Being online on the web we share a thousand kind of stuffs, links, jokes, questions, events, fun memories. But many of us have this habit, I am not sure, should call it good or bad, but when it comes to sharing emotions we tend to become introverts and gulp it inside and it doesn’t go away even though time passes by, that thing remains somewhere in the back of our mind pinching our heart.
And how many times have you found yourself sharing your thoughts and pains with people you have just met or somepne who you rarely talk to. It happens with everyone, the more the anonymity the more we tend to share.
Don’t eat up and try to digest anything that’s bothering you, just pour it out and pour out as much as you want anonymously, that’s what SharingDard is all about, no one’s asking on who you are? or where do you come from? or what do you want? Just talk, let the emotions come out, whatever you have and you’ll find there are many out there listening and sharing the the same struggle as you are going through. SharingDard is co-founded by Sumant Gajbhiye, Ritika Sharma and Gaurav Rajan, friends & batchmates at IIM Lucknow 2011.
We’ll get into conversion with Ritika Sharma and know more about the story and team behind SharingDard.
Tell us how this idea came about? What kind of research did you perform before confirming that the need to share anonymously was large enough to create a platform for it?
Well, the idea was conceived when we were in IIM L at one of our private parties in hostel Room.no 120.We were just sharing our respective problems with each other. We sympathized with each other but were not able to entirely understand what the other was going through. That was it; we left college, joined our jobs and the idea was left as it is. Then, after a year or so, when we were in the thick of it all, we realized how little time we were able to give to each other. Even being close friends our situations didn’t let us lend an ear to the other when they needed it. And this happened with every one of us. That is when we seriously thought about the website. Our secondary research made it more clear that the need is growing by the hour:
- Economic times in one of their articles reported that around 66% working professionals felt lonely in India alone and 77% wanted someone to share their highs and lows with.
- A TOI report said that 1 in 5 suicides were because of psychiatric illnesses.
- NIMHANS says 1 in every 15 adults suffer from depressive illnesses. And, 40% of Indian Population is likely to cross the Line of Clinical Depression.
- According to World Health Organization (WHO), Depression is the 4th leading cause for diseases in the world.
Apart from this we did our primary research also, wherein, in addition to the other insights, it came out that 80% of the people wish to have a place where they can be their true self and vent out without fear of their real identity. This further strengthened our belief that ours is a highly needed service or platform in today’s times.
It’s a no brainer that people will love this platform. However, apart from venting their feelings out, are there any other advantages of being on this platform?
Of course there are, you get to network with people, find people facing problems similar to you (by using the ‘Find People With Similar Dard’ feature); you also get to help people going through their troubled times with your experience of how you have overcome. Helping others invariably helps you too. Other than that – on the lighter side – you also get to do cool stuff like sharing virtual drinks and emotions. When you talk about solutions, we have a tele counseling initiative running for adolescents by the name “Your Candid Friend”. We shall soon be integrating counseling and other services with SharingDard.
How do you plan to get the word out? Please share your marketing techniques with us.
Our primary focus is through the online social media and through word of mouth currently. We shall be exploring the other marketing avenues soon so as to reach out to maximum people out there.
What is the revenue model for SharingDard?
Our major revenue for SharingDard is through ‘Your Candid Friend’ – A Subsidiary of SRG SharingDard Networking Pvt Ltd.
Your Candid Friend is a National Tele-Counselling Service for Adolescents (www.yourcandidfriend.com). We provide counseling packages that can be gifted to the adolescents by their parent/guardians/well-wishers. These packages can be used anytime of the day, within the validity period of the package.
We have not started monetizing directly through SharingDard as of now. However, we will soon be starting with advertisement on the website, B2B tie ups with professionals and organizations and Market Intelligence reports
Please introduce us to the team at SharingDard.
The core team consists of four people – the three co-founders –Sumant Gajbhiye, Ritika Sharma (myself) and Gaurav Rajan, and one core team member – Lima James.
The four of us were friends since our college days in IIM Lucknow and belong to the same batch Batch of 2011. Sumant and Gaurav have a pre-MBA work experience of 2 years (at Accenture) and 4 years (at Nortel, Batelco and Wipro) respectively. Post MBA Sumant worked with Airtel as the Zonal Sales Manager and Gaurav with LnT as Procurement and Sourcing Manager. Before Sharingdard Ritika was the Key Account Manager at GSK Consumer handling all modern-trade account pan-India. Lima worked with Lenovo as the Channel Sales Manager for the Mumbai region.
At SharingDard, Sumant and Lima are the technical geeks – you will always find them speaking about gadgets, code pieces, shades of colours, size of text and what not! Gaurav is a social media buff and handles SD’s social media platform. I handle vendors and all external communication.
From Left to Right – Sumant, Ritika, Gaurav and Lima – Team SharingDard
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
If we were to start again we would definitely be a little more cautious while zeroing down on our vendors, and a little more frugal with our finances.
Any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs who are always in a dilemma whether to take the fat pay check job after IIM’s or start a bootstrapped venture and try hard?
Weigh your options well before jumping the entrepreneur bandwagon. Everyone has their own story; whether entrepreneurship goes with it or not is something only you would know. Having said that, it’s your inner call and belief which makes you take a leap of faith.
Please share your future plans with us.
In the future we would be integrating a few services with SharingDard.com – like online counseling with psychiatrists, In person counseling centres, tie-ups with established psychiatrists (we would be providing the users with a database of psychiatrists), Market Intelligence reports, and also an e-commerce site wherein people can purchase things that may help them overcome depression, anxiety etc.
