When we started off, we envisioned two options, either invest seed capital and focus on a product/service OR do the same product/service for clients (service). Both have its pros and cons and not everyone is in a position to do a pure product company without financial backing.

The realization that we had a passion for creating a product or service blurred the difference between creating for our own vs creating for the client. What we have always looked for in the clients is not only their vision, but also an inclination of seeing us as long term partners.

From a concept point of view, the new era of digital marketing and the power of reaching out to a global audience certainly won us over and in course we have developed talent and partners to be able to execute a end – end brand creation and lead generation solution for some of our clients.

The strategy with sticking to a fewer long term clients is serving us very well over the past few months.

Let’s try to understand this problem by working it backward approach.

Who are the people who come and join startups? Answer to this questions is: generally they are one from two type, one those who want to work with startups & understand the prons & cons of it or second those who are not getting job anywhere (major part). The second type of people comes with a mentality to work for the time till they get a break into some big company or whatever they have in their minds.

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When i speak to aspiring entrepreneurs or people with ideas, the first question i always ask them after hearing their pitch is “Are you bold and ready to back up with your idea by giving up everything in order to make it work?”. One of the reasons the answer is not a resounding “YES” is because our culture and maybe our education (Asia) is not designed for entrepreneurship at its roots.

Your Idea may not be absolutely brilliant, but it has to solve a problem or a pain point your target users face today. Just by personal experience i think there is no shortage of good ideas and in general smart people around me were full of good ideas.

Apart from the idea itself , a strong conviction and determination is a prerequisite for anyone thinking of a startup. The next big question is “How are you going to fund your startup idea ? ” Depending on how smart you or your circumstances are you would not only need a 1-2 year financial cushion, but also the stomach to lose the amount of bootstrap money you would personally put into your startup. If you are not putting your own money into your idea, you are demonstrating lack of belief in your own dream!

Don’t necessarily believe the hype that “technology costs are coming down and i will run open source and everything else in the cloud” , since the fun begins after you are through with technology. And the “cloud” you are in will bring you back to earth with a “loud thud”

Note: you would still need to acquire and retain the talent required to pull off your idea. So beg , borrow or sell some of your unnecessary belongings, but have money behind you.

Once you have these prerequisites in place, the journey begins and your life and its priority changes.

I will be discussing the journey of our startup further in the upcoming series of articles. Stay tuned!

• Stand-up meetings every morning
• Weekly round-up meetings
• Monthly one-on-one meetings

Daily Stand-up Meetings

Started from today only, the sole objective of this short meeting is to keep the whole team in sync with what each other is working on. As, in start-ups the teams are generally very small, a strong cohesiveness & co-ordination is required and we think this cannot be achieved if the team-members are not in sync with each others to-do list.

We simply ask three questions to each team member in this short (~15 minute meeting):

1. What he/she accomplished yesterday?
2. What is on his/her plate for today?
3. Any problems he/she is facing in the assigned work?

One more benefit of this is that is becomes easy to co-ordinate & monitor what’s going on each member’s desk.

Weekly Round-up Meetings

We use to send weekly update reports to all our clients on all the items we have finished as well as currently ongoing. This is done individually by the person who is in-charge for a particular project.  Now we have decided to do it internally as a team meeting also so that there are no loop-holes in reporting system and the co-ordination of the projects (as we are a team with some members working from remote locations too, national & international). Co-ordination is a very crucial thing and it becomes bit more difficult when you are a scattered team.

We have been doing weekly meetings on ad-hoc basis but now onwards we will be doing this regularly on weekends. The objective of these meetings will be to track the status of all projects & to check whether everything on track. And if something seems to be in critical situation, immediate attention can be paid.

Monthly One-on-One Meetings

The life in start-up is fun and great adventure for sure, but sometimes there are very critical situations too. And these situations can leave people shaken. And sometimes people are not able to handle the situations, and this can leave hazardous effects on the team members. In start-ups, because it’s a small team we know people well. But, still not everything can be shared in open team meetings (there are always some personal things).

So we decided to do one-on-one meetings with the team mates to know about their problems in work as well as personal (whatever he/she is open to share). And we will certainly help’em to our extent. This monthly meeting with the person will also be his/her performance review as well as counselling session.

Along-with all this we already do fun with team as monthly lunch/outings. In a start-up the team is the most important part, as nobody is doing simply one job but everybody is involved in multiple things. And be believe that the business is because of people only, so it is the most important thing that each and every member is perfectly in a good state of heart & mind, and then only he can contribute his best (which is a must for the start-ups).

I believe that most of the start-ups must be doing this, but still hope this help. It’s worth to give it a try.

Cheers!

……..Michael Gerber

With the inspiration from the above quote “redbytes software” was founded in 2007 (in Hong Kong) by Altaf (after spending 15+ years in IT industry in various roles) with a vision of building an online product and service company, which could do a lot more for the clients, than the current crop of vendors and that too far more effectively & efficiently.

Since inception “redbytes” has achieved lot of milestones moving ahead on the path in sync with its vision, despite of challenges (which are always there in the roads of entrepreneurship, and are necessary too).

In July 2009 “redbytes” shifted its operations to India, leaving only an administrative office in Hong Kong and began to expand with various initiatives of both products & services.

Some of the milestones achieved by the company in its first year of operations in India:

• We are ready with our flagship product “Dash2.0″ - a dashboard based business intelligence tool and decision support system. Product is out in market and we have got some initial clients too.
• We have successfully re-positioned the first flagship product “uShops” – an online market place for a niche market: Handicrafts & Hand-made items.
• We have served more than 10 happy customers and moving ahead. Also started a separate arm for service business: “TechAssistant”

* We are in positive cash flows in our first year of operations in India.

On this completion of successful one year, we organized a small get-together with “redbytes family” – team & clients. Below are some of the captured moments of this events: