Vijay, Rupees4gigs, a unique marketplace for buying and selling gigs

Tuesday May 31, 2011 , 3 min Read

What is rupees4gigs?

rupees4gigs is a unique marketplace for buying and selling gigs, you can share things you are willing to do and things that you need to get done, for as low as five hundred rupees

What is your market differentiator?

We believe that marketplace platforms must have tight content moderation on user generated content and we are very keen on user protection from scams. Sellers can withdraw their earnings at their verified bank account(similar to PayPal we send two test payments to verify user’s bank account). We have created a unique way to buy and sell micro-tasks/services hassle free.

Why did you start rupees4gigs?

During end of December 2010, we got a call from our CA Mr.Mohanraj asking for some help on excel macros with a complex calculation scenario, we said none of the team members have that level of expertise in excel macros, then he said that he was ready to pay some money if someone could help him on this. That was the Eureka moment for us to build a platform to buy and sell mirco-tasks to show someone’s expertise and earn cash without spending lot of time on the problem. It took 3 months of development and testing effort from our end.

Tell us about your background, Vijay.

I have around 9 years of experience in Analysis, design, development, testing and validating the applications. I started my career as a Java programmer way back in 2002, from there I spent time in Pharmaceutical industry for Clinical trials registry setup, submission of trail outcome to FDA in the US(learned PHP, Mysql, SAS, Unix etc.) and then moved into BFSI segment for Basel II and Credit Risk Management(Became SAS institute certified Advanced Programmer). During the end of 2009, I left my full time job as a team lead from leading MNC and started this venture.

What is your revenue model?

Rupees4Gigs is a nice place for freelancers and people who want to work-from-home to reach out to more and more buyers. Sellers get Rs. 400 for each gig sold, we take Rs. 100 for providing the platform and other services like bank withdrawals, customer care etc. Our venture was bootstrapped by the founders and we are interested in fundraising to take our venture to next level

As a startup, what are your challenges?

Biggest challenge is hiring and retaining talent, and we use twitter/facebook/linkedin as authentication methods, apart from regular registration - but API provided by these platforms keeps changing without any notice and has outage as well.

Anything else that you want to share with us?

Here are a few statistics with respect to Rupees4gigs so far: