Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved byI Am Love.
I Am Love works in the Nutraceutical industry where it would like to re-educate people about the saying “Let food be thy medicine”. Its products are to be taken orally to counter skin and health concerns. Launched in early 2021, the startup is working on developing more intuitive research-backed products.
StartupTalky interviewed Ms. Shilpa Rathi (Founder, I am Love) to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization.
I Am Love came into existence in early 2021, with the aim of redefining the relationship we have with our health. It works in the Nutraceutical industry where the team would like to re-educate people about the saying “Let food be thy medicine”. Its products are to be taken orally to counter skin and health concerns.
I Am Love blends science and innovation to deliver effective, yet gentle solutions. That means working with clinically proven ingredients and natural extracts which are sourced responsibly keeping the quality in mind. Its formulas are free from toxic preservatives, additives, artificial flavorings and sweeteners, and even artificial colors.
“We Believe that the answer to all our bodily concerns is deep within our food. Whether it’s for our skin, hair, cognitive functions, our physical or even our mental wellbeing” says Shilpa Rathi, Founder, I am Love.
I Am Love offers 5 products –
Acne negative – Reduces acne by controlling the sebum production throughout your body
Spotless – Resolves stubborn acne, pigmentation, Melasma, and dark spots anywhere on your body
Renew + Repair – A beauty protein powder with marine collagen and whey isolate
The Nutraceutical Market worldwide is around $530 Bn as of 2020 however in India it’s at a very nascent stage around 4-5 Bn. Covid has impacted the consumption of Nutraceutical at a Major level and the population is now understanding the importance of being healthy from within.
Shilpa’s decision for building I am love is based on deep Market reports through Mintel and likewise. The team even did a Dipstick study with around 5000 consumers to understand their knowledge of Nutraceuticals, their understanding of what are the current best ways to solve the problems they were facing, and built the business on the findings.
Shilpa battled cystic acne back in 2009, in her late 20’s. It was the result of a personal loss that led to changing the body’s reaction to handling the depression. That along with her work stress led to the acne outbreak. Shilpa tried literally every solution she could get her hands on. Around that time she was traveling to the US and along with her brother there, who then worked in Pfizer, the duo developed a formulation for Shilpa to tackle her acne outbreak. It worked really well. Inittially the idea was only to cure her own acne, but now fast forward to 2020, Ms. Shilpa Rathi realized the Indian population was open to the Idea of supplements for health reasons and this led to her improvising the formulation that worked for her and launching it for everyone who was battling the same fight.
I Am Love – Founders and Team
I Am Love is a partnership between Shilpa Rathi and her brother Gaurav Rathi.
“Hiring funda at I Am Love is clear, someone who is always willing to think outside the box, I believe that the most important criteria when looking for talent, even more than experience is whether that person is an initiator, can look at a situation from all fronts but also knows when to drop the ball and act fast” – Shilpa added.
I am Love team
I Am Love – Ideology behind Name & Logo
Though there were plenty of options for the brand name, I Am Love struck out because it was clear. The product is love, love for all your senses, and we all know we are the best, feel best, act best when we are loved.
I Am Love’s consumers taught the startup how to convert them. What they would like to see in a product and what they thought was the gamechanger.
What has worked for I Am Love is Social Proof!
The team realized that their consumers liked real stories, getting in touch with real people! Who featured in the ads. I Am Love was so focused on that and knew that its products worked that the team initiallyonly partnered with Influencers who had acne or skin concerns. The startup wanted their consumers to believe and few of them even went out of their way to give it deliverables or shout out when the product worked for them. I Am Love plans to continue doing that.
Convincing customers to share their progress, asking them to feature so as to help someone who was battling the same concerns.
Convince consumers that this wasn’t a quick fix and for an effective solution they would need to be patient. The battle is still ongoing, but the team at I Am Love is determined to keep pushing.
I Am Love raised INR 35 Cr from Xentel Investments in the seed round.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
July 2021
Seed
INR 35cr
Xentel Investments
I Am Love – Future Plans
I Am Love is working on developing more intuitive research-backed products. The startup claims that its next product line is very exciting!
I Am Love – FAQs
What is I Am Love?
I Am Love was established with an aim of redefining the relationship we have with our health. It works in the Nutraceutical industry where the team would like to re-educate people about the saying “Let food be thy medicine”. Its products are to be taken orally to counter skin and health concerns.
Who is Shilpa Rathi?
Shilpa Rathi is the founder of I Am Love.
Is I Am Love an Indian company?
Yes. I Am Love is an Indian company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Has I Am Love raised any funding?
I Am Love raised INR 35 Cr from Xentel Investments in the seed round.
There is a huge increase in population in India. The increase in population has led to an increase in the traffic in the metro cities in the country. The top cities in the country were ranked in the top positions for the highest traffic worldwide.
To bring a solution to this huge traffic and the delay caused because of that various startups have been working towards building Air Taxis. Let’s look at some of the Air Taxi startups in India.
India’s first Air Taxi service was first launched at the Chandigarh airport. It was inaugurated on 14 January 2021 by the Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar. The Air Taxi service is launched under the UDAN scheme of the Central Government.
Airports Authority of India had tweeted on their official Twitter handle saying that India’s first Air Taxi flight was flagged off by the Chief Minister of Haryana as part of their Inauguration. They added that the flight will operate under the Regional Connectivity Scheme RCS-UDAN.
The Chief Minister of Haryana said that this is the first time in the country that a small aircraft is used for services in the form of an Air Taxi.
The Air Taxi can carry one pilot and three passengers. The Air Taxi has the lightest plane which has a twin-engine in the world. Its weight is 760 kg. The aircraft uses a standard 92 octane petroleum which is different from the normal flights which use Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF).
The aircraft can travel at a range of 742 Nautical Miles. The services can be availed at INR 1,755 per seat. The main objective of the aircraft is in line with the government’s aim to connect the Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities with the metro cities of the Country.
A subsidy is provided by the government to the airlines per seat to provide better connectivity to the smaller towns. As per the reports the airline will cover around 26 routes under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) UDAN.
Ubifly technology is a Chennai-based startup that is working on developing e-planes in the country. Ubifly Technologies Private Limited was founded in the year 2016. The company is commonly known as the e-plane company.
It was founded by Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy and Panjal Mehta. The Startup is concentrated on developing electric planes and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The main aim of the startup is to bring a new definition for intracity travels and their products focus on short-distance intracity travels.
Pranjal Mehta(Left) with Prof.Satyanarayanan
The company is trying to build a hybrid mix of drones and electric airplane technology. The vehicle will take off and land similar to the drone but will move forward in the air like an airplane.
The Startup has already designed three UAV models, Ek Hanz which will be used for delivering goods and services, Scout which is for security and surveillance, Vayu which will be a hybrid autopilot e-plane.
The company will develop a two-seater air taxi which will be called as e200.
IIT Kanpur had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with VTOL Aviation India Pvt. Ltd. The deal is worth INR 15 crore. VTOL Aviation India Pvt. Ltd is an Indian private aviation company. The MOU is for building prototypes that will be operational and will be used as flying taxis.
The project is expected to be completed by 2023 where over 100 researchers from IIT Kanpur are working towards developing a fully functional prototype.
According to the deal, the researchers will first conduct a test to identify the feasibility of the project. This is to understand the key technological areas of the project and the rest of the project is expected to be completed by 5 years.
Ajay Ghosh who is the head of the Aerospace Engineering and the Flight Lab at IIT Kanpur has said that there will be more than 100 students working on the project in the coming years.
The researchers will work on developing the aircraft based on VTOL technology that is vertical takeoff and landing. They are working towards building an electric aircraft to promote clean energy and sustainability.
Uber Air Taxi
Uber is working on developing an aircraft based on e-VTOL that is electric vertical take-off and landing. These are considered to be cleaner, cheaper, and safer than helicopters. Uber Elevate is working towards developing aerial ridesharing with Uber Air and is expected to take off in 2023.
