All Posts in Review

|In: Personal|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Buying a house is an investment for life. When we were looking out to buy a flat in Bengaluru, we looked at many factors – Reputation of the builder, locality of the apartment, amenities, safety, and the distance from various important locations. Wait! Did I miss a very important factor? 🙂 Yes, I did miss the first and foremost thing that we look into while purchasing any property – Cost of the house vis-a-vis budget.

Buying a house is one of the biggest decisions in your life. Depending on the factors mentioned above, we shortlisted a couple of properties from reputed builders; had a look at their feedback on the internet and visited a couple of properties to have a look at the demo flat. Along with the facilities available, we also checked if the CRM team was pro-active in email communications and whether they are customer-friendly.

Raising capital to reduce loan burden

Before we had shortlisted the property and decided to purchase flat with a reputed builder, we had a look at factors like:

  • How much down-payment should pay to the builder?
  • Which banks offer loan at a lower interest rate?
  • Can we borrow some money from Family, Friends and well-wishers?

Once you have calculated the total amount of how much you have in-hand, than you should visit a reputed loan financer.

Choosing Right Home Loan

When it comes to Home Loans, apart from the Public Sector banks, you also have the option of Private Sector Banks. You need to look into options like flexible interest rates, options of reduced interest for female borrowers (if she is the first owner of the property), ease of loan process, pre-payment charges, and early closing charges.

Paper Work, more Paper Work

Applying for loan is just the beginning of the loan process. The real fun starts with the submission of the documents – Salary Slip, Statement of Bank Account/Pass Book for last six months, Residence Proof, ID Proof, Personal Assets and Liabilities statement etc. These documents are only for the Loan applicant and as we had rightly guessed, we had to frequently visit the bank since there used to be some minor mistakes in the papers and in time, the bank became our second home 🙁

The entire loan approval process took couple of months after which we could breathe a sigh of relief!! There is one thing that we could not figure out. Home Loan providers never take into account about the ambitions of the borrower, his capability to repay the loan from income coming from other sources. We understood that just submitting the salary documents does not indicate your loan eligibility and loan repayment capability.

Time to Know Your Worth

Though I was done with my loan formalities, when this matter was being discussed with friends; they pointed out the same thing – Banks should take various other factors (apart from normal routine documents) in order to consider whether a person is eligible for a loan or not. This is where the discussion about ‘What is your True Worth’ started. Apart from choosing the right home it is of prime importance to choose the right institution that can provide loan.

It is time to Know your True Worth – http://www.trueworth.co.in and since the words sounded familiar, the discussion swayed in the direction of the Aditya Birla Finance Home Loans. A friend of mine is an engineer but since he has a spirit of entrepreneurship within him, he wanted to tap into the booming taxi industry (likes of Ola, Uber). He has a taxi that he has partnered with Uber and makes a handsome amount of money from it. However, other banks did not accept Uber earning along with his corporate job earning. This was important for him since he required a Loan which was more than his ‘Salary’ eligibility.

He finally approached Aditya Birla Finance Home Loans (ABFHL) after he got good feedback from his friends. It’s important that you know exactly how much you can make as down payment and the amount of loan you require.  This is what they call as knowing your ‘True Worth‘.

Time to Know Your Worth – Unique Proposition

As mentioned earlier, loan approval is a painstaking process. However, ABFHL follows a completely different rule for application and approval. Unlike other financial institutions, they assure you of a loan eligibility which is holistic in nature – they take into account your ambitions to grow and will take cognizance of income from all sources which can be used to repay your loan well in time. This is a win-win situation for both the Financial Institution as well as the Loan Applicant.

Less paper Work (More action, less drama)

The documents that you require for applying for a home loan with ABFHL are:

  • Proof of Identity and Address
  • Proof of income
  • Bank statement (where salary is credited)
  • Proof of Income
  • Proof of other Income

The loan approval process is also very speedy since there is one representative from ABFHL who would be in touch with you throughout the entire loan process. They have very good Home Loan options that look very promising.

They re-directed us to ‘Know Your Worth’ TVC that made him to look at ABFHL for a home loan. He closed the discussion by mentioning that ‘For many, applying for Home Loan might be a nightmare but for ABFHL customers, applying for Home Loan is a Dream since it gets approved in such a short amount of time’.

As mentioned on Know Your Worth website,

If you are working this hard to buy your dream home, the least we can do is recognize our true worth. Don’t settle for less. Know your true worth and get the home your truly deserve!

