(1) Describe your startup.
Bobble AI aims to empower Billions by making their communication personal, expressive and smarter with its cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence around input methods like Keyboard, Voice, Camera, etc. We work on a B2B2C model and have partnered and co-created solutions with various leading Smartphone Manufacturers and tech giants in the past. Bobble AI’s flagship product Bobble Keyboard is the highest rated, the most engaged, the most retaining, and the most viral keyboard in the world according to authentic third party sources. Bobble keyboard has impacted the lives of more than 25 Million users in the last 4 years. Bobble AI is backed by some of the most celebrated names in the Indian startup ecosystem. In addition to SAIF Partners and Xiaomi Inc. others include co-founders of Flipkart, founder of MakeMyTrip, Co-founder of SlideShare, Co-creator of Apache Cassandra, and 15 other individual investors.
(2) What inspired the creation of the startup?
Just when we moved towards digitalization – WhatsApp, Wechat and Telegrams of the world have taken offline interaction, online. Which gave another challenge that needs to be dealt with i.e – plain boring, emotionless conversation. Unfortunately online conversations were boring!
Which made us aware about what world is missing, with an idea to make online conversations fun, smart and expressive, we started Bobble AI.
Which lead to us creating Bobble content-
With just a selfie – we make you smile in 10 different ways and cry different ways. Later on, we realized our conversational content needed a more sustainable distribution channel fortunately, in 2016 Android and iOS opened their keyboard APIs for 3rd party developers. Launching Bobble Indic Keyboard in early 2016 gave us the early mover advantage. A Keyboard has always been seen as a utility historically, we envisioned it as a strong platform for distribution. With a vision to revolutionize communication, we dreamt of building technology that would make online communication personalized, fun and smart. We have created a platform, through which people can not just share content but they can also make – payment, commerce, news reading and multiple other used cases within the used keyboard.
(3) What differentiates your startup from the competition?
We competing against Google’s Gboard, Microsoft’s Swiftkey, Tencent’s Sogou, and Baidu’s Facemoji. All keyboards need support from Android phone manufacturers for getting preloaded into the device. Our competitors believed in monopolistic terms while dealing with OEMs, while we have always preferred to create larger value for OEMs.
Our competitors have been keeping the 180+ smartphone manufacturers corrupted and crippled therefore none of the manufacturers thought of creating their own keyboard. We reversed the rules of the playground, our business model thrives on the fact that our OEM partners win, however when they were dealing with our competitors they have been losing. We let our OEM partners have – their own branding, access to data and multifold increase in revenue.
In addition to that, we have been able to win users’ heart. Bobble Indic Keyboard is the highest rated, the most engaged, the most retaining, and the most viral keyboard in the world according to authentic third party sources.
(4) Who is the target market?
Our objective is to revolutionize communication experience for people. There are 2.5 billion Android devices. 85% of the world uses android phones, 62% the US uses android phones and with that our aim is to get in each one of them and add smartness to the phone experience. We have started with India, recently expanded to Indonesia and are now looking at other southeast Asian , European and Middle East countries.
We partner with large consumer facing companies like Phone manufacturers, Banks, Telcos, E-commerce, OTTs, and OTAs who have millions of active users and provide our customized solution to increase their engagement & revenue. In this B2B2C model, we ensure that our technology adds value in the life of all those consumers who are directly/ indirectly associated with us.
(5) How did you grow your presence in your target market?
We run on – Consumer first approach. Presently we have over 25 million users in India and reaching 10M in Indonesia, we grew by offering superior value to our distribution partners.
Along with having superior technology, over the years we have built some inherently viral products and services.
(6) What stage are you at?
With our hard work and cutting-edge technology, we have proven our work and our business model. In June 2019, we raised series B funding primarily for product R&D and scaling up, this year we will be looking out to raise series C.
(7) What are some of the biggest challenges that your startup has had to overcome?
Bobble’s journey has been unique and phenomenal in every possible way, we went through some major ups and downs.
● Indian economy is suffering. With low per capita income, it is very difficult for any company to survive and remain profitable unless it reaches significant scale and engagement.
● In India developing an AI-powered system is challenging as India is huge- in terms of diversity. There are over 22 major languages and more than 720 dialects. To build a keyboard that understands and serves the needs of 1.3 Billion people, we had to work really hard.
● One of the other challenges for us was to find talent who had relevant experience. Due to the age-old incompetent curricula followed in most of the educational institutes in India, there’s a lack of adequate talent to build and deploy AI systems at scale. We had to bring back talent from the USA, which came at a huge cost.
● Incidentally, India’s investment scenarios are at a nascent stage. India lacks thesis-driven investors, we have particularly observed hunting in a pack culture. As a result, Investors are mostly influenced by the successful thesis of China and the USA. Nobody in India dared to go against Google, in their core technology strength, as an outcome we had to reach out to Chinese manufacturers.
(8) What is next for the startup?
In 2019, we joined forces with small and large Android Manufacturers including Xiaomi, Indus OS, Lava, Foxconn, etc. With that we are expected 50M+ users in 2020. In the coming years, we forecast a major growth in terms of revenue, which will overpower all existing revenue channels by at least 25 times. As we move forward we’ll keep advancing our technology, apart from Keyboard we’ll keep developing additional input method solutions, such as voice, camera, and gestures. At the same time, we are monetizing keeping the user experience intact.
(9) Where would you like to be in the next 5 years?
Presently our objective is to create a system that works for all sorts of people despite their differences. We are developing technology that not only serves real-India, but is for everybody. With time we’ll keep increasing our horizon, starting from Asian Pacific regions. While partnering with smartphone manufacturers our objective is to win the largest keyboard space in India and then the world. As we move forward we’ll be adding more input method solutions, such as voice, camera, and gestures. Through our data intelligence, we understand the needs of people, with our technology, we aspire to serve all those needs of people, at the same time we dream of keeping the fun essence alive. With our personalized, fun, and expressive products we’ll make this world a better and a happier place.
(10) If you had to give one piece of advice to an up and coming startup what would it be?
We see there are three major opportunities for startups to establish themselves in the market-
1. Replacing the Incumbents
2. Disrupting the Traditional industries
3. Organizing the Unorganized sectors
For each of the three, a unique strategy needs to be followed.
In order to compete against incumbents, startups need to focus on their strengths. In the market run on the rules made by the incumbent, there is a higher chance of them winning. To compete, startups need to rebel against the incumbent with their own set of new rules which should be exactly reverse of the existing.
While when it comes to disrupting traditional industries, the prime strategy should be to introduce modern technologies like AI/ML and innovative ways which would be extremely hard for the traditional players to copy.
Whereas, if a startup wants to establish itself in an unorganized sector, it should start by establishing transparency in the industry, introducing data-driven decisions and disciplined approach to organizing the market.
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