Uber Air taxi Prototype
In 2020 it was announced that Joby Aviation will acquire Uber Elevate. Both the parent companies have agreed to integrate their services into each other’s app.
Uber had announced that Dallas and Los Angeles as the two cities to begin their Air Taxi and Melbourne, Australia as its first international city to move forward with its expansion.
Uber has also said that it has shortlisted 5 countries other than the US to expand its Air Taxi services which include Japan, India, Australia, Brazil, and France.
Vinata Aeromobility Model
Vinata Aeromobility
Vinata Aeromobility is developing a Full Autonomous Hybrid Flying car through Advance Aeromobility by using combined technology of quadcopter VTOL hybrid power urban air mobility systems and integrated electric power 4 wheel drive motor with advanced aerospace engineering cutting edge technologies.
According to Yogesh Ramanathan, Founder, and CEO of Vinata Aeromobility, the company is hoping to perform flight trials of their Hybrid-electric Flying car by 2023 and make it available for Commercial flights by 2025.
It can fly at a speed of 100 to 120 kilometers per hour and can carry two passengers at the same time, with a maximum flight time of 60 minutes at a maximum height of 3,000 feet.
Conclusion
Other than these some more companies are working towards the Air Taxi services around the globe which include Vertical Aerospace, Hyundai’s helping hand, a joint venture between the Boeing company and Kitty Hawk Corporation.
FAQ
What does Air Taxi mean?
Air taxis are small commercial airplanes used for short flights between localities.
Which company is going to start a drone air taxi service in India?
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia is planning to launch a flying-taxi business as soon as next year.
Does Dubai have a flying Air taxi?
Dubai has one of the first major projects of Air taxis, The Autonomous Air Taxi (AAT) is an 18-rotor drone taxi. The company claims to be the world’s first ‘self-flying taxi service’.
E-Commerce is a business trending at present due to the increased convenience that it provides to the customer. All the activities of commercial transactions which include transfers, Supply Chain Management, electronic marketing, EDI, and distribution of goods and services are integrated by an electronic system. These convenience and quick buying decisions make e-commerce businesses achieve scale much faster than their brick and mortar counterparts.
E-commerce refers to the science of buying and selling goods and services over an electronic network, known as the internet.
According to a survey done by the Indian Government in 2021 which shows that demand is at a continuous growth of 12.79 % a year. Current active e-commerce penetration in India stands only 28%, with lots of room for improvement, India’s retail e-commerce is projected to reach 23% from 2016 to 2021. If you are looking to start an eCommerce store then here are some business ideas which you should try out.
With the increase in the demographics of people who live an urban lifestyle where time and convenience is more valuable than money, people rely on an e-commerce website to fulfill their fashion need.
Online Fashion Market
Especially in the Fashion industry, there is a huge demand for niche products and services. This makes niche fashion websites massively popular as they serve their audiences with the latest trends. Even though the fashion industry is pretty crowded, there are still people who can’t find what they are looking for.
Creating quality brands that specialize in simple and minimalistic clothing is one such niche that targets the millennial demographics and could be a profitable business opportunity.
You can start your own e-commerce website by using WordPress and Wix and other platforms.
One of the most lucrative markets after 2020 is the online food and grocery business. This market has continued to develop as mobile apps become increasingly popular and are used by billions of people.
Online Grocery and Food Shopping
Given the wide range of products and equally huge market, the food and grocery industry is far from saturation. More and more people in urban areas are quickly shifting towards local produce and markets. As we can see, consumer behavior in the food industry is transforming thanks to emerging technologies and e-commerce trends.
As an entrepreneur, you can start small with local vendors and produce. Once your profits increase, you can easily scale up your business by establishing and improving relationships with your vendors.
A large number of Millennials wish to travel. Although, the process of travel is complicated by the lack of information about the destination they are traveling to and other hassles such as accommodation and transportation. This opens up a huge demand for online travel agencies which can incentivize the traveler and book hotels and transportation in a jiffy as well as providing curated content about the destination, hence making the life of the traveler easy!
The precious time saved in planning for a trip makes this business solve a huge problem for millennial travelers. The e-commerce business has flourished in this segment and a very personalized service curation is required in this segment which can give you the best customers for your business. The travel industry is all about how satisfactory your customer’s trip was. So, while starting up with this be quality-oriented.
Online Health Services
Unsurprisingly, even the healthcare sector has begun to creep into e-commerce territory with apps like Practo, Doctor2U, and YourDoctors. Even though each service works on different business models, the underlying concept is the same: doctors offer advice over text or chat to patients.
By making this service online, the need to physically visit a doctor is eliminated which saves both your time and your doctor’s. However, this does not substitute the need for in-person visitations but is useful to determine if an examination is necessary or not.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
This idea may sound strange, but this is very helpful for everyone. You can create a startup business with the concept of artificial intelligence. It enables companies to gather as well as investigate data in real-time, thus facilitating more efficiency and competence in business.
The customers are provided with a personalized experience of knowledge about their preferences. Some examples of Artificial Intelligence in e-commerce are
In the upcoming ecosystem of startup businesses, startup business consultants have a major role to play. A large number of people starting a new business do not understand the nitty-gritty of starting up a new business and need online experts who can advise them in the right direction to make the process of starting up seamless. People prefer online consultants these days as they look for solutions on the internet with the advent of the digital revolution.
International Shipping
The lack of services in the field of shipping to and from overseas has made many people complacent with online shopping from Indian e-commerce. This presents a huge opportunity for international shipping startups that can book pickups at the mere click of a button.
An international shipping startup can be an alternative for sending products overseas or bringing in goods from abroad. With international shipping, people will be facilitated in terms of delivery of goods and increase the convenience of the globalized Indian online consumer.
Interior designing is important for people who want to have a new home, but can not afford to employ an architect. An interior designer is someone who has the creativity, skills, and knowledge required to design a beautiful and functional space. Online interior designing is a practical as well as cost and time-efficient solution to make a structure of the house and a model home desired by the user at the convenience of their home internet.
Online Education Services
If you have expert knowledge of a subject, industry, or simply found a new way of doing things, then why not take a course about it?
With expected sales at $286 billion in 2023, a whopping 80% growth from the figure recorded in 2017, this makes for a good online business.
People are disappointed in both private and public educational institutions. One tends to be very costly and can only be afforded by a few while the quality of education in public institutions is dismal. Although there are many online courses, the demand for good and cheap education is at an all-time high.
Basically, to start any business a person needs passion and constant dedication. A person should be able to identify specific demand and the target customers for his products and services. We hope this list of online business ideas will help you to start your own business.
E-commerce – FAQ’s
What are the features of E-commerce?
The features of e-commerce are non-cash payment, service availability (24*7), Improved sales, support, advertising and marketing, inventory management, communication efficiency, faster, reliability, less time-consuming, on-the-go service, and saving time. It is available at any time and anywhere, helping in making better management of products and services.
What are the different e-commerce business models?
The different e-commerce business models are Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Consumer (C2C), Consumer to Business (C2B), Business to Government (B2G), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Citizen (G2C).
How does e-commerce work?
When a customer needs any product to buy, a customer goes to the website and chooses the product that he wants to buy. After the selection of the product, a customer will select the mode of payment whether it is online or offline and after that product will checkout and order. The ordered products information has been exchanged with the customer and delivery logistics. This process is being done in just a matter of minutes only. For e-commerce enablement, getting internet merchant bank account, webs hosting, obtaining the digital certificate, provider for online transactions, and purchasing or creating the shopping cart software.
Tell us which different sector e-commerce applications are available in the market?
The applications are mainly available for many different sectors or areas, from those areas some are like books, music, financial services, home electronics, mobiles, entertainment, apparel, travel services, toys, movie tickets, information, gifts and computer products, accessories, etc.
Have you ever thought about this? What is money? You might say that money is currency notes that are accepted as a legal tender by the government of a nation. Well, you are not wrong here but think more deeply, think of the concept of money, how it came to existence. Is this the only currency or there can be a better perspective to look at it. Can brands incentivise to change your viewpoint of money? Let’s figure out how a company changed money norms.
