Jojo’s World

Bargaining or negotiating a deal is an art. All of us have gone through this process in various stages of life, what matters is we got successful or not?

Why should I bargain?

There are many people who thinks bargaining is a cheap tactic, so they pay what ever the retailer says or an MRP, without uttering a word asking discount. In contrast to this there are many others who bargain as if to get a product for peanuts, who bargains again and again. Now if it’s me I will always ask for a discount in a friendly manner, sometimes I will bargain to get a fair deal (a win-win for both) and there are instances I have bargained like a fool and ended up unsuccessful in making that deal. Bargaining aims to save money from our pockets. If you are purchasing an item of MRP 1000 rupees and if you can bargain to get the same for 900, you save 100 rupees, enough cash for a nice dine out. If you are not bargaining you are going to loose this 100 bucks for nothing.

How to bargain and get a fair deal ?

This is a competitive world and there’s fierce competition out in every sector. Purchasing/Shopping is also an art like bargaining. First thing is knowing where to purchase an item at the most reasonable price. Lets go through an example, I want to buy a Sony Vaio notebook, CR 36. Lets say its MRP is Rs.54,370. Now if you have plenty of cash and dont want a bargain, just buy it and remember this article is not for you. Okay! so I want a discount and first thing is understanding how much reduction you want. This is a difficult task as we would like to get anything for peanuts! If we know what’s the profit margin of the reatiler we can assume a possible figure. Profit margin of the merchant depends on various factors like competition,fast moving or not, wholesaler or retailer,his sales volume etc.

How to know profit margin?

As I said it varies with products. For example: A furniture retailer may be selling his item at 30 to 40 percent margin(becuase of low sales volume, slow moving,high demand and less supply of quality items etc), where as an electronics goods retailer may be selling his products for 10 to 20 percent margin. In any case a basic profit margin is 10 percent. No retailer is going to sell an item for a margin less than 10% unless he is a wholesaler or a supplier who depends on large sales volume and lesser profit margins. An average or a common purchaser is unlikely to purchase from wholesalers. This makes it clear that if you are buying from a retailer you can be sure that he gets a minimum percentage of 10 as profit. Now there are exceptions for branded items, fast moving items etc etc. Lets just take this as a general rule.

Note: You can search over the web to get a good idea of the product, its price ranges, wholesale price, where to get maximum discount, fair deal etc.

Now I am going to buy a Sony Vaio and as per our guess my retailer say shop X makes a profit of 5437 rupees. Now this may not be his actual profit, he may need to deduce operating expenses,transportation costs etc from Rs.5437. Lets not think about that, but we are clear that we cant ask for a reduction more than Rs.5437. No retailer/businees person will ever make deal in loss. He may sometimes sell a deadstock at his cost price but never sell  any thing for loss. Now we got an idea and lets make a fair deal.

Fair deal !

Now we cant ask for a Rs.5437 discount, well we can ask but it may not work out! As a fair deal lets ask for Rs.2370 as a discout and lets pay Rs.52,000 for the product. Chances are that you will make this deal if talked in a nice manner to a reasonable sales manager, applying a little pressure tactics. Rs.2370 is about 4.35% of MRP which means the reatiler still gets around 5%, deducting other expenses. In this way if you have an idea of the market rates you can easily get nice deals.

What if the retailer is not willing?

Here comes the real game! – The Art of Bargaining! We offered him a deal and he’s not willing for that, now what? Like Godfather says “Lets make him an offer that he can’t refuse“. Bargaining will not be that effective and produce desired output unless applied pressure on the reatiler. How to apply this? It depends on the purchaser, his attitude, knowledge of market rates, his communication skills etc.

• First Round: If you are confident of the market rates and profit margin – first thing you can do is to make him aware of that. A good way for doing this is, if you know name of a wholesaler who supplies the same or know the shops which are best in the market offering best deals, say your retailer “I know where to get this for the said price. I can get this from shop Y and Z, but I would like to do business with you since you are near to me and I have heard feedbacks that you offer better customer service. Many of my friends have purchased from your shop before,so if you can accept my offer lets do business now”
• Second Round: If hes still not willing, lets make another offer. “If you can get me this for my price I shall purchase one more item from you, say a bluetooth headset” or something like “If you can get me this deal, I shall refer you another business. One of my friend is awaiting to buy a notebook so you will get 2 customers “
• Third Round: You are likely to close the deal in second round, if not lets try this. Lets reduce that discount price a bit say Rs.500 and add a product as free instead, say a pen drive worth Rs.350. If not for this, 90% we can close the deal for reducing the discount price by Rs.1000 and add a prodct as free worth Rs.700 or 800. Idea behind this is a reatiler always benefits by giving free products rather than cash discounts.
• Fourth Round: Even after three rounds if we failed to make a deal, we need to rethink. If we are confident of the discount price we asked and if we are sure its a fair deal, a win-win, we dont need to step back any further. Lets try saying “Well if that’s the case, I am quiting your shop. I know I can get this deal from shop Y, I have talked with their sales manager. Only reason I came here is because of a referance, no big deal.I think shop Y is lucky, they are gonna get 2 people. I also have plans to buy a home theatre system, which I hope, shop Y will get me a nice  deal.”  Now with this, if he want to sell his product he will make deal else forget him, he is not a reasonable sales manager.

