noun
an indeterminate or undefined place or state.
disputed ground between the front lines or trenches of two opposing armies.
the place in space/time where an entrepreneur is stuck (quite unproductively) in search for the elusive trophy startup to found.
Look at me being all grown up and calling myself old. I had a few other titles that I was considering for this and it was a close contest. But I finally decided that I’m comfortable calling myself old (relatively speaking!). In terms of tech startup founders’ age, I’m definitely on the older side. The alternative titles I had in mind were –
I fondly remember being a cocky 24 year old, so don’t be offended if you are one right now. You’ll grow up too!
Onwards with the advices / rules / lessons then, in no particular order –
Continue reading Unsolicited advice from an older entrepreneur
Since I put out the news about working on Fliptrazon, some of my friends and acquaintances have been a little underwhelmed by my ‘startup’. The general comment is like –
“I thought you were going to do something impactful”
This always gets me thinking. And sometimes worried. Life is short. Am I making the best use of my time here? So let me try and make a case for doing something that may not look impactful (tl;dr – for fun).
We (me and Sunit) have been working on this project since the past few months – and we’re finally ready to share – meet our coupon search bot called Fliptrazon.
It has been up and running for a while now, and we’ve gradually become loyal users of our own product. We’re hoping that more people will find this to be a useful, indispensible addition in their online shopping arsenal. Especially the ones who like to pinch pennies.
You might be wondering, there are already countless other sites that list coupons such as CouponDunia, CouponRaja, Grabon, and funny trivia – almost all relative names in hindi are covered too – there is CouponKaka, CouponMama, CouponChacha, CouponBaba, CouponPapa and so on. Anyway.. I digress! We made Fliptrazon because the existing coupon sites are on the sucky side, they
Fliptrazon is
Here’s the difference in a screenshots from a popular site vs Fliptrazon :
We have some fun plans that will make finding (and applying) coupons much easier on mobile. That’s the other reason why we’re making this. Had been itching to do some hands on dev for a while.
Try it out, would love to hear feedback. Cheers!
PS. why the weird name? it is easy to find a domain for weird names, and it sounds like a legit robot name. free beer / coffee for anyone who guesses how this name came to be though.
The problem
Ecommerce is ubiquitous in the developed world, and is fast gaining the same status in the developing world as well. Obviously, all ecommerce sites are not equal. Order tracking and customer support experience varies by a lot. And logging into each website to track your order is cumbersome. There are times when one is expecting multiple orders, but it is ‘work’ to keep a track of all of them and request for support.
The idea
All your ecommerce order history, all your order tracking information, all your customer support via one app. The global ‘Your Account’.
Why is it good for customers
Easy to keep a track of all your orders from one single app. Customer support tickets can be raised, tracked and replied from within this app. The app can automatically raise customer support tickets to the respective site if an order gets delayed. Potentially it can handle site specific return policies as well.
Why is it good for ecommerce companies
Instantaneous touchpoint with customers for gathering feedback and updating about order statuses. Order tracking integrations with popular couriers to reduce customer support costs. By automatically raising tickets for order delays, the company can respond early and prevent possible customer anger management.
Challenges
How to get stored to go through the trouble of integrating/supporting this app. The quick approach could be to get access to transactional emails of these stores and by parsing order information from emails to start with. Deeper functionality will only be possible with API level integration. I haven’t really figured this one out though.
Opportunities
Can be a CRM channel providing companies with a targeted messaging platform for feedback, surveys, promotional offers etc. Can scale globally.