Suvin K. Varkey, Co-founder, LogicManse

"Yours Logically"

The journey of an entrepreneur can be a very bumpy ride. And some may even think of giving up after a few bumps or maybe a continued series of bumps. However, Your Story introduces you to Suvin K. Varkey and his friends who together held on and held hard to finally succeed with their venture LogicManse Solutions & Technologies Ltd.

LogicManse is a globally focused outsourced IT solutions and services provider that delivers affordable business and technology solutions through global software development and consultancy. Currently they have their development centres in southern India and sales offices in USA and Canada.

Business Idea

LogicManse's comprehensive portfolio of software services focus on e-Business solutions, covering different industry verticals such as Media, Travel, Education, Retail, Telecom and Utilities and their focus on client engagements include small, medium and large companies. Their main idea is to provide B2B and B2C solutions to small and medium sized enterprises with lower TCO.

"Each of our client engagements eventually will move to a level where we deliver scalable solutions that not only simplify business processes, but also improve operational efficiency, moving a step beyond straight cost savings. Our focus is on learning and continuously improving our capabilities to drive improvements in quality and productivity for our customers. " says Suvin.

Target market

LogicManse started out with their venture catering to clients mainly from North America and even have an office in Canada. Both the American continents serve as their chief hunting ground but they have broken into Indian waters too.

"We mainly focus in helping companies manage the full range of their information technology needs by developing and deploying custom application software to streamline and integrate business processes and systems for high performance," says Suvin. He further adds, "We provide solutions to help organizations optimize their IT infrastructures. We plan to provide solutions to help companies enhance their enterprise operations and ensure exceptional returns on investment. More than enterprise customers, we work as an outsourced product development team to some of the Silicon Valley startups ". WallStreetJournal Radio, McVayMedia and Federal Transport Agency are few among the rich pool of customers they cater. "

Entrepreneurial journey

The venture was started by Suvin K Varkey and three of his friends, namely Anil K. Joseph, Thomas Joseph and Pradeep V.K., another techie from Kerala. Suvin, a bachelor in technology quit his job at SAP Labs in 2007 to start his own venture. He had an idea in mind and was looking for partners and investors. His ex-college friend Anil and Thomas, an alumni of Cochin University joined him and they soon landed an investor too. Pradeep completed their team giving them the touch of technology they needed.

Even though none of them had any exposue or experience of the business world – all of them being engineers, their passion to start something new egged them on. They built a few frameworks and products initially and were making a name when suddenly they had to part ways with their investor.

"Literally we were on the road and we had to start all over again. We got hold of certain investors and got into touch with a few companies in Delhi to relaunch ourselves again..." recalls Suvin. They had to relocate and were suddenly looking for office space but had no initial work to pay for it. In a few months time, while operating from makeshift bases and sharing the struggle for office with the workers, Suvin and his team finally managed to land a job. Even for a meagre amount, this work gave them confidence.

Soon their current investor again played spoilsport and withdrew his support. As if this was not enough, recession followed and dampened their spirits. "We invested all our personal savings into the venture and finally broke even after 6-7 months. We got offers from professional investors after this, but we bootstrapped ourselves by that time and looking back those were the biggest lessons of financial discipline one can ever get ... ". They also came up with a product for the domestic Education market in 2008 by making use of their technical expertise catering to some of the hi-fi startups from the Valley. " We wanted people to make use of the latest technology at affordable prices. There were questions when we decided to adopt SaaS delivery model but the results are really positive. Today it is used in over three hundred and fifty insitutions in India!. " Suvin informs up proudly.

Future plans

In the coming years, Suvin and his colleagues have their eyes firlmy set on expansions and bigger business. "We now offer e-business solutions to telecom companies, build new products and solutions to them. We have an office in Canada and are also on the move to South America too.... " adds Suvin with a smile. "We will continue with our success model of services for sustainability and will continue to replicate the pattern of building new services and solutions with the funds generated. We cannot wait for the grace of investors to get things moving, which is a barrier in India. A bunch of new products are in the making and will hit the market in the next 12 months."

They will soon be setting an office in Costa Rica and plan to increase their work strength from 20 to 75 people globally in an year. " LogicManse is gearing to be a group company with atleast 3-5 subsidiaries under its operation. For the education subsidiary, we will have tieups with schools in western and southern India and even join hands for solutions with many universities in the US..."

Recently LogicManse started an extended labs inside MACFAST - a technology institute to promote entrepreneurship and self employment among students. The programme allows students to work as interns and be part of the industry during their studies.  "We need diamonds in our team and platforms like this will give the students an opportunity to experience startup culture and rise to real life challenges . For us hiring becomes more easy. " says Suvin.

Tips for budding Entrepreneurs

"Never lose hope! Never!" is what Suvin says to upcoming entrepreneurs. "Have the right team to complement and balance your venture.... and to share the phases, both high and low.... Also realisation of goal is important. The focus should be to bootstrap at the earliest. But most importantly, never get disheartened by failure...." signs off our hard working entrepreneur.

Indeed, the story of Logic Manse is an inspiring one and will for sure help a lot of people with their ventures. Your Story wishes LogicManse all the successes and loads of luck in the years to come.