We’ve been taught to “make the best out of waste” from our childhood and this axiom applies more now than at any other time. The amount of eWaste that is being produced is mind boggling. There are startups entering into this field and trying to make a difference but the numbers depicting the rate of production of eWaste are disturbing. Companies like Attero , Recycle Trade India and Ecocentric  in India have started activities on this front and should do well because the size of the opportunity here would possibly outstrip any other barrier. The following infographic is about the eWaste generated in the developed nations but a major chunk (junk) of this is shipped (sold) across to developing/under-developed countries. This is a grave situation from the looks of it but looking at the silver lining, it is a global opportunity to make the best out of. Bigger initiatives like the Consumer Electronics Association in the US which has have vowed to recycle one billion pounds annually by 2016 are also prevalent but it is almost impossible for the recycling industry to compete with the rate of growth of technology and the declining life-spans of devices. A recent TOI report mentioned that India’s eWaste output shot up by 8 times in the last 7 months! Taking all these factors into consideration, which are the areas in which smaller players can contribute innovatively? It’d be great to discuss some of the possible solutions or innovative solutions that are already being implemented but can be replicated.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

You’ve probably already heard about Google’s newest project: Project “Glass” . It’s a pair of glasses that has a built-in display, camera and voice recognition that feeds in all kinds of interesting data to you as you walk about doing your everyday things. Think terminator-style augmented reality. The video is quite cool, showing off all kinds of new things that these glasses could make possible. I was still working with Google when Larry Page took over from Eric Schmidt as the new CEO of Google. I remember when this announcement came out, it got the most amount of press coverage and media attention, but there was a second announcement that had gotten many other Googlers excited: Sergey Brin’s new role. Sergey was going to go off and start “GoogleX” – A division of Google that was going to invest in exotic R&D, in futuristic and long-shot bets that would be huge game changers. This was going to be Google’s skunk-works. Sergey had two things going for him: A truly massive budget and the pick of the smartest Google employees (I remember everyone wanted to work on these projects, not even knowing what exactly they were going to be). Smart people and tons of money are a deadly combination. Without the daily pressures of deadlines, launch dates, limitations of current tech engineers would be free to let their imaginations run amok and create all kinds of exotic and cool stuff. The last time these set of factors came together was at AT&T’s Bell Labs. Backed by AT&Ts near-monopoly and cash cow of the 70s and 80s, Bell Labs engineers spent their time dreaming up exotic stuff and brought forth to the world invaluable technologies that changed the course of the world: Unix and C, fiber optics, digital cellphone tech, WiFi and many other technologies trace their origins back to Bell Labs. Unfortunately, the problem with these exotic labs is that they need lots of money and patience. The technologies don’t pay off for years, and even when they do, they don’t necessarily make money for the parent company. But when they do, they can create entire new industries. This is the reason I’m really excited to see the tech start flowing from GoogleX. It has the potential to completely transform the way we work and interact with each other. However, many pundits don’t share my excitement. The most common criticism I’ve heard is that these videos are great, but the technology is so exotic that it isn’t coming anytime soon. And even if it does, it will be horribly expensive. Some of the criticism may be valid, but it doesn’t understand Google’s way of doing things. I’m quite sure that this is coming and coming soon, otherwise Sergey Brin would never have showed it off. Sure enough, two days after the announcement, Sergey Brin was seen wearing a prototype of the glasses. Blogger Robert Scoble, who was there with Brin, described it as “ I saw a bluish light flashing off of his right eyeball. I could only guess that my Google+ profile flashed up, or maybe some PR voice said ‘stay quiet’ or something like that. But the glasses are real. Very light looking. Most of the people around us had no idea that these glasses are pretty special.” He even got a picture of Sergey wearing them. Sergey’s fascination with exotic tech is well documented. We can only imagine what is coming next. Maybe a cellphone that absorbs all the electromagnetic radiation around you (from your office WiFi, nearby cell towers, radio and TV broadcasts) and slowly charges itself while sitting in your pocket. Or how about cars that talk to each other and co-operate while approaching an intersection, so no one has to stop at the intersection anymore. I, for one, am eagerly waiting for what comes next!

