Nestle, today is the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company which has long been considered a beacon of commercial stability. It has been ruling the food industry from the last 150 years. Nestle is a transnational food and drink company headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland being the largest food company in the world.
Nestle’s products include all the food items like baby food, medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. 29 of Nestle’s brands have annual sales of over $1 billion, including Nespresso, Nescafe, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer’s, Vittel, and Maggi.
Many of the efficient food and beverage companies are often considered as reliable, especially in times of surprise and financial unpredictability, times that 2016 frequently reproduced.
In 2015, it is thought that the company sold $90 billion worth of goods across almost 200 countries. Some estimate that out of every cup of coffee drunk in the world, Nestle’s iconic Nescafe can claim ownership to making one in five.
Nestle was founded in 1905 by a merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1866 by brothers George and Charles Page, and Farine Lactee Henri Nestle, founded by Henri Nestle. The company grew significantly during the First World War and again in the Second World War, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products.
Word of Nestle’s success spreads rapidly, and through determination, commitment, and a pioneering spirit he builds a thriving business. His innovation is the model for all those that follow throughout Nestle’s 150 years, which show the company’s skill in meeting and anticipating consumers’ changing needs.
Currently, the world consumes more than one billion servings of Nestle products per day. The company operates in around more than 197 countries and employs almost 340,000 people. Nestle still embraces its values, the famous Nest logo, and its headquarters in the city.
Nestle’s story had begun in 1866, with the foundation of the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, which launched Europe’s first condensed milk. This was another important product in the era which was before refrigeration when fresh milk used to spoil easily in transit. In 1905, the Anglo-Swiss merged with Nestle’s company to form the Nestle & Anglo-Swiss Milk Company.
The company’s early success was due to its investment in science-based products and modern factories were efficient. Railways and steamships gave Nestle & Anglo-Swiss access to new urban markets worldwide, and it made savvy use of modern advertising media like newspapers, magazines, billboards to educate people on product benefits. Namely, nutrition, quality, safety, affordability, and taste.
One other benefit that Nestle products have always offered is convenience and the sense of reliance too, and this became especially important after World War 2, when more women entered the workplace, and people demanded foods that were easy to prepare.
By the period of 1938, people enjoyed Nescafe and started their day with it, the world’s first great-tasting instant coffee, simply by adding hot water. By 1948, they could enjoy a product called Nesquik, a cocoa-based powder that dissolves easily in cold milk. And by 1957, they could finish the day with Maggi pasta ‘ready meals’ in cans, which were hugely successful.
Nestle products
Nestle products
Even before Nestle, Cans were in the market, but nutritious meals in cans weren’t, and this quickly became a step of growth segment for Nestle. Such food product had a long life, they were easy to heat then eat, and one could even enjoy them cold. Cans were also simple to transport so that anyone could consume them on a camping trip, for instance, along with the cup of Nescafe.
The time raced to the 1960s, one could even enjoy the convenience of Nestle frozen foods and ice creams, which the company entered as domestic fridges and freezers grew in popularity. In 1986 Nestle went one step further by creating its own breakthrough Nespresso system, which evolved the conventional way people experienced premium coffee.
Nespresso is another Nestle innovation that enhances people’s quality of life, every day, every place. There’s a special emotion associated strongly with chocolate, which brings a smile on the people’s faces. Nestle first entered this business in 1904 when it took on export sales for Peter & Kohler, later adding brands such as Cailler and KitKat.
Nestle Food Industry
The future of Nestle
Now Nestle business has expanded to beverages, waters, dairy, confectionery, pet care, even skincare. In 2011, it extended its leadership in Nutrition, Health and Wellness by creating Nestle Health Science, to develop nutritional healthcare products that target optimal brain health.
Such innovations will help Nestle address the global challenges of malnutrition, growing and aging populations, and obesity. This same passion for nutrition triggers a commitment to improve products by reducing salt, sugar and saturated fats, and fortify them with vitamins, minerals, vegetables, and whole grains.
Wrap Up
Nestle 150 years
As Nestle’ celebrates 150 years, the company has stuck to its conviction that to prosper in the long-term, it must create value for shareholders, the communities where it operates, and wider society. The tag line of Good Food, Good Life stands true for the consumers.
Nestle FAQs
When was Nestle founded?
Nestle was founded in 1866. Nestle was founded by a merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company and Farine Lactee Henri Nestle.
Who Founded Nestle ?
Nestle was formed by a merge of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company (founded by brothers George and Charles Page) and Farine Lactee Henri Nestle (founded by Henri Nestle).
What products are Nestle?
Nestle products include Beverages, Cereals, Chocolate, confectionery, baked goods, Frozen food, Healthcare nutrition, Instant foods, baby food, medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee, and tea, dairy products, ice cream, pet foods, snacks, and a lot more.
What are Nestle subsidiaries?
Nespresso, Nescafe, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer’s, Garden Gourmet, Gerber Products Company, Vittel, and Maggi are some of the Nestle subsidiaries.
Edtech startups are emerging as a major business industry in India. In the next 5 Years, the Edtech market is estimated to grow 3.7x from $2.8 Bn (2020) to $10.4 Bn in 2025 (source: inc42). The global pandemic has substantially increased the adoption of Edtech services and products and is expected to reach an addressable base of over 37 million users by 2025. Edtech startups have grabbed this opportunity by its core and are providing unmatchable study experiences to the learners. On this note, it has become important to know how Edtech startups market in this competitive industry and stand-out from the crowd.
Know from an industry expert about the Marketing of Edtech Startups, Edtech Industry, Go-to marketing strategies of Edtech startups, 5 common marketing mistakes & more in this post ahead. StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Mahadev Srivatsa (VP – Marketing & Brand Strategy, Practically) to get insights about Marketing in Edtech Industry.
And here’s what Mr. Mahadev Srivatsa has got to say –
1.What was Practically’s first brand campaign? How effective was it? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
Practically, India’s first experiential learning app, designed to make learning immersive and increase retention in STEM learning among students of class 6 to 12, launched its first-ever brand campaign around the theme – ‘Bring Learning Alive’ in December 2020. The campaign has garnered 3x growth and the app has successfully crossed 330,000 downloads till date. The TVCs (TV commercials) have generated over 32 million+ views combined on YouTube and seen above average and consistent view rates, even after two months of launch, indicating relevance and popularity of the campaign amongst the target audience. This has been one of the highest by an EdTech company in India, without celebrity endorsement, so far.
The campaign included ATL (TV & Print) targeted at Andhra Pradesh and Telangana while the digital and social media marketing leg had a pan-India focus. The rationale behind this dual pronged strategy was to drive awareness and consideration in the home market and test markets at a pan-India level to gauge the brand traction and guide future expansion strategy. The brand also signed a two-week Associate Sponsorship deal with Bigg Boss Telegu Season 4.The entire communication was seamlessly woven to deliver the brand proposition of ‘Bring Learning Alive’. The campaign was also amplified using relevant PR activities.
Consumers and customers are different in EdTech, so the marketing challenge was to create a communication campaign that appealed to both set of audiences. The other was to optimize the budget available to create a maximum impact.
However the biggest challenge was to create an impact in a cluttered market, given the amount of SOV by competition in this space off late. Hence the strategy was to develop a communication that breaks the clutter and gets us noticed. Considering most brands at that juncture were indulging in dialogue-based communication, we zeroed in on a fresh, jingle format with stunning visuals to craft our communication. And the result was just amazing. Besides ticking off all KPIs that we had set to achieve, the first campaign has given us the correct dose of inspiration to go further. Besides downloads achieved, all our social media and in app metrics have also been impacted positively and this has set the ball rolling for more engagement in future.
2. Is offering something for free, a good marketing strategy to attract users for an EdTech startup?
A free trial works when the objective is to give people a taste of the offering. It also helps gain visibility and test out the product. So that the learnings, if any, can be applied to better it. When it comes to EdTech, it is important to draw a fine line as quality education, like on Practically, requires several teams and resources to work together to create the unique kind of experiential content and services that we have. With an objective to serve the length and breadth of this country, we have kept our pricing strategy Value For Money (VFM) and competitive. It is advisable to have a pricing strategy that sustains quality than compromise on it by offering it for free.
3.What is Practically’s Marketing Strategy 2021? Any business expansion plans?
We have had a great start for the brand in 2021 with the success of the first marketing campaign. We were able to pull off the entire TV campaign only with a production partner, without a brand agency. This is a dream role for any brand manager, especially when you are launching a brand and we managed to get it right at the start of our journey. Personally, it was a very satisfying experience to devise the brand proposition and work with the production house and ultimately see the vision come alive. And to have achieved our objectives through this campaign was the icing on the cake!
The success in our home/pilot market has given us confidence that we can replicate the same nationally. The plans for 2021 are aggressive as this is the hot sector and rapidly growing. The brand objective is to bring learning alive and make Practically a household name in India this year. And eventually achieve the goal of being the most loved and trusted e-learning brand.
From a business POV, while our focus so far has been on Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states in India, Practically is working on expanding pan-India in 2021, beginning with the south and west markets. And you will see the developments very soon.
With the Series B fundraise that we are working towards, we will penetrate deeper into all major cities in India and begin expansion to one international market by the end of 2021.
Our dedicated school offering- The Practically School Solution, which is absolutely FREE of cost to schools, has been a mega hit with teachers. Given the pandemic challenges, this solution has served a perfect need of the hour for schools wanting to enable quality online learning for their students. So far we have 200+ schools and 18,000 teachers who are benefitting from it. This solution will also be available now in the above markets in line with business expansion.
4. What are the go-to marketing strategies of an EdTech startup?
Marketing mediums of ATL, BTL and digital remain common. What makes the difference in strategy is the weightage that you want to invest in each of these mediums. That primarily differs from industry to industry and obviously TG (target group). Given the unusual circumstances that we are in today, across brands, TV and digital are proving to be the best and safest bet, till normalcy is restored.
