SkillKindle, an online marketplace for skill-sharing secures angel funding

SkillKindle is a Delhi based startup that offers a platform for anyone looking to learn a skill to find credible, convenient and affordable real-world workshops offered by experts in the city. That is, an online marketplace for skills-sharing that enables trainers to get access to audience as well.

The startup has raised seed round from i3 consulting and plans to expand in Bangalore and Mumbai. Started by Tanuj Choudhry (ex-McKinsey), SkillKindle has so far featured 76 workshops (since December 2011) and has contributed between 10-15% seats to the workshops.

Unlike most of the other marketplaces, SkillKindle is taking a (sort of) local search approach to building the marketplace – i.e. sellers (i.e. experts) listings are verified and also, the company is taking a mix of B2C and B2B route.

Here is an interview with SkillKindle founder, Tanuj Choudhry.

Pluggd.in: You are creating a destination site which has its own challenges (of marketing/traffic). What’s the plan going forward?

Tanuj Choudhry: Our goal is to grow SkillKindle.com into the largest skills-sharing platform in the market. This platform will have to include offline and online classes that are credible, convenient and affordable. Suppliers (experts, trainers, training firms) will be curated by SkillKindle.com but beyond that, we envision a market-driven setup with ratings, customer feedback, results and potentially placements to guide a learner about what class to take (and to not take)

SkillKindle.com, as it stands now, is the first step of this goal. We are building a full-fledged, curated, online marketplace for offline workshops & classes. This marketplace includes workshops & classes offered by existing players (e.g., Salsa India offering workshops, which we are helping them market and sell). Here, the challenge is around building sheer traffic on our website so that a learner starts using SkillKindle.com to compare Salsa classes in his/her locality of choice, and is able to buy a seat right there. We are working on (a) mass media outreach programmes and (b) ensuring top-notch phone and web service to tackle this challenge. Supply of workshops is large, our goal here is to grab a bigpart of this pie.

Workshops & classes offered by experts who reach out to us. Here, the target segments are typically smaller and not always all in one place. The challenge is around building enough channel partners who can work with us to take these workshops to their networks. For example, for workshops offered to college students in Delhi, our channel partners include the Placement Committees of city-colleges as well as youth outreach NGO’s like What’s Up Bharat, who in turn collaborate with outreach partners like Youth ki Awaaz. Supply of such workshops is low, demand is proven everyday, our goal is to set up a seamless mechanism for experts to offer these classes and indirectly reach out to a very wide yet targeted customer segment. 

Workshops & classes offered by SkillKindle.com & its strategic partners: These are typically programmes such as Excel training courses, Social Media Analytics workshops etc offered and certified by SkillKindle.com & its strategic partners. For instance, for Excel & Financial Modelling trainings, we are working with i3 Consulting to build out top-notch yet affordable programmes for high-volume low-price modules. With 9.9 School of Convergence, we are working to set up a Social Media Marketing workshop series. We’ve already conducted a workshop on Excel 101, for example, which was a roaring success. The Social Media Marketing workshops series in collaboration with 9.9 School of Convergence starts on March 24 at Rs. 500/participant for a 3-hour workshop at Sri Aurobindo Society Campus. This is probably the most exciting segment to build on.
You mentioned Udemy, we have Edukart looking to build up capabilities in the same sector. Our hypothesis is that while these strategic partnerships will help us build a very strong offline workshop portfolio, it also gives us a clear path forward to start offering short & highly effective certificate or non-certificate programmes online, through webinars and presentations (see Future Plans section). The challenge here is to develop a pool of strategic partners who bring in very specific specialisations. Supply is high but very fragmented and with quality that is untested, demand is growing every day with tier II and even tier I folks looking for top-of-the-line programmes offline and online. Our goal is to organize the market and really work on scale and quality.

