Rajan Dwivedi is the founder of Syntraxis.

Tell us a little about yourself and your company

My Name is Rajan Dwivedi. I have over 12 years of experience managing multi-million dollar premier alliances and customer accounts such as IBM, Microfocus, AcNielsen, E&Y and MySpace.com.

I started Syntraxis in Nov'2005 with a very small concept based on online quizzes at HelloChampion.com.

Later, this concept evolved into a new niche that we call "Aspirational Networking" - it's logical extension of Social Networking . It empowers and enable youth to network based on common aspirations and shared strategic objectives.

We are a technology company with collaboration platform that supports Aspirational Networking. It allows you to build focused and purposeful
communities that provide a heightened motivation to all members to participate, interact and engage.

We have experimented in education-to-employment space and the results are very encouraging through our vocal communities of ten thousands of people.

How large is the company currently, and how many users do you have?

We are a private company with 7 members. Additionally we have few part-time contributors who run our prototype and experimental portals. As of today, we have a focus group of over 26,000 users without any marketing spend or advertising. We have used the focus group to incorporate innovation and feedback provided by them into our platform.

How are you funded?

We are a self funded company from last 18 months. Now, we have been approached by few VCs and Angels. But we have not made any decisions yet as we will require serious funding and contributions in terms of resources and infrastructure to go to the next level.

We have sufficient funds to continue further with our plans.

Who do you consider your competitors?

Syntraxis sees some initial challenges due to popularity of blogs; social networking sites such as MySpace.com, Facebook.com; subscription based sites; companies in eLearning space such as Saba, Blackboard, Learnlinc; internet companies such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN; big collaborative software companies; and content providers such as Pearson, Thomson, McGraw Hill, Kaplan, Princeton etc.

Despite the competition, Syntraxis sees clear competitive differentiators for itself based on uniqueness of the concept of Aspirational Networking, innovation and its natural social acceptance. Our portals, products and services in many ways complement the solutions of incumbents, in many ways offsetting direct competition, instead setting the tone for collaboration and cooperation.

What programming languages and technologies have you used in developing your service?

Our flagship platform, Synergy Matrix, consists of modules and gadgets that help in collaboration, competition, self-expression, engagement and self‐development of aspirants for who desire clear success. The suite is built on Microsoft technology

There are a lot of start up companies that are normally in idea stage. Syntraxis, on the other hand, already has market tested stable products and services that are being used by ten of thousands of learners.

Social Networking has been big for last 2 years, but we believe that Aspirational Networking, will be a logical progression to Social Networking and niche networks will derive the internet in next wave (Web 3.0)