Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship

The IncuBiz Saturday Series

To Enterprise

From Inaubation

From Incubation to Enterprise

Saturday January 4, 2003

9:30 am - 17:15 pm

KLMDC
Indian Institute of Management
Ahmedabad
 Incubiz Saturday Series: From Incubation to Enterprise
Program Schedule
Event Description
0930 - 0945 hrs Inauguration
Prof. Dixit to welcome the participants of the workshopand request the
Director, Prof. Bakul Dholakia to inaugurate the workshop.
Address by the Director
prof. Tirupati to highlight CllE activities.

Prof. Dixit to talk the Incu se andoutline the s

0945 - 1045 hrs. Myzus Case presentation
SBsön Chair: Prof. Biju Varkkey and Prof. Ajay Pandey
Prof. Varkkey and Prof. Pandey would make the case prßentation.

1045 - 1100 hrs. TEA BREAK.

1100 - 1200 hrs. Reflections and Reactions on the Case Preentation
Session Chair: Prof. Varkkey and Prof. Pandey

Initiator: Mr. Sandeep Srivastava, CTO, Myzus

Prof. Varkkey and Prof. Pandey would coordinate the case Oscussk)n.

1200 - 1300 hrs. Prøentations by Entrepreneurs

Session Chair: Prof. Rakesh Basant
A presentation by Mr. Kaushal Mehta, CEO, Motif India

A presentation by Hr. Paresh Vasani, M.D., Circuit Systerns

1300 - 1400 hrs. LUNCH BREAK.

1400 —1530 hrs. Panel discussion on Innovation, Incubation and Incubator.
Panel

Prof. Pankaj Chandra (S6sion Chair)

Mr. Bipin Shah, EDI
Mr. Sandeep Srivastava

The panel vvoulddeliberate on a set of quötions before

su estions of other from the audience to deliberate u
1530 —1545 hrs. TEA BREAK
1545 - 1715 hrs. Panel discussion on Enterprise Building.
Panel Members:

Prof. M.R. Dixit (Session Chair)

Prof. Neharika Vohra
Mr. Chirag Patel, Founder, Chief Nut, Net4Nuts
questions
The panel would deliberate on a pre-decided set of
ons of other to from the audience to deliberate u
1715 - 1720 hrs Integration of the day's discussions
Prof. Dixit would i
1720 - 1725 hrs Looking Forward
ti on lookin forward from the ram.
Prof. Ti
 Trial case. DO Not copy, distribute OrqtX)te.

MyZus Infotech Ltd.

Abstract:
born in the
Myzus Infotech(Part A) case describesthe transformationof an idea,
students Mr.
hostel rooms of 11TMumbai (IITB) into a business proposition.11TB
business plan
Sandeep Srivastavaand Mr. Roshan D'Silva joined hands to write a
Sandeep had good grasp over
(BP) for the 11TB- BP competition called Eureka 2000.
good
computertechnologyand Roshanhad an eye for business. The latter nurtured
11T
network among entrepreneurs, alumni and venture capitalists whom he
learned about the nuances of running a business in a dot.com th wanted to
o •ately.
becomeentrepreneurs,but Roshan was more inclined to ven
Sandeep wanted to pursue higher studies abroad and gain
starting off by himself.

Along with another11TBstudent, Roshan had parti in ur 1999. However,

their entry did not reach the final stage. The defeat shans' resolve to win
and he convinced Sandeep who was known co and over computer
technologyto partner with him for the on. They zeroed on the
idea to create a mother portal to aggregate planned to offer it as a
downloadablesolution to email users. U th ernail users could access
multiple e-mail accounts using a single Sandeep had developed a related
application for firn during his first The application brought him fame
among the student community, but of 11Tcomputer center had to
warn him for the side effects it Eureka 2000 entry was judged as the
best and they won the cash aw prize. A famous entrepreneur who viewed
their presentationin the com •ti impressed by the work and gave them a
personalprize. ne angel investor indicated willingwss to finance
them, if they decided to o a business.

While the thrill the prize money were prime motivators while
preparing for the mpetl n, subsequent encouragement from 11Tfaculty, investors
and successfill ho were entrepreneursled them to enter the information
technology at IITB. Around that time, 11TB had started an
incubator ed the KanwalRekhi Schoolof InformationTechnology(KReSIT).
•ded them with physical space, basic infrastructureand some
degree of requiredto startup. It also helped to develop a sense of one-ness
among the loyees and they enjoyed working there. They received moral and
intellectual support from Prof. Deepak P Pathak who was coordinating the incubator.
However, opinion arnong 11TBs academic community about the incubator and
allowing B.Tech students to incubate startups were divided. Access to fundingand
responsibilities of managing a start-up caused lack of attention to studies and
perceptible change in lifestyles and hence a section of faculty opposed the idea.
 Trial case. Do Not copy,distribute or quote.

MyZus was given flesh and lifeline in the incubator. They recruited 11TBstudents as
ernployees and promised thern above market average compensation and stock options. Trial Case —Do not copy, distribute or quote. Indian Instnute of Managerrmt,
With a skeleton team in place, they worked to attract investors, develop the product Vas&apur,Ahrnedabad-380015
and attract prospectiveclients. Meanwhile, the original Eureka idea had evolved into a •
MyZus Infotech Ltd.: Pur*Jit ef an Idea (A)
content aggregation portal for mobile telecom operators. MyZus was registered as a
private limited company in March 2000 and they secured angel finding of Rs. 24 •Startingand runninga companythroughthe good and bad times of dotcomshas taught us a bt
million against dilution. After few months of working in the incubator, they In retrospect, inside the four walls of the incubator we were very comfortable, though we used to
moved out to a leased propertyin upmarket—residential area and recruited more cnb about everything and anything. Soon after we moved out of the we realized that
employees to meet their developmentneeds. New recruiünent and shift from the life outside was tougher.
MyZustaught me a lot....partzutadythe irnpManæ of people and keeping
incubator introduced them to the chaile.ngesOf project management, employee relationships. Withoutright people in your company you cannot anything. am convinced.
management and coordinatinga larger organization. They had to directly interface Not to rnention.my expertise in making power point Vesentations are a bt beffer mw.-
with Otherexternal interfaces like governmeat bodies, banks etc. er, many such Extracts frMt1the presentation made ndeep (Sandy)
interfaces issues were taken care by 11TB.New recruitment also uced the need Chief Technology Officer . MyZus
for training.ifi technical domains, since the skills required by M rare in the At a mrkshop on Technology Business Incubation.September 1. 11TBombay
open market and recruits lacked the skills. Such issu Y people is rnover. Any
managementrequired considerabletime and attention Of •An effepreneur should be ready a long adoptbn curve
ot and senior technologyintensive product may not have ready takers. I it way.
team members and caused the product devc!opment g to lag behind We had to tell that we were serious and that they th people to test the
schedule. product. It is essential for you to have a reference custorner is w you.
The only way to convince people to leave andjoin isto I• in whatyou and
The global economicrecession and dotcom burst •
000 e it diffcult for the be able to convinceothers about your vision.
Weare confidentof doing US $ 15 millbn by touchdose to US $ 10
company.the marketconditionswere not fa le sin mobile operatorswere mDIionnext year. •
passing through a diff cult time. At the end of year, MyZus was unable to open
the revenue stream as it had projected. ugh •ti response of cellular mobile Extracts from in December 2000 by Rßhan
Ex and Co-founder. MyZus
operators to their product was ve, they diffculties to convert the Strategist. Business Standard. June 10, 2001.
interest into real business. Prospective ers were hesitant to commit to a hi-tech
product from a start-up, without •o experience or client. Since the On the Sunday morningof 8 April 2001 Officer (CEO) Mr. Roshan D'Si1va (Age:
prospective clients indicated that ey 23 Years) and Chief Technology (CT r. ndeep Srivastava (Age: 22 years), the co-
additional features along with the foundersof MyZus Infotech Ltd. lied of all employees. The meeting w•asto
promised core product, MyZ ed ditional and allocated resources ponderabout the futureof their p , wh was conceived in the hostel rocyns of Indian
(mostly people) to add on d process strained the development Of Instituteof Technology Bombay ( (wym.iitb.ac.in) while both founders were
core module. students of the B.Tech

One week back. ie.. on 30 Ma 001. the first years performanceof MyZus (March 2000 -
In additionto documentingth experiencesof a company incubatedin an academic March2001) was depth. review assessed the progress on product and business
environment,the a ecision situation before the readers. MyZus, at the development efforts d de ed the sustainabilityof currentlevel of operationswith the help of
end of first year nted with high bum rates without any real business deal or committed angel fu ing e bum rate2 of MyZus had peaked to Rs.l.l millionper month
revenuestream in t. without any positive inn , eventhoughRs. 3 millionwas projectedas revenue in the first
e the initial finding was suffcient to carry them through
a few more performancetill now was a cause of concernfor the
promoters the vestor.
• Case h s BW Varkkey Nay of of
financiaI frorn 'tm 11M fra•n at Myas
InfotechPvt Ltd. KLmtalShah is ackrwde#d.

Teadlhg materialOf Of ManaF-vent. rOM1 Casæare

desÉned to present Ofemer Ofproblems.