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

I was on a SouthWest flight this one time, and just as the plane was lining up on the runway, the flight attendant came on the intercom and said that we’re all going to play a game of “Catch the peanuts”. As the plane was accelerating on the runway, the attendant who was sitting at the front of the plane dumped like a 100 bags of peanuts in the aisle. As the plane accelerated, the bags of peanuts slid through the aisle, where we “caught” them. I even managed to get a couple extra for the passengers sitting next to me in the middle and window seat. Most fun I’ve had on a plane. Ever. Different story: I feel mildly stressed when I’m entering my password on any website. If I enter it wrong, I’m worried it will scold me with a bright red error message. It takes me back to my school days, like seeing an exam paper full of red ink from a teacher’s pen. Why do websites do that? Why are the error messages in red? Are they trying to scold me? The experience of entering a password feels like a test: “Do you know what the right password is? Only then do you get to go ahead. And if you get it wrong….” These two scenarios are so different. In the first one, the airline has managed to turn an otherwise stressful experience of traveling in a cramped seat slightly pleasant . On the other hand, something as simple as entering my password manages to cause mild cognitive stress , especially if I have a feeling I don’t remember what the damn password is. All products must live by the cardinal rule of pleasing the user. Using the product has to absolutely be a pleasing experience. It should leave the user happier. You know how they say “The Customer is always right”? I think the equivalent for software products should be “The User is absolutely, undoubtedly, goddamned right.” The reality, however, is quite different. Many products tend to be very functional, not paying any attention to what the user’s state of mind is. Is the product helping the user achieve what he wants to do? In a pleasing, helpful way? However, many products confuse professional with strict. When ends up happening is products end up looking serious, distant and disconnected from the user. Products should be fun and engaging to use. Google’s approach to products is a good example. The Google doodles are beloved and widely adored. Google has gone to great extents to make them fun, adorable and even cute. Remember the pac-man doodle? Or the musical doodle? Or the submarine you could navigate? When you search for “recursion”, Google comes back and asks “Did you mean recursion?” Asking Google Maps for directions from Japan to China results in Google suggesting you “Jet Ski across the Pacific Ocean”. Making your products fun and adorable has benefits beyond just the obvious. Firstly, it builds enormous user loyalty. Many, many users use Google because they love that experience of serendipitously seeing some fun, sometimes interactive logo. And once they see the fun logos, user satisfaction scores are actually higher than without. Think about that for a second: Users think Google’s search engine is better after seeing the interactive logos, even though the logos have no bearing on the search results. There’s a second, more significant benefit: When things go wrong, users are much more likely to be forgiving and understanding, because they feel like they have an emotional connection with the product. When Gmail has gone down, the response in the blogosphere has been significantly milder than what Microsoft experiences when Hotmail is down. Coming back to the problem with passwords: There’s many nicer ways to handle the user typing a wrong password. Twitter’s mobile site helpfully says “Typing on your phone stinks, we know! Double-check your username and password and try again.” And it’s not in the annoying red color I hate so much. Ubuntu’s lock screen shakes (I find it very funny ) when you type a wrong password. This one video game actually apologized to me when I typed a wrong password: It said “We’re very sorry, but we couldn’t recognize the password. Would you like to try again?”. And I was like “Sure, no problem”. That made me real happy.

