Putting product in front of anything else - The case of Wishberg
It was back in early 2012 when we got in touch with the founders behind Wishberg, Kulin Shah and Pravin Jadhav. Tyched back then, the company rebranded to Wishberg and has been steadily getting more traction. Alexa puts Wishberg at about 5,000 in India and the company claims to have a 50% split now between Indian and International users. There have been some cusrious discussions around Wishberg on social media platforms but ever since the first interaction, one language has been clear - the focus on product.
From attempts at creating viral videos to quickly taking in feedback and modulating the features accordingly, the aim has been to let the product do all the talking. At the core, Wishberg helps users build and manage their bucket lists. A network where users engage with each other based on their wishes, the latest feature we spotted (but is not yet announced on its blog) is that all users wishing for a common product are linked on a sort of community pages - where users discover others who are wishing the same and also interesting discover first hand experiences from users who have completed that wish. Each wish becomes a community page wherein people with similar mindsets can connect and come closer to fulfilling their wishes and thereby increasing engagement between each other.
The business model for Wishberg probably lies in the fact that it can become a platform where brands and users can connect and brands can actually come to know what the consumers aspire for. Shopmobs was one seemingly powerful feature which let users come together and bargain with the brand collectively. The offline part of the feature didn't work out and hence the feature was withdrawn after initial launch in Mumbai and Bangalore, but Wishberg has always been on a constant endeavour to make it easier for users to fill up their bucketlist and then start ticking it off. Clearly the startup in keeps its priority on building product and engagement.
Every technology product wants to project they are product first and many Indian companies indeed do that but this article earned the title for itself because of the stance the founders held to after the recent spike in social media about the Wishberg funding news. Wishberg had raised funding some time back but hadn't announced it on purpose. “We want the product to do all the taking and get more people on it. Doing it via funding and other such news is not validation from the user side,” Kulin once told me while I was putting up at his place in Mumbai.
Wishberg now has users across the globe. The 9 member team at the moment, Wishberg is putting in all efforts towards building a successful global consumer product from India.
Check out the new features on Wishberg.
