The reverse brain drain that has taken firm roots in the present day scenario has given rise to many a young entrepreneur in India. Pratap Dhopte, COO and co-founder of Excelize, is one such entrepreneur, who wanted to come back to his country.
Having worked in the US for almost 10 years with firms like Oracle, IA Corporation, HCL, and Computer Vision, he decided to chuck it all up and start his own venture. He cites the reason for foraying into entrepreneurship as wanting to come back to India and "to work for myself and my company". Secondly, Dhopte finds the Indian market -- and the way the economy is growing -- very exciting. The energy and enthusiasm, and all that's happening here, made him want to be a part of it.
Flowing along with the tide in the outsourcing deluge, he founded Excelize (with his wife and another partner) in 2003, while still in the US. The India company was started in 2004. Excelize is a services and technology solutions provider for architectural firms. It provides services like architectural design, CAD drafting, and 3D modeling. It offers a software application -- The Excelize Detail Manager -- a fully in-house developed software, in collaboration with one of its clients. It catalogs and centrally stores all designs in a single location, making it simpler to search, retrieve, and reuse those files.
Dhopte says he started his company with little investment -- barely USD 5,000. They funded it on their own. About a year back, he informs that one of his clients in the US invested about USD 100,000.
They chose Aurangabad for the venture, because the place is reasonably priced, with regard to rents and salaries. Also, they've got family roots there. The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) provided them with a good office, where they just moved in. Dhopte also says that he found good quality people there -- thanks to the 2 architectural colleges in Aurangabad.
Their work involves working with architects and construction companies, whom they provide support services. They help them to do 3D modeling, and things like Building Information Modeling (BIM). The work is done primarily in AutoCAD. They can provide services for all kinds of verticals. They outsource works for all verticals -- be it regarding commercial outlets, schools, hospitals, malls, and so on.
Dhopte informs that theirs is a unique product, in the sense that it's a tool for cataloging. Architects, over a period of time, build a library of designs, which they may like to reuse. If one wants to build something, they'd not like to redesign it all over again right from scratch. (Who'd want to re-invent the wheel?) Earlier, there was no way of organizing the components of details. But now, their product organizes it and allows quick and easy access to it with certain rules. It's a rule-based cataloging system, tailored specifically for the architecture industry.
So far, their company has received a good response. They've had quite a few downloads. Most of their clients who've downloaded it are in the US. In India, too, they're into talks with some clients. They've also signed up a client in Russia.
They started out initially with only 4 people, and have now about 32 people. The founders plan to start an office in Pune soon. Within Aurangabad and Pune, Dhopte expects his company to grow to about 500-odd people in the next 2-3 years and to about 1,000 people in the next 5 years.
The entrepreneurs faced quite a few challenges to begin with; there were many regulations that they'd to deal with. Government policies, which weren't hurdles really, were a bit of an annoyance. The challenge proved to be getting used to working in the Indian culture, after having worked in the US for so long; here, the attitude of the people is quite laid-back. Also, they needed coaching in some areas, especially in English communication.
Being in the KPO space, they also faced the problem of financing -- which wouldn't have been the case in the US. As their assets are their people, they don't have any plants and machinery: there are very few agencies ready to fund them in India.
Dhopte feels that at present their product has no market in India, where people generally don't buy such software. Even the big architectural firms go in for pirated software. But he's optimistic that the market here will slowly emerge, with the new technology, BIM, and there's going to be a lot of activity in that space.
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