Chal Startup Karte Hain

CHAL STARTUP KARTE HAIN GETTING STARTED VOL 1 ISSUE 1 | MAY 2020

CONTENTS MAY 9, 2019 GETTING STARTED Editor's Note

Learn our vision and vision via this magazine.

Becoming a freelancer, seriously

Quickstart your freelancing

entrepreneurial

journey

with

Top 5 challenges in the life of women entrepreneurs

Being a woman entrepreneur has never been easy; you can ask any woman entrepreneur. And it won’t take a lot of time to ask, because there are very few of them. What discourages women to take up entrepreneurship as a career?

How to get your company registered in INDIA?

Starting your own company or business is an exciting thing in itself, Isn’t it? Becoming legal too is a part of it.

How to set up a recurring payment portal for your service business with zero development cost?

A lot of enterprises, companies, and startups are in the service business. If you are one of them or planning to start one this article is surely for you.

From renting mattress to establishing a $31 billion company: Success story of Airbnb

Airbnb, one of the biggest and most successful tourism and lodging company, is a San Francisco based company founded by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk.

e t o N Editor's

We aim at helping individuals in entrepreneurship and starting a startup. Be it a student or a working professional, We aim at addressing different aspects of life, career, and issues that one goes through, while his journey of being an entrepreneur. With this motto in our minds, we promise to bring authentic and useful contents for our readers and keep coming up with new stories, case studies and platforms to serve their needs.

We at HappyChases are always eager to create such contents which will help the community and following the same, today we announce our new magazine specially for entrepreneurs, wantrepreneuers, students who want to havae their own startups some day.

"If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work."

-Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder of Ellevest So, what to expect from this magazine, what is has unique to offer? These might be your first questions right now, after purchasing this magazine. So I will start with an example, I lot of entrepreneurs / wantrepreneurs or students think,

that they need a lot of money to start a startup or the worst, most assume that it is straightforward thing. It has some procedures written in a book and boom you have a ubicorn.

Like you got an idea you pitch it to the investor/s they pour some money in your startup. You hire the experts in your team, you build the product and now to expand it you go to the investors again. And, it keeps on repeating like it is a cycle.

But my dear friend, it is not a movie it is the real life which does not follow a script. So don't want you to follow in that trap. Rather our focus will always be to help you in such a way that you quickly get started with your startup, and yeah, the bootstraped way, grow and scale your business in a real practical way.

We will write mostly focusing the two generations, one those who are still a students studying in college and those who are professionals, doing jobs, or working full time for their startups. We will make sure that any content will help both the

categories.

For example, for students we will write how they may get free credits for most of the softwares so that they may get started quickly, and at the same time we will also post about the events, resources which may help the other section too to get such benefits from the available programs.

We don't want to ba a news agrregator with just the news about startups, funding and similar things.

YourStory, Inc42 and other similar websites are out there doing the same. Rather we will share resources, case studies, tools and all practical things i.e. softwares, platforms or tactics. That will surely help you in your journy.

In the HappyChases ecosystem we have come up with our forums and networking platform exclusive for our readers. You may post your query and help or get help from the community.

Chase It Happily, Kuldeep Pisda Director HappyChases Media Work (OPC) Private Limited

Motivation

"START AS SMALL AS YOU CAN. WHEN I STARTED SKINNYME TEA, I HAD $24 IN THE BANK, AND I WAS ENTIRELY SELFFUNDED. IF YOU ARE NOT EMBARRASSED BY THE FIRST VERSION OF YOUR PRODUCT; YOU’VE LAUNCHED TOO LATE."

Gretta Rose van Riel Founder of Hey Influencers

BECOMING A FREELANCER SERIOUSLY

Freelancing is a serious business. To set the record straight- I owe a lot to freelancing. It has made me a better person especially on the personal ground.

First thing's first When I started freelancing I had no clue what I was doing. This led me to make a lot of mistakes early on. I did have a lot of criticism of course (like you are spending 4 hours doing nothing worthy or there are a lot of grammatical mistakes or my work is not original) and to be very honest it does affect me but unless you move on, the place where you are in the place where you will always be.

So it's better to chuck it off.

