

Want to do a startup with bootstrapping! - hira_khan
http://geniteam.com
Want to do a startup with bootstrapping!&#60;p&#62;By Khurram Samad: Founder &#38; CEO GeniTeam&#60;p&#62;The write up is based on my personal experience and learning while working with serial entrepreneurs. After having helped various startups, I launched GeniTeam in 2006 to provide dedicated software engineers to help entrepreneurs develop products with bootstrapping. Over the years, my own startup has gained momentum and helping promising startups based in North America, Netherland and Israel. &#60;p&#62;GeniTeam Business Model:-
Many people come across innovative idea but fail to materialize it for lack of resources. The barriers for high tech startup are high for huge upfront investment requirement. Hence, many people seek funding from venture capitalists, by giving up significant amount of equity or give up idea for lack of access to funding. GeniTeam provides an alternate to such entrepreneurs by allowing them hire virtual team members with GeniTeam, at fraction of cost to help entrepreneurs materialize their dreams. The dedicated virtual team members are hosted with GeniTeam in Lahore, Pakistan and whose growth is linked to growth of startup. The time difference allows entrepreneurs to monitor and instruct virtual team members in evening and generating cash flows for startup by doing consulting or job in day time. &#60;p&#62;How my faith strengthened on business model:-
The company's business model has evolved out of my personal consulting for CambridgeDocs, an XML conversion company. I worked single handed from my home in Pakistan, to help the startup expand its product line. During my consulting, I refined "virtual team" model and build the confidence to expand virtual team in Pakistan. After 6-8 month of successful work, the company decided to start its offshore operation in Lahore, Pakistan. This strengthened my faith on my business model, as most of the engineers working with CambridgeDocs were graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. After establishing and training initial resources for offshore office, I started helping multiple companies. Over last 3 years, I have refined the processes for virtual team and created few more success stories.&#60;p&#62;Does GeniTeam take Equity:-
We only take equity if we invest with the startup. Our resource cost is pretty nominal, and hence startup's generally don't need to share equity. The partnering startups are free to change vendor or quit us, if they wish. They also have an option of acquiring virtual team to own the startup team. &#60;p&#62;Then how does GeniTeam make money:-
GeniTeam primary cash flows are through product development. GeniTeam is working on "Team Room", "Multiplayer Mobile Games over GPRS", and online tutoring application, developed in rich internet applications. In future, GeniTeam would like to help startups refine ideas and develop marketing plans.&#60;p&#62;Is GeniTeam a traditional outsourcing company?
Our philosophy is radically different from traditional outsourcing companies. GeniTeam believes in building partnerships with startups, and growing with them. GeniTeam is serving niche high tech startup segment, not catered by traditional outsourcing companies. Distinguished by vision, our model allows partnering companies build and retain expertise X as they could do by hiring resource with them. &#60;p&#62;How can people manage people from 10000 miles away?
This is the most frequent question I hear on sales. I believe internet has revolutionized our lives, and also the work environments. With such changes, virtual team and virtual office have become reality. However, the processes to manage virtual team are slightly different and require enhanced communication and reporting techniques. It requires almost 1 to 2 months, to fully reap the benefits of virtual team. I personally believe, it really worth investing time and few bucks in idea.&#60;p&#62;
How to Contact GeniTeam?
Please visit www.geniteam.com to know us more and contact us at sales@geniteam.com for details.&#60;p&#62;&#60;p&#62;
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hira_khan
I will try to answer the questions, to best of my knowledge. I understand
traditional outsourcing has been detrimental to product development, and
probably worked well for business process outsourcing. At GeniTeam, with a
focus on high-tech startup, the processes and models are totally different to
traditional outsourcing firms. I believe a dozen success stories will
definitely help people give the model a thought. Hosting virtual team in
Pakistan provided us with access to untapped skilled labor resources. With the
recent surge in demand for skilled IT resources, startups won't be able to
recruit resources within US; hence companies relying on innovative solutions
to meet HR demands will get definitely get sustainable advantage. Despite the
fact of my upbringing in Pakistan, the experience has been very good. The good
universities in Pakistan e.g. LUMS, FAST, GIKI etc, builds basic problem
solving skills, that can be applied across various problems. To instantiate
the argument, I will share with you that our resources are working on ahead of
curve technologies, i.e. Flex 2.0, Open Laszlo, Google Gears etc, for which
it's even hard to find resources in USA.

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rms
Is GenITeam your startup? There's certainly room in the marketplace for
companies like GenITeam but most of the people on this site are strongly
against outsourced development for the products they are building. That's cool
you're running it out of Pakistan though, I haven't seen any freelance
development firms in Pakistan before.

How is the local programming education? Do the Pakistani universities teach
Microsoft languages or Java or something else?

