Startup Freak Community for entrepreneurs and small businesses
This Entrepreneurial Story is about Apoorv Saini who Founded ‘Wizters ‘ located in New Delhi.
About Founder
Apoorv Saini -Founder and Technical Head, built the complete Web, Android and Windows Phone applications for Wizters before others joined. He is a computer science engineering undergrad at IIIT-Delhi.
Team –
- Dr. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru (PK) [Chief Strategist], and member of the Advisory board. He is also the Assistant Professor at IIIT-Delhi and Ph.D. alumnus from Carnegie Mellon University.
- Utkarsha Bharadwaj [Marketing Head], is the head of Marketing and PR. CSE undergrad from IIIT-Delhi
When Started: July, 2012
What motivated you to start your Business?
I am an engineering student at IIIT-Delhi and I had the interest in tech start-ups and entrepreneurship for the very beginning. Building something, that every one can use, that was the motivation for me.
So after I finished my first year at IIIT-Delhi, I was looking to dive in to the world of entrepreneurship and one of my close friends came up with the idea of Wizters and that was pretty much it.
Tell us about your Business:
Wizters is a social network that allows its users to be anonymous and let them share anything with the people involved in their daily life. (currently colleges) or the world or with their Facebook friends, anonymously.
People can even chat anonymously with others on any topic they like.
What is a Day in a life of you like?
We are still a college start up so everyday is pretty much like “classes in day and coding at night”. The team size has increased over last few months and we hired interns, so few days of the week we indulge in meetings and discussion over the future of the product and strategy.
One particular skill you got right and gave you best results:
Thank God we are developers! As the founder of a tech start up I could never have wish of any other indispensable skill. When Wizters had no one else working on it, I had to work on all the platforms (web, Blackberry, Android and Windows Phone) and I gave my best. Windows Phone application gave the results out of the box.
What have been your biggest challenges in running your Business so far?
During year one of its existence, Wizters was suffering because it did not have wide audience, marketing as well as proper guidance. Besides this, being an undergrad and trying to run a company at the same time is a big challenge. It was holding it back.
As of now, most of the problems are solved and next few months are crucial for us to prove our capabilities in the market.
Next big challenge would be moderation. Wizters being an anonymous platform for the web will soon be out of control. We are working on a great solution for this.
How did you overcome these challenges?
For early entrepreneurs like us, having a mentor solves most of the things. So, when Wizters was going through the obstacles and I was finding it difficult to manage between college studies and working on Wizters, I approached my instructor and my mentor, Dr. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru and took Wizters as the undergrad project. This decision helped me in getting my engineering credits while I could still work on Wizters. Dr. PK, eventually joined the startup as the Chief Strategist, provided the resources and guided the start up in the right direction.
As for the moderation aspect of Wizters, we are working on a system (with machine learning aspect) to solve this problem.
What have you found the most effective way to get new clients?
For a social media start up like ours, we have users instead of clients. The problem of getting users is one of the biggest issue. Only good marketing (mostly online), helped us get 275 colleges on Wizters in 150 days of its existence. While we have gained momentum, things have become a little bit easier for us.
What advice do you give to other business owners?
Users/consumers are as important as your product/business. We learnt it by experience after we did almost 7-8 transitions on Wizters. Giving the best of your product to the users is the key to success.
How did you keep motivated through difficult times?
Believing in ourselves and trusting the team members. That is how we have been doing it. Fortunately there hasn’t been very difficult time for us.
What are your Marketing, Funding and Team Building Strategy?
- We are relying on Online marketing and will soon be launching our You Tube and Facebook ads. Also, we have been marketing offline in colleges through posters and even sponsoring the events.
- As of funding, we are in talks with an angel investor and few VCs. We have started our Seed Round and it will go on till December 31st.
- We have 3 permanent employees and we an extended team, which includes developers as well as PRs. For next few months we are not looking for any more addition to our team as we have all the required human resource for now.
Your Achievements?
Wizters has been featured on:
- Next Big What: http://www.nextbigwhat.com/wizters-anonymous-social-network-for-colleges-297/
- App Flow (as Best new and impressive app on Windows Phone)
- Windows Phone Marketplace, as the spotlight app
There are many more in pipeline, which we can not disclose right now.
Whats your favorite quote?
“Winds blow the strongest against who stand the tallest”
Who inspires you?
Richard Branson, Elon Musk and of course Steve Jobs
Do you have a Business Philosophy?
“Keep ’em anonymous” That is the whole point of Wizters and this is what we always strive for.
Contact links
More Info
https://www.startupfreak.com/wizters/
Startup Freak wishes Apoorv Saini All the Best!