Suppose you want to buy something, let’s say the latest iPhone. You go to the store and you exchange your money with the iPhone. Simple right? Actually, no.
Let me make it clearer. There is a principle in microeconomics that says ‘the price of something is what you sacrifice to get it’. You might think it’s the money that you sacrificed to buy the product, but think again. How did you earn that money? How much ‘time’ did it take you to earn that money? Yes, you are near the answer.
This might look weird in the first view but it is the ultimate truth. We are all told that money is currency from ad infinitum. Such culture all around us has made this entrenched in our minds. So much so that we started to believe that it is somewhat the most important thing in our life, ignoring the fact that it is time which is supreme. Well, not being more philosophical here, let’s move on.
So we just saw that time is the ultimate currency (at its root). This is not a hypothesis anymore, rather it is gradually becoming a reality. As more and more people get to know the importance of time, it is slowly getting in the main focus of the brain.
Well, not only our brains but some companies have focused on it too. For example, IKEA.
IKEA is a Swedish retailer that deals in ready to assemble furniture. Be it kitchenware, office chair, and all sorts of home appliances. It has started a campaign where it allows customers when they shop from their stores, not to pay with currency but to pay with their time. Yes, their time.
IKEA Dubai announced that customers can pay with the time that they took to reach the stores. They are scanned by IKEA staff for their Google maps history and then according to the time that it records, customers can pay for buying any goods at the store. This is restricted to Dubai only for now but can spread as the campaign gets successful.
IKEA Buy with your Time Campaign
IKEA’s giant stores are mostly and primarily built on the shores of cities. As a result, customers travel more in order to visit the store. So obviously there has to be some pulling incentive. Some incentive which is more powerful than the pain of travelling borne by customers.
So IKEA innovated this incentive by giving a discount, as it can be seen as a discount. It says fine, if you travel to our store from a good distance then we will let you pay with time.
IKEA Dubai ‘Buy with your Time’ Price Tag
Everything in the store was marked with tags of money as well as in terms of time. During the checkout, all the customers have to do is to show their google maps history and travel to its stores. This was the “Buy with your time” campaign that it initiated. Which as expected became an instant hit.
How did IKEA Benefited from ‘Buy with your Time’ Campaign
This “Buy with your time” option definitely changed the way customers shop at IKEA. The benefits that the campaign entailed were as follows-
Visit Frequency
This innovative marketing technique promoted more and more visits to the store. Now customers would agree to travel long distances to come and shop at IKEA which lead to better customer loyalty. This incentive for time also leads to better customer retention. Once a person enters IKEA’s premises, the store would do its job in luring them to buy more products.
Store time
When someone uses his good chunk of time to travel to a destination, then he normally prefers to spend more time at the place to make the travel worth it. This is normal psychological behaviour but works wonders for IKEA. As the furniture retailer installed an incentive to travel longer times, customers tend to be in the store for more time than average. They tend to buy more products impulsively.
Reciprocity
IKEA has recorded in the past data that most customers that are loyal, travel an inordinate amount of time to travel to IKEA stores. So, the company thought of incentivising this behaviour, which will not only build better relationships with the existing customers but also encourage new customers to build that behaviour.
Google Maps
The involvement of Google maps in this promotion technique has added more users to the map services by Google. It also means that customers have to allow Google to track the time that they travel on road. It also encourages behaviour of ‘it’s fine to get tracked until you are getting incentivised’. This thing scares privacy conscious people a little but most are okay with it.
There is sure that this campaign went well. It worked perfectly fine with customers, making them visit IKEA more often. This also pushed other retail brands to think about adding this as a promotion tool to their inventory.
This experiment was thoughtful and tells us how one currency can be shifted with another more universal in nature. It also showcased how customers react to incentives that are time consuming. It also reveals how we are not trained to see time as a currency. While companies change the fate and face of the world, who knows time becomes the next currency?
FAQ
How much time do people spend at IKEA?
According to a store manager the average consumer spends around 2½ to 3 hours at IKEA.
What is IKEA Buy With Your Time campaign?
The campaign, “Buy With Your Time,” was created to help shoppers who live on far away from the IKEA stores and spend a lot of time traveling to the stores.
What would you say if I asked you what is the best part of a job? yes, we all know it, it’s the salary. Except in some cases when you are madly passionate about working and creating impact.
So for the general public, it’s the return on time investment. It is a good metric to judge a job based on how much it provides a return. It can also be seen as a value meter that tells how much of a value is being created. Higher the return, the greater the level of value addition.
We all know the most popular players in providing handsome salaries like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Goldman Sachs. This article is not about them, as you must’ve guessed from the title. It is about Spotify, but let us build up a basic understanding of salaries and company profiles and then jump to Spotify.
Every human, every civilized human wants money. Okay, enough philosophy. Everyone who wants to join the workforce wants to join a corporation that will pay them well. They aim for the biggest names in the market and even if they fail to get the moon, they vouch for stars.
Spotify is a Swedish music and media streaming service. It is also the world’s largest music streaming service provider. It offers services on almost every device possible, be it Mac, Android, Windows, and Linux.
As of now, Spotify has a huge user base, it has around 172 million paying users and around 381 million of the total user base. That too across the globe and in around 178 countries.
Spotify Worldwide Monthly Active Users
Music is food for the soul and these numbers prove the statement right. People love to listen and their favourite one-stop place to go is Spotify. Spotify is good at giving recommendations, understanding its users, and increasing their retention.
The streaming service also entails a premium section of listening to music. It includes music downloads and group listening, Spotify is promoting its premium section by small payments recurring at small intervals of time. Like a 7 Rupee for a day, or 25 for a week. These are specially designed packs for the Indian audience to make them more comfortable with streaming servers.
We all were earlier used to downloading songs (Illegally) and then listening to them, but it was wrong and steps like that of Spotify are helping make the shift to streaming music and paying for songs they love. This is the legitimate way to honor artists that create songs as their art form.
Spotify is not only good for listeners but also a great corporation for the people working there. The employees are relatively happy there because of the competitive salaries and perks that the company provides. Let us look at some of them.
However, there are many competitors in this space, like the common name YouTube Music, Gaana, Saavn, and many more but time and again with its efficient working and great management, Spotify has managed to top the charts of not just songs but streaming too.
How does Spotify pay its employees better than its competitors?
Apart from having a huge user base. Spotify has close deals with differentiating podcasts like Joe Rogan, Obama Family, and many more. All this adds to its revenue maps and allows the company to provide competitive salaries to its employees. The average salary of a Spotify employee is more than 110,500$. That is a handsome amount.
Spotify has increased employees by 28 percent in 2019. This shows the demand for the product market. Business insiders performed research and found out that the company can pay more than the past average, in stock or cash.
As we discussed earlier the popularity of Spotify and the domains it provides services in. It has a freemium edge and a premium edge. Freemium includes music streaming with advertisements, this adds up to the revenue that they generate from the advertisement domain.
The premium includes some price that disables ads and provides pro benefits like downloading music and commercial-free listening. This adds up the main revenue model of royalties. Spotify pays artists a fixed payment for their songs being listed on the platform.
How much does Spotify pay its Employees?
Spotify Salary Average by Department
Spotify pay Marketing Specialists $95,000 to $190,000. Researchers and specialists around 140,000 to 240,000 dollars of base salary, Engineers and statisticians about 110,000 to 250,000 dollars and Human resources, finance or legal 133,390 to 185,000 dollars.
The highest-paid salary is that of director of sales that is around $200,000 and the lowest is about $46,500. Making the company average reach more than $110,000.
The unique thing about Spotify is that it is allowing WFH from anywhere with getting the same salaries as before.
In February 2021, it announced a Work from anywhere scheme. Allowing employees to work from anywhere, and the company will continue paying the New York and San Francisco salary rates. Executives believe that it is the future.
As Spotify changes how people listen to music, the legal way. Its effective business revenue model is working fine. It can provide some most competitive salaries. This is a good thing for keeping up the employee’s motivation and providing them with a platform to be their best self.
