All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: CryptoCurrency|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

While early stage crypto investors have multiplied their investments, many people who have started a couple of months ago have suffered heavy losses in their crypto portfolios. Cryptoprofiler bridges the gap of investor protection framework between traditional investment world and crypto space, by transferring investor risk profiling into the latter. In addition, the product risk classification provides insights into market risk, liquidity risk and product risk of cryptocurrencies.

The beta solution provides a light version of the suitability assessment to determine investor’s knowledge, experience, risk capacity and risk tolerance. The more comprehensive and in-depth assessment will become shortly available to users in the login area. Learning resources covering crypto risks and behavioral biases are aimed to enhance investor understanding of the dynamic crypto market. The latest feature is a portfolio risk analysis tool with alert function.

Aside from clearly risk focused approach, users are welcome to plugin with their Twitter account to unleash their potential topics of interest in crypto space with the help of Cryptoprofiler proprietary algorithm as well as to get an insight into public opinion of certain cryptocurrencies through social sentiment analysis.

While various platforms are providing data about cryptocurrencies, Cryptoprofiler is the first provider leveraging banking-grade investor risk profiling to focus on the investor as individual and providing actionable insights. Enhanced risk metrics about cryptocurrencies and comparison function are saving time for investment research and empower better investment decisions.

About Cryptoprofiler

Cryptoprofiler is bringing banking-grade investor risk profiling and product risk classification into the crypto space to help investors to make sound investment decisions in the ever-changing and ever-growing crypto market. Cryptoprofiler is powered by Riskifier a MiFID II compliant suitability assessment for banks and wealth managers which has been included in the list of RegTech 100: The world’s most innovative RegTech companies by FINTECH GLOBAL. The Swiss start-up was born in a hackathon and has successfully completed accelerator programs in Switzerland, Germany and Asia.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

On Anant Chaturdashi, every town and city in the country reverberates with the chants of ‘Ganapati Bappa Morya’. Lord Ganesh, the remover of obstacles is taken on a beautiful parade before being immersed in water. Moreover as you immerse your [eco-friendly] Ganesh into the water, remember that He takes away only your ill-luck and not your dreams and goals. On this auspicious day, let’s discuss why investing in mutual funds is a great way to finance your future goals.

Image Source – Mutual Funds

Here are the benefits of investing in mutual funds.

Investing in mutual funds is safe

The Securities Exchange Board of India [SEBI] regulates mutual funds in India. It monitors the fund houses and ensures that they are safe for investors. However, there is still a small possibility that a mutual fund scheme can shut down. In such cases, the fund pays you a sum based on your current Net Asset Value [NAV]. This means, your money is safe, and you will receive it. But it is important to know that mutual funds come with a varying degree of risk. So, if capital protection is a significant concern, you can consider investing in debt mutual funds or liquid funds.

Easy way to diversify your portfolio

One of the first lessons in investment is, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’. Your investment portfolio should be well diversified to minimize your risk exposure in the market. For example, if you are looking to invest in individual securities, carefully select a dozen stocks [or more] to balance the risk and return equation of your portfolio cautiously. It can be a long and tedious process [especially if you are a new investor]. On the other hand, you can simply invest in an index fund that tracks the Sensex or the Nifty 50. This way, you can gain exposure to the 50 best stocks in the market through a single fund.

Professional management

If you are working at a regular job, you may not have the time or expertise to analyze stocks or study market movements. In that case, mutual fund investments are a good choice for you because a professional fund manager manages your investments. The fund manager must ensure that your fund earns the required returns in a specified duration.

Invest in small amounts

Many people delay their investment journey because of the belief that a large amount of money is needed to invest. This widely believed myth needs to be dispelled, because mutual funds allow you to invest with limited amounts. Fund houses allow investors to begin investing through Systematic Investment Plans [SIPs] with as little as Rs. 1,000 per month. In some cases, the investment threshold is even lower at just Rs. 500. So if wealth creation is your goal, all you need is to select a fund and invest right away. You can increase the investment amount as your income rises over the years.

Transparency

Before you invest in a mutual fund, go through all the required information about the fund such as the fund’s past performance, list of the fund’s holdings, fund manager’s performance history and so on. In addition, you can also check the list of charges you have to pay. There are no hidden charges attached to a fund. This is why investing in mutual funds is smooth and transparent.

Conclusion

As an individual, you may have many goals you wish to achieve in your life. Whether they are short-term goals or long-term goals, mutual funds can help you attain your goals. Hence, on this Anant Chaturdashi, invoke the blessings of Lord Ganesh and start investing in mutual funds to create wealth and enjoy a great future.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room – Jeff Bezos

Completely agreed! I know several startups who have created an attractive website, their business is located at prime location, they spent a good amount of money on digital marketing, they are owning a team of skilled staff but still waiting for calls from customers. Is it happening to you too ?