Prof Biju Varkkey and Prof Ajay Pandey, Faculty rnembersof Indian Instituteoi Management. 11M 2002
have developed the case. Seed money for the project has been provided by Centre re%rsto ov hvestnent a by an (arpd ur*e venue
for Innovation, and Entrepreneurship(CllE) at 'IMA (VC) whidl usuany by a frm by haveam POhd
hvesbrs bokhg for retu•ns.
The authors acknowledge tle co-operation received from the promoters and team members of bcrn rÜ. It
In a start-cocontext. rate at wNd1 tie expenses
MyZus Mr. Kuntal Shah, representative of the angel investor. Several faculty members of 11M, amount Of
survive revenue steam hr a
specifically rnembersof CllE to this exercise provided critical feedback at various
 year. The angel investor3, who funded MyZus, was uncomfortablewith their performance.
particularlyfailures on productand business developmentfronts. The company was yet to open time. Fair proportionof employees
At the peak (March2001), MyZus had 42 peopleworkingfull most in the team. But by March
revenue stream and all they had was a commitmentfrom one mobile telephoneoperatorfor a were engineers from 11TB.The promoterswere youngerBy than
then. MyZus had filed for one US
pilot project, billed at less than cost. 2001, Roshan and Sandeep faced a differentscenario. The dot.com bubble had burst, the global
patent on proprietary technology developed in-house s.
Roshan opened the meeting by saying, "These are difficulttimes. Even though we still have were having a bad time. MyZus had
economy had slipped into recession and Indian businesses mobile telephoneoperators(using GSM
unutilized funds, how long will it last dependents on the bum rate and the commercial success of focussed its business development efforts on Indian
our product.In our review with the angel investor on March 30. we had identifiedthe areas of planned to tap global markets later?. The US markets were kept out since it
standards6) and MyZus was confident of developingapplicationsin
concern and promisedthatnecessary actions would be taken in the next six months.We have to operatedon COMA standards, even though
implementersor resellers for other
re-examine our working and get back to the investor with concrete plans about future. Our already decided against being just
COMA. They had
sustenance is contingent upon the initiatives we take." companies.

MyZus was a startupcompanythat was builton the 'idea' behinda softwarep ram Mitten for mobile service operators had reached owhere. Product
By March 2001. sales efforts with Indian kept on adding features a Rered the initial
fun in the computer science laboratory Of 11TB.in•early 1999. The dotcom h was at the peak developmentwas also incornpleteas MyZus with potential
during that time and stories of tech-wizkid? (including many 11Talum ed billionaires product definition itself, based on interactions to pay-off, despite initial
ovemightby cashing on theirdotcomswere pactbf 11Tfolklore.The business version of the achieved in terms of prototyping had failed
the capability of the young tea ut Ck record
'idea' won the-first prize at "Eureka 2000". the ennual business plan o ITB held in Prospective clients were skeptical about
lly ere was no
•on).Around application and their own ability to exploit i
February 2000 (Exhibit 1 summarizes the business plan presented th to deliver a sophisticated
showcased. MyZus npreparedfor SLAS
that time, 11TB had started the pilot infonnation tectY1010gybusiness bator (Exhibit 2) with benchmark client with MyZus, who could be to negotiate with clients.
(Service Level Agreements) and Bank Guarantees required
financial support from alumni. ag . for of references. One
Some clients wanted the product almostfree and MyZus to develop similar
into reality. The detailed technical proposal and commissioneda
With help frorn the incubator.the prize winning båéiness p was of them took ush the promoters to rethink
promotersnamed the startupMyZus after an aphid: ing to the University applicationat lower cost. The performanceof MyZus th
of FloridaBook Of Insects. Myzus PUsicae is an insect t fromplantsand is found their strategies.
all around the world. It has the capability to survive i and varying conditions, and is
considered very resilient. Sandeep *rivastava and The Idea
The genesis of the idea behind MyZus was a p n Sandeep Srivastava in early 1999.
The two promoters, Sandeep and Roshan who still ts at .11TB,started the company by
Sanoeep was then a 19 year-old student of g •ng (B.Tech. Computer Science) at 11TB.He
recruiting fellow 11Tstudents by promising yment. a.geek lifestyle and stock options at a was attracted to computers and technology
later stage. The incubator became their offi p cti&n shop and living quarters. Prof. Deepak hailed from a middle class family frornLuckn
from his school days. His short-terma Tech, was to pursue higher studies in
P Pathak, Head of Kanwal Rekhi Teghnology (KReSlT) and coordinator of
computerscience in the US. foll by e with a technologyfirm. By end Of the
ui . MyZus was registeredin March2000 as a
the incubator was their friend. philosop er an e US niversitiesto apply for higher studies. He
privatelimitedcompany and secu . 24 lion funding (approx. US $ 600.000 at the then second year he had almost iden
nursed a desire to be on his ater ge in life, but after acquiring financial security.
prevailing exchange rate) from a in or for 10% dilution.After six months in the ha ' ilva, one-year senior to Sandeep at IlTB and his
incubator,they decided to scale- through additional recruitment from non-IIT Plans howeverchanged when Mr.
hostel-mate came searching rtnerfor Eureka 2000.
sources. Subsequently, My out of the incubatorto a leased office in Hiranandani
n of Mumbai.
Gardens. a commercial-cum-resi
During the initialeuphoriaand h of dotcoms. business models were generally built around
order attract surfers. promised them prizes/gifts linked to
the
•The new omce•, acco Sand . •was deliberately Chosen to be close to 11TB.One of the eyeballs 8. Some questions
incu torwere like our family. We kept falling back on 11Tfor numberof visits. Surf h logon and performpredefinedactivitieslike answering the site,
reasons was that 11Tand win rizes. That necessitated performing steps like visitingMany 11TB
everything, be it ad on ology or for a referral. The facts that MyZus was an 11TB at frequent intervals
were 11T•studentsbecame good door openers.
• entering user-id, ord a d performingthe desired activity. during each visit. Sandeep
incubated compan a net users of that time, also participated in such contests. He was
students. like his friends.
Business T . in i 10 anniversaryissue (June 6, 2001), named MyZus as one among the also did not nt to the excitement of winning prizes and freebees like required for
high ech startup'. According to the write-up,'Marketingisnt exactly easy not comfortab with time consumed. and repeated number of visits to the sites a 'PERL'
the process. He wrote
MyZus) when co comprises Openwave (formedby the merger of Phone.com and winning.He de ed explore the possibilityof automating programlogged
), Nokia. Ericsson. and Siemens.' The write-up continued, 'MyZus hopes program, which d y with the need for manual and repeated operations. The
Software.com in task of participatingin contests,
to end its first full year of operationswith revenues of $1.5 million."The challenge for us is to to the Intemet sit on behalf of Sandeep and executed the
scored high enough points to win gifts and
engage with a potentialcustornereariy so that we can sell him the entireplatform."says Silva. quizzes etc.. according to predefined rules. Soon, he
But smaller cornpanies may find it easier to create and market innovativeapplicationsand applatbn ns fim
analysts' point out that killer applications are likely to bring in more revenues than plaffoms. WIth patent(thatmmbhed bom
Tir»ugh they had devebped tw•otechnobgies. only one India operate GSM. COMA
muntrÉs.
both a platformand several applicationsgoing for them, though,the duo are hoping to make 6 Mobile telephme operates on tv,o sundards.
GSM and COMA.
first
COMA sbMards also. tus making
MyZus mean not just resilience, but scalability'. is the US and South Korea.
where both standards could be used. plan was
was for desktops. After MyZus w•as
3 Terms of agreanent MyZus denity of the angel mestor to any hird parm The angel here is a 7 The business plan presented in Eureka 2000
NRI based UK, invests in Shah. a application to mobie teleØm serviæs. of or
web-sm whidl were consZered as
represents him in Indh. Kuntal is also a rnember of he board of MyZus. 8 Number of hits or visits generated on a
was given 2000. suæess Of a web-site.

