Podcast
Breaking The Borders
Hosted by Rohit Gandrakota · EN
Breaking the Borders is an exclusive podcast where we take a closer glimpse into the stories of successful immigrant entrepreneurs. Each session of Breaking the Borders features a remarkable immigrant entrepreneur with a story that is unique in its own way.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How to build a successful coaching business with Li Lin
Jun 30, 201700:56:21Tap to summarizeLi Lin is the founder of thesuccessfulimmigrant.com where she helps immigrants realise their dreams by getting a kick ass job in the US. Listen to this episode to learn more about how she moved from getting fired as an SEO consultant to started her own company and making $100k in revenue.
Transcribe →
Learning to Be an Angel Investor by Becoming an Entrepreneur with Ravi Trivedi
Mar 9, 201700:48:53Tap to summarizeRavi Trivedi is the founder of couponrani.com, which receives 200,000 to 1,500,000 visits a month, and 10,000 to 40,000 transactions monthly. They reached this level after only about two years. He earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science then went to work in Hewlett Packard, where he learned about the new field of web services. He was writing articles and conducting training on the topic and then someone invited him to write on web services security, and Ravi was pleased to have the opportunity. Technology is not the silver bullet, says Ravi; it’s an enabler to solving a real pain point. In working as a consultant, he got to know more about customer needs and pain points and convinced his supervisors to let him move more in a direction where he could understand client needs, and so he moved into a pre-sales and marketing role. He decided it was important to secure an MBA as well, and began as a part-time student in Bangalore, but decided he needed to do it full-time. He mainly looked at schools in the US and ended up at Duke University. Eventually, he began working on Wall Street. Unlike many others, Ravi never sought or wanted a green card; it was always his intention to return to India upon completion of his Master’s degree. He ended up spending nine years in the US but never intended to stay permanently. He also realizes that if he needed or wanted to start a business in the US, he could do so from India. In the US he started working in a venture fund, and on returning to India he started one. He saw that working with entrepreneurs allowed him the potential for longer-term investment. His emphasis is really on angel funds, which is a lower level and usually combined with a group of 15 to 20 other investors. To help them learn what needed to be done as angel investors, Ravi and a partner each decided to found their own startups. They did it without investors, but they used the experience to prepare themselves. They realized they first wanted to learn how to fish before trying to teach others to fish. Couponrani is Ravi’s bootstrap startup for this idea. A first site was started in 2012, although it took a while to develop the full system he wanted. An intern who was only with Couponrani for six months helped teach Ravi a lot about community building and SEO, which did a great deal to help develop the company. One event was a Republic Day Twitter trivia contest. One focus that Ravi has kept with Couponrani is to only work with online coupons, rather than “brick and mortar” store coupons. This allowed them to keep a smaller salesforce - it was more scalable and suitable for their model. An important part of SEO that Ravi learned was to focus on the end user first, rather than the other way around. They’ve also found that doing the contrarian thing often works - he uses the example of optimizing Facebook ads for clicks, rather than likes, yet ending up getting likes at a lower cost (he also points out this no longer works!) The company does 6 figures in annual revenue.They expanded to Singapore and Malaysia, although they only continue in Malaysia at this point. Ravi is now also founding PushEngage.com. This company creates browser popup messages. It’s targeted at both enterprise and consumer clients. He sees it as a tool produced by a marketer, for a marketer. The current plans are to continue growth internationally. For Couponrani, Ravi hopes to become the top of the field for mid-tier merchants within a couple years. Advice for Others Starting Out Never give up. It’s the only secret for success in startups. Contact Ravi does ask that if you reach out to him, please be specific about what you’re looking for so that he can respond appropriately to your questions. Twitter @trivediravi Ravi [at] pushengage [dot] com Ravi [at] couponrani [dot] com
Transcribe →Preparing for H1-B Visa Applications with Jason Finkelman
