Founded in June 2015, Bitsware is a software development company based in Ahmedabad. It develops unique products and services that serve ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solutions to ease the work of micro and small scale business owners and managers. Their software aims to simplify the resource planning of an enterprise and promote transparency and efficiency in all aspects of small business.
In conversation with Gaurav Patel, Founder of Bitsware
1. How did the idea for a software company come about?
After brief work experience with IT companies like Infosys and SNL financial from 2009 to 2013, I started handling some part of my father’s chemical manufacturing business. There, I saw some troubling gaps in the regular workflow, which could be plugged in by means of introducing the right technology, but nothing was available which could fill in these gaps while it fits into the budget and very limited IT skill set of our staff members. As I continued my journey there, I could easily identify that all of the problems that I saw with my manufacturing firm, were very common problems in the whole industry – not just chemical manufacturing industry, but the micro and small scale industry as a whole.
With my heavy interest in IT and my background with developing and managing IT applications, I thought of building something to resolve these issues, which were possible only if I would have a Software Company of my own, so I started with Bitsware in June 2015.
2. How does Bitsware software services help to streamline the business process?
At Bitsware, we target the most susceptible areas of Micro and Small scale industries, to make their lives simpler. Before suggesting anything, we always prefer to get to know the client’s requirements and the issues they have at hand. Only after understanding their troubles, we suggest our solutions.
As Google Partners for GSuite, we provide them with one of the most secure emails, cloud storage, and office suite apps, which are extremely popular, reliable and secure, and can help them reach more targets with ease if used correctly.
On the same fundamentals, we have our own cloud-based ERP product called Business Bits that can streamline their business processes by providing them extremely easy data entry, data search and reporting interface. Besides this, Business Bits is unique in a manner that we provide totally free of cost customizations to our clients, as small scale companies don’t have deep pockets to allow them custom software and out of the box solutions mostly don’t fill in all the gaps they would like to fill. To add to this, our customers can handpick features and functionalities they would like to use so that they can introduce a system that can address their most urgent requirement gaps while controlling their budget and can be sure that any increase in their requirement would be fulfilled by the same system in the future.
3. Tell us about your professional journey till now.
After working with Infosys for almost a couple of years – from 2009 to 2010, I quit my job to work independently as a freelance developer based out of my hometown – Ahmedabad. Due to lack of opportunities in the local market and my inability of marketing in outside markets, I struggled for a year as a freelance developer, post which I joined SNL Financial’s IT department in 2011. I quit SNL to join my father’s chemical manufacturing business in 2013, where I came up with the idea of Business Bits and founded Bitsware in 2015. At initial stages, there were lots of issues with maintaining consistent internet connections on our premises and attracting talent to work with our team.
Struggling through these issues, today, we are a team of 9 persons and are planning for more hiring. We also have our own application servers and data centers today, where we confidently provide 99.9% uptime on our application as well as all of the hosted websites on those servers. We have also expanded our portfolio to add GSuite as Google Cloud Partner as one of our major offerings. Additionally, we have also added some smaller service offerings like domain and hosting provider, bulk SMS provider, website designing, and graphics designing. These small offerings are aimed towards building relationships and trust in the market and make things easier for our customers, as we provide them with managed services for all of these at the cost of unmanaged services.
4. The IT market has expanded substantially over the last 10-15 years. How have you been able to carve out a successful niche through Bitsware?
After stepping out in the market to sell our products for last 1 year, we have managed to build a relationship with more than 15 clients by our user-friendly and technically advanced offerings. Recently, we have also been planning to partner with other companies to capture more market share. We are also planning to soon come out with products for other software development companies as well.
5. What will your company look like in the coming 3-5 years?
Since we have stepped out in the market, we have been adding new features, functionalities, and product offerings to meet the demands of our clients and prospective clients. We have also started building APIs for the Business Bits platform to allow future software partners to explore them and build their own unique offerings on our platform.
As we have earned ourselves a status of a company who has been stabilizing fast in this market, we expect to capture a huge chunk of market share and start with new innovative product offerings for micro and small scale companies as well as for other software development companies.
6. What made you think that there was a need for something like Business Bits?
When we explored the market of IT solutions to fulfill our needs at our manufacturing unit, we found out that there are too many solutions available in the market but nothing that fits into our budget while fulfilling all of our requirements. So, I started to spend a lot of time behind finding out such a product and did some market research as well, to see that there is a gap in the market for requirements of micro and small scale industries. This encouraged me to build something for my own purpose, but then I thought of building something that can be utilized by almost any micro and small scale industry regardless of their work area and ended up launching Business Bits.
7. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
There has been many of them. Every single time, we are able to fulfill our clients’ requirements, it is one of the most satisfying moments for us. Our aim is to save our clients’ money and very often we suggest them with solutions from our end that would resolve their problems without spending anything extra. Even if someone is not a paying customer for us, we do take pride in our tradition of helping them out with genuine advice from our end, expecting that they would return to us someday as a paying customer. When our clients are satisfied, we are satisfied.
8. Tell us something your company does better than its competitors.
The single most important thing we believe we do better or differently is, we try to fulfill our clients’ requirements in at as minimum cost as possible. To support this motive, we provide totally free of cost customizations to all of our paying clients for Business Bits. It does not matter how big or small their subscription is, everyone gets their customizations free – even if it is some functionality that totally does not exist within Business Bits, we build it for them without charging anything extra.
9. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?
That’s the most difficult question to answer so far because I cannot imagine myself without Bitsware. But to answer your question, I would have been attempting to make my father’s chemical manufacturing unit more environment-friendly or I would have been trying for an expansion of that business.
10. A word of advice for emerging entrepreneurs.
Well, I still consider myself an emerging entrepreneur, but for entrepreneurs who are new in the market, for them, the single most thing I can convey is “Don’t Rush In”. Before starting off with anything, gain some experience in the field and do thorough research about your product and market for the same. If you rush into things or if you don’t have enough patience to wait for years to survive in the market for a new business, build a temperament for the same before you join the race of becoming an entrepreneur.
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