1. Introduction about yourself and the company
My name is Govindaraj and I am the founder, CEO and principal consultant of Smitiv Mobiles Technologies Pte Ltd (SMITIV). I graduated from PSG College of Technology, which is ranked as one of the best institutions in India. From a young age, I had a strong fascination for technology and how it evolved our daily life. That fascination turned into passion, which saw me devote most of my waking hours into mastering coding. I also understood at an early age that technology alone would not be enough to build a dream. It also needs a strong business sense. So I started to study how successful people built their businesses and turning them into empires. By the time I was 20, I was running my own tech company with 27 employees.
Currently, I am running SMITIV, a company headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Malaysia and India. SMITIV is a technology services startup with 58 employees and is considered as one of the fastest growing technology solution providers for SMEs in South East Asia over the last 3 years. We operate in the core verticals of Remote Team Hiring and Building Bespoke Solutions. Some of our NOTABLE customers include:
•SISTIC (Singapore)
• University of Melbourne (Australia)
• Aircel (India)
• MobMe Asia (Malaysia), to name a few.
We have also developed and currently maintaining for seed stage and venture-backed startups like:
• Plano- more than 1 million official downloads (venture-backed by billionaire philanthropist Peter Lim)
• Have Halal Will travel- more than 1.5 million unique user base and 1 million MAUs
• Locomole – a national award-winning mobile app
2. What made you come up with the startup idea?
CEOs and founders of startup businesses face many challenges. Especially in the technology field. Building products or platforms in countries like Singapore, Australia or even the USA could end up burning money faster than you can ever imagine. And the biggest contributor to this would be human resource cost. As I was formulating the right business model to pair up with my tech foundations, I realized that the price-factor was key. And by building development houses in growing economies like India and Vietnam, I could offer good and quality solutions with a competitive-price edge. That laid the foundations for building SMITIV.
3. Where do you stand yourself in the coming years and play a role in the startup ecosystem?
I have set an objective for SMITIV to be listed in the NYSE over the next 3 years. So I will be putting most of my focus on building my middle layer in the company and also on opening new SMITIV office around the globe. We have already identified growing startup ecosystems around the world and through our international expansion, aim to be amidst the growth of the technology solution providing and technology expertise building in those countries.
4. What problem are you trying to solve?
I believe technology is the key to unlocking future human potential and ability. Because it has helped me become who I am today. Hence I want to ensure that our future generations has the ability to learn, understand and appreciate technology by building tech schools in growing economies. Places where people don’t have the means to afford proper tech education or even own equipment like laptops or smartphones. Our future depends on technology and that will be, in my opinion, a big issue that needs consistent oversight.
5. What advice do you wish to give aspiring entrepreneurs?
First is to always be happy with yourself. Inward reflection and appreciation is very important when it comes to reacting with the craziness that is represented in the “outside” world. Ensure to find happiness in whatever you do and success will find you. Second advice would be to have strong focus. Focus in ensuring you are unwavering in completing what you set out to do for the day. I always write down what I have to do for the day and focus myself into ticking them off one by one. Yes there will be days whereby you can’t complete. But the focus of writing it down and doing it one by one will allow you to achieve optimal output and you see that you will achieve your goals. Last advice is to not be the smartest guy in the room. If you are in a room and you are the smartest guy in it, you ARE in the wrong room. Always surround yourself with people of good caliber and never be threatened by it. Embrace it and see the wonder to conjure.
Name : Govindaraj K
Email : govind@smitiv.co
Contact no : +6593896099
Website : https://smitiv.co
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/govind-raj-7a8583111/