Mar 2, 201700:27:18Tap to summarizeToday’s guest is Jason Finkelman. Jason is an immigration lawyer, and you may remember that he’s been a guest on Breaking the Borders once before. Then, he talked mainly about visas for exceptional and extraordinary talent. This time he explains the H1-B visa process. The H1-B is a temporary non-immigrant visa that allows a foreign national to work in the US in a job that generally, minimally requires a bachelor’s degree to perform. It allows presence in the United States for up to three years, with an extension of up to three more years, for a total of six years. This would be for work for a US employer, and all employers are considered equally. There are 85,000 visas available each year. Over the past few years, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received that many just on the first day of applications, which this year is April 3. If the visa is approved, it becomes effective on October 1. Because of the surplus, a computer randomly selects the 85,000 that will be evaluated by hand. Twenty thousand visas are set aside for those who have a US bachelor’s degree. Jason talks about the special challenges facing founders. The US employer has to have “ownership and control” of the company, and control over the employee.This can be difficult for startups. The past several years USCIS has been more observant to make sure that the person seeking the visa isn’t a controlling partner. The US Department of Labor works to guarantee that immigrants do not become cheap labor. A labor condition application is filed and shows the prevailing wages for the selected job; the employer then has to pay the immigrant visa recipient the same wage. The Cap-Gap program can help students who currently have work authorization while studying to continue working between graduation and the October 1 H1-B start date. Jason emphasizes that it’s urgent to start immediately to be able to get all the paperwork processed before the deadline. It’s already late to be starting, he says, but holding out until mid-March will make it impossible. Both the new administration and Congress are talking about changes to all visa processes, but Jason doesn’t see legal changes before the H1-B deadline.But he does urge everyone to work closely with a qualified attorney to make sure their application is filled out to the highest standards. The change in tone around immigration issues will most likely encourage immigration officials to look more closely at all applications. Our talk also turns to last year’s entrepreneur paroles which allowed two years in the United States. This was done by executive action by President Obama, and it’s expected that President Trump will do away with it, but nothing has happened yet. We also discuss traveling to the US on a visa, because as we’ve seen, the environment has changed and remains in flux. Jason recommends carrying proof of evidence that you intend to return home. Now, he also recommends carrying a letter from your employer that you remain employed, pay stubs, a copy of your apartment lease, or similar materials that show your ties. Most likely, he says, nothing will happen, but in case an immigration officer asks, it’s helpful to have. Jason encourages anyone to reach out to him with their questions; it’s often quicker than researching on the internet, and you’ll be sure to get the correct answer. Contact http://finkelmanlaw.com Twitter and Facebook: @finkelmanlaw jason [at] finkelmanlaw [dot] com 512 348 8855
Transcribe →Helping Women Take a Step Back and Relax with Neha Gupta
Jan 27, 201700:47:00Tap to summarizeFrom her own experience and that of her closest friends, Neha Gupta realized that women needed their own space to come together and relax. Creating such an environment is the goal behind the aptly named Women Relaxology. This India-based startup helps women connect, come together and enjoy activities to help overcome the stresses of everyday life. A recent report said that Indian women are among the most stressed demographic in the world. Neha felt that stress in her own life in the corporate world and saw it in others. She saw it particularly in the changing cultural landscape where women are expected to both live up to traditional roles as well as participate in the corporate world. From their childhood, Indian women are expected to take responsibility maturely and in a well-mannered way, and the stress of this is often neglected. Women Relaxology is a platform for women to have time to de-stress, and to find peace and happiness amidst these responsibilities and cultural changes. It offers workshops, sessions, space for talents like photography, travel, book, food, spirituality, health, entrepreneurship; and networking space to meet mentors and friends Neha had two key conversations over a couple years that led her to found Women Relaxology. The first was with a superior in her job as a marketer, who lamented that women had no place to sit back and relax, even for just an hour a week. It was a casual conversation, but one that stuck with her. The second came in 2014, in talking to her own mother, basically about the same issue. But her mother encouraged her to not just talk about it, but to take action - at least to provide herself with some way to escape the stress of life. It was then that Neha began to take this seriously, although it still didn’t take the form of an idea for a startup. In fact, she thought of doing it mainly for herself. She thought a change of job would help bring her more peace of mind, but that didn’t work. By October 2015 she was committed to creating a networking-bases system to help destress life. Her mother continued to push her and help her refine her ideas and to overcome the fear of leaving a high-paying job to take the entrepreneurial plunge. Neha came to the realization that free oneself of stress means you need to spend time with yourself, working on your own goals. There were two aspects to her plan: A networking space for women to have their own time An area apart from academics, where they could put talents to work To get started, she interviewed