Start IT up

Just got our new iMac

We are very excited to be starting work on iPhone and Android projects starting next week.

Though our team has experience with mobile technologies and location based services, we last worked on them in 2002/2003 for the Japanese, US and the Indian market. Things have changed since then.

Location based services were still in their infancy then, and now they are all the rage. Its exciting to get back to the small devices and the challanges they present.

We’ll have fun!!

I was waiting for our designer to show me some htmls so in the meantime I thought of ‘browsing’ Google Trends
I looked at the home page for couple of minutes thinking how can this be helpful, after looking at the listed examples first thing that caught my attention was “Tip: You can compare searches by separating with commas.” and I clicked on “music, fashion, sex“. Ok, so I saw a big graph and the searches per region. India was at number six but what was interesting to see was the orange bar. Indians are googling way more for word ’sex’ than anyone else in the world. It instantly made me think if searches on google are indication of people’s interest then I can find other interesting information for eg.
- Which country is most likely to be shopping online? Gift, shopping US, UK, Australia
- What sells more jewellery, clothes, flowers? - clothes.
- What about India? - Flowers. And guess what punjab is on the top.
- Which country might be having most Java programmers. India and Bangalore on top.
- Which is more common java, .net, php, ruby, python. Java wins by clear margin and again India and Bangalore
- Which place in India might have most struts programmers. Noida and Pune.
- Mysql more famous or postgreSQL Mysql
- Where are most people searching for jobs? India, UK
- Most Kerala people are looking for matrimonial sites.
- Some obvious ones India, Pakistan searches most on cricket and US, Canada on baseball

I couldn’t make sense to following searches.
- Why is India searching for India?
- Also ‘outsourcing’?
- What could this mean? startups

I started my career with GE as a trainee & left the company after 9 months very clear about ‘what’ i have to do, the only question was ‘how’. In this world there are two things related to work. first is, ‘what’ work are you doing and second, ‘how’ you are doing it. With experience the concept of ‘how’ you do work fascinates me more than ‘what’. The ‘how’ part always keeps me in unrest & busy because you always have the answer to ‘what’. But still when you talk about success then i will say, if you do not have the answer to ‘why’ you are doing the work, then nobody can save you. I am sorry if its intimidating! Because to me “The only difference between success & failure is self-realization”. Once you know yourself you will see a strong link in all the events that happen around you. Then you become a part of God’s creation working in his created world. You are here just to implement the things which he wants you to do. Know God, know yourself, everything is in you & you can manifest at will.

When I came here for the first time, after entering the meeting room & looking at the seating arrangement. I could guess that there is some relation with Japan & of course i figured out later ‘why’. Being with Techjini has been exciting & incredible, i can never believe that i will be able to create a web application in a weeks time . Moreover it was more so because of Shyamal who is a geek , Amit who is a punt & Ved who always keeps me busy with his fascinating stories about spirituality and @$%#$&^*(&^. Presently we are working on another exciting project hoping to launch soon in the market and we hope to make it a big success. Being here has been a great learning experience for me. I am new here but still in the few days that i have been here, i feel that as a company we seem to be doing really well.

Few days ago I played an interesting quiz. You should try it when you have time. I enjoyed solving it. Once done, though I was feeling happy to have solved it, I was not satisfied. Why, because I was wondering as to who really solved it, me or the search engine?

In todays connected world that has so much information available on the internet, solving a quiz is no longer a feat. Instead of trying to ponder over adwork through the quiz questions, I was clicking happily on the results the search engine had spit out. And on the more difficult ones I was trying to analyze which search results are more relevant. So much for instant gratification. Had it been 6-8 years ago, it would have taken me a few hours to finish it, or maybe even more. But at the end of it, I would have felt satisfaction and real happiness. And in the process I would have probably remembered the answers to all questions for the rest of my life. But on the bright side, I am getting better at searching and finding relevant informaion faster on search engines

During the year and a half of TechJini’s existence, we have learnt several things about starting and running a company in Bangalore. I am putting together our experiences in this post so that it can be helpful to others.

Register the company

The World Bank has a very detailed and comprehensive list of things to be done when you want to start your company. It covers most of the statutory requirements of starting a company in Bangalore. Many of these services are available online, so it makes life simpler. For those that are not available online, it is advisable to go through a Chartered Accountant.

