SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 2024
VIKANT SAHAY
HERALD: What is the specialisation of your company?
CHINMAY KAMAT: We at CopperCodes specialise in customised, tailor-made softwares, mobile applications, digital marketing and web development. Our customised software is a culmination of customer requirement and high-end programming skills using latest programming languages.
We develop responsive mobile apps in Android, iOS environment and in our web development and designing team, which consists of skilled engineers and designers who have gained expertise in making PC and mobile responsive web designs. In the last one year we were working on developing one of our own products called Folga – The Nightlife Discount Application.
Folga is a mobile application which attempts to bring all the entertainment venues like night clubs, bungee jumping, scuba diving ventures, etc. We collectively refer to as ‘Entertainment Venues’ and also ‘Hospitality Venues’ like restaurants, pubs, pizza outlets, hotels etc on board and allows users to scroll through the bouquet of options available under it, to view pictures, descriptions, rules, ratings, reviews and prices of all the venues and most importantly, to make bookings (including advance bookings) and also avail of the various offers, etc.
HERALD: What is unique to your product and what competition do you see in India and globally?
CK: As far as the uniqueness of our product is concerned there are applications which allow you to see events happening at various entertainment venues, but a single platform to book tickets, view the food and drinks menu, pictures of the club and majorly to book tickets in advance and pay later at the counter is a rare sight.
Folga has tie-ups with various Entertainment Venues, owing to which it can offer discounts and offers available exclusively for Folga users. Besides this, Folga also has tie-ups with various hospitality venues, including well known fast food outlets, hotels and restaurants who extend offers and discounts.
On one hand, Folga customers gain as mentioned above, on the other hand, the entertainment, hospitality ventures not only get additional business, but also get an additional platform for marketing with a significant reach in terms of views and downloads on various social media options like Facebook, Instagram, etc.
As far as competition is concerned, in India we do not see any competition, but going abroad to the famous nightlife places in the United States, yes there are a couple of such applications that could be our competitors in the near future.
HERALD: What are the immediate challenges you see in the market at this point of time?
CK: The biggest challenge we see in the market keeping aside the current COVID-19 pandemic is marketing of the app and the trust factor to be built in the prospective users’ mind who would be using our app to book tickets to various entertainment venues.
HERALD: What is your team structure and what inspires them to work for you?
CK: We are a team of 15 people now. The flexible work hours and free work environment at our office is what inspire our team. We do not have typical eight or nine hour shifts. It is like you complete your task and you can head home which allows our team to also give more time to relax and think rationally when they come for work the next day. In the current scenario, we have allowed our team members to work from home and thereby giving utmost priority to their safety and their family members. This again inspires the team to work better.
HERALD: Where do you see yourself reaching in the next five-years?
CK: The increasing number of Folga App users will attract more and more entertainment, hospitality venues to come on board the app.
The promoter of Folga, with the experience they would gain in the time to come, also intend to diversify into consulting business for prospective ventures which have plans to set up new entertainment venues on issues like feasibility of entertainment venue, regional feasibility, footfalls, pricing and also provide them marketing platform through the Folga App through its marketing handles once these ventures commence their activities.
Our next five year target is to capture nearly all entertainment venues across India and spread out to other countries.
HERALD: How do you plan to get funding and grow your business or allow your business to grow?
CK: Yes of course we plan to raise funds for our product Folga. To develop an app for a company having a background in IT is a cakewalk, but to market and eventually manage it when the customer base increases is really a task. A start-up initially does not have the capital to put so much into marketing hence we would definitely be interested in raising funds for the same to make the app a globally renowned one.
HERALD: What are the challenges you face?
CK: I would say we did have challenges in Goa before the start-up policy of the Goa Government was launched in terms of paying salaries, rents etc. But now looking at the various schemes which are on offer to all start-ups across Goa, the challenges which usually start-ups would face has literally nullified now.
HERALD: So how are you raising your revenue and resources?
CK: The App Folga was launched in November 2019. Keeping a buffer of six months in mind to increase the footfalls and see how the entire product goes. We did intend to raise revenue and resources by the month April 2020, but the current COVID-19 pandemic has brought the entire world to a state of shock. Hence, we plan to hold on till November 2020 and then think about raising funds.
HERALD: What else is your team currently on keeping the current pandemic in mind?
CK: The current pandemic has brought a huge bunch of restaurants to develop an entire food delivery solution having a customer app, restaurant app and a rider app for them. The current pandemic is not allowing the restaurants to pay a huge sum as commission to the big players in the food delivery app industry. Hence, the restaurants wish to have an app under their brand name which would be a one-time cost for them. We do have a ready solution of a food delivery app for restaurants as well as for grocery stores.