It’s about time, You Know Your Worth#TheHomeLoanIDeserve

|In: Hyperlocal|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Entire 2015 had revolved around startups in the Hyper-Local segment that aimed at bringing more convenience to the customers by delivering daily chores at the doorstep. This was all done at the click of a Button i.e. through an app. Be it Peppertap (that recently shut down it’s Grocery Business), Grofers etc., each one of them wanted a share of the pie.

With the Hyper-local segment getting over-crowded with many players & customer-acquisition costs rising, it gave rise to the next wave of commerce namely ‘Conversational Commerce‘. Here the consumer has the privilege to locate nearby businesses, chat with the business-owners and place order on the App. Once the order has been confirmed, logistics team delivers the order at your doorstep (free of cost). This is termed as O2O (Online to Offline) commerce. The startups that pre-dominantly operate in this market segment are GoodBox, Look Up, MagicX etc. Some of them use AI to reduce manual intervention when answering questions from customer over the chat (thus resulting in reduction of overall operational costs).

The core of all these ‘Conversational Commerce’ startups is to leverage medium of chat so that customers can order anything (food, grocery etc.) on the app. For curiosity purpose, we happened to give a shot to GoodBox and the experience was overall satisfactory (right from Items Search-> Adding them to cart-> Placing the order and doing the payment). In this article, we review GoodBox App from features, reliability, UX, payment etc. point of view; so let’s get started.

[Image Credit* – GoodBox]

GoodBox : What’s in the Box

GoodBox is a conversational m-commerce startup that has is co-founded by Abey Zachariah [ex-RedBus core team], Anand Kelaginamani [IIM-B], Charan Raj [ex-Accenture], Mahesh Herle [ex-National Instruments], Mayank Bidawatka [ex-RedBus core team & co-founder The Media Ant], Mohit Maheshwari [IIM-B] and Nithin Chandra [NIT-K & IIM-B].

It aims to bring neighbourhood Kirana stores, saloons, spas, restaurants etc. online and helps them create a store-front [using the GoodBox Seller App] within minutes. Just like traditional e-commerce companies, there is a customer facing app and the other is Seller app [that seller can use to manage his inventory]. It provides the seller Seamless Discovery, Ordering and Payment. It was recently in news when they acquired SmartPocket for an un-disclosed amount. It had earlier raised $2.5 Million in Series-A funding from Nexus Venture Partners.

GoodBox : Key Features

As mentioned earlier, GoodBox wants customers to connect, chat and buy (the final transaction) from your local businesses without any compromise on the privacy. On launch of the app, it shows the registration page where user needs to enter his/her mobile number and email. An OTP is then received to complete the verification. We found the registration process very simple and less time-consuming (since un-necessary fields were not required to be filled at the registration time).

The App only requires access to GPS and the number is kept private (since the entire transaction occurs over chat)!! Some of the key features of GoodBox are:

Discover : Find businesses around you which might otherwise might take time to locate.

WhatsApp like easy chat interface : Since virtually every mobile user in India is present on WhatsApp, hence it was primarily important that their chat interface did not have many deviations in it’s UX. The customer facing GoodBox app is very well designed and is easy to use (since we are all familiar with WhatsApp)!!

No Middleman :  There is one to one chat between the customer and seller that results in lesser delay (in responding to chats).

Business Profile : You can check the Business Profile, Business Timings, Last online status of the seller, location etc. What we liked about this feature is that there was a specific mention about the seller’s average response time (on chat) and that coupled with Last Online might result in customer-stickiness i.e. if Seller response time is fast, than there are high chances that customer might not look for similar seller in his/her vicinity.

Payment : Payment can be done either via Card or Cash. Surely, the team at GoodBox would be working with the SmartPocket team for their in-house wallet integration that would result in better margins on every per-transaction.

Online Catalogue & Prompt Delivery : 100+ categories (Groceries, Restaurants, Chemists, Laundry etc) are present on the app. It has tied-up with major super-markets and local grocery stores in Bangalore (for the areas where GoodBox is currently operational). There are 10000+ grocery products and browsing (and comparing them with similar products) is very easy.

BESCOM Bill Payment : You can pay your BESCOM bill on GoodBox without any hassles. You need to just enter your Account ID to make the payment.

GoodBox : Detailed review

Once the user logs-in to GoodBox, it takes you to the home screen. You can now search for Businesses who are present on GoodBox (and available in your vicinity) via the ‘Explore’ button. What we really liked is that the Seller rating is also displayed along with the search, this results in making informed decisions since user does not have to go to ‘Seller Profile’ to check the rating!!