3
2
prizes from various dotcoms.The programand Sandeep became popularamong studentsand he Jagdeesh etc. The message from them was always •youguys should start-offon your own'.
shared the program with hostel mates. Subsequently. many 11Tiansreceived gifts using the Rakesh Mathur felt that •probabdityof success as a tech start-up is inversely proportionalto the
program. It also led to crash of the proxy server of IITB due to excessive traffic generated by distance from Silicon Valley'. I also learned from him, that success in the Internetworld was for
automated logons. The servers of some of the dotcom companies promoting such competitions ideas that saved people time and money. Techfest 98 went off smoothly and I was appointedone
was one Of the sites affected) also crashed in the process. The computer Of the core group members for organizing Techfest 99. I was in two minds. Ultimately, I did not
science department constituted an intemal inquiry and the professor in-charge assigned the task •
take it up as it meant doing same things all over again.
of identifying the culprit to Sandeep. Sandeep recalled.
with a hostel mate and friend,
Roshan moved out of all organizing responsibilities and teamed
•PERL is a difficultlanguage generally used by geeks to develop complex applications.The which was introduced for
Arjun Nair. They entered Eureka 1999, the business plan competition
program had some elements of Artificial Intelligence built in and it participatedin the contests to provide web based online
the first time as part of Techfest 99. Their plan was based on an idea
according to the rules I defined. Initially, I had shared it with my hostelmates who in-tum shared it services to the health sector in US. Their service could do away with the need for medical
with others. Soon the postmanwas visiting 11TBhostels with loads of packets containingprizes round itself.
transcription.The plan failed to make any impact and was eliminatedin the first just
Mathur. ad sold his
like mousepads, T-shirts, wrist watches, alarrn clocks etc. Some Of the dot s went to town During interactions with the panel of judges that included Rakesh
about their high hit rates, knowing little that the hits were bogus. Incid lly from a dating venture Jung!eeæm, they were told that Jim Clark (of Netscape fame) ha Iready started a
site, I won an all expenses paid dinner date with a female model. I am still •n for it". company. Healtheon on similar lines. The experience made him
business plans
without proper market awareness were useless.
did confess to the professorwho gave me a dressing down. By then stu community
knew about the program and I issued an appeal to delete it. After •nci enti I not venture "After the competition.we asked Rakesh for an appointment'. lized that both Arjun
into any new experiment.However. as part of 11TBcourse work, I on some technology spent time talking to us and was very encouraging. On introspection. t a team has to have
intensiveprojects. One of them was to develop a central auth em for 11TB(during and me had similar strengths and we reinforced each other. I
d in with people and
1999); similarto MicrosoftPassport that came in 2000. Later, did roj on web community diversity of skills among the promoters.Both of us were
data mining, called Memex. The project guide encouraged m to con is project into a joint hardselling the idea. but areas like technology remained weak.
paper for publication in a foreign refereed joumal. Event oped at a MNC would pick the
ferred. tionalpublicationwas Despite being eliminatedin the first round of Eureka 1 o to stay
idea for commercialization,the publicationidea was e entrepreneurs had made it
valuablefor US admissions." about starting a company. "The competition and in
reakto
clear that the idea should be unique. I decided to take some background work. One
of the key challenges was to understandwhat es a iness plan-. To get a first hand
Go-feundec; Roshan Q' Si(va the ate equity arm of HSBC Bank at
experience of venturecapital funding, Rosha oi
) Electrical Engineering student of 11TBwhen Bahrain for an informal internship during M ly 1999. The bank was investing in technology
Roshan D'Silva, was a final year (4myear of manager to evaluate business plans. There,
Eureka 2000 happened.He came from an N 'ly of working professionals. His parents were ventures and the assignment was to assist
Hydro. Roshan was schooled in Qatar a Harvard Business School alumnus im personally. mentored him. He also
based in Qatar for 30 years and father the new venture capitalists entering India.
and he joined 11TBin 1996. According him: introduced Roshan to other Harvard al 'cu
•This internshipgave me exposureo valua g proposals and separating •unique' ones frorn
'me too'. At the end of internship, that a •newidea' was absdutely necessary.
"As a child I wanted to be •the late an astronaut After joining 11TB,the thoughtof
Id not see myself working for •a Rs,15000 per When I returned to 11TBin August 1 rities had changed. At that time. when everybody
setting up my own company sunk i mpus placements, G RE scores and recommendation
month job and I started dreami ing it big. My parents supported the idea. else in my batch was wo t
letters, I was keen to start som - g
Roshan got involved withthe alu i activitiesof 11TBin the first year itself. The active alumni lists initially hesitant to fund India based companies, their
network helped him to his desire to start a new enterprise. Success stories Of Even though venture
and interactions with them reinforced his dream. He was also approach changed b mid ny VCs had set up offices and started investing in India
the alumnifrom Sili n Va bu esses became the subject of discussion and media coverage.
involved in starting a nform group of like-minded students, which later became a student club based ventures. Dot
Il'. They organized events, where entrepreneursand venture Back at 11TB,Roshan tinu to maintain his contacts with entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.
for entrepreneurship led
Silicon Valley) were invited for interactions. Entrepreneurs like through email s based in Mumbai had started regular dinner meetings for
capitalists ( nd •ng notes. They formed an electronic discussion group
Rakesh M un lee. Nandan Nilekani (of !nfp$F), and B.V Jagdeesh (of networking
indiaentrepre hoogroups.com. where membership was throughreferrals or invitation.
ExodY$.GQm) e of the visitors. In Roshan's words:
ular attendeeto online and offline meetings of the group, after B V
mate excuse to mail entrepreneursand invitethem to campus. If an email Jagdeesh introd him. There. he met many venture capitalists and entrepreneursand
"The club was a tacts with personal meetings. While Roshan was interestedin inputsfor a
carried a header 'From 11TBombay student. the sender was definiteto get a reply from ex followedup the
11Tians.Whenever they visited India they took time to visit 11TBand interact with students. The startup. many VCs offered him employment as technology analyst
institute also encouraged it." turning point.
According to Roshan. Eureka 2000 poster in the hostel bulletin board acted as the
was in the same
During second year Of B.Tech, Roshan got acfively involved in the organizing committeeOf 'The announcement came and I wanted a tech person to team up with. Sandeep evening. It
to his roomone
'Tech-Fest 98', anotherstudentmanaged event startedat 11TB,that year. Tech Fest 98 had an hostel and was knownas a 'stud9 in technology.I just walked over
board."
entrepreneurshipworkshop for students. Roshan recalled his experiences of Tech Fest, took me 5 hours of convincing and a week of wait to get him on

•I got to work closely withthe alumniand otherentrepreneurs,who came down for Tech Fest.
Many of them were millionaires and •posterboys' of the dotcorn world like Rakesh Mathur, B.V. 9 Carnpus Ihgo a student(also faculty) be an expert a

5
4
 Eureka 2000 - The Business Plan Competition

The most critical part was to develop an attractive business plan for the competition.Prior 'MyZus was conceptualized to deliver innovative and useful sdutions that would upgrade a typical
Internet users online experience taking advantage of the prolferation of websites, lots of which
experience had taught Roshan that prize-winningideas had to have an India focus, to pass the
preliminaryrounds where 11TBfaculty judged the project. At the final Stage, the Silicon Valley
offerproprietarycontentwhichhave theirownbenefits and drawbacks.Ourmissionis to facamate
crowd valued global focus. In Roshan•swords, "We wanted to create a business plan thatwould people in spending as little time as possible on the Internet withoutcompromisingon the
Informationthey see or Other benefits they might accrue through it's use. We have tried
win the prize. We knew that popular ideas like selling CDs over the net would not work with implementingthe softwareon a LINUXplatformfor simplersites that dont incorporatesecurityor
faculty, since it was too low on technology.The aim was to make an attractiveplan, and we sat
down to identifythe ingredientsfor a winning business plan. That time. we did not think beyond
winning." Detailing the idea further, the business plan illustrated the potential application as-
The two came up with a list of qualities for a winning business plan 'A casual survey of Internetusers throwsup two major itemsof feedback fromusers. Firstly, 'it's
too slow'and secondly 'a lot of time is spent everyday injust visitingthe same s and logging
1. Should be a global business, but based in India, but not India centric. never wanted to into the same placesand then spendingsome time Clicking'be&e getting actualcontent
start an Indian version of anything". that users want to see. Another observationis that rnost websites provide witha login.In
2. Should not require partnership with big players. "We did not feel any big would partner the process the user'SInternetexperience gets sloweddowntremendously. . most users
with us•. given the choice wouldprefer it if on typing the URL: ere directly
3. Technology oriented company. •That's the strength of 11Tstu W did skills in taken to their Inbox withouttyping in their username, password n ng on check
marketing etc." mailinbox.Our softwarewillto a certain extent help in doing On downloadingand
4. Low initial investment. •we should be able to start from n if no one was willing installingour software,the user willhave to give it his password sitesthat he uses as
to invest". wellas the URLsof other sites and It willfetch content into He willbe able
5. Potential to compete with big players. "We felt that if we ab reaten a large player, to read a summaryof contentat these sites and on clickingn a p entry willbe taken
then we would be an attractive acquisition target" directlyto the relevant section. The only exception will be fetchedin entiety
intoa consolidatedInbox. For e.g. An ex-llTn from bay I •
ashingtonwillbe able to
After rounds of brainstorming,the concept Of automa the Interface with web-sites and see at a glance the headlinesat The Washington , The mes of India and the M'hat's
contentaggregation to enhance its usabilitybecame sic i for the business planll . They New?" page at wwnw.iit>ombavgg.On finding somethi he can &ectly clickon it and
proposed to develop a front-endapplication re ent aggregation in the desktop willtake him to the relevant article section. I this saved the timeof visftingthree
environment, which would make Internet rie Y• Idea came from Sandeep's earlier differentwebsites and searching for content Il them. practice we feel thata typiæl user
program that became popular among 11T winning prizes from dotcoms. Experience visits 10-15 websites famy regularly and he saves by usingour softwarewd/be
indicated that the idea had worked.

is networkof VCs and dotcompromoters, The business plan conceived fructifica • of n the of freely downloadable software
For developingthe business plan. R
while Sandeep concentrated on nolog Roshan sent blind emails to entrepreneurs from the net to desktops. in line wi ular ds such as ICQ. At a broaderlevel, MyZus
introducingtheir intentionsand ad . Encouraging replies came from the likes of was conceived to be a content del' net around the world. The two won the first prize
Vtnod Khosla (founderof Sun Micros t itch Kapoor (founderof Lotus) etc. Their general in Eureka 2000. that included a cash prizeof Rs. 25,000.The offerof US $
S. While some faculty appreciated their efforts, the two 600.000 fundingfor the pro• e same night. on behalfof an angel investor.Few VCs
advice was to start the com
ents devoting time to such activities. To balance the also showed interest. Thrilled. th public presentation of the business plan to a crowd Of
recalled that a section was ag
business plan development activiti that demanded 4 to 5 hours Of daily attention with attendant 300 plus 11Tstudents' 3. All that on February 27, 2000.
academic commitmen . han Iberately took the final semester project with a not so
demanding ('cool') fa lty. Roshan recalled a ora incident after the prize was announced, •Impressed by the quality
of presentation, B.V J who was one of the judges gave us a personal gift of Rs. 1500. In
"First of all. I did not India was going to be a China and India centric portals had great fact, he borrowedthe ey the founderof a companyhe hadjust investedin. I don'tthink
future." Rosh ur role models were portals like Yahoo, Google, Alta Vista, Excite he was im a, but wanted to encourage us. In fact, he asked us to be careful, if
etc. We did want be the Amazon for India. The intention behind mailing entrepreneurs was we were to of the other judges however, advised us to go ahead.'
two fold, get tip and if possible attract investrnent.•
Starti M zu
The core idea re around a super portal for aggregating multiple ernail accounts to a single
point by using 12to pull the content. (The free email account rush was on and every student Two days later, of them walked across to Prof. Pathak who was in charge of the incubatorto
tied
had multiple email addresses. which they found difficult to manage. At that time, POP discuss about the next step. Two startups were already in the incubator and one of them had in
department. and
compatibility was not widely available). Later in the course of interactions with entrepreneurs, B V up VC funding. The meeting with Prof. Pathak happened in the corridor of the incubator. he
Jagdeesh told them that their idea was broadly similar to a portal (wv.w.yoodle.com)being Sandeep's words. •Even before we could tell him about our interest to join the
• On March 5. 2000, a vacant faculty room was
chided us for making a public presentation.
developedby him for aggregating multiplebank accounts to a single point.The idea, as outlined though the incubator had promised 5 PCs, the delay in getting
them
in the business plan submitted for Eureka 2000, was allotted to MyZus. Even