young women in different work and family situations and talked with friends. She also made sacrifices, even moving to a smaller house and getting rid of her car and credit cards to save money! Launch finally came on January 16, 2016, with three key features. Women could deepen knowledge of a talent or hobby like photography, cooking or travel; network; and learn about selling online. A lot of time was spent in building the brand both online and through flyers and posters before their first event, a June photography tour in New Delhi. They were able to attract not only friends of friends but also some strangers, including a foreigner who opened Neha’s mind to Neha began approaching investors, and in one meeting, felt really stung when one asked what was being done for the men? The concern was not a similar program for men, but that steps be taken to help the men in these women’s lives realize the value of Women Relaxology for their wives, daughters, and sisters. It’s a point Neha and her team continue to try to work through. On January 1, 2017, an investor officially signed contracts to support Women Relaxology. Over the coming months, they plan to open central offices, hire more employees, and have a couple centers for activities available. Advice For Others Starting Out Learn from your failures When you pick up the pain points of life, it really shines; she realized the international need that she thought were...
Transcribe →Staying True to Your Motivation with Kumar Ramachandran
Jan 20, 201701:00:48Tap to summarizeDefying the axiom that if you stay in a job more than five years you’ll become too comfortable to leave, Kumar spent ten years at Cisco before successfully transitioning to being a startup founder with CloudGenix. Ultimately, it was his deep-seated motivation to have a substantial impact that gave him the impetus to create his own company and disrupt the sector of wide area networks. Kumar’s own attitude as he talks reflects what he learned from his father growing up in Mumbai. Kumar’s grandparents were farmers in Tamil Nadu, but when severe drought struck in the 1950s, his father - only around 5th or 6th grade at the time - decided he had to set out for the city to make a life for himself and to support his family. That burning ambition meant he’d sacrifice, sleeping on porches, eating where he could, rarely in the same place from one day to the next. But he put himself through school and studied engineering, and was able to live well while also helping many other people from his large extended family. His father saw himself as being in debt to all who had helped him achieve his position in life. As Kumar says, “If we stay true to our motivation, good things happen.” Kumar returns to this theme at the end of the interview, when he recognizing how much he owes to others who have helped him along the way. He also sees in the “Silicon Valley culture” an attitude of “pay it forward” - anyone he’s offered to repay for a favor has always told him he should instead help others in turn. When he first left Cisco, Kumar was excited - he even took a picture in his rearview mirror of the building and posted it on social media. But at 3 AM the next day, he woke up in a panic that he wouldn’t be successful and that he’d never get another job. At the time, he thought it was a one-time thing, but found his emotions to oscillate between extreme euphoria at starting his business and extreme panic! Kumar has firm beliefs about what’s needed for a venture-funded startup, all of which he found in the area of wide area networks that CouldGenix addresses: Very large market Strong, disruptive change Strong tailwind He believes strongly in “lean startup” model of Steve Blank, and how to seek input from outside the company When he left Cisco, the cofounding team was already taking shape. He took over the business and sales reins, and had a developer and a business architect, again following Blank’s model of hacker/hustler/developer. “Hustle” would become the key word for him, as he tried to reach out and make connections with prospective clients. Along the way, he met a lot of rejection but knew he had to keep trying. Consulting with potential customers right away helped save time and costs because they knew what they had to build. They worked hard to get honest answers; sometimes those answers didn’t surface until they were ready to implement a prototype, and suddenly all kinds of objections were raised. Never be afraid to fire a customer, says Kumar. Although he admits it sounds odd, he says that carefully choosing early customers is important, because they will do so much to shape your product. The customer also needs to have confidence in you, as Columbia sportswear did with CloudGenix. Failure and success are just part of the process for Kumar. Constant testing and trials mean that you’re going to fail at times, but as a leader, you have to celebrate the failures as learning moments. To truly be disruptive you have to be 24 to 36 months ahead of the current leaders in your field - if not, Kumar believes you shouldn’t exist. But that also entails risk and accepting setbacks. When it comes to advice Kumar says, “Bet on yourself and do it!” You can always find a million reasons not to do a startup, but there’s only one reason to do it: believe in yourself, not out of arrogance but out of commitment to yourself. Currently, CloudGenix systems handle a billion transactions a day.
