Institute For The Future

Gupta, Digital Capitalization, Delhi, 01/12/09

Family Background

Piyush Gupta, 28, is a co-founder of routeguru, a SMS based location based service company. Piyush has a bachelors degree in engineering. He has worked for Accenture labs, Telenora in the past. He has been running his own company since the last two and a half year. When he was in college he started another startup scandesk with two college mates in 2005. 

We interviewed him at his small office in the Technology Services Park at Okhla Phase III of New Delhi. Our interview-questions revolved around understanding technology based enterprises use.

Piyush initiated a start-up in 2005 with three other seniors after graduating from Cochin University with a Bachelors Degree in Information Technology, but when that company folded with his other partners going overseas so he joined Accenture. He started Routeguru with Avinash (IITB graduate) whom he had known earlier and both were subsequently joined by two others. Routeguru.com is currently a close knit company of four young people chasing a dream and hoping to make a mark in LBS (Location Based Software) market through web-based and SMS-based services guiding consumers with landmarks based directions to make their travel easier. He has NASSCOM as one of his clients.

Piyush is an active member of informal networks of start-up companies such as BOYE (Band Of Young Entrepreneurs) who meet  every fortnight to share information, mentor each other, and complement each other’s expertise. More formally he is one of the key organizers of the bar-camps at Delhi.

Domain Specific Questions

Piyush explained that it is the freedom to conceptualise, to work independently, and shape their business that prompts many digital entrepreneurs like him to leave good jobs in big software giants and leap into risky waters of start-ups. He sees himself and other digital entrepreneurs as productive resources for India as a nation.

He asserted that in digital enterprises, “what matters the most is the team and their abilities to multi-task and complement each other.” Having the right people with a vision and similar wavelength is extremely essential for any start-ups to be successful and weather the ups and downs of business cycles during the initial years of breaking into the market with products and services.

Piyush’s business heavily depends on consumer preferences for getting knowledge through Internet and SMS as opposed to tendencies to call or enquire whereabouts from passers-by. He is actively involved in experimenting a voice-based service for his company. Their business currently depends on word of mouth and personal networking. As he stated, “our services are rated very well and competitive and we have studied the market well. We need angel investments to leap forward.” The greatest need of their enterprise currently is capital for enlarging their scale of activities, tying with larger portals, and advertising to outreach a wider clientele and beget a mass consumer base of active users.

At the time of our interview with the economic downturn Piyush and his start-up Routeguru were caught in that transition phase of loosing business. He is fighting depression and strategizing as to how to proceed further with dwindling business for value-added services businesses. Fatalistically he remarked, “we see the big thing ahead and that keeps us going.. We have faith in god.” He is an avid blogger and also writes for digital media to earn some money. Having used up most of their personal savings it was a matter of survival itself. Some of the other partners have had to undertake consultancies in order to support themselves. The company does not want to be acquired prematurely so everyone is trying hard and giving it their best. The business is everything for him and his partners and their families.

He believes that the future is developing software solutions that are more localized and consumer specific requiring tapping into user-based content. He foresaw major changes in geographies of entrepreneurship with US loosing ground and creativity getting localized in China and India as well. Most business as he opined had largely adapted US models and localized services but the future would change everything with new models developing within India. He emphasized that in India the mobile market was the future while the offline market would continue to be huge, as broadband connectivity had not expanded as was expected. Mobile banking, and voice-based business were identified as major areas of growth into the future.

Future Questions

Five years from now he hopes his company would have made it big, they would have manned kiosks, greater outreach within India for their LBS services, and developed other services for the market. The biggest fears he had was of being acquired and vanquished by bigger companies as they lack the financial resources to be viable if business does not trickle in soon.

On a personal level, as a bachelor Piyush is looking forward to marrying someone who will share his dreams and value him. For leisure he likes taking off from Delhi and going to Meerut where he was born and where his parents live. His younger brother (22 years old) is also a part of another start-up in Pune. His parents were not initially supportive of his leaving a good job, but over the years they have somewhat reconciled to his ongoing struggle.

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