Turnaround Innovision has a scalable solution to create 360 degree images for e-commerce companies
Sreepriya Koppulais an IIT Kharagpur alumnus who has many years of experience in technology. Starting out her career as a developer, she had a five-year stint with Ketera Technologies and then a couple of years with Rearden Commere where she gained expertise with cataloguing within e-commerce. While working there, she realized the need for e-commerce companies to better display their products and she started working on a solution. After a few months of extensive work, Turnaround Innovision was born.The aim of the company is to make visuals on the e-commerce platforms more interactive and engaging. As a first step, Sreepriya has developed a scalable solution to create 360 degree images for specific categories like shoes, bags, apparel and eye wear. With mobile shopping on the rise, Turnaround can offer powerful presentations of the product in limited space in an engaging and interactive way for the end user. “There are other players in the area and you see that they claim to have large customers but you never see the solutions in action. We want to change this,” says Sreepriya.
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The journey
Sreepriya has worked at software companies for about nine years building catalogue management solutions and noticing a gap, she started up. She then enrolled with the Startup Leadership Program and is also pursuing a course with Stanford Business School which makes her better equipped to mash up her role as a technologist with that of an entrepreneur.
The current package from Turnaround Innovision is called Flipxi and it is a hardware and software package which a company can buy for their product cataloguing. Flipxi is a turnaround table along with a camera which can take pictures at scale and then the software merges these images to make a 360 degree view. For smaller e-commerce companies, Turnaround Innovision can also offer services where the cataloguing is taken care of by Turnaround. “We’ve made the process very simple for a photographer and a company can come up to speed in about 20 minutes to start its own photoshoot in house,” says Sreepriya. (see the Turnaround app)
She has had two successful paid pilots along with Flipkart and Urban Ladder. “Apart from these two big ones, we’ve done free demos for a lot of other companies in Bangalore,” says Sreepriya. The sales cycle is rather long because the e-commerce company has to rethink its UI and UX as they’re changing the way in which they display their products. “It’s been tough and long ride selling to enterprises but we’re confident that we’ll get there,” says Sreepriya.
One of the biggest push came in when Turnaround was selected for the Target Accelerator. “We’ve got some very valuable inputs here and also one of the biggest reasons why we’re sticking to the B2B model right now,” she adds. Sreepriya was a one-woman army for a good part of her startup journey but she now has help from Yochita, a veteran in the fashion and retail industry with over a decade of experience. She also has two other members in the core team to help her out with the technology and photography.
The Space
The Turnaround solution is powerful and useful but bringing it in the main flow of e-commerce companies would be an arduous task. “If we’re able to get a few marquee clients, getting others won’t be a very big problem,” believes Sreepriya.
E-commerce is a growing segment and the market is expected to touch $70 billion dollars by 2020 in India itself. This growth will also lead to the rise of e-commerce enablers -- companies that help boost e-commerce companies.
There are many players here in various sectors like MineWhat which improves search for e-commerce companies, ViralMint which helps improve online conversions and the recently acquired Fitiquette which was also into the business of making products displays better.
E-commerce enablers will only grow, and if Turnaround is able to make some headway now, it has a bright future ahead of itself.
Website: Turnaround Innovision