Naren Lokwani: An Alpha Geek Transforming The Software Product Development
Naren Lokwani
Founder
CEO Insights interviewed Naren wherein he enlightened us about his entrepreneurial journey and the challenges encountered in his professional expedition.
Brief us on your educational and professional background.
I am an MBA from IIM, Bangalore with 20+ years of work experience in the Software Industry. My background is an interesting one as well. First 10 years of my career, I spent in a corporate setup working for companies like Infosys, Capgemini & Cognizant, and then jumped into the startup bandwagon and setup an AI product startup by the name Algorial. We success fully raised Seed funding for Algorial and later sold the firm. My second product venture was a custom CRM system and we had a good exit to a US based product firm. Frshr Tech is my third startup in last 10 years, and we are off to a great start by winning national level product competition by DRDO called Dare to Dream 2.0 for our product AI Recognize. The success is a testament to the technical prowess of Frshr Technologies team(to be selected and rated number one from amongst thousands of other companies, nationally).
In early 2000s, the key challenge was to build a scalable platform as lot of the underlying technologies were so new, but now with the stabilization of underlying software platforms and emergence of technologies such as Flutter for mobile, Angular and Node for Web, Cloud platforms like AWS for hosting, it is really scalable now. Software development today is more of an art than science, as the science is already well conquered.
I have had good experience in building large scale teams, ramping
up operations, client interaction, trans lating client requirements in technical language to offshore teams & managing clients. Also, key Business Development skills such as Branding, Product Marketing, PR &Media management, and sales skills are a must for any entrepreneur looking to scale up his new entity. Working up on all my acquired skills, I invested the same to build Frshr Tech venture.
Today, collating my corporate & startup world experience, I am prepped up for any challenges faced by young startups.
What is the inception story of Frshr Technologies? Also, why did you choose Bengaluru to be the breeding ground of your organization?
To mention about the inception of Frshr Tech, the idea for Frshr Tech sprouted when one of my Silicon Valley based friend called me up and mentioned that he has a startup idea building an Identity management platform for Individuals & Enterprises, but no tech team to build the product. Being a non-technical person,he was also not sure of which tech stack to choose, how to go about hiring people, how much will be the cost to build the product and how to support the product post initial release.
We clearly realized that there was a big latent need in the market for the services to help non-technical founders with their dream software product. Hence, Frshr Tech pivoted from being a Edutech venture to a Product Development Services venture.
Talking about Frshr Tech's breeding home, I would say I have been based in Bangalore from past 20 years, and have personally witnessed this city evolve from a medium sized town to a bustling metropolis now. Bangalore due to its mild weather, tech culture, well travelled people and avail ability of tech talent remains to be a top attraction for cutting edge companies like ours.
Share some details about Frshr Techno logies that signifies the organization's uniqueness in the industry?
Frshr Technologies a Product Development & Services company is a startup for startups! From the inception we as a team of soft ware product development experts, engineers, designers, product managers & entrepreneurs have worked together with a common vision of client success, and it is what has made all the difference.Our key clients are startups from the US, UK and India.
We understand the client's position, because we have been in similar shoes ourselves. Precisely going through the client's verbs understanding their domain, problem area, solution space, we deduce their requirements and then provide a comprehensive solution through our unique methodology of Idea to MVP(Minimum Viable Product)in 12 weeks flat! It is our
We understand the client's position, because we have been in similar shoes our selves
Today, collating my corporate & startup world experience, I am prepped up for any challenges faced by young startups.
What is the inception story of Frshr Technologies? Also, why did you choose Bengaluru to be the breeding ground of your organization?
To mention about the inception of Frshr Tech, the idea for Frshr Tech sprouted when one of my Silicon Valley based friend called me up and mentioned that he has a startup idea building an Identity management platform for Individuals & Enterprises, but no tech team to build the product. Being a non-technical person,he was also not sure of which tech stack to choose, how to go about hiring people, how much will be the cost to build the product and how to support the product post initial release.
We clearly realized that there was a big latent need in the market for the services to help non-technical founders with their dream software product. Hence, Frshr Tech pivoted from being a Edutech venture to a Product Development Services venture.
Talking about Frshr Tech's breeding home, I would say I have been based in Bangalore from past 20 years, and have personally witnessed this city evolve from a medium sized town to a bustling metropolis now. Bangalore due to its mild weather, tech culture, well travelled people and avail ability of tech talent remains to be a top attraction for cutting edge companies like ours.
Share some details about Frshr Techno logies that signifies the organization's uniqueness in the industry?
Frshr Technologies a Product Development & Services company is a startup for startups! From the inception we as a team of soft ware product development experts, engineers, designers, product managers & entrepreneurs have worked together with a common vision of client success, and it is what has made all the difference.Our key clients are startups from the US, UK and India.