I am a freelancer. This does not mean I will work for free. I have bills and aspirations just like you. I am equally answerable to my family about my work.

So If you're good at something, never do it for free.

Freelancing is the best first step you can take towards being an entrepreneur in my opinion.

It's sort of like college for entrepreneurs.

Remember, regardless of how much you learn, you will never know everything. Before you get swept away with visions of working on the beach, do your research. Know what you're getting into. Don't expect things to happen. It's better to be surprised than to be disappointed.

It's highly important to Choose and create a circle of proper advisors around you.

Do not discuss your project with your relatives, neighbors, friends' friends, pastor, or even husbands, they would always demotivate you.

So just stay true to yourself and your craft.If you're an online worker, things get even trickier. Working from the comfort of your home is a perk if you ask anyone, but it also offers more distractions an average woman can bear.Husband, toddler, family members, increasingly attractive household chores – you name it. When you add the fact that it's Monday, chances are you'll be all over the place – anywhere except on the task.To avoid this you need a sharp focus and a clear idea of your goals and a personal brand. When it comes to freelancing your reputation is everything. There are three responses to a piece of design Yes, No and Wao.

Wao is the one to aim for.

Like any other profession, freelancing too requires patience and hard work

Your brand portrays to your clients who you are, what you stand for and what sets you apart from other freelancers. Another way to think of it would be what you're known for or what you'd like to be known for. And a personal brand is one of the most critical things to have in a competitive industry where reputations are built and destroyed by what you are known for, rather than how you do it.

The number one question I always get is, how it is to be a freelancer? It's not easy, and it takes a lot of work, which is not what people usually want to hear.How did you get started making this beautiful garden?" "How did you guys manage to remodel this whole house by yourselves?" "How on earth did you manage to raise a child all at once?"

If you expect any of those questions to end with anything other than a lot of hard work and dedication, people would laugh at you. A house doesn't rebuild itself overnight, children don't grow up in hours, and gardens don't get planted and bloom in mere minutes.

Neither does a freelance career.

I think people are disappointed when I tell them that writing freelance isn't magic and unicorns. It is full of taking hours of thankless work, practicing your craft, reading, getting better at writing and editing, reading, brushing up on basic grammar, writing more, reading, and taking less than stellar jobs so you can get some reviews from clients. It takes some notgetting-paid jobs and learning from your mistakes. It takes blood and tears and sweat.

But recently I see a lot of Larger companies take freelancers for special projects having niche skills so that they are relieved of the burden of finding out talent. So the good news is you have plenty of options, and with the right skills you can carve out a nice little niche for yourself.

Like a friend of mine who was working with a company in Delhi still works for them remotely from Raipur, even after getting married and changing cities. So freelancers do have a lot of opportunities no matter where they are from you just need to master your skill. But honestly, it sucks (you can ask her) and let's just leave that discussion for the last part.

So if you are looking to start a freelance career, here are some things you should expect and focus on Getting Reviews Finding potential clients can be difficult, but by signing up for freelance sites like Guru, UpWork, or Freelancer, you can probably get a few gigs without much effort. But Once you have a few positive reviews from clients, it will help you get more quickly.

Contact, Contact, Contact Send your resume to everyone you can think of. Blogs, magazines, big companies, wedding sites, conventions, and anyone else who might need your services.

This cold calling is like a job in itself, but it can be worth it for that one big gig to get your foot in the door and start a blog, please. It helps in the long run, trust me.

There is a hell lot of competition When it comes to freelancing, the world becomes an oyster and you are competing with thousands of developers worldwide.

Companies can very well hire a freelance programmer who can do the same job at a much lower price. Also, the technology changes can be quite disruptive and a freelance techie not updated as per the times is no less than an outdated dinosaur. So there's this great risk of you ending up being an easily replaceable commodity.

This brings us to the million-dollar question, How do I become a successful freelance programmer? Here are some ways to carve a unique niche for yourself and be a successful freelance programmer.

Don't quit your day job while starting. Quitting your day job to pursue your dream can be exhilarating — or terrifying. What might appear heroic or glamorous might soon turn into ashes in your mouth when the stakes go wrong.

