When Sangeeta Banerjee and Venkat Kandasamy moved to India in
2007 after a long stint in the US, they came across a pain-point that would
prove to be the making of their startup: Management of the apartment complex in
Bengaluru in which they were living. The committee responsible for the
management faced many difficulties- be it coaxing its tenants to pay up the
monthly maintenance charges, sending newsletters, maintain accounts and
deciding on cost-effective solutions for any problem that might crop up. The
husband and wife realized that this was only the tip of the iceberg for those
in charge, who were invariable volunteers. They put their heads together for a
solution, and the result was a private portal aimed at getting around these
difficulties. When Sangeeta and Venkat introduced their brainchild to the
managing committee of their apartment complex, the response was one of
resounding acceptance. They did not bat an eyelid before agreeing to but the
product, recollects Sangeeta.
“We were elated that we had our first paying customer even
before we had registered our company.” They founded their company,
ApartmentAdda, in early 2009.
Sangeeta and Venkat graduated from the college of Engineering
Guindy in Chennai and were associates at the Louisiana State University, US.
They then worked for ERP consultancy and web solution based organizations in
India and the US, both of which helped them in developing the portal. In 2010,
the couple moved to Mumbai, the city that literally pioneered the apartment
culture in India decades ago. Mumbai was both an opportunity and a challenge.
The city’s laws and regulations were unique, so the product had to be tweaked.
The move to Mumbai also opened them up to more complex and larger bodies
managing apartment complexes, and importantly, a heterogeneous market.
ApartmentAdda has since developed a number of other features. It
allows neighbors to interact with each other, generate expected visitor lists,
restrict entry to flats and deliver messages. “From a software tool, we have
become a private social media network, a la LinkedIn,” Sangeeta says. In 2011,
Sangeeta, who is the CEO of the venture, won the Women Entrepreneur Quest (WEQ)
award, part of the annual Grace Hopper celebration of women in computing. She
says her product proved to be a life-saver for many in Chennai, when the city
was inundated by the recent rains. “When our users sent updates on the system
regarding their recruitments, people from other places could calibrate their
relief activities. That gave us an immense sense of satisfaction,” she says.
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