If your answer is a big yes, don’t worry! You are at the right place. But before diving into the article, remember what Jeff Bezos has said. According to him, it’s all about your brand. Your brand represents your business and reputation. So, be sure to have a good one.

Many people argue that they already have a good and attractive logo, what else is needed in branding? Do you really think having a good brand logo is enough for the branding? No, definitely not.

Here I am going to mention some common startup blunders that businesses are making and how one can fix it.

Blunder #1 – Inconsistency

What is the color of the logo of social media giant Facebook? Blue, right? Did you ever see Facebook using its logo color as red in any of its marketing campaigns? No, I am sure. Consistency is very important in building a brand. If you are using yellow as your logo color on the website, keep it yellow everywhere. Otherwise, it confuses users and perhaps they won’t be able to recognize your brand at a glance. Inconsistent branding can lead to customer confusion and a high bounce rate.

Solution – Be consistent. Be consistent with your designs and brand color. It will not only help you in building brand image but also provides recognition.

Blunder #2 – Replicating competitors

This is another blunder that most of the startups make. It is good to know and research what your competitors are doing but copying exactly their marketing strategies lead you to a pitfall. Understand first, you are in the starting stages of your business. You don’t have enough capital like your already established competitors to spend a lot on everything. It is also possible that their marketing styles and trends will not work for your business.

Solution – Do a good competitor research, try to understand what they are doing in promoting their business. But don’t copy everything from them. Don’t try to replicate their marketing styles in hope of getting better results. You can also try some DIY. Tools like Canva help you create your own visual identity.

Blunder #3 – Marketing it everywhere

Do you join every function you are invited to? Certainly not. Likewise, every marketing platform is not a perfect place for showcasing your products. Just because, your company’s name can be somewhere, you started posting everywhere. Representing your brand at wrong places can directly affect your branding campaign.

Solution – Research and figure out what are the best-suited places for running your marketing campaign. Don’t try to be present everywhere.

Blunder #4 – Ignoring social media

Today, everybody has gone online. Even a 10 years old kid is hanging out with friends on several social media platforms. Social media has enormous power. Businesses, politicians, and everybody is seeking the help of social media in promoting their brand name. One can’t ignore the power of it especially startups should be more active on such social media platforms to reach out to the targeted audience. They are the best platforms to build your brand value.

Solution – Be active on social media platforms. Figure out which one works best for you out of a lot. Not every platform is of use to you. Post offers, spread awareness and post attractive contents regularly.

Blunder #5 – Neglecting the power of analytics

Do you really think posting and commenting on social media platforms is enough in branding? It is not. If you ask any digital marketing expert, he will explain to you the importance of analytics. The analytics will help you in knowing which type of content is driving more traffic than other.

Solution: Always have an eye on analytics. With the help of analytic tools, you should know what type of content you need to post and who is your targeted audience.

These are some blunders that most of the startups are making while building their brand. Try to avoid such mistakes and show your customers your real value. Build a brand in a right way. Don’t forget Jeff Bezos.

Don’t make these mistakes and before doing anything, do analyze your business well.

About the Author

Kavita Paliwal is Independent Marketing Analyst and Blogger. When not glued to her laptop, she can be found making travel plans that rarely happen. Connect with Kavita on Twitter & Linkedin

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Jio announced a five year partnership with India’s leading broadcaster, Star India to unleash a new era in sports entertainment. Jio and Star will make all televised India-cricket matches available to users of JioTV and Hotstar in India. Not just this, for the first time ever, cricket production, a streaming platform and a high-speed data network has come together to deliver the best of cricketing content with connectivity to benefit the Indian consumers.

This partnership will cover T20, One Day Internationals [ODI], International Test Cricket and Premier Domestic Competitions of the BCCI. Jio and Star have been instrumental in leading many such disruptive initiatives, where it has put the consumer in the centre of innovation.

Akash Ambani, Director – Jio, said

Jio continues to bring the most exclusive content to its users, this time around through the JioTV app. Cricket is not just played, its worshipped in India. Every Indian must have access to the best sporting events as well as quality and affordable bandwidth to consume the content.

With this partnership, we intend to address both these objectives of providing the best sporting content with the best digital infrastructure to the Jio users. Jio promises to and will continue to bring a superlative customer experience in the areas of sports, AR, VR, Immersive viewing and more in the coming days.

Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director – Star India, said

Over the last five years, we have re-invented the sports experience in India across screens, both television and digital. Indian cricket under BCCI is one of the most compelling properties in the world and we are excited to apply the same lens of innovation and re-invention to the property that we have applied to other sports in the last few years. And, with a new partner in Reliance Jio, we will have even more opportunities to raise the bar for cricket fans.