Besides the financial pressure, the pressure of the society to maintain a certain lifestyle brings us to the breakdown stage far sooner than expected when things don't work out as planned.

Besides, there are several important skills you can cultivate while working with a company.

You will learn how the business side of how a development company operates, you will have time to build on the skills which you lack, you will learn to work with clients from diverse geographies and cultures. You can build up some savings which you will need when making the move to freelancing.

Think local, it's important Yes, we are in the hyper-connected world of remote development, offshore development, nearshore development, and Zoom meetings, but most businesses still prefer working with someone who can walk in for a face-to-face meeting.

Join your local networking events and Meetups. This is a great way to pitch your services to reach out to multiple people.

Develop partnerships with designers and agencies.Go Deep Not Wide (Be so fucking good that no one can ignore you).

And I applaud you for that. But freelancing is a hamster wheel. You're spinning the wheel a ton, handing in a freelance project after freelance project, but it's not doing anything to get you closer to what you want. That's because you have no time to build a business you're too busy building it for other people.

Let's face it — you're a slave as a freelancer.

Like I said before, as a freelancer you're stuck between cubicle life and the flat-out entrepreneur world. This means you're closer to being an entrepreneur than you would be if you still worked a 9–5 job.

Freelancing is the single easiest way to start a new business

To have the superpower of earning hundreds of rupees per hour, you first need to invest a serious amount of time in learning about your skill. (No, you won't become a freelancer over the weekend). While a broad knowledge is good, if you focus first on developing a deep knowledge of one or two areas, you will find the others come easier.

For example, in the case of a writer, even if you are writing in the same language every day, you will not get better without making a conscious effort to learn. Learning a broad range of languages gives you flexibility, but you can only optimize your craft well by deepening your knowledge. Chances are if you're a freelancer, you aspire to do stuff completely on your own.

Entrepreneurs use money to build a business bigger than themselves. Entrepreneurs make money when they sleep. Entrepreneurs focus on growth and on scaling the systems that they build. The more, the better.

Travis doesn't drive the Uber that picks you up, Sheryl doesn't do any coding and Warren Buffett can't work with every investment, every day. They need someone to do their work. Be that someone.

If you're a freelancer, freelance. Figure out how to do the best work in your field, the best work for the right clients. You're a freelance for hire, and you need to focus on your reputation and the flow of business because your work is always going to be your work.

Freelancers get ahead by becoming more in demand, by charging more (and being worth it). They get ahead by being more connected, smarter, more effective.

If you're an entrepreneur, don't hire yourself.

Build a business that works, that thrives with or without you. It might not be good for your ego, but it will be good for your bank account.

Find a mentor

Finding clients is a pain in the bum and clients can drop you at any time. It takes some skill to be able to detect good and bad clients.Negotiating pay, discussing scope creep and conducting interviews are all unpleasant conversations.

And the bad news is that they are more frequent when freelancing because you have to do it with every single client, rather than just one employer!The good news is that it gets easier with time, and you'll begin to learn methods to deal with these tricky conversations or to avoid them happening altogether.

How you do is up to you

I don't know how anyone survives without a mentor. By mentor, I mean someone in your field who sees your success as an extension of his own and does everything possible to propel you forward just like Mr. Kuldeep Pisda at HappyChases.

Someone who inexplicably has your back in any situation and is always willing to take a break from his or her stuff to deal with your stuff. This person is an equal parts life coach, cheerleader, editor, colleague, and friend.

When this person offers advice or work opportunities, pursue those opportunities with everything you've got. Show mentors that you're invested, and they'll invest in you, too.

You can also Create Freelance profiles on Upworks Outsourcely Fiverr Freelancer Remote And there are literally many websites from where you may you start freelancing.

You can also google the type of work you want in a specific industry. Still, I do feel from my experience freelancing sometimes sucks. Here is how and it will help you to avoid them.

This is a scary time and as an entrepreneur, nothing is guaranteed. So, that means it's all about making a step ahead. So, What's stopping you from starting your agency?

What's stopping you from REALLY taking that next step and traveling to entrepreneur-land?I wouldn't be who I am without freelancing, but we humans need to keep evolving.

Freelancing was just a stepping stone for me to something bigger. I hope you are staying safe and healthy!!

