Is it a Tablet? Or a Notebook? MyTi has power of both in one

As a student, Rohin Kumar of BITS Pilani felt sharing notes was a major problem. Many times he’d scanned his books or take photographs of notes to share with friends, so that he could keep his notes (physical copy) when he needed them. Tablet as they exist are useful for taking photographs and/or reading notes, but they could not capture notes real-time? He wanted a device for himself that could be used as a textbook as well as notebook. And thus MyTi.One was born.Rohin shares with us the essence of naming the product ‘MyTi’, which is pronounced 'Mighty’ -- ‘Mighty’ in English meaning ‘great’. The letters of ‘MyTi’ can also be individually represented as 'My' – which indicates the personal feeling of belongingness, then the capital 'T' – which represents logical and structural thinking and the small "i" represents imagination that is creative, wild & uninhibited. Hence the name, according to Rohin stands for a combination of disciplined, structural thinking and creative imagination to produce best or 'mighty' products, which gave birth to the tagline, “Think. Imagine!”

The initial steps

MyTi.One, the first product address the writing on tablets/phones problem, which earlier was limited to few crude options and continued to make papers indispensable in classrooms. To solve the problem, Rohin got his hands dirty. He started with designing the whole product from scratch including the design of the tablet. Rohin says that once the hardware was decent, he got people to use the tablet and got good feedback from them.

To further make the business viable, Rohin requested some of his old friends to make an app (write drivers in some cases) that could demonstrate the functionality of the tablet. When they started working on the app, they realised it was tougher than they thought. They then started exploring existing technologies to see how they could combine the existing products and change it to make a product that would be useful to students.

MyTi.One fills this gap of providing a hybrid solution which works not just an entertainment or social networking device, but can help improve productivity through good hardware design and well-packaged software. Apart from its unique capabilities, MyTi.One can be used as a regular tablet in the detached mode. As a regular tablet it has specs at par with Samsung Galaxy Tab (much better than the low-end tablets) but costs close to mid-range tablets.

What started as a geek’s project, developed into a full-fledged venture when friends got involved Rohin’s partner in the venture is Nikhil Agarwal, while some other friends are still involved in the project as helpers/advisors. Rohin is the inventor responsible for the core design of MyTi.One and he has enlisted in the 6 patents for the product. He is the CEO and is incharge of R&D, operations and marketing at MyTi. Nikhil Agarwal is incharge of software development and is actively involved in business development and sales. Guiding and advising them is Sumit Mamoria, an assistant professor at Miranda College of Delhi University, and an avid electronics hobbyist.

Going forward

Rohin says being a hardware startup, they started manufacturing in a semi-knocked down model where they do minimal assembly in Delhi with some components, while the technologies is outsourced. He asserts that their core strength remains R&D and design.

At present, MyTi.One will only be distributed to educational institutes and startups in the education space. They are looking for some investment to setup basic infrastructure to cater to bulk orders and make the product better. After collecting feedback and improving MyTi.One from the first round of users, they plan to expand to other educational institutes and slowly make it available to general public, at the same time ensuring that they have the basic support mechanism in place. Though they haven’t yet finalized the pricing, Rohin says the first version of the product will be made available for around Rs 10,000. They are in the process of forming a team that can provide onsite support for customers and plan to make the product public in five major metros.

As a complete product, Rohin says there are no immediate competitors in the market. But Micromax & HCL lead in bulk sales to the educational institutes due to low pricing and brand reliability, in addition to the Government retailed Akash tablets. Rohin wants MyTi.One to be similar to what Blackberry is in mobile phone space.

Through good quality control and unveiling of well-planned features/products, Rohin plans to take one step at a time to make the product a success. The startup has already chalked out their milestones to make this dream possible within a year, and for transformation from being a MVP to becoming a strong market player. They recently showcased their prototype at Electronics For You Expo 2013, which helped them reach out to around 2,000-3,000 people and educate them about the features of MyTi.One. This participation has also given them a decent amount of pre-orders, says Rohin.

Even we can’t wait to get a hand on this one!