5. How marketing in the EdTech sector differ from other industries?
Marketing strategies are always centred around the TG. More focussed the TG, the better the targeting. In Ed-tech K-12 segment, the consumer is the student while the customer is the parent. This presents a unique marketing challenge since the aspiration and appeal is different for both these groups.
Hence one needs to be clear at the start on what the objective of the communication is and craft the same accordingly. There could be certain topical communication targeted separately to both groups too, but then there needs to be a common brand theme. As far as brand communication goes, it makes sense to craft a strategy and communication that cuts across both. How one does that, is the trick!
6. What is the role of affiliate & influence marketing strategies in the EdTech industry?
Celebrity or Influencer Marketing is a strategy that is widely prevalent across industries and brands. Presenting a well-known face adds instant recall and is also one of the fastest and instant ways to generate brand awareness. When a famous person who is also loved and respected in his/her area of expertise associates as a brand ambassador, it also tends to add credibility to the brand.
The explosion of Edtech as a category and the investments made in it, has seen most of the incumbents adopt this strategy. A general observation is when the dominant player in a segment does this, others mostly follow suit.
Personally, I believe that need for an association depends on the stage at which a brand is and whether the ambassador is indeed a good fit with the brand values. Without both the above boxes getting checked, this is an avoidable strategy and can even backfire at times.
7. Is aggressive marketing, a method used by EdTech startups like used by other companies across industries?
The answer is actually the other way around. Traditionally FMCG and Automobile sectors used to invest heavily in marketing, especially media. Then came the telecom and ecommerce era and now media spends are heavily dominated by EdTech. Top sponsorships and premium partnerships are also being lapped up. In fact the rush for GRPs (gross rating points) and visibility amongst the incumbents in this sector, has started to look like what was prevalent in telecom, around 5 years ago.
8. What are some common marketing mistakes done by EdTech startups?
Spray and pray approach – India is the second largest eLearning market with an online EdTech user base to the tune of 10 Mn. Hence a targeted approach is important to resonate with audiences
Following a ‘me too’ approach- Not every product needs a celebrity or an influencer to establish themselves as a brand
Not defining/highlighting USPs – There have been over 3000 EdTech start-ups that have mushroomed in the last year alone. The best way to stand out of the crowd is to showcase why students/parents should pick you out of the host of others who do the same thing.
Applying the same marketing strategy and mix every time will not always work. As the industry and your product roadmap evolve, different mediums may be required to achieve results.
Focusing on customer acquisition alone is a short term play. Driving brand awareness which will eventually drive consideration and intent is the correct approach and will yield long term benefits. In a cluttered space like EdTech in India, at the end of the day, Brand will be the lone differentiator. Hence the effort needs to be set right, from the start.
9. How does the marketing strategy differ based on the target market of an EdTech startup?
Targeted marketing allows marketing teams to tailor their message to a specific group of customers. The targeting strategy is the point at which the marketing mix comes together to establish the best offer and marketing strategy for each target market.
Whether it is EdTech or any other sector, following the identification of target groups, one chooses the appropriate targeting approach. When it comes to grad and post grad students your customer and consumer are mostly the same which is unlikely in the K-12 segment. So the communication & strategy in both the above cases will be different.
Another aspect is geography. However in EdTech, every parent irrespective of geography, wants their child to succeed and have the best means to do so. So the disposable income, access to quality education, regional/cultural influences and content consumption are some key differentiators that one needs to be conscious about, while marketing a product.
10.Based on your experience & insights, what is the growth trajectory you witnessed in the way EdTech startups adopt marketing strategies in the pre & post Covid era?
Practically was launched in April 2020. So for us the learnings were different compared to the incumbents. One of the biggest challenges for EdTech as an industry, pre-Covid was adaptability to online learning and acceptance of the benefits it bestows. There were concerns as to how effective it is for kids. The pandemic was a watershed moment for this category and it removed the main barrier to online learning, since it became a norm. The growth witnessed in this category only reemphasizes the fact that when we visualize and learn through the power of EdTech, the comprehension is better. Without EdTech, education during the pandemic would have greatly suffered. And with the TG now experiencing and benefitting from EdTech, it is only here to stay and grow with a blended learning approach.
While the Govt of India is banning China made apps, and products, and we the people of India have started to apply the philosophy of ‘Chini Kam’ (i.e the philosophy of less to no Chinese goods) in our lives, more we have started to realize that there are indeed many Indian companies that have received investments from Chinese companies. A recent report lists 92 major Indian startups that has received funding from Chinese companies. Today we are speaking of such a Chinese company that has invested in many popular Indian companies, and it is none other than Tencent.
Tencent, which started off in 1998, launched its first product (a PC based instant messaging service) in 1999, has grown into a much well known and profit making conglomerate today. It has established itself as one of the world’s largest video game company, world’s largest social media company, world’s largest venture capital firms, investment corporation and a market leader across diverse industries. Let’s take a look into the some interesting facts and figures about Tencent.
Tencent Holdings Limited is a Chinese Multinational Conglomerate which almost has acquisitions in every corner of the business world. With minimum of four globally owned enterprises, and hundreds of subsidiaries and associates in various industries, Tencent has its presence across various business verticals including retail, e-commerce, search engine, real estate, video gaming, software, virtual reality, ride sharing, banking & financial services, fintech, consumer electronics, computer technology, automobile, movie ticketing, film production, music production, space technology, natural resources, big data, smart phones, agriculture, medical services, cloud computing, social media, IT, advertising, streaming media, AI, robotics, food delivery, courier services, e-book, education, renewable energy etc.
Some of the main subsidiaries include Tencent Industry Win-Win Fund, Tencent Public Space, Tencent Industry Collaboration Fund, Tencent Research Institute, and Tencent Technology Co Limited. The company has also started its operations in an insurance stream known as WeSure Internet Insurance Limited.
Tencent – Company Highlights
Startup Name
Tencent
Headquarters
Shenzhen, China
Sector
Advertising, Gaming, Social Media Marketing
Founders
Ma Huateng, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan, and Zeng Liqing
Founded
1998
Parent Organization
Tencent Holdings Limited
Website
www.tencent.com
Tencent – Founders & Team
Ma Huateng, along with his classmates from Shenzhen University, Zhang Zhidong, Xu Chenye, Chen Yidan, and Zeng Liqing are the Tencent founders. The company operates with Ma Huateng as the CEO and has more than 10000 employees.
Named as one of the world’s most influential and powerful person, and as a top businessman by many organizations, Tencent founder and CEO Ma Huateng, has also been declared as China’s richest man (as of June 2020) by Forbes. Born on 29th October 1971, Huateng has a B Sc in computer science. After graduating, Ma Huateng worked with China Motion Telecom Development, where he developed software for pagers, and earned $176/ month (Today Ma Huateng’s net worth is $51.2 Billion) . He later worked for Shenzhen Runxun Communications Co. Ltd, where he was into developing internet calling services. He started his own entrepreneurial venture, Tencent in 1998.
Tencent co-founder Zhang Zhidong is the second largest individual shareholder of Tencent. Also a graduate in computer science, Zhang’s net-worth is $12.6 billion as of June 2019, as reported by Forbes.
Xu Chenye is the Chief information officer at Tencent. Before joining Tencent, Chenye worked with Shenzhen Data Telecommunications Bureau, where he took care of software system design, network administration and also marketing and sales management.
Chen Yidan served as the Chief Administrative Officer of Tencent till 2013. Chen is currently associated with Tencent as an advisor, sponsor and honorary chairman of the Tencent Charity Foundation. Chen is also a part of the founding team of Wuhan College.
Zeng Liqing, worked as the Chief Operating Officer of Tencent since 1999 to 2007. Currently Zeng Liqing is the Advisor Emeritus of Tencent. Besides Tencent, Zeng also co-founded Taomee Holdings Ltd ( a company producing children’s entertainment products) and Shenzhen Dexun Investment Co., Ltd. Prior to Tencent, Zeng worked as Manager in the Shenzhen Branch of China Telecom Corporation Limited from 1993 to 1999.
Started in 1998, Tencent launched its first product QQ (a PC based instant messaging service) in 1999. For the the first 3 years, the company was in losses. In 2001, ‘Naspers’, a South African Media company purchased 41.6% shares in Tencent. The company ventured into online gaming since 2004. In 2004 itself, Tencent was also listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange. While QQ was earlier available for PC only, in 2005, QQ for mobile was also launched by Tencent. In 2011, Tencent entered the social media app market with ‘Weixin’ ( Now known as WeChat). Also, in 2005, online payment system ‘TenPay’ was launched by Tencent. Tencent launched its search engine Soso.com in 2006. In 2007, Tencent Research Institute ( China’s first research center on core Internet technologies) was started. Gradually the company acquired stakes in various businesses to accelerate its growth and also entered diverse industries from music to e-commerce and many others to reach its current position.
Tencent – Name & Logo
As per some reports, Tencent derives its name from two Chinese characters ‘Teng’ and ‘Xun’ which means something like ‘galloping fast information’
The logo of the company contains both the English and Chinese font of the name ‘Tencent’.
Tencent – Logo
Tencent – Investments in India
Tencent has emerged as the biggest investor in Indian startups. Tencent has invested in 15 Indian companies – Dream 11, Hike, Swiggy, Flipkart, Practo, Ola, Gaana, PolicyBazaar, Udaan, Byju’s.
Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent has invested $62.8 million in Walmart-owned e-commerce firm Flipkart. Tencent remains the second-biggest shareholder in the e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, increasing its stake from 5% to 5.34% and worth $1.21 billion post the latest investment made through its Singapore based subsidiary Aceville.
