There is a partially VC funded start–up which has had a pilot going on for 2 years in Delhi which caught the personal attention of Bill Gates when he visited Delhi in Nov 2OO8 leading to partial funding by him to keep the fires burning. Bill Gates has a financial inclusion mission which is dear to his heart and to his Melinda Gates Foundation and saw synergy in this companys innovative mobile banking business idea and possibility of a Melinda-Gates led CSR association.
 There is an absolutely committed co-founding team. They have gone through ups and downs financially till Bill came in as a saviour and gave them funds and also put them in touch with VCs with whom they are working on funding to help them scale beyond the pilot. The company also has two prestigious corporates — Indias largest bank and a telecom provider, who are helping them incubate the mobile banking vertical.
 Till now they have worked with an Open source program based software called MIFOS which acts as the bridge between banks and the extended arm reaching out to the mobile customer ..but MIFOS is not suitable for millions of transactions.
 Hence the need to have another co-founding team member as an Architect. 8-1O yrs experience in Architecture and preferably on financial product related programs would be ideal.
 The Company is entreprenurial and ideal only for an entreprenurial person who would grow with them and have wealth creation opportunities.It is not a regular 9 to 5 company or a blue chip MNC. Each co-founder has invested from Rs 1 crore to Rs 4OOOO each, to become a co-founder. They also have ESOPs. The next person coming in –the Architect — is not expected to invest — but could be given ESOPs. Hence pl do not expect cash compensation increases as the driving force for you to look at this position though wealth creation opportunities through ESOPs will be there.
 Apart from an innovative business initiative which has support of people like Bill Gates or rather his Foundation , they are keen to incubate a culture and DNA in the organisation which is unique and like google. Looking urgently for an Architect who fits the bill and keen to be in Delhi with this exciting venture.
If any of you know someone who would want to be the next founder team member when the company is about to scale up and if Delhi, then do let me know on ranjit.jatar@novaedge.in
Ranjit Jatar
9922888599
- Software Architect - November 22, 2009
- THE EXPERIENCE OF STARTING A NEW E RECRUITING PORTAL - April 23, 2008
Hmmmm.Refer the two comments above.
Well this company does not brag about Bill Gates. In fact they rarely talk about it externally. I did mention it in this Blog post and hence can be accused of “bragging” on their behalf if anyone believes it so. The Bill Gates Foundation has only funded them partially — as a grant — for non commercial incidental objectives since the impact of their business proposition will be to help achieve Universal Financial Access to Indias masses and lower SEC groups –which is a key priority mission for the Bill Gates Foundation. Anything wrong with that Krish? And they will pay the Architect from day 1 unlike the past where the co-founders did not take salaries.
And the 18 hours a day work commented by Venkat? Well dont know if they ever said that …but I doubt it.And if they did, then I guess they have moved on. I do know of beer sessions on Saturdays where the key members congregate to discuss all thats happenned during the week. So for all those with inflamed passions about this Blog post which does not mention the companys name, pl write to me directly on ranjit.jatar@novaedge.in and I will clear doubts. Cheers
I came across this company few yrs ago and wanted to share some info. They mentioned they wanted people who are willing to work 18 hrs a day.
That put me off as I feel Startups world over have to get rid of these bad work cultures to make it attractive for senior people to come and join. Otherwise they can only find low hanging fruits even in a bad economy
There is nothing wrong in working 18 hrs a day occasionally but if that’s the norm, then I think it speaks volumes about management. All they may want is to exploit people.
Yes the startup is Eko . I think Eko did made a bad decision on selecting an HR consultant, instead they could have selected some social media specialists who could blog about their job requirement on blogs 🙂 .
I wonder why a startup like Eko should go for an external HR consultant when they can very well use linkedin or other professional networks ( Sanjay Bharghava – the founder Chairman of Eko is also a blogger at Venturewoods, seems he could have fared better ).
Ha ha Krish…wonderful comment…some guys deserve it…
the company does sound like EKO…their “paypal co-founder” founder often used to talk in similar terms [each initial employee getting a chance to buy the stock…blah blah blah…] on this blog.
When you have a startup founded by a brilliant team and is even funded by world’s richest man (ok, his foundation), why wouldn’t they hire a top talent as a s/w architect on payroll? You said they are well funded, right? Why would they underestimate the discerning faculties of a top talent to misread their worthless stock options at face value? If you look at their domain, this S/W architect is indeed a critical position, the one that can make a real difference to their scalability (and by extension, their very survival) yet they want someone to come in and slog pro bono !!! Truly entrepreneurial management, indeed.
To me it just screams “No we don’t pay for talent. But we need them badly. We just brag about Bill Gates foundation and do all kinds of name dropping. Yet we want people to trust us, take the risk, lose their wages, come in and sweat it out for us. If that gets us to pay dirt, we will share the prosperity. But his poverty is all for himself”. That’s a truck load of BS.