2. Is consumer the only segment you are targeting? Or you are also targeting B2B?

Tanuj Choudhry: We are targeting the B2C as well as B2B segments. Here’s how we service these segments

• B2C segment: Through SkillKindle.com, we offer real-world classes on any skill to anyone who wants to learn. All signups are by phone or online – it’s a pure retail model. We take a 20% cut for every student who signs up for the class through us. 
• B2B segment: Through SkillKindle Pro for corporates and SkillKindle Prodigy for schools & colleges

  - Through SkillKindle Pro, we serve corporates. We offer recreational and professional workshops conducted by experts & trainers in our network, to corporates. Our value proposition for these organisations is simple: we absorb the pain of identifying & checking credibility of trainers or training firms because of our intensive cred-check process, come up with workshop options that are fresher and usually more economical, and build a skills-partner relationship. Apart from some smaller clients, we are already in talks with firms like Microsoft in Gurgaon. What makes this service line crucial is: (1) it significantly strengthens our cash flows since most of these are bulk orders, (2) more importantly, it gives us great publicity because the end users here are also our retail customers – so cross-selling is easier

  - Through SkillKindle Prodigy, we serve schools & colleges. We are conducting summer skills-camps across schools in Delhi, where our role is to structure large-scale programmes, use our network of trainers & experts to staff these programmes, and take it to schools directly. The response has been positive and we have also partnered with an education consulting firm that focuses on increasing CCE compatibility of CBSE schools. At colleges, we recently concluded a photography workshop at Amity University, as part of their annual fest. The model was similar: we set up the programme, established a relationship with Amity University and invited one of the photography experts in our network to conduct this workshop. The possibilities are unlimited with a credible network of experts & trainers who are looking to share their skills    

In terms of resource utilization, we spend 70% on SkillKindle.com (retail) and 30% on SkillKindle Pro & Prodigy. One of the reasons we are being able to do this is because SkillKindle.com helps us build a fantastic pool of trainers we can leverage for SkillKindle Pro & Prodigy. Ranita Basu Ray from our team leads SkillKindle Pro, since she has substantial corporate training and management consulting experience. 

3. How do you verify a trainer’s skillset (and credibility)?

Tanuj Choudhry: When we evaluate a trainer looking to offer a workshop through SkillKindle.com, SkillKindle Pro or SkillKindle Prodigy, we check three main criteria

• Formal credentials: LinkedIn profiles, Google search for formal accreditations based on a skill (we are building up a database of accreditations for different skills but for many, they actually don’t exist!), References if any
• Experience with that skill: We call up the teacher to confirm details around years of experience with the skill, how they used it (professionally or informally) etc. This call is probably the most critical part of the process. It takes ~3-5 minutes and we have a list of questions that we need answers to. It also gives us the opportunity to check criteria 3
• Teaching experience: The most skilled don’t always make for great teachers. We look for past teaching experience, feedback from any previous workshops etc. If none of that exists, and we are sure about criteria (A) and (B), we have a rep from our team monitor their lesson & execution plan before the workshop. Unfortunately, the best feedback on teaching experience only hits us after the class has been conducted and we receive feedback from students

This process is time-taking, and we spend at least 25-40 minutes on cred-checks for any given teacher. We are working on making this process much leaner, and ultimately coming to a point where we can programme this into the class submission form. For this, we need the right set of metrics, some of which are generic and some very specific to the skill being offered. Suggestions?

Finally, we have a customer feedback process wherein we incentivise students to give feedback on teachers. Points accrued can be redeemed for discounts on their next SkillKindle class. Based on feedback (and enough times), we could consider moving a teacher up to a “Recommended Teacher” bracket or issuing a warning in case the feedback didn’t meet the minimum threshold set

In addition to all of this, we do spend time picking up data points about teachers from informal networks (online and offline). Can give you more details if you need them – it’s a pretty interesting process

Pluggd.in: Why not take an approach like Udemy? That is, of hosted content? Is that something planned?

Tanuj Choudhry: Absolutely! The idea is to start building out a platform that can host content we can easily disseminate on a subscription basis. The workshops we are putting together with strategic partners fit right into this model, where we are recording sessions, creating content that can be easily disseminated over the web, and are top-quality.  However, we are conscious that our current focus is really offline workshops and classes, and scaling it up all across India. If we are able to crack this, and manage the content we are creating in this process, we could be setting ourselves up for a very powerful platform for online AND offline workshops. The fascination for face-to-face workshops is actually much than a fascination There is clear merit in real-world classes. The trick is to combine the power of the online and offline world to make skills-sharing seamless, effective and affordable

5. Future plans?

Tanuj Choudhry: Immediate plans are 

• Ramp up our team from 5 to 10 in the next 6 months, particularly in the marketing and technology functions
• Launch in Mumbai and Bangalore by Jul-Aug 2012, and then opening up pan-India by October 2012
• Develop a strong foothold in the semi-professional / professional skills market where typical workshops don’t go beyond a 20-25 hours in total
• Start developing a stronger platform for hosted content
• Increase awareness dramatically

An interesting concept, especially the fact that the team seems to be very aggressive in its approach, though the competition is not with other online marketplace, but largely with event ticketing sites, as trainers/experts are looking at awareness of their workshops. That is, online marketplaces need to bring much more than just the audience.