Tencent Invested in Gaana through its European subsidiary Tencent Cloud. In April 2020, India also tightened the approval process for foreign direct investment from any country with which it shares a border. Even after that, Tencent has continued investing in Indian startups through its subsidiaries out of China. Tencent is present in e-commerce, gaming, logistics, education, fintech and more with investments in
Tencent Holdings has raised a funding amount of $6.6 Bilion in 5 rounds.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
January 1999
Angel Round
$200K
–
April 2000
Seed Round
$220K
PCCW, IDG Capital
May 2001
Venture Round
$32M
Prosus and Naspers
June 2018
Post IPO Equity
$44.4M
Lippo Group
August 2019
Post IPO Debt
$6.5B
–
Tencent – Revenue Model
Operating in diverse industries, Tencent has a diverse source of revenue. Majority of Tencent’s revenue comes from in app purchases, from subscription fees on its platform like Tencent Video. The company also earns online transaction free from its payment service ‘ WeChat Pay’. Besides, the company also earns from digital ads run on its various platforms.
The Tencent revenue is generated through millions of micro transactions. They have adopted the VAS model. The value added services is their main stream of revenue. It is available on their social media platforms, gaming platforms and mobile games. For an example customers can pay for fancy weapons and costumes for their avatars in the game. Other sources of Tencent are digital content subscription, membership subscription, advertisement, and online games. It is clear that Tencent does not rely on advertising revenue.
Tencent – Competitors
The top competitors of Tencent are the Alibaba Group, Sina, NetEase, Baidu, Unix CCTV, Facebook and Sohu. Tencent continues to lead the global market with its diligent network and growing technology.
Tencent has a huge and sturdier global connection in various fields. In FY19, the company experienced a steady growth with a revenue of RMB 377.3 Billion, while its revenue was 312.7 billion RMB in FY 2018.
As reported, till January 2020, Tencent Holdings Limited invested in over 800 firms across the world, of which, 70 are listed companies and 160 are Unicorns. Tencent has acquired 16 companies till date.
Tencent has announced its plan of building a ‘Net City’ in Shenzhen. The Net City will cover an area of 320 acres that will provide sustainable power sources. As per plans, ‘Net City’ will be entirely car free, and will have plenty of green spaces and walking space for pedestrians, besides, self driving vehicles. Apart from this, the company is working towards improvising its every possible sector, especially in gaming and e-commerce. The tech giant plans to invest US$ 70 billion in high tech areas.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs
When was Tencent founded?
Tencent was founded in 1998.
Who is the owner of Tencent?
Ma Huateng is the CEO of Tencent.
What are some of the Indian companies that received funding from Tencent?
Dream 11, Hike, Swiggy, Flipkart, Practo, Ola, Gaana, PolicyBazaar, Udaan, Byju’s are some Indian companies that have recieved funding from Tencent.
A BPO service provider usually administers and manages a particular business process for another company. In India, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the fastest-growing segment of the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry. The factors which are responsible for the growth of the BPO industry in India are economy of scale, business risk mitigation, cost advantage, utilization improvement, and superior competency. Various industries have started implementing outsourcing such as information technology, engineering, business sector, etc. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) the major reasons behind India’s success in ITES/BPO industry are abundant skilled and English – speaking manpower also India’s unique geographic location and the investor-friendly tax structure made the BPO industry in India more popular. India has been the leading competitor with various outsourcing businesses across the world for an attractive wage margin.
India’s BPO handles 56% of the world’s business process outsourcing.
The demand for Indian BPO services has been growing at an annual growth rate of 50%.
70% of India’s BPO industry’s revenue is from contact centers, 20% from data entry work, and the remaining 10% from information technology-related work.
The BPO sector in India is estimated to have reached 54% growth in revenue.
The BPO industry in India has provided jobs for over 74,400 Indians. The Indian BPO sector is soon to employ over 1.1 million Indians.
Business Process Industry Trend Globally
India as a Global Outsourcing Hub
More than 82% of American companies grade India as their first choice for software outsourcing. A large number of multinational companies are outsourcing their business process to Indian BPO companies. India’s share of the global offshore outsourcing market for software and back-office services is 46%. Low training costs in India allow professionals to be continually updated on emerging technologies which is a critical success factor.
Top 10 BPO Companies in India
India is the world’s favorite outsourcing destination due to the following reasons:
Established telecom infrastructure.
Innovation and creativity along with intelligent solutions.
Highly qualifies and shilled manpower.
Cost efficiency with quality.
India’s conducive business environment.
Biggest pool of IT brains with 120,000 trained IT professionals added to the industry early.
Every year approximately 2.1 million graduates pass out of India’s colleges.
India has the largest English speaking population.
Cultural compatibility and friendly customer relationships.
Services Offered by Indian BPO companies
Customer Support Services
BPO companies provide 24×7 customer services via chat, email, and /or phone. In any business ‘ Customer is King’ and no company can approach customer service function as noncore, expensive and unproductive service in a business. A happy, satisfied customer will bring is more customers. An effective and active customer support service will strengthen the client and customer relationship. It will give them a positive feeling about the brand. Companies also get an opportunity to upsell additional services and products to the customers through this service. Companies offer such professional, polite, and affable customer support outsourcing service to any business across the Globe.
Technical support services can be delivered over varied communication channels like email, chat, phone calls, or using specified software. There are various technical services which are provided by companies like installation, product support, running support, troubleshooting, usage support, and problem resolution for computer software, hardware, peripherals, and internet infrastructure.
Telemarketing Services
India has taken 40% of the global BPO market. Companies interacting with potential customers and creating interest in the customer’s services/ products.
IT help desk services helps businesses provide high-quality troubleshooting services to customers. There are a lot of qualified and skilled support engineers which are well equipped to provide industry-leading support for all levels of technical problem resolution.
Some of the services are listed below:
Level 1 and 2 multi-channel support
System problem resolutions
Technical problem resolution
Office productivity tools support
Answering product usage queries
Performing remote diagnostics
Insurance Processing
By the potential of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) insurance companies have minimized expenditure along with streamlining back-office operations. Outsourcing also facilitates the insurance company to carry out daily operations by forming a foundation of profitability and growth. It helps in reducing costs, survive any economic uncertainty, and most importantly set a stage for future expansion and growth.
Services are as follows:
New business acquisition and promotion
Claims processing
Policy maintenance
Policy management
Data Entry and Data Processing
Data entry helps companies outsource their data entry jobs with control over applications or remote server. Companies have strong firewalls for all PCs and the latest updated anti-virus software to keep client’s data safe and secure also have high bandwidth internet lines(with backup) to provide quality online typing.
In any business, there are huge numbers of data with valuable information. The data which are generated needs to be processed to exact findings, trends, and other business-critical information. That’s why the data must be processed, analyzed, and use the results to improve the business. This data processing service can be performed manually or automatically. There are automated tools available that process the data as per the requirement and processed data can then be used for analysis and further action.
The services which are done under this service are data entry from paper, books, images, e-books, yellow pages, websites, business cards, printed documents, software applications, receipts, bills, catalogs, and mailing lists.
Top 16 BPO Companies In India
Data Conversion Services
The data conversion process is required to be performed as the data needs to be in a specific format to make full use of it. It can be handwritten, audio content, video content, images, printed material, etc.
Data conversion services are as following:-
Data digitalization
Extract data from images
HTML conversion
XML conversion
Electronic Document Management(EDM)
Robotic Process Automation(RPA)
Converting handwritten to electronic format.
Conversion of PDF content to data in different formats.
Extracting data from receipts and online bills.
Bookkeeping and Accounting Services
Bookkeeping software like SAGE, MS-Small Business Accounting, Peachtree, Quick Books, and other spreadsheets are used as part of services. The experienced accounting and bookkeeping outsourcing team adopt a personalized approach for each client. There are many experienced accountants can work as a virtual back-office to business, to deliver essential accounting and bookkeeping services cost-effectively within a specified time frame. The most important part is that business information will be kept secure and confidential.
Form processing has become a stressful and inefficient activity amongst a majority of the organizations. Form processing services will also you to completely focus your time and resources towards the more important aspects of the business. Outsourcing from processing is a way to increase the productivity of an organization in the most cost-effective manner.
The outsource form processing services include:
Resume processing
Payroll processing
Application form processing
Shipping form processing
Warranty card insurance claim processing
Student and immigration form processing
Medical form processing
Legal form processing
Transportation and logistics form processing
Financial document processing
Tax form processing
Questionnaire form processing
Rebate form processing
Rental form processing
Purchase or sales order form processing
Online Research
This service provides a high level of accuracy, timely deliveries, total confidentiality, and cost-effective web research services. Online research is the slightest costly research methodology today. Companies collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative information to provide reliable and effective solutions. Companies can outsource this to skilled and trained research professionals.
From homemakers to entrepreneurs, women all around the globe have come a long way to break through the societal norms. Times have changed and women are now steadily embarking on the remarkable path of entrepreneurship. They are now leading with positive belief and confidence. The Indian corporate world has also witnessed the impact of these efforts.
Chavi Agarwal is an inspirational entrepreneur and the Founder of CView. Nowadays, it’s a tough grind to cope up with the growing pressures of global job markets and hiring competition. The recruitment process is now technology-driven and getting automated to a massive extent. This calls for innovation and adopting a different approach when applying for jobs. And CView is the answer. CView is a career- technology company which combines artificial intelligence and machine learning to power the first ever end-to-end ATS compliant CV service.
Ms. Chavi Agarwal, the founder & CEO of CView, is an entrepreneur with experience in career technology and ATS software development. She did her Bachelor’s in Finance from Warwick Business School, UK. The fire to be an entrepreneur and the urge to create something tangible for people around her led her to pursue a Master’s degree in Innovation Entrepreneurship and Financial Technology from Imperial College, London.
She has worked in eminent startups and and for one of the Big4s in the field of Mergers and Acquisitions. She has mentored more than 1000 students and given 100+ webinars across the globe. Moreover, she’s an active contributor in the student and youth community.