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Delhi based startup, tagNpin , has released a new product for e-commerce portals . Besides the website, the new ‘Loyalty’ solution can be integrated on the portals Facebook page as well, within 10 minutes using a plug and play code . “Loyalty has always been a big part of retail. We are living in a social age where people show their loyalty in new ways, like sharing product details in their social circle. These social actions may be equally or more valuable than purchasing the product itself. This hyperlocal marketing is fast replacing other traditional forms. Through tagNpin’s solution e-commerce sites can tap a person’s digital activities, including purchases to reward them appropriately,” informed Siddharth Gupta , Co-founder , tagNpin . Customers can get rewarded for shopping, being social, and for actively recommending, commenting or liking something on the portals Facebook page. “E-commerce vendors will have complete flexibility to select the actions they wish to reward customers for,” said Siddharth. Brands can change the loyalty logic anytime. They can choose to reward the active customer for social activity, run marketing campaigns, SMS campaigns and view analytics; all this through their tagNpin dashboard . “With increasing internet penetration, new e-commerce sites are coming up to fill every dot and in some cases brining retail experience online. Our loyalty solution was designed to provide shoppers a great shopping experience on any e-commerce portal and to make it easier for e-commerce players to reward shoppers for being a brand influencer,” concluded Siddharth. To find out more about this, visit www.tagnpin.com | Register here , and don’t forget to enter the ‘yourstory’ code. You can read more about tagNpin here .

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

While most people jotted down business plans to start e-commerce portals, looking at e-commerce boom in India, the founders of Koolkart came up with a rather ‘kool’ idea. Nobody likes shopping alone. We’re always looking for opinions and advice on what brands to buy, from which places and at what prices. So, we grab someone we know (who pities him/herself in most cases!), and set off to a mall for the ensuing escapade. Koolkart has tried to recreate this experience online. Seeing e-commerce finally taking off in India, Suneil Chawla and Anupam Agarwal, Co-founders of Koolkart , recognized that there would be over a thousand e-commerce companies opening up over the next couple of years. This, they realized, would bring two problems for consumers: (1)   What to buy:  Consumers would be spoilt for choice with thousands of e-retailers who highlight products they want to sell, and with a lack of time to go through every site digging for good products Cofounder, Suneil (2)   Where to buy:  Consumers want to know which retailers are trustworthy and who is selling at the best price or having the best deal. Koolkart came up with the concept of social discovery + price comparison factoring in these two consumer needs, by creating an independent platform where consumers can discover products being purchased/recommended by their friends and fellow shoppers, and also compare prices and review retailers. Their beta version was launched at the end of January, 2012. Although its been only 2 months since then, they have seen a positive response with 3000 UVs a day and rising . With Koolkart, consumers can gain access to products endorsed by their friends/fellow shoppers and discover over 14 million products from over 180 online retailers in India. To enable social product discovery, Koolkart is integrated with Facebook.  Product recommendations from users are seamlessly shared on their Facebook timeline using the recently launched Facebook Opengraph. “We are the first application in India and one of the very few globally, who have a Facebook timeline integration for shopping. This allows consumers to easily discover products recommended by their friends and like-minded fellow shoppers. Once the consumer has decided what to buy, they can compare prices across retailers to ensure that the price paid is always the best,” says Suneil. Cofounder, Anupam The Koolkart team consists of 5 people who got together in September, 2011. A commerce graduate from Loyola College, an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, and after over 4 years at Bain & Co, across their Delhi, Boston and Mumbai offices, Suneil decided to startup Koolkart along with Anupam. A computer science engineer from IIT Delhi, an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, a banker with Barclay’s Capital, London, Anupam is a second-time entrepreneur, having co-founded Flightraja.com (now Via.com) prior to his MBA. On how they market Koolkart, Anupam says, “We have built in social discovery, which is attracting users even when our userbase is still young. Further, consumers love the price comparison and Koolkart button (instant price comparison). We are getting consumers through search, who are getting converted into social shoppers. The Facebook timeline is helping us gain strong virality through word-of-mouth. It looks like the chicken-and-egg situation can be cracked, if one is very conscious of consumer needs (What to buy / Where to buy).” Their basic revenue model is affiliate commission from retailers, though they believe that  there is a lot of untapped potential once they become the starting point for shopping, which is their current focus, and incorporates social signals from consumers. Koolkart’s journey hasn’t been easy. “E-commerce players in India do not have good systems and data feeds to integrate with our platform. So, we had to build a platform which gathers data from retailers without them having to do much. Now that we have one, integrating with new retailers is quite easy. Growing the userbase faster is our current focus area. Creating awareness for a new brand like Koolkart takes multiple initiatives, and we’re working on that,” says Anupam. “We have built the entire comparison engine inhouse from scratch – we have mainly used Java and Mysql.We have a robust and scaleable back-end, which will really help as we expand,” he adds. Koolkart has noticed some interesting trends along the way. They have seen that although there is some loyalty towards large players, once consumers recognize that they can get similar products at 20% – 40% lower prices , they nearly always switch. Also, no e-commerce site is always the cheapest – even leading players price products at low prices occasionally, whereas some players have take to very aggressive (low) pricing tactics. The biggest gainers from Koolkart’s platform have been ecommerce sites which sell fashion and home décor products (especially products not being sold elsewhere). Indian consumers are getting into shopping for softer categories online, and Koolkart is focusing on social discovery for such products, going forward. Many niche e-retailers in fashion and home décor, they claim, have got significant traffic to their websites from Koolkart.com. “We continue to innovate on the social discovery experience on  Koolkart.com . There’s plenty of work and we are expanding the team” concludes Suneil. Koolkar requires a SEO strategist, details about which can be found here . Happy shopping! – Meghna Chhabria and Jubin Mehta