Transcribe →Taste, Talent and Drive – Marc Fleishmann Outlines The Entrepreneurial Spirit
Jan 13, 201700:58:47Tap to summarizeMarc Flesichmann is a serial entrepreneur with several companies under his built. Currently, he is a co-founder at Datera, but in today’s interview, we talk mostly about his experience at Transmeta, which gave Intel a run for its money. For Marc there are two key qualities that have kept him going in new startups: first, the willingness to do it, through dedication to the task at hand. Also, he cites a certain insecurity that keeps him on his toes and wanted to continue to grow and expand and try new things. A native of Germany, Marc began programming by the time he was 11 when PC’s were still a new thing. At 13, he read an article about Steve Jobs. He was the article was written in Palo Alto and knew that’s where he want to end up. Within about 10 years, he’d made it there. While Germany is prosperous and industrialized, it’s also conservative. Marc didn’t feel much support for his drive to develop new ideas, and that fueled his dream of coming to the United States. He did start his first business while still in Germany - making clone computers (basically, any PC that was not made by IBM). He ran this throughout university and was able to sell it shortly before graduation. At the time he began to see the potential of TCP/IP and the early days of internet, and wanted to move in that direction. Looking at the playing field, Marc though Hewlett Packard, with its new RISC processor, had the best system to get into internet, and he landed a job with HP Labs in the early 1990s. After about a year working in Germany, he was transferred to the US on an L1 visa. While he says HP was great and in the forefront in many areas, they actually lagged behind in internet, which is where he still wanted to be. So shortly after getting his green card, he decided to leave. His big opportunity came with Transmeta. He secured an interview while they were in stealth mode, and was actually worried and unsure when, during the interview, he found out their project was microprocessors, not internet. Transmeta originally wanted to develop high-end processors to outdo Intel. However, one of the big problems that Marc and his team recognized was the low battery life of portables. They were able to develop chips that had much lower power consumption but then had to persuade management. Intel had a strong hold on the US market, though, although Transmeta was able to make inroads with Japanese companies. They were so successful that from 2000 to 2001 the company more than doubled its revenue. Marc tells the story of how Intel was apparently stealing their trash to find out their secrets, although Transmeta was careful to make sure anything sensitive was shredded or otherwise protected. And in the end, a suit was brought against Intel for patent violations, which led to a $250 million out-of-court settlement. In 2006 Marc went back to Germany, as he saw Berlin becoming a startup center in Europe. He’d long admired Zynga, and worked to developed a game platform with a high level of consumer analytics. He saw important differences between the US and European markets for entrepreneurs: In Germany, there is more focus on precision and execution. There is a smaller “out” for startups, with less potential to sell. So investors tend to focus more on risk In the US, focus tends to be on the endgame, when the company can be sold and the investor will make their money back Marc sees that each can learn from the other - the exuberance of America balance with more focus and precision is still a tough balance for him to achieve, but one he thinks will be beneficial. Marc’s latest project, Datera, is born to satisfy the data infrastructure for the data era. The data storage solutions they offer can be compared to self-driving cars. Your destination, or intent, is what matters, and you’ll no longer have to focus on all the other factors around it. Datera came out of stealth mode last April. Marc’s personal satisfaction has always come from building...
