The Startup Zone

28/02/2023

Startup of the month for Feb 2023- Headless Hippies. A Short interview with Vibin Nair, Director of Headless Hippies.

What do Headless Hippies do?
Headless Hippies help brands make friends with people. We help create resonating visual stories so that brands can be closer to people every day. We are a brand identity design firm based out of Bangalore. Since, 10 years we have worked together with clients to build brands like Sleepyhead Home Decor, Paper Boat drinks, Koala Preschool, Nourishing Schools, Solis Health, The Grange Hotel, and many more.

Why is branding/design identity important for a startup?
Branding and design identity are crucial for a startup for several reasons. A strong brand identity can help startups differentiate themselves from their competitors, build trust with customers and investors, establish consistency, and attract top talent.

What are the challenges you have faced and how have you overcome those?
India is a very budget sensitive country and not many understand or value the power of storytelling. Branding is not logo design. This is what is understood by many who wish to build a brand. Branding is about building connections with people and then telling a story that they resonate with. As the statistics say, more than 80% of the companies fail to build a brand.

Here’s a link to an article by us which explains why-
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7028267822380175360

What are your plans for the future?
Our plan for the future will be determined by how the technology is changing and how customers are adapting to it. We are the bridge between customers and the brands. Which means we need to stay ahead of the curve. We truly believe with the technology intervention, what will still be at the core will be resonating story telling.

Our plan so far is to build a strong team of specialised individuals who can lead a design domain by themselves. We have created a unique remuneration system which does not exist in any creative studio in India. We call it the BOUNTY MODEL (A sharing model). At Headless Hippies, we offer unlimited growth prospects to our team mates, in a very unique and transparent Career Advancement Model. This model is the result of our faith and philosophy of creating equal opportunities to our team.

How has The Startup Zone helped with your startup journey?
The Startup Zone has played a crucial role in our growth over 10 years. We have worked previously with other service providers and have lost tremendous amount of money due to negligence and lack of guidance. Once we partnered with The Startup Zone, we have never missed a compliance date and not paid a single fine, which has directly improved our profits. With the help of The Startup Zone we were able to focus more on our growth, and compliance has been taken care of by The Startup Zone. Their brand promise “Grow without Worry” stays true to what we have experienced.

You can check their work at https://headlesshippies.com

14/02/2023

What is ESOP?
ESOP is “Employee Stock Ownership/Option Plan”. This offers employees an ownership in the company. Employees have the option to earn equity of the company over a set period. Employers offers the shares of the company at low value or fair value that they can sell after a specific period.

How does ESOP work?
Under the scheme, the company offers certain number of shares at a fixed price which is referred to as “Exercise price” or “Grant price”. Employees who have been offered ESOPs can subscribe to these shares by paying the exercise price only after the completion of the vesting period.

What is a vesting period and vesting date?
ESOP vesting period is that period that exists between the times when the employees are issued ESOPs till the time such employees gain access to the rights that attach to the options or shares.Typically, the vesting period can be as short as 1 year to 4 years and even beyond that.
Once the vesting period expires, employees get the right to exercise their ESOPs. The date on which the vesting period expires is called the vesting date.

How are ESOPs taxed?
ESOPs are taxed at 2 instances:
At the time of exercising the ESOPs i.e purchasing the shares
At the time of selling those shares which are allotted after exercising the ESOPs

Benefits of ESOPs for Employers:
Employee retention
Tool for attracting talent
Higher employee engagement & ownership
Hire employees below market rate
Benefits of ESOPs for Employees:
Wealth generation
Motivational tool
Feel part of the organisation

03/02/2023

A short interview with Mr.Vivek Singh, Director of Anveya.

What does your Startup do?
- Anveya is building powerful brands that positively impact the consumer, the industry and the planet. We're transparent, direct-to-consumer, product-first and online-first in our approach, and focus on the high-potential space of beauty & personal care.

How has been the entrepreneurial journey for you?
- The entrepreneurial journey for our team has been very fulfilling. Starting from scratch, we have created some of the most loved brands and products in the beauty space. We have been able to scale our journey to 60 people team, 3 brands, 60 products, a presence on major marketplaces in India and UAE, three e-commerce stores, an R&D lab that takes care of our product developments and strong operations infrastructure. In this process, we have built a fantastic team of in-house employees and partners.

