• StartUps

Yusuf Motiwala spent 14 years in the telecom industry, traveling extensively. To keep in touch with family he persuaded his father to download Skype. Despite being a medical professional, when it came to technology, Motiwala’s folks weren’t savvy enough. “My father asked me why he couldn’t use the browser to call me,” recalls Motiwala. The concept got him thinking, as it seemed like an entrepreneurial opportunity and a solution for the common man.

After building a basic prototype, aided by outsourced web-developers, Motiwala launched Bengaluru-based TringMe in October 2007. Its first product (Push N Talk Widget) was browser-based, enabling users to make calls directly from internet browsers. The initial prototype was run through a widget, placed on a desired website, with the respective number configured. “This widget allowed anyone visiting your website to just click and call, useful for small companies,” explains Motiwala.

TringMe is largely an enterprise-focused business (B2B model). As a startup sans marketing budgets, Motiwala’s strategy was two-fold: first, open it for companies to use and create their own products based on it and, second, showcase it with tech-journalists, who subsequently wrote about TringMe’s innovation. Then it opened its retail website for anyone to use and try.

“Enterprises got a feel of the product before they fully used it for business needs,” he explains. While initial response came from travel agencies for online reservation and web-based toll free calling, the overall results were encouraging. Motiwala then set out to expand his portfolio allowing users to communicate from any device to any device, making it a unified telecom company.

Creating an account on TringMe’s portal is as easy as setting up an e-mail ID. To use its service, users must buy credit through payment gateway and are charged as per TringMe’s call/sms rates for different countries, the amount of which gets automatically deducted from a user’s account. Calls between TringMe users are free. Also, users can change default number provided by the tech-startup (starting with 876) to any number they’d like as a caller ID. “We are not a replacement for local mobile but if you are making international calls/sms, TringMe is a cheaper option,” points out Motiwala.

Its platform also allows users to call through instant messengers, and is currently active with G-Talk and Yahoo! Messenger. “In addition, we also sell a TringMe number, to receive calls from anywhere,” he adds. If you’re traveling overseas, this number doesn’t attract roaming charges either thanks its intelligent call routing system.

TringMe’s application for BlackBerry makes it the first ever mobile VoIP provider here, allowing users to make calls over WiFi, free Peer-to-Peer calls and single click conferencing, world-wide, soon to be launched on Android too. Industry research by founders projected that about 100 million users will be using mobile VoIP by 2012, and over 471 billion calls are slated to be made by 2015. Concurrently, the Unified Communications Voice Enabled Services industry is expected to touch Rs.36,000 crore by 2013.

While these features route all calls through TringMe’s infrastructure, its SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) product is designed slightly differently. Catered for large enterprises with offices world-over, this product routes all calls through an enterprise’s own exchange/server. For users, the only effort is to enter SIP details.

“This innovation allows companies to track calls, control process and other costs, bringing them down by 80 percent,” he mentions. “Handling such reimbursements is a nightmare for Chief Financial Officers of big enterprises, and can be misused by employees too,” adds Motiwala. Enterprises using the SIP product are required to buy sufficient credit for use, and each of its employees gets a unique caller ID. The startup maintains everything, and an enterprise doesn’t require any special expertise to use TringMe.

“We provide a simple platform which can be integrated with any website in one hour,” he says. With solutions across the platform, according to Motiwala, TringMe is the only voice technology company with such a range of APIs (application programming interface).

Motiwala further adds: “Someone who can write basic HTML should be able to use our technology,” referring to the voice php innovated by TringMe that doesn’t require web-designers to learn a new language to program voice on websites. The startup works on a hosting model, where everything is configured on the cloud, earning revenues on per minute call rates. For enterprise customers it has customized rates depending on requirements. Coming on board as a customer of TringMe doesn’t require intensive business deals as it provides elaborate, self-explanatory documentation on its applications with source codes, sample codes, all free of cost. “We don’t need to discuss anything with customers,” he says.

Customers have mainly been from the western markets, barring few MNC firms in India. “Business representatives from overseas usually come more prepared, after studying a product, while firms in India, in general, require service by way of presentations and even demonstrations,” he highlights.

“We don’t work like that.” To guarantee the seriousness of large customers, TringMe ensures they buy Rs.22,500 credit for initial use. Selling in India requires dedicated resources for which it will be hiring about 20 more employees to include web developers.

U.S.-based-Alertyx, a 24×7 data center monitoring service utilized by data centers in U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, uses TringMe’s service to automatically place calls to its customers in emergency situations as well as for end-customers worldwide to monitor the health and status of their web-clusters and individual servers. “During our strict vendor evaluation process, TringMe’s solution worked out like a charm while others fell short in few areas to consider them as technology partners,” says Roger Stewart, Co-founder, Alertyx. “The initial prototype was up and running in two days and no other company matched up to the ease and convenience offered by TringMe’s APIs,” Stewart adds. Have carriers embraced them? “They may not like that we’re eating into their revenues, but as things evolved, they’ve realized there’s no other route to survival than giving customers a choice,” says Motiwala.

Co-founder Apul Nahata maintains the current challenge for them would be to penetrate more markets and educate consumers on capability and technology of product. “Any product is only as successful as the number of users using it,” points out Nahata.

Having known Motiwala for four years as a fellow entrepreneur in the technology space, Sujai Karampuri, CEO and Co-founder, Sloka Telecom considers TringMe as an atypical Indian technology product company whose differentiation lies in continuous innovation.

“TringMe rolls out products much faster in comparison to others and its BlackBerry application increased subscription numbers by three times in one year,” says Karampuri.
The firm is slated to launch two more innovative products in July-August 2011. “If Yusuf and his team can keep up their current rate of innovation, they would certainly create a new paradigm,” affirms Professor Rakesh Lal, Motiwala’s professor from IIT Bombay.

Karampuri anticipates a new norm in the near future where TringMe will sell solutions directly to carriers as collaborators rather than be seen as competitors. The startup’s challenge, he feels, will lie in continuing to innovate, scale and be attractive to subscribers as MobileVoIP technology will soon start competing with telecom solution providers. “This will require funds,” says Karampuri.

Partha P. Ghosh, Principal Group Manager, Microsoft and Motiwala’s ex-boss at Lucent Technologies, commends his ability to be pragmatic where necessary. “You need to be cost-effective as an entrepreneur, take risks, know your business area and be innovative; Yusuf has all these qualities,” says Ghosh. To accelerate growth, Ghosh advises him to delegate execution to a CEO, while Motiwala focuses on strategy and new dimensions to his technology. “He’s good at converting an idea into reality, something that’s not common in the Indian milieu,” confirms Professor Lal.

©Entrepreneur May 2011

Tags:
Alertyx, API, Apul Nahata, BlackBerry, G-talk, IIT, Partha P Ghosh, Push N talk widget, Rakesh Lal, roger stewart, SIP, Skype, Sloka Telecom, Sujai Karampuri, Tringme, unified communications, Yahoo! messenger, Yusuf Motiwala