Transcribe →Managing Online Reputation with Ajay Prasad
Jan 6, 201700:44:54Tap to summarizeAjay Prasad is a serial entrepreneur, talking today about his company RepuGen, an online reputation management system for businesses. This service helps filter out unsatisfied customers so the business can address their issues before the customer posts their review online. Ajay transitioned from corporate America to being an entrepreneur after he was suddenly fired after launching a successful project. He felt shaken with so little control over his life. Within a week he did have another job offer to work as a CEO, but didn’t feel excited about it. He turned it down with the goal of starting his own business, and while in the process of thinking that through, he working as a marketing consultant. He was asked to consult for a friend’s small business. Going in, he realized there was no agenda; they just wanted to grow the business. It was refreshing for Ajay, who saw he could build a company to do website development to help small businesses - still in the era when hardly anyone thought they needed a site - this became GMR Web Team. About five years in, around 2011, he saw a new need - a way to have online reviews to help generate more business. This was still a growing area as well. Some companies were afraid to ask for evaluations; they didn’t want to deal with bad reviews. By 2014 he decided he needed to get rid of the human element and created the outline for a new system. In that system, the program would help sort ratings and then ask for reviews and testimonials for those who give high ratings. If a customer gave low ratings, the software would help the company get in touch to find out what was wrong. And so RepuGen was born. The system required a high level of secrecy until a patent could be attained. When it was finally ready, he offered it to his customers, and there was 100% acceptance. By May 2016 they knew it was a success, although it was only the backend. The next step, which would be ready by September, would be to create a front-end service that would allow customers to set it up for themselves. The software continues to evolve, as clients make suggestions and requests. Ajay’s experience during the dot-com bust has made him leery of seeking investors. With GMR Web Team, he did present to some venture capitalists but too often saw divergent goals. Especially since he became an entrepreneur expressly to control his own destiny, and he’d be giving that up if he accepted investment. RepuGen was launched entirely on with Ajay’s existing client base. He says it’s important to turn to your bread and butter to be able to move ahead. Some Thoughts on Why to Become an Entrepreneur Not to get rich Not because you hate your boss Because you see a need you can fill Contact Information ajay@gmrwebteam.com - include in the subject that you heard him on Breaking the Borders By phone at 714-731-9000 GMR Web Team RepuGen Ajay hates automated phone systems - so he has a real receptionist!
