Name Qonta

What is meaning of Qonta? This is the most frequent question we have gone through in last one year. The first reaction is always a smile on our face.

For us it’s a dream, so meaning of Qonta for us is ‘dream comes true’. But people are neither interested in our smile nor in what it’s meaning for us, they want straight, dictionary meaning of it. Albeit English dictionary cannot help (as it is not an English word); it is Sanskrit (one of the oldest language of the world). These days Qonta (pronounce as Kon-ta) is most frequently used in Magdhi (a lingo of ancient Magadh region, and today’s Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh region). Usage meaning of konta is ‘the corner’ (I am not sure about dictionary meaning).

The day Manjit expressed his idea of a city based web- portal which may turn up as an IT company, I agreed and asked Kunal and Naveen (our colleagues in Kanbay) to join us. Me, Manjit, Naveen and Kunal used to spend our whole office hours together, so our team members have nick named us – GOF (Gang of four), we really were GOF. So Naveen and Kunal were always the first choice as partner. Unfortunately that could not happen, but they always supported us whole heartedly.

In kanbay we were always eager to discuss and plan our idea (Idea of Qonta). But the idea and plan was secret to rest of team. To keep our secret a secret, we were looking for a nickname. As we always prefer any corner place to discuss, we started to call it Qonta – ‘let’s go to Qonta’. And that’s how name Qonta came into existence. We cherished the nickname so much (as it helped us in initial planning), we decided to name our dream company QONTA.

I GOT AN IDEA

When I was in 8^th standard; one fine day our teacher asked the class - What is the most important thing to start a business? Class came up with variety of answers – most of us voted for ‘capital’, few were with ‘infrastructure’ like transport and power supply, a few said that ‘desire’ while some of us were with ‘demand’. I (and only me) said – IDEA. Few classmates laughed at my idea of Idea as a most essential thing for business (I think the laugh was fair for 8^th standard level). But teacher was looking for this answer. And after word IDEA came on black board, the teacher resumed the session.

For long time I used to believe that Idea is first thing to start a venture, only when I reached BIT (my Alma meter) to pursue my B.E. I realised Idea is second thing one need to start a venture/business. The first thing is BELIEF. Belief on self and on idea is key of the lock (we called luck, which is third most essential thing for venture). [Wow here we are automatically getting an order of things required for venture, BELIEF then IDEA then LUCK. But the order and required stuff is out of scope for this blog, I will definitely write about that some other time.]

I was talking about belief – belief on self and belief on idea. I always have self belief that I will be able to start a business (without putting single penny in it) and will successfully establish it. Now I was looking for idea. In college days (which I prefer to call cool-age) I got an idea of starting tea chain (similar to CCD or barista, at that time we had only coffee chain and no tea chain). We did paper work, made plan and budget but many links were missing including fund and fundamentals of business.

Days were passing out, during the Post College and pre Job time; we got an Idea of Makadi.com (an educational networking site), MAKADI was brainchild of Anuj (he is co founder of Qonta, and my cool-age pal). We made some plan on paper and gathered people in Pune, Delhi and Bangalore but we all were busy in establishing our own career so establishment of Makadi got second priority and there I learnt a second priority thing can never succeed. But this time we took two steps ahead of tea chain idea.

I joined kanbay on 18^th March 2005, and after 55 days of training (termed as fresher learning program FLP), I got chance to serve bench for over 3 months. Here with two of my FLP mates Pradeep and Jitendra we started CAPITAL 99 (a stock trading company). In FLP most of us were fresher and to live an eventful life a few thousand bucks were enough (as we all were unknown to luxury) and kanbay were paying us decent, as a result we got many client in FLP only; everyone had money and no idea on how to buy and which stock to buy. CaPiTaL 99 was a sort of mutual fund – share your money to us we would trade and return it with profit without any commission (open book accounting made CaPiTaL 99 an absolute transparent company. While looking for good stocks and good time we had enough time and money in between to trade in derivatives. For inflow in derivatives we had client’s money and profit/loss was absolutely of CaPiTaL 99. That’s how CaPiTaL 99 used to make profit. CaPiTaL 99 took few steps ahead of makadi.com and everything was on track but then Pradeep joined IIM in mid 2006 and Jitendra switched to a Noida based IT company. And I started looking for idea again.

For a while I was a typical IT professional. One fine day Manjit shared his wish to make a city based web- portal which may turn up as an IT company. I immediately expressed my willingness to join his idea.

In kanbay along with our regular work we (I, manjit with two other friend Naveen and kunal) started giving thought on portal, later Naveen and Kunal switched to another company but I and Manjit were committed for it. We prepared a business plan and started sending it to venture capitalist / angel-funder across globe. Anuj, (like me he too always excited toward new ideas) joined Manjit’s idea and ultimately idea of portal turned into Qonta. Now all our ideas end up to Qonta and its peripheral. Finally I got an idea which became destination of all other ideas.

~Vivek Sinha, Co-founder, Qonta

My First Day @ QONTA

After three good years in kanbay/capgemini (A wonderful MNC to work with, I must say); On 18^th March 08, I resigned in pursuit of entrepreneur excellence. Thanks to God, my parents, Binay bhaiya , Deep and Manjit Singh (Manjit is co-founder of Qonta and my kanbay colleague; in some other blog I would definitely write about how we become friend and then business partners). It’s the power of their support and trust in me that I could take the decision to quit a job which was paying me 700K a year and start my own venture. Some time I feel live is a casino and we all have to bet on it. Well I select 18^th March because it is the same date I joined Kanbay in 2005.

Three years tenure in a pose corporate office having all the modern amenities’ and facilities has definitely brought bad habits of materialist luxury in me. Now to perform well I need clean desk, managed office, hygiene bathroom and a class cafeteria. At least I used to think so.

27 April 08 was my first day in Qonta (my own company and a dream destination), though we inaugurated our office on 3^rd May 08, April last week was time when we were busy setting up things like real estate, hardware, LAN, Legal formalities and other infrastructure. Well I reached office at 9 a.m., Office was a mess, but it looked beautiful to me, I cleaned the floor, pour a bucket of water in the few small plant, planted by our landlord (he ask me to take care of the plants). I light few scented candles for good environment and then open up my laptop to start the work. My laptop was taking its time to starting up the vista and other programs and I was in waiting mode. Then suddenly I felt ecstasy, an indescribable feeling (at least words can’t describe it, it was wonderful), I felt a chilled air in my muscles, appreciation clap by all 206 bones of my body, a sense of accomplishment and on top of it an expectation of challenge to do and learn something unknown but definitely interesting.

I immediately called Manjit and Deep to share this feelings, I can’t live without sharing that is for sure. Later I called my childhood friend Dhananjay Singh (aka Sarkar), a versatile artist by nature and an engineer by profession, when I told him about the incident he suggested me to pen down it, as feelings can’t feel again by remembering the things.

One fine day Manjit come up with the idea of a blog where we will blog all the technical challenges faced while developing the software along with their most effective solution (from our perspective), but later we realize why not blog everything related to Qonta (from technology and management fundas to human emotions and love for contribution toward common goal. So I decided to start with my first day in Qonta as it was not only special it was different too.