more cautious as they turn selective about the new companies they have worked only with 2-3 U.S. startups. It has been four years since the foundation of the company in 2005, with the prime focus of becoming outsourcing product provider in the sphere of Web 2.0. They are not too worried about the competitors, though they face stiff competition from Impetus and some others. They believe in their formula of sticking on to developing new platform approaches thereby reducing time and costs. There has been a slowdown in their business in past one year, however, the three entrepreneurs are positive and more focused to experiment new strategies. "The business slowdown is not only because of the recession, but also because of our efforts on focusing more on the incubating companies. This year we expect more than 40 percent growth," said Kumar.
The spirit of true entrepreneurship does not deliver on prior expertise or on venturing into proven areas, and startups like Tekriti stands as a bold example proving the point. Had Kumar, Bhatnagar and Dhingra scrupled to venture into the Web 2.0 sphere where many players had failed to survive the challenges, their entrepreneurial stint would still have remained a dream.
