Certificate Or knowledge !!!!

Today, we can see many technology startups around us who are trying to follow the Agile methodology for software development. But are they really doing it in the right way?  Most of us mainly go through some blog, article and book or learn/hear from here and there and start doing our own scrum, but this approach is not very useful.      To know exact scrum, one has to go through scrum certification, which cost around $500, plus most of such certification program organizes outside Pune (mostly Bangalore), so over the program fee, one have to bear the logistic expenses also.  To learn and getting certified, actual cost go around 40-50 thousand. 

Certification is useful for someone who is looking for getting Job as scrum master.  But for startups aim is not to get the job, but to do the job.  To do job properly, one have to have good knowledge of scrum (certificate is optional).  ? If you are one such startup and find yourself lacking in the skills used to implement Scrum you need to attend this seminar which is going to be held on 6^th and 7^th October 2012.

Arnab Saha and his team are here to present you with a USP – Uncertified Scrum+ Professional. You might be wondering what this is. Actually, USP is a series of seminars started by these two IT gurus to help you understand the real meaning of Scrum. That too at a very cost effective price, only Rs. 6500/-.

In this two daylong seminar organized by IDYeah labs, you will get to know the right way to implement Scrum from experts who have a collective experience of over 20 years in the IT industry.

For more details, contact – 9823 403 832 (Arnab) or mail at experiment@idyeahlabs.com

why D2i (Doors2India)

Why d2i ?

“You love to do the things, which add purpose to your passion”

Why d2i? This was definitely not the first question when we planned to create d2i. It got its purpose with time.

Initially it was fuelled by our passion in the fields of EAT, DO (hobby ideas) & VISIT. d2i just provided purpose to our passion, and that’s why we love it !

And as the significance in the name “Doors to India” suggests, we wanted our users to enter and explore the many facets of India in terms of EAT, DO (hobby ideas) & VISIT.

There are many web portals, which offer information on eateries; in fact whenever I try to search or Google for eateries in Pune or Delhi, the search results upto the 3^rd page end up displaying results and reference to another portal.

It implies that there were at least 30 portals offering infotainment services and the results definitely surprised me. But there were two things which surprised (read disappointed) me even more; first, the fact that almost all of them had more or less same & very limited info; and second, all or most of them had info either of only eateries or of everything in the world, from real estate to insurance product. It’s like over 30 portals which are mere classified or yellow pages but claiming themselves to be infotainment.

You could blame it on our (my fellow founders/thinkers & I) disappointment with ‘this too little info in too diversified a sector’, that compelled us to visualise a true infotainment portal. We didn’t want to try to be

next Google local or plain Just Dial of the world.

So that’s how the concept of a dedicated portal limiting to EAT, DO and VISIT segment in a city was born, with a vision to offer detailed information of the `places to EAT’, `things to DO’ and `places to VISIT’ in a city, without the malaise of the info being stale &/or unverified, as was our experience with the existing portals.

We conceptualised a portal which could provide verified & interesting info on all sorts of ethical entertainment in a city. And Yes, the data was to be supported with images and more importantly, reviewed by experts ! This, along with interesting facts in form of articles & inside stories; events and offering of the places or venue, was to add value to the users.

When this idea germinated way back in 2008, we started to build a structure, classifying the category for EAT, DO & VISIT and portal’s offering, etc. The biggest challenge was, of course, Data collection.

Our experience was that most data/info on the net was either limited or stale and also skipped most small but interesting joints. So we evolved a multi-pronged strategy for data assimilation – from trawling through the net as well as out-sourcing the data collection to a competitive agency, to ground surveys & visiting the venues, and ultimately managing the whole activity by our own.

It surely took a few hit and trials before we gradually developed a process of fast & efficient collection & verification of data.

Going by the spirit of high speed parallel computing, we simultaneously burnt a lot of midnight oil (more likely to be many precious units of electricity !) to work on the design of our infotainment portal and it was only after 7^th version that we actually got convinced to start coding.

There were multiple rounds of discussion, debate and also pressure from other stake holders of d2i, but end product didn’t satisfy us and thus, we put off the launch.