Bargaining power ?

Its something that we achieve by making good realationships with a retailer. Our bargaining power is the least when we are making our first purchase(a single product) from a shop. Bargaining ability increases when we become a repeated customer of the shop. If we are buying 2 or 3 products at a time from a single shop we can apply more pressure on the sales manager, than if we purchase a single item. Similarly we get more negotiating power when we refer more business to the same shop and in addition we get a respect and qaulity service from him. He will prioritize us and offer us his best deals. So to get a good enough negotiating power we need to follow a simple method – for a particlular set of products deal with a single shop/retailer(select one from reference and experience – who offers nice deal – a reasonable shop)  and establish a longterm relationship. Always make win-win offers and get the deal.

Marketing is the key factor that determines the success of a business. When ever you start or plans to expand your business, the most important question that you have to solve is “How to improve marketing”

Cold Calls (the practice of calling an individual/firm/company/organization,introducing yourself and about your company,explaining your services and how it can improve/help the other ones business and @ end of call enquiring “weather he/she is interested in the services”) are one of the conventional type or marketing tactic followed over ages. Its still used by many people who know only little marketing tactics and by new startup’s with no ability to hire a marketing team. When I and my friends started our business, we also were at the same situation. We had no marketing teams, not much money to employ some business consultants. The only option left was “do things yourself and study from your experience and mistakes“. If you are working on this mode or if you are doing things by yourself without much knowledge then you should always be in the “feedback” mode, means you should always take feedback’s from each experience. You should ask questions yourself, Why this client rejected my proposal? What was the reason? Analyse and find out then apply feedback correction (Correct yourself is the whole idea!!).

I think, we have made only few cold calls (some 10 maybe! ) so far and I am very proud to say that none of them worked out! After a few failed attempts we stopped making cold calls (well there’s another reason because we already started getting inbound leads by then). But its a fact that none of the cold calls worked out. Also many of the marketing guys I have talked with shared their experience with cold calls as “hell“.

Why cold calls fail?

There are many reasons for this. I will share some of my experiences and of other guys.

1. A cold call is not at all targeted - When we are making a cold call, we really don’t know weather the other hand is really in need of your services/product. In 90% of cases that party might not be interested in the particular services we are offering. They may just say” Oh I am not interested right now! Please call later”

2. Cold calls are indirectly equal to advertisements – Its a fact that we HATE ads! Cold calls also indirectly effect as ads or forced ads or push ads. We really don’t like calls from our mobile network vendors like Vodafone,Idea,Airtel etc. I know many guys placing “Dont Take” with these ad serving numbers.

3. Inappropriate time of call delivery -  We don’t know the mood of the person we are calling, weather hes busy or he/she is interested to spare their valuable 5 mins for us etc etc. In most cases people will say “Oh I am busy right now, please call later”

4. Already hired similar service/bought a similar product - This is another case. I myself had an experience. With an intention to sell SEO services to one of the top builders in Cochin, I approached one. It was fair deal as he understood what I said and granted me an appointment. I went there on time with proposal, explained all the stuffs pros and cons, advantages of online marketing, cost effectiveness etc. “Okay! Okay! great” he said and continued “but I already gave contract to some company ‘x’ so am really sorry. I called you to know what difference you can offer compared to the other” Hmm! so there are cases like this also. But I was more than happy when he said, “your proposal sounds much better than the other and I will certainly call you if the other guys failed”

5. Pricing dilemma- Its another major problem that many of you might have faced. Suppose we were lucky to close a cold call to sale. Next big thing is pricing or bargaining to the sense. When a business is gained through cold call, i think the “more needy” one is we service provider. Client might have the attitude “Its you who pushed me into this deal, I have no need” So he will start bargaining! sometimes to the xtreme that we can see only in streets. well that too is a nice experience. Highly efficient marketers will still tame such persons and close the deal in fair (fair to the marketer!)

