Aparajitha Nair – Dutch Uncles

How Glance is ‘Unlocking’ a New Market with AI-Driven Smartphone Lock Screens

Aparajitha Nair — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:35:04 +0000

What significance would a smartphone lock screen have in our daily lives? Almost Nothing. In a usual scenario, the only purpose it serves is to let us know the time, maybe an occasional message notification. However, one start-up managed to ‘unlock’ an opportunity in the same in 2017. An entire world was offered in a lock screen, making opening phones an adventure in itself.

Powered with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Bengaluru-based Glance offers personalised content with high-quality visuals in a smartphone lock screen. What is interesting to note here is that Glance is not an app, but is a part of our phones like any other in-built feature.

With a regular user base of 26 Million spending close to 22 minutes each, Glance seems to be becoming more and more popular with each passing day. Let’s find out how and why.

‘Unlocking’ the Potential

Speaking in terms of smartphone technology and relevant user offering, the market lacked something out-of-the-box which could integrate the services of the apps inside the phone and bring it all out on the otherwise empty lock screens of the phones.

After three years of comprehensive planning and discussions, founder Naveen Tewari, who is also one of the founders of Glance’s parent company InMobi, came up with the idea of integrating it all and presenting a one-stop solution in the form of Glance, which serves news, media content, games and everything else in the phone on the lock screen as per your choice. The idea behind Glance was to provide a one-stop platform for people to view visually rich content, both entertainment and information. All of it in the comfort of one’s lock screen!

Tewari is one of the few entrepreneurs, who with his passion and innovative ideas, has been able to attract investors time and again and sustain scalable business models. Be it his smartphone advertising platform InMobi or Glance, the seasonal entrepreneur has two Unicorns to his credit with a time frame of mere two years.

Since Glance is not an app, it cannot be found on any app store. It comes as an in-built feature of the smartphones, so there is no hassle of installing an app or an app taking up more space in a phone. It comes as a mobile feature with an option of customisation in settings, for a better experience.

It is important to mention here that not all phones have Glance as an inbuilt feature. The start-up has tied up with smartphone majors – Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo and Gionee and their respective series – and has the technology preinstalled.

This is also where the data prowess of the parent company InMobi came into play. The founder was already equipped with all the relevant understanding regarding the smartphone industry and user market scenario and was able make smart decisions. Tying up with the above mentioned four smartphone players was one of them as they made up for 85 per cent of the new smartphones sold in India, as per InMobi’s findings. At present, InMobi is engaged with Glance on four fronts – product, content, OEM partnerships and team building.

With customisation facilities, there are a total of 19 categories of services which a customer can choose from. Because this platform is entirely AI driven, the content that is generated is totally new, fresh and newsworthy. The consumers do not have to unlock their phones to view content. The personalised quality content with visuals which is filtered through by the Glance team is presented on the lock screen directly.

Algorithms are used which are very similar to those used by Facebook, Instagram and other social media apps, which drive targeted content to the selected consumer.

Besides customised content, the start-up offers a host of Indian languages, along with English and Bahasa (an Indonesian language), to choose from which brings a higher user base and ensures a personalised experience for its consumers.

‘‘

Glance has a wide reach thanks to its multi-lingual functionality as it has many vernacular languages that make it easily accessible across India.

Click towards Monetisation

Even though Glance is a mobile-advertising firm, it has restricted itself from displaying ads on the lock screen which has proved beneficial, considering its ever-growing user base. Fresh news snippets, videos, mini games and trivia with a selection of high quality visuals, each time one opens the lock screen, is the selling point of Glance.

At present, Glance is a free-to-use inbuilt smartphone feature. However, moving forward, the parent company is looking for various ways through which the platform can raise revenue.

Having said that, the start-up in-houses short video-making platform Roposo, works on a remunerative advantage and revenue sharing model in the form of Roposo coins (1,000 Roposo coins equals to Rs 1). The home-grown video content platforms witnessed a dramatic surge in its download numbers following the ban on Chinese app TikTok. Ex-users were quick to shift to alternate platforms, opening the golden door to revenue for Roposo. Recently, it became India’s leading short-video app crossing 100 Million downloads on the Google Play Store.

Roposo’s revenue model depends on advertisements and lead generation. With a revenue of Rs 3.84 crore, it was a great idea for its integration with Glance which will now give it access to the professional network, its personal base of vernacular content creators and a total of more than 42 Million users in India.

Tewari says the new capital being generated would aid in growing Glance in a huge manner. One of them being partnership with apps, including e-commerce, entertainment and news.