In fact, we developed the whole portal and scrapped it totally not once, but three times and finally it was 10^th internal version which was launched released on 1^st April ’10 ! Now, who would select such a date for the launch ?! Passion driven Entrepreneurs are fools, so we choose 1^st April or `Fools Day’ to launch `Doors to India’ the portal with Pune.

And being proud & patriotic Indians, we added Delhi/NCR to an improved version of d2i on 15^th August’10, India’s Independence Day.

Our next target is to add the happening cities of Mumbai, Goa, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, & Bangalore by March’11.

But once again we are not jumping the gun and not rushing to create quantity. Our prime focus is to achieve a high level of satisfaction in d2i and its content. We need to first to establish d2i as a truely infotainment portal, which was what we had set out to create !

The feedback that we are getting from our users, not just those who are clicking & exploring d2i but also from those who have actually visited the joints & places listed in our pages, is what keeps us motivated !!

We see no point in getting into a race to max the number of cities on our portal. We are sure that with time, our passion -coupled with the unique Indian spirit of our users in exploring new ideas , will help to answer why d2i ?

“This blog was originally published in blog.d2i.in in mid 2010; republishing here with permission from D2i team”

Name Qonta

What is meaning of Qonta? This is the most frequent question we have gone through in last one year. The first reaction is always a smile on our face.

For us it’s a dream, so meaning of Qonta for us is ‘dream comes true’. But people are neither interested in our smile nor in what it’s meaning for us, they want straight, dictionary meaning of it. Albeit English dictionary cannot help (as it is not an English word); it is Sanskrit (one of the oldest language of the world). These days Qonta (pronounce as Kon-ta) is most frequently used in Magdhi (a lingo of ancient Magadh region, and today’s Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh region). Usage meaning of konta is ‘the corner’ (I am not sure about dictionary meaning).

The day Manjit expressed his idea of a city based web- portal which may turn up as an IT company, I agreed and asked Kunal and Naveen (our colleagues in Kanbay) to join us. Me, Manjit, Naveen and Kunal used to spend our whole office hours together, so our team members have nick named us – GOF (Gang of four), we really were GOF. So Naveen and Kunal were always the first choice as partner. Unfortunately that could not happen, but they always supported us whole heartedly.

In kanbay we were always eager to discuss and plan our idea (Idea of Qonta). But the idea and plan was secret to rest of team. To keep our secret a secret, we were looking for a nickname. As we always prefer any corner place to discuss, we started to call it Qonta – ‘let’s go to Qonta’. And that’s how name Qonta came into existence. We cherished the nickname so much (as it helped us in initial planning), we decided to name our dream company QONTA.

“This blog was originally published at myqonta.blogspot.com which is official blog of Qonta”

I GOT AN IDEA

When I was in 8^th standard; one fine day our teacher asked the class - What is the most important thing to start a business? Class came up with variety of answers – most of us voted for ‘capital’, few were with ‘infrastructure’ like transport and power supply, a few said that ‘desire’ while some of us were with ‘demand’. I (and only me) said – IDEA. Few classmates laughed at my idea of Idea as a most essential thing for business (I think the laugh was fair for 8^th standard level). But teacher was looking for this answer. And after word IDEA came on black board, the teacher resumed the session.

For long time I used to believe that Idea is first thing to start a venture, only when I reached BIT (my Alma meter) to pursue my B.E. I realised Idea is second thing one need to start a venture/business. The first thing is BELIEF. Belief on self and on idea is key of the lock (we called luck, which is third most essential thing for venture). [Wow here we are automatically getting an order of things required for venture, BELIEF then IDEA then LUCK. But the order and required stuff is out of scope for this blog, I will definitely write about that some other time.]

I was talking about belief – belief on self and belief on idea. I always have self belief that I will be able to start a business (without putting single penny in it) and will successfully establish it. Now I was looking for idea. In college days (which I prefer to call cool-age) I got an idea of starting tea chain (similar to CCD or barista, at that time we had only coffee chain and no tea chain). We did paper work, made plan and budget but many links were missing including fund and fundamentals of business.

Days were passing out, during the Post College and pre Job time; we got an Idea of Makadi.com (an educational networking site), MAKADI was brainchild of Anuj (he is co founder of Qonta, and my cool-age pal). We made some plan on paper and gathered people in Pune, Delhi and Bangalore but we all were busy in establishing our own career so establishment of Makadi got second priority and there I learnt a second priority thing can never succeed. But this time we took two steps ahead of tea chain idea.