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

This past week was choc-a-bloc with action. If you missed out on the action, here is a quick roundup: Startup Resource: Startups Need to Ensure Sustainability via Working Capital Management Business Plans: Top 10 Mistakes To Avoid Startup Agreements Toolkit to Safeguard Intellectual Property 5 Tips to Improve Your Chances of Receiving Capital Funding & Acquisition News: DGM India Acquired by Tyroo and Anurag Gupta Hotelogix Secures USD 1.2 Million Series A Funding from Accel Partners & Others Snapdeal.com Acquires Online Sports Retailer eSportsbuy.com Savaari Car Rentals Secures INR 5 Crore Funding from Inventus Capital Partners Interviews: “We will continue to be quite aggressive on the acquisitions front,”Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal Ram Badrinath (Founder & CEO, GlobalThen) on ‘Pawan Ko Kahin Dekha Kya’, a New Training Module for Drivers Guest Columns & Expert Talk: The Hidden Key to Productivity Be the Brand Ambassador for Your Venture The Strategic Importance of Doing It Right! The Great Patent Wars Startup Stories: Uniphore- Providing Speech Based Mobility Solutions SecPanel, a Morpheus Gang Company, Offers DIY Server Security Product for SMBs iTrans Technologies Endeavoring to End Vehicle Security Issues with Tcop Also, some of the popular startups that we know are hiring, Join a startup today!

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

PHP developers at Gotcubed Services Senior Software Developer at Hangrr.com Fashion Designer at Hangrr.com Marketing/Business development Executive at PriceCheckIndia Online Marketing Intern at Aangan Trust SEO Strategist at Koolkart For more jobs, please visit Jobs Listing at YourStory.in. To post a job, please click here .