What are the challenges you have faced and how have you overcome those challenges?
- All startups by their very definition are rising up against all sorts of challenges. Running a startup, you're trying to accomplish the best in your industry while having the least amount of resources in the ecosystem. In the starting years, you have to set up your business, build a team from scratch, put your product together, win your consumers, win against the status quo in the market, arrange funds, grow the scale and the health of your business and ensure continuity and healthy growth for the future. If you're bootstrapped, you're doing all this with the least level of resources. Even if you're not bootstrapped, you have to do justice to the ambitions that always outsize your resources.Our earliest challenges were solved by having good partners in place - whether it be on accounting & compliance parts, or research & development parts, or warehousing & logistics parts. And that's the good part in the ecosystem today - a lot of what is needed to run a startup is available as expertise from other teams and agencies. Over time as you grow big, you can evaluate what makes sense to hire or build in-house and what can scale better with the help of external expertise.

What are your plans for the future?
- We have had a great journey so far and look forward to it accelerating in the coming years too. Future plans are to
1. Further expand our portfolio through clutter-breaking product launches in current and new categories.
2. Grow our current online sales channels and add offline sales channels and more geographies to it.
3. Grow the team further

How has The Startup Zone helped with your startup journey?
- When our company was just two people strong (my co-founder and I) and it was only an idea on paper, the Startup Zone folks were the only friends and partners we had. It was my first entrepreneurial experience, and I did need help setting up a company from scratch. From getting the company registered, to opening our first current account, to filing our first GST, to filing our first FS and everything in between - we knew that we didn't have to worry about missing something. The Startup Zone team also ran the processes when we raised our first angel investment round and raise our first VC investment round. And over and above all the work done together - I had the valuable comfort that I had Sharath, Sunil, Naveen and their team were there to solve any new problem that needed to be figured out.

You can buy Anveya's awesome products on https://www.anveya.com

12/12/2022

Accountant job posting-

Job Description for Accountant in Blue Dot Ventures in Bengaluru/Bangalore for 2 to 4 years of experience. Apply Now!

27/07/2022

Our star employee, Pavithra has completed 5 years at The Startup Zone today. For a startup, half a decade is quite some time. We wish her the very best for her future and hope that she is associated with us for the years to come. Congratulations to her and thank you for trusting us.

19/07/2022

GST registration for your business. Call +91-8939 121 121 or mail at [email protected]

14/07/2022

We genuinely care for you! For a free consultation on Company Compliance, Tax, Investment related advisory, Accounting, IP, etc call +91-8939 121 121 or write to us at [email protected]

05/07/2022

Webinar on "How to start a business" at Ramaiah Insitute of Technology (RIT) on 9th July 2022. It is an honor and privilege to conduct the webinar in our CEO's Alma Matter.

30/06/2022

Protect your brand/logo! For a free consultation call +91-8939 121 121 or mail at [email protected]

24/06/2022

What is form DPT-3?

- DPT-3 is a return of deposits or of transaction not considered a deposit or both which is to be necessarily filed by every company, other than a Government Company. The purpose of this form is to provide information to the Registrar of Companies (‘ROC’) about the loan or money received by the Company.

Who has to File The DPT-3 Form?

- Except for the Government companies, all other companies which include all Private limited companies, OPC, Limited companies, and Section 8 Companies have to mandatorily file this form

What is the due date to file the DPT-3 Form for the last financial year?

- 30th June 2022

For a consultation call +91-8939 121 121 or mail at [email protected]

The Startup Zone Bangalore - Complete Legal, Accounting, Secretarial and Compliance Services for Startups and Established Businesses at Affordable Cost

16/06/2022

What are the immediate steps after the incorporation of the company?

- Open a Current bank account and deposit the subscription amount/paid-up capital as per the share percentage
- Get a Company Name board with Address, CIN, Contact details, and GSTIN if applicable
- Director’s seal, Company seal, and Address seal to be procured
- Print Company Letterhead with the company identification number (CIN), registered office address, and Contact details
- Conduct the first board meeting within 30 days and appoint a Chartered Accountant
- Issue Share certificates to the shareholders by paying stamp duty within 60 days of incorporation
- File Business commencement certificate within 180 days of Incorporation
- Conduct board meeting every quarter
- Maintain book of accounts properly
- Obtain statutory registrations like GST, PT, Shops license, IEC, etc and file the returns regularly

For a free consultation on post incorporation compliance call +91-8939 121 121 or mail at [email protected]

The Startup Zone Bangalore - Complete Legal, Accounting, Secretarial and Compliance Services for Startups and Established Businesses at Affordable Cost

15/06/2022

Interview of our CEO, Sharath Shyamasunder at the India First Tech Startup Conclave 2022.

The founder of " The startup zone India", Mr Sharat shares about his startup and also the experiences at IFTSC 2022 #...