I joined kanbay on 18^th March 2005, and after 55 days of training (termed as fresher learning program FLP), I got chance to serve bench for over 3 months. Here with two of my FLP mates Pradeep and Jitendra we started CAPITAL 99 (a stock trading company). In FLP most of us were fresher and to live an eventful life a few thousand bucks were enough (as we all were unknown to luxury) and kanbay were paying us decent, as a result we got many client in FLP only; everyone had money and no idea on how to buy and which stock to buy. CaPiTaL 99 was a sort of mutual fund – share your money to us we would trade and return it with profit without any commission (open book accounting made CaPiTaL 99 an absolute transparent company. While looking for good stocks and good time we had enough time and money in between to trade in derivatives. For inflow in derivatives we had client’s money and profit/loss was absolutely of CaPiTaL 99. That’s how CaPiTaL 99 used to make profit. CaPiTaL 99 took few steps ahead of makadi.com and everything was on track but then Pradeep joined IIM in mid 2006 and Jitendra switched to a Noida based IT company. And I started looking for idea again.

For a while I was a typical IT professional. One fine day Manjit shared his wish to make a city based web- portal which may turn up as an IT company. I immediately expressed my willingness to join his idea.

In kanbay along with our regular work we (I, manjit with two other friend Naveen and kunal) started giving thought on portal, later Naveen and Kunal switched to another company but I and Manjit were committed for it. We prepared a business plan and started sending it to venture capitalist / angel-funder across globe. Anuj, (like me he too always excited toward new ideas) joined Manjit’s idea and ultimately idea of portal turned into Qonta. Now all our ideas end up to Qonta and its peripheral. Finally I got an idea which became destination of all other ideas.

“This blog was originally published at myqonta.blogspot.com which was official blog of Qonta”

My First Day @ QONTA

After three good years in kanbay/capgemini (A wonderful MNC to work with, I must say); On 18^th March 08, I resigned in pursuit of entrepreneur excellence. Thanks to God, my parents, Binay bhaiya , Deep and Manjit Singh (Manjit is co-founder of Qonta and my kanbay colleague; in some other blog I would definitely write about how we become friend and then business partners). It’s the power of their support and trust in me that I could take the decision to quit a job which was paying me 700K a year and start my own venture. Some time I feel live is a casino and we all have to bet on it. Well I select 18^th March because it is the same date I joined Kanbay in 2005.

Three years tenure in a pose corporate office having all the modern amenities’ and facilities has definitely brought bad habits of materialist luxury in me. Now to perform well I need clean desk, managed office, hygiene bathroom and a class cafeteria. At least I used to think so.

27 April 08 was my first day in Qonta (my own company and a dream destination), though we inaugurated our office on 3^rd May 08, April last week was time when we were busy setting up things like real estate, hardware, LAN, Legal formalities and other infrastructure. Well I reached office at 9 a.m., Office was a mess, but it looked beautiful to me, I cleaned the floor, pour a bucket of water in the few small plant, planted by our landlord (he ask me to take care of the plants). I light few scented candles for good environment and then open up my laptop to start the work. My laptop was taking its time to starting up the vista and other programs and I was in waiting mode. Then suddenly I felt ecstasy, an indescribable feeling (at least words can’t describe it, it was wonderful), I felt a chilled air in my muscles, appreciation clap by all 206 bones of my body, a sense of accomplishment and on top of it an expectation of challenge to do and learn something unknown but definitely interesting.

I immediately called Manjit and Deep to share this feelings, I can’t live without sharing that is for sure. Later I called my childhood friend Dhananjay Singh (aka Sarkar), a versatile artist by nature and an engineer by profession, when I told him about the incident he suggested me to pen down it, as feelings can’t feel again by remembering the things.

One fine day Manjit come up with the idea of a blog where we will blog all the technical challenges faced while developing the software along with their most effective solution (from our perspective), but later we realize why not blog everything related to Qonta (from technology and management fundas to human emotions and love for contribution toward common goal. So I decided to start with my first day in Qonta as it was not only special it was different too.

“This blog was originally published at myqonta.blogspot.com which was official blog of Qonta”