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

The Rockefeller Foundation has launched the 2012 Innovation Challenges to source innovative ideas that will have the potential to create long-term impact in an increasingly dynamic and complex world. The Innovation Challenges, which run through May 25, expect to gather ideas from around the globe in three issue areas: data, irrigation, and farming. Seven billion people are now living—some barely surviving—on our planet, magnifying the challenges and creating new opportunities to tackle them. As The Rockefeller Foundation marks its centennial, the search has begun for innovative ideas that will solve problems for the next 100 years. The Innovation Challenges are designed to discover and reward ideas that show unique promise for addressing global needs from a variety of geographies, perspectives, and contexts. Fifteen finalists, five in each category, will be selected by a distinguished panel of judges and recognized at the 2012 Innovation Forum on June 28, 2012. They may be invited to collaborate with The Rockefeller Foundation as it builds the Global Engagement Network, a network of problem solvers focused on key global problems. As many as nine out of 15 finalists will be selected by the Foundation to apply for up to $100,000 in grant support to further develop or implement their ideas. “The Rockefeller Foundation’s centennial occurs at a time of great dynamism, change, and uncertainty in the world. We are challenging the on-the-ground thinkers and doers to offer their most innovative thinking for addressing the challenges facing humanity in the 21 st century,” said Michael Myers, Director of The Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Initiative. “The ideas that can become the next killer app for these issues, we want to know about them, we want to let others learn from them, and we want to support them.” The Rockefeller Foundation looks to attract global changemakers whose ideas could lead to new services, tools, and choices in the following three issue areas: DECODING DATA: Ideas that create better ways to address urban challenges through the application of data. IRRIGATING EFFICIENCY: Ideas that help reduce barriers—such as lack of investment, incentives, or political will and capacity—to implementing and scaling agricultural water use efficiency. FARMING NOW: Ideas that encourage and help young farmers to become more productive, more resilient, and more profitable by addressing cultural perceptions, economic conditions, and/or climate change. The 2012 Innovation Challenges are the second in an annual series, which began in 2011 and are designed to source cutting-edge ideas to some of the most pressing challenges around the world. The first Innovation Challenges sought innovative uses in mobile technology to improve health systems and outcomes. The second annual 2012 Innovation Challenges will accept entries until May 25, 2012. For more information or to participate, visit http://centennial.rockefellerfoundation.org/challenge

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

A number of digital agencies have sprung up in India over the past few years. With internet businesses mushrooming simultaneously, digital agencies and social media consultancies are having a field day. Mumbai based startup, Gozoop , started when co-founders Rohan Bhansali and Dushyant Bhatia met for lunch one day. Ahmed Naqvi , the third co-founder, and Rohan were already working together at RAASTUDIOS, a graphic design and web development shop. In early 2010, social media was still at its nascent stages in India, and though they did not have in-depth knowledge about the social media space, they decided to give it a shot. Gozoop is not your run-of-the-mill digital agency. Besides the obvious services like social media consultancy, lead generation, viral campaigns and SEO/SEM services, Gozoop puts in a lot of effort in R&D and creating innovative services and solutions. One of Gozoop’s first in-house products, Zozolo.com , deals with social commerce and social loyalty solutions . Gozoop has a mobile division as well that develops mobile apps. One of Gozoop’s incubated ventures, Decidebay.com , is set to have a beta launch soon . It is a consumer review portal . Social Loyalty Gozoop has a couple of social loyalty products: Social Loyalty – Top Loyal Fans Social Loyalty – Reward System The first app allows brands to keep a track of their ‘brand influencers’ on social media. It is an extremely useful tool for brands to keep a tab on their most engaging and loyal fans. The second product allows brands to analyse and sync their brand loyalty across Facebook, Twitter, website, apps and games. Fans can be rewarded with custom points and have redemption in a turnkey solution. Zozolo – Social Commerce “Zozolo provides a social commerce solution that runs completely inside Facebook as well as on your own website. All of this is centrally controlled by an easy to use admin panel, with multiple role-based administrators, avoiding you the hassle of maintaining two different Order and Inventory management systems,” informed Dushyant. Value-add for the brand: ● App can be installed on the brand’s Facebook page ● The look can be customized using Zozolo’s DIY Store Front designer ● Highlight products and offers Value-add for shoppers: ● Buy products or add them to their ‘Wishlist’ ● Get advice from friends or recommend products to friends ● Like and inquire about products The other interesting feature is that all actions of the shoppers are posted on their walls. It also appears on the newsfeed of both the shopper and their friends. While browsing through, the store shoppers can check out what their friends have bought. “At the moment, we have hundreds of clients across Middle East and India using our social commerce and loyalty solutions. 8% of our overall revenue comes from this product – I’d like to ideally see the figure touch 25% by March 2013 ,” said Dushyant. “While our credentials include several successful campaigns over Facebook and Twitter, our venture Zozolo had been selected by Mashable as one of the top 10 hottest young companies to watch out for,” he further added. Expansion Plans “We want to grow our market share in products, services as well as our first web business. E-commerce is something we would like to explore. We have worked with over 25 e-commerce portals in India, the Middle East and Singapore over the last 2 years. Once we achieve our short term targets, this shall be the next step,” said Dushyant. “We also want to be recognized as a productive, innovative and nurturing startup incubator in India,” he added. It took Gozoop 18 months to take a step outside India and establish their first international footprint in Dubai. Their next target is Singapore. They want to establish a strong physical presence in Singapore in the next 9 months. From a team of 6, the Gozoop team has grown to over 45+ in the last 24 months. The mobile engagement space is growing rapidly in India and has already become a major part of the social media space. This augurs well for Gozoop. We at YourStory.in will be keenly following the progress of Gozoop and we wish them the best. For more information, visit www.gozoop.com

