Startups are not a vehicle to make quick money : Atul Tatke, Co-founder – VocalBee

Himanshu — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:05:27 +0000

Last week we reviewed an Android/iOS app named VocalBee and this week, we have a Q&A with Atul Tatke one of the co-founders of VocalBee. The chat revolves around VocalBee, his views on startups and his tips for entrepreneurs. So, let’s start with the candid interview ..

Can you give a small background of your startup & it’s co-founders ?

We are four of us that are working on this venture. Two of the founder members have been working on voice & mobile technology startup Hummingbytes. Another one comes from smartphone development background. He was a part of the company which got bought over by a big technology company. The fourth one comes from Restaurant and Retail industry. He has deep experience in Business and Technology consulting.

How did you guys come up with the idea of “VocalBee” ?

VocalBee is a spinoff of the idea that got conceived in Hummingbytes. Some part of the engine was built and used in Call Center & other customer service centric implementations.

Which are the areas where you feel VocalBee would be very effective ?

We concentrate on three kind of communications – Question, Idea & Feedback. Also we are concetrating on local government and businesses. I think we will be effective where citizens and consumers want to have quick communication of above type. Location based service is also another key point of the system. Events and promotion is also another feature which is very appealing when you mix it with location based service.

In addition to above mentioned areas, we will be able to capture client specific structured feedback once business is onboard with us.

Can you explain a bit more as to how the entire flow goes from when user sends suggestion/idea to VocalBee [i.e. what happens when I file a complaint of Pothole in my area, where the complaint will go etc. and user can keep track of it] ?

Government Setup: So, if you are in an area in Bangalore and came across a big pothole. Currently there is no easy way for you to raise your concern. With VocalBee you can take a picture, write about it and send it to the city. This communication will be going to a special page that we have designed for India. Also this communication will be going to our Twitter and Facebook. We are also analyzing this data that is coming & eventually will be presenting it to the government.
We will also try to get government to buy into it and give them the account. At this time it will become a claimed account. With claimed account, government can be directly in touch with citizens. They can broadcast events like street construction, water or electricity outage etc. In the US we are working with a couple of towns and their response is very good. They are working closely with us.

Business Setup: You visit the restuarant and like the food. Currently you can go on Zomato or Burrp and give the review. The review goes in social sphere. With VocalBee you give review to the business and we will connect with the business & send your communication to them. Businesses that come on board will be able to have one-on-one connection with consumer. Businesses can also send promotions, events on this established connection. We also have a concept of Wall where other people can answer or vote on public communication. We already have more than half a dozen businesses on this platform in the US.

How we think that we can make a positive impact in developing countries like India with this product.

Developing countries are going through growing pains. You can see that potholes, traffic issues, trash on the road are some of the many problems. It is difficult for local governments to keep track of it and it is difficult for citizens to keep up with this ongoing projects in public works. VocalBee will be able to bridge that gap. It’s a crowd sourcing solution.

People can give feedback about things like the trash in their neighborhood or those big potholes on the road. Other people can vote on it to get enough attention of the authorities. So with this solution we might be able to streamline some civic issues in developing world.Most of the developing countries have great mobile phone penetration including smart phones. With heavy SMS and smart phone usage, VocalBee will be able to provide easy access to reporting issues back to government or local civic services.Business side also we can make a big impact by giving customers power to interact with businesses directly. Businesses can listen to customers, engage them, give them promotions and leverage this one-on-one relationship.

What exactly is the product roadmap for VocalBee and what can we see in the future ?

We had a soft launch of the product a few weeks ago. We already have about half dozen of businesses in the US who are either willing to come on board or already started using it. We also have two towns that are interested in using the system.We would like to have our presence in developing countries, India being the first one in the list. There are also a couple of interesting initiatives that we are working on.

The immediate goal is to get as many downloads as possible and make community active on the platform so that we will be able to give a lot of value to consumers, government & businesses collectively.

Right now we see, VocalBee on Android and iOS, is there a BlackBerry app expected as well ?

We know India is a big Blackberry nation. If we see enough traction on it in India and other countries then we would like to get on Blackberry ASAP.

How would be a consumer be ensured that his query has been addressed ?

We have created some smart mechanism behind the scene to reach businesses and cities/towns. In India, we will also have a separate section on VocalBee where we will stream all government related issues. We will also analyze this data and present it to the government.

Normally recruiting in a startup is very critical [getting the right person on board], what are some of the qualities that you potentially look into a startup employee ?

There are a few key things that need to be seen:

The first and foremost is that the person should like the idea. It would be great if to some degree the person is passionate about the problem that we are solving. After that comes the person being a team player especially, in earlier part of the venture if the person is not a team player then it can be very problematic. Also person needs to complement the team’s skillset.

We will be looking for folks with following qualities:

Self-Motivated.
Able to agree/challenge/discuss on the big picture goals.
Able to find not just simple answers but creative solutions.
Industry specific knowledge & contacts.

VocalBee touches on an important aspect of “Customer Service”; can you explain a bit on how customer service has changed over time ?