Once you have short-listed the seller, you can start chatting with them. In case if the seller does not respond in stipulated time (which is the average response time), the Reminder feature is turned ON. Once the user selects Remind, GoodBox would ping the seller once they are online. It is a very good approach so that the seller does not loose a prospective customer (which might result in customer retention).

The Seller Business Timings are also mentioned in the address bar that is necessary so that it is clear to customer whether any response from seller is expected (at that very moment).

For the review, we ordered cake from nearby Cake Shop (that is listed on GoodBox) and the entire process was seamless. Payment was done using Mobikwik and delivery was prompt (within 30 minutes) & was fulfilled by the Cake Shop itself. Similar to Hyper-local businesses, GoodBox relies on Seller’s logistics capabilities (if they have it) or might have tied-up with logistics providers that provide last-mile delivery (which is useful for sellers who do not want to own logistics).

GoodBox : Scope for improvement

Last online : When we searched for sellers, we noticed that there are many sellers who were ‘last online on GoodBox’ 2~3 months back. For the purpose of the review, we pinged them but there was no response from them (even after 30 minutes). On the other hand, some sellers did not respond even after having read the message!!

This might result in bad-customer experience and hence, it becomes primary for the GoodBox team to educate sellers about timely communication.

Pin Code suggestion : GoodBox is currently present in selected areas of Bengaluru. Hence, in order to target their next ‘area of expansion’; it would have been better if a text-box was provided where customer could enter his/her pin-code. Once GoodBox is present in that locality, customer can than be notified about it thereby resulting in better customer stickiness.

Bar Code support : Similar to Amazon Dash, where user scans bar-code of the product and is prompted to add the product to the cart;  GoodBox can add support for bar-code scanner (in it’s app) so that user can scan the bar-code and continue with the next step for completing the purchase.

Once product is searched, it can then list down the ‘Sellers in customer’s vicinity’ making the entire cycle of ‘Product Discovery and Purchase’ more friction-less !!

GoodBox : Closing Thoughts

We liked the overall look and feel of the GoodBox app. The customer-facing app is very well-designed (we could not look into the seller-side app). The entire concept of interacting directly with business owners is very unique and saves lot of time in communication (which might not have been the case if an agent was involved).

As mentioned in their mantra, GoodBox is definitely taking “Buying from local businesses” a notch higher!! GoodBox for Android is available here, GoodBox for iOS is available here. If you have used the GoodBox App, please leave your experience in the comments section.

|In: Personal|Last Updated: | 13 Comments

Few days back, couple of friends were having discussion over lunch about “Savings” and the talk slowly diverted to “Strategies that each one of us uses in order to maximize returns on Savings”. Many of them in the group were ‘Conservative Investors’ and hence they mostly invested their money in PPF, few Mutual Funds, Insurance policies etc. When he was questioned about the same, his clear-cut answer was that – Though returns might be less, at least it is predictable. Most of them agreed to the point since, sometimes being risk-averse (especially if the overall economy is not doing good) is the best thing to do 🙂

However, I follow a different strategy to manage my savings. Along with ‘Less risky investments that provide Fixed returns’, I also play the ‘Risky’ game by investing in Mutual Funds (mostly Equity based investments are more compared to Debt based investments) and Stock Market. Well, I decided to invest in stock market when Satyam Computers (the in-famous company founded by Ramalinga Raju) was latched up in the biggest corporate scandal of our times !!! Due to push from one of my old friend’s (who is active in stock market), I picked up shares at very ‘Low Price’ and the same stock ‘sky-rocketed’ after Mahindra acquired Satyam (which eventually became Mahindra Satyam).

As I understood from that incident, most of the times in stock market we are heavily influenced by the buying decision of our friends, acquaintances etc. Also, many times investing is ‘Emotion Driven’ hence, it becomes necessary to control emotions (be it fear or greed) & investing should not be done on your fear of loosing out 🙂 One of the mantras that I diligently follow is from the famous investor Warren Buffet

The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market’s fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. That’s what Ben Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing.

When I was looking to invest in some more stocks, there was a company by name of Kushal Tradelink [KTL] that struck my attention. In fact, the strange factor is that this stock was recommended to me by some of my friends (who also invest in stock market). Let’s deep dive into why that stock can be a valued proposition & must to be in your portfolio.

Background

Kushal Tradelink is a closely held private limited company (headquartered in Ahmedabad) and is a major paper products manufacturer as well as paper and agriculture products trader. It was established in the year 2000, which means it is a company that has established it’s foothold in the segment in which they operate. The company has very good financials and a company that is built on strong fundamentals is good pick for your portfolio.

