I am an Indian who spent 15 years in Japan and currently living in Sweden. My professional interest is to create innovative web and mobile applications.
ImaHima in Japanese means “are you free now?” and is the name of a mobile location-based social-networking service created in 1999 by my Japanese company ImaHima. ImaHima pioneered the concept of sharing current status [location, activity, mood] among friends using mobile phones.
Since then, I have built several other internet services and my latest project is Colabolo, which is a light-weight issue-tracking software for small teams.
Can you give an insight into your flaship product Colabolo ?
Colabolo grew out of my own needs for a better way to manage the tasks and communication within my company. Email is very flexible tool but lacks organization and sharing. Excel or MS-Project have structure but no communication. Colabolo is a communication & collaboration tool that fits somewhere between email and project management software. It is perfect for simple task delegation and assignment between team members.
Compared to other software in this category, it is much simple to use and integrates with email so it can automatically create tasks from incoming email. It can reduce the volume and clutter of email. You can find a 40-second video demo of Colabolo here
Who are the target customers for Colabolo ?
Colabolo’s current feature set is useful for freelancers and small-medium size teams. It is ideal for teams that collaborate using computers or mobile phones sharing a large volume of tasks that need to be completed.
How would Colabolo be useful for the SMB(s) ?
You can create issues and assign to other team members, later comment and share files, till you can resolve and close the issue. Everyone knows what they or others are working on, what is remaining to be done. For example, for web development or sales tracking.
You can also use it as a customer-facing tool since you can receive/send emails from Colabolo so it can be used as a help-desk tool. It shows the project manager a snapshot of the entire project as well as a shared schedule of tasks. It helps your team get things done !!!
What are some of the additional offerings/features of Colabolo as compared to Base Camp[from 37Signals] and other project collaboration tools [e.g pricing, features etc] ?
If you try Colabolo and Basecamp, you will see they are very different products and approaches. In Colabolo, you comment on issues in the same place where you assign issues to others. It looks like an email client, so it only takes a few minutes to get familiar with it. It can receive and send email, you can customize the workflow, there is a built-in gantt chart, you can share files by drag-and-drop.
It offers functionality which has so far been only available in very expensive software and offers it at low price and a simple-to-use. No server-side install in needed, you simply pay $9.99/month [approx Rs 500/month] for virtually unlimited use.
Which are some of the other products rolling out of ImaHima ?
There is still a lot to be done on Colabolo. We have also been working on a iPhone client for it. Being a small company, my limitation is the speed at which new ideas can be implemented. That is why I am always on the lookout for like-minded people who have a passion for creating innovative services and try to develop ourselves and our society.
How different is the Japanese market as compared to India ?
Well, completely different. This question can be answered by writing a book but lets just say that it is a big market [second largest economy in the world] whose IT infrastructure is still lacking compared to other rich countries.
How much has recession affected the Japanese market ?
Since Japan does a lot of business with US, there is an impact but it also has a very strong domestic market, just like India. However, India is growing much faster.
What prompted you to start a company in Japan ?
Since I ended up in Japan after finishing MBA from USA, after a few years of experience, I was ready to go independent and really implement new ideas rather than simply talking about them. After a while, I began to see how innovation can bridge the gap between rich and poor countries.
Is ImaHima venture funded or is it self-funded ?
It is self-funded.
What are your key advices to people who want to startup ?
Again, a question that can be answered in a book, but simple answer is go for it, you will never regret the experience.
Can you comment on the Entrepreneurial ecosystem of Japan ?
Its tough, but no tougher than any other place. The challenges are the language, costs, shortage of skills but that is also the opportunity.
Since Japanese being the major language, how simple/difficult does it make for startup to expand it’s service ?
I would say you must speak Japanese in order to succeed in Japan.
You were planning to open a centre in India, can you let us know about those plans ?
Yes, I am in the process of setting up software development in India and have had very good experience so far with the Flex developer we found. We are currently looking for senior Java developers [and more Flex developers], who might be interested in working with the Google App Engine and with the team in Japan.
We are looking for freelancers who will work with other team members over the internet. If anyone is interested in working with me, please write to <neeraj@imahima.com>
I am also interested in sharing my experience with other entrepreneurs in India, who want to do business in India or Japan and with those who want to contribute towards the evolution of entrepreneurship in India, via academic-industry collaboration, seed capital, global partnerships and education for all.
All the best!
If you have any questions for Neeraj, do leave them in the comments section and the same would be added to the main article.