Chavi Agarwal – About CView
CView is in the Career-Technology space and has built India’s first end-to-end ATS-compliant CV Service to alleviate the issues candidates face. Some of these issues are the lack of awareness of ATS compliance and job-person fit equation. This results in unsatisfied and unmotivated candidates who end up with sub-optimal opportunities.
CView’s in-house Application Tracking System (ATS) has all the capabilities of any robust MNC-based ATS system. Its design and results are unmatched and CView claims to boost the customers’ chances of getting an interview call from MNCs, MSMEs, and start-ups by 60%.
Chavi Agarwal – Idea For CView
Ms. Agarwal saw a huge gap in the market between the recruits and the employers. She noticed that students did not know the importance of an effective CV. It’s a known fact that every CV now goes to a certain software called the Applicant Tracking System; rarely do people review incoming resumes for shortlisting. She observed that maximum applications rejected across the globe were due to poorly prepared CV. After thorough market research, she concluded that existing services were generic and the same prototype templates were being circulated all over.
This is when she combined knowledge from her personal experiences. With her know-how of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, she started CView, a software development company that combines AI and human expertise to guide students in crafting a robust, noteworthy CV.
She built an in-house Applicant Tracking System to help in the process. Working on CView also revealed the dependence of the industry on manual methods despite the presence of a technologically heavy environment. CView’s offering had to be internet-based since Chavi wanted to reach out to people from different nations.
Ms. Agarwal was determined to alleviate the problem of lack of right Job-Person fit and the unawareness around ATS compliance.
“Our endeavour is to train our software with machine learning so that it can replicate a recruiter’s acumen to perfection. We also wish to remove any human interface in the CV building and checking process.” – Miss Chavi Agarwal, Founder and CEO
Chavi Agarwal – Why CView?
CView has three main Unique Selling Points (USP):
Its first USP is an in-house Application Tracking system developed by Ms. Agarwal. The system uses a database of more than 1,00,000 CVs and replicates an industry-grade ATS tool. All CVs curated by CView are end-to-end ATS compliant and have a minimum ATS score of 90.
CView is an extremely customer-oriented organisation and the second USP is CView’s personalised discussion and improvement calls with all users; the setup is for understanding their experiences and journey in depth.
The third and final USP is a comprehensive profile assessment sheet which is used to build CVs from scratch. CView is compassionate towards every customer’s professional journey and it aims to capture the essence of the same through the profile assessment sheet.
Chavi Agarwal – Biggest Challenge as an Entrepreneur
As a woman entrepreneur, especially in Technology, she faced the following challenges:
People, investors, partners and collaborators kept second-guessing her commitment; hence, the longevity of the business. As a woman entrepreneur, she saw herself constantly working harder to showcase her passion, ambition, and her long-term vision. She found herself explaining vision and the enormity of it more than any male-counterpart would ever have to.
Secondly, people expect women to be working in women-oriented businesses and the challenge then is to constantly face an ongoing perception battle. What kept her going is the fire and the urge to provide a new and improved value proposition to the youth globally.
Apart from the above two points, CView has to continuously educate customers about the ATS as most people do not understand its importance. This results in high customer acquisition efforts and costs which is indeed a challenge.
Chavi Agarwal – CView Team
For Chavi Agarwal, CView is synonymous with her employees. She has carefully recruited and trained her compassionate and hardworking team. CView’s team consists of 23 back and front-end members. At the helm of the company are strong and powerful members. It’s this dynamic team she owes Cview’s success to.
CView believes that there is nothing more rewarding than making a difference in the lives of people. Ms. Chavi Agarwal is a propagator of woman empowerment and CView donates 30% of its proceeds towards female education in India. CView has also hosts pro-bono webinars on the subject of women in entrepreneurship for different organizations and universities.
CView will also be hosting a “back to school” webinar for grade 12 students and for over 500 students studying in different government colleges to inform them about the importance of an ATS compliant CV.
Chavi Agarwal – Advice For Budding Entrepreneurs
“As a budding female entrepreneur, I cannot stress enough on the fact that you really do not need high investments or a million-dollar plan. You can leverage your skills, existing platforms, and tools available to create value and establish something you enjoy doing. We had a 0 INR investment and have a 92% profit ratio at the moment through our bootstrapping efforts. You just need the will and the urge to create value for people and address existing problems in the market. We are constantly told to innovate something unique, be disruptors, and create new markets to be called an entrepreneur. That is not true, you can be innovative in the way you tackle a problem by creating a new value proposition for the market.” – Chavi Agarwal.
Chavi Agarwal – FAQs
Who is Chavi Agarwal?
Chavi Agarwal is the founder & CEO of CView, an entrepreneur with demonstrated experience in profile building, CV curation and ATS software development.
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 Scikey.ai
Akshay Sharma, Alok Kumar and Karunjit Kumar Dhir, the founders of SCIKEY had to go through the painful experience of dealing with multiple vendors and service providers for sourcing the required talent or even the right technology solutions & providers. Thereby leading them to start SCIKEY.
SCIKEY is a marketplace network for talent & technology solutions. On SCIKEY’s platform, the entire transaction – right from talent & technology sourcing to delivery happens online. The Asia HR Management industry is anticipated to be USD 40 Billion by 2027 growing @ CAGR of 11.7% (Grand View Research, Feb 2020).
StartupTalky interviewed Akshay Sharma (Co-founder of SCIKEY) to know about the Journey of SCIKEY, while also getting a glance on Scikey’s Business Model, Funding, Growth, Revenue Model, Products, How it started & more…
SCIKEY is a marketplace network for talent & technology solutions. It is essentially, how one may look up to it like the Amazon for talent & technology solutions with a touch of LinkedIn. SCIKEY is a digital platform for jobs, work & business solutions, supported by a Professional Network and an integrated Services Ecosystem. It aims to organize the talent & technology solutions marketplace online.
SCIKEY – Vision, Mission and Core Belief
SCIKEY’s Vision is to be the world’s most trusted company for providing customer-centric solutions by inspiring people, collaboration & performance.
SCIKEY’s Mission isto improve the lives of the people and enable businesses across the world by offering them best quality, value, insights & experience; through its marketplace network for talent & technology solutions. SCIKEY continues to invest in research & technology to fuel innovation and making people as well as businesses more productive, thereby becoming their trusted partner in this hyper-connected world.
Core belief: SCIKEY’s core values of Trust, Transparency & Excellence are the foundation of all the relationships, making those delightful and sustainable.
The global talent management software market size was valued at USD 6.26 billion in 2015 and is expected to witness a significant growth owing to its growing application scope in almost all the human capital-centric industries. The industry is undergoing a facelift with many new technologies disrupting the workforce management in organizations, of which cloud and data analytics are the most prominent ones.
A recent report published by McKinsey indicates that the digital talent marketplaces driving the so called “gig economy” could play a significant role in increasing global GDP by $2.7 Trillion by 2025.
Market Details:
Total addressable market: $100 bn +
Serviceable Available Market: $1 bn +
Serviceable Obtainable Market: $100 mn +
The geographical split of SCIKEY’s market is as follow:
India – 10%
North America – 30%
Europe – 20%
Asia (minus India) – 40%
HR Tech industry:
Asia HR Management industry is anticipated to be USD 40 Billion by 2027 growing @ CAGR – 11.7% (Grand View Research, Feb 2020)
Global HR Tech Marketplace – USD 400 Billion (Deloitte Reports)
HR Tech Market Size In Asia – USD 9 Billion (Grand View Research, Feb 2020)
Robotics / AI Based HR Tech Market – USD 6 Billion (People Matters)
Alok Kumar is the founder of SCIKEY. Akshay Sharma and Karunjit Kumar Dhir are the Co-founders of SCIKEY.
SCIKEY is the brain child of Alok Kumar. Shriram & Akshay had met & worked with Alok as a part of his team, before Alok moved out to build SCIKEY. Interestingly, Karunjit had first met Alok in 2007, when he was helping Alok as his customer to setup their offshore captive in India.
Since then, they built a great chemistry & mutual respect but Karun moved out of India in 2014 and so little did they know that they will again get to work some amazing stuff together until thatdinner invitation in 2018. Karun had moved out from his last corporate stint in Malaysia and was taking a short break to visit India to spend some time with his family. It was during this trip back home where Alok invited Karun for catchup over a dinner where he shared his vision of SCIKEY to Karun. Alok was inspired by some of Karun’s critical inputs & prior experience of building multiple technology businesses ground up in multiple global markets, thereby invited him to be a part of the Co-Founding team at SCIKEY; and the rest is history.
SCIKEY’s core team’s tasks –
Alok Kumar – Founder
Akshay Sharma– the owner of R&D & works closely with Alok & Karun on key business boosters like research, automation, growth hacking etc.,
Karunjit Kumar Dhir – owner for the branding, business development, revenue growth & global expansion, investors & fundraising, Finance
SCIKEY’s work culture is built around the core values of trust, transparency & excellence leading to mutual respect, happiness & sustainability.
SCIKEY’s hiring funda has an interesting framework, named ‘DISCO Framework’
D – Dependability (can I just talk to you once & be assured the job is done without any follow-ups or even better can you pro-actively get the job done?)
I – Integrity & Ethics (how much can I trust you & be assured that you will always do the right thing even when no one is watching you?)
S – Solution Mindset & an attitude of sharing (every business will have many problems to solve & so are you the one who will provide solutions or just restate the problems back to us? And, even when you solve problems, will you share the credit with your team or always fly solo?)
C – Curiosity (Can you challenge the Status Quo & imagine better? Are you good with ‘Why’ and ‘Why not’?)
O – Openness (Are you humble, open to feedback, correction, change, to Learn, Unlearn & Relearn?)
The Founders & Team section of the post already covered the part on how the Core team of SCIKEY was formed. Let’s see what else it took to start SCIKEY.