Along with business, they are also involved in lot’s of CSR activities which gives a human touch to business !!

Financials

The promoters of the company have been in business of paper trading since 1965. Kushal Tradelink recorded sales of Rs 200 crore in fiscal 2015, however we could not get information on the bottom-line.

They have contract with Shree Rama News prints & also entered into Rs 250 crore deal with the Adani Enterprise. To top that all, they also have a deal with Bungee India (Fortune 500 company) and serve more than 1500 SME customers across India. Company has three giant paper mills in Gujarat as well as corporate house, wholly owned subsidiary in Singapore and in Ajman [UAE].

Listing details & stock performance

Kushal Tradelink is listed on the BSE (in the B group) and as per my knowledge (and understanding of the market) it is candidate of S&P BSE 500 stocks. Before investing in any stock, we definitely have a look at the previous dividends that the company has offered and it’s performance in the market. Stock of Kushal Tradelink is trading actively with over 10 Lakh shares average daily volume, stock price has risen consistently and has never fall even Rs. 10 from its high price at any point of time.

Also, if you are planning to start investing with 50% amount and are waiting on the sideline which is the tendency of the other investors i.e. to wait for the price to come down so that you can latch on to the shares on lower price. In that case, my suggestion would be that do not wait for that moment since the growth of Kushal Tradelink’s stock is very good and the demand of this stock is much higher as compared to supply (fundamentals of Supply v/s Demand theory). It is like retail concept ‘Offer Valid till Stocks Last’ 🙂

The company has already declared interim dividend twice, 40% in January and 60% in March. For more information about it’s share holding pattern, please visit Kushal Tradelink on BSE To check the performance of Kushal Tradelink on BSE, please check this link The consistent performance definitely gives a big boost to the confidence of the retail investors to invest in Kushal Tradelink 🙂

Retail Investor interest

After interacting with couple of traders in the stock market, we got the information that there has been an increasing retail investor participation after December Quarter in Kushal Tradelink. 7991 retail investors have invested in Kushal Tradelink’s stock (after December Quarter) and after March quarter it rose to 20270 which shows increasing substantial public interest in the company’s stock.

[Image Source – MoneyControl]

As per the discussion I had with my stock-trader friends, they expect announcement of another dividend from Kushal Tradelink depending on their overall performance.

When I started investing in stock market, I was always told that company’s stock would definitely go-up if the fundamentals of the company are strong !! Same holds good for Kushal Tradelink and considering the excellent performance of the company it definitely falls into my “Hot performing stocks” bucket 🙂

As seen above The stocks are currently trading at Rs 127.60 (rise of 0.87% since previous close) and expect the bull-run to continue for Kushal Tradelink !!

So, do you plan to invest in Kushal Tradelink ? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Disclaimer: Information provided in the article is based on my research and I do not have any holding. Investment in stocks involves huge risk, so consult your financial adviser or do your own analysis before making any investment.

|In: Review|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

A decade back, if you talk about dating to anyone it would have resulted in a very “Surprising” kind of reaction. Dating was not very acceptable. But with the advent of technology and change in mindsets, people today are open to Dating since it helps them know the person before they may/may not delve into the most important decision – Marriage. With social media being on the rise, it has given way to another phenomenon called as “Social Dating” and “Online Dating”.

So, the next question that arises is “Which option should someone prefer – Online Dating or Meeting someone offline” ? Well, there is no single answer to this question but considering the amount of time that each one of us spend on Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter etc.; Online seems to be an Ideal option. In fact, few years back I met my wife Janukin online and that early bonding definitely added trust in our relationship.

In fact, many matchmakers are incorporating Online in their offline business models which definitely proves that ‘The online formula is working’!! But as we have seen in movies and heard from many of our friends that Online relationships might not always work. It is true to a certain extent. Similar to Hyper-local Commerce (where Buyers are connected to Sellers in their close vicinity), startups like ShowMeInterest want to leverage the power of Facebook in order to find your Next Date 🙂

Features of ShowMeInterest  [for online daters]

As mentioned earlier, online dating comes with it’s own share of advantages and dis-advantages. So, let’s look at some of the features of ShowMeInterest that might get your excited !!