10
of be pranoters Rans 1 - 5, are given wülin 13 business plan cornpetitionwas a a%ir bem judges and other invitees, including prospective
public presentationby teams, but was
Beas disassed web-basedtest systemfor etc. hvestors. The organizers had made arrangement after
Roshan were only bam tiat
Hyper Text

6
 forced the startup to purchase PCs with funds from the angel investor14.Even though the angel full-time
investor's offer was there, they decided against immediately accepting it and started scouting for (Mid-Mayto Mid4uly) '"th Rs. 10.000 per month as stipendi7 and were promised
position, if found suitable. As the entire team including promoterswere students (Sandeep was in
betterdeals withotherVCs. The first 15 days were spent in engaging withthe angel investorand office objectedthe summer
other potential investors, valuation and recruitment from 11TB.•Those days were hectic", Sandeep the thirdyear and Roshan was completingthe course), placement •we were toldthatunder
words
recalled, •we barely managed to attend few classes and rushed back to the incubator." internship of junior students under senior students. In Roshan's
and so the deal was off. It was a major
11TBrules students cannot do internship under students product development and for collecting
for
The best business plan award, Roshan's relationshipwith VCs, alumni and the HSBC contact blow to our plans. We had planned to use the interns
•
market information.
helped them to develop the idea further. Though for Eureka 2000 the •productscope' was
restricted to desktop environment.after research and discussions with VCs and the angel partnership status at later stage to ensure their
The four student employees were promised recruit more ex-llTians working elsewhere,
investor,it was enlarged to include mobile devices like phones. notebooks,palmtopsetc Later, commitment. Simultaneously. efforts were made to
they dropped desktop applications and anchored the business plan around mobile devices 'S. Shift promotershad realized that venture
specifically in mobile and net-technologydomains. The of 11Tengineers as employees. Alumni
to mobile devices meant that the application software should be able to aggregate content over capitalists and prospective customers valued the
presence
differentchannels (Voice. WAP, Internetetc.) and devices (Mobile phones, otebooks etc.). used to invite experienced plicants with IIT
mailing lists and referrals from friends' etc. were domain. Through contact, an 11TB
Using the software,their customers could define whichever content (E-mail URLs etc.) they (B.Tech) qualification and experience in technology
wanted to aggregate and obtain it through delivery medium Of their choice. Infotech Ltd. was identified and was convinced t n company.
graduate working for ICICI
the job, but wanted Yba the annual
They also faced questions from VCs about the impact of intell related to According to Sandeep, "Faizaan was unhappy with Bonuses. a g ICICI otech rules,
contentcopyrights,somethingthey had overlookedat the presenta ta . The e arose as performance bonus was disbursed during April/May.
employmenton the of bonus declaration
to whether pulling content from the net in user-defined form would be •onof copyright laws. were given only to those employeeswho wereaingood payout. a convince Faizaan to
VCs were concerned about the legal liabilityfor MyZus. if ders sued them for and Faizaan, a star performer was expecting
startup like MyZus. We the t d salary (Rs.35.OOO
copyrightviolation.MyZus had the choice betweentaking legal bil or passing it to the leave the secure job and join a
The fact that his g• wa •l a student at 11TBalso
client. The VCs wantedthatto be clarified upfront.The incuba vas t a positionto arrange per month) and promised stock options.
hard re supplier to 11TBwas
legal advice. hence the prornotershad to seek legal opi their . At a later stage they workedas an incentive. In addition, a technician workin m him as he had installed
contacted, through Kuntal. solicitors M/S. Nishith and tes for advice. The legal hired for hardware maintenance at Rs. 5000 per
t the copyright point of view. incubator. The supplier was unhappy us for Ing him away." The inclusion
indicated that acknowledgement of source was hardware at the
jecti raised by the placement cffice.
of Faizaan as Project Managerhelped to overcome
By end March 2000. they moved to the loca 11TBto temporallyhouse the Summer interns were kept under his supervision.
incubator. The incubator provided the physical and m rurnuminfrastructureto develop the
in 11TBcampus helped to draw the necessary The initial team forrnation(2 promoters+ 7 ents (4 fuu-timeand 3 interns)+ 1 hardware
idea into a commercial proposition. IVs locati infrastructurecreation vas completedby end
human resources and intellectualsupport I itself. The advantage of sourcing 11Tbrains, person + 1 alumni+ 1 research assistant) an by size
s point before VCs. The first core team of April 2000. The interns however joined ay. employee strength was
both of students and faculty, worked as
MyZus consistedof 11TBstudents.'W thou Stu tswill do a good job and we will be more of incubationspace. The developmen team on the commercial prototypeof the idea,
cornfortable dealing with them". sa- eep. or recruitrnent,he emailed his batchmatesand defined as content aggregation serv d ble time was devoted for product specifications
seniors invitingapplications.Si of •ngfor a technologystart-upwhile studying and detailing the core idea at that
appealed to students,the response good. Further discussions with candidates took
By end June. with inputs capitalists. 11TB faculty and the angel investor. the
place in the incubatoror host
business model was anchored ile applications.The business development strategy
August 2000
At that time.dotcomcraze had ca ht up in the campus like wildfire.By April 2000, there were proposedto focus on Indianmobi operatorsat first and then spread across. Bymanagers. All
around 50 startup i pursu by the students. However, opinion among the faculty was more ex-llTians from nies Il I-flex and Savvion had joined as project
stock options.
divided. Some of the bel that the mandate Of 11Tswas strictly academics and research, recruits had superior echn I skills. MyZus matched their salary and promised who came
and business in cam s wa jectionable.Others believed that institutehad a role to promote One non-llTian was ptak n, an entrepreneur and college dropout from Kolkata,
wealth creation and h in bator was welcome. Roshan remembered, •The concem of faculty into contact with San eep the net. The student interns continued to work part time once
between
was about asses and divertingattentionfrom studies. We made sure that classes start Il-time employment were expected to manage their time
none workin My missed classes. It was OK for me in the fourthyear. But Sandeep was not classes and Zus l .
so He problems with %culty. •
Life in the Incu or
By end March. th confident about funding by VCs or the angel investor. Though they did to be ready. 11TBhoused the incubator
not have much ey in hand, they recruitedfour IlTB studentswho were among the top ten in Since the perma nt buildingfor the incubatorwas yet the start-ups were allotted empty faculty
in the department Of physics building. Initially
ComputerScience branch. The recruits were offeredRs.35,000 16per monthas salary, without temporarily
cubicles. Each cubicle was allottedto a
any other benefits. Three third year students were Offered summer internship for two months offices and later shifted to a hall partitionedinto five janitorial services etc., were provided
startup. Support services like power, telephone connection,
moved in at a stage when 11TB had not yet finalized the terms of incubation
by 11TB.Startups policies and systems for its functioning. Under
including modalities for stake holding of 11TB. and
The angel interestin plan. extended telp on condiion that if tie deal doesn't go
trough, be
the sane amount
Beüe angb invesbr agreed, bur successive versbns of business plan developed. paid summer hternship at 11TB.Inhsys a
MyZus worked round the any off days or holdays.
withot_n
18The incubabr was open for 24 and
16
salary fixed at Rs.30,OOO per searity guard was outside the btMng. movenwnt was