Why Freelancing?

Not only freelancing, any kind of internships, or working on any real life projects will definitely help you. It will be the best if you have these experiences in the sector in which you plan to start a startup. To be honest this prior experiences will definitely help you in your journey.

Garima Jaswani Writer HappyChases

FORUMS BY HAPPYCHASES

LET'S MA KE T HE BEST COMMU NI TY USE THE FORUM TO

Post your queries Find Team Members Enagage and help other members

JOIN TODAY AT FORUMS.HAPPYCHASES.COM

TOP 5 CHALLENGES IN THE LIFE OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM AMRITA MISHRA, COFOUNDER ZENITHEC TECHWARE

NOITIDE NEMOW LAICEPS

Being a woman entrepreneur has never been easy; you can ask any woman entrepreneur.

And it won’t take a lot of time to ask, because there are very few of them. What discourages women to take up entrepreneurship as a career? And even when they do, what kind of challenges they face?

Why an entrepreneurship event is mostly comprised of men? Why women-owned enterprises aren’t profitable enough? Are women not capable of taking the “risks” involved in entrepreneurship? Or are they not motivated enough? Has gender bias eaten up the business world too?

Let’s find out Family

In countries like India, it is considered a woman’s duty to take care of the household and her family, especially after they become a parent. Thus, one of the main reasons why women entrepreneurs do not grow or flourish enough is the lack of family support. With such limitations around, how will a woman entrepreneur flourish?

Moreover, even if women take up entrepreneurship as their career, finding a balance between work and family is another very common challenge that they face.

Male-dominated society

Yes, sadly, male chauvinism still exists. So, it is a little more difficult for women entrepreneurs to network with other male entrepreneurs.

The gender-bias also causes a bias between men-owned enterprises and women-owned enterprises in the minds of consumers. It makes it difficult for women entrepreneurs to compete with their male counterparts. Also, society’s expectation of women to be “soft and conservative” suppresses women entrepreneurs, adding to their struggle to be respected.

Gender-bias and discrimination against women have existed in society for centuries, and unfortunately, it still exists to a certain extent.

There is a connection between being a businesswoman and mental wellbeing

[1]

Limited access to funding Whom should a woman-enterprise turn to when they need funds? While pitching an idea to an investor, women entrepreneurs are mostly asked questions about how they would “prevent” anything wrong that might happen to the business while their male counterparts are mostly asked questions about how they would “promote” the business, i.e. everything right that could go with the business.

According to the sources, women entrepreneurs that found 38% of the companies in the USA get only 2% of the funds.

The saddest part is, though, even women venture capitalists are biased against women entrepreneurs. Moreover, even banks are reluctant to provide loans to women due to gender and cultural biases and also due to lack of collateral.

Attitude towards life Some women may be timid, they don’t own to their success, afraid to take risks and afraid of failure. The negative business attitude is the reason behind the failure of a startup that was meant to be successful. They may not have enough self-confidence. It is difficult for a woman to come out of the shell, to overcome her insecurities to take up something as different as entrepreneurship, especially when society has completely different expectations from her.

Unfavorable business environment Despite so many laws and policies provided by the government, the poor implementation of these policies has failed to create a favorable environment for women to do business. They have difficulty in networking since the maledominant business world doesn’t take women entrepreneurs, much seriously and thus, there is none or very little support system or guidance with women entrepreneurs.

Women entrepreneurs have a lot of trouble to get access to the right resources, one of the examples being quality education. So, how do we cope up with this? What are how these challenges can be tackled?

How to overcome the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs?

Support and Guidance When you have someone to look up to, you are motivated and less afraid to walk down a similar path. Women Entrepreneurs need to connect to, talk to, and network with, other women entrepreneurs. It will build up their confidence with a feeling of security and comfort. They should also be provided with resources that they can utilize to develop their businesses.One of the most important supports that women can get is from their family. If family members help and support women in their journey, it will be much easier for them to run their business and maintain a balance between their professional and personal lives.

Market access

It is popularly said that an entrepreneur needs 4 things to be successful – knowledge, expertise, practice, and contacts. This aspect has a lot to do with society. Creating awareness and encouraging Women entrepreneurs is going to bring a wave of change and give women their own space in the male-dominated society.