SCIKEY’s founding team have lead multiple companies in different roles (including CXO) as well as geographies and were mostly involved in building products, teams, delivery centers ground up etc., Therefore, quite often they found themselves in a situation where they had to go through the painful experience of dealing with multiple vendors and service providers for sourcing the required talent or even the right technology solutions & providers.
“It used to be a very time consuming & inefficient exercise with a direct negative impact on business and ROI” Says Akshay Sharma (Co-founder, SCIKEY)
Another big related parallel problem that they always encountered was the productivity issues of the teams or people who were sourced by their talent partners and the resulting losses for the company as an outcome of that. These prevalent issues motivated the team to seriously think of a solution that later took the shape of SCIKEY.
Even, other peers from the industry acknowledged the problem, but no one was trying to solve it with an effective workable solution. So most of the ideation happened internally. They collected feedback from the CXOs or top leaders in the industries who were directly responsible for building and running profitable companies of different shapes & sizes (right from funded start-ups to global fortune MNCs). This helped the SCIKEY team to learn the root-cause of the problem and by connecting the dots from personal experience + Inputs from leaders, they decided to build SCIKEY! Arobust platform and a business model that can be scaled to service the needs of a global audience.
The way this world moved from offline to online banking, offline retail to e-commerce, offline taxis to e-hailing and more. SCIKEY also started with taking the entire experience of sourcing talent & technology solutions online.
On SCIKEY’s platform, the entire transaction – right from talent & technology sourcing to delivery happens online. It aims to organize the talent & technology solutions marketplace online.
SCIKEY is primarily automating most of the mechanical things but going big on the human touch. It’s about helping the generally overloaded talent & technology sourcing teams, with a solution that eases their life and helps them add real value to the business by being a “business partner” in its true sense. It is about streamlining the process end-to-end (that is otherwise largely fragmented) not only to achieve exceptional business outcomes, but also offering a great user experience, that is missing generally.
And then came Covid19, which further disrupted & redefined the future of work and how the businesses look at getting their talent and technology solutions right. The Future of Work & Workforce is very different from what it has been all these years. We now live in a post-COVID world. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital, virtual as well as remote solutions but the large part of talent & technology solutions market is still serviced manually (via a handful of the tools that do not offer a complete end-to-end solution or assured outcomes).
Customers now expect a great Experience (Personalized), Convenience (Anywhere & Real-time access), Value (Ongoing), Choices (Faster Fulfilment) & Insights (that impact Business Outcomes). And this is where SCIKEY helps!
SCIKEY offers a digital, connected & intuitive experience over a secure cloud-based platform for best outcomes & productivity, leveraging technology, Crowdsourcing (Onsite, Offshore, Remote), Community & Automation to deliver best of the solution and insights that impact business outcomes.
Research & IP Focus – Patent filed for the SCIKEY MindMatch algorithm & research presented at the United Nations(Geneva) twice. Unique “Managed Marketplace” business model that leverages advanced tech enabled crowd-sourcing of talent & technology solutions in a single online platform making it highly elastic, scalable & cost-efficient.
Solid founding team with decades of proven industry leadership experience selling large solutions & building high-growth business in multiple global markets from scratch; and prior experience of working together.
Deep domain as well as technical expertise.
Astute focus on unit economics and hence a cash-positive business already.
SCIKEY emerged from the combination of two important words that form the generis of the team’s approach behind building this platform –
Scientific (backed by research & data) + Key (of crucial importance) = SCIKEY
“We have always seen SCIKEY as a solution to some of the ‘key’ problems of our potential customers and we genuinely believe in the power of scientific input(data) in this hyper-connected world that we live in. and, that is how we decided to go with Sci + Key = SCIKEY” Says the team.
SCIKEY LOGO
It’s not only the SCIKEY name that has deep meaning and relevance but the colors represented in the SCIKEY logo also has notions behind it.
Colors convey emotions & evoke thoughts. The 6 colors in the SCIKEY’s logo convey the emotions of the brand. It represents the possibility of looking at a problem in 6 different ways to evaluate multiple potential solutions as well as personalities coming together to solve the problem.
Blue – A color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.
Green – Resembling nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark greenis also commonly associated with money.
Yellow – The most luminous of all the colorsof the spectrum. It’s the colorof happiness, and optimism, of enlightenment and creativity, sunshine and spring.
Orange – It combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.
Red – A color of passion and adventure.
Grey – In colorpsychology, grey represents neutrality and balance.
SCIKEY – Business Model and Revenue Model
SCIKEY operates mainly on a SaaS model. SCIKEY’s revenue model is based on –
Transaction Fee – 15-30% of the sale value from the marketplace network
Micro-payments – $10 – $200 for various features, add-ons, reports, assessments monetized from its network
Subscription – for some of the ‘ABC-as-a-Service’ components & certain Premium Features for buyers as well as sellers on the platform
Managed Services & Consulting – especially for the Offshore & Remote Work solutions plus other premium offerings
Since beginning, SCIKEY was a research focused company. The team was already working with various professionals, businesses, institutions as well as universities/colleges on multiple research projects as well as pilots for some of the components of the platform. At start, it was not the same full-fledged platform like what one can see today, it was more of independent pieces or modules; largely to gather research data as well as user feedback.
For acquiring the first 100 customers , the team relied heavily upon customer referrals and LinkedIn. SCIKEY hasn’t been spending huge money on growth hacking as yet.
“We are a team that firmly believes in achieving an organic growth (even if it is slower initially) fueled by the thought leadership & brand authority as against burning big bucks to get quick hype. A quick hype is directly proportional to the burn-rate and tapers down as soon as the money fades away” added Akshay.
SCIKEY majorly focused on customer retention and repeat users. All they did was –
Listening to customers feedback, to incorporate it back in improving the product
Keeping its paid user acquisition burn to a minimum or zero
Continuously working towards improving the quality of experience & outcomes the customers/ users get from SCIKEY; as that makes us cash positive as well as sustainable.
SCIKEY founders are a big fan of frugal innovation & Zero cost marketing.
Whoever SCIKEY reached out to said this – “Hey, you guys have built such a great product. What progressive thinking, but how come we never heard of SCIKEY before? do you have any customer references? “
The major challenged faced by the team was that nobody knew SCIKEY in the market. It took a lot of effort and time to get even a demo booked (As per the sales team)
SCIKEY does not have a significant marketing budget & hence there is not much one can do. (As per all the Marketing Managers, Digital Marketing folks who applied for a role with SCIKEY but never joined)
This was one of our biggest challenges in the early days – Everyone we meet likes us (Team & product both) but as they have never heard of the brand before, they did not have much confidence to take the plunge & come on board as a paid customer – Said Akshay (Co-founder, SCIKEY)
This is what inspired SCIKEY’s team to get a lot more active on LinkedIn to create awareness and build engagement around the brand SCIKEY. Therefore, after 100s of posts, garnering 1,000s of cumulative views with an average of 2K+ and the highest of 10K+ views with many trending posts in multiple hashtags, a series of blogs and authored articles published; finally making it to the deal table and signing paid customers is what makes SCIKEY proud.
SCIKEY – Marketing Campaign/Strategies Adopted
SCIKEY’s 2 trending Marketing campaign –
Women’s day Campaign – #SheTakesTheLead
The idea was to promote women hiring for executive positions and challenge the status quo. Globally only 1 in 5 C -level Executives is a woman. This is because of displaced cultural norms. SCIKEY, with this campaign wanted to promote, from this women’s day that a woman will take the lead and the ecosystem should come together to support them.
To promote this idea. SCIKEY did a short ad film.
SCIKEY also acknowledged women leaders who broke the metaphorical glass ceiling, the society odds and has taken the lead in their own way. SCIKEY interviewed various women leaders to share their personal stories, how they overcame the gender challenges & despite of so many odds, how they succeeded to become what they are today.
SCIKEY Leader Speak Series
Under this initiative, SCIKEY interviewed Thought Leaders from the Business and HR space where they shared their perspective about the future of workforce, future of work, best strategies to lead the change & business. SCIKEY promoted these interviews on all of their social media channels, website & newsletters. Each leader further shared the interview in their own network. This has given SCIKEY a greater organic reach, trust, and credibility in decision makers fraternity.
SCIKEY was awarded the “Top 20 Most promising HR-Tech startups – 2020” by the CIOReview
AI powered platform with Research & IP focus – patent filed for the SCIKEY MindMatch algorithm that was presented at the United Nations(Geneva) also twice
Deloitte Technology fast 50 winner for 2020
SCIKEY – Competitors
Remote.com, Upwork and LinkedIn are the top competitors of SCIKEY.
Remote.com
Remote helps companies of all sizes hire top talent all over the world, in full compliance with local laws. It is a global platform for distributed teams. Remote makes it easy to onboard, pay, and delight remote employees and contractors.
Upwork
Upwork connects businesses of all sizes to freelancers, independent professionals, and agencies for all their hiring needs.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn platform is mainly used for professional networking, and allows job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs.
Over the next 1-2 years, SCIKEY aims to grow the customer base by at least a 5x and the revenue by 2-3x. While growing its partners by 5x and member users to at least a few million. SCIKEY is also planning to venture into new markets like Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Australia.
SCIKEY – FAQs
What is SCIKEY.ai?
SCIKEY is a marketplace network for talent & technology solutions
What does the word ‘SCIKEY’ mean?
SCIKEY has emerged from the combination of two important words that form the generis of the team’s approach behind building this platform – Scientific (backed by research & data) + Key (of crucial importance) = SCIKEY
Who are the founders of SCIKEY?
Alok Kumar is the founder of SCIKEY. Akshay Sharma and Karunjit Kumar Dhir are the Co-founders of SCIKEY.
How much funding has SCIKEY raised?
SCIKEY had funding of USD 3.5 Million in 2016.