We understand the client's position, because we have been in similar shoes ourselves. Precisely going through the client's verbs understanding their domain, problem area, solution space, we deduce their requirements and then provide a comprehensive solution through our unique methodology of Idea to MVP(Minimum Viable Product)in 12 weeks flat! It is our
exclusive process of delivering a software product MVP in 12weeks that differentiates us from our competitors and helps us grow consistently.
So far, we have built a variety of very interesting software products like Social Media App built on Hedera blockchain for our UK client,Identity management platform for our US client, Code sharing Web app for our India customer, eCommerce Web app for our India customer and so on.
Which has been the most exciting project so far? What did you learn from it?
India is both Diabetes and Blindness capital of the world, unfortunately. Globally, 8.5 percent of population or about 450 million people have diabetes. Approximately one in three people living with diabetes have some degree of Diabetic Retinopathy(DR)and one in 10 will develop a vision threatening form of the disease. Thus, about 150 million people worldwide are exposed to the risk of Diabetic Retinopathy(DR).
We have built an AI powered DR scanner, NeuralDR, which helps a doctor or technician detect whether or not the patient has DR based on the image of eye fundus. This AI scanning technology will be very useful in areas where specialist eye doctors are not available, and hence will prevent blindness in millions of people worldwide. Also,it's a substantial large market opportunity that can be developed and turned into a billion dollar product.
How do you update yourself with the latest technologies and trends in rene wable industry?
I am a hands on techie myself, and ‘m not afraid to open my developer environment and start writing Python code at any point of time. Having said that, understanding client requirements & translating them to developer teams is where most of our time is well spent. Working on cutting edge technologies like Blockchain & AI is what keeps us motivated and excited every day.
What is the future roadmap?
Having been a completely bootstrapped and profitable venture from day one, we are a fast-growing software product development & services company with a strong customer base across US, UK, and India. Yielding a 50percent growth YoYbasis we are projected to hit $1MM revenues per annum in the next two years.
Our growth plan for the near future is to establish offices in key countries in Europe like UK, France, Germany & few offices in the US to establish a near shore experience for our clients. And, further in next ten years, we want to grow Frshr Tech to a 1000 people company, with development offices in several key cities of India. We want Frshr Tech to become an aspirational brand and employer of choice for best colleges in India & abroad.
Naren Lokwani, Founder, Frshr Techno logies
An IIM-Bangalore graduate, Naren is a seasoned entrepreneur and professional having over 20years of collective experience(corporate & startup)in the IT industry.
So far, we have built a variety of very interesting software products like Social Media App built on Hedera blockchain for our UK client,Identity management platform for our US client, Code sharing Web app for our India customer, eCommerce Web app for our India customer and so on.
Which has been the most exciting project so far? What did you learn from it?
India is both Diabetes and Blindness capital of the world, unfortunately. Globally, 8.5 percent of population or about 450 million people have diabetes. Approximately one in three people living with diabetes have some degree of Diabetic Retinopathy(DR)and one in 10 will develop a vision threatening form of the disease. Thus, about 150 million people worldwide are exposed to the risk of Diabetic Retinopathy(DR).
We have built an AI powered DR scanner, NeuralDR, which helps a doctor or technician detect whether or not the patient has DR based on the image of eye fundus. This AI scanning technology will be very useful in areas where specialist eye doctors are not available, and hence will prevent blindness in millions of people worldwide. Also,it's a substantial large market opportunity that can be developed and turned into a billion dollar product.
How do you update yourself with the latest technologies and trends in rene wable industry?
I am a hands on techie myself, and ‘m not afraid to open my developer environment and start writing Python code at any point of time. Having said that, understanding client requirements & translating them to developer teams is where most of our time is well spent. Working on cutting edge technologies like Blockchain & AI is what keeps us motivated and excited every day.
What is the future roadmap?
Having been a completely bootstrapped and profitable venture from day one, we are a fast-growing software product development & services company with a strong customer base across US, UK, and India. Yielding a 50percent growth YoYbasis we are projected to hit $1MM revenues per annum in the next two years.
Our growth plan for the near future is to establish offices in key countries in Europe like UK, France, Germany & few offices in the US to establish a near shore experience for our clients. And, further in next ten years, we want to grow Frshr Tech to a 1000 people company, with development offices in several key cities of India. We want Frshr Tech to become an aspirational brand and employer of choice for best colleges in India & abroad.
Naren Lokwani, Founder, Frshr Techno logies
An IIM-Bangalore graduate, Naren is a seasoned entrepreneur and professional having over 20years of collective experience(corporate & startup)in the IT industry.