Pitching investors with confidence and a great business plan Also, more female investors can form angel investing groups to support more female entrepreneurs. There are groups like #Angels and Hera Fund that are helping women-owned enterprises with funding. When pitching in from of investors, women should be prepared for any kind of questions and they should focus on showing the investors how they will scale up and grow their business.

Networking

Having a good network is essential and so is asking for help. Women should come forward to help other women and similarly, women should feel free to ask for any assistance.

No one will help unless you ask, and be very specific about what you want.

You never know who might help. There are a lot of podcasts, blogs and other forms of content to help you out. Moreover, if you are active on social media, you can connect to the globe and you’ll definitely find what you need.

Change in attitude

Transformation outside needs a transformation inside. Women will have to accept that they may fail; they will have to be more willing to take risks. They have to be motivated, trained and prepared for the world they will be facing in their journey. They need to understand that to be successful, they don’t need to turn into sturdy people. They only need to be themselves and have faith and belief in the person they look in the mirror every day. They have to be confident enough to instruct their sub-ordinates and talk business with other people, especially their male counterparts.

Making finance easy

Women should be made aware of the existing schemes and policies for providing their enterprise with funding.

Banks and government should also understand the financial requirements of women-owned enterprises and provide financial support to them.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is challenging for both men and women but there are certain things that make it even more difficult for women to grow in the business world.

Overcoming gender bias and choosing entrepreneurship is one of the big steps that a woman entrepreneur takes. All we need to do as a society is to provide enough support to women to make this path easier for them.

HappyChases celebrates all the Women Entrepreneurs and encourages them to follow their hearts and achieve their dreams.

SAKSHI BHANDARKAR

HOW TO GET YOUR COMPANY REGISTERED IN INDIA

Starting your own company or business is an exciting thing in itself, Isn’t it? It indeed is.

Besides pitching to prospects, closing deals, and meeting with investors along with developing the product takes up all your time, there are other aspects as well.

There are things that one needs to keep in mind when he/she decides to build a start-up.

Initially, your initial focus would be to give shape to your business idea and build a team that believes in your vision. However, the most fundamental and legal aspect when you embark on your journey as an entrepreneur is to get your company registered.

The reality is that most of the founders are coders, designers, marketers, and folks from different professions. One critical thing that most founders aren’t the best at is the basic legalities when it comes to starting and registering a business. So let’s dive deep into the process of getting a company registered in India.

Acquire Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)

The Information Technology Act, 2000 has provisions for use of digital signatures on the documents submitted in the electronic form to ensure the security and authenticity of the documents filed electronically. You can use only the valid Digital Signatures issued to you.

It is illegal to use Digital Signatures of anybody other than the one to whom it is issued. The DSCs are typically issued with one-year validity and two-year validity. These are renewable on expiry of the period of initial issue.

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) Applicants can directly approach Certifying Authorities (CAs) with original supporting documents, and self-attested copies will be sufficient in this case.

DSCs can also be obtained, wherever offered by CA, using Aadhar eKYC based authentication, and supporting documents are not required in this case.

A letter/certificate issued by a Bank containing the DSC applicant’s information as retained in the Bank database can be accepted. Such a letter/certificate should be certified by the Bank Manager.

Acquire DIN (Director Identification Number) Initiation Attach the photograph and scanned copy of supporting documents i.e. attested proof of identity and attested proof of residence as prescribed.

Digital India Form DIR-3 is mandatory to be signed by the Applicant and which shall be verified digitally by a Company Secretary in full-time employment of the company or by the Managing Director or Director or CEO or CFO of an existing company in which the applicant is intended to be appointed as a director.

STEP

01

STEP

02

It's All Online Physical documents are not required to be submitted to the DIN cell.

STEP

03 STEP

04

Fees Please Upon upload, make the payment of filing fee of eForm DIR-3. Only electronic payment of the fees shall be allowed (i.e. Net banking / Credit Card/Debit Card/Pay later/ NeFT). eForm DIR-3 will be processed only once the DIN application fee is paid.

Release After successful payment, an approved DIN shall be generated in case the details of the e-Form have not been identified as potential duplicate.