9
8
 the 11TBstatute, it was prohibitedfrom holding shares and hence holdings were to be routed
The promoters Of
through the 11TBombay Heritage Fund, promoted in US
stocks to the fund. Selected
the incubatedstartupswere expected to donate 5% of the startup attracted lot of media attention. Reporters and TV
start-ups were given only a verbal authorization by Prof. Pathak to move in. Since the incubator was promoted by 11TB,it student entrepreneurs celebrity status in
crew landed at the incubator frequently and the
MyZus in a special program aired at prime tirne.
In Sandeep's words, "Life in the incubatorwas lot of fun and very chaotic. Everybody did campus and student circles. ZEE TV featured
were referred to by the media as future bilfionaires
a writing table and couple
everything. Physically it was a 300 square foot room with a few chairs, titled 'Night Riders.' The student entrepreneurs colleges to address students aban
invited by local
ruled the dotcom world. For
of computers.We tried to make it resemble the garage setups that from that room. Our hostel and as role rnodelsfor youth. They were letters from different parts of the world became a
the next few months we worked. slept and •wrote class assignments entrepreneurship. Fan mails and congratulatory and Roshan were invited to GC2K, the
winners of Eureka 2000, Sandeep
rooms were used only for changing clothes. regular feature.As Stanford University for winners of business plan
business plan competition organized by
the organizers had offered to pay for their air travel
The team was totally unprepared for managing a formal organization. particularly the competitions from different countries. Though Myzus 19. Though they did no compete for tl•e
had to work and Sandeep paid it frorn
administrative side. While IlTB promised some support for Ofte management from India. Roshan "was memorable.We met a of student and
aroundwith the administrativesetup to avail them. According to Roshan, had to wait for prize. •theexperience".according to Roshan, talking big money. Our six mil
Il administration entrepreneurs. Everybody was
three monthsto get a telephoneconnectionat the incubator.Working Silicon Valley
asking for US $ 50 million upwards first tranche
was difficult. but we managed, though it involved lot of running around." ant compared to other projects that were don't do business outside
of funding. US based VCs told us that they
The team had a very unorganized working style that resembled h el life Class mates in the list of •Ten
6. 2001) that
and friends parked themselves in the office (as the room was air cond r and "it was difficult Anotherrecognitionwas by Business Today, (Junetechnologies gumptbn make them
t resentatives dropped Indian tech hothouses whose products, services,
to ask them out so that we can work', Roshan recollected. by 11TB th Cs e promoters had to
in. it was rather embarrassing to take them to a room with le o p eeping on the floor winners of tomorroW. Due to the visibility provided of PR. Satish
thrilled to see that much time attending to journalists and TV crew. Rear •ng
and a wet towel and mop hanging on the door. But VCs and umali spend
college dropout was hired from a public agen . He was a colleague of
and at times we made the roomlook shabby for presen Food was a strictno in Vijay Kumar. a test in English (free test
Faizaan's sister and according to Roshan. •we gave h'
a
the office, since we did not trust the rats Of 11TB. was t parency about what we and energy rnade us hire
corner , but he failed to clear it.
discussed in the room because everyone could hear a discuss• s. We designated each ofEM-eæi.nbencbæm)
of the room for a specific activity.like one comer for anotherfor administration etc. him". Satish was also responsible for HR and office
Everybody participated in every discussion in it distracted others who were 5 per annum job offer from Delliote
working. We had to go out to discuss any co I ma On the personal front. Sandeep rejected the S $ 11TBcampus and decided against pursuing
Consulting.one of the most sought after at
higher studies in US. Roshan had optedout ca
placementsand decided against his plans
The incubator. according to Roshan gave the mbers the •company feer and a jump-start job offers from venture capitalists.
was "To start off, the incubator placed for MBA in Ivy League universities.He ler
in business. The experience, as
us on a higher platform. At the same me it ield us from some of the harsh realitiesof the g student days exposed them to different facets
fitedus was mutual leaming through interacting Shouldering the responsibility of a ny du
outsideworld.One thing.we feel Id ve ri for interviews. both promoterswere busy making
with other start-ups. The fear of i of and ideas prevented all Of us from interacting of life. While co-studentswere
• endless rounds of power point p venturecapitalistsand managing equals at offce.
and sharing experiences. away their own personal time, including visits to their
The demandingschedule of
homes during semester breaks n At the same Üme. they recalled that academic
The location also helped to draft ents for specific assignments. For example. a student
of the industrial design center the first logo and product brochure for a fee. However, performance suffered to some
certain critical factors Hook during the first few months due to "lack of guidance about
the technicalities of nagi a p'. They were unaware about issues related to Intellectual Funding
Property,LabourLa pli ce and failed to deduct Income Tax from salaries during the initial they
months. Team mem . in Sandeep's words. •virtuallyrevolted"when tax deductionwith Even though, as win of ureka 2000 they were immediately offered angel funding,
after
retrospective . Eventhough product development progressed, documentation, a decided to tter deals. That decision, according to Sandeep. was taken
plan
crucial step to ensure software quality was ignored. Only after May 2000, legal considering ious ors. •Roshan's networking with venture capitalists. a strong business the
ing tech-entrepreneu rs and support from IITB incu gave us
compliance an rope accounting were taken care by employing a Chartered Accountant on part already ra y line
time basis. The tive of angel investor. Kuntal helped in identifying the person. Since confidence. W pp VCs like Chrysalis. Mew Group. GW Capital etc. and kept a We
vestor. It was presentations, presentations and presentations all along.
the incubatorwas evolving, it lacked the resources to provide such support and guidance. open with the ang sets of PPTs. one
got a lot of help 11TBfaculty to fine-tune the presentations. We made 2000) and
and other at US based'. They even flew to US (October
•The incubator",according to Roshan. "was badly managed at that pointof time. 11TBhad not aimed at India based funds intoconfidence.
later to Europe for talks with Nokia ventures after taking the angel investor
appointed any specific person from administration to look after the incubator. Hence, we had to
coordinate between departrnents. and getting urgent work done on weekends was difficult. mentality.Even the questions asked by
Everytjmewe had to take a computerout for servicing. permissionfrom IlTB administrationwas At that time, according to Roshan. •VCs had a herdsales/marketingor even questioned our
required.There were instanceswhen computercrashed on Friday evening and the office had differentVCs were the same. Nobody asked about
marketing and HR functions. All seemed to
closed for the weekend. 11TBalso gave the incubatora coffee machine and water cooler. We organization structure, which did not have operations.
faced limitationswith technology(such as bandwidth,access controlsetc.) also. We were not r•nmtlstay in US.
allowed direct access to servers outside 11TBon security grounds. We needed the direct access 19They close Rs. 250.000on air tavel used to rneetVCs ard alunni
for our work, since it involved dealing with servers elsewhere. • duringthe GC2K was by tie Stanbrd Universay.The one-montlrip was also

10 11
 be kicked up by the ideas and technology." The valuation of MyZus was worked out by the
promoterson the basis of the models being used for idea based start-upvaluations(as reported Though a formal appointmentorder was not issued. all of them signed a Non Disclosure
by Wow.venturewire.com.an e-newsletter for Silicon Valley start-ups). They looked for Agreement (NDA) before joining MyZus. (NDA format was downloaded from the net).
approximately US $ 4 to 6 million valuation. and aimed at as little dilution as possible. Information
about technologystartups like Odigo, Octopus. Easy Login etc (all were valued around US $ 4 On recommendationOf Kuntal,an ESOP consultantwas contractedto design a suitableESOP
million in January 2000) was downloaded for benchmarking. On the contrary, the VCs were scheme and create employee awareness. The consultant charged Rs.35.OOOper rnonth and
looking at large investmentsand preferredlarger stakes. The strategy was to play between the initiated communication meetings with employees vhere the concept was discussed and doubts
VCs and push the valuationto US $ 6 million.According to Roshan •We were more comfortable were clarified. His services were terminated after two months but before the scheme could be
with low equity dilution as we felt that we did not require very large funding immediately. While the implemented.
VCs were more open to invest as much as US $ I millionfly 25% stake. we preferreda smaller
deal. Finally the deal involvingapproximatefunding commitmentof US $ 600,000 by the angel Scaling-up Operations
investor, which entailed dilution of only 10%, was chosen. We kept 15% for ESOPs and Ml-time employees. including
remaining 75% was equally held between both of us, which included the 5% Sta Of IITB.• Till October 2000, MyZus operated from the incubator with 13 partners' an informal
pronnoters. The promoters were designated •management
development
For starting off. the initial funds came from the angel investor as interest a converted later understanding that Sandeep would lead the technology side and Roshan.
the distinction d 0th got involved
as loan to the promoters towards their equity contribution. The understanding hat in case the and investor relations. But. in practice they could not follow mmer months
deal fell through, money would be retumed. As the promoters. an n were in all activities. Sufficientprogress on technology front was made during on of
required to contributeRs.O.7 million as equity capital. Kuntal s.O.5 illion without (May - July 2000) to the extent of developing detailed specifications. w easu to develop
interestas partof promoters'contnbution m. The advance was used to t operating expenses, content aggregation engine was completed by October. Based on th
in U ough they could have
including salaries. Though the angel investor funding started it was based on an the prototype, MyZus initiated steps for filing technology patents in . th. The consideration
informal understanding rather than formal shareholder the understanding, filed for two separate patents, only one application was filed, by & Associates,
was mainly financial. They took the help of a renowned law WS. •sh
funds weretobe released basedon needs. ratherthanin lump or s Iments. rovisi al atent (Exhibit 3). The
who was suggested by the angel investor and MyZus obtain
legal advice and the patentfiling process entailed Rs 0.4 million.The product,
Gover ance the 'intelligent integrated
MiDas (Mobile Internet Delivery and Aggregation Se
content delivery platform' was unveiled in August 2000 bit Das was to be introduced in
over by
MyZus Infotechwas registeredas a Private Limited pany, nder the Companies Act 1956. three versions over the next few months and its de lopme was expected to be positive
The angel investor's financial involvement requi ind is representative Kuntal Shah to December 2000. Initial marketing efforts to Indi mob one operators showed
the board.A three-memberboard that consist o both oters and Kuntal was constituted, responses and MyZus had to develop the in timeline. To achieve that. the
and Roshan was unanimouslyelected as airperson. In additionan advisory council of development capabilities had to be
eminent experts was created. Critical deci discussed with Kuntal over telephone,
instead of formal meetings of the board. Ip ures relatedto governance (like noticefor "We never considered outsourcing", d that implied increasing the number of
board meetings, keeping minutes. me crucial decisions) were not taken seriously technical employees in a short time'. on employing 11Tstudents for product
like any other start-up. According R han t happenedbecause "lack of appreciationabout development had failed. Studen ploy were caught up betw•eentheir academic
the risks involved in decision m n y told us about the need to have formalboard responsibilities and work pressu n eir mitment to MyZus got reduced. "they had their
meetings etc.• The 11TBconnection to freely approach faculty members and obtain academic compulsions and were t sition to devote full attentionto work. If an
free advice. examination was scheduled, pped everything and we could not push them to meet
our deadlines. Since we did not n the advantage of 11TBstudents, they were hired for
the Initial team. specific projects with clear deadl and we allowed them to work from hostels."

