Akash Srivastava
http://www.redwingsolutions.com/rws/ceo-speak/
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Work status: | Employed Full-Time |
| Website: | http://www.redwingsolutions.com |
| Industries: | Cleantech, Computing, Education, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Health, Information Technology, Internet, Lifestyle, Media, Mobile, Real Estate, Retail, Sports, Travel |
| Skills: | Architecture, Business, Copy Writing, Design, Editing, Entrepreneurship, Graphic design, Guerrilla marketing, Human-Computer Interaction, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Product design, Public Relations, Public speaking, Viral marketing, Web design, Writing |
| Location: | Delhi/Bangalore |
| Groups: | HeadStart Ventures |
| Interested in: | Advising startups, Brainstorming, Consulting opportunities, Finding business partners, Finding experts, Getting press, Growing my group, Joining a startup, Learning about entrepreneurship, Meeting new people, Mentoring, Offering Expertise, Partnering with other groups, Patenting my idea, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Providing services to startups, Raising money, Recruiting for my startup, Starting a company, Supporting my investments |
| Tags: | mobile site development, product positioning., progressive search engine promotions, social media application development, social media campaigns, social media optimization, user experience designs, website design & development |
FEATURED STARTUP
Redwing Solutions
Redwing Solutions
Redwing Solutions is an integrated web/mobile application development company with its services spectrum ranging from STRATEGIC DESIGNING & DEVELOPMENT; DIGITAL BRANDING & PROMOTIONS; and PRODUCT STRATEGY & POSITIONING.
- Startup type: Company
- Status: Active
- Stage: Beta
FULL BIO
AKASH SRIVASTAVA
Product Strategist, Start-Up Evangelist & Usability Expert
9+ years of experience in establishing, building and managing various Mobile and Web based Products.
KEY STRENGTHS ~
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Specialist in growing early-stage companies from concept into successful, scalable, consumer-facing Internet businesses.
Expertise in building Internet products like Social Networking, Micro-Financing, Do-it-yourself-PR, E-Commerce, E-Retail Search Engine, Jobs, Real-Estate, Matrimonial and Mobile Applications.
Established and lead the company’s Product Strategist / Management / Usability / Design teams; Conceiving, Directing and Owning the product’s roadmap to address aggressive financial targets.
Adept at creating and implementing innovative techniques, ideas using latest tools with Rich experience in a globally leading organization.
Unique combination of business understanding, technical acumen, creative talent and strategic insight. Adaptable, innovative and insightful.
INTRODUCTION ~
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“Professional Entrepreneur” is how Akash defines himself; coupled with good operational excellence and management skills. He brings up a perfect combination of innovation and effective execution; with more than nine years of quality experience in building interactive products. In his small stint of 9+ successful years, Akash’s exciting roller-coaster ride began while working on building-up products like Indiatimes.com, Timesjobs.com, Simplymarry.com, Magicbricks.com, Ads2book.com, Studyplaces.com, Khojguru.com, Trackut.com, CommonFloor.com, RangDe.org, Goolel.in, Ubona.com and Buzzgain.com leading them to success ladder. Apart from this he also encompasses Multi Domain expertise in handling and managing Mobile Applications like Frenzo (WAP Chat application, www. Frenzo.in) and PhotoMate (Photo Blogging and Sharing Application).
Akash has a proven track record and successful case-studies of taking a product from its Inception to its Release by re-defining the product standards with high usage and user acceptance. He can very well articulate the business goals and user requirements into higher Return on Investments. The strengths are:
Convert customer business problems and use cases into detailed product requirements in order for R&D to be able to accurately build high-impact products and features.
Provide end-to-end oversight of all functional definition, design, development and management of the company’s product suite of services.
Conceptualizing and ensuring continuity within the greater Product Roadmap in order to increase company’s revenue many folds.
Leading various product development relationships with third parties.