STEP

05 STEP

06

Hoorrey!

Verification of eForm: In case, details of eForm DIR-3 are found as potential duplicate, the same gets routed to DIN cell for backoffice processing. Upon approval of the form, provisional DIN becomes approved DIN and would be available for further use.

Create an account on MCA portal Click on the 'Register DSC' link available on the MCA portal homepage.

On the next screen, click on the 'Director' link on the left-hand panel and fill-up your DIN. Please ensure that the DIN is approved and typed correctly.

System shall verify that the DIN is valid and approved. If the DIN is filled incorrectly or DIN filled is not approved, the system will throw an error message to that effect.

Fill-up rest of the particulars and ensure that details filled are as per DIR-3. If the applicant has filed DIR-6, then fill the details as submitted in the DIR-6 form.

Click on the 'Next' button. The system would verify the details.

If the details filled do not match with DIR-3/ DIR-6, as the case may be, for the reason that you do not have your DIN application details, you can get the details from the company in which you are a director.

If the details are correct, the system would prompt you to select the DSC. Click on the 'Select Certificate' button to browse and select the certificate. Please ensure that the selected DSC belongs to the applicant, whose particulars are being registered.

System shall validate the DSC. If the selected DSC is already registered against given DIN, the system will give an informatory message. If a different DSC is already registered against the given DIN, the system will ask if the user wants to update his/ her DSC. Type the displayed system generated text for verification in the box provided.

Click on the 'I agree' button to agree to the declaration that details furnished are correct.

Click on the 'Submit' button to register your DSC. Acknowledgement message is displayed to the user.

User can take a print-out of the acknowledgment.

The applicant can click on the 'Reset' function to clear the data in the fields.

Incorporate or Apply for the company to be registered Select, in order of preference, at least one suitable name up to a maximum of six names, indicative of the main objects of the company.

Ensure that the name does not resemble the name of any other already registered company and also does not violate the provisions of emblems and names (Prevention of Improper Use Act, 1950) by availing the services of checking name availability on the portal.

Apply to the concerned RoC to ascertain the availability of name in eForm1 A by logging in to the portal. A fee of Rs. 500/- has to be paid alongside and the digital signature of the applicant proposing the company has to be attached in the form. If the proposed name is not available, the user has applied for a fresh name on the same application.

After the name approval, the applicant can apply for registration of the new company by filing the required forms (that is Form 1, 18 and 32) within 60 days of name approval.

Arrange for the drafting of the memorandum and articles of association by the solicitors, vetting of the same by RoC and printing of the same.

Arrange for stamping of the memorandum and articles with the appropriate stamp duty.

Get the Memorandum and the Articles signed by at least two subscribers in his/her hand, his/her father's name, occupation, address and the number of shares subscribed for and witnessed by at least one person.

Login to the portal and fill the following forms and attach the mandatory documents listed in the e-Form.

After processing of the Form is complete and Corporate Identity is generated obtain Certificate of Incorporation from RoC. Once the above procedure is done, the Certificate of Commencement of Business may be obtained.

IT'S ALL GOOD, BUT ISN'T IT TEDIOUS

ONLINE ALTERNATIVES Knowing these informations and procedures are great but we would suggest to work with some legal professionals There are a lot of such startups which does legal consultancies, ours too was done via that.

YOU ARE REGISTERING A LEGAL ENTITY, AND ANY MISTAKES MIGHT BE VERY COSTLY FOR YOUR BUSINESS

A must read for service business owners

HOW TO SET UP A RECURRING PAYMENT PORTAL FOR YOUR SERVICE BUSINESS WITH ZERO DEVELOPMENT COST?

KULDEEP PISDA DIRECTOR HAPPYCHASES A lot of enterprises, companies, and startups are in the service business. If you are one of them or planning to start one this post is surely for you. I have been doing freelancing and have worked for such services companies for the past few years.

And, I have realized that in the service business getting payment is something that is hard work. I am not saying that the client does not pay the money (it happens sometimes) but would not it be nice if you have such a platform that does this job on behalf of you. With automatic reminders and integrations with PayPal, and Stripe for accepting international payments. What if I say you may set it up for free.

