Monocept - the mobile app experts behind the IRCTC SMS Booking app
Startups which depends on information technology processes like workflow, process automation, online marketplace, or a niche IT enabled product, have very limited options. The large IT companies won’t be interested in engaging them and small companies aren’t fit for their complex problems such as large scale architecture, high stress and secure solutions.This gap tempted three former Microsoft engineers - Manav Gaur, Gangadhar Heralgi and Ravi Kumar to quit their jobs and dive into the entrepreneurial pool with Monocept. The startup builds solid enterprise and mobile software applications with total devotion to engineering excellence.
“At Monocept, we work much like a law firm – offering very personalized service, deep product development expertise, relentless pursuit towards engineering excellence, attention to details, highly focused and having high touch points with our customers,” says Manav.
At Microsoft, Manav was responsible for delivering multiple Visual Studio versions, the .NET Compact Framework and Silverlight for Nokia Symbian phones. Before Monocept, Gangadhar designed and developed numerous large-scale enterprise applications, including internet email systems, large transaction processing systems for banks among others. Ravi worked on a multi-tenant, SaaS architecture for InnRoad, Inc and Microsoft.
Monocept, experts in enterprise development in mobile, web and cloud, have so far developed mobile apps like Lost My Wallet, IRCTC SMS booking and console kit among others. Lost My Wallet (link) lets you capture your credit/debit card details and associate them with your bank so that if you lose your wallet, you’ve quick access to the bank and card details for easy blocking. The app is available on iOS, Android and Windows phones across India, the US and UK.
Monocept’s SMS booking app (link) lets you book train tickets via SMS platform provided by IRCTC. The app registered 100,000 within two months of launch and listed third most popular app on Apple store in India. “Our iOS Console Kit app and SDK lets a developer collect logs of their apps remotely on customer’s phone. TripIt and other global customers are using this app,” adds Gangadhar. Besides these, the seamless iOS app that was developed by Monocept for a US client is used by millions of users for ordering food from 25,000 restaurants in USA.
The company hasn't made any money yet, however, its portfolio and expertise attracted lot of clients who engaged Monocept for developing apps.
“We look at software development as more than a chance to build a better product. We view it as a chance to show you – and the world – what our unique combination of talent, skills, experience and brainpower can accomplish,” points out Ravi.
Monocept leverages best practices of enterprise application building, security assurance and performance testing. “Our product development expertise encompasses enterprise web development and cloud computing, as well as enterprise mobile application development in iOS, Windows 8, Windows 8 Phone, Windows Surface and Android,” states Manav.
“Hiring the right team and inculcating the right values, culture and deep engineering driven approach to software development are big challenges,” adds Ravi. Most of the company’s clients came through personal network of the trio.
“In the future, we need to build a strong sales and marketing arm that can showcase the world our capabilities and strong credentials in enterprise software development – mobile, web and cloud,” says Manav.