Start-Up of the Week: DeskAway
Jan 27th, 2009 by admin
Myths and rumors abound when it comes having dispersed teams working together from multiple locations or small businesses utilizing the help of freelancers from all over the world. Some people like to call these work environments unproductive, challenging, complicated, opaque, costly and countless other adjectives that basically spell F-A-I-L-U-R-E. DeskAway, our featured start-up, dispels these myths and rumors - giving naysayers a reason to take notice. Here’s more from Sahil Parikh on DeskAway:
Please tell us about your start-up DeskAway. What makes it unique? And how does it fit into the marketplace?
SP: DeskAway “simplifies teamwork”. DeskAway is a subscription-based online social collaboration service that enables small businesses and teams to organize, manage and track their work online. With the growing number of small businesses/distributed teams, increased broadband penetration and 24×7 mobile work culture, DeskAway is rightly poised to give teams an accurate view of how their projects are doing and help eliminate common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating: email spam, multiple file versions, lost files, task accountability issues, lack of clarity and work transparency.
Our vision is to provide simple, powerful and affordable tools that enable people to work smarter. We are currently one of the best positioned (price, support, features) in the small business project collaboration market worldwide. DeskAway combines a mix of simplicity, feature-richness and affordability into its project collaboration service with a focus on key social features in the SMB space.
How do you promote a business such as this?
SP: Being an online service and with customers who are online, our marketing is also predominantly online. We are exploring the following online marketing initiatives:
- SEO – organic search engine optimization though keywords and link building (low cost and best value/returns)
- SEM – search engine marketing through Google Adwords and banner ads (expensive option)
- Affiliates – building online affiliates to resell DeskAway for a commission (through affiliate programs like Commission Junction, Sharesale etc.)
- Channel Partners – enabling DeskAway on on-demand delivery networks (currently we are in talks with one such delivery network)
- Online PR & Reviews – Releasing periodic feature releases (helps with SEO) and contacting people to write and review DeskAway
- Social Media Outreach – Building our Facebook fan page, blog marketing, social networking, Twitter, community building, Q&A Web sites like LinkedIn and so on
What is a ’social collaboration service’?
SP: Going back in time, Project Management 1.0 was all about planning, getting schedules right and setting up the project with nice looking charts and graphs. Today, with dispersed teams, always-online gadgets and sophisticated online technology, Project Management 2.0 is about people, conversations, relationships, sharing, execution and collaboration. It’s about less planning and getting more work done.
Project Management 2.0 gives you complete visibility to what’s going on within your projects. Real-time changes and updates to your projects can be easily tracked online. This helps your team take action early or change course quickly if things are not going right.
At DeskAway, we are striving to create an online service that is not only simple and powerful to use, but also facilitates social collaboration. DeskAway already includes comment threads, RSS, instant email notifications, user profiles and Twitter-like social message updates.
At the end of the day software should be fun and easy to use. Just like your social network, right?
Did you write a business plan? How did you fund the launch of your business? Are you currently seeking investment?
SP: When I moved back to India (from Chapel Hill, NC) in 2005, there were just too many service companies floating around. Plus, I never liked, and completely disagreed with what people abroad thought of India: a low-cost service country, perfect for off-shoring and incapable of building a quality product unless directed from abroad. This fueled my desire to grow a product-based software business that had the potential to affect tens of thousands of small businesses and teams globally.
In addition, it was dissatisfying to see other products that didn’t work - they lacked a drive to serve the customer; they got away with meager simplistic features stating that that was their policy; and they basically left the customer high and dry. With globalization, virtual teams were becoming more and more popular. I saw the chance to fulfill the need for a simple, powerful and affordable collaborative online service all backed by personalized customer service.
DeskAway was initially funded from revenues from our Web design and development business. Later, it was funded with a portion of my savings. We are seeing really good growth and currently it’s a self-sustaining business. We are not seeking outside investments at this stage.
Is this your first start-up venture? What other businesses have you been involved with?
This is my first software product/online service venture. Though, when I was in the U.S., we (my wife and I) had our own design and development consultancy called Dimension Studio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
What resources have you utilized for start-up assistance and advice (both on and offline)?
I mostly read a lot of blogs and LinkedIn Answers. Plus, there are quite a few entrepreneur-focused communities on Facebook that are pretty cool. Recently, I have been keeping an eye on Twitter and have been following people who talk about start-ups, venture capital, new technologies and Internet marketing.
Offline, you have to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. I think that’s the best way to learn and grow.
What have you learned through your experiences starting DeskAway?
- Focus on the core: In early 2005/06 we were doing a bit of everything like most Web design/development firms. What I learned was that you should focus on one thing and do that one thing well. That’s when we phased out the service side and concentrated completely on building, growing and scaling DeskAway.
- Get to know yourself: Entrepreneurship gets you closer to yourself. The ups and downs, mood swings, introspection, likes, dislikes, passion, frustration, adrenaline-rush etc.; these are some of the things that you experience when starting out on your own. I feel I know myself better and where I want to go. I don’t think I would learn this by getting a MBA.
- Do not hire experts: I have had better luck hiring people who want to learn than people who already come with “expert” skills. It’s a joy in helping a developer learn new things - to create a win-win situation. Things change so quickly that you require people who are willing to learn, unlearn and re-learn.
Is the recession impacting your business? If so, how are you tackling it?
No. In fact, the SaaS model will thrive in these times. Businesses will continue to cut costs, not buy expensive software and look to the Web and the on-demand model where they can pay a small subscription fee to access the software. In a sense, they are outsourcing what is non-core to a SaaS vendor (which is us). Since our product allows them to save money, has no set-up costs and they can discontinue if they wish at any time, it is the perfect model to work in any market condition.
[...] Read the entire interview here. [...]
Nice to see DeskAway mentioned here!
I have been using DeskAway for almost a year now and must say its a great tool.
[...] Real-time changes and updates to your projects can be easily tracked online. This helps your team take action early or change course quickly if things are not going right. At DeskAway, we are striving to create an online service that is …$anchor_text[$anchor_choice] [...]