What charm does entrepreneurship hold that it makes an engineer holding an MBA degree give up a career of 13 years to start afresh and dirty his hands in the murky waters of entrepreneurship; it’s hard to decipher. Is it the passion for the idea, the high of being your own boss or is it the risk factor that attracts people such as Voicetap’s Mrigank Tripathi to chuck their comfort for the grit and grime of being an entrepreneur. TechGig taps Mrigank to find out what made him an entrepreneur and Voicetap his dream come true.
Mrigank, what really made you to enter into entrepreneurship? How, when and why did this journey begin?
After I came back to India, I made up my mind to start my own business. I spent over a year finding out the right business opportunity. The mobile value-added service (VAS) was a great medium to start off with. Despite the growing number of mobile users, this medium has not been utilized to its full potential. A lot of information is available but no one knows whom to get in touch with for the right information. I started working on this idea and we were successful in building a seamless platform where users could connect with experts without any hassles. The Internet allows everyone to create value for everyone else, be it buying, selling, classifieds, search, mail. There is everything a person is looking for in the Internet. The basic service of just calls is not sustainable. With voice as the base platform, one needs to offer unique services to build sustainable businesses.
What ignited the creation of Voicetap? Why did you choose it to begin your entrepreneurial journey?
It was when I found my niece struggling to find the right and desired information for various options that existed for her college admission and was not able to find the right person to talk to. Something clicked in me and I thought “hey, there is a need here and it can really prove to be an opportunity.” My observation found it to be ironical that in a booming market like India, with 600 million mobile subscribers, one could connect with only 500 of them at any time. I realized that a service providing information on a real-time basis could create great value for the customer.
Keeping this in mind the concept of Voicetap evolved that entails getting connected with relevant people on the topics of one’s choice without having to know the person or his number.
How difficult or easy has been the execution of your idea? How did you figure out the logistics (funding, partnerships, etc) of starting out?
As a technology company, we took close to a year to build and perfect the technology behind our platform. Given our unique offering, we have been able to associate ourselves with well-established corporates like NIIT, Bajaj and many more. We had raised angel funds in August 2009, just 4 months after Voicetap’s inception in March 2009 and were able to break even operationally. We have been able to garner about Rs 2 Cr (Rs 20 million) into the business. With our unique products, we have also been able to build alliances with telecom operators like Tata DOCOMO, Safaricom.
What were the roadblocks in Voicetap’s journey and how did you overcome them?
Well, first and foremost it was the financial constraints that came our way. But thankfully our savings proved good enough and we also found an angel investor. Convincing people to try out Voicetap’s offerings was even more difficult. It was only through family support that we were able to overcome the hurdles and launch our business in 2 continents. I knew I was taking a risk, especially when I had a family and two kids to take care off but my family was very supportive. I am happy that as a company we have started driving revenue despite all odds.
Also, we realized that getting the people with the right attitude and passion is the most critical thing. We could not find a suitable person from any of the IIMs to intern with us.
We wanted to ensure that there is perfect DNA match while adding new people to our team which made building the team a difficult task. We were looking for the right attitude rather than just qualifications.
With such scrutiny in place we would love to know about your current team. How big it is and what background do they have?
The Voicetap team currently consists of 17 people with over 55 years of cumulative experience in consulting, sales, operations and marketing. Out of the 17 people in our team, I have not seen the resumes of fifteen team members. All of these people have been carefully hand-picked and there is a perfect overlap of their DNA with ours. We have been lucky to put together a team of highly motivated, passionate and self-driven people.
How does Voicetap reach to the domain experts who speak on various topics? How do you plan to monetize this process?
Voicetap currently has over 1300 experts and 100 partners covering various verticals including - education, career, health, finance, lifestyle. We have build relationship with these partners over a period of time. While individuals have signed up to share their knowledge, businesses have partnered with us to reach out to potential customers. These customers are potential warm leads for these businesses, which helps us in monetizing the platform.
What is your vision for Voicetap? What is its scalability and in what ways do you plan to take it up a notch?
As a company, we are already in the process of scaling up. We are currently present in two continents and in the next five years, we plan to be a $100 million revenue generating company with presence in 20 countries.
We have always focused on creating a search and connect platform – given the simplicity of the business model, scaling up processes is an executional challenge. Our products and technology have been appreciated and awarded at both international and national forums and we are all set roll out more innovative products in the future.
How has Voicetap fared since its inception?
We have done a good job in such a limited time. We have been widely appreciated at both international and national level. We are the Youngest Company ever to win a Red Herring Asia 100 and Nasscom League of 10 awards. We were also one of the finalists at the Mobile Premier Awards at Barcelona. Such recognition in a span of 2 year is a great achievement for us. As a business we have successfully launched in two countries and are looking at rolling out more services with telecom operators in future.
What relevant or interesting trends came forward with Voictap’s conception that guided and/or changed the course of your actions?
Voicetap’s creation brought with it fantastic insights about the VAS industry and consumer behavior. As a startup iteration is must .One of most interesting experiences we have had was with the implementation of voice search. In order to make the user experience smoother, we decided to implement voice search. After a pilot of one month, we realized that both the technology and the Indian market are too nascent for voice search.
What makes Voicetap different?
Our focus on creating relevance based “search and connect” engine positions Voicetap as an innovative company. The idea in principle is to create a one stop number where people can dial and connect with relevant people of their choice on topics of their choice. The fact that this platform creates a win-win situation for experts, businesses and end users makes it an unique entity.
Besides the satisfactory moments what are the learnings that came with Voicetap’s creation?
The learning curve for us over the past two years has been steep. A few key things that have come forth have been
Nothing is perfect on Day 1- Our first product went through 3 rounds of iteration before we launched the beta version. User feedback helps you make the "perfect product". Right People - Nothing is more important than having the right people, with the right attitude on your end. Laser Focus - There are gazillion things that you can do with your technology. The idea always should be to be the Master of one rather than being jack of all trades.
What is it that keeps you awake at night and makes you carry on your chosen path despite all odds?
Being in a startup essentially means being challenged every day. Every solution comes packaged along with another problem. Being at Voicetap is no different experience. As a team and as individuals, all of us have challenges and problems to solve the other day - this is what drives us. We have always had great faith in the product and the response from users and clients has always boosted our faith in the product we created – this is what motivates the team.
Any words of wisdom for the growing crop of entrepreneurs across India?
As an entrepreneur, the advice to fellow and budding entrepreneurs is very simple –it is your perseverance, passion, integrity and the ability to run a marathon that will decide what’s in store for you – Stay hungry and stay focused.
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