My Story

Intro

Experts predict that it will become a requirement soon for every business to adopt web-based applications if it wants to compete in a global world. Gartner predicts that the worldwide SaaS (‘Software As A Service’) market will grow anually by 25% and reach a market value ofUS$20 billion by 2011. Sahil believes that this is the time and niche for small businesses to participate and benefit and his own project DeskAway is taking more and more shares in the market.

About Me

I am a web entrepreneur living in Mumbai, India and the founder & CEO of Synage, a pure-play SaaS venture delivering collaboration tools to the global audience. It's flagship service, DeskAway, an enterprise 2.0 social collaboration tool for global enterprises and teams.

While most people were concentrating on the BPO and outsourcing business, my dream was to pioneer ‘Software As A Service’ (SaaS) in India and build a product that would provide value to thousands of businesses around the world, and most importantly, one that is conceptualized, developed and marketed from India.

I was instrumental in taking DeskAway to be one of the finalist products for Proto.in (Jan 2008) startup event and to be one of the top 30 hottest 2008 startups in India (Tata NEN).

I am enthusiastic about new emerging technologies like Software As A Service (SaaS), Web2.0 and Web Marketing, I am currently working on a business technology book (Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, SaaS) with an international publishing house (2010 Release).

I hold a Bachelors Degree in Mathematical Sciences - Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. I am also a Founding Alumni Member of the Carolina Entrepreneurship Club, a member of the TiE India and the past Vice President (2008-09) of the American Alumni Association.

I have been involved with the web since the last 9 years. I am passionate about the fusion of design & technology and that of building scalable and profitable web businesses. When not in front of the computer, I spend my time reading, playing golf, tennis and traveling to distant places.

My Venture

Synage is a web startup comprising of people who are passionate about making the workplace better by the use of simple, powerful, safe and affordable software. We build software to automate work, enhance accountability, provide clarity, organize information and provide a friction-less form of working.

When I moved back to India from the U.S. in 2005, there were just too many service companies floating around. Plus, I never liked and completely disagreed with what people abroad thought of India: a low-cost service country, perfect for off-shoring and incapable of building a quality product unless directed from abroad. This fuelled my desire to grow a product-based software business that had the potential to affect tens of thousands of small businesses and teams globally.

In addition, it was dissatisfying to see other products that didn’t work - they lacked a drive to serve the customer; they got away with meager simplistic features stating that that was their policy; and they basically left the customer high and dry. With globalization, virtual teams were becoming more and more popular. I saw the chance to fulfill the need for a simple, powerful and affordable collaborative online service all backed by personalized customer service.

DeskAway was initially funded from revenues from our Web design and development business. Later, it was funded with a portion of my savings. DeskAway simplifies teamwork. DeskAway is a web-based project collaboration service that provides teams a central location to easily organize, manage and track their projects and work.

We work with small businesses, groups within larger organizations and startups from all over the world. Synage was started in 2005 as a design and development agency and transformed itself into a pure-play web company in 2007. Our plan is to make DeskAway into the top 5 collaboration softwares in the world for small businesses