If you are a trainer, do give SkillKindle a spin and share your feedback with the team.

Also see: Bangalore based BookMyTrainings Launches Marketplace for Training Programs

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Eye See Tohoku: Helping Children Through Photography

Photo: Sony

The other day I noted the difficulty of recording and archiving information related to last year’s tragic earthquake and tsunami in Japan. So I was pleased to stumble across this initiative from Unicef, with a little assistance from Sony (NYSE:SNE). It’s called Eye See Tohoku, and it was comprised of photography workshops for 27 young children in three affected towns, conducted by Italian photographer Giacomo Pirozzi.

The Eye See project is actually an initiative which goes all the way back to 2006 for children in other countries, but it’s good to see Sony extend it at home in Tohoku. Check out the video below from the UN Economic and Social Council explaining a little more about the project.

Of course, in addition to helping archive the disaster as an historical event, this initiative is a big help to kids who, in addition to learning some new digital photography skills, have a chance to process what they experienced and communicate it to the world. Pirozzi commented:

The children of Japan showed so much interest, so much passion, and so much willingness to learn photography… Any child faced with this level of stress has gone through so much. I am honored to help give them the opportunity to use photography to reflect on what happened to them.

The pictures from the project are now being exhibited at Unicef House in New York.

Another photography-related initiative worthy of mention, which we covered previously, is Photohoku.org an initiative that is helping families restart photo album lost in the tsunami.

[Thanks to Lars CoshIshii for the tip]

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Should I form a Private Limited Company now or after April 1st?

At the end of the financial year, the question on everyone’s mind is – Should I form my Private Limited Company / LLP / Partnership now?

We all know that as the accounting year draws to a close, any Company which is incorporated has to file its accounts and audited statements.

So the question is: should I start now or should I wait?

Well, I run the risk of making this article really pointless by saying that it does not make any difference, but I will say that nevertheless. Because the way in which Company Incorporation functions, it takes almost 21-30 days before your Company is incorporated in any case. So starting today (the middle of March) means that your Company will almost certainly be good to go only on the 5^th or the 6^th of April. And that is in the new financial year.

So since we have broadly covered the major question, let us look at how a Company is actually incorporated in India.

Step 1 is to provide basic information, which is used to apply for what is called the Director’s Identification Number, or the DIN.

The Director’s Identification Number is the basis for the rest of the incorporation procedure.

Step 2: After you finish applying for the DIN, you need to file a form called Form 1A, where you apply for the name of your Company. The law (and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs) require that you submit atleast 6 potential names for your Company.

A quick tip that we can give you is that normally, the Registrar of Companies selects the 3^rd name which you give, so make the 3^rd name you give the best.

Step 3: The process of getting your name approved takes a very long time, and at the end of that process, you are ready to enter the final stage of the incorporation process, which is to file your Memorandum of Association and your Articles of Association with the Registrar of Companies in the city or region in which you are situated.

Today, the entire process of incorporation has to be done online, which means it does not really matter which city you live in or your business is located in, you can incorporate your Company from anywhere.

Step 4: After you have filed your names and basic documentation before the Registrar of Companies, you will get (and this will also take some time) the Certificate of Incorporation from the Registrar of Companies.

Your company is now incorporated. If you are trying to form a Public Limited Company, you need to additionally get what is called a Certificate of Commencement of Business, but this will probably not interest any of the people reading this article. Since the Public Limited Company is raising funds from the Public (and hence the name), you also need to issue what is called a prospectus or a Statement in lieu of the Prospectus.

Company incorporation is not difficult. It only requires careful preparation and some patience. And that is to be expected: after all, forming a company in law is equal to creating an altogether new person.

[About the author: Contributed by Hrishikesh Datar, founder of vakilsearch.com, online legal services provider (Legal Advice, Legal Documents & more.]

» More legal resources for startups.