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Self Employed |
| Position: | Product Strategist / Startup Evangelist / Usability Expert |
| Time period: | April 2008 - Present |
| Description: | Being a Professional Consultant, I have worked on various Web and Mobile initiatives helping in defining Product Positioning. I have worked on various factors of Design, Digital Marketing, User Research, Psychology Studies and Product Strategies helping the customers creating a product with higher User Acceptance, Product Features, Strategies, Product Positioning, Product Marketing hence better ROI. During this I have worked with both Indian and International (US & UK) clients.
Product Strategist: Being a Product Strategist, I have helped my clients investing time in building right and most required features, performing a market research, competitive analysis and strategies. We have not only worked on building the product features but also created better positions. Product Management: Understanding business and product’s requirements; Initiating research and analysis process, Single handedly coordinated all the client’s requirements with designers, technology guys to ensure the on-time deliverables and quality benchmarked. Usability: User Experience a key of any product’s success has been well researched and utilized. It has helped in building better experience which resulted in increased revenues at the end. |
| Employer: | Studyplaces Inc. |
| Position: | Head - Product and Usability Design |
| Time period: | October 2007 - April 2008 |
| Description: | StudyPlaces.com is one of the first global education portals in India that provides a comprehensive onestop- shop for education search. Born out of a need to bridge the gap between education sources and the student seeking information, StudyPlaces.com follows a vision of being the complete solution for all education search related queries for studies in India and abroad.
- User Experience – Good design means satisfying users, their requirements, providing good experience and product features. Responsible for complete User Experience, Information Architecture, Intuitive Navigation, Navigation Structure, Visual Approach and Interaction. - Product Strategist: This starts from the conceptualization to final delivery of product which includes market research, Competitive Analysis, Pricing Strategy and New Initiatives. Co-ordination with Business Team, Marketing Team, Design Team, and Tech team. - Research & Development: Constant research on existing product issues, new features, product promotion strategies, positioning and user behavior. Developing and testing solutions based on research. ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Successfully worked, planned, coordinated and implemented all the required product features and functionalities with a focus on globalization of product with localization within 6 months. Student’s inquiry figures increased to 130%. |
| Employer: | ACL Wireless Ltd |
| Position: | Senior Lead - Information Architect & Product Strategist |
| Time period: | April 2006 - October 2007 |
| Description: | ACL Wireless Limited is a leading India-based provider of mobile value added services to operators, enterprises and consumers. It is a key player in the mobile community & messaging space in several large emerging markets around the globe and a leading provider of managed mobility services in India. ACL’s community & messaging services are deployed across 17 countries on leading telecom networks like Airtel (India), MTC-Vodafone (Middle East), Claro (Brazil) and AIS (Thailand), amongst others, and generate over 100 million mobile hits every month, a figure growing at 120% per annum.
- Design & Process: Heading – WAP team; Handling the team of experienced User Experience Designers and Developers. Handling the major product of ACL Wireless Ltd. called "Frenzo". Frenzo is a WAP based mobile chat application which can be accessed from any WAP supported mobile handset. - Role & Responsibility: Responsible for complete product features, interaction and experience of the product. This starts from the conceptualization to final delivery of product and includes co-ordination with Business team, Design team, Tech team and Testing team. - Conceptualization & Implementation: Frenzo is deployed across different countries; we had worked on globalization of product with localization of user experience. As discussed with Mr. Jeremy Ashley (VP-Application User Experience - Oracle) in a conference (CHI-SI) in Bangalore, we concluded that with globalization of a product responsibility of user experience designers increases for localization of user experience. I worked towards the better user experience of the product and tried to achieve it with detailed user and usability study. Usability testing, user research is the key of my success. - Research & Development: I had studied cognitive psychology study to empower my skills to reach the heights of perfection in the field of user experience. ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Successfully worked and implemented all concepts on globalization of product with localization of user experience. - Successfully launched the new brand “Frenzo” in Indian market with successful deployments on Airtel, Hutch, Idea and BPL Mobile. Also the mobile version of Yahoo! Messenger on Reliance network. |
| Employer: | Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd |
| Position: | User Experience, Usability Expert & Product Manager |
| Time period: | October 2003 - May 2006 |
| Description: | - Designing & Development: Meticulously managed total user experience and usability of Jobs, Matrimonial, Real Estate and Classifieds portals (www.timesjobs.com, www.simplymarry.com, www.magicbricks.com, and www.ads2book.com ).
