Entrepreneurial Venture Creativity, Innovation, knowledge Networks and Entrepreneurship (CINE Course) This document submission towards completion of the CINE course. As part of the evaluation of this course, I had decided to develop my plans to set up my own venture. Over a period of the course, with help of learning from this course and the encouragement by the fellow participants, I was able to put my thoughts into action. Today, there is far more clarity than it was at the beginning of the course. This report outlines the evolution of that thought process through this course.

Submitted by: Narayan Singh Rao, Student, PGPX 2014-15 2/28/2015

Contents 1. The business idea and its evolution ...................................................................................................... 3

2. Products and Offerings ......................................................................................................................... 4

2.1 TheIndianIris.com................................................................................................................................ 4

2.2 Technotification.com .......................................................................................................................... 6

2.3 YatraChalo.com ................................................................................................................................... 7

3. Our Proposed Services .......................................................................................................................... 9

4. Process Set up – Collaboration ............................................................................................................. 9

5. Milestones achieved so far ................................................................................................................... 9

6. Organizational Values ........................................................................................................................... 9

7. One Year Targets ................................................................................................................................. 10

8. The Team and the Organizational Structure ....................................................................................... 11

9. Appendix ............................................................................................................................................. 12

9.1. Requirement document for TheIndianIris.com .......................................................................... 12

9.2. Requirement document for YatraChalo.com .............................................................................. 14

9.3. Customer workflow for YatraChalo.com .................................................................................... 16

9.4. Caretaker/Administrator Workflow ............................................................................................ 18

9.5. Technology to be used ................................................................................................................ 19

9.6. Reference for Yatrachalo.com .................................................................................................... 19

1. The business idea and its evolution

About six years ago, my friend and I were deliberating on starting something of our own. He wanted me

to join him to develop the idea at that time. Though I wanted to but, due to some family commitments

and challenges, I was not in a position to join him at that time. He started developing the idea alone. I

stayed in touch and kept discussing things. However, despite some development on the idea, it did not

click and the efforts were abandoned.

However, desire to own our business did not vanish. In year 2013, Ritesh and I again met in Mumbai at

his residence and committee to each other that we are now in a position to start on our own. We

discussed all the ideas we had in our mind and prioritized them in order to choose one to start on. We

decided to aggregate the Dharamshalas in our country and allow people to book them online. Currently,

there isn’t any such portal which provides this facility. However, this time too destiny had other plans. I

got admissions to IIM A and Ritesh joined IIM B. We decided to move slowly during our education and

start it once we are out of the colleges.

We kept on building on the idea and started talking to travelers as well as to the trustees and managers

of the Dharamshalas about our idea. We received mixed responses. While consumers were euphoric

about the ideas, trustees and managers were not very much excited. When we discussed with more

Dharamshala managers, we noted that for building this and winning over them, we would have to offer

something which appeals them. Essentially they should get something tangible in return of their

allowing us access to their inventory. We, hence, decided to list down their pain points and plan to

address them in our product. I discuss them in detail in subsequent sections.

While working on this idea, we realized that before our Dharamshala portal starts functioning, it would

be prudent to choose our business model in a way to help us gain some revenue, while we build the

portal. Since building the portal will require significant time and extensive travel across the country, it

will not be possible for any of us to do so while we are on the campus.

We therefore added a couple of more products to our portfolio, which was a result of our continuous

monitoring of market needs and available gaps in the market. We found that Internet is offering

immense opportunities to build revenue streams faster than other businesses. Digital marketing is one

of the fast growing areas. We were keeping an eye of one of the young Entrepreneur, who has built a

portal, technotification.com, which is a smart, intelligent, quirky, witty content portal that targets

people interested in technologies, science, inventions, computers and cyber security. We are more

interested in the Entrepreneur who built this than the portal. For our development, we need a

committed expert in this area of web/portal development and digital marketing.

While travelling to various place and observing recent election results, one question that was asked

again and again – what government has done in the past 9 months? We then did our research to see if

there are any existing sources that fulfill this need. We found that that the government portals such as

nic.in and pmo etc provide this information in details. However, these portals provide information in

great detail and it is not easy to understand the information provided there. In addition, there are about

70 ministries which produce information and it is in the interest of citizens to be aware of the decisions

being taken by those ministries and departments. We plan to bridge this gap by our news and media

portal, TheIndianIris.com.