The business model the Idea of runninga company with 11Tgraduates and students. The first constraint scall p was lack of physical space in the incubator.In addition.the
their
The initial team was ndpi by the promoters from 11TB.As promoters of a startup company, incubator environme thoug conducive for long hours and camaraderie, eventually led to
Id' Roshan recalled those times as 'We simply did not
have space to
they had to convince candidates about the commercial feasibility of the idea. The seclusion from the '
task became tive since the target group was current and former 11Tians,and it keep one m the room. Often, prospective clients insisted on visiting our Office
of
was a case anag equals. Considerabletimewas devotedto builda feeling of oneness, so for a first-h feel it was difficultto offer them even a decentcup of tea. In the interest
With the funding
that each me felt . As a strategy, the promotersdrew lesser compensationthan the growth, we ha o mo out. At the same time, we wanted to be close to 11TB.
paid higher than market ratesa . Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) space in the
was not a problem.• They leased sufficiently large off ce lease
batchmates wh tied-up, hiring I was for
was used as th for attractingand retainingemployeesa . The first set of employees m-residential area for a monthly rental of Rs. The
nearby commerci
deposit. The office interiorswere
(batchmates from T) were verbally assured not just ESOP, but 'founder status' at a later stage 24 11 months and s 1.4 million was advanced as security and it had separate space for
designed with individualcabins for key people in four comers
million to setup. That included the
meetings and conferences. The new office cost MyZus Rs. 2 MyZus had also acquired a
etc.
20
The prornoters in balance from cost of servers, other hardware,fumishing. air-conditioning
0M savi-gs. driver since September. Three apartments
second-hand mid-sized luxury car and hired a full time
21 As On 2001. the Stwemhers Agreementwas not signed. Funding however, mntjmnd on basis of in6mal employees, even though sleeping bags from the
22
were leased around the office for housing
tie aberrationbter, it a wNe mtnpensationEr persmnelwas incubator were carried to the new offce.
bohg negotiaM It also that tie bur reauits let MyZus.
experience was difficult(jobs were plenty and
ESOP MS not even as on April2001. Since recruitingmore 11Tengineers with work they approached the nationalmarket for
24 In an 11Tiansof tm Initial team (6 In number) were actively hvolved tie funding negotiation. Mode-b convincing them to join a startup was difficult),
valuatim of US $ 6 mulbn got deeded on tle logic. •Weare 6 11Tiansand eadl is worth a million apart. tie
donars'.quote Sandeep.

13
12
 company along with
employees. In between. they also contemplated acquiring a small software planned, the idea expanded to include features like billing and provisioning systems. Scalability.
ernployees, but the idea was not pursued. Advertisementfor developers and analysts were to be a carrier (mobile operator) grade solution, had to be ensured.
The entire suite of products.
advertisements
placed in leading dailies, computer magazines. Intemet job sites etc. Thestock options as was branded as MiDas.
promised opportunityto work in cutting edge technology. and emphasized
the scaling up
reward (Exhibit 5). The new recruits joined MyZus by end November. Theoretically.
also brought in greater diversity of skills
at 11TB.Candidates increased the resource availability for coding. However, it
For junior staff (developers/programmers). selection process was conducted challenges like employee training, organizing
the domain and people. As a result. MyZus confronted new issues" The new came witl
were put through screening test and personal interviews. Selection was based on As a pooledresources. coordinationand otherhuman resource MyZus productswere on Linux and
knowledgelevels (specificallyJava) of applicants, than the basic stream (like engineering). the backgroundof windows operatingenvironment.
while
had to be trained in
liberal arts. with skill set requirement was Java, C and C++. The recruits
result some of those who got selected came from streams like commerce and personal Unix platforms.The modules. As a result. actual of
some formal training and exposure to the technology domain. For other positions, Satish and new technologies before assigning them to different primarily classroom based. suppletnentedwith
inter.tiev.'swere organized at five star hotels in Mumbai and Chennai. The promoters. interviews. developers got delayed by a month. Training was learning. Leaming was ated frequently
d the dummy projects and assignments to enhance
an independent HR consultant (former Head-HR Of a mobile operator) conduct in the five required by My were difficult to
In Roshan's words, "The reason for taking the consultant and conducting in through quizzes and examinations. Since trainers in skills
himself led the train• a with help
is exercise did source, internal resources had to be utilized. Sandeep
Star hotelswas to projecta rnatureimage of the company to the from product developmen early January
not yield expected results. as only two offers were made and only one joined. frorn few colleagues. Tha t diverted their attention younds of un
2001, three of the new recruits were asked to leave on
, particularly
MyZus added 25 full-time employees between November and Ma and per-employee According to
at levels were deliberatelykept high. since they anticipated turnover. The newly The shift also changed the style of workingcodes per ma d considerablyafter
recruiteddevelopers and analysts were given a month long I e software skill-sets Sandeep. "the productivity in terms of lines of noth li hours and
required for product development. In-house team led by Sa
incubator facilities scaling up. With smaller team in the incubator. there ys but the new office
(11TBclassrooms) for training. The first group became fu I by e mber 2000 (Exhibit everybody did everything. Earlier, all key people were a •
ns took time.The bum
deci
6 for OrganizationChart, and post scaling up) and loyed productdevelopment. separated us intocabins. Co-ordination betweenus suff space.
Based on Faizaan•s input. it was also decided to liz lary offered to the new rate' also shot up considerably due to higher
past when they were higher. electricity rates etc.•
recruit' S. The salaries offered were market rates, u like in grounds. and
Over the next few monthssane employees were ask to lea on performance head, was to spearhead the
Amitabh. who was appointed as the produ
few were added.
development efforts with the help of project a jective was to evolve the already
who was workingfor developed prototype of content aggregation to a complete product, with modules, which
In December 2000, Amitabhlyer, a com ineer (not frorn any of the add on modules were, Mobile
Mphasis BFL joined as Director (Product pment). Arnitabh had some experience of were demanded by mobile telecom operat
payment gateway. Cache, N lishing Engine, SMS. Voice and WAP
working for start-ups. Though he had rs nce, he was never exposed to the
relevant domain (mobile telecom). Mea while. y faced some degree Ofinvoluntary turnover. interfaces etc.
Arnongothers, all the four student oyees d quit as full-timersby August 2000 and were development.Developers were grouped into
A modular approach was fo u
associated on project basis.
different teams of 4 to 5 people each. n m leader. Each team was assigned to work on
an independentmodule. P were responsible for one or more modules. F«
example. one project manager I Cache and SMS interface while other two lookedafter
WAP interface and Publishing En e development respectively. Amitabh looked after Billing and
The experience Of shifting out bator threw up new challenges. Roshan recollected the and Amitabh were responsible for coordinationand
Mobile payment gat Sand
change, AvAJe were life in the incubator with 11TBtaking care of almost all the
insula
integrationof modul . as I as e overall projectmanagement.With the team being young
administrative ents. n our own. we had to take over activitieslike finding someone to age tdifficult) and product itself evolving. it was difficult to synchronize
(that made people
clean the wash pay bills. We were not equipped to deal with govemment agencies opment process. At the same time. MyZus was under pressure to
for obtaining necessa is tions etc. and we discovered that Statutorycompliances like sales and optimize the
launch the full as possible. Developing the product entailed developing various
tax clearance, ing to different labour laws etc., had to be made. It took a lot of esting them and integrating them to be able to offer them as one whole
• modules rren
runn after such mundane but necessary things. with
time and
solution with iple plications. According to Amitabh. •it takes time to complete modules
were in short supply
uct Devel quality. It also n s arity of operational requirements. Unfortunately.both
- given the nature roduct as well as MyZus.•
According to the ness model. MyZus was to develop the product and manage it on behalf Of of the originalprototype
the client. In August itself.MyZus had announcedthe plans to launch the productbefore year- The productdevelopmentprocess was influencedby the experienceseffortwas in Java. C and
Though, initiallythe productscope was restricted to a contentaggregation engine, after development and relative inexperience of the new members. "The entire efforts.•weended-up
development
interactions, the scope got widened. From the end-user oriented application as it was C++", Sandeep recalled his experienceof the early product reinventing
standard protocols) and
developing our own protocols (instead of using open-source
and low productivity.the original team.
25 the wheel. Besides the slow pace of product development engine. got bogged down in people
Mer Fiazan
acæpt
pushed the Zea of paying market compersation or less in a surt
ofrred to protecthis last draym
Trough he was walingto
prornoters
which had developed the prototype of content aggregation
suet an approadl neæssary to attraa tabnt b a mmpany Eke MyZus. Tt*y
By tEn. many of he häh paid empbyees (mosty IITB students) had Hence sahry was easy. Most Ofthe recruib (mah) outside Mumbaiand they had to be provWed
three (from Murnbai).
Projed Marugers'Analysts Rs 22-35,000 rnontl. Rs 13.000 and b-aineesRs late. but worked twough the night. There were
york in the nightby guardians. That hd to
60m. more or less marketrates for proßssionals in Mumbai.