Who are the competitors of SCIKEY?
Remote.com, Upwork and LinkedIn are the top competitors of SCIKEY.
When was SCIKEY founded?
SCIKEY was founded in the year 2016 by Alok Kumar.
YouTube is the most popular video platform. The simplicity of YouTube makes it easier for the audience and increases its popularity over the years. YouTube makes it easy for content creators to share their content with a large audience. There are millions of YouTube channels out there. Nearly eight out of ten(78.8%) marketers consider it to be the most effective platform for video marketing. Ads on YouTube receive more attention (62%) from viewers than television ads (45%).
YouTubers are always looking for ways to make money using their channel. Many YouTubers make money through Google Adsense but there is also another option of making money online through affiliate marketing. There are so many affiliate programs for YouTubers.
An affiliate program is a process where you can create a link on your YouTube videos to promote other company’s products or services with the unique code. If a customer uses the link to purchase the product, then the company will pay you a commission within the stipulated period.
The more customers use that link to purchase the product the more income you will make. Below is a list of the best affiliate programs for YouTubers.
Clickbank is a solution for new and industry-leading performance marketers and around the world to make money online. Clickbank is an affiliate program for YouTubers known for being a place for thousands of digital products like e-books, videos, and software.
They’re simply middlemen between product vendors and affiliates. Clickbank is both a marketplace for affiliates and an e-commerce platform for digital content creators and YouTubers.
There are two main ways to make money using YouTube and Clickbank. The first way is to create your products and list them and the second way is to skip the product creation step and list other people’s products while taking a commission from each sale. Vendors can select a commission rate between 1% to 75%.
Pros of ClickBank:
Simplicity: The sign-up process is straightforward. You can sign-up within a few minutes and start trading.
Inclusivity: Anyone can join the network for free. It’s perfect for beginners who want to learn the working of affiliate marketing.
Duality: In most affiliate marketing networks you go in either as a vendor or an affiliate. ClickBank allows you to enter both as a vendor and a marketer so you maximize your earnings.
Large Selection: There are thousands of affiliate products in every niche to choose from, your affiliate program choices are numerous.
Good Commission Rates: ClickBank pays high commissions of up to 75% or even 100% also they pay fast so you won’t have to wait long.
Stats of ClickBank:
200 million customers spread across 190 countries
87th largest Internet retailer in North America
276 categories and 21562 product listings
6 million entrepreneurs on the platform
Over 200 million dollars in annual sales
How ClickBank Works
2. ShareASale
ShareASale was started in 2000 & it’s a popular affiliate program for YouTubers and marketers to launch an affiliate program for their product or services. ShareASale has been in business for 19 years, as an Affiliate Marketing Network.
The objective is to provide customers with an advanced affiliate marketing platform. Affiliates have access to more than 4,800 merchants offering a variety of products and services. As an affiliate, you select any of the ShareASale merchants and start to direct sales to the merchants’ websites.
ShareASale Website
The merchants will then pay a commission for sales resulting from the affiliates referrals. Affiliate can decide the specific merchants which would like to promote and how you want to promote these merchants.
When your application is approved, ShareASale offers a search tool that lets you filter merchants by category, keywords, sales commission structure, or length of time with ShareASale. You can also look at the top 100 merchants. When you click on a merchant, you’ll see both their commission structure and payment amounts.
ShareASale offers affiliates and merchants several benefits. These benefits include real-time tracking and merchant and affiliate quality control. ShareASale also guarantees timely payments of earned commissions.
It was previously known as Commission Junction. CJ Affiliate is the world’s largest and most established affiliate marketing network. It specializes in pay-for-performance programs and is part of a Fortune 500 company called Alliance Data Systems.
CJ Affiliate different from other affiliate networks:
Stellar real-time reporting: CJ Affiliate is renowned for its always up-to-the-minute analytics. This means you never have to refresh the page because you can monitor your activity as it happens.
Tons of Selectivity: Most display advertising networks bunch up dozens of products in one ad code. As an affiliate publisher, you choose exactly which advertisers’ products you want to display and where.
Royal Treatment for Star Publishers: You automatically connect with over 600 brands — brands that are on the top list. With this, you enjoy pre-approved access to advertisers for premium rates while maintaining editorial control over your blog’s content.
CJ is one popular affiliate marketplace where you will find all the top products and they have added a new feature call Automation. This feature is probably the simplest way you can monetize your commercial links without manually editing your old links.
4. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing program that also includes affiliate programs for YouTubers. It allows website owners and bloggers to create links and earn referral fees when customers click through and buy products from Amazon.
It’s completely free to join and easy to use. When customers click the links and buy products from Amazon, they earn referral fees. Making money from an Amazon affiliate site requires traffic (visitors). Without traffic, nobody will click your affiliate links, which means no commissions.
Here are some of the rules to keep in mind:
You must disclose on your site or in your communication that you may be eligible to earn from your recommendations.
You must not make false or deceptive claims in your recommendations.
Avoid referring to prices (with some exceptions) since prices frequently change.
Do not use Amazon affiliate links in offline promotions, eBooks, or email.
Do not use link shorteners on affiliate links.
Pros of Becoming an Amazon Affiliate:
Amazon is a highly visited, well-known name that people use and trust every day.
There are no traffic thresholds or other metrics you need to be accepted into the program.
There are tons and tons of products you can promote.
Amazon has many tools to help you sell specific items or a category of items.
There is a good reporting system so you know what’s getting clicks and what’s selling.
You can receive direct deposit payments into your bank account.
Amazon offers good customer service to its buyers, so you reduce the risk of having your visitors get mad at you if they have a problem with the product.
Even if your visitor doesn’t buy the product you referred, if they buy something on that visit, you earn a commission.
Avantlink is an affiliate marketing network that provides cost-per-sale tracking and technology. It is suited for Merchants and Publishers and YouTubers with a suite of high-performance tools and real-time reporting for affiliate marketing.
Features of AvantLink are:
Product-Level Tools
Robust reporting
Powerful API
Paid placement
Dynamic deals
Affiliate Link encoder
Custom Tracking
Avantlink App Market
AvantLink Affiliate network announced recently the release of their Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) tool, the first tool of its kind available from any network in the Affiliate space. The ALE tool uses JavaScript to automatically change directly to merchant links that appear in HTML into AvantLink tracking links.
The ALE is optional for Affiliates. The network offers industry-leading data feeds and advanced Affiliate tools like embedded RSS feeds, an Affiliate API, coupon feeds, product displays, and ad syndication options.
6. JVZoo
JVZoo, owned by parent company BBC Systems, Inc. is a software as a service (or SaaS). JVZoo is an affiliate marketing platform that allows sellers to easily list, promote, and sell their products, and affiliate marketers to easily find interesting products at great prices to promote. It is a popular network for YouTubers and affiliate marketers to find high-paying digital products. They bring together affiliate marketers and product creators.
Some general characteristics of JVZoo include:
Wide range of products to promote.
A good future platform for your digital product
Affiliates with a track record can get paid immediately if put on instant commissions.
Refunds are not as aggressively pro-buyer since downloadable products have more rigid return mechanics.
One of the differences between JVZoo and ClickBank is that JVZoo product owners schedule and make the payments. The product owner goes into their JVZoo dashboard and selects commissions for payment via PayPal or MassPay.
Some of the most popular niches on the site are:
Self-Improvement
Finance
eCommerce
Software
Health and Fitness
Business
JVZoo has over 200 niches in its Digital Product Library, which means a large number of digital products to choose from. This lets affiliates choose a program of their liking to promote, whether that’s health and fitness, business, software, or e-commerce.
Rakuten Affiliate Program 20 years of experience in affiliate and performance marketing. There are a wide variety of brands that you can promote, and some of them are huge, such as Macy’s, NordVPN, Lyft, Microsoft, Lego, Monster, NVIDIA, and more.
If you click on Programs and Categories, you can simply find the ones that best suit your niche. When you search for a product or niche, and you’ll see a list of affiliate programs that are a match. The signup process is simple, you can get approved by many affiliate programs. There are huge brands that you can promote through Rakuten, and you can also create links and banners with ease.
Rakuten makes it possible for affiliates to promote some of the biggest brands in the world. All affiliate payments issued by this network are NET 60, which simply means you’ll get paid whatever commissions you earned 60 days after you earned them.
8. FlexOffers
FlexOffers.com is an award-winning affiliate marketing network that provides comprehensive solutions to both advertisers and publishers. FlexOffers is one of the highest-paying affiliate networks. This affiliate network is great with its huge 12000+ affiliate programs. Affiliates (publishers) can join several affiliate programs to earn commissions.
Advertisers have the advantage of earning profits without exerting too much effort. FlexOffers has earned the trust of many companies offering affiliate programs. They rely on this network to recruit affiliates, monitor their performance, and ensure that they get paid. For that FlexOffers has led to an increase in affiliate niches that can use Flexoffers to find relevant products and services to promote on their websites.
FlexOffers is different from others:
FlexOffers has 10,000+ Advertisers to Pick FromThey Offer Higher Payouts Compared to Direct Advertisers
FlexOffers Has Real Affiliate Managers
They Offer Fast Withdrawals
FlexOffers Has Plenty Of Advanced Technologies And Tools To Help You
Referring Other Marketers Earns You Money
Numerous Programs to Promote
FlexOffers benefits and features:
FlexOffers is a Straightforward and User-Friendly Website
FlexOffers makes it simple for its marketers to tap into its money-making potential through affiliate marketing.
FlexOffers allows advertisers to get reports touching on various areas at any time they want.
FlexOffers allows the merchant to see reports of sales & traffic on particular affiliates at a selected period.
FlexOffers has a massive network with tens of thousands of publishers and advertisers.
FlexOffers network and their partner merchants help publishers in marketing these products.
An experienced team provides support through email and phone. Additionally, FlexOffers has a ticketing system that caters to those who need immediate assistance when offices have closed.