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Government asks Telecom operators to make location based tracking operational by May 31st

Indian Government earlier announced an initiative to track mobile phone users on a real time basis, and the government has now asked operators to ensure by May 31 that they have the capability to track location of a caller which could be shared with security agencies on real time basis.

You, yes you!

By 2013, at least 60 per cent of the calls in urban areas would have to be accurately tracked when made 100 metres away from the nearest cell tower. By 2014, the government will seek to increase the proportion to 75 per cent in cities and 50 per cent in suburban and rural areas. For calls made 300 metres from the nearest cell tower, accurate coordinates will be required for 95 per cent in cities and 60 per cent in towns and villages at the end of two years.

The purpose is to track down the location from where the call had originated with an accuracy of 30-90 per cent in an area of 50-300 meters depending on the population and area. The government has asked operators to first acquire capabilities for the specified numbers given to them and within three years the location details “shall be part of call record for all mobile calls”, reports ET.

Do you think the investment amount for a project like this is justified when we do not have the will power to give justice to Ajmal Kasab, the 26/11 terrorist, who has been a country guest since 2008?

What we’d really appreciate is when telecom operators open up the LBS data to others and enable LBS ecosystem, which hasn’t yet seen the light of the day.

[Image credit: wikipedia]

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China’s Social Media and Web Landscape in 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Infographic of the Day series visually expresses important stories from Asia and the world of technology.

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Here’s a very handy cheat-sheet – created by CIC, the Chinese social business analysts – showing you the leading Chinese web services in each category alongside their western counterparts.

The CIC ‘social media landscape’ for 2012 infographic has all bases covered, from local dating networks like Jiayuan (NASDAQ:DATE), social review sites like Dianping, and the most popular aggregator reading apps such as Zaker. Those are the popular equivalents to Match, Yelp, and Flipboard respectively.

Of course, the Chinese web is not a total parallel universe – there are still some much-loved foreign social media services here such as MSN, Skype, and, er… well, that’s it really.

For CIC’s future reference, it’d be good to add in some other popular categories next time, such as hugely popular photo-sharing apps (eg: Tuding as a local usurper of Instagram) or up-and-coming social video apps as well. But those are missing for now. Perhaps a task for Ogilvy, which does a very similar – not sure who conceived of this first! – ‘digital influence’ circle every year. (Here’s Ogilvy’s for 2011).

Without further ado, here’s CIC’s new creation embedded as a PDF (or Chinese readers can click the source link below) so that you can zoom in and explore it full-size:

[Source: CIC blog - article in Chinese]

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NBA King of the Court, Brings Games to You through Augmented Reality

When I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, I met Tatiana, Marketing Manager for Ogmento, an augmented reality (AR) mobile game development company at the Pocket Gamer After Party.

She showed me a cool new location based, augmented reality app they have released called “NBA: King of the Court”. In the real world, basketball players often turn up to local courts to play pick-up with random people. In a similar way, through this game, players can find virtual basketball courts around them and challenge other players to a shoot-out.

It works like this: turn on the app, see a Google map of your area to find virtual courts surrounding you or use the 360 degree camera browser view. Select a court to play on, then the game will open up. The goal is to tap the ball when the bar hits a certain section of the meter to shoot the ball. Each successful shot earns you points and coins.  There are only a certain number of balls to shoot for a limited time, similar to those basketball shooting games at arcades.

If you attain the highest score for the court you become the ‘King’. As the King, you are entitled to defend the court through using power-ups. Power Ups make it more difficult for other players to win. For example, ‘Lockdown’ means shrinking the opponents shot zone . You can unlock more challenging defences by redeeming your coins or paying for in –app purchases.

Of course the game is also a social experience and allows players to find friends to track scores of or see how you rank against other teams, in the global realm or against the top 10 players. You can also compete in weekly competitions to win rewards and badges. Like many other social games, you can brag to your friends that you are the ‘King of the Court’ on Facebook and Twitter.

Since the game is very new and I am probably the first to hear about it in Beijing, I have already become King in four courts around Beijing CBD area. Time for you to challenge me for the King position! You can download it for free here.

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March Founders Drinks navigates the Indonesian maze with insider William Henley

William Henley. Photo: CEO Speak

e27′s March Founders Drinks explores the Indonesian maze in doing business through insider William Henley.