The partnerships with these apps and websites would generate revenue and the consumers will get to consume the content of their choice by being redirected to these apps and websites, which would be suggested by the AI. The company is yet to forge the said partnerships.

Within 18 months of inception, Glance had managed to cross a valuation of $45 Million at the back of its first round of investments led by billionaire Peter Thiel’s company, Mithril Capital Management.

This was followed by its second round of investments which closed at $145 Million by Google and Mithril Capital in 2020. The start-up got its ticket to the billion dollar club, within two years of operation, after the successful completion of the funding round led by Google.

The tech giant’s backing has increased the credibility and product offering of Glance. Google Vice President Caesar Sengupta had mentioned how still too many Indians have trouble finding content to read or services they can use confidently in their own language. This significantly limits the value of the internet for them. This makes perfect sense for Google to invest in Glance.

This latest round is aimed at global expansion, especially east, besides pumping the revenue streams through the platform. Glance has grown from 70 Million DAUs (daily active users) in 2019 to more than 115 million daily active users in 2020. After having capped off the previous year with great investments, the company definitely seems to reach higher levels regularly.

More Than Fleeting!

One of its kind and leading in this sphere, Glance has been very rightly coined as an innovation which solves the smartphone-first and smartphone-only consumption requirements. It serves quality content within mere seconds on the comfort of one’s smartphone lock screen across Indian languages and other world local languages.

With an AI-backed platform like Glance, it is safe to say that lock screens would be dominated by this Indian start-up for a very long time to come, given the fact that it is the world’s first and only ‘Screen Zero’ content platform at present.

One of the major strengths of Glance is its tech. With sophisticated AI driven software, many different variables and signals are combined and permutations and combinations happen simultaneously to deliver targeted content to the consumers. The trends in the world and the types of content getting popular are also suggested to consumers so that they are abreast of what’s happening worldwide as well.

There are specific social welfare guidelines and other generic rules that the Glance team is always referring to since it provides content on the lock screen directly. It is very much socially aware which only helps in building its authenticity. This would set it apart from its competitors. As and when more companies start coming up in this domain, they are most likely to use any type of content which can engage most people, while missing out on the social awareness part of it. Glance, even though it’s not monetised right now, focuses on customer satisfaction and hence focuses on not displaying content which might ‘embarrass’ their customers.

‘‘

One of the factors that gives Glance its signature edge is its tech-based innovation that delivers targeted content to its customer base.

A Future ‘Glance’

With tagline “Baar baar dekho” (keep looking again), Glance has managed to emphasise on their main selling point of fresh content with each tap on the smartphone lock screens. Consumer feedback with over 95 per cent positive remarks makes the start-up’s product a popular choice amongst people. Even though there is an option of turning off Glance in smartphone settings, 85-90% of the people do not. This adds on to the validity of this feature.

With the sophisticated AI-driven softwares, Glance is all set on solving the content consumption issues with quality content through smartphone lock screens in a never-seen-before manner!

While the start-up is yet to make a rupee, it has already started its expansion to Southeast Asia. Gradually, it intends to understand the new market and the trends so as to deepen its presence and then eventually expand into Latin America and the U.S.

With strong potential and tech-backing, the scalability is only set to increase. Content through lock screen is an idea which has come to fruition for the first time, and interestingly has captured the attention of the Indian audience.

Going forward, InMobi is trying to restructure the operations which would therefore allow more autonomy to its business verticals. This way, they can also devise their own strategies. So, the advertising is under InMobi, data business is under TruFactor and consumer content is under Glance. This is a fresh step towards handling business verticals and is proving to be beneficial.

While InMobi has many prominent competitors in the market which includes Google Ad Manager, Facebook Audience Network, Unity Ads, etc., it is products like Glance which makes it a special pick amongst consumers. With its services provided, it has changed the entire smartphone lock screen game. Consumer experience, content quality, and the amazing feature of personalisation are critical aspects of the platform. As expansion of business plays on the cards, sticking to their work ethics, staying true to their vision and delivering on these aspects will be some of their key challenges.

For more inspiring stories like this, check out our Inspire section.

The post How Glance is ‘Unlocking’ a New Market with AI-Driven Smartphone Lock Screens appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Freshworks’ Journey from a Single Product to Taking on the SaaS Giants

Aparajitha Nair — Mon, 17 May 2021 10:35:03 +0000

Many of us face poor customer service regularly but how many of us actually do something about it? Believe it or not, it just took a broken television and a taxing customer service for two such heckled customers to end up with a start-up worth $3.5 billion! With the technological era already knocking at our doors, depending on troublesome manual software would be a less than desirable option. Hence, SaaS (Software as a Service) products come into play in the form of Freshworks. SaaS are a set softwares which do not require any manual downloading, setup or space on your device. All it requires is a stable device and internet connection.