Other domains should learn from this and try to create a differentiating factor that places them in a better position than competitors. Thus, adding better working efficiency in the corp.
FAQ
How much do Spotify employees get paid?
The base salaries of Spotify employee ranges from $60,000 to $260,00 for a variety of roles.
Does Spotify pay its employees better than its competitors?
Yes, Spotify does pay its employees higher than its competitors.
Looking for ways to bootstrap your startup? Do not want to go into a huge process for marketing? You might be lucky enough to know that there are more ways to bootstrap your business other than spending resources on marketing.
Bootstrapping your startup business strategically is the new trend today rather than adapting to traditional methods of marketing strategies. But, before experimenting with new things startup business owners should know what they need for their business.
If it helps try doing a SWOT analysis first as it will help understand your strong and weak areas of business. Then you can look at the tactics mentioned below to bootstrap your startup business.
Best Tactics to use for Bootstrapping Your Startup
Write and publish quality-focused blogs
Tactics for Bootstrapping Your Startup
Start writing quality blogs in about your business answering questions like the five Ws. People will know what your business is all about if you know how to attract them with the power of your blogs. Using keywords in your blog will do half the job and will help your blog to rank high on the first page.
Once you have completed writing in-depth blogs try publishing your content on different social media like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Do not opt for link dropping and other such kinds of things but, try doing it with a sense of taste behind it.
Make sure your business has been listed to the reviews and listing directory
Business listing is important because it can play a crucial role for the success of your local SEO. These are types of platforms that will allow the users to find out more about your business and also help engage with it. Some basic information like name, address, and phone number are added so that interested users can contact you.
Product Hunt is an online website that you can consider using because here your products can be listed in a linear format. Keeping aside its functions one of the biggest advantages of using this website is that it can be used as a free service.
Find an advocate or a partner
Tactics for Bootstrapping Your Startup
You do not have to find someone who is a professional but a normal person who can have your back at the right time will be enough. If you find someone who is great at work and is available for you whenever you need them then you have got what you need.
Conduct webinars on your products or services
More promotion will only create a better chance of bootstrapping your business. Webinars can be conducted free of cost on various online networking websites. Look for the right one and just get into it because the sooner you start the better you can create a customer base.
Whether it is one customer or one hundred you should know that it is just the beginning of a long journey. Target customers to whom you can provide your service to them and solve their problems. This is where you don’t sell your product but give an idea to them about the problem that they are facing.
If you can get into their minds about the solution you are giving to them for their problem you will be surprised to know that they will start coming to you after a certain period. Therefore, do things smartly rather than doing them with difficulty.
Create a Facebook page or a group
Just like you use Whatsapp groups for sending a message where more number of people will be able to see what you have sent similar to that you can create a Facebook group. Facebook has got around more than 2.9 billion users and this is why it will be a great platform to showcase your business to a large number of people at a time.
Use online methods
It is difficult to conduct business activities, especially when it is a startup and thus there is pressure on the sustainability of your business. If you choose online methods for conducting business then you may cut down maximum costs and also help protect your assets.
Conduct an in-depth market research
Just like you will do a SWOT analysis of your startup business you also need to do thorough research on the market. You are now the boss of your company and getting to know all the dynamics of your business should be your responsibility.
If you are well-prepared you will not be needing capital from someone else. Look for online tools on the internet that will help you conduct online surveys.
Do not rush for an office space
There will be a lot of things going on in your mind once you have started your business and one of the major things that you think about is having an office of your own. Well, if you are thinking about it then that’s well and good but there will be no need for an office if your products or services do not do well in the market.
Give your business some time to grow which may take some time and then you can look for an office. New offices will be needing types of equipments like furniture, computers, CCTV cameras, and many more which will only create a burden on your expenses.
Most entrepreneurs tend to make the mistake of not planning what should be done next. This is how they waste resources and are not able to sustain in the market even though their business has the potential to do good in the market.
Therefore, it is suggested that you design a proper business model and a business plan. A proper business plan helps the business to work efficiently by fulfilling its achievements.
Work from home
Offices rents’ are going up as each day passes by and you need to cut down expenses not increase them. Working from home can do the job that most offices can’t. If you can have the option to work from home comfortably then why not use the benefit of it. This way you can concentrate better on your work and you will save a lot of cash.
Do not rely on Client’s credit
Even though your startup business is a work-from-home work do not give your clients products and services on credit but rather ask them to make immediate payment. This is just the beginning of your business and you are already making expenses and credits can make things worse.
Ask your clients to make payments as soon as they receive the product or service. This way you can keep a proper account of the business that you have conducted.
Take help of your family members
Your family members can be useful in some kind of work for your business. For example, your brother can create a page on social media and he will solely be responsible for promoting your business on different social media platforms.
Similarly, you can even take the help of your relatives who can be useful in different activities. This way you do not have to hire an extra person to do a simple job and you can concentrate on other things.
Use low-cost online tools
Since you are working from home you will be needing different kinds of online tools for marketing or conducting other business activities. Use tools that are available at a cheap price not necessarily a free platform but a cheap one will do the job.
Since it is just the beginning of your startup business you need to make sure that your expenses are not extending your budget. For the time being, using cheap tools can be useful and later when your business is flourishing in the market you can opt for expensive or premium tools.
Avoid purchasing unnecessary tools
Whether you are buying an online tool or an offline one make sure that the tool that you are purchasing can b of some use for the business. This is one of the most crucial tactics for bootstrapping your business because you do not want to go into debt by making unnecessary purchases. Purchasing expensive tools that will be of no use for your business will only create pressure on your finance.
Learn digital marketing
With changing technology there are so many upgrades that are being made each day. You need to learn about the technology and use it to your benefit as your business needs to be recognized by more people.
A digital marketing course will help you understand how to market your business digitally. If you know about digital marketing then there is no use spending time on the courses. Apply what you have learned and see the results.
Work on your business image
There is a saying called ‘First impressions are always the last impression’ which is quite true when it comes to business as well. Your new business should be presented in front of the people in such a way that they are impressed with it.
The image of your business will play a crucial role in getting customers from all around the country or globe. Use appealing photos, images, videos, animations, and other such kinds of things so that customers are attracted towards it.
Always be resourceful
Being resourceful does not just mean focussing on your resources but planning on how to grow them. You should gather enough money to fund your startup business because in the initial stages of your business will be difficult to find investors.
However, there are several free online platforms where you can get the benefit of crowdfunding. Whatever decision you take make sure it will help you with your work keeping the cost structure under your budget.
Motivation plays a key role
Even if you follow anyone tactic mentioned above you need to be motivated at your work. Every day when you wake up you need to keep aside all negative things but move forward with the intending to grow your business.
You should always be eager to learn new things from the market and your competitors so that you do not fall out from the competition. Motivation will also help you bootstrap your startup.
Conclusion
Whichever tactic you choose to bootstrap your business try to do it with a focussed mind because it will help your business itself. Even if you are facing a lot of challenges continue doing the same thing but in a different way.
FAQs
What does bootstrapping mean?
Bootstrapping from a business’ point of view means starting a company with little capital rather than relying on investors.
What are the benefits for adapting bootstrapping techniques to business?
Some of the benefits of bootstrapping your business are:
The universe is at Millennials’ disposal 24/7. It’s among the myriad factors why old-school marketing media like desktops are being pushed out in favor of the tiny, more compact smartphone peers. Conventional outbound promotional tactics, like VCR, have become outdated as our technology becomes more advanced and versatile.
The urge to derive fulfillment immediately, without waiting, is known as instant gratification. For some folks, patience is a tricky concept. It’s due to our innate desire to fulfill our wants. These can be normal needs like snacking or acquiring an item, such as the merchandise you’re offering.
The rationale behind why we crave stuff now is that not having what we desire drives us to feel upset. As a result, our community and family prod us to build endurance for the opposite, deferring gratification. In the long view, deferring gratification is key as everything of value takes years to grow.
Why isn’t Conventional Branding working?
