Shishir Jain, Founder, Netcellence Technologies

"Technology at its best"

Netcellence Technologies is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Product Developer and Service Provider. Its on a mission to help Indian business and institutions achieve operational efficiencies by effective and affordable use of technology. Shishir Jain, who did his B.Tech. from Institute of Engineering & Technology, Lucknow and post graduate from XLRI, Jamshedpur is the founder of this venture.

Netcellence Technologies is focused on bringing the best of IT to small and medium business and educational institutions.

Business Idea

Software-as-a-Service is the ideal and most suitable software model for Indian businesses, which can make them leapfrog straight from desktop computing to enterprise class software by adopting it on cloud computing. “Helpdesk 2.0” is the product for managing support organization’s system, whether used external to an organization or internal to a company. A tight integration with Email and SMS helps one to use the product anytime anywhere.

“CampusAge is our product developed in collaboration with CareerAge.com, to bring educational institutions, students and employers on an online platform for automating and bringing placement process online." says Shishir

Target Market

Netcellence are creating business software for Indian businesses which can be delivered over the “Cloud” and so they could really benefit from it.

"Our current products are “Helpdesk 2.0” and “CampusAge”. While one is for Indian businesses looking to automate customer support process, the other is for higher educational institutes to automate their campus placement process and bringing it online. So in effect over thirteen million SMEs and over five lakhs educational and vocational Institutions can benefit from our products and services." says Shishir proudly

Future plans

Netcellence wishes to become a niche player in Software-as-a-Service in the coming years.

Shishir tells us, "Scale up would happen in a collaborative model, when every stakeholder would become a partner and then the whole eco-system would succeed and grow. It is not what would happen in very near future, but I strongly believe that is the model of success for startups and for SMEs in India and I’m working patiently on that model to scale up. We are still in a startup mode with one branch and single digit employee strength. We do plan to have offices in all major cities in coming years."

What sets them apart

Netcellence Technologies is a SaaS company, a delivery model on cloud computing, which enables one to use and experience the same product which the biggest company in the world would use but at a price point which is suitable for a very small company.

"This model of subscription based software, delivered as a service over the internet with no investment in infrastructure is the key differentiator for us and would change how businesses would use software in next decade." says Shishir

His entrepreneurial journey

Being an entrepreneur was not an easy decision for Shishir. He says " Its not only you, but the whole family is affected by your decision and this made me delay the decision to some extent. Then I realized, not having to live your dream would be like living an un-contented life and then I decided to take the plunge. I have always loved risks, loved working for small companies and loved taking the challenge and overcoming them"

Intially he made a few mistakes. His biggest mistake as an entrepreneur was to start without doing proper market research and without having few committed customers. He says "Customer interaction and buy-in started happening after the product was developed. Doing that earlier could have saved us the time in learning and understanding the market" But he has been able to cope up with it by being flexible, adaptable and changing strategies to mitigate risks.

Money and costumers are always the biggest challenge in an entrepreneurial journey and Shisir had a fair share of both of them

"Last year when our product was ready, there was this talk of recession everywhere, our prospective customers just refused to talk to us and we were left with no money and I had serious doubts about our product and the market. But having a strong conviction in the product, we managed to change our strategy a little bit and sailed through. We know it is just a matter of time and sustenance till then is very important." recalls Shisir

"We derive our strength from our customers and that gives us motivation and strength that we are on the right track." adds Shishir with a smile.

Recognition

For Netcellence team the gretest reward and recognition is when they see their customer's success.

"Our product is in customer support management and some of our key customers are Cisco Partners and Integrators. Having two out of nine Cisco Silver Partners as our customers was our biggest achievement and we are on our way to get more new Cisco Silver Partners sign up for our product." says Shisir proudly.

Tips for budding entrepreneurs

According to this entrepreneur, hostile and non conductive environment and access to risk capital are the key challenges for a first generation Indian entrepreneur.

Shisir shares his word of advice and says "Don’t start alone. Have atleast one initial partner. That makes a huge difference and makes 1+1=11. Entrepreneurs journey is a roller coaster ride and having a partner helps you ride the rough times with much ease."

YourStory wishes Shishir Jain and Netcellence all the luck and hopes to see them growing successfully in the coming years.