6. Delay in payments- They might make an advance payment and most likely to make the second one too. I dunno/ I am not sure weather they will make the last scheduled payments.

7. Chance of dropping projects in half - A client that is achieved via cold calls are likely to drop the project in half the way. He might simply say ” I have run out of cash” or “I lost interest” etc. He may even ask a refund of advance payment.

8. Difficult to satisfy- They might not have a clear aim or a clear cut idea of the project they are buying. They will always ask for corrections here and there and at the end they will say “I m not satisfied”

9. Lack of marketing skills – Its another major reason I should have pointed out @ start of this article. One should be a “terrific” marketer to close a cold call. He should be sharp and clear with aim and knowledge and at the same time should be polite and cool.

10. Offensive – Most cold calls are really offensive! Chances are high it may create a resentful displeasure.

At the end think yourself, “Do you like cold calls?“ I dont!

What’s your idea? Share it as comments if you like and if you have time to spare.

Hope you all heard about the recent Obama move to bring back the ailing US economy back in track. Obama said that all US company’s who creates a job in Buffallo city instead of bangalore will get tax deductions. How great is that?

“We will stop letting American companies that create jobs overseas take deductions on their expenses when they do not pay any American taxes on their profits,” Obama said at White House announcing the international tax policy reform.

“We will use the savings to give tax cuts to companies that are investing in research and development here at home so that we can jump start job creation, foster innovation, and enhance America’s competitiveness,” Obama said.

What will be the effect of this idea on outsourcing to countries like India,China,Philipines etc? Is this an anti-outsourcing phenomenon? is america playing agianst globalisation? or is this just a strategy to increase the american reveneue or create new jobs inside america for a while?

Well literally 100’s of questions can arise on an Indian’s mind, especially on the young IT pros. I will share my thoughts below.

Taking biggies first, TCS,INFOSYS & WIPRO – what’s their stand? I dont think obama’s move is going to make any effect on these companies and its operations other than the setback they are facing now due to bad economic conditions. Reason is for years they have evolved & evolved in their process and operations to become IT giants! Means they have setup their own infrastructure,HR potentials,talent pools, knowledge resources etc etc which is not available in America right now. If any American Fortune 500 wanna execute some IT project, they must depend on these biggies or an Indian IT company. So I hope Obama’s move has nothing to do with IT outsourcing!

Second reason is – American companies are not forced to PAY any additional Taxes for outsourcing their businesses. Only thing is the Tax deductions they enjoyed so far because of creating an outsourcing job is gonna end. I dont think American fortunes created outsourcing jobs because they can benefit a lot from “Tax Deductions”!

But I highly doubt this “Obama move” can cause significant problems in the BPO industry like call centre, data checkings, entries, etc etc where not highly skilled jobs are created. Many companies can transfer these jobs to Baffalo city from Bangalore without much over head, if they wanna do so! This is because BPO industry is backed by Soft Skills (which can be achieved by training) and not by Technical Skills like IT industry is backed by.

Let me know your thoughts as comments!

We all know about the Global financial crisis that exists & still getting worse! Have you ever thought How this will affect our life?

Before going into this, let me say in a few words whats this crisis!

The Subprime crisis

“subprime” thats the name of the beauty! Unlike the dotcom bubble (which was unexpected) this one is a fully predicted type. We all were knowing that such a crisis is gonna happen!

Actually whats this?

A simple observation will bring you the knowledge that the core affected one is US Banks & Investment sector banks in united states. “so banks are the villain!?” hehe! Nope! The real villain is the attitude of “PROFIT….AGIAN PROFIT….AGAIN & AGAIN PROFIT”

What happened is, the US banks let people to take loans against their property to build homes, buy flats, buy apartments. Is that the big fish? Noo.. I will explain.

Suppose you have taken loan from a bank 5 months before (thats on June) to build a home. You have borrowed 30 Lakhs agianst your 10 cents of land & building. What happens in normal case is, you get a loan of 30 lakhs, you build your home & you have to repay this 30 lakhs+Interest by some 5 or 10 years.

Instead what happend in the US?

