Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I didn’t find studying engineering boring at all.

Varun Singh: The guys at PC Quest were so exciting. It probably wasn’t boring, but I started working with people who were a little too exciting at that point in time.

Sramana Mitra: At 18, you were in Mumbai working for Chip Magazine. How long did that go on?

Varun Singh: I was there for about three and a half years.

Sramana Mitra: That brings us up to what year?

Varun Singh: I joined them in January 2002.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next?

Varun Singh: Jasubhai was the company that owned Chip Magazine in India. Chip is a German brand. This company’s model was to bring in foreign publications into India and do it with local content. After Chip, they started with Network Computing. Network Computing needed a completely different kind of test labs. I worked to set up that test lab. In that process, I got back to networking and enterprise technology. I’d gone far too much into the gadgets and gizmos at PC Quest as well as at Chip Magazine. We did our second event.

We did our second CTO forum and we decided to do this new thing called Network for the Future. There were 45 days to go ahead and build a cutting-edge network that would still be relevant five years from then. This was 2002 and we’re building WiFi where India doesn’t even allow for WiFi licenses. There is no way you can broadcast any frequency without getting permission from the government first. Trying to get permission from the government within 45 days was a challenge. Then we set up VoIP and collaboration systems. We did all this in less than 45 days. Obviously, I couldn’t have done all of this myself. A lot of these vendors really helped out.

Sramana Mitra: But you were the key person within the company who coordinated the whole thing?

Varun Singh: Yes, the architect. That was also a very good experience from a learning standpoint. Then I was bored with the print media. I’m learning everything from the Internet. Here are these guys that make me go do everything two months too late. A small company called IT Nation was starting a project called Tech Tree.

Sramana Mitra: Digital publishing company?

Varun Singh: The CNET for India. I joined them as Head of their test labs. Within two months of my joining, the editor quit.

Sramana Mitra: So you got the editor job.

Varun Singh: By default. I was there for about three and a half years. I also got to do some other things. We started doing a very small half-page newspaper supplement. We started doing an FM radio show. When I got thoroughly bored of doing that, I didn’t want to be in the media industry anymore.

Sramana Mitra: What year did that realization hit?

Varun Singh: This was in 2005.

Sramana Mitra: That’s the year I started my blog.

Varun Singh: Money was still needed before I could figure out the next thing to do. I started doing freelancing. I started doing consulting with a UK-based publication for some time. One of the guys who used to run the technology at CNBC sent me an email. He said, “Where are you? You just disappeared.”

Sramana Mitra: You knew him?

Varun Singh: He knew me because he was a regular reader. I haven’t physically met him. I had seen their show a few times and it wasn’t particularly great. I sent him a nasty email saying, “You guys don’t know what you’re doing. Look at your website.” The website of CNBC was a lot about money control. But it was badly done.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Building a Technology Product Company From India: Varun Singh, Founder and CTO of ScaleArc
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