What is Freshworks? Why Are Its SaaS Products Popular?

Distressed by the lackadaisical approach of customer service, founders Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy thought of working on a cloud-based system that did not require human intervention. Since it was cloud-based (using the internet), it cut out the long wait to get in touch with customer service and the time taken for their issues to be sorted out. The icing on the cake was the ease with which one could use it without human intervention. With this revelation in hand ‘Freshdesk’ was launched in Chennai in June 2010.

Girish Mathrubootham worked at Zoho Corporation (an Indian MNC providing web-based services), when he realised how its competitor Zendesk was on the brink of losing its customers due to incessant price hikes. Since he had the knowledge, an idea and a hunger to bring his idea to fruition, he, along with his colleague Shan Krishnasamy, sought to deliver SaaS products to customers in an entirely different way and at affordable rates. After resigning from Zoho, they started developing their idea and the foundation for Freshworks was laid. It was known as Freshdesk Inc. before it got rechristened as Freshworks Inc. in 2017 to incorporate various new services that they were set to offer. Freshworks is part of the infamous ‘Zoho Mafia’ since its founders are ex-employees of Zoho Corp. With a surplus of $500 million in revenue, this outfit has grown substantially over the years and Freshworks seems to be spearheading it.

After having successfully launched two of their initial products – video chat and co-browsing platform, ‘1CLICK.io’ and ‘Freshsales’, a CRM product – Freshworks crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue and launched Freshworks 360, a multi-product SaaS suite for enhanced customer experience.

This product lets businesses maintain a 360-degree view of relevant customer information internally at an affordable price. Freshworks 360 helps in customer integration, making it easier to generate efficient strategies leading to better customer interaction, engagement and retention. It is a market disruptor in every way because of its integration of various services, which were being offered by other companies separately and at higher prices. Other companies just brought in the existing services like sales force automation, call centre and marketing software directly to the cloud-based system. Freshworks, on the other hand, took a refreshing approach with its SaaS Business Suite product which combined sales, support and marketing software together while passing on customer history to the support team. This helped in keeping a 360º view of the customer data. Freshworks 360 provides Freshdesk, Freshsales, Freshmarketer, Freshchat and Freshcaller as its business suite services.

‘‘

You can only build a successful company on the foundation of happy customers. Make sure to build awesome products which delights the customers!

The Freshworks Way of Business and Earning Revenue!

The Freshworks business model depends entirely on the ease of working with its web-based products and the integration of various services into one. Softwares, in general, are very difficult to manoeuvre around and use, on an individual level. When we talk about big companies using multi softwares, the task becomes even more difficult. What happens next is that technicians or other people with the requisite knowledge are hired, temporarily or permanently, who handle the softwares. This further leads to a never-ending cycle of dependability, accountability and the turmoil of getting work done. Add to it the fact that these softwares are very expensive and hiring technicians was never cheap as well.

Freshworks brings an organic turn of events with its business suite which has better deep-integrated cloud-based software, making the entire process very easy and affordable.

The company has stuck to its motive of keeping its customers happy, proven by its customer base of more than 40,000 regular customers. With $484 million funding by 6 global investors, Freshworks entered the Unicorn Club (start-ups valued at over $1 billion) in July 2018, becoming India’s first SaaS Unicorn.

Freshworks with Google: Strong Competition to Industry Giants

Headquartered in California, United States, Freshworks had been ambitious from the very beginning by setting up its start-up in an industry which was dominated by giants like Zoho, Zendesk, Microsoft etc. Presently, not only Freshworks is coming up with novel and innovative customer-centric products, but is also aiming to serve big-sized companies, including the SMB segment.

Since Freshworks has always been about better customer experience, it focused a lot on its digital marketing which coupled with its global inside-sales model, lowered its cost of selling. Aided by Google Search advertising, Freshworks quickly garnered interest and a strong customer base which was built across the United States of America and Europe. This only further aided in bettering its services in comparison to some of the biggest competitors of the industry.

Using other Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads, strategic campaigns were easily designed and targeted, which further helped its ranking through Google Search and aided its fast growth across the globe. Since 2016, Freshworks has also been using YouTube and Google Marketing Platform to strategize its branding.