Instant gratification is the reason why. New branding methods have an instant effect on people while still being easier to communicate with. We live in a time where you can order stuff online and have it delivered the next day.
Millennials have instant access to practically everything. So it’s not readily available, it’s not worthwhile. Traditional marketing might catch someone’s attention, get them to register for something, or even help make a one-time buy. Real victory, although lies in turning prospects into lifetime users, but to do it well, you’ll modify your inbound merchandising plan.
How Instant Gratification can be Marketers’ Secret Sauce?
Instant study
Millennials aren’t fooled by your claims. They undertake studies as though they were drafting a paper. Before they explore and chat to the unwanted folks, such as your rivals, get the facts to them. Find out the facts of your company available on the internet.
Predict what information these new clients will uncover and reply to that query before they pose it. Learn their interests, resents, and, then show them that they need your services by offering stuff that tackles their issues. Use a range of tools to earn trust. When people see a message parroted in diverse areas, they are more apt to believe it.
Optimize checkouts
People desire now, so Amazon built a one-click buy tool that eliminates the need for folks to affirm stuff throughout the checkout. They just save preset payment and choices, then pick what they want and it’s over.
At the very least, employ a convenient and easy payment or signup system. Enable the customer to create profiles and enter their billing address beforehand to make it easier for their next purchase. Carefully think about what you’re selling and how you can keep it simple.
Instant contact
If you hear back from a client, you should reply within hours, if not mins, to retain their attention. A prompt reply says that you’re available, that you respect them, and that you view them as more than a revenue source.
Millennials are left high and dry when it comes to traditional ads that have only a linked email or contact line. Instead, shoppers can get a touch of a few mins engagement and quick response to any troubles they have by employing inbound promotional tactics like social media.
It’s worth noting, though, that the human touch cannot come at the expense of commercial slowdown. When millennials want stuff, they need it now, which we’ve seen.
Instant time
With biz-outs, time isn’t a restriction. They’ll only have to reach you when needed. However, you may send them a ‘simply checking in’ text or a piece that connects to things they’ve said to you. Most inbound strategies can keep the conversation going, whereas traditional marketing would often let the bond go away.
Millennials will determine the fate of consumerism. They’re completely engrossed in their gadgets. If you’re hoping to figure out how to offer more to millennials and depend only on newspaper ads, you’ll need to evolve.
Is Offering Instant Gratification a Con?
Sadly, the fast-paced hi-tech era we reside in leads us to seek instant gratification from our gadgets. We feel irritated when there is a wait of several seconds, and the result is that we need all to be done quickly to delight ourselves. It’s an issue. However, when you exploit this innate inclination to your benefit in your promotion, it’s not an issue.
With several valuable items that your clients must wait for, you can be the one blazing alternative that offers folks what they want right away, which is exactly what they need.
By incorporating these strategies into your branding, you can reap the benefits of innate human urges and wants, while also assuring that your users appreciate working with you. Making it a win scenario and aiding you in growing your brand and fostering connections with clients so that they keep coming back as you introduce new merchandise.
FAQ
What is instant gratification marketing?
When you provide the customers with the feeling of instant satisfaction when they purchase a product from your brand.
How important is instant gratification?
Instant gratification can turn your prospect customers into lifetime users.
Do millennials want instant gratification?
Yes, millennials have higher expectations for customer experience.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Fittr.
Fittr is a tech-enabled community-first health and fitness platform started with an aim to provide science-backed health and fitness knowledge to its users. With a three million strong and inclusive community, Fittr has trained and transformed over 220,000 people, centered on the fact that “fitness is a journey and not the destination”.
The philosophy underpinning Fittr revolves around fostering awareness and education around fitness and nutrition, alongside empowering its community members with the right knowledge, skills, and support to achieve their fitness goals.
StartupTalky interviewed Sonal Singh (Co-founder, Fittr) to get insights into the startup story and roadmap of the organization. In this article, you’ll discover how Fittr was launched, its business model, funding details, future plans, and more.
Fittr is a tech-enabled community-first health and fitness platform started with an aim to provide science-backed health and fitness knowledge to its users. The platform encourages people to begin their fitness journey with science-backed knowledge.
In the long term, Fittr aims at making 50 million people fit and creating 100,000 meaningful career opportunities in the fitness industry. Its mission is to become the leading global social platform and marketplace for fitness coaching by educating and inspiring people to get fit & transform their lives. For the next year or two, the primary focus is to generate effective employment for more than a thousand fitness and nutrition coaches.
There is a strong philosophy that underpins Fittr revolving around fostering awareness around fitness and nutrition, alongside empowering its community members with the right knowledge, skills, and support to achieve their fitness goals. Being a community-driven platform, it aims at bringing the fraternity of fitness enthusiasts together to usher in the much-needed innovation in the industry. The team here strongly believes in democratizing fitness and busting myths around fitness education, thereby building a healthier society together.
Fittr – Industry Details
As per industry estimates, there is a report recently released by Redseer Consulting that positioned India’s fitness industry which includes equipment, sportswear, fitness services, and recreational sports, at USD 12 billion in 2018, and despite the ongoing pandemic, the overall fitness industry is expected to touch the USD 32 billion mark by 2022 and grow at an annual rate of 27%.
The fitness market has seen a massive boom with the industry pivoting its business model to online. Convenience and personalization are the key elements driving the online fitness industry. One of the major trends that are being witnessed these days and will become more prominent in the future is the hybrid fitness model which will be an amalgamation of online fitness classes and going to gyms. Sonal Singh (Co-founder, Fittr) anticipates that we will continue to witness the surge in the adoption of online fitness in the coming years along with more personalized fitness programs developed on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Over the years, Fittr has evolved to become the platform it is today, and it will continue to do so to deliver holistic fitness – for the body, mind, and beyond.
It all began as small a WhatsApp group in 2014 by Jitendra Chouksey (JC), who is also the founder and CEO, to help his friends get in shape. The other co-founders Jyoti Dabas, Rohit Chattopadhyay, Bala Krishna Reddy, and Sonal Singh, joined JC soon after. In the same year, given the overwhelming response and positive feedback, they quickly transformed into a Facebook group, called S.Q.U.A.T.S. The group was based on the “Systematic Quantitative Unified Aesthetic Transformation System”, which helped more people be a part of the fitness revolution with a safe space that is free of judgment. The Facebook community helped them, and others to understand the specific requirements all of which could be addressed with quantified nutrition.
In 2016 with an initial investment of INR 90K, the platform was launched. As like-minded people, each of them wanted to provide a safe and judgment-free platform where anyone could learn, transform, inspire, and explore their career opportunities in fitness. Later, they created the fundamental training methodology to prove that anyone can get fit with the knowledge of Quantified Nutrition.
Then in 2018, the team launched the Fittr application with an aim to democratize fitness. Today, Fittr is successfully functioning as a tech-enabled community-first health and fitness platform headquartered in Pune.
“I am happy to state that we have been profitable since inception and are one of the largest fitness & nutrition communities on Facebook with over 600k members” – says Sonal Singh, Co-founder, Fittr.
Fittr serves as a one-stop solution for all health and fitness guidance and related needs of the users. It sees itself as a technology company with a passion for fitness and nutrition. Fittr uses AI to create intuitive tools that map the entire fitness journey of a person. The app offers a full suite of easy-to-use tools such as a free diet tool, free training tool, body fat calculators, macros calculator, and many others. The platform also provides personalized guidance, customized plans, and weekly check-ups through Fittr’s certified coaches by paying a small premium.
Fittr Logo
The company’s strength is its strong three million-plus inclusive community which not only supports each other’s fitness goals but also encourages them to become a better version of themselves. Additionally, Fittr’s B2C freemium model, along with its principle of ‘Quantified Nutrition’, a scientific and proven method for achieving life-long health and fitness is what makes Fittr stand out from the clutter.
Initially, the name of the organization was S.Q.U.A.T.S, “Systematic Quantitative Unified Aesthetic Transformation System”. In March 2019, the team rebranded the company’s name to FITTR as it is more reflective of the market that they aspire to serve. They believe that this name has more impact on peoples’ minds and gives fitness aficionados a psychological push towards staying fit whenever they see the app icon on their smartphones.
