Rohit Singal - Inspiring Indian Entrepreneur's Story - Must Read

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Rohit Singal - The Man Who Founded One of World’s Leading Mobile Development Company After Completing MBBS & MD

Rohit Singal, founder of SourceBits, a global leader in mobile (web) strategy, design and development, has a qualification that you’ll see at the nameplates of the top doctors in your city, MBBS & MD (Radiology). He is one reason why you can’t put dreams inside a box.
 

His story in his own words, “When I was doing MBBS, my dad got me a computer and I was really hooked onto it, but I never even thought that I would be in computers. That was just a hobby, and I had to pursue my medical career. After finishing my MBBS, I got MD in Ramaiah Memorial Hospital in Bangalore where they had a requirement for a picture archival & communication software. Big companies like Siemens were quoting more than $1 million for such software. I was able to build the same solution, using open source software for the university and they paid about $100,000 in installments to me. That was my moment of realization, where it was abundantly clear that I can survive on my passion and people are willing to pay for that.”
 

Singal, 35, started Sourcebits immediately after graduation, in 2006. It was a slapdash affair, but also reflected on a long and hallowed tech tradition, the garage company. “I had absolutely no idea of the IT business. I was so bad that I did not even know how to write an offer letter to recruit a person. And I was a one person company. But as I moved on, I learnt while making mistakes and I am still learning,” he says. Singal describes the efforts put into finding office space as the most painful of the starting issues. “Eventually, I got a garage, not my parents’ (his father was in government service) but a rented one.” The first months were cruel. Singal learnt everything the hard way. No revenue. No one willing to share the dream. No business plan. No idea how to reach customers.
 

Singal’s big break came with Funbooth, a product created by Singal with two other developers. The app, which allowed users to modify photographs by adding props like masks and mustaches, brought Sourcebits their first contract from Freeverse. “I knew from the beginning I cannot get a sales deal in the normal way. So only way to move forward was to make a product and that too a world class product that the world would notice.” Funbooth still sells well for the Apple Mac platform.

It’s obvious Singal believes in taking risks. If the beginnings of the company and the choice of the Mac as the development platform while the rest of the IT industry was Windows focused are not proof enough, one of his early hiring decisions demonstrates his attitude to risk. “When my company revenue was just Rs 6 lakh a month, I hired an Apple award designer, whom I paid Rs 2.5 lakh a month. I made losses for the next couple of months. But boy, did that decision pay off!” he says.
” Since I did not have any coding or recruiting experience, all I was looked for was gut feel, and how much the other person is passionate about what I want to do and whether he aligns with it. The kind of people I hired were looking for something different which is not normal, so they never go to the established companies. ”

Sourcebits’ start as a Mac company made their transition to development of apps for the iPhone easy. “We made a product for the iPhone called Night Stand (an alarm clock). It went to the No. 2 spot on the entire AppStore within 3 days and had over 3 million downloads over the next 3 months. This really put Sourcebits right at the centre of the mobile revolution and we have never looked back since then.” It has now built over 300 apps, including for organisations like MIT Sloan, GE, Coke, Hershey’s, P&G and Sling Media, and had a revenue of INR 30cr last year, with 95% of business coming from US. Last year, IDG (world’s largest tech media company ) and Sequoia ( world’s largest tech investor ) invested $10 million in Sourcebits.

What started 5 years ago in a tiny garage outside M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore, today, occupies 46,000 sq. ft. in Electronic City, a major tech hub in Bangalore. The company hired as many as 150 graduates from IITs and other reputed colleges.
As an advice for the younger generation he says, ‘' We in India design everything based out of necessity, rather than thinking from a long-term perspective. Technology is not a challenge anymore. So we should have schools that are more on design, not just for technology or computers but for everything.'’

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ltt

[jbourne]

chadivaa bro comment cheydam marchipoyaa

 

but 6lacs revenue vunnappudu hired a guy for 2.5lacs salary aa point matram ()>> ()>>

 

 

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[JANASENA]

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