I had been thinking real hard as to what should be my first article on our official blog, and talking about a brief history of our service ‘iBranch.in’ seemed like the best idea. That’s because nostalgia is always handy in all entrepreneurs’ minds and I am no exception :). Alright, now the story...

Back in early 2006, the iBranch service wasn’t even remotely similar to what it is today. It neither was a ‘service’ nor was it called ‘iBranch’. It was a software product called ‘Informer’. Right from the start we were pretty clear about what problems ‘Informer’ would be solving for its customers. It was meant for enabling day-to-day collaboration through Internet amongst members of an organization. With some brainstorming we decided that we’d initially target colleges since those are in plenty here in Bhopal (it being the higher education hub of central India).

With great enthusiasm our ship ‘Informer’ set-off for its maiden journey in to the market and with that enthusiasm only we managed to convince two colleges to buy this product. Although the software worked flawlessly, Informer was heading towards an iceberg! Our following two main assumptions about the market proved out to be seriously wrong:

1. Colleges have the necessary server infrastructure to keep the Informer facility running 24x7
2. Teachers, students and management of colleges are ready to use Internet for their day-to-day collaboration.

Colleges did (and they still do) have the necessary servers, leased lines etc., but having the infrastructure and setting it up to actually serve something are two very very different things (this white paper from WebEx explains it well). And the teachers, students & management of colleges, back in 2006, were ready only technically to use the kind of web-apps Informer had, but they were nowhere close to *adopting* web based collaboration for their day-to-day interaction, info sharing and knowledge sharing.

The only good thing we did at that time was to take a quick decision of pulling the plug on Informer. So, after giving us Rs.35,000 (only 1 client paid :)), a truckload of marketing experience, and some unsolved business critical questions, Informer was finally shelved for ever.

Story of iBranch – Part 2of3 ("Its got to be a service, stupid")