Vishal, an IT employee of Hyderabad called an ambulance for his mother as she got an asthma attack at 3.am. He was living in congested lanes of old city. The ambulance started immediately for the address, but it took more than 35 minutes to locate the address. In the wee hours, the driver couldn’t find any help except GPS. Unfortunately, she lost her life on the way.
For problems like these, Zippr is of great help. Zippr is a mobile app that allows users to create ,manage and share personal or business locations through a unique code. Zippr creates a shortened unique code of addresses. e.g. Zippr’s company address is ZPPR2727. Get the app on android here or iOS here.
Zippr was incorporated in May 2013 and first beta version of the app was launched in Dec 2013. In the last 3-4 months, the startup has seen significant user adoption with over 15k people using Zippr actively. More than 400k interactions have been generated on the Zippr platform shows that people are taking to the new concept in a big way. The app won ITsAP (IT Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh) award for innovation in Dec-2013.
Zippr has been founded by Aditya Vuchi, a serial entrepreneur with significant experience in Digital Media. Currently, Zippr is a strong 8-member team evenly split between Engineering and Marketing. Zippr is Aditya’s second startup; the first one is a successful digital media company called MediaMint which works with large agencies and publishers to set-up and optimize display, video and mobile ad campaigns.
The mobile app when downloaded automatically identifies the user’s location on Google’s maps; the Zippr engine creates a unique code. When the user taps on the code (number), it redirects the user to Google maps; with another tap you get the route. Personalized codes also can be created by using premium services. E.g. there is also premium Zippr custom location code that you can request such as NIKY8080. Users can create multiple addresses maybe for meetings, events, hangouts.
Currently, the app is integrated with ambulances. The Zippr integration means that the user can call 108 and just give a Zippr code to dispatch an ambulance. The 108 helpline now accepts a Zippr code and able to dispatch an ambulance directly without the need for an address/landmarks or directions. Initial results have shown a reduced time-to-first-response by upto 30%.
How did Zippr generate it’s first 500 downloads, we ask Aditya. “We identified our audience early on during our customer discovery process and kept in touch with them throughout our product development process through a comprehensive “Influencer program”. This meant that once we launched our app, we saw the first 500 downloads within a few hours of the store launch.”
The competitors for Zippr could be larger players such as Google and Facebook. “The concept of a new address format that allows consumers to communicate easily is something that requires a consumer behavior change which we believe is a challenge we need to address, and hence our biggest competitor”, says Aditya.
“In the future, we will make the mapping framework a customized experience allowing the user to pick his map of choice”, he adds.
Currently the mobile app is available free to consumers to download on Android an iOS platform. Company plans to generate revenue from enterprises and businesses that see the benefit of using Zippr, both for order-taking and order fulfillment and as a result, there is a propensity to pay.
We ask Aditya on what worked for him in his entrepreneurial journey. “Identifying the value that I bring to startup venture, either in terms of more tactical stuff or strategic vision/direction of the company and second is to build a world-class team that can relate to and be passionate about the problem statement and solution. Our goal is to ALWAYS hire people better than us/me.”, signs off Aditya.
Zippr solves a real need for Indians and this is validated by the no. of sign-ups the app have generated so far. Aditya & team have definitely done smart work around Marketing through their influencer program. As it’s free for consumer use, we definitely see the potential of Zippr to be one of the must-have apps on your smart phone. Download the app now!
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