The FlexOffers network provides its publishers with dedicated affiliate managers who help them get suitable affiliate offers
Most affiliate networks pay on Net30 terms while others pay on Net7 terms.
FlexOffers accepts payment via various payment processing platforms such as PayPal, wire transfer, and credit cards.
9. Impact
The Impact Affiliate Network is that started in 2008 by the same group that started up the CJ (Commission Junction) affiliate network. The Impact affiliate network hosts several affiliate programs and they will likely have some options for you to make money with your online presence.
Impact accelerates enterprise growth by scaling discovery, recruitment, onboarding, engagement, and optimization of all partnership types including affiliates, influencers, mobile apps, strategic, and more.
Impact Radius was built as a free-to-join SaaS platform to bridge between advertisers looking to maximize their ROI from global ads spend and affiliate marketers who look for customer journey insights, cross-device tracking, as well as attribution modeling.
Affiliate marketers and YouTubers using Impact Radius find it extremely easy to sign up for new affiliate programs. Impact Radius houses hundreds of affiliate programs in different niches.
10. Affiliate Window – (AWIN)
It was previously known as Affiliate Window but now officially referred to as “AWIN”. This network does work with over 13,000 active advertisers and 100,000 publishers (affiliates). This company has since grown into one of the most well-regarded affiliate networks in the UK, as well as the world.
It has around 1,600 brands across 77 sectors in 11 territories worldwide. They also provide a simple, user-friendly dashboard, as well as an array of useful tools that can help you boost your affiliate marketing campaigns. AWIN is probably best for experienced affiliates
It is most heavily oriented towards financial, retail shopping (fashion), sports, beauty, home and garden, and travel products. The commission rate depends on the campaign and the merchant/advertiser. AWIN offers aren’t tracked by Affscanner and OfferVault, so it’s really hard to gauge commission rates and earning potentials without being an approved publisher.
AWIN has a lot of powerful tools, including an “Opportunity Marketplace” where you can pitch merchants on unique one-off deals (like sponsored posts).
Conclusion
Both affiliate marketing and YouTube are the two biggest ways to earn money online. But if YouTubers will do affiliate marketing then it will be an extra source of earning money. Also, the rise of affiliate marketing will be growing more in the upcoming years. Above mentioned affiliate programs are popular and also well structured and the whole process of doing affiliate marketing is very much simple.
FAQ
Does YouTube have an affiliate program?
YouTube has an affiliate program for YouTubers, which is including links to products you review and use in your videos that will track a purchase.
Which affiliate program is the best?
Amazon Associates, Awin, CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, Clickbank are some of the best affiliate programs.
Do I need a website to be an affiliate marketer?
To be an affiliate marketer you don’t need to have a website, you only need traffic or audience and it may be on your YouTube channel, Instagram, or Facebook.
Spokesperson Mr. Mihir Mehta, SVP of Ashika Capital shares his insight on the Product Development and Innovation for F&B Industry as follows –
In one of my previous articles I had mentioned that “Roti, kapda aur makaan” are probably the most basic human needs and in the order as well, Roti takes precedence over other needs. Since centuries, the F&B business has been conducted in various forms, shapes & sizes and has seen significant phases of evolution in the last few decades. In my humble opinion, the business of food is quite interesting because not only is it a renewable/incessant business, it is equally dynamic and challenging and mostly on a daily basis. Some recurrent challenges like maintenance of quality & hygiene, product storage, supply chain management etc. are a part of the daily challenge diet of a F&B entrepreneur. That being said, F&B as an industry has seen considerable experimentation & implementation when it comes to aspects like products, distribution models, business models, supply chain management & storage etc.
In terms of product development & innovation, the F&B industry offers an extensive opportunity especially in a country like India wherein the diversity of cultures, cross-cultural practices, cultivation & inclusion of diverse raw materials, rapid adoption of novel products etc. propel the need and pace of product development.
Mihir Mehta, SVP, Ashika Capital
In my humble opinion, F&B players could look at some of the under-mentioned thoughts in order to focus on consistent and sustainable product development –
Discovery of unexplored cuisines at scale
Undoubtedly, India is a land of many cultures, practices & food cuisines. At the time I invested in an emerging food services entity The Bohri Kitchen, I was pleasantly surprised to see the reception garnered by the brand in a short time. One tangible reason behind the virality of this brand was the resurgence of a cuisine that had been limited to the households of a specific community. The conceptualization and scaling of Bohri food products created a whole new ecosystem of raw material vendors, kitchen staff, food experts etc. for this cuisine. In the past as well, the growth of brands like Rajdhani, Soda Bottle Opener Wala etc. is a testament to the success of a novel or latent cuisine when built to scale.
Creating a robust R&D ecosystem within the organization
While the larger F&B operators do spend considerable resources on creating and strengthening their R&D teams, most mid-sized players have not been able to supplement their R&D in the most effective manner. More often than not, we see that newer entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who have achieved a comfortable scale, are focused solely on optimizing their supply chain for the existing products and achieve a competitive cost profile. Quite obviously, it is a necessary and the prudent thing to do but de-prioritizing new product research & innovation in product development has long-term consequences in form of plateauing demand, decline in brand recall, slower inorganic growth etc.
Implementation of an actionable customer feedback channel
Well, this may sound like a normal thing to do in order to spur efficient product development but we are often surprised to see inaction & unorganized processes on this front. Yes, it is true that different customers carry different opinions about the products as well as processes and it may get difficult for F&B operators to identify & assimilate the right feedback. However, it is essential that companies follow a streamlined process to receive and implement customer feedback in order to maybe run trials of new products and have a set of customers who could be the right sounding board when it comes to new product development. The significance of a customer sounding board is undebatable and having a consistent & reliable sounding board is critical to ensure that the product development process does not suffer slowdown at any point.
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 Strata.
Lack of access to data-driven insights and expertise often leads investors to make unsafe choices in the real estate industry. Sudarshan Lodha and Priyanka Rathore noticed this problem plaguing the industry in their span of careers in commercial real estate.
Thus, Strata was born with the idea to democratize investment opportunities in CRE (Commercial Real Estate) and unlock value for investors, at scale. Strata’s goal is to achieve this with the in-depth real estate expertise and strong data analytics foundation through its fractional investment model.
StartupTalky interviewed Sudarshan Lodha (Co-founder, Strata) to know the Success Story of Strata along with getting a glance on Strata Business Model, Funding, Revenue Model, How Strata Started and more….
Strata offers investors an opportunity to invest in premium commercial properties at affordable prices with data driven insights. Fractional ownership in commercial real estate provides platform where number of investors join together to invest in a real estate asset so that all of them can benefit from a share of the income that the asset generates, and any appreciation in the value of the property.
Strata’s Mission – Accessibility, Transparency, Affordability in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Investment
Sudarshan Lodha (CEO) and Priyanka Rathore (COO/CTO) are the founders of Strata
Strata Founders – Sudarshan Lodha and Priyanka Rathore
Sudarshan Lodha (Co-founder & CEO, Strata)
Sudarshan is the CEO of Strata and handles the forefront of the business. Sudarshan Lodha, a successful lawyer, brings over 9 years of leadership experience in real estate & private equity law, having successfully handled several complex legal cases and venture capital transactions, representing private equity deals worth over $1.4 billion.
Priyanka Rathore (Co-founder & COO/CTO, Strata)
Priyanka is the Co-founder, COO/CTO of Strata and takes care of the tech and operational bit of the company. Priyanka has over 8 years of experience in financial planning and analysis with D.E. Shaw and WeWork. As the lead real estate analyst, her in-depth understanding of deal economics and real estate portfolio management played a vital role in WeWork’s expansion in India.
Strata’s journey began in 2019. The idea for Strata came from the personal experiences of Sudarshan and Priyanka. Their career in the commercial real estate industry showed them that most investors in India were uncertain about investing in real estate. It is mainly because of lack of awareness, knowledge and inaccessibility of smart data in real estate that can help to decide on investments.
In addition, when it comes to commercial real estate it is always seen as an investment category for investors falling in the top of the pyramid. This is where Strata’s fractional investment model and offerings come into play. It allows one to invest and own a share of prime commercial property at minimal capital.
There were three ideas that Sudarshan and Priyanka had in mind regarding fractional investment –
1. Reducing the high capital requirement – At Strata, the ownership of premium commercial properties are broken down into more easily investable portions or ‘fractions’ which come in small ticket sizes. Not only does this make commercial real estate more accessible, but it also means that an investor can diversify their investments across multiple properties and locations, thus reducing their risk.
2. Brings in expertise – Finding the right commercial property to invest, takes time, resources, and ample expertise. Strata’s team scours hundreds of properties and measures over a dozen different parameters before zeroing in on one that has the best combination of yield, stability, and value appreciation.
3. Improves liquidity – Owning to the easily transferable nature of the fractions, Strata brings liquidity to an otherwise rigid marketplace. Investors can list their fraction on its proprietary resale market, sell their holdings offline through a personal network or via Strata’s dedicated secondary window.
Word of mouth helped Strata acquire its first 100 investors. Strata’s business model is B2B, hence speaking to investors at personal level acquainted them to the idea of fractional investment whilst building confidence and trust in the brand. The concept of fractional investing is very big in USA and Europe and since the Strata team are bullish on B2B investment themselves, making these HNI investors understand the model was quite easy.
Strata’s transparent and data driven business model has helped it a lot in retaining clients. Strata’s Dashboard tracking system helps investors to track their investments. It’s exclusive partnership with PropStack has helped it a lot in order to keep the transparency with the investors
Strata – Products/Services and USP
Fractional investment allows the ownership of a fraction of a property by the investor. It is a very popular type of investment avenues in the USA. Whereas, fractional investment is one of the fast evolving investment concepts in India. Many people in India still don’t know that they can own a premium commercial properties at an affordable pricing. There is a misconception that commercial properties are only for HNIs.