About Reliance Jio

Jio will bring transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.2 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in digital economy. It has created an eco-system comprising network, devices, applications and content, service experience and affordable tariffs for everyone to live the Jio Digital Life. As part of its customer offers, Jio has revolutionized the Indian telecom landscape by making voice calls for Jio customers absolutely free, across India, to any network, and always. Jio makes India the highest quality, most affordable data market in the world so that every Indian can do Datagiri.

|In: BlockChain|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Elemential Labs Pvt Ltd announced that it’s participating in Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies hosted by The Linux Foundation.

Julian Gordon, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Hyperledger, Linux Foundation APAC Limited, said

Elemential is a key contributor in the Indian ecosystem. They are building large projects with major enterprises across a multitude of industries including KYC, capital markets and trade finance. We are delighted to have them on board as part of our open source community and are even happier to see them using our frameworks for their use cases.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit organization and dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open source projects to accelerate technology development and industry adoption. Hyperledger is a global collaboration, hosted by the Linux Foundation and started in 2015.  At present, it has more than 250 members worldwide. Hyperledger aims to build an ecosystem where members and non members can collectively maintain open, cross-industry, code bases and frameworks built upon blockchain technologies.

Speaking about the membership, Raunaq Vaisoha, CEO of Elemential Labs Pvt Ltd said

Hyperledger has recognized that in order for Blockchain to get mainstream adoption in the enterprise world, it has to separate itself from permissionless ledgers like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Distributed systems require trust between parties to succeed. Permissioned ledgers create an environment of trust. We are excited to be members of an ever growing global community of blockchain evangelists from enterprises all over the world.

Elemential is currently building NSE’s CKYC Blockchain implementation to transform the KYC process in India. Beyond this, it is also building three other projects with NSE and its clearing and settlement subsidiary NSE Clearing, tackling the issues of collateral management, institutional trade confirmations and proxy voting, all powered by Hyperledger Fabric.

About Elemential

Elemential is a blockchain start-up based out of Mumbai. It enables enterprise engineering teams to build, deploy and manage blockchain networks seamlessly using its product suite – Elements [Smart Contract Framework], Command Centre [Administration Console] and Hadron [Open Source Installer]. Elemential’s platform has been trusted by several major Financial Institutions and has been leveraged by NSE. It is backed by major investors such as Matrix Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Hinduja Group and DCG.

|In: Finance|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Each individual wishes to be financially strong. In order to achieve such a goal, it is necessary to make smart saving and investing decisions.

Image Source

Quite often, individuals are led to believe certain things that are not true. False pre-conceived notions about saving and investing may hurt your finances in the long run. Following are six myths and the truth about them that you may keep in mind while planning your personal finances.

  1. Only rich people invest

This is completely a myth. Any individual may save a portion of their earnings and may further invest it. There are numerous investment schemes that allow small investments such as Systematic Investment Plans [SIPs]. Based on your finances, you may begin with a small amount and work your way up by making higher investments over a period of time.

  1. Cash is king

In this era of digitalization, cash transactions are being replaced by plastic money. You may opt for a debit card or a credit card to make your purchases. You may also use your bank cards to book tickets, make online purchases, to shop at physical stores, and for other purposes. Using plastic money eliminates the risk of theft or loss of cash. Besides, it is a secure and convenient payment method.

  1. Budgeting is not important

Believing in this myth can result in serious consequences on your finances. It is necessary to determine your cash inflow and outflow. By doing so, you may be able to identify whether your income is sufficient to meet your expenses. If not, you may either consider getting an additional source of income or may cut down on unnecessary expenses.

  1. Having a saving account is not necessary

Having a saving account helps in building a solid financial future. There are numerous reasons to have such an account such as easy access, the growth of money, a disciplined habit of saving, and low fees, among others. Moreover, you may dip into your account in case you need liquid cash. You may also access funds in your savings account for emergency purposes such as unexpected hospitalization, job loss, or vehicle breakdown, among others. You may choose the most suited account from a plethora of options offered by banks.

  1. Small purchases are fine

Though you may believe that small purchases will not harm your finances, the same is not true. Making purchases more than you are able to afford will burn a huge hole in your pocket. Instead, you may set a budget and stick to the set amount. This will help reduce unnecessary spending and help you spend wisely.

The road to financial freedom begins with making wise money decisions. You may dispel any money myths that you have and enjoy a strong financial future.

|In: e-commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

‘Art’ is considered one of the most powerful forms of communication since the artist has the creative liberty to express his/her thoughts through artistic mediums like audio, visual, etc. When we discuss ‘visual creativity’, one form that makes a tremendous impact is ‘Painting’. However, as mentioned by Edgar Degas, a famous French artist – ‘Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do‘ and you can understand the true beauty of an art form when you look at the art from an artists’ perspective.