Features Expected Products/Services Addition Invoice Generation Getting Payments Setting Recurring Payments Issuing Credits Generation of Quotations Create Proposals Create Projects Task Management Keeping track of Expenses Managing Vendors Reports Generation

So two open-source platforms that suit our requirements 1. InvoiceNinja 2. SolidInvoice I have used both the platforms while testing, but InvoiceNinja has a ton of features built-in which suffice all our requirements.

Whereas SolidInvoice is a good platform too but you may want to use it for freelancing and similar small tasks.

So, in a nutshell, this is an open-source powerhouse to power your service business.

You need to set up your company from the same dashboard, setup payments via PayPal, Stripe, set up emails that are not covered in this article. Except for email configurations, everything is self-explanatory from the settings page.

Well, we said zero development cost, right? Yes, it is. How?

So DigitalOcean has a one-click deployment tool with which you may set up InvoiceNinja in a few minutes. https://bit.ly/DO_credits_happychases So for that, you need a DigitalOcean account and you need to pay for the server as well.

Well, will help you with that as well. Your first 100$ is on us for the first 60 Days.

Use our referral link to create a new account on DigitalOcean and you will get 100$ credits upfront. After creating and availing credits head over here: https://bit.ly/invoice-ninja-happychases So it is open source and free, but it is white lable license. So in the invoices in the below there will be a mention of InvoiceNinja but I don't think that matters. Like if you want you may pay to get a license which will remove the link, rest all the features are same.

Also, we may help you setup that. Ping us at: https://bit.ly/service-happychases

EXCLUSIVE OFFER FOR OUR READERS

GET FREE CREDITS WORTH 100 $ USE OUR FERERRAL LINK TO GET 100 $ FOR 60 DAYS

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DigitalOcean and its logo are properties of DigitalOcean Inc. And DigitalOcean is in no way associated with this magazine. We are sharing our referral link so that you may try it out.

STORY OF AIRBNB

From renting mattress to establishing a $31 billion company: Success story of Airbnb

The Idea

Airbnb, one of the biggest and most successful tourism and lodging company, is a San Francisco based company founded by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Shortly after moving to San Francisco in October 2007, roommates and former schoolmates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia came up with the idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast. During those days, a conference was going on in San Francisco, due to which all the hotels in city were fully booked. It was at this very situation, when an idea struck their minds to let the visitors stay in their apartment and cook them breakfast.

Unaware to what was coming, all they knew the next day was travelers demanding their services.

Initial Days

In February 2008, Nathan Blecharczyk, Chesky's former roommate, joined as the Chief Technology Officer and the third co-founder of the new venture, which they named AirBed & Breakfast. They put together a website that offered short-term living quarters and breakfast. They decided to target conferences and festivals across America, getting local people to list their rooms and travellers to book them. Thus they were able to achieve some success.

When survival seemed difficult

In summer 2008, Barack Obama was due to speak in Denver at the Democratic National Convention, and 80,000 people were expected to be there, but again, there was a shortage of hotel rooms. Gebbia, Chesky and Blecharczyk had just finished the website . Within a week they had 800 listings. But the site wasn’t making any money. Taking advantage of election fever, they bought bulk quantities of cereal and designed packaging branded as ‘Obama’s O’s’ and ‘Cap’n McCain’ cereal. It was initially meant to be a PR stunt, but they sold 800 ‘limited-edition’ boxes at $40 each and made more than $30,000. However this strategy didn’t work out as they couldn’t make as much money as needed. Hence they were at loss.

One night in November 2008, Chesky and Gebbia were having dinner with Michael Seibel, then the CEO of Justin.tv, who’d been acting as their sole advisor since they first connected with him at South by Southwest months earlier. Seibel suggested that they consider applying to Y Combinator (a start-up mentoring programme). Hardly did they knew that it was going to be the turning point in their lives.