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat

Are you looking to market your hotel website online? Looking to get new customers? Here are 10 online inbound marketing ideas for hoteliers from First10 SEO Services. #1: Partner with local attractions  There are attractions like museums in every city that are popular among travelers and locals living in that area. Partner with them and give exclusive discounts for their members. This will give your brand more exposure, and also give you a quality link back to your website. #2: Education University Partnerships Getting links from .edu websites are one of the quickest ways to improve your search engine rankings. Are there universities in your area? Partner with those universities to offer discounted rooms for guests who are attending conferences or events that are happening at these universities. An example of giving special rates for conference attendees: #3: Conference & Events Partnerships Another similar way to get more customers to your hotel and to get quality links to your website is to look at conferences or events that are happening in your city, and then partner with them to offer discounted rates for the conference attendees. Example: #4: Get listed in visitor guides for your city Every city will have visitor guides talking about what to do in your city, favorite places to see, lodging options etc. Get listed in these guides as they are popular among tourists visiting your city. Example: #5: Guest Blogging Find other websites that cater to your potential customers, and offer to write an interesting guest blog on their website. By inserting links back to your website in these guest blogs, you can drive quality traffic to your website and get more exposure for your brand. Example: If your hotel is based in Osaka, Japan- then writing an article on ‘The Top 10 Attractions in Osaka, Japan’ and submitting it to local websites will result in more traffic for you. #6: Piggyback on something that is famous in your city Every city has an attraction that gets a lot of editorial mentions. Get in touch with these editors and build a partnership where your hotel gets promoted as a place to sleep for people who are visiting the city to see the attraction. Example: #7: Become the venue for an event or conference Partner with event organizers and offer your hotel as a venue for their next event or conference. This will directly lead to more footfalls, and more people becoming aware of your hotel. Also, each time the event is promoted your hotel will automatically be prompted as the venue, resulting in more links to your website. Example: #8: Start a Blog One of the easiest way to get more people to visit your website regularly is to write fresh content that is interesting and informative to your target customer demographic. #9: Creative partnerships with local businesses Partner with businesses in your city. Go for the extreme, and look to build relationships with businesses that are out of the ordinary. The more different it is, the easier it will be to build partnerships. Ask yourself why do people travel to your city? Find businesses that cater to this need, and build partnerships with them. Example : The Silver Cloud Inn has built links by partnering with dentists and doctors in their city. #10: Conference and Meeting Venue Do you have a conference hall that could be rented out as a meeting venue for corporates? If you do, then promote this online. There are various meeting venue finder websites online that will advertise this for free and get your more footfalls to your hotel. Implement these 10 ideas to get more customers to your website. Remember to test and learn what works best for your website, and stick to them to see results. – Arjun Rajkumar, Founder & Internet Marketing Strategist, first10marketing .com

[via Yourstory.in]

Follow us @entrepreneurht – lists / @sectorheat