#PiHackathon–5 Tickets Sponsored By AngelPrime Team. Come And Hack

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” and when we announced Hackathon, we had no idea of what it could turn into.

Well, we now have startups asking for the next Hackathon date (they are now working on exposing their APIs) to partners coming along with ideas and concepts for the Hackathon.
Today, we are glad to share that our partner, AngelPrime team is sponsoring 5 tickets for the upcoming Hackathon (scheduled for this weekend).

AngelPrime is an incubator launched by Sanjay Swamy (ex-mChek) and Snapfish Cofounders, Bala and Shripati and the team has couple of ideas for all ye hackers and designers.

Details: 5 Tickets Sponsored By AngelPrime Team

In their own words:

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We’d like to invite great people to take up the challenge to design and implement prototypes for the following – ONLY us

ing open-source stacks:

• A great transaction browser
  Goodbye to the boring spreadsheet/table/database look – that’s passe’. How would you change how we view banking and other transactions online? Show us your best – allow consumers to tag transactions, add comments, create categories on the fly, post to Facebook/Twitter etc.
• A great SMS and email parser that makes sense of SMS’s and emails
  Keywords are passe’ – we can make sense from SMS’s without requiring keywords by doing a textual search and tag. Build us a great SMS parser that uses open-source tools.

For those who do address these problems and work on delivering us great solutions, we will be happy to reimburse their cost of attending the Pluggd.In hackathon (costs INR 1,800).

–

Do fill up the form (embedded towards the end of this article), if you are game (the deadline to apply for this is November 2^nd). We will connect you with AngelPrime team for further queries.

Other goodies:

- Win an iPad (thanks to Zomato, our Hackathon partner).

- FAQ:  FAQ: Hackathon ["I do not have an Idea. Can I Participate?"]

- Ticketing Link: http://event.ayojak.com/event/pluggd-in-hackathon

 

- More details: http://www.pluggd.in/hackathon

Got more questions? Feel free to ask at the Facebook group.

Hackathon Agenda/Venue Details

Date: November 4th (3 PM onwards), 5th & 6th

Venue: Jaaga, Bangalore, No 68, KH Double Road, Opp. Coporation Bank, Next to the K H Road Bus Stand, Bangalore – 560027. INDIA  (address here)

Agenda:

• Get together the evening of 4th November and find a team (or get yours)
• Get your business idea sounded with mentors, PI team, others.
• Get together on 5th morning.
• Start coding.
• Go Home (after 7/8 PM or so).
• Get together on 6th morning. Start coding.
• 6th Nov – evening 4 pm – have a prototype ready.
• Demo to mentors, investors, audience, others from 6 pm to 9 pm.
• Sleep.

————

For startups, who want to apply for UnPluggd demo slot, please fill up the nomination form here.

–Hackathon Form–

Hackathon

• Name*
• Email*
• LinkedIn Profile*

* - “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” : quote by Lao Tzu.

Related posts:

1. Tweet What You Want To Solve And Win Free Passes To #PiHackathon
2. Reminder: Early Bird Offer For UnPluggd+Hackathon Ends Today
3. Introducing Zomato, Our Hackathon Partner [+ Your Chance to Win An iPad]
4. AngelPrime–An Incubator From Sanjay Swamy (ex-mChek) and Snapfish Cofounders, Bala and Shripati
5. Pluggd.in’s Hackathon: The What, When And Why Of It!

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News Roundup: Google Doodle Opens up for Voting, Govt To Launch e-Payments Scheme

The Doodle 4 Google challenge is now open for voting and Google has chosen 45 finalists from over 155,000 entries submitted from across the country (voting link).

A suggestion : Hey Google India – Have some mercy on the Indian Kid [Doodle]

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Indian Government to Launch e-payments scheme

Central Government employees might start receiving SMS’s soon from the government that salary has been credited in bank account. Even retired employees will not have to go to bank to enquire about their pension as they could also be alerted by SMS from the Government.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the new payment mechanism could be the contractors. Since there will not be any human interface involved in the system, there will be no scope for giving bribery to get payments.

