Tete-a-Tete

VoiceTap is a new entrant in the Indian startup clutter. The promising startup has created a wondrous voice-based platform wherein users can interact with industry experts. Be it an entrance exam for IITJEE, CAT or jumpstarting a business, Voicetap gives access to the knowledge experts for varied genres. We speak to founder Mrigank Tripathi about how he leverages the power of mobile phones to create a novel platform for discerning individuals.

Tells us about VoiceTap – its ideation phase, inception and functioning.

Voicetap’s idea germinated in June last year, but I seriously set about giving it shape only towards the mid of January. The first big challenge was to find the right people to help me setup the service. Thankfully we got over that hurdle quickly enough, with Devanshu – our head of technical services signing up after just hearing the concept over a phone call, and the rest of the team following quickly after. The second big challenge was to go from idea to launch in less than two months flat. The team took that on as a challenge, and we have managed that.

Voicetap has operations out of Mumbai and Delhi. Delhi being the headquarters, but the majority of the team sits out of Mumbai currently. We have worked primarily over emails and conference calls, and the fact that we have launched on scheduled shows the commitment and cohesiveness of the team.

Why the name VoiceTap?

In India – Voice is a much more accepted medium as opposed to ‘data’. We still like to just pick up the phone and call someone credible rather than search for it online. The fundamental function behind Voicetap is to allow knowledge seekers to ‘tap’ into the knowledge of experts using ‘Voice’ as a medium. Thus the name – Voicetap.

How do you’ll manage and moderate 30-40 callers at once?

Actually, 30 to 40 is not that much of a problem. The problem will happen when the numbers swell to 500. Fundamentally – people will have to post one question online at our website (till the time we evolve into a completely mobile solution). Once the questions are there, we will put them into buckets. According to our study, 75% of questions that are asked by a mass of people (> 100) can be clubbed into 7 buckets. We will use this statistical approach to be able to make 7 questions out of the majority of the posted questions. Once done, we will inform the users that their questions are going to be asked, but with changed wordings.

Have you’ll faced any glitches in any of the sessions?

Our first session is on the 5th of April – where last years IIT rankers are going to give extremely practical tips and tricks related to the exam. We don’t anticipate any glitch in the call. Our technology backend is strong, and we have communicated the dial in details well in advance.

Your product offering is split into 4 broad categories? Why limit yourself?

I would much rather think of it as focusing rather than limiting. It’s imperative that every entrepreneur focus on getting one thing right before he can get everything right. We believe that once we have cracked these four areas – we can go ahead and do whatever else we want. The options are endless: Health, Grooming, business… whatever. However, we will evolve into that with time.

How do your plan on monetising and expanding the business model?

The calls will be sponsored calls, and we are already in talks with telecom operators who would be interested in content related to expert advise on relevant and topical issues.

How do you’ll manage to rope in speakers? What is the process? Is there any revenue sharing involved?

Currently – it’s by sheer grunt work. For the IITJEE call, I personally searched out Archit and Abhinav, went across to IITD, went from hostel to hostel, found them, told them about the concept, got their buy in and then went through the process of setting up the call. The process of setting up the call is quite elaborate, especially because we want to ensure that the expert’s time is not wasted, and the knowledge seekers get maximum value in a short time of 30 mins.

We are working on a knowledge expert engagement program – which would be ready in two – three months time. It would not be on a revenue share basis, but some benefits would be there for the experts.

This is your second stint as an entrepreneur. What happened with the previous venture?

I started my first venture at the age of 24, and developed an ‘Online Inventory management system’ which hooked up various accounting software to an online database, and provided various reports. We had a small team of 4 people at that time, and it was a lot of grunt work. We sold the solution to a couple of forward looking corporates – but I didn’t know anything about cash flow management, and we had to shut shop because we ran out of cash more than anything else.

Times have changed since; I now have much more experience, an MBA from INSEAD and a fair bit of management consulting experience. This time round – we wont make the same mistakes.

Tell us about the Jagriti Yatra. Apparently that’s where you met the Vivek, right?

The Jagriti Yatra is an initiative that is spearheaded by my brother Shashank Mani. It is an annual national train journey with 350 youngsters on board one train, getting out of their comfort zone to really explore India and meet, interact with the true entrepreneurs therein. It was sponsored by the Tatas, and we covered a distance of ~ 8500 Kms over a period of 18 days, meeting various social entrepreneurs. Vivek was one of the participants and I was a core team member. That’s where we met – and I roped him in surreptitiously, by asking him to help out a bit in the early days. Before he knew it – he was neck deep in the business, handling multiple things apart from his chemistry lab classes - and I think he loves every minute of it.

What should we expect from VoiceTap in the near future? Any innovation, tie-up etc.

We have big plans for Voicetap. In the near future – we will focus on becoming more mobile focused, and with time we hope to move away from being a service to becoming more of a platform.

We are in talks with multiple companies regarding various types of tie-ups, and you will hear about it soon enough.

Message to budding entrepreneurs

Take the plunge, build a good team, focus on revenues, build empires and use Voicetap’s experts to guide you along the way!