- UI Management: Proactively managed UI Designs, Flows, Navigations, Usability studies and user experience quality for the portals. - Software Development / Design: Responsible for various phases of software life cycle, including interactive requirement analysis, testing and implementation. • Quality Assurance: Performing system Testing, Integration Testing and Acceptance Testing. Responsible for Monitoring and assessing the quality of project deliverables • Defect Tracking & Resolution: Analyze and identify the application bugs and interact with other developers to resolve technical issues. • Project Management: Independently handled the entire project of Indian Navy. Being Project manager and Interaction designer for Navy project, I had handled the entire SDLC of the project. • Team Leader: Efficiently leading a team of 4-5 Interaction Designers, Web Designers and a content writer for portal management. ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Designed and developed the entire User experience and navigation of www.timesjobs.com with good usability study. Timesjobs.com was highly appreciated by users and employers because of its simple looks and good user experience. Successfully handled the entire creation of Timesjobs.com. - Online booking engine www.ads2book.com was thought and created by a team lead by me. It was a new angle to online classifieds site. Increased hits showed that we were successful creating complex site simpler. - Single-handedly designed the User Interface of www.simplymarry.com. - Handled the entire user study process in effort to deliver the most successful real estate site in India. www.magicbricks.com. - Independently handled the entire project of www.inpa.co.in. Being Project manager and Interaction designer for Navy project, I had hanlded the entire SDLC of the project and successful delivery of the project on strict deadline. |
| Employer: | Times Internet Ltd, New Delhi |
| Position: | User Interface Designer |
| Time period: | April 2002 - October 2003 |
| Description: | - Strategic Planning: Involved in conceptualizing, analyzing, planning, implementing and monitoring of Strategic promotions plans, design and online promotions of the site including mailers, banner, pop-ups etc.
- Promotions: Deftly managed online promotions across Indiatimes.com channels while understanding overall market. - Sales Support: Provided sales support by understanding future trends & demand through industry studies. Tracked consumer preferences, sales targets and monitored competitor’s activities through feedback / market visits. ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Designed an impressive new look and feel of http://store.indiatimes.com - Optimized the site for search engine. - Proactively managed the video section and designed a new look & feel for it. |
| Employer: | Zee News, Noid |
| Position: | Web Designer and Developer |
| Time period: | April 2000 - March 2001 |
| Description: | - Responsible for designing look and feel and features development, web pages for Zee News using Photoshop, HTML, JavaScript and ASP.
- Efficiently managed a major project of for New Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections and Union Budget. |
INFORMATION
| Memberships: | BarCamp
MoMo Delhi HeadStart Network |
Akash's Startups (4)
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akashsrivastava.com
User Experience Design, Usability Analysis, User Research, Information Architect, Web2.0 Page Layouts.
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Redwing Solutions
Redwing Solutions is an integrated web/mobile application development company with its services spectrum ranging from STRATEGIC DESIGNING & DEVELOPMENT; DIGITAL BRANDING & PROMOTIONS; and PRODUCT STRATEGY & POSITIONING.
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Your Search Engine & Social Network serving North America & the Caribbean (jahboo.com): Search + Micro Blogging + Video Chat + IM Chat + E-Mail + News. Enjoy a efficient Internet experience.
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This is Freelance service that offers everything that other freelance services have and lot more than that. If you want to FIND WORKERS or to FIND JOB, Vois.com is right place for you!
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Akash's Contacts (11)
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Loc Ngo
Crafting amazing experiences for the web & mobile. Cofounder of JobAlchemist / Startuply.com
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David Langer
Internet entrepreneur. Co-Founder & CEO, GroupSpaces Ltd. Blogger, davidlanger.co.uk
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Albert Raggio
Albert Raggio Chief Visionary
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Giovanna V
Running a Profitable, Self Financed Startup that I Want to Grow Exponentially