Fractional investment solves the misconception and democratizes the ownership of premium properties in an inexpensive manner. Investors earn higher rental yields and much better capital appreciation in the commercial properties which is not possible in case of residential property investments.
At Strata, the unique part of the business is that it is pure play backed by data. Data driven investment approach with insights on properties, locations, pricing and building specifications give a confidence and build trust among the investors. In addition to it the investment process are fully transparent in nature. Strata’s platform provides access to detailed reporting and fair pricing, declared upfront.
Strata title is a form of ownership devised for multi-level apartment blocks and horizontal subdivisions with shared areas. The word “strata” refers to apartments being on different levels. Lots are either apartments, garages or storerooms and each is shown on the title as being owned by a Lot Owner.
Strata Logo
Strata’s logo represents a robust and stable shape enclosed with Strata’s initials, conceptualized from the floor plans of the opportunities offered for ownership and growth by the organization.
Strata – Business Model and Revenue Model
Strata’s business model is B2B. Strata’s foundation is based on strong data analytics through its fractional investment model. Fractional ownership in commercial real estate provides platform where number of investors join together to invest in a real estate asset so that all of them can benefit from a share of the income that the asset generates, and any appreciation in the value of the property.
Strata’s Revenue model comprises of Management fee and profit share/performance fee.
Strata gets 0.5% to 1% as an annual property management fee from the investors. The management fee is a monthly charge on gross rent enjoyed by the investors. It is designed to cover the management of the SPV(Special Purpose Vehicle i.e. a partnership firm formed among the investors) and its assets.
Whereas the profit share/performance fee is payable on exit. This has been designed to reward investors, should the investment offered by Strata prove to be successful for the investor.
Strata is backed by marquee investors SAIF Partners, Mayfield Ventures, and PropStack. It recently raised Rs 140 crore to acquire 3 pre-leased warehouses amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Considering the current scenario, rising volatility of the equity markets, extended periods of low interest rates and assets failing to offer intended results are driving investors, especially the long-term ones in deploying their funds in the asset class that is more reliable and offer better returns. With more and more awareness on the benefits of investing in premium commercial real estate through fractional route will help the industry to grow.
As a brand, Strata is focused on bringing in transparency and a data-driven approach to investments in real estate. Strata’s team is razor focused on growth and plan to cross 200 Cr. in AUM in 2021 and touch 1000 Cr. by 2022.
We are thus aiming to create India’s largest tech-enabled real-estate investment platform with our fractional investment model – Says Sudarshan (Co-founder & CEO, Strata)
Strata aims to create India’s largest tech-enabled real-estate investment platform with its fractional investment model. It plans to do this by expanding Strata’s partner base and by continuing to offer investors the best opportunities in commercial real estate. Strata’s team is razor focused on growth and plan to cross 200 Cr. in AUM in 2021 and touch 1000 Cr. by 2022.
Additionally, the team is also excited about the strategic investment from PropStack as it will help Strata get exclusive CRE intelligence and analytics, which in turn, will allow it to have an edge over other platforms in the ecosystem. Strata have over 1,500 users and has over 150 active investors on the platform.
Currently, Strata is operational in Bengaluru and Mumbai, It aims to create new investment opportunities in premium commercial properties and expand to other metro cities while strengthening the existing tech stack.
“Strata is constantly innovating and something we hope to soon offer is the ability for investors to finance their investment with a personal loan” – Says Sudarshan.
Strata – FAQs
What is Strata?
Strata offers investors an opportunity to invest in premium commercial properties at affordable prices with data driven insights. Fractional ownership in commercial real estate provides platform where investors join together to invest in a real estate asset and share the income that the asset generates.
Who are the founders of Strata?
Sudarshan Lodha (CEO) and Priyanka Rathore (COO/CTO) are the founders of Strata
What is fractional ownership in real estate?
Fractional ownership in commercial real estate provides platform where number of investors join together to invest in a real estate asset so that all of them can benefit from a share of the income that the asset generates, and any appreciation in the value of the property.
How does Strata make money?
Strata’s Revenue model comprises of Management fee and profit share/performance fee. Strata gets 0.5% to 1% as an annual property management fee from the investors. The profit share/performance fee is payable on exit.
Who is the CEO of Strata?
Sudarshan Lodha is the co-founder and CEO of Strata.
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 Figg.
There are multiple financial decisions that one makes in a day, be it a minor or major transaction. But, in order to make an optimal decision, it is important to consider all the factors regarding it like future prospects, current budget, income, expenses etc. Here, comes the role of FIGG!
Figg brings all the material data to one place automatically and helps users understand the impact of their financial decisions. In simple words, FIGG analyses the finances and expenses of users and then makes suggestions on how to go about it. Is attempts to answer questions like – Whether to buy a certain product, say, TV? or How optimal is this investment based on future plans?
StartupTalky interviewed Sachin Gupta, the founder of Figg, to know the Journey of Figg and how it is going help people make better financial decisions. Also get a glance on Figg Business model, startup idea, Figg App features, founder and more…
Figg helps users make better financial decisions. The Figg App is available on android only. However, the team is planning to launch the iOS version soon and later a web application.
If you think about it, most of the financial advice available on the internet is quite generic in nature. FIGG also helps users by providing personalized advice based on their financial situation without much effort from users – Says Sachin Gupta, Founder, Figg
Figg Logo
Figg team has built its own in-house Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)/ ML engine to process financial transactions and statements. The NLP engine extracts useful financial information from text without explicitly being aware of the source. Figg collects financial information by analyzing the transaction statements received by the user via SMS or emails. It uses machine learning (ML) algorithms to analyze the data and makes suggestions to the user for better financial decisions.
Figg is monitored by Google for security and data leak concerns. The Figg app has also undertaken a security review with Bishop Fox, a US-based security firm.
“We follow all best practices – from strong passwords for the system to encryption of the sensitive data. All the data is kept encrypted at rest” Sachin says
Impact Calculator and Affordability Calculator are the main features offered by Figg.
Impact Calculator & Affordability Calculator: Using this feature any user can check how making certain financial decisions will impact their financial well-being. For example, if a youngster with limited financial resources buys an iPhone, this might impact their monthly commitments as well. However, for a person with a high salary, buying an iPhone won’t even make any difference other than fewer investments during the period. These features help people make informed decisions.
Another important feature of Figg is the simplified score to represent users’ financial health. Finance is complex and has different aspects (savings, investments, loans, credits, expenses, etc.). It is quite difficult to track and understand the impact of different aspects for a user. Figg has built a proprietary score to represent user financial health.
Sachin is an engineer by profession and holds MS in AI/ML from IIIT Hyderabad. He has experience in building large scale systems in AI and ML. Before starting FIGG, he worked at Google in the Fintech domain, catching fraud financial transactions. Sachin began his career with Rediff.com working directly with Ajit Balakrishnan.
FIGG Founders and Team
Currently, Figg has a team of 9 and headquartered in Hyderabad. The team is a mix of people from technical and non-technical background. Sachin Gupta (Founder of FIGG) works from California, while his team from Hyderabad.
Figg – Ideation and Startup Journey
Finoramic initially was a B2B player and was associated with other fintech companies. However, the company realized that the platform’s capabilities were not utilized at best & all noticed that slow adoption. Therefore, Finoramic pulled out B2B and introduced B2C as Figg App.
From Sachin’s personal experience, he noted that making financial decisions is quite difficult given the complex financial landscape. Most of the time, users keep delaying financial decisions or keep money at the wrong places or take advice from the wrong people.
Sachin realized that there were many apps that made it very easy to invest in shares or mutual funds, but there wasn’t any player in the market, who could give the user a comprehensive financial view and help in everyday financial decisions.
Questions like – Should I buy an iPhone or an Android? Will going on a Europe trip right now affect my future finances? These are simple questions but important to one’s financial well being or health
“However, the major eureka moment happened when a bank agent sold my 60-year-old mother a ULIP policy. My mother didn’t need an insurance policy at this age, as she is financially sound and there weren’t any liabilities” recalls Sachin (Founder & CEO, Figg)
Figg was launched recently in September 2020. It currently has a user base of over 20,000. The Figg team started working on the platform in 2017. Their initial focus was to build the backbone of the platform. At the end of 2019, the team started to build a consumer app, Figg.
Sachin (The founder & CEO of Figg) believes that although millennials and Gen Z people are digitally savvy, they’ve got limited financial understanding. Moreover, There is no personal connections for financial advice in the city lived by most of them. Keeping all things aside, Digital Savvy group is a good user base for Figg Application.
Figg – Business Model and Revenue Model
Figg app was launched in September 2020 and is currently not generating revenue. As the app would gain momentum and records more users, the company will go for a freemium model. That is, users will be charged between Rs 30 to 50 for value-added services.
Finoramic (Figg’s parent company) has raised two rounds of seed funding from angel investors. (The startup didn’t reveal financial and investor details)
Figg – Competitors
Figg’s top competitors are Mint, Spendee, Expensify, and Pocket Expense, among others. Though the competitors’ apps are similar, there exists a minute difference. While other apps focus on better money management, Figg also analyzes and helps users understand the future impact of their decisions.
Figg’s goal is to have 100,000 users by year end 2021. In the long term, it wants to become the default financial advisor for anyone seeking financial advice.
Figg – FAQS
What is Figg?
Figg helps users make better financial decisions. The Figg App is available on android only. Figg analyses the finances and expenses of users and then makes suggestions on how to go about it.
Who is the founder of Figg?
Sachin Gupta is the CEO and Founder of Figg
Is Figg Free?
The company will go for a freemium model. That is, users will be charged between Rs 30 to 50 for value-added services. But the basic features, will be for free.
When was Figg founded?
Figg was founded in 2017 and launched in September 2020.
ATHUL C K