When it comes to product comparison, Freshworks CRM is preferred by the majority of customers over Zoho CRM because of the better quality, greater feature updates and roadmaps provided by Freshworks. Customer reviews have rated Freshworks’ CRM higher than the competition’s CRM due to its comprehensive, uncomplicated and integrated services with ensured scalability. Freshworks’ CRM is a guaranteed first choice majorly amongst consumers as compared to other competitors due to ease of use, contextual conversations, zero manual intervention and affordable rates. Consumers swear by Freshworks 360, in comparison to that of the other competitors in the market who are established giants, because of its modern and integrated services, affordability and ease of use. Additionally, Freshworks boasts of a range of 24/5 customer care services through call, mail, text and other mediums, suitable to their customers without any hassle. As observable, in an industry with such big competitors, Freshworks has managed to carve out its SaaS product niche by focusing on customer satisfaction and ease of operation and scalability. This has been their biggest plus point in taking over the industry and getting ahead of the competition in such a short time.

‘‘

Data today is broken between several stakeholders of the organisation and therefore, they are not able to answer customer queries effectively and it is going to be difficult for the business to retain a customer once their query is not answered.

Freshworks v/s Zoho: Legal Battle and Consequence

Freshworks has been previously locked in a legal battle with Zoho corp. which filed a lawsuit against it, in the US District Court Northern District of California, for allegedly violating the Defence of Trade Secrets Act; the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act; the Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations; Conversion and Unjust Enrichment.

Founded in 1966, Zoho’s founder Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in the company’s original lawsuit allegedly claim that “it is using Zoho’s confidential customer and competitive marketing information, planning press releases to coincide with Zoho’s undisclosed product launch dates, and pressuring Zoho’s business partners to divulge confidential customer information.”

Mathrubootham and Krishnasamy had previously worked in Zoho and were allegedly privy to confidential information like Zoho’s product ideas, financial status, business partners and prospects, customer information etc, which were non-public information, as per Zoho. So, instead of filing this court case in Chennai, Zoho decided to approach US court since there exist no trade secret laws in Indian courts. On the contrary, it was beneficial for Zoho to approach the US court since, under the DTSA law, trade secrets can be safeguarded against breach of information. Further on with their allegations, Zoho said that Freshworks had also been involved in poaching its customers by using sensitive private customer information of Zoho and presented email screenshots as evidence. As the primary response to the allegations, a Freshworks spokesperson said, “it looks forward to its day in court where we will address and defend against Zoho’s claims.” Additionally, Freshworks has been complying with the court proceedings and later on, in another response alleged that Zoho had been “expanding on one alleged incident into a case of trade secret misappropriation.”

Even though both the companies are at loggerheads due to the court case, they haven’t let it affect their customers in any way. They continue to be goal-oriented and strive to serve their customers with better services.

Freshworks Promises an Innovative and Fresh Future!

Not only did Freshworks take over the SaaS industry in a major way, but it also did it with a bang with its innovative strategies and products which would never fail to capture a consumer’s attention. One of its competitors has been SalesForce, which patronised the industry for a long time. During its annual customer event ‘Dreamforce’ on 25th September 2018, Freshworks literally gate-crashed the event with a blimp with the words “#failsforce” printed on it. The idea behind this massive strategic campaign was to make people aware of the disadvantages of investing in bloated software like SalesForce. Not only did they become viral on Twitter for this stunt, they got covered by reputed publications like Forbes, Adweek etc.
Freshworks has also used the Internet to its maximum to spread awareness and gather a bigger consumer base. With regular virtual events, podcasts, webinars, targeted SEO strategies and investments in influencer marketing, Freshworks has literally left no stone unturned as a potential avenue for growing their company more. They have even managed to drive in much traffic by launching free tools like ‘Freshstatus’ and ‘Freshping’, which offer great web monitoring services to their users for no cost at all! Their trend of offering high positions to ex-heads of their competitors, like John Crosson and Stacey Epstein, has only helped in increasing their authenticity in the industry.

When experienced veterans join an already promising company, it only builds the customer’s trust further.

With innovative strategies, the company has impressively grown from $1 million in revenue to $100 million within five years. The future for CRM customers and the SaaS industry, under Freshworks, looks to be all about ‘wowing’ their customers regularly with predictive and collaborative contextual engagements for companies, in an integrated way, while also catering to the audience that gives them that validation.

For more inspiring stories like this check out our Inspire section!

The post Freshworks’ Journey from a Single Product to Taking on the SaaS Giants appeared first on Dutch Uncles.