Fittr has a subsidiary called the Institute of Nutrition and Fitness Sciences (INFS) which was established with the intent of imparting comprehensive and practical knowledge in health and fitness by one of the Co-founders, Jyoti Dabas.
INFS provides a range of online courses with the aim of promoting scientific learning, research initiatives, and revolutionizing the health and wellness industry. INFS is on a mission to provide its students with a best-in-class education in nutrition and fitness. To date, more than 12,000 students have enrolled in INFS certificate courses and over 3300 are enrolled in their other offerings like workshops in Ayurveda and mindfulness.
Fittr – Founders and Team
Jitendra Chouksey (CEO), Jyoti Dabas, Rohit Chattopadhyay, Bala Krishna Reddy, and Sonal Singh are the founding members of Fittr.
Sonal Singh – Co-founder, Fittr
Fittr’s co-founders include Jitendra Chouksey, an IT engineer, Jyoti Dabas, a former Citigroup analyst, Rohit Chattopadhyay, who comes in with a diverse sales and marketing experience across banking & various other sectors, and Bala Krishna Reddy, a former developer at Ford Motors. They came together to form Fittr with a common goal to provide a safe and judgment-free platform for people to learn, transform, inspire, and explore career opportunities in fitness.
A little brief about Fittr’s co-founders is as below:
Jitendra Chouksey
A first-generation entrepreneur, Jitendra Chouksey (JC) is a graduate as an IT Engineer and worked for more than eight years in the tech sector at companies like IBM, L&T, and Mphasis. The sedentary lifestyle started taking a toll and as a lifelong fitness enthusiast, he wasn’t content with his personal fitness level. He delved deeper into educating himself & experimented on his own body. He came to realize that the secret to fitness wasn’t as complicated as it seemed: it was based on the science of quantified nutrition. Having transformed himself, he went on to win the title of Muscle Mania Muscle Model 2015. He gained the attention of his friends and colleagues who all wanted to learn how to transform.
Rather than keep his fitness discovery a secret or charge people, he started training them for free first on WhatsApp and then Facebook. When the demand became overwhelming, he trained coaches with the hope that they could train others and spread the knowledge. Before JC knew it, his simple ambition to help others was the genesis of an entrepreneurial adventure called Fittr.
Jyoti Dabas
Jyoti Dabas is a Co-founder at Fittr. After securing an MBA from IIM-Calcutta, Jyoti went on to complete an Electronics and Communications Engineering degree from the University of Warwick. She is also a Doctor of Naturopathy, Certified Personal Trainer, and a Certified Life Coach.
She is also Founder and CEO at INFS – India’s largest Online Fitness Certification Institute. As a founding member, her role is to uphold the quality of the courses offered by INFS and to ensure the company lives up to the expectations of the stakeholders. She aims to increase the number of quality Fitness Professionals in the country and create opportunities where these professionals can earn at par with other service industries
Apart from her many academic achievements, Jyoti is an entrepreneur at heart. Having served more than seven years in the field of Banking and Consulting in London and India, she stepped out of her comfort zone to explore her interests in the Fitness Industry.
Rohit Chattopadhyay
Rohit Chattopadhyay is the Co-Founder and Director of Fittr. The foundation of Rohit’s entrepreneurial journey with Fittr was laid when he joined Fittr’s Facebook community. He began implementing everything that was recommended in the group. With time, Rohit witnessed his health and fitness improve by leaps and bounds. This became a turning point for him, as he realized fitness was his true calling. After a year, Rohit moved to Pune and became a Fittr coach, and eventually a part of the founding team of Fittr.
Rohit is closely involved in the branding and marketing efforts of Fittr. Prior to joining Fittr, Rohit was working in the marketing department of IBA Systems and Automations. He has an Electrical Engineering degree, and a Master’s degree in Marketing.
Bala Krishna Reddy
Bala Krishna Reddy Dabbedi is the Co-Founder and Director of Fittr. He comes with a decade-long experience in technology and fitness. Bala began his career in technology at large corporations in India and the United States. This helped him gain insight into international markets.
With a Master’s degree in Science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, he was part of the original team that helped create the Fittr website. During that period, Bala was working with Ford Motors in the US. However, he understood that Fittr was something special and recognized his interest in fitness to move to India.
Fittr acts as a one-stop-shop for all health and fitness needs and offers a freemium model to all its users.
It provides free access to diet and training tools, over 5000 healthy recipes, live fitness sessions with experts, Q&A with coaches, and connects users to a community of over three million members comprising fitness experts and enthusiasts.
The users pay a small premium only when they require a personalized nutrition and exercise plan to reach their health and fitness goals. The customized plans are provided by one of Fittr’s 500 plus certified coaches, along with in-depth consultation calls as well as weekly check-ups on their progress via the app. Almost all of Fittr’s coaches come from the Fittr community and have their own stories of transformation.
Fittr has packages starting from INR 6,500 for three months, and the fee depends on the trainer and the time period of the package. And this is where Fittr earns its revenues from.
Fittr – Launch & Marketing Strategies
In 2014 itself, understanding the different needs of a body, the founding team launched S.Q.U.A.T.S, a Facebook group based on the “Systematic Quantitative Unified Aesthetic Transformation System”. The group was started to help more people be a part of the fitness revolution with a safe space that is free of judgment.
The Facebook community helped them, and others understand the specific requirements all of which can be addressed with Quantified Nutrition. They ran the community for free for 1-2 years. By the end of December 2015, the group had 50,000 people. What the team observed was that people wanted personal training. That’s when they realized that it is the human touch, mentorship, and accountability that people needed.
Thus in 2016, they launched a website called SQUATS later rebranded as Fittr. It was modeled like an e-commerce platform for fitness, except, instead of products, there were fitness coaches. This strategy worked well for Fittr and helped it capture and retain its initial users. Fittr has grown 100% organically through word-of-mouth.
The team has been working using this key mantra which has worked well for them, since the start of the company. What attracts Fittr’s customers are –
Quantifiable Results: Fittr’s unique methods and personalized approach are the game-changers that helps users achieve their fitness goals faster
Human Touch: Fittr’s experts and qualified coaches go the extra mile to help the customers
Community: Fittr makes sure that whoever enrolls is not alone in his/her journey. They can connect with other fitness enthusiasts, share stories, and get inspired through Fittr’s three million strong and inclusive community
Fittr is a coach-led, community-first platform that consistently keeps on coming up with exciting fitness challenges and campaigns to keep its users engaged. Fittr’s flagship Transformation Challenge’s (TC) 14th edition was recently launched in August and as part of the same, it launched a digital campaign – #NoMoreExcuses to create further excitement amongst its users. The campaign’s aim was to urge people to drop all excuses, stop procrastinating and embark on their fitness journey to become a fitter and better version of themselves. As part of #NoMoreExcuses, Fittr conceptualized ad films highlighting how conveniently excuses act as obstacles for people who are taking their first step towards a fitter life.
Fittr’s Digital Campaign #NoMoreExcuses
Transformation Challenge is Fittr’s flagship recurring event that aims to encourage fitness enthusiasts to transform their lives and be a better and healthier version by competing with themselves. It not only aims to encourage people to push boundaries and begin their fitness journeys but also intends to inculcate the fact that fitness is a journey in which one competes with his own self and not anyone else. It also stresses building a sense of discipline, consistency, and diligence in them to achieve their fitness goals. The challenge requires contestants to share a video every week in the specified format to showcase their week-on-week progress for 12 weeks. The participants are evaluated on multiple factors such as muscle gain, fat loss, and consistency from the past transformation challenges.
Fittr – Challenges Faced
Whenever you start a business, you experience your own share of ups and downs, face challenges and struggles but never stop hustling. Fittr went through the same phase. Initially, when the team was putting the foundation of Fittr, many people didn’t understand the business model nor did they think that fitness and health was a big enough market to address.
