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Startup > My Story > Kota Krishna Kamath
Kota Krishna Kamath

Kota Krishna Kamath

MD
ESurveying Softech

Short Description

Kotaa Krishna Kamath, Managing Director, ESurveying Softech (India) Pvt. Ltd. has more than 16 years of experience software product development for domestic and international market. He has architected many products in the area of Office Automation, Taxation and Survey engineering domains. Indias Highest selling Payroll product Saral PayPack and TDS Package Saral TDS were initially developed under his guidance. He has experience in different technologies and specialization in Microsoft and AutoDesk Technologies. Holds engineering degree in Mechanical from Karnakata university, Dharwad and has held mid/Senior management position in mid size companies and Served as Director for Relyon Softech Limited for Seven Years.

Company Profile

We Started Esurveying on 19th August 2008.

ESurveying Focuses on Developing and Selling Software’s related to Survey and Civil Engineering – For Contours, Earthwork and Section Generation. Our Aim is to Create Economical Software’s which help customers to create drawings and related report in shortest possible time and maintain standards including documentation and sell it internationally.

Adressing Risks

We have 3 Major Risks – Elder Competitors, Limited Number of Customers and Pirated Software’s
  1. Elder Competitors: By the time we started developing this application, already there were 20-year-old company serving same Industry. We understood that the solutions provided were complex and if it is done in another way we can give simple solution to customer with small development team.
  2. Niche customers: Limited Number of Customers can use our software’s. To be precise we have only around 5000 Customers in whole of India. It is possible to convert only 20 – 30% of these prospects. We put best efforts to reach customers in all the possible ways like Web Promotion, Participation in Seminar, Sponsoring Events, Building Dealer network. 
  3. Pirated Software’s: Since many pirated software is available in market giving solution to our customers. Many prefer to use this, as there is no strong rule in India. We make software’s extremely simple and develop unique features (Irresistible) and converted Pirated Software users to paid users by extending good online support by helping them complete their projects in time.

Most Critical Decision

Setting up this business although there were established products in this field was the most critical decision.

Difficulties Faced

Employing – Current generation People prefer working in Established companies although we match salaries. So, getting good talent is one of the problems.

We tried employing people in our neighbor hood and we gave more importance to employee referrals.

Attrition – Attrition was expected difficulty in our business as in any other business today. We built strong training resource so that attrition is not a problem any more.

As a entrepreneur my Journey was tough, knowledgeable and Enjoying.

Mistakes Made and Lesson learned
Employ Quality People – By Hiring People with lesser Skill set and week Commitment we have lost lot of time and money.

Web Presence – We gave less importance to web presence and we have lost lot of prospective quarries because of this. Now we are working on building strong web presence.

Lead Management – Our team is not good in Handling Leads properly. We have lost some potential sale because of poor handling of Leads. Now we have developed a complete web based solution for Lead Management and our lead management efficiency has considerably improved.
My Motivation
We have a Clear Goal – We want to make our company Products to be Sold Internationally and we are putting efforts to make our softwares as part of curriculum in Engineering colleges. This tough goal keeps us motivated always.
Spotting Right Talent
Reference from Family, Friends, Neighbor has given result to us. Since we are a small company this works.

We believe that every one is capable of accomplishing tasks, provided they get proper guidance and they have sufficient interest to achieve the results. From our side we try to guide the members, those who take our advice on +ve note have always given results.
First Customer
Getting initial customers was not yet all a challenge for us. As we already had some sitting customers waiting for solution. Our challenge started only after we gave solution to 20+ Customers. Getting customers beyond Bangalore was our challenge. Hard efforts from team members helped us in over coming these challenges.
Reaching Out Investors
We have not tired getting any investment into the company. We are a mid size company with turn over of just over 1 Crore. We are managing the company with turn over.
My Role
This has been my interest of study also. I personally have involved in almost all the roles in company

Developer: Initially I developed the base Product. Then my partner took over an he took complete development responsibility. This helped me to explore all other roles.

Marketing: Initial customers were my contacts and Journey is continuing. Although my team’s contribution is more in Sales and marketing, I still continue to contribute to sales and marketing.

Support: About an year after our important release, I have got into full time support, which helped us to evolve a better product.

Administration: Since we are a small team. We don’t have separate administration department. I handle most of the administrative task with help of my team. 

Content Development: To have international Exposure having Quality Web site, Good presentations and having crowd pulling blogs were essential and I could contribute to Content Development, Layout design. Creating word documents to Videos is a very nice experience.

Working in different department till a stage then bring in a Suitable member to that position has given results to me.
Avoiding Mistakes
Mistakes will be part of any Process. I don’t hesitate to accept my mistakes and correct them. Normally, I don’t repeat the mistakes. When I make rules, I punctually follow them, probably that makes my team members to have confidence on me.
Company I Admire
Tata – For Business Ethics
Google - Innovation