Lyfebucket aims to bring back personal diaries in an online avatar

We generally tailor our content for the medium involved. What we share in public on Facebook, twitter or Instagram would generally differ from what we would share with our family and friends in private. Many people used to and some still maintain a personal diary of their thoughts just for themselves. Lyfebucket wants users to create a personal diary online, so that they can convey their feelings and moments with their loved ones, sans filters.

Lyfebucket aims to position itself as a private social network, comparable to an online personal diary. Users can treat it as their personal space and can post and share their intimate family moments such as the birth of a child, wedding or any other moments that they want to document but not share with the general public. The app is available on iOS, amazon and Android, is ad free with a focus on the user’s privacy.

Features

Lyfebucket allows users to share their photos, videos and thoughts with users on the platform through ‘groups’. “Unlike other social platforms, the focus here is on creating memories and not garnering ‘likes’. There are no unheeded messages, or unwanted friend requests from an unknown source,” says Nipul, Co-founder.

Lyfelet – This feature allows users to jot down notes, attach relevant pictures, videos and voice notes. The aim is to allow the user to document his or her observations, thoughts and feelings.

Vid station – It allows users to record, upload and save videos through their smartphone to view at their discretion later.

Canvas – It allows users to take pictures and store them on the app’s database. They can then create a personalized (offline) board to view and share their photographs with family or friends.

Bucket list – Users can add items to create their bucket list on their customised timeline and then cross them off on competition.

Groups – Users can invite their friends and family to view their photographs and videos through email, but to view them they will have to install the app and be a part of the user’s group. This ensures privacy and only users in the group can view, comment and chat on the platform.

Team behind it

Private I Inc. was founded by Shailie Parekh and Nipul Parekh. Nipul is a Bachelor of Science graduate in the field of Management Information Systems from the University at Buffalo, New York. He has earlier worked as Business Analyst for the ‘Federal National Mortgage Association’, an American-based government enterprise. He has also been involved in generating and instigating the enterprising resource process (ERP) for a family manufacturing business. While attending a few family events such as the birth of a new born baby and marriages etc he felt that there was a need for a private social network so that people could share their photographs and other updates without worrying about privacy. He now functions as the Head of Technology at Lyfebucket.

Shailie is the Head of Marketing and Strategy at Lyfebucket. She graduated from Jai Hind College, with a Bachelor's degree in Commerce and also holds a Master’s degree in Marketing Management from Aston University, Birmingham. She has had prior experience in marketing and strategic media planning, including a year as the Senior Digital Media planner for Hindustan Unilever food and skin-care products. She had also interned at Percept Entertainment, where she participated in the conceptualizing and strategizing of events, including the ‘World Gaming Festival’ concert in Goa and the Formula1 Airtel Race. She was also involved in the development of online social media campaigns for brands such as Cadbury and Indian Terrain, as the online Marketing Executive for digital marketing agency, FoxyMoron.

Business model

While the app is free to download and use, users need to pay for additional features. Each user signing up is assigned 20GB of free space to store all their content and if needed they can upgrade and get more space through different monthly subscription plans. Lyfebucket also offers print services, through which users can get the image books which they have uploaded on the platform, printed in a timeline format.

The startup is currently self-funded and the founders are open and looking for outside investors.

Marketing

To get more users on the platform, Lyfebucket is marketing the app through social media Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. The app is also being marketed through its own blog, which explains to users in a series of post more details about the different aspects of the platform.

Competition

Lyfebucket aims to marry three services: a private social media platform, Cloud storage and printing.

“There is no direct competition, because of the number of services we offer. In the personal diary space we are competing with Penzu and Evernote. In the storage space offerings we are competing with Dropbox, and other cloud services. In print services we are competing with Vista print and other print service providers. All in all since we provide all the services under one roof, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors,” says Nipul.

Most youngsters these days prefer sharing their photographs and thought on public platforms such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram and those who value their privacy enforce the necessary filters and share their thoughts privately with their friends and family. So the entry barrier for Lyfebucket when it comes to current younger generation may be higher.

Challenges faced and future plans

The app and web development for Lyfebucket started in May 2014 and throughout the development process the team faced multiple challenges related to development, flow of the app, since they had to incorporate many features into one product. After the launch, the biggest challenge was marketing and creating a wider reach so that more users would try the product. One major hurdle they faced was that people were unable to understand how to use the app, and to counter that the team started a blog where they gave more detailed instructions and also created videos with use cases of different people showcasing how each feature could be used.

The website was launched on January 15, 2015, followed by the Android app on January 28 and the iOS app on February 3. So far there are 200+ users on the app. They are looking at the numbers increasing once the tutorial videos are live.

Website: Lyfebucket