Computing Profit From Losses

In these days of dot.com mania, data retrieval systems don't sound all that glamorous, right? But three young computer engineers from Pune University have shown that this can, at least, be a profitable business, long before IT became a craze in India. In 1993 Sunil Chandna, Manoj Dhingra and Kuljeet Singh, then 23, started Stellar Information

Systems Pvt Ltd as a data recovery and data loss prevention software company. No generous venture capital funding here either _ starting capital was a meagre Rs 35,000. The snafus were numerous but they stuck it out, and today they've managed to log a turnover of Rs 1.2 crore. From one small office in Bhikaji Cama Place, the three partners have moved on to three offices in Delhi. They have 45 dealers working for them which they plan to increase to 100 within this year. Their roster of clients include names like RBI, SBI, HLL, BHEL, Ranbaxy, Maruti Udyog Ltd. Here is their story.

 

The three of us were room-mates in Pune University. One day, one of our seniors in college lost his project a few days before he had to submit it. He tried every tool that was available to retrieve the project but failed, and he ended up extending his term by six months to complete his work.

That set us thinking. We knew that as India moved further up on the information highway, the potential risk of losing data would be pretty high. Now, in those days, only one US-based software was available which could recover data from a floppy diskette. We got our idea from that software. It was a challenge and we spent days and nights working on it. Our families couldn't understand the concept and it was difficult to convince them that we were out to try something new. They gave us the go ahead quite reluctantly.

We pooled everything that we could manage and started our company with Rs 35,000. We hired a small office in Bhikaji Cama Place. It could accommodate three people at the most, apart from our computer. Our computer cost us about Rs 25,000 and the rest went into the security deposits. Because of space considerations, only one of us stayed in the office and the other two were out in the field trying to convince prospective customers. Everybody was sceptical about the idea and the product. They thought that it was impossible to recover lost data. For eight months we worked from hand to mouth.

When we finally started getting customers _ LML [the scooter manufacturer] was our first _ we had to face tough times. Since there was just one machine, we worked overnight to deliver full satisfaction to our few customers by giving them back all the lost data in the minimum time possible.

Then, we had to suffer the rude comments thrown at us by some of our clients when we couldn't recover all the data for them. Sure, we became disillusioned but we never lost our faith. Sometimes it took all our energy and prayers to keep the other one going when he became demoralised.

At other times, we had to face major disappointments. Once we were expecting a bulk order of around 50,000 copies. We were so thrilled that we even started counting the money and drew up major plans to reinvest in the business and expand really fast. But the order didn't materialise. We were really disappointed but when we analysed the situation, we realised that the order was not placed because it did not strategically fit that client's needs. We took comfort from the fact that the client did not back out because of the problems with the product or with the delivery schedule.

Of course, we have also had our share of ups. For instance, our happiness and sense of satisfaction knew no bounds when despite not having proper technology, we recovered all the data for the Mumbai branch of a bank. Another time, an old man came to us with his computer, requesting us to retrieve some lost data overnight, otherwise his company risked closure. We did it and he left with blessings for us. Incidents like this provided the motivation that kept us going when the going was tough times. We still have our oldest customers coming back to us, and 60 per cent of our business is accounted for by the references.

Now, we are expecting competition from all corners and to establish ourselves we want to increase our dealer network to about 100. We are also looking at two tie-ups in Dubai and Canada.We've launched our site and want to increase distribution by e-commerce. This will decrease the delivery time which is currently about 72 hours. There are also plans to launch more data recovery products. You see, we may be one of the leaders in the field, but we have a long way to go.