Kuriyam: Delivering Quality Software with Remarkable Pace
“If somebody offers you an amazing job and you are not sure you can do it, say yes – learn how to do it later” – Richard Branson
In recent years, software industry has grown at a rapid pace. The demand of software has grown by leaps and bounds in almost every domain. To cater to the immense demand of software, a whole lot of software developing companies have mushroomed in the market. But we tend to choose those which offers services at a nimble pace. Today we are going to talk about one such firm – Kuriyam.
Kuriyam is known for shipping software to their customers at a very nimble pace while maintaining a high quality. Along with this, they take extra efforts to understand the holistic goal of their customers so as to align the current development with their future plans. They are known for delivering quality products with remarkable pace. “We believe that good customer service is an important strategy for both customer retention and customer acquisition. So we strive to understand what the customer needs and not what the customer wants”, says Aswin Murugesh K – Founder of Kuriyam. There is a lot of difference between the two and knowing what the customer needs and solving that is what they are good at.
They strive to become a one stop shop for all software/product needs for a customer. In the long run, they are keen to reduce the complexity in the software development process and enable anyone to build their own applications, without even technical knowledge. “Our experience with our customers across the world has helped us envision a platform where anyone can build their own application without having to code”, says Aswin.
The idea behind starting this company has an interesting story. When Aswin initially joined college, he wanted to join a big MNC (Microsoft, Amazon etc). But then through the first two years he learnt about corporate life and the IT sector, and he realized that he could be more helpful to the society not by working a 9-5 job, but by generating more employment and uplifting the people around him. During that time, he did not have any idea of what his company was going to do, but just that he wanted to start a company.
Stint with diverse range of companies helped understand customer’s needs
Before Aswin started Kuriyam, he had worked in multiple Software companies for almost four years. In those years, he worked for different types of companies, ranging from large scale corporate company to a budding deep tech startup. Working in such a diverse range of companies helped him understand a customer’s need from different facets.
Right from the beginning of his college days as an Information Technology student at College of Engineering, Guindy, he was interested in Programming and Software development. He used to work with his seniors and friends, attending challenges and contests in and outside his college. He started out with developing websites for college events, and this put him in touch with a few people who wanted him to build websites for them. There started his life as a freelancer.
Thereon, he worked with multiple clients from different sectors, and learnt different tools to satisfy the needs of each customer. His full time job didn’t stop him from pursuing his personal projects on the weekends. He tried and learnt different technologies other than the ones he uses in his job. At the same time, he took more responsibility at work. This helped him understand about the various processes and frameworks in the industry and the right time to use each to build a strong product. “Once I was confident that I had enough experience/knowledge to thrive on my own, I resigned my job and started Kuriyam”, he says.
He decided to quit his job at Oracle just 5 months after he joined there. It was his first job and he accepted the offer through campus placements. He decided to quit because he knew that he had to work in a smaller company where he could be involved across the board. But many people questioned this decision and discouraged it. After a long thought, he decided to become an entrepreneur and did not want to settle for a corporate job. “The challenge I faced was to break out of my comfort zone of a settled corporate job and to come outside the “bubble” of safety”, he asserts.
He believes in not being a know-it-all, but the willingness to learn new things and providing 100% to get the best output from whatever you learn. By virtue of this temperament, in a short span of time, he has learnt a lot of fruitful skills essential to run a corporate. So far, he has been quite successful in delivering quality projects and has tasted success in a short period.
Cultivating a culture of mutual growth
Talking about the biggest factor that has helped him become successful, it is to show your customers that you are there to solve their problems, and you also know the right way to do it. “I would like my customers to have confidence that my company cannot just solve their software problems, but also can do it in such a way that it helps them in the long haul. That will make them recommend me to others with pleasure. So I feel it’s about taking the extra step and caring more about the customers’ product as if it’s your own”, he says.
As a leader of the organization, he involves himself to spend more time on deciding what path the company takes in the next year or so. He is also involved in the prioritization of tasks and leading the company to be more customer focused. Moreover, he also believes in encouraging creative thinking. “I try not to offer solutions myself and wait for the team to come up with the solutions. This approach has helped us cultivate a culture of mutual growth. I encourage the members to spend time to learn new technologies and come up with scenarios we can plug them in to improve our performance”, he says.
Besides his professional life, Aswin is a big time bibliophile in his personal life. In his leisure time, Aswin reads a lot of books, mostly on history and mythology. Apart from this, he follows cricket and football. He also loves to watch movies of different genres.
