Roshan Shah, Founder, Gloscon Solutions Pvt Limited

“The builders of Social Networks”

The era of Social networks is upon us with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Orkut to name a few, gathering the attentions of citizens worldwide like moths to a flame. Some of these networks are steadily gaining momentum while others are back to the drawing board. Most of them as well as new entrants to the social networking carnival would benefit from a gander at Gloscon Solutions offerings. Roshan Shah is an entrepreneur who had the foresight to predict and capitalize on the phenomenon of social networking. His entrepreneurial acumen and intuition led him to form Gloscon Solutions to the relief of us virtual socialites.

He spoke to Yourstory sharing his experiences and told us of his life’s vocation saying “Gloscon – “Global Software Consulting” is an Open Source Solutions company specializing in Drupal and Ruby on Rails technologies. It is 100% EoU and registered under KASEZ.”

“Gloscon is mainly a software product company specializing in building social networks with aim of licensing them to other strategic partners. Our revenues are derived from providing software services to international clients while our 100% subsidiary and training division OpenKick Technologies Pvt Limited focuses solely in building innovative Web 2.0 properties.”

Roshan has many successful projects to his name and has done well with his resources. He gave us the gist if what they have wrought saying “We are one of the very few startup companies which has got successful products in various domains with 100% control and ownership in key growth areas like.:

- http://www.kosansh.com – Medical Tourism Portal

- http://www.citiplots.com – Real Estate Portal

- http://www.galaminds.com – Instant Web 2.0 website for Corporates, Magazines, Doctors

- http://www.gujaratcricket.com – T20 Cricket for Schools, Colleges, Corporates

- http://www.kukarma.com – India’s Social Reputation and Background Check Portal

- http://www.jaldibol.com – Citizen Journalism Portal

- http://www.amanhetansh.com – Audit/Legal/Tax Outsourcing

- http://www.gujaratstartups.com – Connecting Gujarat based Entrepreneurs

- http://www.talentlaunchpad.com – Identifying and Promoting young talent

- http://www.cryforearth.com – Global Warming Awareness and Product store

- http://www.kinchuk.com – Gujarat Job Portal”

“We are planning to open a brick and mortar “Food Parcel” store – “Mukhvaas” – http://www.mukhvaas.com which will upsell membership in our products. We are also discussing licensing deals on subset of our portals with local print media on long term support engagements and revenue sharing giving them majority control of the products for a fixed price. Products like Kosansh, Galaminds, and Kukarma are of very strategic interest and we will continue to retain them and run them as independent separate businesses till we get right partner and valuation.”

Roshan believes that providence plays a hand in many of the things that happen to us. While they not seem beneficial at the time, sometimes the worst moments are the catalysts for future happiness. He explains his faith in destiny and how it made him an entrepreneur saying “While working for others it was hard to push my ideas and growth was limited. Moreover I had a heart breaking experience while working for Speedware in Canada where $70,000 of my accrued bonus was not paid and I started my journey with BPO Canada – http://www.bpocanada.com and then once I got Gloscon established in India, I moved back here. It seems that losing $70,000 was blessing in disguise.”

“Luckily, my first contract was $138K US project. We did services of $40K and then contract was cut short. But $40K did help to get started and while we built the company, I put in $60K in company to continue its growth and I did not take salaries for few months.”

After he made his entrepreneurial debut Roshan discovered that building a good team is difficult in India. He was lucky to find an ideal employee who solved his recruitment woes. Roshan gave credit where it was due saying “In India where everyone wants to work for a big brand name, it has been a challenge for me to retain my technical team working for a startup. I am really fortunate to have a great motivated team. Dheeraj who worked for me as a trainee 5 years ago decided to join my new company in India while I was building the company outsourcing work from BPO Canada.”

“He has been a very key factor with him focusing on providing services while I have been doing more of strategy, product engineering, sales and partnerships, In India, we train every employee to be an entrepreneur. Everyone in company knows how to write a business plan and they are actually given an exercise to write a plan with financials and then present it to entire company. Inside out marketing and prompt customer service is so much at the heart of our organization.”

Roshan is very happy and proud with all he has accomplished he singled out the factors that please him for our attention saying “Number of Web 2.0 products we have built for Indian Markets and interest we get from Investors to acquire our web properties like http://www.citiplots.com, http://www.kosansh.com and http://www.gujaratcricket.com . We are not selling yet!”

Roshan is a firm believer in his own wares and advises entrepreneurs in particular to “Network, Network Network. Attend local business networking events

Equity is the most expensive component if you have a great plan. If you can get a loan, go for it rather than give away equity. Grow to a certain size and you’ll see how fast your valuation grows.”

“Outsource your non-core competencies like Accounts, Payroll, Staffing, etc.

Keep your clients, customers, sales with you. Have your Web Site and your Web Footprint as a Key Sales/Marketing tool. Time spent on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin pays off in long run.”

We wish Roshan much satisfaction and success from his work and will remember to make a new years resolution to keep networking just as he prescribes.