While some say you can capture a precious moment at the flick of a click while others say that a photograph is a piece of history that you save for the future. There is something that is really enigmatic and surreal to this discovery that makes us who we are as the humankind. And then I stumbled upon my next startup discovery – Fokal. Founder Shruti tells me more about the company and her vision to establish it as a value-added portal that enables people to hire verified Creative Lifestyle service providers at the click of a button. Read on to know more about her vision for the company and how she is motivated to take her concept to the next level!
Tell us more about Fokal, what makes you who you are?
Fokal is an online platform where one can hire creative lifestyle service providers across all genres and categories. Our USP is that we respect our clients’ privacy which means that they will not be bombarded with calls for an assignment and nor will their number be shared with our service providers when they register with us. We let the user decide on which service providers could contact them.
From a service provider perspective we give our registered users an opportunity to create a beautiful online portfolio in matter of few minutes and manage their online personal branding effectively. To begin with we have listings of photographers on our portal but we intend to add more categories of service providers like interior designers, architects, make-up artists, performing artists etc.
Interesting, and what triggered you to start something like Fokal?
When I got married, candid photography had just started picking up. That was some three and a half years ago. Back then, I wanted to hire a candid photographer and found it extremely difficult to find the right photographer who would fit my needs and work with me. What I discovered was that the good ones were either out of my budget or were in another city. So I felt there was a need for a platform where such a connection can be established not only for photographers but also for other lifestyle service providers.
So my husband Utsav and I began this journey since June 2015. Utsav has over 10 years of work experience in analytics whereas; I come from a Technology – MBA background. Having done my PGDBM from IIM Lucknow back in 2011, I have experience in both software development and sales and marketing. And because we had already faced issues with photographers, we decided to start with this market in order to test our concept.
So what are the key features of your service?
At present we have hundreds of portfolios of verified service providers on our platform and a presence across some forty plus cities already. We enable users to directly contact the service providers or share their requirements with us to get multiple quotations and as promised.
And how different are you from your competitors?
Our most important differentiator is our analytical engine that gives our users ‘smart’ recommendations as per their requirements and preferences. Powered with this engine, we enable our users to make quicker decisions and help them save time which they spend on browsing through hundreds of profiles. Also, as I mentioned earlier, privacy of our users is paramount to Fokal. We assure our users that no unsolicited calls upon their registration and sharing of their requirements with us. We have systems in place that allow them to choose whom to connect with and whom to ignore.
What is your current progress and plan? How do you see the market developing?
We have received over 250 plus enquiries from the day we launched on 22nd June 2015. We currently have over 200 verified photographers on our portal. Today’s user base is smarter than ever and they value their privacy a lot. What they are looking for, are smarter solutions to help them make better decisions in life and help them celebrate life better. My assessment is that the market is soon going to pivot towards those solutions which add more value to their experiences rather than noise. The process has already begun and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon!
What are your future plans for the company?
Primarily Fokal is a discovery platform. But we want to make it exceptionally smart in the sense that starting from the moment a user registers with us they get auto recommendations which enables them to make faster decisions with ease and with far few interactions with the providers than they do today. To achieve this vision, we are building a highly intelligent predictive engine on top of our existing recommendation engine. We are also looking to extend our platform to other lifestyle services markets such as interior designers, make-up artists, architects, event/wedding planners, performers etc. within the next few months.
Our goal is to create an ecosystem for lifestyle service providers where they can interact with the industry and nurture their brands based on a technology powered solution. But yeah, that’s way ahead into the future I must say (Smiling).
In India, the current trend is only to capture events like weddings or birthdays, unlike the west where photo-shoots are a ways and means to capture precious moments that are not just limited to some occasions. What is your take on it? You think our markets would develop to that level anytime sooner?
I think we are already evolving. If you go through the requirements on our portal, we have quite a wide variety of them. From proposal shoots to newborn photography, we have them all. Apart from these personal shoots, we do get a lot of requests for commercial shoots such as food or product photography. I believe a lot of these requirements are present in the market and currently get fulfilled by our neighborhood photographers. The only logical step is to match these clients with the ‘professional’ photographers who are trained to do their jobs.
Are you looking for any funding yet? Or do you believe that you need to be in the market for a little while before you take the next leap?
We have initiated the process for scouting for funds. We are quite confident that we are ready for the next step in our entrepreneurial journey.
We wish the lovely duo all the best in their endeavor to provide world class lifestyle services on an online platform. And all you people who were eagerly waiting for the best lifestyle service aggregator, wait no more because you have Fokal to the rescue! To know more about the company visit www.fokal.in