Tete-a-Tete

The amelioration and advancement of technology leads to the creation of varied innovative tools and a list of buzzwords. The latest being SaaS (software as a service).

Mumbai-based DeskAway is a big player in the SaaS domain and we decided to probe the product offering and its efficiency in the real world. Apparently DeskAway "simplifies teamwork". The subscription-based online collaboration service enables small businesses and teams to organise, manage and track their work from a central location.

With the growing number of small businesses/ distributed teams, increased broadband penetration, and 24x7 mobile work culture, DeskAway is rightly poised to give teams an accurate view of how their projects are doing and help eliminate common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating: email spam, multiple file versions, lost files, task accountability issues, lack of clarity & work transparency.

You could either try it for FREE or get unlimited access to the SaaS platform at $99 per month. DeskAway is preferred for its automatic email reminders, cloning projects, advanced security and reporting and analytics.

Founder Sahil Parikh is the brain behind this SaaS (software as a service) wonder. After earning a degree in Mathematical Science/ Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US, Sahil worked with IBM and then was a part of smaller startups and multimedia companies like Pyramis Studios, Merscom and Clinical Tools Inc. But every entrepreneur knows his true calling; and so did Sahil with Synage and DeskAway.com. Sahil moved back to Mumbai in early 2005 to start Synage Software Pvt. Ltd. Initially, like most other companies, Synage was a web services company and then later transformed into a pure-play SaaS company with the launch of DeskAway in late 2007.

DeskAway.com was short-listed as one of the Top 30 Startups at TATA NEN Hottest Startups this year. The company has believed in gradually designing and revamping their platform into a project management 2.0 collaborative suite. We managed to have a dialogue with Sahil…

Tell us something about yourself that we don’t know

I love competitive sports like Tennis and Golf and play them every week to keep myself energised.

How did DeskAway come to life?

When I moved back to India in 2005, there were just too many service companies floating around. Plus, I never liked, and completely disagreed with what people abroad thought of India: a low-cost service country, perfect for off-shoring and incapable of building a quality product unless directed from abroad. This fuelled my desire to grow a product-based software business that had the potential to affect tens of thousands of small businesses and teams globally.

In addition, it was dissatisfying to see other products that didn’t work - they lacked a drive to serve the customer; they got away with meager simplistic features stating that that was their policy; and they basically left the customer high and dry. With globalization, virtual teams were becoming more and more popular. I saw the chance to fulfill the need for a simple, powerful and affordable collaborative online service all backed by personalized customer service.

DeskAway was initially funded from revenues from our Web design and development business. Later, it was funded with a portion of my savings.

We are currently one of the best positioned (price, support, features) in the small business project collaboration market worldwide. Since our entire operations are managed from India, we can keep our costs very low, while providing the same or better customer experience.

Ellaborate on the Project Management 2.0 platform. What is the USP?

Going back in time, Project Management 1.0 was all about planning, getting schedules right and setting up the project with nice looking charts and graphs. Today, with dispersed teams, always-online gadgets and sophisticated online technology, Project Management 2.0 is about people, conversations, relationships, sharing, execution and collaboration. It’s about less planning and getting more work done.

Project Management 2.0 gives you complete visibility to what’s going on within your projects. Real-time changes and updates to your projects can be easily tracked online. This helps your team take action early or change course quickly if things are not going right.

At DeskAway, we are striving to create an online service that is not only simple and powerful to use, but also facilitates social collaboration. DeskAway already includes comment threads, RSS, instant email notifications, user profiles and Twitter-like social message updates.

At the end of the day software should be fun and easy to use. Just like your social network, right?

Your product has gained popularity in international markets. Any specific reason?

I think its because DeskAway combines the right mix of simplicity, feature-richness and affordability into its project collaboration service with a focus on excellent customer support. We are always looking at ways to give what the customer wants rather than to add features that we want included in the next update. The chances of going wrong are minimal if you build a service (and keep it fresh) keeping the end user in mind.

I came across a quote by you that read ”I have had better luck hiring people who want to learn than people who already come with "expert" skills”. Isn’t it a tedious process?

Yes, it is a tedious process but today (with things changing so quickly) you need people in your team who can learn, unlearn and re-learn. We need to hire people who can adapt and move on rather than stick by the old rules or methodologies. In addition, there is a sense of satisfaction when you teach or mentor someone and help them grow.

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

DeskAway.com is Free to all. What is the advantage for Premium customers?

Premium customers enjoy advanced security, more projects, file storage and other advanced features. You can take a look at all our plans here - http://www.deskaway.com/pricing/index.php

Share a few user statistics.

A majority of our users are international (U.S/ U.K). The top 5 industries using DeskAway are:

• Web Services & Software
• Marketing
• Consulting/ Business Services
• Media/Entertainment
• Education

A users feedback that got you thinking

“Just wanted to say Thank You for being so responsive to my questions on support and feature requests. In this day when customers support seems to have died, it's refreshing to see a company still willing to communicate with their customers. I like the DeskAway product and I'm excited that the company is implementing and considering suggestions from their customers.”

This got us thinking that its even more important to have the “human touch” in this digital age which sometimes can become impersonal, automated and very system-driven.

What is the one factor that separates you from your competition?

We try to keep things simple, build powerful features month to month, have an affordable pricing strategy and an amazing customer service standard. This translates into a very positive experience that a user has with our application and company.

Should we be expecting something new from DeskAway.com this year?

Yes, a multitude of features to make working in teams much more easier, email integration, partnership announcements and a mobile platform. Stay tuned.

IIIT-H and Yahoo have tied-up to accelerate R&D in the cloud computing domain. Plus they are offering courses on cloud computing. Wouldn’t that create an outburst?

That’s great. The more people are educated about cloud computing and SaaS, the easier it will be for them to consume services like DeskAway in the coming years.

Tips / Tricks for young entrepreneurs in the cloud computing domain

Here are 3 things young entrepreneurs need to keep in mind when getting into the SaaS domain:

1. Have a viable revenue model – Most web 2.0 revenue models that are advertising based do not work anymore. Have a sustainable revenue model and keep capital costs low.

2. The interface is the window to your customers – If prospects who come to try our your app do not like your interface then they will never come back. Make sure your interface is intuitive, simple and classy.

3. Build for Customers – Listen to what your users want, track everything on your website and app and build a business that customers would love to be a part of.