Anyone interested in providing feedback? (Stage 1 - Talent or Promise unsure)

Stage 1
1

Application Review

Hi I would like for someone to glance at or review & provide feedback for my technation application. One important thing I would like to know is if I should take the PROMISE route or TALENT route. Personally, it feels very fake if I call myself a leading industry guy but I believe that I am definitely promising. However, someone told me that I should go for TALENT as I have 6 years experience and that I should try and prove that I am a talent

TLDR LOR:

  1. CEO of gain insights (product based company located in Palo Alto, India, Singapore)
  2. CEO of white mastery (product based company located in India)
  3. Vice President of Drivestream (service based company located in USA but Drivestream was an enterprise client to a product I built at gain insights)

——————Story 1:—————— 4 years exp
Worked as engineering head for a product named GINIE - B2B product (its an iOS Android Enterprise app) at Gain Insights (HQ at Palo Alto & branches in Bangalore, Singapore). Saw the company grow from 40 employees to now over 250 plus employees. GINIE uses ML and state of the art natural language processing to help C-level executives use AI to make decisions. Key player in designing and engineering the product, interacted with some big named enterprise customers across US and India and helped GINIE power their enterprise.
Website: www.gain-insights.com

Evidences:

  1. LOR from CEO of GainInsights (I was on of the first 40 - so have a very good relationship with the CEO) - Letter headed
  2. Promotion letter, contract of employment, salary offer, glassdoor average salary screenshot & comparison for someone to be promoted to that role at that pay grade within 2 years of joining company
  3. LOR from Ex- Managing Director of Drivestream, USA who is now partner at IBM (GINIE’s first corporate enterprise client - again have very good relationship with him) - non-letter headed as he is no longer with Driverstream
  4. Proprietary architecture diagram and natural language system designed by me - that can potentially show proof of innovation
  5. I was also sponsored by the company to pursue my Masters in ML in the UK at University of London- 2019 graduate
  6. Product screenshots & explainer video

——————Story 2:—————— 4 years exp
Worked as product head for two products yourstore.io & dinamic.io - B2C & B2B at White Mastery Systems (India). Yourstore aims to break the Shopify trend by helping store owners auto mate store workflows and create store based websites with essential plugins. Dinamic is an end-end POS & unique product that caters to restaurant owners. It uses AI to help them make key decisions and helps in saving a ton of money by clubbing predictions & inventory management. I have taken your store from the idea inception to it now processing over 25 million dollars in yearly transactions. Dinamic has grown to have over 250 restaurants signed up

Evidences:

  1. LOR from CEO of WhiteMastery - Letter headed
  2. Contract of employment
  3. Product screenshots
  4. Graphs and KPIs showing growth in revenue, transactions processed since inception & other metrics - Yourstore (25 million USD of transactions processed in the last 6 months) - Signed COO of whitemastery
  5. Graphs and KPIs showing growth in B2B customer base, customer testimonials & other metrics - Dinamic (300 restaurants paid customers from 2 cities)
  6. We built our own server optimised for AI & Natural Language - Architecture diagrams & workflow (Proof of innovation) - No AWS or Azure or any cloud service provider

——————Story 3:—————— 2 years and current (2 years overlapped with previous experience)
Solo founder and single handedly built an app for iOS and Android that caters to brands & student societies. Built the server, backend, front end and native iOS and Android apps all by myself. Launched it as beta product and have over 6000 active users in just that once single beta test location. Looking to expand it to the whole of UK. This is also my need to move to the UK. My first venture as an entrepreneur. Got the idea for the product while I was doing my masters in the UK

Evidences

  1. LOR from potential future angel investor ( CEO of a big tech firm) - He was the one who suggested that I move the country where business is picking up
  2. Product screenshots, website
  3. App Store ratings (1000 + on iOS and Android each) & reviews screenshots
  4. Google Analytics metrics, Daily active users, server load screenshots - showing proof that these are just from the tiny beta cluster location
  5. Incorporation certificate in Australia in 2020 and recently incorporated in the UK as we have started to hit the UK market
  6. Explanation of why this visa would benefit me by showing Growth Reports & Projections at current trajectory
2

@Archid_Vignesh - your profile is definitely promising. It seems that you are generally thinking along the right lines with your application. Here is some feedback:

  • Keep your 3 LoRs separate from your evidences. Your LoRs are mandatory and have to be strong regardless of what you present as evidence. Outside of LoR you can provide up to 10 evidences - make the most of it.
  • Graphs and KPIs are all interesting, but all of that is internal. Try and add some external facing evidences - press coverage, talks, blog posts etc. As you can imagine, anyone can produce private data that looks impressive.
  • Product screenshots, website, app store rating, review screenshots etc, Google analytics are all super positive. See if you can combine them into less number of files freeing your evidence for other things (like media coverage mentioned above)
  • “Explanation of why this visa would benefit me” -> this seems more fitting in personal statement than in an evidence. Use your evidences to prove how strong your case is. All aspirational stuff should be left for personal statement, IMHO
2 Likes
3

Thank you for your feedback. Yes I didn’t post this query citing which one I will be using as evidences. I just wanted to convey the story. I do understand that 3 LORs are separate. Unfortunately, yourstore or dinamic or my own startup does not have any media coverage. You say graphs and KPIs are internal. But they are screenshots of reports from common tech software like MongoDB atlas reports, Qliksense and google analytics. I am not talking about showing a chart that shows sales created internally on a powerpoint or something. How else can I prove revenue and product growth? Would be great if I can get your input on this. :slight_smile:

4

Screenshots from such software is fine. Hopefully your LoRs will reinforce these too. In my case I didn’t present any evidence as such for P&L growth - I just let the LoRs be “evidence”. External recognition in trade press (not having my name but my company name) was also presented.

2 Likes
5

Understood. Thanks for your feedback. One last query: I was invited & did speak at a tech seminar for MSME India held by the central government in Delhi. There were over 500 entrepreneurs who attended and it was a 2 hour long conference. The topic was how you can save money while building tech products either through outsourcing or through in-house. I don’t have access to any photos but I can request the deputy director of MSME (who invited me) to back me up on this. I’d have to find out though if he has moved on to a new role outside of the government. In fact I met my mentor (CEO of successful tech enterprise) during that conference. He is now my mentor and potential angel investor for my startup