Ease of Access – Facebook is a Vicious Circle since there choices can turn out to be un-limited so, it becomes an important decision that contacts are managed properly. With ShowMeInterest, you can log-in using your Facebook/Email account and narrow down your search for the next date with different filters like Age, Height, Weight, Area Pin-Code, Hair Color etc. Doesn’t this sound similar to Hyper-Local shopping 🙂

Anonymous Search – After you log-in to ShowMeInterest, you would be prompted with list of members out of which some might be your next Potential Date. Once you look at someone’s profile, the other member (whose profile has been seen) would be intimated which makes ‘Searching for Date real-time’. However, there might be some members who prefer to stay Anonymous (so that other member does not come to know that his/her profile has been seen) and ShowMeInterest takes this into consideration in a very elegant manner !!

Suggested Matches – Just like Matrimonial websites, you would receive emails of suggested matches in order to make your ‘Date Search’ easier. The powerful part about ‘Facebook Dating’ is that if you are interested in someone, than you can get to know about that person from ‘The friend’s Network’. This makes knowing the person much better before you can take the ‘Online’ meeting ‘Offline’.

It would be interesting if ShowMeInterest can leverage the power of Social Media and Analytics to connect Potential Daters (who are in close vicinity) with offline-joints (e.g. cafes, pubs etc). Though we are no guru’s in Dating business, but I know couple of my friends who could find their match using ‘Power of Social Media’ for online-dating. We may definitely argue that you can never know 100% of a person by just interacting online and that is what your end goal should be – ‘ Put an end to the Digital Dating and know more about the person with Offline medium’.

But before you take the ‘Offline Route’, you would have already known a lot about your date from his/her ShowMeInterest Profile 🙂

|In: Review|Last Updated: | 2 Comments

In today’s technological era there are few online options available wherein you can flex your mind muscles, get entertained, join a like-minded network, and also make some money 🙂 With summer sneaking in, many of us [including kids] prefer staying in-doors especially during the afternoon and that is the best time when family can relax with their kids!! Parents look for indoor games that not only provide wholesome entertainment, but also sharpen their kid’s thinking 🙂 One such game that falls in this category is the good old card game – Indian Rummy.

With shopping, ticket booking, mobile recharge etc. already having taken the online route, time had come for the awesome Rummy game also to go ‘Online’. One of the major advantages of Rummy is that it can be played with teens, and helps improve hand eye co-ordination, develop patience and concentration skills. Today, we review KhelPlay Rummy; an Indian rummy site that provides range of options for users to play Rummy both on the web as well as on mobile apps.

KhelPlay Rummy: Comprehensive Online Rummy options

KhelPlay Rummy offers online rummy games in the 13 & 21 cards category. In the 13 card games category, there are formats like Points Rummy, Deal Rummy and Pool Rummy about which we would elaborate later in the article.  For beginners too Rummy, KhelPlay Rummy provides a  How to Play Rummy video tutorial that walk you through the Rummy rules & scoring system of the site.

[Image Source – KhelPlayRummy]

For players venturing into the ocean of Rummy, this site has a special module where they can play unlimited FREE rummy games with unlimited ‘Chips’ [account balance] to perfect their Rummy Skills. On registration, player’s account is credited with 10,000. Free Rummy Chips this allows them to play unlimited free rummy games and participate in some free rummy tournaments where Real Cash Chips are at stake.

KhelPlay Rummy: Security, Legality & other aspects

When we think about online games that are not casual but that involve ‘Real Money’, one thought that definitely comes to our mind is “Whether it is legal or not to play Online Rummy” and “Whether it is secure since we would deposit money in their account”. As per this SC judgment, Online Rummy has been termed as a Game of Skill and does not belong to the Online-Gambling category, and hence it’s perfectly safe to play

In order to participate in tournaments [other than practice tournaments], player needs to have ‘Real Chips’ in his/her KhelPlay Rummy account. Real Chips are cash chips that you need to purchase by depositing cash in your KhelPlay Rummy account. Once your deposit is processed, your account is upgraded to play Real Rummy online. You need to be above the age of 18 years to play with real chips. In case, you deposit money in their account but it is not yet reflected in your KhelPlay Rummy account, then you can write a mail to support@khelplayrummy.com to get the matter checked and rectified.

Their payment partners are PayU, EBS, TechProcess etc. which definitely signifies that your money is in safe hands & you can use your debit/credit card without any hesitation since all online transactions at KhelPlay Rummy pass through the SSL layer [and are encrypted & secure].

KhelPlay Rummy: Line-up of Tournaments

KhelPlay Rummy offers two different types of Tournaments:

  • Time Based tournaments – Players need to complete the game within a stipulated time frame.
  • Round Based tournaments – Number of deals would be fixed in these tournaments

All tournaments have auto play mode in every round and level. In case a player fails to join after registration or gets disconnected due to network problems or fails to respond during a game, their turn will go in auto mode which gives them an opportunity to re-join the game. You can find the detailed Rummy tournament rules on their page.

