In the past there have been many articles written on this blog on BarCamp i.e. BCB2, BCB3, BCB 4 where I came across lot of smart people working on some cool stuff !!! It is during BCB3 that I met Lakshman Srikanth for the first time when he was a “Microsoft Student Partner”. And now straight out of college he dived into entrepreneurship with his startup GAViSTA TECH that solves a very interesting problem. In this episode, we talk to him about his startup journey, challenges, entrepreneurship, idea & many more things….
Can you let us know about yourself and your startup GAViSTA TECH ?
Well, I am an Entrepreneur. Started working on an idea – LegalCrystal and then later on registered GAViSTA TECH as a firm. LegalCrystal is now a product of GAViSTA TECH.
What is LegalCrystal all about ?
LegalCrystal is a search tool for Advocates, Anyone can use it to find laws, judgments decided at different Courts all over India.
Every idea addresses a problem, so what problem does LegalCrystal cater to ?
LegalCrystal addresses two problems mainly-
- Before we started working on LegalCrystal, we researched existing softwares and came to the conclusion that Searching relevant judgments using phrase is the main problem. We started developing our own algorithm and indexers & built a search engine which is particularly tailored to Indian Law.
- User Interface messed up in other softwares. Lawyers need to undergo a Teaching Class in order to use the product.! That is just lame. So we worked on UI and “Search Features” which makes advocate’s life much simpler and easier.
So would it fair to say that “LegalCrystal wants to be the Google of Law industry” ?
Well Google is for the WEB and we are for Lawyers on the WEB! With respect to Search Engine and ease of use you might say we are as good as “Google for Indian Law”.
How do you guys ensure that the information on LegalCrystal is up to date with the changes in the law system [penal code etc.] ?
We have a dedicated team to handle updates. We get case-laws from Judgement Information System hosted by National Informatics Center(NIC). For Few we go to respective courts and apply for a copy and then Convert it to text using OCR’s. We have another team which will take care of the data entry. As every judgement is sent to a panel of advocates who write Headnotes, Case Analysis etc. and then its paraphrased , formatted and updated on the website.
GAViSTA came up with the corporate offering of your flagship product LegalCrystal, how has been the response so far ?
Response has been really good! They just FEEL comfortable using LegalCrystal Corporate. We have approached International Law firms, Companies… First thing they like about the product is the User Experience and then the Search, Features. We are expanding the reach to other states very soon.
LegalCrystal started out as a college project, off late there have been many other Indian startups born in a similar manner, do you think that times are changing where students are getting more serious about last year projects ?
It depends on the individual, but there are lot of students who are trying hard to build something unique; Commercializing their invention is what they need to look into..!
Being a student entrepreneur [i.e. right from college], how did you get about hiring the initial team members & getting them to join you ?
As I was Microsoft Student Partner Lead, I already had a network of students in every college in Bangalore. So initially my friends & I started in my room, then later on we hired few folks from MSRIT and PESIT as interns who worked on really challenging tasks. Well, joining a startup isnt a joke! because there are too many uncertainties involved. As we had a solid product with great market scope we were able to convince them!