Traditionally customer service was done using people either meeting customer service person or calling customer service person. That changed to IVR and automated call centers. With web boom, web based CRM tools emerged and Knowledge Base, self service Q&A came. After that Real-time chats started appearing and now mobile customer service has started evolving. As far as solutions are concerned businesses are using mix and match of all above mentioned tools and technologies.

Tools and mechanisms will keep on evolving but the core requirement to customer service is customer satisfaction.Along with interaction with businesses to get answers, most of the customers are looking for answers from other customers. Hence for businesses getting engaged in social interaction in the open forums and providing timely information is becoming critical.

What are the major changes that happened when you moved from an Employee to an Employer [or Entrepreneur] ?

As an employer you have a bigger stake & higher risk, so thinking changes. You can really make or break the venture.

How do you feel about the entrepreneurial culture in Boston when compared to Silicon Valley ?

Silicon Valley is more risk taker compare to Boston. Silicon Valley is big on high-tech, consumer facing startups and Boston is more into B2B, Finance, Lifesciences. But there is a lot of entrepreneurial activity in both the places.

What are your key advices to people who want to startup ?

Personally I feel that one should start the venture because of the passion to solve a particular problem and itch to create something new and different. Startups are not a vehicle to make quick money because big percentage of startups fail.

Any last comments from VocalBee team ?

Our website is http://www.vocalbee.com

Android app is available at this location. iPhone app is available at this location. We would like people start using this mechanism and create positive impact. If people are interested to have this on Blackberry then please drop us an e-mail at support@vocalbee.com. If we get enough interest then we will invest our energy in Blackberry app sooner than later.

Also we would like to request a pool of people who want to have a “Social Change” in India to let us know whether they are interested in spreading the word about VocalBee. People can help by:

Downloading the app and start using it.
Letting their friends and families know about it.
Talk about us in Social sphere or let the government agencies know about it.

We are not trying to make any money on government side of the functionality. But we are very passionate about it because we think we can bring a positive social change around civic issues in India.

If you have any questions for Atul on VocalBee or any other general comments, please leave the same in the comments section. Our best wishes to Atul & this team for VocalBee and their future endeavors !!!

App Review: VocalBee – Let your voice be heard …

Himanshu — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:57:33 +0000

How many times do we complain to others about the potholes, poor maintainance of parks, dirty roads, endless constructions nearby our area but have found no solution rather than cribbing about it. This article does indicate that the Indian government is spending good amount of money for the making the roads better !!! Also, it does make a difference when many people “shout out” about the same issue rather than one person talking about it… Well in such situations VocalBee , an Android/iOS based app can come to your rescue.

VocalBee is a “Location Based” app that uses the strength of crowdsourcing to empower the user to do just one thing i.e. “BE HEARD“. Be it sharing feedback about good customer service at a nearby restaurant, to complaining about the bad condition of roads or complaining to the government authorities about street lights etc., VocalBee helps you to close the circle i.e. it ensures that your query/complaint/feedback reaches the right destination

VocalBee has three target segments:

Consumers – Provides a platform to voice out their opinions/suggestions/complaints & ensures that it reaches the right destination so that the consumer can keep a track of the same.
Government – Helps them to cater issues raised by the consumers & keep them informed about the progress of their issue; which in turn would help to reduce the overall cycle time.
Businesses – Acts as a collective medium to take “Honest Feedback” from the consumers which would help them to improve their service & in turn get more business.

Installation

I installed the app on my Android device as well as on my iPod Touch & installed without any hassles. Now we would walk through the features of the app & it’s usefulness.

Startup Page

The “Introduction” page explains the complete idea behind the app and how it would be useful to the users as well as for local businesses.

Usage

With VocalBee, you can either submit an Idea, Question or Feedback. Just like other location based apps like FourSquare, VocalBee shows the list of the nearby places for which the user can submit either of them.

There is an option to click a photograph and attach it to your query which also acts as an evidence of your problem. I posted couple of issues e.g. endless construction of roads nearby my apartment & many people did give a “thumbs up” to the issue & this is where the real power of VocalBee can bee seen i.e. Community Involvement.

Social Media Integration

VocalBee does a good job of integrating Twitter & Facebook through which users can share their “queries” on these Social networks. The UI is clean and makes the app very easy to use. The user also has the facility to keep a track of their queries online through the VocalBee website

Final Verdict & Suggestions

I have been using VocalBee for few weeks & it looks a great tool where you want your unattended issues to be solved & that is the power it gives to the consumers !!! However, there are a couple of suggestions -

Photos taken real-time can only be attached to your query/suggestion/complaint which means the App does not allow to “attach” an already taken photo from the Media Gallery. This feature would really be helpful in cases where you have already seen a problem but forgot to submit the complaint to VocalBee. Also, problems can be seen at any place & at anytime !!!
The life-cycle of the query was not very clear for eg. If I file a “complaint” for potholes against my local authority; to which department the complaint has reached i.e. the flow of the query from “new” -> “In Progress” -> “Closed” can be made a bit transparent.
A further extension could be allowing the users to post “Videos” as well in which case, VocalBee would act just like a Citizen Journalist for consumers

VocalBee can be downloaded from the Android Market from here. You can also download it on your iPhone or iPod Touch from here. Do give VocalBee a spin and share your feedback in the comments section…