The founders were advised to launch or endorse complementary products or even use advertisements to monetize their community. Promoting products would be a hypocritical stance which they didn’t want to take. However, their fundamental philosophy is to democratize fitness and show everyone how accessible fitness is. Also, the community they have built has been done so with the utmost commitment to quality and scientific-based knowledge. It took some time but following one’s own ethics has allowed them to build up a reputation as a trusted fitness brand and has led to the growth of Fittr’s community.
Fittr – Growth and Stats
Fittr is a community-first, coach-led brand headquartered in Pune. With a three million strong and inclusive community, the company has trained and transformed over 220,000 people and 30% of its user base is global, spread across the US, UK, Australia, UAE, Canada, and now North America and Singapore. In FY21, Fittr crossed 65,000 paid users and created employment opportunities for 500+ coaches.
Fittr has grown 100% organically through word-of-mouth and based on the transformation results shared by members via the Facebook community and app. In the past three years, the company has seen massive YOY growth.
FY19 to FY20 (YoY Growth) = ~22%
FY20 to FY21 (YoY Growth) = ~80%
The company focuses on democratizing fitness and has recently launched personal training/ coaching service on its platform and has recorded a ~20% MoM growth.
The company recently crossed USD 10 million in annualized booking run-rate and in FY 21, achieved gross bookings of USD 9.3 million (approximately INR 68 crores) to become one of the world’s largest community-based fitness brands. The current ARR stands at USD 15 million.
Fittr – Funding and Investors
Fittr has raised a total funding of USD 13.5 Million to date. Its most recent series A round was led by Dream Capital and Elysian Park Ventures for USD 11.5 Mn.
Fittr’s funding details are as follows:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
April 2020
Pre-series A
USD 2 Mn
Sequoia Surge
September 2021
Series A
USD 11.5 Mn
Dream Capital, Elysian Park Ventures
Fittr – Advisors/Mentors
Mr. Rajan Anandan, MD, Sequoia Capital & Surge (Rapid Scale-up Program for Early-stage start-ups in India, SEA)
Aditya Khosla, Co-founder & CTO at Path AI
Fittr – Acquisitions/Mergers
As part of Fittr’s commitment towards building meaningful communities while enabling it to scale up its reach to a larger audience, the company recently acquired a minority stake in Wylo, an interest-based social networking platform, and had earlier also invested in Fitato, a gym aggregator platform.
Fittr – Recognition and Achievements
Fittr as a company has grown tremendously and has been recognized by investors, organizations and have also been accoladed with awards for its unique business model and company’s vision of democratizing fitness.
June 2017- Awarded “Best Fitness Company in Pune” by Merit Awards and Market Research
May 2019- Bollywood actor Suniel Shetty became the strategic investor of the startup
November 2019- A US-based seed accelerator program, Y Combinator (Winter 2020), selected Fittr
April 2020- Fittr raised funds in pre-Series A funding round from Sequoia Surge
September 2021- Fittr raised USD 11.5 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Dream Capital and Elysian Park Ventures
As part of Fittr’s next phase of growth, the company aims to enter the list of start-up unicorns and become the leading global social platform and marketplace for fitness coaching by educating and inspiring people to get fit. Along with strengthening and expanding the core services further, Fittr aims to create employment for 1,000+ coaches in the next 12-18 months. As a long-term goal, the team is working to make 50 million people fit and create 100,000 meaningful career opportunities in the fitness industry.
Fittr – FAQs
What is Fittr?
Fittr is a tech-enabled community-first health and fitness platform started with an aim to provide science-backed health and fitness knowledge to its users. The platform encourages people to begin their fitness journey with science-backed knowledge.
Who founded Fittr?
Jitendra Chouksey (CEO), Jyoti Dabas, Rohit Chattopadhyay, Bala Krishna Reddy, and Sonal Singh are the founding members of Fittr.
How does Fittr make money?
Fittr offers afreemium model to all its users.
Free access to diet and training tools, over 5000 healthy recipes, live fitness sessions with experts, Q&A with coaches, and connects users to a community of over 3Mn members comprising fitness experts & enthusiasts.
The users pay a small premium only when they require a personalized nutrition and exercise plan to reach their health and fitness goals. It has packages starting from INR 6,500 for three months.
How much funding has Fittr raised?
Fittr has raised a total funding of USD 13.5 Million to date. Its most recent series A round was led by Dream Capital and Elysian Park Ventures for USD 11.5 Mn.
Social media management can be extremely exhausting, especially for businesses on multiple social media platforms. It can be tough to post daily on them, and Twitter is no exception. In these situations, automation tools prove to be life-saving. Automation tools help save time and mainly remove the ever-lasting question of “What do I post about today?” from the equation.
An automation tool is a software that allows you to set up a row of tweets and a time gap at which you want your tweets to appear on your Twitter account. It also allows you to send an automated direct message to your new followers. The other features and uses of these tools depend on the software of your choice. While some of them will display your tweets and updates as a simple bulletin board, others will contribute and provide the appropriate level of interaction to help your business develop.
Automating your account doesn’t mean your social media labour is over. There is a right and wrong way to automate your account. To make sure that you do it the right way, here are some tips to help you on your way.
Be sure to be different and remarkable. Automation is not rocket science; if you can automate your Twitter account, others can figure it out as well. Try to stand out and make your content unique and creative to draw a crowd.
Make sure that you don’t sound like a robot. Just because a bot is posting your tweets doesn’t mean that they have to sound one too. Put maximum effort into your tweets to ensure people don’t find out that a bot is running your Twitter account. Put some personality into them to make them engage and be a part of the conversation.
Be social. Your work doesn’t end at scheduling updates, monitor the discussion happening, be a part of it, and answer any queries or comments on your tweets. Respond to direct messages as soon as possible, and make sure you spend lots of time retweeting essential topics related to your business.
Don’t just post about updates, post about something else as well. Post about something that will attract an audience. Share a mix of branded material, personal information, and informative stuff from your company’s other products. If you just post updates about your business, the audience will consider it boring and repetitive and move on.
Don’t send automated direct messages. Suppose you send automated direct messages to people. In that case, your followers will most likely ignore you or unfollow you, as most people know that it’s a bot and not a natural person at the start of the conversation.
Keep an eye on trending topics across the globe. It’s difficult to predict which subjects will be trending from one instant to the next. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment may be bad for your company’s reputation, making you look insensitive or out of touch. Ideally, if a large disaster occurs in the world, you should pause your automatic tweets.
As previously mentioned, different automation software have different features, plans and services. It is tough to choose one from hundreds of them. To make it easier for you, we have shortlisted five automation tools among the best of the best.
Circleboom
Circlboom – Best Social Media Scheduling Tools
The best way to automate your multiple Twitter accounts from the same place is using Circleboom Publish’s Twitter Auto Poster. You can create, design, share, schedule, and automate tweets for their multiple accounts in one dashboard. Circleboom is a safe Twitter partner.
You can queue your tweets on Circleboom. You can set time intervals and share your Twitter posts automatically and continuously. Also, you can connect RSS Feeds to your accounts and automate your Twitter accounts with newspaper, blog, journal articles you choose within a time interval. This way, you will keep your Twitter accounts fresh.
There are many other great features on Circleboom Publish. You can schedule Twitter threads. You can find relevant and trending hashtags for your Twitter posts with Circleboom’s Twitter Hashtag Generator. You can find and design amazing Twitter pictures with the built-in Canva tool on Circleboom.
Circleboom Publish also supports Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business. Annual subscriptions start with $15.83/year. Monthly subscriptions start with $18.99/month.
Socialpilot
SocialPilot | Twitter Automation Tool
SocialPilot caters to a wide range of customers, with price choices ranging from small companies to giant corporations. What’s even better is that there are no feature limitations—nearly everything you can do at the highest level can be done at the lowest. It’s simply on a lesser scale. The Agency plan costs $150 per month, the Studio plan costs $100 per month, the Small team plan costs $50 per month, and the Professional plan costs $30 per month, with a 15% savings if paid annually.
