Startup Tips: Team Building for Startups |

Every startup has a dedicated set of people working day and night to make the idea a success. This doesn’t happen in one day nor does it happen at an individualistic level. One of the Key Factors to Success are Great Teams.

Once you have your startup up and running, every founder dreams of scaling up. With scaling comes more responsibilities which require hard work to deliver with the same passion. It is obvious that as the business grows, so does the team behind it. Team building is an art and many successful entrepreneurs pledge to it.

Though a necessity, it is not easy to manage a large set of diverse individuals. Here are a few ways that would prove useful:

Make your vision the team’s vision: As a founder you may have a clear vision of where you see the company after a few years, but members of your team may not be able to follow through. Sometimes we are more focused on the short term goals and lose sight of the bigger picture. As a leader you should make your team understand your vision and treat it as their own.

Communicate effectively: There should be good communication not only from the top to down but from the bottom up as well. Team members should be able to communicate well with each other, then only they can work together. Get your team to know each other well, because people who know each other socially collaborate better. It is always a great idea to create a sense of community in your team.

Build accountability: As your team grows, it must be accountable to one another. As a leader it is great to set an example, show your team that you can be held accountable for your mistakes too. There should be trust and building trust is only possible if the team is working together for a common goal.

Adapt to the environment: As a startup it is unlikely you have specialists for every field. Each team member is generally filling more than one shoe. Effective teams develop the skills needed along with their business and there in lies their strength. If someone is lacking experience or knowledge in a particular field, they build it up on the way.

What are your experiences as a team member or a leader? Let us know in the comments below.

Yatra.com Launches Deals Section |

Yatra.com has newly launched Travel Deals web site and according to us, Its “a platform for the most lucrative and cost saving deals.” But Yatra.com has always been providing offers and discounts on travel packages, so what’s different this time?

First of all, it is not actually a separate website rather the Yatra Travel Deals (aka Steal-a-Deal) is simply a new section within the Yatra.com portal. A user can access it through a link on the home page too. More importantly, the section has been around for a while (released in beta version back in July this year) and it finally became live last month.

But why did the company decide to launch a ew section in the first place,

“The primary objective of a dedicated travel deals section on Yatra.com is to give travellers access to last-minute deals on hotels, holidays and other travel products available with Yatra.com. The deals section is also a marketing platform for hotels and resorts that require a larger brand visibility in a very short span of time.” – Akhil Gupta, VP, Group & Bulk Deals at Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd.

Gupta says the deals platform of Yatra.com is different from the regular promotions in terms of life-span of the offer and a typical deal on the new section is valid for 3-4 days or until it is sold out.

“Moreover, a deal on a particular hotel or resort may not be available on our regular booking channels purely for the nature of the product. For example, a deal on camping in Rishikesh may not feature as a
promotion due to season and time- bound nature of the product itself,” he added.

Comparison of this new segment with other travel deals sites

What’s new Section?
It is a revamped user interface, simpler process of checkout, dedicated support team for deal buyers (we tried the helpline number and were instantly connected) and a better mix of deals including some which are otherwise currently only available as part of a holiday package.

What’s Different?
The company also claims that in the future it will offer exclusive deals.

What’s Similar?
Customers can subscribe to get the deals through an email.

As far as traction goes, as of now the company lists 2-3 deals a day on pan-India basis and it claims that 95 per cent of the deals sell out within 4 days (holiday packages and flight deals are often sold out but deal coupons are the all-time favorites’ among customers).

What’s next?

“At the moment we are offering pan-India deals. In the coming weeks we will open up city wise deals also,” concluded Gupta.

So its now the right time for daily deal sites to pull up their socks or else Yatra will takeaway all in this niche!!

Will 4G hit India in 2012? [Analysis] |

It has been more than year that mobile subscribers in India are offering 3G services to their customers. Its not yet so famous as more than 70% of Mobile Users don’t even know about it. Coming directly to the point, I want to say that 3G results have not been upto the mark as yet there are less than 10% users who’ve shifted to 3G.

A report says that if everything goes well, we will be having 4G bidding in India next year. First of all, let me tell you a bit about 4G. It is the newest generation of Mobile Technology and will take up the speed constraints from ~4Mbps in 3G network to nearly 100Mbps in fast moving vehicles such as Cars and even better i.e. upto 1Gbps speed for Stationary users. The figure might look a bit amazing but coming to ground reality, this speed is not there for even the Wired Broadband users in India.

However, what I am concerned about is that top mobile service providers have invested more than 50,000 Crore rupees in the 3G spectrum bidding already and for getting on the profit side, they need a tenure of atleast 6-7 years to get going. And, with 4G bidding to follow next year, I guess most of them would have to stay away from bidding  as they won’t be having an amount which will be even more than the 3G bidding to spend. Keeping all this in Mind, TRAI and the Govt. of India are planning to postpone it for a while, but that will again make us lagging in terms of technology as many countries including China and Japan have already launched 4G.

However, there are mobile operators in India such as Etisalat DB (largest Provider in Middle-East Asia) who to protect themselves from such a situation and have therefore kept themselves away from the bidding. So they will be eyeing to get the most out of it.

Ankit is founder of TechDip. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil or Google+