Transcribe →Diamonds are an Entrepreneur’s Best Friend with Anish Godha
Dec 30, 201600:41:27Tap to summarizeAnish Godha and his cousin were able to turn an 8th-generation family business into something new, creating a starting with $2 million in revenue. Diamondere is their e-commerce business which allows customers to design their own jewelry, bringing an ancient art into the realm of modern technology. The family business had clients who were the elite of India. Up until his father they worked for kings and rajahs across India. As the family grew and times changed, his father’s generation saw a need to go in a new direction and began exporting jewelry as well, beginning around 1989. Anish and his cousin continued the process of adapting to the times when they founded Diamondere. They eliminated the middleman that had to be present in his father’s model by bringing custom jewelry directly to the consumer. Anish came to the US on a student visa for his undergraduate and graduate studies; Diamondere was started right after graduation. By the time his optional practical training was coming to an end, Diamondere was already able to sponsor him for a work visa. While some might expect that jewelers would be well off, Anish says the business is cyclical and that ultimately there isn’t huge profit in diamonds, since they are commoditized and both the diamond and the work and materials around them are expensive. One of the early struggles, in fact, was focusing too exclusively on diamonds. After about a year, though, they realized that colored gemstones offered an avenue to greater profit and that consumers were looking for advice on how to evaluate them. They were able to use contacts they already had to gain access at good prices to high-quality gemstones, which proved popular. Sunil says that as an entrepreneur, you really have to believe in what you do, and you really have to have passion for what you do. In Diamondere’s case, their website is never complete; there’s always updates and improvements to customer experience. They worked hard to make it seems like a luxurious space; after all, they weren’t selling t-shirts or anything else that was already common on e-commerce sites. They also saw the advantages that technology offered. Computers had already helped speed up the process of creating jewelry by rendering models; but now, they could help restore custom pieces by allowing the consumer to participate online in designing their own pieces. They have a high focus on SEO and focus on keywords that help customers through their research phase. The focused a lot on SEO, social media, Google Ads and content for customers. They tried to share customers’ questions online. Revenues have been doubling almost every year. For 2016 they expect to be around $2 million. Support came from family; they haven’t taken outside funding at this point. Using their own money, they believe they’re more careful with it than they might be with someone else’s. Within a year or two, they were at an economic positive. Having built this corporate culture, if they decide to take outside funding, they feel they’ll be more disciplined and wise in spending others’ money. Sunil notes that your view of failure is important. If you confront it and learn why you failed, you’ll be able to succeed. It’s not binary - fail or succeed. It’s a process of failing a bunch of times in order to succeed. Keep experimenting; it’s a process of trial and error. Understand why you failed, and keep going forward. "Success is an iceberg; you can see the top part, but the bottom part that’s hidden is 5 or 10 times larger," he says. Advice for Others Getting Into E-commerce Figure out your unique perspective or gap in a saturated market If you can present a product that’s not available, or implement a new technology to make it work, then you can consider e-commerce. Contact Diamondere.com Twitter: @anishgodha
Transcribe →Bringing Quality Writing to Contractors Online with Sunil Rajaraman
Dec 23, 201600:38:39Tap to summarizeAlmost anyone can write - but who can write well enough to get paid for it? Sunil Rajaraman helped create a platform for freelancers where the hard work of evaluating their ability isn’t left with the client; it’s done by Scripted.com’s own team so that contractors can hire with confidence. Sunil has always had a passion for writing, although it wasn’t until about two years ago that he got paid for any of his own material. But he writes regularly for a magazine and is an occasional contributor to the New York Observer. And he helped create a company that, by the time he moved on, had helped freelancers earn more than $1 million. Working in the corporate world wasn’t sitting well with Sunil; he didn’t see where he was going. He decided that returning to study, to pursue an MBA, would give him the opportunity to step back and see where he was going. It was on his way to start studying that he had his first idea: the creation of a collaborative online space for working on screenplays. While there were other spaces available for writers, this site would support the specific formatting needs of scripts and screenplays that are necessary for submission and would allow several writers to work together. The difficulty for writers is always being able to sell their work before they’ve established a name for themselves. The idea was that this platform would help facilitate the process, but even after a merger with Zhura, they still had trouble monetizing the business. The merger brought a small angel investor - but they soon realized that $200,000 doesn’t go all that far in the industry! An initial launch came in 2007 and “official” launch in January 2008. They got mentioned in some blogs, and quickly had between 3000 and 5000 users, and 20,000 within a