As mentioned earlier, there are three different variants of Rummy that can be played on KhelPlay Rummy platform – Points Rummy, Pool Rummy and Deals Rummy

  • Points Rummy – Each deal forms an individual game in Points Rummy format where players play for points. The chip value is pre-decided and the winner wins chips basis the number of points per chip. You can also enjoy the 21 card rummy that is popular in local clubs.
  • Pool Rummy – Two variants that are possible in this category are ‘101 Pool’ & ‘201 Pool’.
  • Deals Rummy – KhelPlay Rummy offers ‘Best of 3 Deals Rummy’, which is a points rummy variation and the winner is decided after the final tally of points after 3 deals of rummy

For the review, we played a couple of games on the site & found the ‘Multi-Player Gaming’ experience awesome. The UI on the site is engaging which makes game-play interesting!! In addition to the variations listed above, there are different tournaments on KhelPlay Rummy. Some of them are Cash Players Tournament, Mighty Monday Tournament, KhelPlay Cash Card Tournament, Friday Fever Tournament etc. We found the line-up of Rummy Tournaments on KhelPlay Rummy exhaustive as well as intriguing.

KhelPlayRummy : Rummy on the go

With the smart-phone penetration increasing in India at a breath neck speed, it is one sector that can never be ignored. Rummy enthusiasts & seasoned Rummy players who are constantly on the move can still play their favorite game on mobiles. KhelPlay Rummy is available for download on the Apple Store and Khelplay Rummy play store link. To top it all, you also get a Bonus of Rs. 1000 once you download the App 🙂

Some of the salient features of the KhelPlay Rummy Mobile app are below:

  • Enjoy your favorite cash games.
  • Easy navigation & awesome game-play experience.
  • Faster & easier withdrawals.
  • App only attractive cash offers.

For more details, please visit the Rummy App Page

KhelPlayRummy : Closing Thoughts

If you are a ‘Cards game enthusiast’ and planning to take your first step into the world of Rummy, than do give KhelPlay Rummy a spin. If you are a Rummy-Pro, there are in-numerable reasons to sign-up on the site.

Do give KhelPlay Rummy a spin and leave your feedback in the comments section.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The month of March brings in a lot of anxiety and stress in the lives of students. This is especially true for 10th and 12th graders who are under lot of pressure since they would be appearing for their board exams. These years are very crucial for the students since it lays the foundation of their future.

Getting good grades in exams is one thing but choosing the right career path is another thing. Choosing the career of your choice becomes very important and that is primary reason why both parents & students are equally worried about choosing the right career.

In today’s fast-changing times, career choice is not restricted to mainstream as it used to be in good old days. There are lot of career options available (some conventional and some un-conventional). A child can choose stream of his/her own choice, be it medical, engineering, arts, visual media, graphic designing, hotel management etc. In fact with the rise of Digital Media, many kids also opt for becoming stand-up comedians, YouTube stars etc. I know many of them who are still in school and do gadget reviews on YouTube. With so many career choices available, your question would be which is the “most preferred” career option? Well, the answer is “Engineering” still tops the list!!

Opting for a career choice is one part whereas achieving/chasing that dream is another part of the game. Getting into the engineering college of your choice is still a very daunting task. The 12th grader needs to appear for the CET exam than (s)he gets to choose a college based on the CET score. The choice of college is the most crucial task. If a kid is staying in Mumbai, parents would always prefer that (s)he takes admission in engineering college based out of Mumbai. However, in current hyper-competitive environment it is important that kids also explore college(s) suitable for them outside the residing city!!!

When I wanted to choose an engineering college in Mumbai, I was clueless about which college is right for me since only information that I had was about courses offered by college, placement information etc. (remember this was way back in 2002 :)). Though I mentioned about 2002, the same scenario still exists in 2016. Kids and parents are equally clueless about which colleges to choose, fee structure, accommodation etc. A very good friend of mine who is from Nagpur has a son who wanted to pursue his career in engineering. Being the only child, my friend wanted his son to study in Nagpur.

Though there are so many resources (that give information about colleges, college reviews) available on the internet but major part of that information is scattered across multiple websites. Also, there is no guarantee whether the information mentioned on the website is legitimate. We tried to source information about engineering colleges in Nagpur by asking relatives, mutual friends etc. but it did not work beyond a certain point. When we hit the road-block, we decided to check back on the internet.