Social Pilot is also very simple to use. Simply type your tweet in the box and choose from a variety of media options, such as videos, pictures, Twitter cards, or polls. After you’ve finished crafting your tweet, pick how you want it to be published, and then schedule it using the calendar, which will prompt you to select a publishing time and date up to a year in advance.
Buffer
Buffer | Twitter Automation Tool
Buffer is a simple service that does what it says on the tin. All you have to do is go to your Buffer dashboard, select your profile, craft your tweet and then schedule it. Buffer will automatically add it to the queue and publish it on your behalf at the predetermined time.
Buffer’s methodology makes content sharing a breeze. You may quickly create a new post within the app once you’ve connected your social accounts. Buffer provides a free option, but the Essentials subscription is only $6 per month.
Audiense
Audiense | Twitter Automation Tool
Audiense is a social marketing platform that uses what people say, who they are, and how they think to engage audiences with rich, actionable data and marketing tools.
To expand your reach on Twitter, navigate to the Target menu on your Audiense dashboard and select Discover New Twitter Users. Enter any brand-related terms, as well as a location if relevant. Utilise the keyword search to find Twitter people that have those terms in their bios. This enables marketers to gain a comprehensive understanding of their consumers, discover critical market possibilities, and engage them wisely.
There are three plans to select from: the free plan, the $99/mo Twitter marketing plan, and the $1499/mo Audience Insights plan.
Dlvr.it
Dlvr.it | Twitter Automation Tool
Dlvr. is beneficial for those who wish to regularly update their social media feeds with information from other sources or by bulk uploading. It is an excellent choice for social media feeds. It takes the material you select and distributes it across all social media networks. It does not take the place of the critical and directed messages that are posted regularly. There are three options to select from:
You can confidently schedule posts across multiple social networks with Hootsuite. You can manage organic and paid social content together, easily keep track of customer conversations, break down silos in how you collaborate with your organisation. You can also gain actionable real-time insights from social media to make critical business decisions—all from one intuitive dashboard. On the downside, you’ll need to subscribe to the Professional subscription if you want to view and react to your Twitter DMs. Hootsuite is free, but it offers a restricted set of capabilities. Depending on your demands, the other options cost from $49 to $599 or more.
Log into your Hootsuite account and click the top icon in the left-hand menu to schedule your tweets in advance. Include links, media, and hashtags in your tweet. Then, on the grey Schedule for Later option, select the time you want to save. Set the day and time for the Tweet to go live, then click Done.
Contentstudio
ContentStudio | Twitter Automation Tool
ContentStudio is a multi-purpose social media management and content marketing application that lets you schedule tweets ahead of time. ContentStudio also allows you to integrate RSS feeds so that you may automatically distribute information from your own blog or other brand blogs on your social media profiles.
It has a post scheduling tool that you can “set and forget” that you can use to publish articles from your content schedule on a regular basis. You may either let the programme choose the best days and hours for publishing based on its algorithms, or you can construct your own unique schedule by selecting the best times and dates for publication. ContentStudiooffers a free trial for 14 days. After that, it offers 4 plans, Pro for $49 per month, Small for $99 per month, Medium for $199 per month and large for $299 per month.
FAQs
What is Twitter automation?
Twitter automation is the process of automating Twitter accounts and activities. It includes direct messaging, scheduling tweets, curating contents, following, unfollowing, liking, and commenting on other tweets.
What are the automation tools to use for Twitter?
Some of the best Automation tools to use on Twitter are:
Businesses are more inclined to use innovative technological solutions to improve productivity, promote workflow efficiency, and become more competitive. One of the digital innovations suitable for startups is the WordPress table plugin.
WordPress table plugin refers to additional software installed on your website to enhance its table and chart presentations. Startup businesses can benefit from using the WordPress table plugin, which includes the following:
1. Create And Edit Responsive Charts And Tables
Tables, charts, and graphs serve as visual representations to organize information, show relationships, and compare data. WordPress table plugin enables startup business owners to create and edit responsive and dynamic charts and tables for the following purposes:
Show Statistics You can use this table plugin to create visual representations of relevant business statistical data such as your most sought products and services, customers’ demographic profile, sales, and more. Creating tables and charts enables you to better explain your goals and action plans to your employees and investors.
Showcase Products Highlight your products such as a menu, jewelry, or gadgets on your website by placing them on colorful and aesthetically appealing tables. In this way, your potential customers can scrutinize each product with zoom capability and other product features.
Show And Compare Pricing Coffee shops, restaurants, and other startup businesses that offer different products can present options in tables, allowing them to compare prices. It’ll assist your customers in quicker decision-making about what product to order online.
Sales And Finance Reporting This tool is essential in sales and finance reporting. Whether you need to present reports before your investors or employees, putting all data in creative tables and charts can better understand the trends.
Present Milestones Startup businesses go through different milestones. Plot your achievements into a WordPress table plugin to show your stakeholders how far your business has become. Examples of startup milestones include your highest monthly sales, first stock clearance, first account or deal closed, and others.
2. Establish A Good Business Workflow
WordPress table plugin allows you to create tables and charts in easy steps to improve your business workflow. First, you need to provide table data by uploading a file, pasting a MySQL query, providing a URL, or inputting data manually. Next, configure and edit the table to make it more responsive. Finally, you can insert the table in a web page or post using the standard WordPress Editor.
You can show your employees how to get things done in a workflow chart for easier understanding to improve productivity. Integrating forms to a WP table plugin can help improve your business workflows such as creating advanced reports for Excel and Word. This capability can save you precious time and effort, allowing you to focus on the most important aspects of your startup business.
Below are some of the advanced WP table plugin features to help you establish a good business workflow:
Conditional Formatting It enables you to change or highlight the cells, rows, and columns depending on the content. This feature is beneficial if you’re working with large data sets or numeric data such as showing your startup revenue report.
Table Export Tools These tools are buttons providing additional features for the tables such as exporting tables to Excel, CSV, PDF, etc. It’ll help you save time manually entering data in different formats for reporting, sales pitches, and even proposals.
Advanced Filtering This special feature allows frontend table users to filter the data based on specific desired values, qualities, or categories. Sort various data faster and easier, whether you’re pulling up your customers’ information, key business metrics, or inventory data.
Dynamic SQL Nurture your structured query language (SQL) using this feature, along with forms you can integrate to gather lead data on your website without requiring programming skills. You can access your SQL database remotely using this feature to make your data presentation easier.
3. Boost Your Marketing Campaigns
Startup businesses need to fuel marketing campaigns to sell. Instead of pure texts, inputting your data into tables and charts can help boost your marketing campaigns. These visual elements add more value and credibility to your startup business. Statistical data in tables and charts make your business look professional when presenting information to your customers, investors, and employees.
Monitoring and reporting the results of your content marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and any other campaigns are easier using tables, charts, and graphs. In this way, you can decipher effective marketing strategies that need improvement or should be eliminated.
4. Increase Your Traffic
Publishing tables and charts on your web pages and even your social media fan pages can attract more people to your business. These visual elements provide more accurate, on-point, and easier-to-digest information than text-based data. Because consumers always want to compare products to get the best value for their money, tables and charts can help you attract more customers.
For example, you can add a product and pricing table for the different furniture items you offer such as ergonomic chairs and tables for customers to compare each product side by side. So, instead of generic listings, you can make your furniture products stand out from your competitors by highlighting them in their dedicated cells on a table format.
5. Boost Your Business Revenue
Communicate your sales and business value using a WordPress table plugin. It showcases your products, solutions, and their features and benefits in visually appealing tables and charts. Integrating forms and the WP table plugin into your website allows you to gather lead generation data and even gamification data to improve your business strategies to boost your profits. You can also collect feedback data using forms and tables that you can use to craft your next year’s business plan.
Conclusion
Using a WordPress table plugin allows you to create charts and tables that you can use to promote productivity, flexibility, and efficiency. Using this website feature, startup businesses can show relevant data to employees, investors, and other stakeholders. With table and chart reports, you can increase people’s understanding of your products and services and help faster decision-making.
Tanusha Verma