It is advisable to get your company registered before you commence operations. Else it can create problems when you receive payments and don’t yet have a bank account in the company’s name.

Open a bank account

We chose citibank as our company bankers after we spoke to several banks. They offered better personalized service, were easily accessible and had the necessary features we were looking for. Since current account have no interest, choose a bank that offers easy ways to park/withdraw your surplus funds into/from short term funds which are mostly risk free and earn a good interest rate of 6% p.a.

Accounting and statutory compliance

Since Tally is the most commonly used accounting software, I would recommend to buy a license and start using it from the beginning. This avoids any accounting nightmares when you try to create your balance sheets at the eleventh hour. If you are not from an accounting background, it is best to hire a part-time accountant who can visit your premises and update your accounts every week or every fortnight. You can find such a person by locating any Tally coaching institute in your locality. They charge anywhere between Rs 1500 to Rs 3000 based on the amount of work.

There are several statutory and back office requirements like payroll, filing PT returns, advance tax, TDS returns, ROC returns, VAT/CST returns etc that require knowledge, time and effort. I did this myself the first year, but found that it is better to hire a professional for these while I can focus on our core business. Thus we met few CAs and finally contracted one of them. For a monthly fee, they handle all things including accounting, payroll, TDS, ROC, IT , PT etc (except the audit). They charge upwards of Rs 10,000 per month based on the number of employees.

Liability of employee behaviour
Another aspect to remember is that the company should formulate and get every employee (including the founders) tosign a Term of Employment or Company Policy documents. These documents outline several things including (but not limited to)

• employee’s acceptable behavior
• state that if the employee indulges in any unlawfully activity, the company shall not be liable
• the employee shall not use any IP from this company or anywhere else unless authorized

This becomes even more critical for IT startups since cyber laws are still evolving and these documents go a long way in proving that the employer takes preventive measures to protect the law. You can contact any lawyer who specializes in Cyber Law and he can assist you with the drafting of a policy.

Premises and utilities

We chose an office that was close to both the founders’ residences. This greatly improves productivity since we do not waste time and energy commuting to the workplace. Since we are a startup, we chose an office that offered us the best value for the money. Also ensure that there are few eateries in vicinity. Make sure you verify other things like, water availability, parking space, capacity of electricity connection etc.

If you are an IT startup, get at least 2 internet connections. We have BSNL and Tata Indicom. We have had bad experience with both of them, but Airtel (which is the best in terms of uptime) is not available in our locality.

Resources

I am sharing the contacts/resources that may save you time. Feel free to let them know you heard about them from us.
Chartered Accountants

• Dilip Kumar (9341218974) - Apart from CA functions, provides accounting, payroll, statutory compliance services
• Krishnananda Nayak (26578391) - Also provides all CA and other services.
• L. Krishna Moorthy (26789535) - CA and tax consulting. We get our personal returns filed from him.
• Ashim Dey Bhowmick - Provides all functions of CA and also back office services

Lawyers

• Vipin Kumar Jain (9845050266)
• Sajan Poovayya of Poovayya & Co (41156800) http://www.poovayya.net

Please share any thing we missed via the comments.

Ed Sim writes about “Successful offshore practices - let them work on your crown jewels“, I will be surprised if this has come as a discovery? One gentleman even points out his experience with Indian/Russian programmers, I believe its not about Indian, Russian or US developers, its about the environment you provide to your team. Its the kind of goals you set, its how you encourage them to think and innovate, whether you trust them or not. Its useless to debate or even point out which part of world produces best engineers.

Any team working in an environment which does not encourage creativity and thinking is bound to fail whether offshore or onsite. Your development team or any other team for that matter has to be part of the company’s vision, they should know that they are making a difference and contributing in a visible way. If you setup an offshore center thinking that you are going to “start” or give your “low” priority work and do not pay attention to building knowledge, how can one be upset if you are not getting great ideas back. Creating a successful team involves creating a work culture and environment which is best suitable to people in that region to outperform themselves. When the same people (whether Indian, Russian etc) design and innovate sitting in a US R&D office why cant these people be equally or even more productive in their own country?

I second CEO’s decision of letting offshore developers to work on core technology. Being in India’s silicon valley I know several such companies who are doing great by making such decisions. A typical offshore companies is always 50+ employees (in many cases even 100+) and if you are planning to keep hundreds of engineers only for non-core tasks, you are starting with a wrong decision.