The Government e-Payment Gateway (GePG) would result in the elimination of physical cheque processing system and traditional issues associated with it, which would ensure major cost savings for the department by greatly enhancing the overall payment processing efficiency; Online reverse file (payment scroll) giving MIS on unique e-Authorization ID for all e-payment fund transfers; Online auto-reconciliation to facilitate major savings in time and efforts and speed up the compilation of accounting processes; and Ensuring a secure single point data capture of transaction data thereby eliminating duplication of work and data inconsistency.

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Related posts:

1. Akshay Raj Wins Doodle 4 Google
2. Hey Google India – Have some mercy on the Indian Kid [Doodle]
3. International Women’s Day–Google Doodle
4. India’s Independence Day [Lovely Google Doodle]
5. Tech News Roundup: Google Nexus One, Facebook Privacy [and more]

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Online Store For Baby Care Products, hoopos Secures Funding From Helion Advisors

Helion Advisors has announced an early stage investment in hoopos.com, a one-stop shop for mother care, baby and kids’ products. Bangalore-based hoopos.com offers a wide array of products across 12 categories including baby essentials, clothes, toys, travel, books and nursery furniture, among others.

The funding will be used by hoopos for ramping up the team, upgrading technology, developing fulfillment infrastructure including warehouse and logistics, marketing and building customer support infrastructure. With this investment, Mr. Ashish Gupta, Senior Managing Director, Helion Advisors, joins the board of hoopos.

hoopos has been founded by a four member team- Vijay Jumani & Radhika Jumani (co-founders of Inventis Retail, the parent of baby product stores, ‘appleof-my-i’),  Raveen Sastry (co-founder and was VP – Business Development of, Myntra.com) and Anubhav Sudha (was part of the start-up team at Tavant Technologies).

Another startup in this space, FirstCry raised $4mn from SAIF Partners earlier this year and BabyOye Raises $2.5 Million Funding From Accel Partners and Tiger Global.

Like we earlier said:

..hope VC firms do not ruin this niche category (like the way they did with eCommerce as a whole) and these startups do not start selling camera, mobile phones by early 2012.

What’s your take on this category? Is this poised to grow exponentially? Or consolidation is on the cards and those who missed out on ecommerce bubble are now investing in categories that will eventually get acquired?

Recommended Read: Are VC Firms Hedging their E-commerce risk?

Related posts:

1. Mast Kalandar secures Series B funding from Helion and Footprint Ventures
2. Ecommerce Startup, LetsBuy Raises $6 million Funding
3. Funding Roundup: SAIF Partner Invests in Zovi, Online Apparel Store
4. Finally, Helion and CRV Confirm smsgupshup funding
5. Baby Boom in India? Why Flood Of Baby Product eCommerce Sites? [Complete List]

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Precared Enables Buying /Selling Of Used Baby Products

PreCared has been conceptualized to ReUse Baby Products and thus offer an economical and green option to parents. The company buys used products from parents and post them on the website for sale after cleaning and sanitizing the products. The website also offers the option of classifieds and also provides a Used-Condition rating for all the products.

As far as the target segment is concerned, the Mumbai based startup is targeting the aspiring Middle class and affluents. The categories of products offered range from Walkers to Car Seats, Prams, Toys, Cradles and Cribs etc and offers anywhere between 15-35% of the current retail price of the products depending on the product and its conditions to the sellers.

Here is a QnA with Tabrez, founder of Precared on the venture and the usual doubt, i.e. hygiene of these products.

Pi: Is this a not-for-profit venture? If no, how do you plan to monetize? Generally, the segment that is interested in buying second-hand products  (in this case) isn’t online – so how do you plan to distribute?[Precared, Tabrez]This is not a not-for-Profit venture, We make money in the difference of selling and buying cost.Space is at a premium so most parents don’t negotiate on price, they are happy that they get paid for getting space in their house.So the difference in our buying and selling price is worth doing this business. The alliance with NGO’s is to be able to contribute. You have pointed out to my biggest challenge by asking me about my ‘Target Segment’.