You got a loan in June..rite? A sum of 30 lakhs! This 30 Lakhs is actually the market value of your property in June! Now after 5 months in October its obvious that the market value of your property will be 35 Lakhs (it will increase..no doubt!) The US banks called people who took loan & said “Hello Mr.X , You can get a sum of Rs.5 Lakhs too against your property loan sanctioned on June” Mr.X will not think twice! He will rush to the bank & collect that money too. If you are aware of American life style then you will be knowing that their savings percentage is NEGETIVE (Thank God! we Indians have +30%…) So Mr.X & his family will spend this money in posh life style & later they struggle to repay the loan. After several months Mr.X will realise that hes trapped & in no way he can repay this huge amount! Now what happens if thousand & thousands or Mr.X exists! This is the way how american banks went into a huge amount of cash out flaw & later into such a worse stage that they were forced to file BANKRUPTCY! (Leeman & Merryl linch are examples)

Worse situation!

Such stage arised when the banks tried to sell out the properties (which was surrendered against loan). By that time the property market fell down & banks were forced to sell properties for half or even less prices. Eg: Mr.X got a loan for Rs.35 Lakhs, but property market fell down & now when banks try to dispose this they have to sell it for Rs.15 Lakhs or less… FULL LOSE!

The Derivative Market

Now to get rid of such a huge amount of cash drop banks did another trick. They brought up a derivative model in the stock markets. By this model, they tried to raise the value by projecting out the properties in stock market! This is the key activity that increased the pace of this unavoidable crisis.

So these are the core reasons that created the beautiful “SUBPRIME” crisis in the real estate markets of USA!

Why should I bother?

Haha! In a single look everyone will feel like that! Why should I bother if some banks fall out in the US?! Lets have an analysis!

Now many banks have fallen & the “SUBPRIME” that exists created a bottleneck in real estate market & so TRADE IS NILL. Suppose the market share of real estate sector is 500billion dollars, that much amount is gonna cut off in one shot! You might have seen in newspapers that US Federal reserve is pumping money (huge amount of dollars) into market to save these banks & to exit from crisis. They are doing this to keep the trade LIVE. Trading will not happen unless MONEY is live. Now this huge pumping of money will create another problem of LIQUIDITY (Liquid cash). There will arise a problem of “CASH AVAILABILTY”

Such a finacial crisis will create fear among people & they will STOP spending too much, they will stop spending on luxury etc. Most people will limit their shopping to “just their needs” This will heavily affect the LUXURY & PRESTIGE businesses & they will wipe out! Similarly this will spread into other areas.

How we Indians are ?

We all know that IT & ITeS sector is the fastest growing of Indian economy & its cent percent sure that this crisis will create a bottleneck to its growth. This crisis will affect the complete outsourcing sector for some time. similarly EXPORT & IMPORT business will be affected. Export trade will diminish because of crisis & Import will be costly as the value of Indian rupee is diminshing (1$ = 49 rupees now). This Export & Import plays a major share in Indian market & so you can guess whats coming?!!

Crisis in the IT sector will force companies to revise their payments. At present IT people are getting a hefty pay & this will be cut down. Many employees might loose jobs too. This cut down in salaries will force the computer geniuses to “limit” their lifestyle.

They will STOP going to Pizzas, Coffe days, PVR MUX, will stope hanging out & spending in malls. So such business will be affected.

Cut down in salaries will force people to limit spending on “not very necessary” needs like CARS,BIKES etc. This will affect the entire automobile Industry!! So the need & demand of TYRES goes down now! Now what if TYRES are demandles?? OBVIOUS…the price of RUBBER will go down drastically! It has started already! 1 month before price of rubber was above Rs.100 per kilo & now its Rs.93

So my generalisation is the “SUBPRIME CRISIS” that exists in UNITED STATES will affect even a SINGLE RUBBER TAPPING employee in this gods own country Kerala (whichs a bottom line of the world)! This will affect every individual You, Me, Our friends, each & every one. NO ONE IS EXEMPTED!

So is this worlds end???!!

Hahaha! Hope not! Just look into the fundamentals of economy. No one will stop trading on necessary goodies…rite? You have to eat, You have to drink, dress etc etc for your survival! So everyone will continue trading on the fundamental goods & products! So theres no doubt that market will reach a steady stable state…but it will take time! I dunno how long? some days…some months…some years! Its purely unpredictable. I only know if FUNDAMENTALS are STRONG you can regain from any fall backs!

So this financial crisis is not the worlds end! Dont worry on that! It will teach the world to SAVE money & it will uproot peoples thirst for LUXURY! Sure this crisis will create a hindrance in worlds progress but it will not KILL! It will find another path on its way to destiny…thats PROGRESS of all HUMANS!

WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY SUBPRIME LIFE!

Its a strange thing that I generate most ideas while travelling & that too while riding my bike. My mind is a restless kind & it doesn’t sits calm even a second. While driving my mind will be wandering around & its damn sure that am not concentrating on the road! Someother hidden force in me helps me driving! On a psychologists perspective its my “subconscious” who’s driving & its my “conscious” who’s wandering around thoughts! Hmmm..bored? leave it..lol

Today also I got another idea..a kinda business is there..didn’t checked its scalable or not..but still its worth writing here. I will explain it below.

Description:

Just think about a highly developed city like Bangalore or just imagine Cochi after 3 years. Already theres a lot number of theaters in Bangalore. The number of “Movie Fans” is very very big & thats the ideas market. The business is about starting a “Movie Club“. Anyone who’s interested can join this club for a fee of Rs.50 or Rs 100 per year (Just think on this how much possible?) This membership fee is the revenue model. In a big city like Bangalore, imagine there is about 10 Lakh movie fans. If you are able to convert 10% of this, thats 1 Lakh then see whats the turn over!! 1Lakh * Rs.100 = Rs. 1Crore a year! isn’t it good ??

What the members will get?

• Movie Club members will be informed about latest movie releases
• Members can book tickets for any movies in the City by just making a call to centralised movie club call centre
• They can collect the booked tickets from their nearest Movie Club outlet
• They can inform their movie tastes in Movie Club & when such a movie which matches their taste is released they will be informed via message or call.
• They can book in advance for an upcoming release (same as PREBOOKING)
• They will be informed about “NEVER MISS” & “MUST WATCH” type movies via SMS
• They can get latets alerts, pre-releases, reviews, previews etc etc via SMS, email etc.
• Door delivery facility of booked tickets available!

Plenty of ideas possible yet again-I got all these in these 5 minustes of writing!

Whats the market?

In a big city like bangalore majority will be professionals with a salary above 20K per month. They will be very busy with their jobs & they might not have that “time” to go into theaters, stand in the big que, suffer all those rushes! They might not catch up with latest movie releases, they might miss some great movies of their taste etc etc. For ppls who grab 2lakhs a year, Rs.100 per year for a comfortable leisure club (i mean abt Movie Club) will be more than fine!

How to market Movie Club or How to grab memberships ?

Its very simple! First you implement the system & get prepared to serve your members. Now print some attractive, catchy brochures , small notices & get some good talented marketing ppls. Sexy girls can do a great job in marketing such businesses. If everything ready…why wait? Just send your trained sexy girls with brochures & notices to all theaters in the city! You cant find a load of movies fans elsewhere! These sexy girls must go into theaters, find the right people, talk to them & convince them. Marketing ppl shud be well prepared to give SPOT MEMBERSHIPS! There are many other ways too to market this…you think on that.

Well thats the idea! Ideas are just worth saying & nothing else. What matters is who successfully implements an idea!!!

I thought to blog about Techseol today. To begin with Techseol is a pvt.ltd (private limited) company formed by me & 4 other friends. Its Techseol Websolutions India Pvt.Ltd fully & was incorporated with ROC (Registar of Comapnies) in February 2008. Its growing as an organisation slowly & steadily with our valuable efforts in time to time. At present company is functioning at Kerala IT Mission, JNI Stadium, Kaloor, Cochin.

Know more?

Well, I already said there are 5 directors including me. Other 4 are my batch mates from St.Josephs college of Engineering & Tech, Palai. Wanna know their names? They are Charles, Cyriac, Lijo & Jerome. Jerome entitles the role of CEO, where Lijo is CTO (Technical), Cyriac is CFO (Finance) & Charles is CHRO (Human Resource). Me works as the COO (Operations) of Techseol who is responsible for the companys functioning, operations & co-ordination.

Whats our Vision?

To become the “Best Websolutions Provider ” in India by the end of 2010.

Mission

To accomplish the vision a well planned mission should be there.

• Provide cost effective services
• Never ending learning procedure & adaptation to new technologies
• Customer centric business system
• Quality oriented approach
• Implementation of innovative ideas

Key Values

• Honesty
• Quality
• Innovation
• Ethics

Our Moto

“The e-Business Enabler” thats the beautiful moto of our company suggested to us by our honorary business consultant Mr.K.A. Felix.

Is this moto apt?

Yeah! Well suited for a websolutions providing company who makes other businesses to expand & improve in online business domain. This moto is well matched or is in harmony with our services, especially web development & online marketing.

