Undeterred by failure, how two childhood friends created a solution for other startups
After stepping out of the college, childhood friends Varun Bagga and Varinder Singh decided to create some cool stuff. A lot of brainstorming later, they launched a mathematical fun game for children called MadVsMath. However, the platform did not gain much traction and after a year of operation they had to shut it down. They learned from this failure and decided to create a product which would be better than the previous one.
Their brainstorming led them to many ideas and they tried their hand at all of them. However, every time they worked, they faced the same set of challenges they faced for the previous product. One day, while discussing these things, they thought that similar problems may be faced by many entrepreneurs like themselves, and this was when the idea of StartupYar was born.
In August this year, with an aim to become the one-stop destination for all startup needs, the duo launched StartupYar, a directory of tools and apps that help startups at different stages.
“Whether someone is planning to startup or facing difficulty in getting early users for their startup or want early adopters for quick feedback about the product, we are here to offer help in the platform segment,” says Varun.
He explains that startups can list their yet-to-be-launched product on the platform’s Beta List, which is a place for early adopters to discover upcoming Internet startups.It also serves as a platform for founders to share their startup with the world and get early user feedbackfrom a 25,000-strong pool of audience.
Varun says there are lotsof web apps and tools that can helpstartups at different stages. For a startup, it is very crucial to find the right tool to get stuff done quickly and easily. He has categorised their listings into free, paid andfreemiummodel, so that it becomes easy to choose tools to fit their budget.
Growth and revenue
The initial investment on StartupYar was less than Rs 5,000. The co-founders spent this money to buy domain and hosting. Till now, they have not spent anything on marketing and the traffic coming on the platform is organic.
“It has been three months since we launched StartupYar and we are getting good traffic from all over the world. We have more than 500 users who have subscribed for our monthly newsletters. More than 100 companies have contacted us to get listed on StartupYar,” says Varun.
The platform is generating revenue by having affiliate partnerships with many companies, although the listing on the platform is free. They are also planning to advertise some of these tools on the website and newsletter. “Right now, our main focus is on giving more value to our users and to retain them. As far as turnover is concerned, we have already reached break-even point.”
Growth prospect and challenges
On growth prospect of his platform, Varun adds that StartupYar can become a big marketplace for quality digital products. “Right now, we are listing only web apps. We are making sure that every tool that we list has good value to offer,” he adds.
He believes that the main challenge in this segment is to get valuable quality content and to keep users engaged. Varun constantly filters the tools submitted so that only the best tools and apps make it on the platform.
Competition segment
Startupstash.com and Startupresources.io are the two startups in the same segment which give direct competition to StartupYar.
On competition, Varun says that lots of new players have come in this segment because of easy entry. “However, we are working hard to constantly improve StartupYar so that it keeps creating value for the users.”