Agreed that as of now ‘Used Baby Products’ is perceived by many to be a cheap option and is only for people who cannot afford them. But I am convinced that it would not be confined to that specific strata,In fact I have sold to some affluent families. The biggest concern with them is Hygiene and Trust, and we are addressing both the issues(treatment and 100% refunds).
Also many young mothers are feeling positively towards the Recycling and Contributing to society concepts. Apart from these, consider that a single kid is given a pram,a cot,a rocker,a walker,a car seat,a high chair,a playpen, and some expensive toys; then the potential savings would be anywhere between 20k to 50k and that is substantial.In fact we may encourage parents to aspire and try more different products than be restricted by budgets. Our products too are in good condition as most products are used very seldom and gently.We Indians are highly value conscious, and if provided with the comfort and style of say a 10k brand in 5k – 6k price, then we would certainly give it a try.

As for people who don’t shop online, can visit our warehouse and shop physically.We would also plan more outlets wherein we would keep very few products but provide customer with more choices online at that outlet thus addressing their concerns at less overheads for us.

Pi: How do you take care of hygiene?
[Precared, Tabrez] The Hygiene is taken care of on the guidelines of baby care centers(western countries). We give treatments with detergents, warm water, and Chlorine solution(where recommended). We also dismantle the product entirely and treat manually so that the treatment is complete.

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Given that Indians want to touch & feel products (especially second hand), what’s your take on this business? Would you try out Precared service for your kid?

Related posts:

1. From Local Deals To Selling Products – Group Buying Pivoting Already?
2. Baby Boom in India? Why Flood Of Baby Product eCommerce Sites? [Complete List]
3. Group Buying Site Koovs Moves To Products [CEO On RoI and Manpower]
4. Kidloo – Buy Toys, Diapers and All Things Kids Online
5. HomeBuy360 Wants To Smoothen The Real Estate Buying/Selling Process

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Kabutar App Adds Fun To Photo Sharing [+ Tons of Features]

Kabutar is a product by CIIE (IIM Ahmedabad)-incubated startup and the iOS app lets you do a bunch of things with photos.

• The Daily feature helps users take a photo of themselves everyday and set that as their status message on a variety of social networks. It also creates an awesome time-lapse video of how they’ve changed over a period of time.
• The Photos feature helps users make their photos beautiful through a series of filters that they can apply and then share with friends.
• The Ask feature allows users to ask friends and followers anything from ‘How does this dress look’ to ‘where can I buy a lamp that looks like this’
• The 4Sale feature is a simple classifieds section that allows users to quickly and easily take a photo of an item they want to sell and post it online.

In essence, the startup (site: Kabutar.in) is trying to be Picasa (for editing)+Flickr (community/feedback)+Smugmug for photos (selling) and Facebook (sharing) – all rolled in one product and while that sounds ambitious, here is a QnA with the founding team (Karam Lakshman and Shubhendu Sharma).

Pi: Aren’t you trying to do ‘too much’ with the product? That is: photo editing+sharing+selling+community building?

[Kabutar Team] The idea started with what all can one do with a photo. Honestly speaking even we are not sure about the user adoption at this point of time. By the time we figured the product skeleton, we were sure about two things 1) to build a platform where medium of communication is visual. 2) try and challenge user behavior.

Pi: What is 1-big USP of the product. I mean, why would somebody use this as-opposed to 1. picasa for editing, 2. FB for sharing, 3. several services available for selling 4. Flickr for feedback/community.

[Kabutar Team] As you correctly pointed out, 4 different application for one common task i.e “photo”. another pain point is all these are web based and are not cross platform. We have started with iPhone and web and soon launching android and other versions. Wouldn’t life be simple if you can do all your photo related activities on a single platform and connect with like minded individuals?

Pi: Idea behind the name.

[Kabutar Team] 1) Indian name 2) strikes well 3) pigeon has been used as a postman since accident period. 4) symbol for love. 5) connects one with other emotionally.

Pi: Target segment you are running after? Future plans?

[Kabutar Team] We have just launched and believe our target age group is 14-30. We are focused to reachout school and college kids. Immediate plans include build user base & user activity and raise seed money.

———

As far as Photo sharing apps in the market today like Instagram or Path are concerned, they are solely focused on sharing memories with friends. Kabutar differs in its approach by tying a broad set of use-cases around photographs and tying all of these use cases in one app.

My recommendation to the team: It seems that the current hypothesis is that people want to do ‘everything’ with photos – i.e. take feedback/sell/share/QnA etc and I’d say that this hypothesis is grossly extrapolated. Maybe I am wrong, but the team needs to validate the hypothesis before they go full steam in developing the web+android version of the app.