With these expertise and ideas in place, we would like to offer digital marketing services in future. We

have kept the name as Positive Ventures Pvt Ltd.

Figure: Products and Service to be offered by Positive Ventures Pvt Ltd

2. Products and Offerings

2.1 TheIndianIris.com

It is a portal that shall keep monitoring policy decisions taken by parliament, strategic moves by

government and its various departments. We plan to build the portal in stages. In the first phase, we

plan to cover the key ministeries and key flaship scheme. In the scond phase, we add next twenty

ministeries, and then the rest of the ministeries, departments, and other government functions. Below

are the list of ministeries and flasship schemes that we plan to add on our portal.

Ministeries

a) Finance

b) Defence

c) Home

d) Extrenal Affairs

Flagship Schemes

a) Jandhan Yojna

b) Beti Bachao Beti Padhao

c) Digital India

d) Make in India

e) Smart Cities

f) Swach Bharat Abhiyan

g) Skilled India

Figures: Logo and Site Banners that we have put together

Figure: the home page of http://theindianiris.com

2.2 Technotification.com

The portal was developed by a 20 year young students of MCA. This content portal targets people

interested in technologies, science, inventions, computers and cyber security. It is a news website that

reports on the importance of digital innovation, robotics and cyber security and how it empowers and

inspires people around the world. It is fast becoming a reliable source for technology news, information

& resources for the Connected Generation. Our stories inform, educate and entertain the audience

across a number of domains. Some basic statistics about technotification.com:

More than 25,000 visitor daily

Earned about $8,000 (~5 Lakh) in past 5 months

Sponsored some big tech facts in India such as IIT Kharaghpur’s Kshitij 2015

It is ranked 22,000 in the world and 3500 in India by alexa.com

Large websites such as DailyDot.com , AnonHQ.com, CNET, The new York times and Russia

Today etc. republish content from technotification.com

We plan to acquire or partner with technotificatyion.com for growing our portfolio and utilize the

expertise of the entrepreneur. He is currently helping us develop theindianiris.com. The picture below

depicts the home page of the portal.

Figure: Home Page of Technotification.com

2.3 YatraChalo.com

Our country has numerous Dharamshalas (Sarai). These dharamshalas offer cost effective

accommodation, specific to religious travelers. Information about these dharamshalas is hard to find

and most of the booking happen either via walking in, over phone or via personal references. Many a

times, user faces problems in getting the booked accommodation due to change in the booking or the

owner passing on the booking accommodation to someone else without intimation. This leads to poor

travel experience of the user. In such situations, the user generally does not have any record of the

booking. Further, during peak seasons, travelers are uncertain of getting an accommodation in

dharamshalas. They may have to settle with costly alternate options such as hotels or guest houses.

Similarly, during off peak seasons, rooms of these dharamshalas go vacant thus remain under utilized

while hotels nearby are booked. It shall be in interest to the dharamshalas to attract such customers

during off peak seasons and generate some revenue which can be utilized in developing the place and

the improving the facilities.

We therefore see a strong need for bringing all dharamshalas online for the purpose of booking. This will

however require multiple rounds of discussions with the trustees of these dharamshalas and convince to

subscribe to our portal and allow us to book their rooms online. In return, we plan to offer them

Graphical User Interface to manage their dharamshalas and booking system for their own use. In

addition, we plan to extend them other complementary solutions to build efficiency in managing their

daily operations and administrative reporting.

So far, we have discussed our idea with 10 dharamshalas, from which we received mixed responses.

Some were out rightly reluctant to go online. Some were indifferent while some were euphoric about

this portal. We spoke to over 100 end users, and religious travelers to understand their needs. End

consumers were excited to hear this. It seems that they shall be very happy to get good quality

accommodation at much cheaper rates compared to the alternate options of hotels or guest houses.

Figure: Tentative logo of our portal

Figure: Home page of YatraChalo.com

3. Our Proposed Services

In near future, we would like to venture into digital marketing services. These shall include promotional

campaigns on Internet comprising social media marketing, email campaigns, sms campaigns, WhatsApp

campaigns etc. With increasing penetration of the Internet, use of social media (Facebook and Twitter)

and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp is growing rapidly. All types of firms, be it small, medium or

large, are now looking for their presence on social media and want to remain ahead in terms of reaching

out to their existing or potential customers. We plan to address needs of this dynamic and fast growing

market.

