This is how Kiran Bettadapur, who is the Co-founder & CEO of Cylive Corporation and a serial entrepreneur sums up about entrepreneurship.
In an email interview he talks about Cylive, their company, the thrill of entrepreneurship and what it takes to build a successful company.
What was the idea behind starting Cylive?
In the physical realm, you have most of your personal belongings at one place – home. We took the same concept to provide you with “one roof” for all your Web content – a home on the Web for storing, sharing, distributing, showcasing and collaborating with friends and family to produce all your digital content – music, video, photos, articles, bookmarks, files and MORE.
Is there a story behind the website’s name, and how did you choose it?
We wanted a “not-too-long” name that would convey our core concept and roll off the tongue easily. One other criterion was to have a name that could potentially become verb someday as in “Do you cylive?” or “Are you a cyliver?”. So, the name was formed from two words relevant to our business – “cyber(space)” and “living.” Oh, by the way, the availability of the domain name was a constraint.
Could you give me some idea about the team which made Cylive, and a little background? And where are you located.
Rajiv Anand and I co-founded Cylive. Our profiles are on LinkedIn at the following URLs:
We are both located in Silicon Valley – the “startup capital of the world.”
Could you explain again in a few lines, about what does Cylive do and why is it better than sites which allow storage of only images/videos/music?
In technical jargon, Cylive is a “social media publishing and content management” Web (2.0) platform.
In layman’s language, Cylive lets you store & share; produce & publish ANY content in a social, collaborative context. It gives you the freedom to personalize the content that you publish – for instance you can upload photos with a attached audio clip about the story behind the photo. Or, you can upload a music video with the music sheet & the lyrics attached. It truly lets you mix-n-match, slice-n-dice Web content pretty much any which way. It provides “access-rights-based” functionality for you to collaborate with you friends and family. For instance, you can allow everyone in your family to add photos to the family album; but, allow friends to only view the album. You will find more information about Cylive below:
Tour
AboutWe score over other “storage sites” in several ways:
1. We offer “virtual estate” for managing ALL aspects of content lifecycle – (co-)creation, storage, distribution, sharing and publishing.
2. We allow you to personalize ANY content in NEW and UNIQUE ways.
3. We allow you to collaborate with friends and family being ALWAYS in control of who can do what and when with the content.
4. We make it possible for users to discover related content regardless of media-type – for instance, if you are looking for Aishwarya Rai’s biographic profile on Cylive, you may unearth photos of her wedding, a video clip of her Miss World crowning, a podcast of her interview with David Letterman, a list of all filmographic credits, and so on (of course, assuming Cylive users have contributed such content). As you can see, such diversity in “related content” is possible only on Cylive (by virtue of its “one roof” approach to all content types.
Is Cylive currently being funded? Or are you looking for funding in the future?
We are completely self-funded. Now that we have launched our public beta and have found traction, we are looking to bring in external investors.
The buzz around Cylive is increasing, but it still needs to grow at a faster rate. how do you plan to propel Cylive to popularity?
We have been primarily using “new media” avenues for promoting Cylive. Eventually, we will look for traditional media for publicity.
The challenge is obviously to manage traffic growth (i.e., popularity) that is commensurate with our server capacity and bandwidth resources. A sudden explosion of activity on our servers at this juncture would get us the kind of a “bad rap” we want to avoid.
What are your expectations from the site?
We expect to double our unique user base every quarter.
How much traffic is the site currently generating and how much are you expecting by the end of the year?
We have had about 250,000 unique users of the site this year. We expect to exceed the 2 million unique users mark by the end of the year.
What cool features should we expect in Cylive in May 2010?
By May 2010, we will have rolled out a semantic Web implementation (Web 3.0) of Cylive. This means that you will be able to do tasks that will enhance your productivity manifold.
Is this your first stint with entrepreneurship or have you been through it before?
Both Rajiv and I are serial entrepreneurs. So, we have been through this grind.
As an entrepreneur, do you think opening up is better than working on the job?
The adrenalin rush of working on a startup is way better than working on a 9-5 job. And, I will say that in a heartbeat!
Could you give us the timelines, about when you decided to startup, and then when did you finally get the idea. Then when did the team get created and finally how long did it take to roll out the beta
We conceived and nurtured the Cylive concept over 3 years ago. Actual work on the Cylive application architecture and design started close to two years ago. Finally, Cylive was incorporated in 2006 and the team has been working since then. So, it has taken us over a year to roll out the beta.
What were the major issues that you faced since you began creating cylive?
We designed Cylive keeping the user in mind. Our objective was to make it “grandma-friendly.” Creating an application that is sophisticated yet simple and intuitive to use has been our greatest challenge.
If there was one thing you could change about the way you started this time, what would it be, and why?
Hmm, good question! I would change nothing about the way we started – our concept, the timing, everything (touch wood) have been perfect. Having said that, if we were to redo what we have done, we would execute faster.
I would like to know one incident, where you felt like it was all going down. And how di
d you get back?
Fortunately, there really have been no such incidents and we have always been bullish about our future prospects.
Do you think entrepreneurs have a chance in India in the current scenario, which exists without much of a support for startups.
The lifeline, the fountainhead of any thriving economy is entrepreneurship. Domestic entrepreneurial activitiy (besides foreign investment) has undoubtedly sparked India’s recent economic development. But, for the growth to continue in the long haul it is imperative for Indian startups to not just tap the domestic market, but also view the global arena as their playing field. Unfortunately, I have seen way too many Indian startups that are simply replicating successful US models and not necessarily working on the next big idea to broaden the horizon of innovation.
Which are the best Indian internet companies that you have heard about or used.
I use Rediff and Timesofindia.com for news. I have visited several other Indian Internet sites and have generally observed that the user interfaces do not provide a compelling “customer experience.”
If (just suppose 
)Cylive fails completely, would you start another company again? Do you have any ideas you’re planning to implement?
Absolutely! However, that is a non-option. Despite the clutter in the competitive landscape, we believe Cylive packs enough punch to be successful. And, that is as good as money in the bank!
We have a ton of ideas, but at the end of day it all boils down to execution.
Finally, do you think starting up is worth the effort? Or is entrepreneurship overrated
I am the last guy on earth to say entrepreneurship is overrated. Our ride has been every bit fun and it is my firm belief that the future has a lot more excitement in store for us!
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Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so! really nice post.
Thanks Steve!