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Seibel sent a message to Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, who said he’d consider them if they got their application at the earliest as the deadine had already passed. They applied and got an interview. After several hours of prepping and mock-interviewing one another, the founders were ready to leave for the interview(On the way out, Gebbia went to grab a box of Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s to put them in his bag). The interview didn’t go as planned, as they were about to pack up, Gebbia pulled out the cereal boxes(which he had sneaked in). He walked over to Graham, who was by then talking with his partners, and handed him one. Graham thanked him, awkwardly — he thought they had bought some cereal for him as a gift. They told him the story behind the Obama O’s. The founders were told to expect a call from Graham very shortly if they were accepted. And surprisingly they did! They cracked the interview.

When hard work paid off

In early 2009 they received $20,000 of funding from Y Combinator, which led to a further $600,000 from venture capitalists. That was just the start of the money trail.

With the website already built, they used the YCombinator investment to fly to New York to meet users and promote the site. They returned to San Francisco with a profitable business model to present to West Coast investors. By March 2009, the site had 10,000 users and 2,500 listings. In March 2009, the name of the company was shortened to Airbnb.com, and the site's content had expanded from air beds and shared spaces to a variety of properties including entire homes and apartments, private rooms, and other properties.

Funding

In April 2009, the company received seed money from Sequoia Capital. In November 2010, they raised financing from Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital in a Series A round, and announced that out of 700,000 nights booked, 80% had occurred in the previous six months. In May 2011 the actor Ashton Kutcher invested a ‘significant amount’ and now sits on the board as a strategic adviser. Then in July 2011 the company received a further $112 million in venture funding, and was reportedly valued behind the scenes at $1.3 billion.

Guidance

Chesky and his co-founders’ first “sources of guidence” were their earliest advisers and mentors, tech entrepreneur Michael Seibel and Y Combinator’s Graham. Chesky devoted much of his time to books in order to gain knowledge in this field. His primary book source on management technique is Andy Grove’s High Output Management. To learn the ins and outs of hospitality, he went to the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, a scholarly journal published by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He considered Walt Dianey and Steve Jobs as his inspiration.

As the company became more prominent, so did Chesky’s sources. Soon came meetings with Facebook’s FB 3.27% Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s AMZN 1.05% Jeff Bezos, and eBay EBAY 152.47% CEO John Donahoe. He went to Bob Iger and Marc Benioff to ask how they push their executive teams to do more.

From Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg he picked up tips about efficiency in scaling internationally. To learn how to become an elite recruiter, for example, Chesky might skip talking to an HR exec and instead seek out a sports agent, whose business lives and dies by attracting talent. Similarly, Chesky reached out to Tenet not for tips on global security, but for corporate culture.

One of Chesky’s biggest source triumphs was his audience with Warren Buffett. Chesky reached out to him and asked if he could travel to Omaha to have lunch, in part to talk about how Airbnb might help expand the number of rooms available in town during Berkshire’s annual meeting weekend. The discussion ended up lasting 4½ hours. For his part, Buffett said he sensed in Chesky a genuine passion for building his company. Although Chesky had natural leadership potential, however communicating with various pieces of wisdom and learning from them is a key part of Chesky’s management style.

The Glory Days

Airbnb has come a long way from when CEO Brian Chesky and his friends converted the living room of their San Francisco apartment into a bed & breakfast with the help of an air mattress in order to help pay the rent.

As of writing, Airbnb has close to 650,000 hosts using it’s platform and around 6.1 million listings. Compare that to June of 2018 when there were about 4.4 million listings on Airbnb and you can see that Airbnb has continued to grow it’s inventory at a remarkable pace of almost 40% in the last year alone. In 2019 alone, travelers used Airbnb’s platform to book almost 100 million room nights. Airbnb’s revenues are growing pretty spectacularly – close to 40% year-on-year growth from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, Airbnb reported that it had made more than $1 Billion in revenue. It’s current valuation being an astounding figure of $31 billion.

Moral of the Story

This story is definitely about how passion, perseverance and the desire to thrive against all odds can lead to success. It’s just a story of 3 ordinary guys with the dream of innovating something extraordinary. AirBnB brought the whirlwind of change in the hospitality sector and become one of the most curious data discussed across the globe. The journey was never easy. However persistent efforts and determination made it what it is today. It took them 4 years to establish themselves. But it was worth the patience, as the result is visible to the world today. Airbnb is one just story. There are numerous success stories out there. This story inspires us to dream big and work hard towards achieving it.

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