4. Process Set up – Collaboration

We currently operate from our respective locations and plan to continue in the same manner for next

one year. Hence, it is important for us to remain on same page, and communicate effectively. We are

using social media as a platform to manage our work as well as source information for our work. We

have created Facebook and WhatsApp groups for fast communication. We allocate work through

Facebook closed group. We use Google Docs for sharing and reviewing documents. Further, we use

freely available teleconferencing facilities such as Google hangout, teamviewer etc. Such tools help use

see each other face to face and allow sharing of our screens with each other.

5. Milestones achieved so far

In the past 2 months, we have been able to set up the team, and put it in functioning mode. We have

identified right set of skills and people for our venture. We have allocated responsibilities as per their

skills and interests. The team is currently conducting research on government decisions and policies

formulated by them. Further, we have finalized the logos and site banners and got them designed by

experts. We have already purchased the domain name. Further, we have invested in purchasing a

server.

6. Organizational Values

We are ambitious in building our organization. We wish to set standards for our operations at a very

early stage. We have selected the team members after due care and discussions for over six months. We

would progress with the following values and beliefs:

a) We would strive to be the best in what we do

b) Quality shall be of the utmost care

c) Customer needs shall be fully taken care of

d) Professional approach in our work

e) Remain honest with our behavior on work or otherwise

f) Collaborations shall be promoted and team spirit shall be rewarded

With these values, each member of our team is committed to the following for the next one year.

a) We shall not seek any monetary rewards from our efforts

b) We shall not acquire any physical assets, i.e. office space, vehicles, laptops etc except for

servers, tools and equipments required to deliver our work. We shall continue to use our own

laptops, internet connection, and home for working for the firm.

Depending upon what we achieve in one year, we shall change our strategy.

7. One Year Targets

We plan to achieve the following targets by the end of March 31, 2016.

a) Coverage of all ministries, flagships schemes, and government departments on our portal

b) Target number of visitors on TheIndianIris.com is 25,000 per month

c) Target number of visitors on technotification.com is 50,000 per month

d) Revenue targets for technotification.com are INR 300,000 per month and for TheIndianIris.com INR

100,000 per month.

e) Enroll at least 100 dharamshalas with our portal

8. The Team and the Organizational Structure

Ritesh and I are (co) founders of the organization, while Vikram Singh is going to be either a partner or a

cofounder with us. Rest of the team members shall be employees and equity holders in the firm.

9. Appendix

9.1. Requirement document for TheIndianIris.com

This documents lists the requirement of the portal theindianiris.com

Pages

Home Page

About Us Page

Contact Us/ feedback/subscribe

Article Corner

TimeLine – (choice to choose between ministry and schmes)

o May be in the form of a drop down menu

Infographics (statistics of every scheme, every ministry )

Archive

Home Page

Menu bar which gets fixed upon scroll.

Header with our banner (please specify the size that would be good, currently I am using 1200

* 275)

2 column layout (right side bar with important news links)

Not yet decided what should go into the content pane.

If possible a cool video else a poster with some introduction( not about us but about why this

website is important to people. A quick intro )

A lite accordion ( horizontal ) to accommodate the flag ship schemes in the form of a poster

http://indiancag.org/ like the one in this.

Then footer contents:

o Social connect

o Login link( social login plugin and manual login for people who don’t like to connect

using any social network)

o Contact us link (the link to page)

o Any recent innovative trends that’s been used in the websites for socializing( if any)

o Copy rights

TimeLine:

As discussed in the meeting

Month wise with links to the articles.

And every month name can be a be a hyper link .

This hyperlink will be linked to infographics page where we have the posters arranged section

wise.

Each section is a month.

Within the infographics page we can have a < href >to the section insde the page.

So when clicked on the bullet people go to that page. But when clicked on articles invidually

they are taken to that particular articles.

By this they can get a consolidated version in terms of month and also access to every article in

detail.

Contact us/feedback/subscribe :

This will just be a plugin. So you know it better :P

Article corner: leave it under construction / coming soon

We shall start this page once our site has good number of visitors and has the potential to get

articles from people.

And one person going through the articles and selecting the innovative ones.

May be we can add this thing in the page and put a banner saying coming soon

About Us:

Not very sure about this page.

Infographics:

Divide the page into sections.

Add href to each section so that it is can be referenced from within the page.