year. By 2010 they were at 70-80,000. A change of style led to their eventual success. A contact asked if they had anyone who could write advertising copy for Levi’s. They reached out to their base and got a lot of replies. Levi’s was impressed with both the quality and the price, which led to a rethinking and relaunch under the new name of Scripted.com. The difference here, compared to other freelancing sites, is that the writers were vetted. There is a required English test and a rating given by three writers that focuses on multiple dimensions. Of course, plagiarism checks were also built in. This new model led to better success. By the end of 2013, they were generating over $150,000 a month and were glad to celebrate the landmark of paying $1 million to their writers. Sunil saw challenges, of course: Should the focus be on small or large customers? If you get too many large customers too soon, it can take control of your business In raising their Series “A”, they were delayed in reaching their $4.5 million goal because investors were looking for confirmation of market size and the importance of content marketing While they hoped to reach their Series “A” goal in 2013, it finally came early in 2014. Sunil led the company also through a Series “B” before deciding to move on. He now works as head of marketing for Replicon and is owner of the digital magazine Bold Italic. He plans to eventually start another company, but for now is grateful for the opportunity to learn more at a later-stage startup. Advice for others starting out Don’t overthink it, Find a cofounder you respect and can support each other over the long term Find something you’re passionate about Contact Twitter @subes01
Transcribe →Turning 12 Hours a Day of Playstation into an Entrepreneurial Career
Dec 16, 201600:29:21Tap to summarizeHe was in 6th or 7th grade when he got his first Playstation, and Ravi Matena went to the extreme of playing 12 hours a day. Now, he dedicates himself to his startup game studio, 9 Tail Studios, turning his passion into his career. Ravi went to an engineering college, but it never sat right with him. In the end, he went to Singapore to study the gaming industry, because there were few opportunities for that kind of study in India. He worked 7 years as a game designed, including a year as a studio head. While he was earning a lot as a game designer - and now is making less than half of that - he felt constrained creatively. The studio he worked at developed games based on Bollywood films, and so there wasn’t a lot of flexibility in doing what he wanted. Ravi compares being a game designer to being a movie director - responsibilities include coming up with the stories, in-game monetization ideas, play strategies, and balancing of game play, among other things. It doesn’t involve the programming but provides the concept of the game and how it should be carried out. From that position, he moved on to become a studio head at a company that produced casino-related game. As studio head, he oversaw the team that would produce the game, including artists and developers. His intention there was to learn the industry more thoroughly, and a year to the day after starting, he submitted his resignation with the intent of starting his own company. He quit in late December 2014 and started his company in February 2015. Of course, leaving the security of another business meant, as it does with most entrepreneurs, a steep pay cut. Most of the revenue that 9 Tail Studios is making is invested back in the company; but at the same time Ravi and his cofounder have been able to expand to a team of twelve people. One of the biggest challenges that Ravi has faced is in creating revenue while also trying to create the games he wants to make. 9 Tail Studios has had to accept clients from outside - both for games and other development projects - to be able to have income. At the same time, this mean they haven’t been able to focus as much as Ravi would like on building their own game ideas. One of the projects he did was for a movie ticketing app. He saw the app and was convinced it could be greatly improved. With his team, they developed a new app - then presented it to the company, who fortunately were impressed and decided to hire him. It was a great risk - the investment of an entire month of time for Ravi and his staff - but at least it paid off in the end. Still, money was an issue. Ravi and his partner each went through 15 lakhs of savings, and they went through three months with no clients. Toward the end of 2015 they started looking for funding and were fortunate enough to meet someone at a national gaming conference. One of their big selling points was that they had made a connection with a gaming show in Korea, which has a huge audience. Through a simple tweet, Ravi was able to get a response and eventually an agreement that they’d help promote his upcoming game, “Guardians of the Dark”. This game will be a mobile app, using the ideas of League of Legends and DOTA, but designed for 5 minutes of play, rather than 45, as it would be on a PC. Expected release will be in March of 2017. Ravi has maintained his passion as a gamer even while working in the industry, although he limits himself to 1-2 hours a day of playing, and tries to play all new titles and learn from them. Among his favorites at the moment are World of Warcraft: Legion and Overwatch. In the meantime, he’s also worked with his sister to set up a US business called Froto. It’s a photo-developing site, where users can upload photos and they’ll be printed and mailed for free. The income is generated through ads and coupons printed on the back of the photos. It has about 8000 users so far through social media promotion and word of mouth. Ravi says that at this point,
Transcribe →