Time is now, the idea is to start and not think much : Sumit Jain, CoFounder – CommonFloor

In one of my Open Coffee Club meetup in Bangalore, I interacted with two young guys who knew one word well – ENTREPRENEURSHIP.They are Sumit Jain and Lalit Mangal, ex-Oracle guys and now Co-founders of a company named Max Heap Technologies

Below is a small Q&A that I had with Sumit Jain from Common Floor.The Q&A session is divided into 2 parts : Common Floor and Entrepreneurship.

Note : “I” in the conversation refers to Sumit Jain.

A. Both of us, Lalit and myself , are from IIT Roorkee and joined Oracle through the campus selection in 2006. We left in June last year. Yeah, in just 1 year. So both of us don’t have much experience to talk about. We were the part of Oracle Enterprise Manager team. Lalit holds a patent under his name. Lalit loves reading. I love dancing.

Q.How many apartments in Bangalore are currently using this service ?
A. More than 150 apartment complexes in Bangalore have signed up to use CommonFloor as their interaction platform. We expect the figure to go to 300 in a couple of month.

Q.How do you plan to take your service to other apartments in Bangalore ?
A. Now as we have reached the critical mass, we can expect the word of mouth publicity to actually work. The associations of various apartments are approaching us and we are approaching them to take CommonFloor in their apartment.

Q.CommonFloor is a niche social networking site, what is your take on Social Networking and it’s future?
A. I would rather like to call CommonFloor as the “local networking site”. With CommonFloor we are solving a bunch of needs; social interaction is just one of them. We intend to be the one stop destination for all kinds of problems an apartment residents face, making their lives simpler. We are leveraging the geographical proximity of our users and giving them enough avenues to know more about each other.

About Social networking, I believe that in Asian communities social networking is not going to work the way as it is happening in US & UK. We are a different breed and have different needs. In India particular, internet has not been able to reach to the masses. So for any social networking site to happen, it has to offer a lot more than just the networking features. The social networking has to be done over a need. It has to offer something which people can relate to their real day to day lives. In short, it has to solve a problem.

Q.There are 3 people who commonly fund startups 3F’s Friends, Family or Fools; so who gave you the first set of investment for CommonFloor ?
A. None of these three F’s as such. Though our families have been very supportive, we mostly managed to run it by our own. In a startup like ours, you don’t have to spend much on basic requirements and we chose to remain basic for some time . We had some savings and we took a couple of free lance projects in between to keep it going.

Q.What is your revenue model(apart from Ad’s)…Do you charge the apartments with which you tie up ?
A. Ad’s is always a source of revenue for any dotcom business but surely never a significant one until you manage to get the highly targeted ads. Apart from ad revenue, there are a few other areas where we generate revenue. As far as charging apartments is concerned, there is a basic version of CommonFloor which is free and top of it there are some paid features. So this would be another source of revenue in the future.

Q.What is the USP of CommonFloor over other such groups on SN sites like Orkut ?
A. CommonFloor does not complete with any of the social networking sites in the direct market. As I told you that CommonFloor is a local networking site which harness geographical proximity of its users which is absent in any of the service currently available.

Q.What are your funding options and where can people find more information about CommonFloor ?
A. More info about CommonFloor is available on request. We are in talks with a couple of angel investors and deal would happen latest by the end of this month.

Views on Entrepreneurship

Q.Both of you left your cushy jobs in Oracle to start off MaxHeap, what was the major trigger point?
A. The time is now. The idea is to leave and start and not think much. The journey is so exciting that it is worth taking a break and doing it full time. Rest is identifying yourself and going for it.

Q.You are a regular feature at Open Coffee Club,[Bangalore], how has such kind of events helped fostering Entrepreneurship?
A. It helps a lot. OCC is a great platform. I am very thankful to both of Bangalore OCC’s Co-Founders, Ramjee Ganti and Vaibhav Pandey to take this initiative. For a startup, to keep himself updated and finding opportunities for synergy is very important and OCC is one of the right platform for it.

Q.What are the major changes that happened when you moved from an Employee to an Employer [or Entrepreneur] ?
A. There is a drastic change in the responsibilities. Now you are not answerable to anyone but to yourself. You get most of the decision making power and your decisions can actually make it or break it all. You learn self management. Time Management is first and most important thing you learn while starting up. You are risking your valuable time while your peers are busy getting hikes and great salaries, the pressure is immense. Other than hard work and motivation, it requires a lot of patience and persistence.

Q.What are your key advices to people who want to startup ?
A. If you want to do it, don’t think that you can’t do it. Always see that what you want to do and then how can you do it. Challenge yourself rather than questioning. If you are falling short of the confidence to start or there are other liabilities, join a startup, the journey would still be a lot more exciting.

Q.You are an IIT Roorkie Alumini, how important has IIT been in nurturing your Entrepreneurial talent ?
A. What I personally feel is that the best part of an IIT is its network of students and alumni. Infrastructure and the professors help a lot but you spend most of your time with your friends, seniors and juniors in the college. You get to network with the very hardworking and motivating people with whom you can discuss about things other than getting a good CGPA or a job. Most of the people are looking to go for higher studies and quite a few are exploring the startup world. The number of people who start out of IITs exceeds more than IIMs.