And each section has posters(which are images(statistics)) from made from

http://piktochart.com/

January

When you click on one image there should be an option to share the images. Like the facebook

effect. (light box or some jquery effect).

Archive:

Will have all the relevant links to articles which we referred in making our articles.

Bibliography sort of thing.

Article archive on fb page may be linked to this.

9.2. Requirement document for YatraChalo.com

Requirement Document

This document intends to captures all basic requirements of an online portal (or later a mobile app) for

allowing travelers book their lost cost accommodation in a Dharamashala at a religious place or

otherwise. The document should segregate the essential and immediate components from option or

preferred components.

1. Graphical User Interface – Portal / Website / App

www.mydharamshala.com / www.bestpriceacco.com / www.myspiritualtour.com /

myreligioustourc.com etc.. the best and widest appealing name

Home Page

Searching Page

Contact Page / Information and Help Center

Registration Page

Payment Gateway

Link to Blog

Advertisement Spaces

2. User registration - create user ID password and build a user/customer database

Name, Phone No, email id, address, and Preferred ID proof details

3. Inventory Database - List of Dharamshalas/guesthouses

Name

Address

Location Map

Inventory Details : Rooms available, price, category (Premium, Classic or affordable etc))

“Book Now” button against each listing

Occupancy details (double/single/multiple)

Images of façade of the building, room interiors, lawns, and dining facility etc

Options to view on Map

More..

4. Searching : Search for places and nearest Dharamshalas based on requirements

Location

Booking Dates

Number of Guests

Type of Travel – Religious, Leisure, Educational

Number of Rooms, Types, Occupancy (Single/Double/Multiple)

Filtering options – Check Boxes etc

i. Star Ratings

ii. Food choices

iii. More options…

5. Booking window: Seek details of tourists

Number of Travelers

Details of Travelers : Name(s), Age, Sex

Number of rooms required,

Occupancy Selection (single/double/multiple), Contact Details of the user (already

picked from the database for those registered and - option to provide alternate phone

number).

6. Payment Gateway setup

Room Fee + Convenience (Rs 10 per passenger) + provision for tax, if any {OR dynamic

pricing model : Rs 10 upto 5 passengers, Rs 7.5 for 6-15 and Rs 5 for more than 15

passengers}

Booking confirmation –

i. sending email to user and the dharamshala manager

ii. sending an SMS to user

iii. Payment settlement – Room charges transferred to Dharamshala / guest house

+ convenience fee to our firm

Feedback Seeking / Start Rating while booking

7. User Reviews / Start Ratings: Feedback seeking post completion of journey to monitor the

experience of the traveler and any issues faced by them of searching, booking, and

communicating, and checking in and out, about the quality of bedding, food, and ambience,

cleanliness

8. Separate Interface for “Add/Enrol Your Dharamshala / Guest House”

9. Blog

Active Information – Upcoming fests, dates, etc

User experience sharing

Tips

Audio / Video Guides

10. Social Media Feeds

11. Customer Testimonials

9.3. Customer workflow for YatraChalo.com

Consumer searches for dharamshala online booking on google or directly use website url

User fills details and checks availability

If more than one options available for that place, all options will be shown as below. There could be 2-3

category like dharamshala by religion, guest house and bunglow/apartments.

Once user selects room to book, a form will be shown next to fill or sign in options.

Payment options will be shown using payment gateway and once payment is made.

Success message will be shown or a message to confirm in 6 to 12 hours will be displayed.(this all

depends on particular dahramshala). Payment will only be debited once we confirm***.

During confirmation, email will be sent to customer, sms /eail will be sent to dharamshala caretaker so

that they know someone has made the booking.

Once user reaches to the place, he/she will show the booking confirmation. Caretaker can confirm this

using his message or using through portal or confirming the phone number for identity.

9.4. Caretaker/Administrator Workflow

Any dharamshala venue should get an internal ID and password.

Once they login, they should be able to

Add /remove any number of pics of rooms and dharmashala

add information related to place

add new rooms or reduce room available for online booking

**add and remove new caretaker and guards phone number

direction to reach and direction on whom to meet once customer reach

check out who has booked on which days

reports on booking and payments

9.5. Technology to be used

Opensource only, PHP+mysql

SEO capability of the portal

9.6. Reference for Yatrachalo.com

http://www.makemytrip.com/hotels/

http://www.mahaveerji.org/book-room.php

*** End of the Report***