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India has always been famous for its creative diversity, whether it is the traditional Indian paintings or the modern art that was begun in Kolkata in the late nineteenth century. Celebrated Indian painter Raja Rajiv Varma is considered the father of Modern Indian Art who drew on Western traditions and techniques including oil painting and easel painting. Oil painting has definitely emerged as one of the leading art forms when it comes to oil painting on canvas or some other surface. Let’s have a look at important aspects of Oil Painting.

Oil Painting – Origin, Advantages

Though Oil Paint existed since the 11th century, it gained prominence in the 15th century after advantages of using Oil Paint became widely known to the artists. During the 10th & 11th centuries, it was used for making Buddhist paintings by Indian & Chinese painters in western Afghanistan. Some of the primary advantages of Oil Paint are

  • Provides more depth of color.
  • Takes more time to dry when compared to acrylic paint, due to which artists can work on the other aspects of painting while the color dries up.
  • Can be used with other media like varnishes, resins, etc. which aid in adjusting the translucency and other important aspects of the painting.
  • Oil paints can be used on different surfaces like Fabric, Wood, Paper, Canvas, Linen, etc.

Due to these advantages, Oil paint is considered a preferred medium for painting and ‘art collectors’ & ‘art enthusiasts’ also treasure oil paintings by well-known artists!

Oil Painting – Drawing methodologies

Artists using Oil Paint normally begin by sketching the main subject on canvas, with charcoal or thinned paint. Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner. Traditionally, artists use paintbrushes for drawing, but there are other tools like palette knives, rags, etc. that are increasingly being used by them. By using hog-bristle brushes along with the above mentioned tools and techniques, oil painters are able to create pigment textures that enhance the beauty of the painting.

How to buy authentic Oil Paintings online

Art collectors are passionate about art and are always on the look for oil paintings online and acrylic paintings online since treasuring art is one feeling that only a ‘art lovers’ can understand. Likewise, talented artists find it difficult to take their artwork to the audience, now with a platform like Gallerist.in; they have the option of putting their oil paintings on sale.

Gallerist.in is an online art gallery with close to 7,000+ artists, a place where art collectors & art lovers can buy oil painting without any hassles. You can also find other traditional Indian art forms on gallerist.in, which makes it a ‘go-to’ destination for someone who is passionate about art!

References – 1

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

There is a famous quote ‘Be prepared for the Worst and hope for the Best‘ however, most of the times we do not have the foresight to predict the worst which gives us less time to prepare for the future. An ideal example of this saying is the ‘Lehman Brothers Collapse’ in the year 2008 which caused a financial meltdown and adversely affected every possible sector. Jobs were wiped out and still the world economy is struggling to recover from the crash.

Though it is very difficult to look out for a job [irrespective of your work profile, experience, etc.] during the time of crisis, it is definitely not impossible. As a job seeker, you need be smart, proactive, well-connected with job consultants in India and act positively when a ‘good opportunity knocks your door’. One thing that has changed significantly since that period is the ‘positive’ impact of technology on every aspect of our lives, including job search 🙂

Network with a purpose

Irrespective of your experience, expertise; when it comes to job-hopping you can never follow a linear approach. Since organizations now have many touch-points where they publish the same openings e.g. job portals, business networking websites, etc. it becomes critical that you stay updated about the same. You need to build a formidable & reliable network, whether it is in the online or the offline space. Focus on ‘building a network, rather than network building’ so that you utilize your time on things that matter the most!

Choose the best staffing solutions

When you think about job search, you would always think about posting resumes on job sites and sending the resume to traditional recruitment or staffing companies in India. However, you have to identify which recruitment agency is genuine or reliable since there is a possibility that a lesser-known recruitment agency might try to extract money from the candidate with the promise of getting them a job. No matter how desperately you are searching for a job, you should always stay away from such recruitment agencies.

There are reliable staffing solutions in India like the ManpowerGroup that have been around for many years, have the required expertise in hiring, career development, executive search, etc. They also offer outplacement services for organizations [large, SME, startups] in case of any untoward incident in an organization that results in employees being laid-off. If an organization is looking to hire people for leadership roles, they can utilize their service & network to hire the best people for their organization.

Highlight your ‘primary’ & ‘secondary’ skills

There are many of us who would be working on the same domain for many years and eventually that ‘domain skill’ becomes your primary expertise. Unless you are a ‘domain expert’ and irreplaceable in your organization, it is always advisable to have some secondary skills so that it helps you when things are not going your way! A fresh graduate has an opportunity to choose his/her own career path and they even have the flexibility to try out various options at the start of the career.

There is always a debate on whether you should be a ‘generalist’ or ‘specialist’ & it all depends on whether that ‘skill’ is in demand or not. If you are in the technology sector, you need to keep yourself updated with the latest technologies so that you are no longer a part of the herd that has the same skill-set

Which according to you are some of the methods to stay relevant in the job market, please leave your suggestion in the comments section…