15
14
 managernent and handholding. Lack of management systems. for example, an issue like how to
process a leave application,resulted in bad blood and interpersonalconflicts. In spite of an
informalhierarchy (team member. leader, project there was lack of clarity
about reporting relationships and communication channels. As a result. each developer had Inspiteof positive initialresponses to the business developmentefforts,they soon discovered
multiple bosses. Focus shifted from the core module to suppcyt modules and the former lagged that.even with 11Tpedigreeand the technologicalsupericxity»claimed by MyZus. convertinga
behind. While teams were stable during the development phase. sornetimes movements
• prospectto a customerwas difficult Lack of a working productthat could be showcased as a
across teams took place mainly on people-compatibility issues. reference point was working against MyZus. In Roshan•s words. •MyZus needed a first custorner*.
To focus the business efforts and ensure speedy closure. prospectingwas
By the end of February 2001. it was clear that they had slipped considerably behind the deadline deliberately narrowed down to mobile telecom operators fromwestern India i.e. BPL Mobile, Birta
despite increasing resources. Withouta commercial productin hand or in sight. any credible AT&T and Orange.
business development effort was difficult at this stage. another round of press briefings
were issued in February 2001 about the launch of MiDas Publisher. The first prospect approachedby MyZus was Orange. the rnobile Mumbai.in June
2000 with the help of Kuntal. with Orange continuedfor six months.Roshan.
Business Deyelopment Effort* was interfacing with Orange. in his own admission. •often got irritated with the s progress
the client side. The company seemed interested in the idea till the last. but happened in
•we were mnvinced that our product would be un@ue and technobgically the end. We had meetings after meetings with them, where tley picked and made us
do a lotof hornework.•
Roshan, when asked whether somethin the product
Almost simultaneously.discussions were initiatedwith Birla AT&T again troduced by
While Sandeep looked after product development and •sues. Roshan looked Kuntal.By October 2000. MyZus almost clinched the deal for a pilot. payment They
after external interface including business development inve •ons. Internet was were ready to pursue the pilotas a possible reference deal clarity and
extensivelyused to identifypotentialcustorners (primarily operators). Another difficultiesprevented them frorn going ahead". That was Zus had not yet
source was referrals from Kuntal and others. In addi calls made to offices of scaled-up.However. Bifla AT&T deal was one of the factors led decision to augrmt
tdecorn operatorsand technobgy providers, and decision-makers was ernployee strength and move out of the incubator.
collected by talking to receptionists. As the first Step, nforrna about the product was
sent to the CEO CTO of companies.The demonstra prog prototypeon a CD was ready Later in early 2001. BPL Mobileapproached after ring Zus. Negotiations quickly
by October 2000 and was also used as the mark moved to the stage of provding price-quotefor the the absence of a
productto benchmark.they had difficultyin arrivi at quote. They were also not yet
Media coverage because of KReSIT and gave MyZus publicity. Though such ready with a framework to determine the price. . My had tested its prototypeto supp«t
were directed at profiling the young . the product was also highlighted and it 250 sirnultaneoususers accessing the rate of 50 hits p« second. The product
led to few trade enquires. MyZus made about its product in August pitchedas a user-friendlyoption.withthe abi le up to large volumes, i.e.. 250 thousand
and it natimal in of experiencein dealingwiththe press and users. The price quoted to BPL was 1 millim the fir< circle aM Rs.O.5
interviews led to ta like yZus plans to raise US $ 10 million'(Exhibit 7). millioneach for remainingfour circles) . The expected to bear all hardwarecosts and
Afterwards.a professionalPR was tracted for Rs. O.1 million per month as pay for other expenses related to ing maintainingthe server and if required.MyZus
retainershipfee. The agency arran releases and interviewsof key people. With the do it for the client. The by B forced thern to lower the quote to Rs. 1.8 miUion
agency at they w•ere to release regular updates about product development later. Meanwhile by March 2001, a implemented by MyZus at BPL mainly to
and expansion plans. Accordin to . •Press announcementshad both positive and benchmark data and to test
effects us. Lot of came to know about us. Sustaining the flow of news
regarding the product to maintain the market ternpo. Hence we announced operator. Artel was open to the product. but had already to
launches withoutthe lly d product in hand, believing that we would be able to deliver if something similar n firm. There was another segment of who
any deal materializes nqui came in, but a marketing set up to follow-upwas not in place and in Roshan's words, •j did have any clue about the technology we were talking and did not
a lot of them went u ed alone handled business development and we did not have want to invest in new since they were struggling with teething problems their own.•
a marketing y. we received a lot of fan mail also.' Another concern that e i their path was that the mobileoperatorswere more
thanon value-addedservices. There were apprehensimsabwt
In line with to launch nevær version or modules as and when their prototypes were stabilityof us as young start-up as well. By March 2001. contrary to expectations. MyZus
of MiDas server (Version I) was made in November. Internally. MyZus failed to open ue stream. (When MiDas was launchedin November2000. Roshan
had decided to two more products of the same family before March 2001 and had declaredin a p •weare targeting revenue of Rs 30 lakh at the end of the
announced that T keep the market tempo the second product MiDas Publisher aimed at content financial year at global revenue figures of US $ 15 millbn in the next tw•oyears'.)
portals (like rediff, indiatimes etc.) was launched in February 2001. The announcement
generated
fram India and abroad. However, in terms of business develcprnent. the focus
was mly
rnobileoperatorsand other enquiries were ignored. The primary reason was
to fdbw up and even develop the product. lack of resources
30
us±ay W. FO
WDascouu be ters b 0t as
developed a the LB-age planned was
29
O&n. hotrs 90t b take care of deploymentrequierrwts quk*fy.
h trashing out gaps. For exanpk: an
a tean Erwt b had Lave by Ma AT&Twas at 4 by tun
b A
Pr*a b remtve of Eve Roshan, 32
at b 50.000.
Rost•n

16
17
The crisis was described by Roshan as 'What MyZus was proposing did not find easy
acceptance, possibly due to lack of maturity of Indian market and their assessment about Exhibits•
preferences of Indian end-customers. Most of the Indian customers didn't have high-end devices
Such as WAP enabled devices and were perceived to be price-sensitive. The operatorshad built
their revenue models around basic voice-based service and were focussed on maximizing Exhibit l: Business Plan.
revenues around that. We were pushing all the features we had in the product to them,
irrespective of their need." Exhibit Il : About the Incubator.

Exhibit Ill : Patents.

Review of Operations: Marg!12001
Exhibit IV: MiDas.
Following the review on March 30. Sandeep and Roshan met with all team members to discuss
Exhibit V: Copy of recruitrnentAd.
and decide future options. An intemal note drafted earlier for March 30 meetin summarized the
issues faced by MyZus, at that point. as follows: Exhibit VI: Organization Chart
"It was clear that the productdevelopmentefforts and hence the revenue n had gone Exhibit Vll: Press Report.
awry, despite the earlier decision to increase the scale and quickly la e uct. Over the
last few months. MyZus had to take certain decisions anticipati m The product
launch (in reality, the productwas underdeveloped)was also impo maintainthe morale
and confidence of the team and to convince clients that MyZus •n sition to deliver. The
productdevelopmentteam was unable to meet the deadline th no clarity about the
possible date of completion.Even though a pilot was compl at the complete product
was still untestedfor stability.We did encounterstability implementing the pilot.
The bum rate Of Rs. 1.1 million per-month without any an issue and it would
reduce the ability of MyZus to survive. We had spent al ost 30 e cornmitted funding and at
the current bum rate it you Id last just for another 15 nths. ere ære issues related to the
business developmenteffortsas well. Indian •le tel tors were focussed on basic
wvices and only few of them were on the king p ts for the first time.They were still
not open to providing value-added services. s were to look outside India, it would increase
the costs Of business development as well as inty involved."

19
18
 Business
Exhibit
f
Eureka 2900
Exhibit2
The idea behind the business plan has been given in the case itself. The relevant part from the
technology. analysis and revenue model are extracted here. Kanwal Rekfti of Teqhnoloqy the Ingub2!er

The Indian IT industryis expandingrapidly and is expected to grow trernendouslyover the next
•our product offerings are designed to be usable in two forms —an Offline downloadable software few years. While the currenteducationin India has been producinghigh wality for the
and an online browserbased onsite client that will be a clone of the above software and will IT industry. there is a distinct lack of people who are trained to be leaders in this industry. people
provide all features without the need to configure or update it for features. Both these applications who will shape its future.There is also the disturbingtrend of extremecompartrnentalization that
will require that our programs be well designed so as to economize on size and merncyy has gradually crept into the engineering sciences, especially in acadernic circles. While this may
requirements. thus reducing load time. The User Interface will be intuitive and reflect the aim and research in each of those fields themselves. it must be acknowledged that there are
purpose of the software. The product can be Started independently from the and will be hardly any real problems that can be dealt with in isolation by any one •cornparfrnene of
able to detect when a browser is opened up and track the changes that are on in it. Once engineering.These were sorneof the issues noticed by Prof. D.B. Phatak (the headof the
the user minimizesthe softwareit will convert itself into a small icon tha flash and beep school) and others, and a proposal was made in March 1998 to start a of IT in ITT
wheneverit senses that an update (or new email) has arrived on one of designated Bornbay.The focus of the school was to be a close interactionwiththe s . research with
servers. The downloadable versim of the software Will be able to cater peopleon focus on integrabon of the various •compartrnen ts•. and entrepreneurship. proposal
a variety of platforms and accepted and fundingfor startingthe School came frorn two alumni b r. Nandan
Nilekhani (CEO. Infosys. Bangalore) and Kanwal Rekhi. both
On Anatv$i$ contributions. of US $ 2.7 millionand US $ 3.31 respectively. school also obtained
•As part Of our survey have identified three main sources of equipment and software donation from cornpanies like Sun Compaq. Intd. MRO.
Yodlee.corn is an online website in the beta-testing that some Of the tasks Cabletron Systems etc. The school formally started batch of M.Tech
thatour softvvareintendsto do. However. it concen ring financialinforrnation students on July 19. 1999.
and so needs to be highly secured. For this Sockets Layer
progamming with 40-bit encryption which slows d the e thus negating all benefits source:
to the user. We don't suffer frornthis problem. as o is an and not web-
based and so will be much faster. The IT Business Incubator of KReSlT. 11TBombay to aspiring technology start-
Software frorn Cyber-Info Ltd. Called ups- The incubatorprovidesminimum re Each company gets the
-Info WebMailAlerthas been available for followinga) 3 cornputersb) 300 sq. feet spa
download for sorne time now that when they receive mail at hotrnail.yahoo or connectionand 3) internet
access through11Tsave In return. 11T % stake in the cornpany through 11TBornbay
altavista. However it seems like a without rnuch funding based somewhere in Heritage Fund. an organizatim of 11TBomba Ju i formed to •budda networkof 11T1ans
aaoss the
Olina and so has not been able to y. In spite of this it has managed to USA and on a gbbal basis. and help 11T
have 100,000 downloads and was the highest rating (5 cows) from Sze Bombay. •
for •a very
Browsers like Internet Explorer may also choose to cornpete in this segment by Startups are inducted into the a formal sdection process. Canpanies are
offering browses that thus giving the user sorne the fætures of allowed free stay during the first yea rentals in the second year and for the third year
they have to pay market le the locality. 11Ttakes care of house and
maintenance of the premises. At e . the incubator hosted eight startups.
OQ Revenue
"In keeping with in In software delivery. we intend to offer our software as a
free for download re on a limited one-year license. To begin using the software,
users have to ter w•ithour servers that will give them complete functional
access to the one year users will be expected to pay $20 to complete their
registration. corn g registrationformalities,users will be entitledto customer support.
special offers Going by our pro>ctions of reaching a user base of Imn users
over one year. end of two years our revenues from this stream will amount to
$20mn. At the around
thræ years this will balloon to $100mn and so on.