To our surprise, we found a “Single point Solution” to our problem and the solution is CollegeDunia – extensive search engine for the students, parents, and education industry players who are looking out for information about higher education in India or abroad. For parents, CollegeDunia offers a filter page that can rank colleges based on criteria like Fees, Cut-off percentage etc. When I informed my friend about the site, he quickly latched on to the opportunity to check the site and he just took few minutes to decide that his search for the top engineering colleges in Nagpur would be finally fulfilled on CollegeDunia. The very fact that it is extensive listing portal with information of more than 10000 colleges in India with in-depth information about entrance exams , events , college festivals etc increased my friend’s confidence in the portal 🙂

We tried to shortlist certain colleges in Nagpur after having a brief discussion with his son. We were looking out for colleges with best rating (along with keeping a watchful eye on the fees). Some of the colleges that made it to our shortlist bucket were:

  1. Visvesaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (Rating : 8.5/10)
  2. ITM College of Engineering, Nagpur (Rating : 6.6/10)
  3. Shri Ramdeobaba Kamla Nehru College of Engineering and Management, Nagpur (Rating : 6.1/10)
  4. Karmavir Dadasaheb Kannamwar College of Engineering, Nagpur (Rating : 5.2/10)
  5. St Vincent Pallotti College of Engineering and Technology, Nagpur (Rating : 5.2/10)

We were finally bit relaxed that we were able to shortlist the colleges but shortlisting colleges was job-half done. Out of the top 3 colleges, there was debate between the selecting either the first or second in our list. As kids, we always wanted that “quality education” is well-balanced with “extra-curricular activities” and the same thought also revolved in my friend’s son’s mind. There were frequent debates about the choices and after a brief period of two weeks we finally zeroed in on “Visvesaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur”.

With the shortlist done from our side, it was time to apply for admission in that college. With information obtained from CollegeDunia, his son was finally able to take first step in fulfilling his dream – “To become an engineer” !! It has been more than two years since his son secured admission in the college and now he is more of a (self appointed) evangelist 🙂 for CollegeDunia who wants that his friends/relatives who aspire to be engineers make “Wise & Smart career choices” by using the CollegeDunia platform!!!

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Most of us [or should we say], all of us would have watched the movie 3 Idiots. There was a very interesting dialogue at the end of the movie where Aamir Khan advises Madhavan on why he should ‘pursue’ his dreams to become a wild-life photographer. I had a friend in my engineering college who was very good in Drama and very active in all the cultural festivals. He was a good student but after he passed out of engineering, he went on to pursue his dreams. He went on to become a Film Director [More about Jayprad Desai here]

Well, this is one a one-off scenario and we come across such stories where engineers pursue career in entertainment, Doctors become singers/reality TV stars, Bankers become Best-Selling Authors and many more… Divergence in the career path could either be ‘Imposition of Parental Pressure’ or ‘Late Self-Realization’. Many times, my wife Janukin [who is a passionate teacher] & myself have discussions over tea about her students, interaction she has with parents, her student’s likes & dislikes, their aspirations. One ‘common’ thing that we realized is that kids have varied interests which they would like to pursue as their career and they require their parent’s support & guidance in order to fulfill their dreams !!  In a nutshell, Children have innumerable career options, thus parents need to be prepared for their decision and should Do their Homework

An interesting experiment titled ‘Do Your Homework‘ [#DoYourHomework] was conducted at multiple sites namely Crossword & KidZania. It was initiated with a group of parents and their children. Children were asked to draw a picture of what they would like to become in future while parents were asked to paint what they would like their children to become in future. They were told not to interact with each other during the course of the activity.

Two important things that can be learnt from the video are a)  Children today want to follow their passion & areas of interest b) Parent’s role is to be prepared to fulfill their children’s aspirations.

There are tons of resources freely available for parents like ‘The Homework App‘ to ensure that they are on the same page as their kids about their future. The calculator feature would keep them informed about the education expenses and help them be ‘Financially’ prepared.

As they say ‘Learning should be fun’ and what better way than to make it Visual. There are books curated to inspire the children to explore the various careers by way of reading short stories on various professions, trying their hand with coloring or solving crossword puzzles on various professions. This could be a ‘Litmus Test’ for parents to know their kid’s interest.