When it comes to product vs. features, whole need not be greater than sum of the parts, as parts very often appeal to different user intents. Solving for all is a thing of the past and should be left to big companies (and their big budget$).

At the core, Kabutar’s idea is very appealing (plus a catchy name), but the key is to introduce features gradually, to define use-cases around user intent and go after them one-by-one.

What’s your take? What are your use-cases of a mobile app for photographs? Do give Kabutar a shout (download link) and review the app on Appnomy.

Related posts:

1. Orkut, Facebook as Photo Sharing Sites – Without an Image search app? Why?
2. Orkut adds upgrades to photo sharing – Face Detection/Slideshows [Updated]
3. Flauntr, an Indian startup that is defining milestones in online photo editing
4. Orkut adds privacy features
5. Toufee adds new features – Collaboration, YouTube support..and more

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Enterprise Report: Users Choose BIG Over Best Of Breed

According to a recent study by Nucleus Research, development on the cloud, big data emergence and analysis, integration with social networking have high impacts on productivity and for the basis for their predictions for the top trends and topics for 2012. The Nucleus predictions are likely to help improve IT investment in future and focus areas for SMBs, startups, and investors.

The next year’s most successful firms “will leverage social technology to build the productive enterprise,” says Nucleus. “They will take advantage of mobile device access to collaborative networks to spur employees to work during down time, day time, and night time”.

Development on the Cloud
There is no counter argument to the fact that the cloud has made development faster (and cheaper, especially for SMBs). In the future, the cloud will also make development even more virtual. Initiatives like crowdsourcing and integration with social tools will challenge traditional resource management tools like billable hours. As long as good quality code is delivered on time, talented developers will have no dearth of opportunities, physical boundaries notwithstanding.
Big vendors are increasingly adding cloud offerings and other capabilities that are more feasible for SMBs and it’s even easier to make the case for choosing a major label. This means technology buyers will look to a big vendor with 80% solution rather than multiple small ones with the best solutions but in small parts that add up to the whole.

The Social Enterprise
Every major organization today has been trying to, or has already adopted social. Integrating capabilities like Microsoft’s Chatter can drive an average productivity increase of 20 percent, says another Nucleus study. However, it does not work for everyone: either users don’t adopt or they don’t use it for business purpose. Of course, Facebook provides you tons of distractions in the form of photos, discussions, games, and apps.
The most successful firms next year will surpass social enterprises to become productive enterprises. They will use the acceptance of “social” tools to drive collaboration, work sharing, and more capable workers.They will use social tools to support business purposes and direct workers on how to use them to get ahead and stay employed.

Enterprise 2.0

Labor (and Technology)
Workforce management vendors like Dayforce are combining analytics tools with attendance data and delivering this data to managers. This would help managers distinguish productive workers from slackers and accordingly streamline efforts. In 2012, measures like these will be used by organizations in help optimize labor.
Also, the investment of capital will move from labor to technology. A survey by Nucleus found 50% of US organizations are planning to increase their technology spend in 2012. Technology enables companies to avoid new hires by improving the productivity of the existing employees.

User Experience and Customer Experience
The 2000’s were about adding more and more functionality and features to software. This century’s teen years will be about making smarter software that will be more intuitive, integrated, and self teaching to increase productivity. There will be more intelligent applications that use semantics to find and remember your choices and preferences and provide contextual search results.
Many companies are still struggling to optimize customer experiences while registering their online presence – creating a Facebook page is not enough. There will be more investment in analytics, activity monitoring, and big data crunching as companies aspire to reach out to and build a relationship with their customers. In doing so, companies will also have to invest time, money and effort on security measures to build up a trust among customers skeptical of having their data handled in the cloud.

» Research Link.

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1. Social Networking Kills Productivity for Indian Corporate Employees by 12.5% [ASSOCHAM Report]..Agree?
2. Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide [Gartner]
3. Being Mobile in the Enterprise world – 65% Smartphone Users By 2015
4. The Cloud Computing Market in India–High Time We Bring Legal Regulations in Place?
5. Mobile Internet Users in India – Only 2 Million are Serious Users [Report]

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