Gurudatt Shenoy, Founder, EasySecured

Dropped out of college, passed with distinction from NIIT, worked with large and small IT firms as a sought-after programmer for 10 years and a failed attempt at a SAAS product which did not have a market when it was built, from IT to marketing IT products, Gurudatt Shenoy is what one would call the “perfect entrepreneur material.” From lows to highs Gurudatt has seen it all and learnt from it all. So it was but natural when he decided to start his venture in 2009, he knew his game plan well. It is always interesting to hear the story of an entrepreneur who has experience and insight behind him.We at YourStory could not pass the chance to bring to you Gurudatt’s story, so lets hear straight from the man at helm of the venture EasySecured.Gurudatt Shenoy, Founder, EasySecured in conversation with YourStory

YourStory: Please tell us the EasySecured story?

Gurudatt Shenoy: EasySecured offers software for making your online / internet experience safe and easy. We offer free applications for internet users using which they can generate unique passwords for each website and without requiring them to remember the individual passwords. They can also lock the passwords to their device such as a cellphone. We offer developers of websites and online applications, an innovative hack proof authentication solution that does not require the website to store the user passwords on their server and lock their accounts to a device the user already own such as their cellphone.

YourStory: What differentiates Easy Secured?

Gurudatt Shenoy: EasySecured offers a three layer security solution that is hacker resistant and at zero cost to the end user and very low cost to the service provider. EasySecured is also different as compared to other solutions in the following two aspects.

1. EasySecured uses as a security token a device already owned by the user such as their pendrive, cellphone, laptop, etc.

2. EasySecured does not require the user's password or device identity to be stored either on the device as cookies or on the server database thus making it virtually hack proof. Information encrypted using EasySecured technology cannot be easily decrypted as each user data is encrypted using a unique seed.

YourStory: How did the idea for EasySecured come about?

Gurudatt Shenoy: When working with an earlier company, there was a concept of developing a secured p2p network that is not anonymous and protects intellectual property. This was being developed using IPv6 unique addressing method to uniquely identify a device in the P2P network. At that point the original concept of EasySecured originated in my mind if existing internet users can be uniquely identified and without them require to enter a password. By doing away with passwords, the web can be made more safer and easy to use. Thus, i thought of the concept of identifying the user based on the device he or she uses instead of entering a password. This led to the idea of EasySecured.

YourStory: Strategic partnerships and ties ups?

Gurudatt Shenoy: I have tied up with two companies. One in India and one in the UK. Indian company, Adoroi is also a startup that offers an innovative advertisement tracking and lead distribution service for ad agencies and clients. EasySecured has done a pilot with AdoRoi for

implementing online authentication for itself and its client which is an International School in Mumbai. This involves developing a secured social network for the school. The UK partner is IdentySol a developed of RFID management solution provider which is interested in exploring developing a software piracy protection solution using EasySecured technology. This company who is also our client offers joint development and marketing of this solution called SecuredKey in the International market.

YourStory: What is EasySecured `s revenue model?

Gurudatt Shenoy: The current revenue model is to offer an identity service to online service providers and online application/website developers on a per user cost basis in addition to a one time fixed setup cost. We also see revenue from end to end solution/product development for clients and technology licensing.

We foresee two three types of clients which is as follows:

a. Master Reseller/ Solution provider which markets our products/services as well as develop solutions by way of technology

transfer. We expect an annual sales of Rs 100 lakhs from this stream.

b. Small websites/clients with an average annual sales of Rs 10 lakhs per client.

c. Large websites/clients with an average annual sales of Rs.100 lakhs per client.

YourStory: As an entrepreneur, what are your joys? What are the challenges?

Gurudatt Shenoy: The biggest joy as an entrepreneur for me has been developing something that could be used by millions of people across the world and the challenge is to build a business that provides value all the stake holders. As an entrepreneur it has been an interesting journey meeting lots of people which I would not have otherwise and discuss their ideas as well. I have been fortunate to get advise from good mentors and peers in taking up the challenges I have faced.

YourStory: How big is the EasySecured team? Give us some info on team composition. Number of people, their backgrounds.

Gurudatt Shenoy: Currently the team comprises three persons.

1. Myself, Gurudatt Shenoy - CEO/Founder and Inventor and Developer of all the products and solutions. I have over 18 years of IT experience and have worked in a senior position with previous employerse. Have traveled around the world and met business leaders and CEOs.   My greatest success in my past career has been generating PE investment for my previous employer to the tune of Rs 4 Crores and using my communication and PR skills in winning international awards for the company. I will be owning the majority stake in any future setup in EasySecured.

2. Rekha G. Shenoy - Investor. Rekha holds a degree in Commerce and has earlier worked in administration and finance. She is well versed with computers and internet and has been doing much of the beta testing of products developed by EasySecured. She has invested around Rs 5 lakhs of her personal money as seed capital for EasySecured. Shen is entited to a 25% stake in

any future setup in EasySecured.

3. Mitesh L Thakker - CEO Netprice Services Pvt. Ltd (Adoroi) Mitesh has been a mentor and business advisor for EasySecured for the past 1 year. He has provided valuable ideas in shaping the products developed by EasySecured from a business perspective. He has also introduced EasySecured to technocrats from leading software companies as well to its own clients. He has a minor stake of 6% in any future setup in EasySecured.

YourStory: Let us know about your expansion plans.

Gurudatt Shenoy: Currently, we are at Go to Market stage. We plan to expand rapidly in the coming year but first incorporating the company in India and the UK/US.

For this we are seeking funding to the tune of Rs 1 crore and this will be used for:

1. Setup and Incorporation

2. Office in India and US/UK

3. IP applications such as Patent/Copyright/Trademarks.

4. Development and Support team for Pre-Sales/Post Sales activities.

5. Appointing Master Reseller across India and US/UK.

YourStory: Throw in a few stats (how many clients, most popular service, interesting trends and usage patterns, forecasts for the future and anything else that's relevant)

Gurudatt Shenoy: We are in business for the past 2 years and have 2 clients with confirmed orders. We have signed 2 Master Reseller/Solution Provider partnership contracts. We own 4 major domains viz. easysecured.com, securedkey.com, mycloudkey.com, 0pass.com and other minor domains such as  iverifyid.com, ivisitid.com, ibankid.com and unmeconnect.com

Our most popular service is MyCloudKey which offers using a single PIN for generating passwords for different websites. There are over 300 users of this service which went live since October 2010. Our websites have seen over 8000 unique hits from over 50 countries and majority of which is from India, USA and UK. EasySecured Software was selected as a finalist for Asia 100 Award for most innovative companies in Asia by Red Herring Magazine as well as for the Global 100 award. EasySecured is ranked on top of google search for the key words Easy and Secured among 35 million search results.

We wish Gurudatt continued success and hope his solutions go on to make millions of people secure online.