Are hackathons about shiny B2C apps? Enterprise software company MangoApps thinks otherwise
MangoApps is an enterprise software company that builds social collaboration tools. MangoApps was started back in 2008 in Pune and since then, has grown to become a prominent player in the market. Expanding and going global, MangoApps also has a presence in the US which is one of their major markets. MangoApps builds products that sit at the intersection of- Intranet & Portals, Social Networking and Messaging & collaboration. MangoApps is a team of over 70 people and here is a timeline of how they've grown:
Recently, the employees at MangoApps were asked to form a team with the available resources within the company to build a MVP product of their choice, the theme for which was “Enterprise MVP”. 6 captains nominated themselves with a reason why they wish to lead a team, and an 7 events were planned for 3 months to take the competition from idea to actual product launches. This initiative was taken for two primary reasons: Invigorate the technology culture in the company and form leaders within the team.
There were various stages to this hackathon:
1) Build a team and finalize on the idea
2) Presenting the MVP and a thorough discussion on why they wanted to build it
3) An impromptu debate among all the captains on the topic “Jack of all trades and master of none in a MVP environment”
4) Activity based events to judge leadership qualities
5) The actual building, sales pitch and the final presentations
The above events were scheduled over a period of various stages of the products that made sure that the events planned were appropriate.
Along with the above event a stock market simulation was also done to keep the interest of non-participating employees and to understand the overall trends of the teams. Here are the 6 products that were built and are at various stages of implementation:
1. Quick Annotizer - A windows tool to import videos of any types, annotate them with share & text
2. Rapple - A chrome extension reminder tool that not only reminds on the browser on a time you set but by virtual locations e.g. you set a reminder that next time I visit yoursite.com remind of dropping a line to the editors.
3. OnTrack - A personal CRM app on Android for sales people to manage their own opportunities, to-do’s, calendar and notes at a single place.
4. Notee - A real time note application available on the browser and mobile allowing multiple users to collaborate on the same note at the same time.
5. iClick - A screen capture tool to capture screens on Mac and share them as links, this also integrates with MangoApps
6. AgileNector - An agile task management tool on the browser
Talking of the event, Vipin Thomas, Product manager at MangoApps says, "This event has been a huge learning for each of the teams in understanding end to end life cycle of a product and have given them the ability to wear multiple hats. The average size of each team has been 4 to 5 members. We are updating everything about the event on a dedicated site teammangoapps.com."
MangoApps was founded by Anup Kejriwal and Vishwa Malhotra, both of whom have vast experience in the field of technology. Completely bootstrapped, MangoApps is one of the many upcoming enterprise startups from India that have cracked the global market. Apart from their flagship collaboration tool, MangoApps also has: Tiny Take (a tool to capture screen, record videos and share) and OfficeChat (a messaging app for co-workers).