However. though seemingly lucrative revenues frml users will form

the smallest of our revenue
streams. We intend to earn money by download of ads into
the software, demographic data as
well as contalt retail. In tie future an area have identified is electronic comrnerce shopping
which can be easily integrated with our software. This
way we can charge vendors a commission
for users buying throughour software. This will
also benefit the vendors as they get access to a
large registered user base with predefined
buying tastes and preferences. We project that
revenues frorn these streams have the potential to
reach US S 0.5 bn the next three years
and US $ 2 bn over the next five years. •

20
21
 Exhibit4
Exhibit3
MIDAS
provisional acquired MvZus
MyZus MobilePortal Framework- MMPF)
The MIDAS server developedby MyZus (also called of powerful mix of content, messaging,
delivers carrier grade solutions that enables integration
provisioningsystems to deliver a carrier-branded.
METHOD OF ACCESSINGCUSTOMIZED CONTENTFROM A NETWORK SERVER USING and end-user applicationswith billing and powerful content management
subscriber-personalized multi-channel information portal. Usingapplications and content from a
AN INTERMEDIATEAGENT tools. MMPF enables carriers to aggregate
and administration via any mobile device.
wealth of sources and make them available to subscribers
modules which when integrated using MyZus
Fieldof the Invention: The portal framework comprises of nine solution.. MMPF is built carrier grade
Professional Services deliver an end-to-end
This inventionrelatesgenerallyto communicationin a distributednetwork-computin vironment.More infrastructure from industry leaders like... to ensure scalability to millions bscribers
particularly,this inventionrelatesto the use Of an intermediateagent to t from servers,
by MyZus and
proprietarytechnology
customizeand deliver the said content, to the user, in accordancewith certain The solution has been scale tested. It runs on
which has a patent pending at the US patent office.

withthe abilityto choose The (nodules and their salient features are-
It is therefore one ObjectOfthe present invention to provi
toemet on a variety of
and Selectthe amount Ofcontent that is delivered to the user's devi Or a built-in intelligence Content Server- it lets the carrier provide mobile subscri use Internet and not
mobile devices. It allows customization by the end-user. a oice. WAP. SMS. PDAs
of format conversion. L WM
only WAP enabled sites, on the fly transcodingfrom online accounts and uses
to enable use of all mobile devices. single click
with traversea
abilityto automatically XML APIs to enable rn-cornmerce.
It is anotherobject inventionto providethe is email, voicernail.faxes and
Unified Messaging Server- it allows subscribers this box from all possible
plurality of web pages,which require form inputs in a SMS through a central inbox. In addition. it ows
channels such as WAP. SMS, Voice th ile as I as Palm and Pocket PCs.
Calendar Server- it allows users person dring with group scheduling through number
It is yet another objectoftheprsentinventionto VI asystemthat understandsthe formats and content of devices and sends automatic alerts as nd en required.
Instant Messaging server- allows u back and forth in real time from
on the web saver and the limitationsof devi and the profileOf the end-userand thus can is service is faster than e-mail and more
any mobile device to any desktop/ il ser
and personalize the content client private than public chat rooms net.
Internetfile storage server- ny and private storage of files, w'hich are
secured. This allows peopl to u ished work and access it from any location. The
It is yet another of the tionto providea Solution,whichovercomesthe problems file store can be e devices so as to send emails, faxes etc.
their
associatedwith server-side client side post-processing. Download Server- it allows th cam to manage the utilities. which let users customize
ring-tones, logos. wa pers, g •ngs etc. on mobile phones.
NotificationEngi u to manage the necessary but cumbersome processes
involved in pullin inf over the mobile phones, by letting them access pre-configured
information at p fined tervals.
Synchroni er- lows the end-users to synchronize their hand-helddevices and
access h con its, calendar, files and contacts.
records
Admini na Billing Server- lets the carrier generate logs, bills and customer to
and helps ut ting basic administrative tasks. while allowing control over the services
any specific ser.

Source: Extracted from Product Brochures.

22 23
 6
Exhibit5

Gepy of Recryiüpent Ad.

ChiefExecutive
Officer

ChiefTechnology
Offcer

4 Project Managers

Dilutor(Product
Development)

Manager
TwhnologyAnalysts PublicRelations/ HR
ProjectManagers

Other Support Staff

 Exhibit 7
THE ENTREPRENEUR
pres? Repqrts.

November 14, 2000.

The financial Express, Mumbai
MyZus unveils integrated content delivery platform
MyZus Infotech Pvt Ltd. a startup founded by a couple of 11Tgraduates with angel funding to the tune of
$600,000. has launched an integrated mntent delivery platform that delivers user-selected content through a
wide variety Of mobile channels like MP-enabled phones. PDAs. voice telephony devices etc. The
company has just embarked on a soft laurwh of the product and is in talks with internationaltelecom players
to adopt its product.

MrRoshan D'Sitva CEO. MyZus. says can access WAP-enabled e on the Web using
a WAP-enabled cell phone through a piece Of software infrastructure called a W What we are
coming Out with is a unified gateway which will let any device, not w or voicæ
enabled-. connect to any sort of content on the Web.

• This product cnnsists of a complete infrastructure.The WAP- enabled cell p

a land line or a normal phone. or PDAs or thin dients like sma
Internet-enabled through a Single unified gateway that MyZus is build • in
ased devices like
all these devices can be
for the
This gateway automatically goes wt and fetches the content fro
to a formatwhich these devos can understand.This is
dynamically. There is a degree Of intelligence that is built
adjons. Mr D•silvaexplains. •One Of the problems on any th client is
performs are repetitive and this repetition slows down the
the gat
Interne
ack
translates it to real time
the user. in real time and
takes care of
most of the actions that a
Faintl ieal%
Here time is money. and the user is billed per e. My as transferredsome of the h%ence Starting a business is rarely a dignified affair. Do you
on to the gateway. As a result. rnost Of the repet are performed on the gateway level and not on
to
the client. The result is. cost to the user can be ov times. which is the product'S USP- have the guts—and the mind-set-to take on the challenge
CYSitva.

Mr. Ositva said that they wCRJldbe raising next funding in the next 3-4 rnonths. MyZus plans to
coruntrate on the European and

January 31.2001.
The Finandal
HREE YEARS AGO, almost anyone Internet companies, it's a good time
Midas touch —MyZus launches eco version to ask the hard questions that many:
could have been an entrepreneur;
all you needed was a hot-or even would-be entrepreneurs —and thog
Mumbai : MyZus I founded by a muple Of 11Tgraduates has launched the semnd t
Dynamic Aggregation Server). a wireless product devised by the lukewarm—idea. Billions of dollars went Who bankrolled them —overlooked in
version of MIDAS What realty
company. MyZus is a raise their second round of USD 4-5 million in the coming months. into ventures hatched by fresh-faced the heady days Ofthe
youngsters with, at most, a couple of makes an entrepreneur? What charac•
Midas is targ and B2C sites. "This is basically for anyone with an existing Web front years' experience at pricey consultancies teristics set successful entrepreneurs
available on mobile devices be it WAP. voice-based accßS, palms or
and want to their
or high-tech companies under their apart, enabling them to start ventures
g th content: says Mr. Roshan D'Silva CEO, MyZuS.
belts. so they had little business experi• against all odds and keep them alive
hase
Midas is placed at eb sa-ver and within a day or tw•oof its installation, it would enable the sites or the ence? NO problem; they could always even in the worst of times? Do you
enterprise to deliver •r on the various devices. After the product is installed at the server. the find a grown-up. like eBay CEO Meg those characteristics.and if you dent
systerns adminis uses the MyZus visual tool kit to create various versions for the various devices by Walter Kuemmerle Whitman, to handle the operations. Not can you develop them?
without having to write any code or make any modification. The tool kit is used to lay down specific rules on surprisingly, many young people came The truth is, real entrepreneurship is
the user interface and create various versions. Once in place. every time a request from any mobile device a far cry from managing an established
is received from a server the same set of that are applied on the existing Web interface would generate to believe that entrepreneurship was a
safe career choice. More than a few of business and farther still from the saff .
the appmpriate information for that device. popular dur
their elders, too, underestimated the tized model that
Priced at around $50,000, this product is essentially on the services model. It involves a one time installation risks involved in financing start-upsand ing the late 1990s.Over the past five
ØSt for the solution. The company is targeting both the local and the overseas market. The company
ended up pouring millions of dollars years, I have studied more than 50 start
is at building partnerships with services mmpanies. The future plans of the mmpany include making ups—some successful, not- in 20
desktop appliætions accæsible on mobile deviæs. into doomed ventures.
The economic downturn has shat- countries. My research has uncove
tered those illusions. Now, as we sift intriguing similarities in ways that sue
through the debris of hundreds of failed cessful entrepreneurs behave, similari•

26
HARVARDBUSINESS
122