NASSCOM EMERGEOUT Startup 30: Saurabh Chandra, Neev Technologies

Friday April 30, 2010 , 4 min Read

Before starting Neev together with Santosh, Saurabh Chandra worked in Talisma as a Program Manager where he played a key role in the Web client strategy of the company and later in a crucial platform release, which opened up the product to endless customizations. From there he moved to being the first employee in India for Pi Corp (now Decho, an EMC company) where he was creating new ways for people to interact with personal information. His first entrepreneurship lesson came in school when creating and selling a school magazine at no budget. Many of those lessons are still handy. He is an alumni of IT-BHU.

Neev is an expert in web, social and mobile applications. It started out as a complete product outsourcing partner for start ups creating portals, marketplaces and SaaS applications. Now it has evolved as a trusted development partner for the enterprise while retaining its start up client base. One of the few companies of its size with a strong client base in Europe (it has a subsidiary in Sweden) in addition to US and India. Neev's development strengths are reflected in its own content management system and cloud-based load testing product apart from various games and applications on the mobile.The last entrepreneur to be featured on this series, Saurabh shares his take on entrepreneurship with Indian Startup EMERGEOUT initiative by NASSCOM.

1. Why did you take up entrepreneurship journey?

Saurabh: My first stint at entrepreneurship without realizing it was at school when I tried creating a low budget school magazine. After that I tried multiple failed attempts in college and later when I was working before finally it worked with Neev. So there was no conscious decision of taking this journey. It always seemed to be there.

2. What keeps you going (how and where do you find your motivation levels)?

Saurabh: Wealth creation that happens through an enterprise is extremely motivating. Clients who benefit, end-users who are enriched or employees who grow together are all sources of immense satisfaction which keeps you looking for more.

3. What is your advice to wannabe entrepreneurs in India?

Saurabh: In a country growing at this crazy rate, there is opportunity in every nook and corner. Don't go after the herd but find your passion. There is potential in everything!

4. What success means to you and your organization?

Saurabh: We have to seek success every day and help our clients win. Our success is measured in our client's success. But the clock resets every day, yesterday's laurels are not guarantee for tomorrow's victory. We need to strive hard each day.

5. What are your learnings from the failures?

Saurabh: There are no failures I think, only course corrections. You do, learn and do some more. I never focus on failures and quickly leave them behind. The most important thing is to fail quickly and decisively. Wrong decisions dragged on are the worst.

Saurabh’s perspective is that hard work is the essential ingredient of success.

So we sign off with this last view in this series of 30 entrepeneurs for Indian Startup EMERGEOUT Initiative by NASSCOM. We thank Avinash Raghava, Region Director, NASSCOM – North, Vijay Rayapati, Gizapage (who originally conceived this idea), and Kunal Kashyap from NASSCOM Bangalore for making this happen every day from April 1, 2010. It was a team effort and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Akash Das at YourStory gave that fantastic look on the home page slide show. We hope you too enjoyed our presentation. Do send us your feedback to [email protected]

The other 29 entrepreneur line up is here for you to savour:

1. Kishore Mandyam of PK4 Software

2. Anil Pagar of Spadeworx

3. Ajay Sharma of Shristi Software

4. Pallav Nadhani of InfoSoft Global (FusionCharts)

5. Manoj Srivatsava of Hanu Software

6. Sriram Raghavan of Comat

7. Sushil Chaudary of Mann-India

8. Manav Garg of Eka

9. R. Swaminathan of Matrix Business Solution

10. Suresh Sambandam of OrangeScape

11. Ajay Mian of Alletech