Our Services

• Web designing & development
• Online marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
• Portal Development & Management

This is the way how I have answered the questionnaire. You can go through & if interested please give feedbacks.

Questionnaire

1.How has been your association with startup?

So far so good! It all began from association of friends with a common perspective. 2 or 3 years back, when broadband has begun to fledge in kerala we all got exposed to field of internet web publishing. Realising that our individual potentials in online money generation could be well utilized if we could join hands, we have decided to form Techseol – a young student cum professionals venture providing Internet marketing solutions & Internet web publishing solutions. We have floated it as Techseol websolutions India Pvt.Ltd on February 2008. We already have 3 major clients & business talks are going on with many national & international clients. As immediate step, we will move on IT Habitat Centre, Kaloor for future operation on this July. We have a vision to develop Techseol as a leading player in Indian Internet Business by 2010.

2. Why did you join a startup?

A startup is always challenging & it gives freedom of operations. We can experiment our new creative thoughts in a startup, moreover our thoughts has a value. Despite the huge risks involved, a startup like this will give a high reputation, chance to explore new fields, a platform to learn many new concepts & ideas. I will explain more about this on the answer to 5^th question.

3. How many people were there in your company?

We have 5 working directors & 5 part time employees at present. On moving to IT Habitat center, kaloor this July, we plan to expand the staff potential by 5 fulltime employees & 10 part time employees. Theres a strong backing from Prospects management consultants, Cochin headed by Mr.George Karunakkal & Prof.Tommy Cherian whom guides us in the way of business management. Finance consultant is M/s Shridhar & Co. Trivandram.

4. What are the major challenges you faced?

Ofcourse like any other startups we have also faced a lot of challenges & hurdles on our way to formation of Techseol. It involves a lot starting from registration procedures, capital raising, to the moral support from family. By gods grace & our strong will we were able to overcome all major hurdles we have faced up to date & we expect a lot more in our way to explore success.

5. What are the advantages of working in a startup?

Well, this is something that requires explanation. For a common man looking from outside, he will not find anything big in working on a startup. Instead he might consider it as foolishness while we have offers from biggies like Wipro, Infosys, UST, Cognizant etc. Now I should answer why? Let me say it in points.

1. Challenging & rewarding
2. Freedom of operations
3. Creative freedom
4. Opportunity to interact with many eminent business personals
5. Chance to experiment & explore
6. Being a part of economic development of my country India
7. Creation of wealth
8. Become an employer than becoming an employee
9. Create a new business culture based on values
10. An opportunity to take part in overall development of India.

I know the above question needs explanation, but I believe these 10 points are enough to convey some meaning.

6. How is the work life balance in a startup and how are the facilities.

In our case the association is of 5 friends. So what should I say? Work feels like enjoyable really. We are really loving what we are doing, that’s the case. Any professional saying like “I love my work” is enjoying a work-life balance. I am sure on that. Now about facilities, in old days (3 years before) major hurdle faced by all startups were space, unlimited connectivity, uninterruptable power source, computers etc etc. I must say Kerala govt. has done a wonderful job with the innovative concept called “Incubator” in Technopark & Infopark. Any human with a scalable business idea can meet Technopark official with a business plan (must be scalable) for incubation. If they are convinced on your business proposal, you will get plug & play furnished spaces in Technopark @ cheap rates. Also financial assistance is provided by govt. for startups. So I believe conditions at present in kerala are pretty supportive for startups now.

7. Did you ever feel you had to sacrifice your health because of long office timings? Or that the brand you were working on is not well known.

As we are young & have the mileage to run I have never felt like sacrificing on health. We function like normal offices from 9 am to 5 pm in a formal way, but @ many instances we work overtime because its our own & need to finish projects within time limit. About brand! I hope our startup venture has given us a high brand value than a young professional working @ some biggie like Infosys or Wipro. Its just because of the novelty we are having & of the heavy risk involved. What matters is the courage we have shown to face such a risk at this young age. Techseol is on its way on branding as a successful student venture.

8. Any other risks which are there when joining a startup.

Ofcouse! Risks are plenty. I just cant explain here because it differs from business to business, person to person. If you have a strong will & courage to overcome the hurdles you gonna face, then its ok. Major risk will be your own fear itself. At first you must be successful in eliminating your own fear of failure chances, then go on & face the rest boldly. I hope we were able to inspire many of youngsters in Kerala by showing them an example. We would like many other likely ventures from our “gods own country” which will add to economic development of Kerala.

Thank you

Jojo Joson