Raxit Girishbhai Sheth, Founder, Mobile4Mumbai

Mumbaikars are now commuting with greater ease than ever thanks to the efforts and entrepreneurial thinking of Raxit Girishbhai Sheth. His venture “Mobile4Mumbai” not only creates Mobile applications that makes life easy for Mumbaikars but is also developing products and services to make your life easier.Their first product “Mobile4Mumbai” has been accepted by a large number of people in a very short time frame, and helps you search for buses within Mumbai.

Raxit told us about the help he has received from the Sun Startup Essentials program saying “Very useful team. Good technical collaboration and superb help.

Mobile4Mumbai is entirely developed in Java using Netbean (both java and Netbeans are from Sun so we are lucky to get a good amount of tech help from a top-notch Sun tech team). In fact Sun Microsystem and Samsung India are two big corporates from where Mobile4Mumbai has got tremendous support.”

His belief is that Indian entrepreneurs face the twin woes of “Bad Execution and Bad Cash flow” and is looking to network with similar startups and entrepreneurs explaining “Presently collaboration is among Startup1<--->SSE, Startup2<-->SSE like that way, Among the communities there are multiple startups which can help each other, Cross selling, Cross Marketing, Co-Branding their products and services...and it will be win-win for all, Indian people, SSE, and all participating startups.”

Business Idea- Raxit stated how the demand for his products drives his business saying “Daily 42 lakh people are travelling using City bus, we are aiming to reach to maximum of them, as well few upcoming **unique** products/services are aiming more people across Mumbai and India.”

His business idea also hinges on “Developing a Team, products and Services that will make life easier for Mumbai as well other Metros, Provide employment to more people with solid customer satisfaction.”

What sets them apart – Raxit has a distinct advantage over his rivals and he explained how saying “First mover advantage, Engagement of end users to contribute, define and evolve our product for better simplicity, word of mouth marketing…Giving end users what they want. Business model is corporate branding on useful products.”

Future Plans –Mobile4mumbai will be growing and “Scaling up by tie-ups with existing big and medium players, unique benefit to partners as well end users, and hence win-win for all.”

Raxit states “As of now we are in talk with Top Web, Print, TV, Radio, Cinemas chain for collaboration, which in turn benefit to people + Media companies at a large scale. Scaling up to move to Multiple cities + multiple product verticals...which will help a lot to Indian people in their day to day life...”His main aim for this year is to be “Creating more products which makes life easier, Rolling out those products so maximum people can take benefit out of it. Generate profit so we can create more employment and more value.”

His entrepreneurial journey- Raxit is an entrepreneur who does not believe that having a regular job can detract from his effectiveness. He says “I am doing a 9 to 5 job. @Night and Weekend, developing products and services. It’s not about doing a job or leaving a job, it’s about creating value to end user, making their life easier.”

His woes and challenges have been many but Raxit has fought and conquered them all. He told us how they could not procure Bus route data from BEST but countered this by going Viral and Word of mouth info. He adds “It has become our great advantage to let people contribute and Get Famous... Many people are contributing data to us... Keep telling other people about the same. Top-3 Contributors will get their name on Application.”

“We decided not to raise any money, (till now few PE guys are approaching us directly and indirectly) with zero Marketing costs. Within our first week of pre-launch we got on the Home page of Tech2.com for 4-days!!!”

“During our early periods (private beta), people were not ready to believe it can run without GPRS on even phone of Rs. 3000/- (no external memory on phone). We were keeping cheap phones with us to show them... Saying -See, this phone is basic, 2500/- phone, and try our software on this. Post that they were insisting on getting the same copy! As adoption of new concepts is bit tough, correct way of communication is the key.”

Raxit also spoke at length of the lessons that mistakes have taught him saying “Technically we had written the first code in C then in python and then came to know none of them will work on Mobiles used by normal people....Then we moved to Java (tough as by heart we were Java Haters and C-Lovers) ...Our private beta was taking 8 minutes to install on some phones...users were assuming it was hanging...completely re-architect our code.”

“Biggest mistake was extending Private beta for long time... 8 month+, finally after a great push from a couple of friends and entrepreneurs like Moksh Juneja...we launched... No need to say first week was crazy... Unable to handle response...Never assumed we were on even a small note of Tech2.com...instead we got the Home page for 4-days!!! ”

“Got calls from couple of TV channels etc..Many of them I have rejected (except bloggers...)... I was completely dumb on Media handling! (No shame!). However our main marketing medium is Viral and Word of Mouth... Still Within 2 months we have got 20 times more end users than our prediction...”

Recognition gained- Raxit is proud of what he has achieved telling us about the moments he treasures most saying “Acceptance of our product by end users, Love of our products by our end users. Love of our services by our end users.”

“During the first 4 weeks of our launch, we were getting daily 50+ Call/SMS/E-mails... Great product, Cool Idea, helpful product, we want more features...These routes are missing please add it etc...Great help of tech community like -I am a Java developer working for Big MNC with 6 yr of Exp and I want to be part of your Team... I can create good websites for you for Free !!!! This is the biggest achievement for us. Apart from that few PE guys pitching us, so we assume even there is no cash flow in, something is great...and something will be great :)”

“Many people have blogged and twittered about us... Got newspaper coverage in DNA, Hindustan times and livemint. More details at www.m4mum.com/buzz.html and www.m4mum.com/wib.html.”

Entrepreneurial lesson – Raxit has a good idea of what it takes to make things work and sums up his entrepreneurial experiences saying “Everything is uncertain but just keep your feet firmly on ground... Keep faith with yourself. We are budding entrepreneurs...what we think is - Propose to your GF, either you will succeed or you are lucky :) Dream and Live your dream, Execution is the key. Create Win-Win for all your stakeholders.”

Yourstory thanks Raxit on behalf of all Mumbaikars and Indians who are sure to benefit from his present and future applications. We wish to see his applications on every mobile and hope that this day shall not be far.

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