Sahil Parikh, Founder and CEO, DeskAway, discovered early on that pricing and feature sets are not really differentiators. Rather you need to focus on your purpose and what are the issues that you are solving that will attract users to your application. Having a vision and a purpose is more important that than competing on pricing or features. DeskAway’s vision is to simplify work. Have they succeeded? NASSCOM spoke to Parikh to find out.
Quick Facts
Overview: Sahil Parikh moved back from the US to India in 2005 intending to break away from the proliferation of service companies and start a product company. But first he had to have capital. So he started a cash cow, Synage Software, a web design and software development company. “At some point, we felt the need for greater transparency and accountability within Synage,” explains Parikh. “We accordingly built a project management tool for internal use, which would make delegation easy and facilitate an organized view of each project.” This tool was shared between project teams and clients.
The extremely positive response he received to this tool convinced Parikh and his team that they had a marketable product and the first version of Deskaway was launched in 2007. A project collaboration online tool for virtual, distributed and global teams, Deskaway was one of the few such products in a market dominated by the service industry; and Software as a Service (SaaS) was just beginning to take off in a big way – the timing could not have been more propitious.
Since then, Parikh has brought to bear his vision, energy and passion to create a global product company from India in the IT space.
End-user scoring point:
The end-user can hope for a lot from Deskaway. It primarily promises three things – the benchmark which every new feature or update is measured against before it is built into the product – ease of use, richness of features and affordability. Deskaway allows globally distributed teams to collaborate in a seamless and easy manner on the Web, and even incorporates social features. With features that allow for easy delegation, it also helps provide senior executives with a consolidated view of all the projects in progress.
“Deskaway aims to be more user-friendly and more personal, in contrast to the generally dull and boring business software that you typically end up using,” remarks Parikh.
Competitive positioning:
Before designing and launching Deskaway, the team closely studied other products in this space and realized that they offered one or another of the attributes that Deskaway promised – not all of them. If they were easy to use, they were generally simplistic in terms of features; if they were feature-rich, they also came with a high price tag. “We have a product that can be used by small businesses as well. With no downloads and installations needed, and an easy-to-use and elegant interface, the product is very simple. However, do not confuse simple with lack of features – Deskaway offers a rich feature-set that is simple to use even for a non-technical person.” claims Parikh.
Go-to-market:
When the product was first launched in 2007, its initial users were Parikh’s customers from the service business. He then tried to tap into companies in and around Mumbai. “After wasting months in meetings, calls and follow-up appointments, we realized that we were focusing on the wrong customers,” rues Parikh. “Ours is an online product and our customers needed to be found online as well.” This epiphany led to a flurry of online activity where the team launched a strong social media strategy, contacting bloggers, tweeting on the product, and optimizing their website. Gradually these efforts bore fruit – a few bloggers who reviewed the product started tracking updates and enhancements and blogged about these on popular forums. Deskaway was also reviewed on Mashable and Web Worker Daily, top tech blogs that boosted the number of people who signed up for the product. And suddenly, Deskaway had a global market and reach. “Our GTM strategy since then has focused on online efforts,” admits Parikh. “Even today, we spend nothing on marketing, but rely on online word-of-mouth and our social media network.”
The big challenges:
• “As with any product company in India, the biggest challenge today is finding the right people with a product mindset,” says Parikh, affirming what other product companies have discovered as well. “Growing a product company is very different from scaling up a service company – we need to burn more cash, it is more long-term and returns come later. People who join us from service companies do not understand this – they are looking to work on a couple of projects for a year and then move on to the next pay raise.”
• A second challenge that Deskaway faces is getting Indian customers to sign up for the service. Parikh feels that the market here is still a bit slow to adopt an online collaboration tool and use a 100% online service. But this is gradually changing as people perceive the benefits of SaaS.
Success quotient
“Success for us has come from a bunch of things,” details Parikh. “Right timing – we got a head start and now a lot of companies are jumping onto the SaaS bandwagon; a dedicated and talented team of 4-5 people that has been with us from the beginning; and the importance that we as a company give to design and user interface. In fact, a lot of our clients do not believe that we are an Indian company, given the clean and sleek look of our product.”
My Word! A one2one take with Sahil Parikh
NASSCOM: What if you could go back in time – would you change product strategy or go-to-market?
Parikh: Well I would launch Deskaway a good 2-3 years earlier than we actually did. SaaS companies that launched in the US in 2003-04 now have considerable influence in the industry and are seeing huge revenues. Another thing I would change is the initial GTM strategy that we adopted. I would not waste even the few months that we did in offline sales and marketing, but directly harness the power of online from the word ‘go’.
NASSCOM: Does India offer strategic advantages or even disadvantages when it comes to a product focused business?
Parikh: If we have a good, solid product and market it really well, then we can build competitive advantage since there are not many players in the product space as yet. As a service company, a small outfit will be just another fish in the ocean. So in this way, India is a good place to be now. On the other hand, there is a definite lack of product ecosystem and mindset and this hinders the growth of companies like us since we face a shortage of the right talent.
NASSCOM: How difficult was it to raise capital? Was this a growth issue?
Parikh: We have grown organically, with revenues from our service business, as well as capital that I personally invested. As I always say, my customers are my investors! And I have not felt the need to go to a VC so far.
Contributed by Kritika Srinivasan, Prayag Consulting for the NASSCOM EMERGE newsletter.
Good to see an Indian company having made a global impact.