With a population of over 250 million, the fourth largest in the world, Indonesia presents itself as a seductive market to businesses, especially web and mobile companies. But is it really the case?

Being a realist at heart, William Henley, also known as “Dr. Doom” in the Indonesia technology sector, will be doing a short presentation at this month’s Founders Drinks in Singapore on navigating the Indonesian maze. Mark off 29 March, Thursday, on your calendar and get ready to gain some important insights into the real Indonesian business world.

William is a computer geek and investment banker. He was the director of PT CIMB Securities Indonesia and also a member of the Disciplinary Committee at the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). William has also led one of the biggest Indonesian security companies, PT Valbury Asia Securities. After leaving the corporate investment banking world in 2012, William established the IndoSterling Group, an investment holding company actively investing in the technology, digital media and consumer goods sector.

The geek in William also saw him founding Otopedia.com, a prominent automotive portal in Indonesia and Tapestrix, a customizable white-lable social media platform for communities, corporates and brand owners. William has also wrote bluntly about the Indonesian e-commerce ecosystem and his opinions on the Indonesian tech startup community.

Join us at March’s Founders Drinks in Singapore to hear William’s talk on “Indonesia: Navigating the Maze”. Register here.

Event Details:

Date: 29 March, 2012 (Thursday)

Time: 6.30pm – 9.00pm

Venue: Shuffle Bistro Bar, Blk 3D River Valley Road #02-03, Clarke Quay Singapore 179023 (Gothere.sg)

Agenda:

6.30pm – Registration & networking

7.00pm – Opening remarks by e27

7.15pm – Indonesia: Navigating the Maze by William Henley

7.45pm – Final announcements

8.00pm – Drinks & more networking

Register here

William Henley will also be speaking at Echelon 2012, a two-day, double-track event on 12 and 13 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups and various workshops.

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TechNode iOS and Android App Now Available!

We are proud to announce the official launch of a TechNode app on Apple and Android, available for free download today. In the Apple store, it is called “TechNode Asia” (someone got Technode first!) and in the Android Market it is called “TechNode”.

For our app, you can read our latest content, check when our next event is on, subscribe to our mailing list, leave a message to our staff, find links to our TechNode Chinese and our Nodeble start-up database.

We were able to make this happen by working closely with Qmobao.com, the Guangzhou based Chinese operation of American based Mobile Roadie. Qmobao is a do-it-yourself web service that allows anyone to create their own mobile app for iOS or Android. It gives you the power to customize the layout and design, instantly update changes, collect real-time visitor analytics and publish it in app stores without any coding! Qmobao is operated by Fabriqate, a creative mobile agency.

Since I don’t code but am very interested in mobile apps, I was excited to build the app myself. It was a great learning experience that forced me to consider user experience and functionality. I realized designing an app requires a lot of structured thinking, as well as always considering simplicity and value over ‘nice to have’s’.

Mobile Roadie has a big focus on the entertainment industry such as music and movies, therefore much of the app modules are designed to promote people or events. They already power apps for famous people like Taylor Swift, Madonna and Linkin Park. However, with a little creativity, it is easy to create something for many different purposes, like a blog!

The process of using Qmobao is very intuitive and simple to use. All I had to do was follow the steps from setting up the User Interface with core images such as logos and background images. Next I had to Manage Content by choosing the sections I wanted to include in the app. Once sections are selected, it’s only a matter of populating it with content which simply involves uploading images or typing text. After filling in the content, you can stylize it by choosing the type of buttons, font, images, layouts, colors etc. Finally you have control over ‘User Management’, which allows you to moderate comments, see subscribers and most active mobile app users.

The really cool thing about using Qmobao is that you can instantly preview what your app will look like by downloading ‘Mobile Roadie Connect’, a customer app visualizer. After every key change I made, either to content or design I reviewed it in the visualizer to see what it would look like. Having this preview ability allowed me to iterate quickly and make decisions on the fly.

Since Qmobao understands that many of its customers are not professional app developers, they have a team of people to help you along the way. I constantly spoke with a technical person to help me think about what sections to include, how to lay it out and eventually submit it to the Android Marketplace and Apple App Store for approval.

So if you enjoy reading our stuff and want to keep up to date with our upcoming events on the go, please download our app and share it with your friends. For Android click here. For Apple click here.

 

 

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