As mentioned earlier, parents need to be emotionally & financially prepared to support their child’s education, hence it becomes very important to invest wisely. If you are a ‘Risk-Averse’ investor, you definitely have an option to invest in ELSS tax saving instrument and cut down your taxes paid. Do have a look at  investor education awareness campaign, Save Less & Share More 🙂

As the legendary Steve Jobs said

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

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How many of us would have thought of dancing our heart out in order to enjoy & release all the tension 🙂 . The only thing that worries us is ‘I do not know dancing’, ‘I will look like an idiot if I dance in front of so many people…’ We would have all wished that we can fearlessly dance like this Old Man dancing in the video below –

Many startups are helping connect like-minded people living nearby so that they can either get-together over a game of tennis or solve each other’s problems. Today we review a startup The Dance Bible that wants to bring people together under one umbrella of ‘Dance’. It aims to be a one stop platform for all dance lovers to come together and connect through the art of Dance.

The Dance Bible : What’s in store

The Dance Bible; a first of its kind online platform for dancers, choreographers, dance educators, dance parents and all dance enthusiasts worldwide; promises to cater everything related to dance. It was started with the following problem [Source]

Living in the age of 140 characters and selfies, we all understand the importance of web presence; every industry has been using the social revolution to its advantage to grow its business. Yet, Dance as an Industry is still shy and hasn’t been able to tap its way into the online world as it should. The Dance Bible, with their goal of being a one stop portal for dancers, is designed to provide the right accessories to every dance soul to shine and empower themselves in their journey.

The Dance Bible consists of the following sections:

Dance Styles : It gives the user crystal clear information about the various dancing styles like Belly Dancing, Ballet, BBoying, Bharatnatyam etc. They could have added a Sub-Category based on the Origin of Dance namely Indian, Spanish etc. or an option to filter Dance Styles based on user preferences. You can various dance styles here

Dance Zone : Just like many of us who work-out & have a specific target in mind i.e. gain weight, loose weight, fitness, flexibility etc.; the Dance Anatomy section gives details about exercises for developing better physique or postures. It offers unique content about various dance styles informing the user about dance histories, biographies, health & nutrition etc

DanceBible_anatomy

The Dance Bible wants user’s to try out ‘Dance As A Work-Out’ in order to stay fit. It would have been better if they could have linked various Dance Forms on how would result in toning of different body parts. An example of the same can be Aerobics Style Garba as seen in the video below:

Dance Audio & Video Playlists : It contains collection of dance video and audio clips that dancers can use to sharpen their dance skills.

The Dance Bible : Unique Features

Two of the unique features of The Dance Bible are  – Portfolio and the Dance Forum section.

Dance Portfolio – Under Portfolio section  of The Dance Bible, a dancer can create his/her profile by telling their dance story, uploading photos and videos of dance. We found this feature very useful as users can make their video viral by sharing on various social media channels. You can create your Dance Portfolio here. If you are Dance Freelancer, you can create a profile on The Dance Bible here. If you are keen about learning dance, there is separate section of Dance Schools. One feature that could have been added is ‘Integration of Maps’ so that users can get idea about the exact location of Dance School.

In order to get your Dance school listed on their platform, you can do the following:

  • Login with your details and head to the Dance School section.
  • Click on Add yourself.
  • Fill in the details, list your USP(s), link other social handles for more coverage and click on Submit.
  • Share your dance school page with the industry, ask your existing students to rate and comment and see your enrollments increase.

Dance Forum – Dance Forum is a unique feature where Dancers or aspiring dancers can network with other like-minded dancers on The Bible Dance. It also provides a platform to promote their talent to a worldwide audience and get genuine feedback from experts in the group.

Dance Events – If you are interested in Dance Events and do not want to miss out on any of them happening in your city, than you should definitely check-out the Dance Events section. We found the number of listed events less in number, a better idea would have been to curate those events from other sites like Explara, MeraEvents, BookMyShow in order to drive in more traffic & build user-base.

The Dance Bible : Dance and Dance Anatomy Blog

We particularly liked the Dance Blog where their team shares stories of dancers on their platform, useful tips, events [anything & everything related to dance]. The Dance Anatomy Blog has interesting content revolving around nutrition, prevention & cure of common injuries caused while dancing and more. They also have a Youtube Channel though we wish that the updates are more frequent since many novice dancers turn to Youtube to learn dancing.

The Dance Bible : Closing Thoughts

The Dance Bible tries to spread the joy of Dance and aims to be the de-facto destination for ‘Anything related to Dance’. We found the ‘Dance Forum’ & ‘Dance Portfolio’ sections to be very useful !! On a lighter note, if actors in ABCD would have known about The Dance Bible, they would have found a Dance Trainer more easily 🙂 . You can connect with them here, here & here.

ABCD – Anybody Can Dance with the help of ‘The Dance Bible’