SMS vs mobile internet

95%+ of the users have plain vanilla services, including voice and SMS. Quite a few have GPRS capable phones, but hardly use them. Of the ones who do, few can be considered "regular" internet users on the mobile phone.

• does the low speed hinder usage ?
• costs ? sms packs now offer near-free smsing!
  
• do most savvy-enough users have the desktop alternative anyhow ?
• The time you're on the go is your 'internet-free' time ?
• m-browsing sucks cause of size/visibility ?
• sms is way better for communication - mail/messengers on the phone are too klutzy ?
  

What is it ? One company actually found users surprisingly willing to type upto a max of 45 word queries!

Would like comments from the few souls who do read this blog, even if its once/blue moon.

Update :

So, nobody, but nobody, reads this blog :)

Starring....

Have never spoken about the team!

• Ajay Sethi : Bossman, founder, marketing, strategy, sales, the "PhD" of the tech end
• Urs truly : Co-founder, design, dabble in this and that and all the threads, aspiring entrpreneurial student
• Gowri : The Java Guru of the team - and the coding guidelines committee
• Bipin : All the mobile world - he's founded companies, made, sold platforms, knows the dark alleys of the market out there
• Nikhil, Siddhartha : IIIT in-the-knows who know more about networks, installs than I knew there was to know, and I'm surprised they're fresh out of college!
  
• Shesha : Our US resident "Dr". She's moved recently and should be back in the thick of things soon.

Fantastic bunch of people, who all OD a bit of tea/coffee. Ok thats mainly Gowri and I who're responsible for corrupting everyone's tastebuds. And its a very 'campus-like' fell cause, well, we are in one!

ZiVA is hiring redux

If you're keen on doing sales/marketing for a startup, talk to us. Now that stuff is built and we have a few installs going, we need to ramp up on the selling hard and real quick. The formal JD (and the website, blog) will follow soon.

As always, smart keen brains interested in defining mobile search, especially the way it will spread in India, are welcomed with open arms. There's mining, IR, performance, peer-stuff and can-you-think-of-something-else to be done, and at Ziva, its your baby if you want to.

sameer D_O_T shisodia A_T zivasoftware D_O_T com if you're keen or curious.

Servers, hosts, DNS and Krishna Cafe

The too-late-for-a-real-blog-entry updates (this is becoming more of a sarkari circular/bulletin than a blog)

• learning oh-so-much about the mundane - hosting, dedicated servers, DNS bits and pieces
• Nettigritty is a real neat one, amazingly prompt support
• dedicated servers are EXPENSIVE in India, coz of bandwidth, I guess
• dedicatedNow are old timers, responsive and cheap! Very, very impressed

• Discovered CentOS - iimminent laptop 'upgrade' warning!
• Still cannot install mysql consistently across OSs
  
• Krishna Cafe opened up on Bannerghata Road - great food option tho a little expensive
  
• They inaugurated the Bannerghata Circle flyover - traffic has sucked since - do these bandaids really heal ?
  
• Nikhil and Siddharatha joined us a month ago - and we're doing way more already
• There are many forks in the road and we have to take one, maybe two
• Some news WILL happen in the next 2 months. All I can say
• Kozoru's byoms is geeky and fun. Popular ? Dunno yet.

New Address:

Ziva Software Pvt Ltd
#28, NSR-GIC Centre, Indian Institute of Management,
Bannerghata Road, Bangalore - 560076 India

Post-Shivku-Comment-Updates added - links to stuff, basically. Thanks dude.

Management Exposure

Been ages since I added anything here : a combination of 'same ol', laziness and work, I guess, is my excuse.

Anyhow - some highlights:

• Roadwork on the 80 feet road. Terible amounts of dust - but will be worth it when its done.
• A trip to Bomaby and customer interaction added some zest to an otherwise isolated deveopent phase.
• We took up space at II M's NSRCEL incubator - lovely campus and plug and play connectivity, access to their library, networking with a host of VCs, industry folks are the bonuses. Cheap lunch and coffee too!
• Product's beginning to look like a release.
• I need a short vacation soon.
  

Ziva online @ "Bar-Code"

Ziva Software Private Ltd
2nd floor, #13, 80 feet road,
1st Block, Koramangala
Bangalore 560034
+91-80-41530889

Feels like 'office' :) Not so corporate tho. We're 4 people now, and the most recent joinee was a sight with a bucket and mop which was promptly purchased to get the cleaning lady going right away.
Gowri was dying to set up a 'lab' with messed up wires and stuff.
And we set up the router/switch pretty much at one shot!
And we hired out first non IT temp - the lady who offerred to clean the place up every day.

Neither cheap nor too dear

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/22it.htm

especially :
"The revenue per employee in the last five years has steadily declined from Rs 3.77 per rupee spent on employee in FY 2001 to Rs 2.90 in FY 2003 and further to Rs 2.31 in FY05. In the first nine months of the FY06, a rupee spent on employees has generated revenue of Rs 2.09.

The attrition level is currently said to be around 35 per cent for the industry as a whole and it varies between 10 and 15 per cent for frontline companies. IT companies always keep a pool of employees (also referred to as benching). Industry estimates of benching stand at 20-25 per cent employees."

Have always maintained that we may be shooting ourselves in the foot - a collective greed if you will. While the short term attractiveness of a 30% jump is undeniable, remember that what you make overall is a factor of longevity, of the industry too. If you can sell a Merc at th eprice of a Honda, why not! Why try killing yourself with a not-yet-premium brand (also niche) and have premium pricing. If there is no Indian industry....

That said, India is beginning to establish that brand, at least in some quarters. There's also a strong domestic demand in some areas - and this will become truer as Indian corporations flex their muscle, both at home and abroad.

Even so, there'll always be a competitor willing to produce the same stuff for half the price. So its in our collective interest to keep the price tags attractive even as the quality and brand shoots up. Hyundai did that in the US market - and it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Its not an either or situation - you're better off with BOTH.

So please negotiate reasonably at the next round of appraisals. (Between you and me, all our salaries are way above the 'need' scenario anyhow). A couple of lakh extra might mean a few years lesser - and that will bite a hell lot more.

Short mention (US Press)

From the Indianapolis Business Journal

These guys had met Ajay briefly. Ziva mobile search gets its first US press mention, however brief :) ! Also, "india mobile search" or "mobile search startup" on Google news throws this up at the top, at least today.

Inane pleasures but nice.

Bangalore getting too messy/expensive

This does affect us too, one way or the other. Its getting tougher for startups too.

Press-ing matters

Ziva got its first mention in print - however indirectly.

Yours truly got some space in this weeks - well - 'The Week'. Nothing to my credit really - my investment advisor wanted to help his pal out with filling space up and forwarded him to me! And there was a propah 'photo shoot' session after that :)

Also - my first brush with the media and I get mildly mis-quoted :) !! Ziva was started with lots of thought and spadework that Ajay put in and I only joined him much later to take the vision to fruition. What I did say was "I'm doing something on my own". Anyhow....

Update:

Here's the online version of the same article:
http://www.the-week.com/26feb12/currentevents_article10.htm