When we talk about startups – the central Indian city of Indore may pop up in our minds as a likely place for venture incubation. Indore after all, is known more for its history; its Chanderi and its Maheshwari saris-than as a cradle for budding IT entrepreneurs.
However, three city-based young entrepreneurs have shattered the glass ceiling with a product that is giving its competitors sleepless nights. Brothers Vinay Singhal, Parveen Singhal and their college friend Shashank Vaishnav are behind the fastest growing viral content website – Wittyfeed. The trio has proven that creativity and entrepreneurship are independent of any age limits or geographical boundaries. The oldest of the three is just 26. Their creation, Wittyfeed, is already miles ahead or ..
In fact, WittyFeed – the charticle and listicle platform – is today India’s largest viral content company and the second largest in the world in terms of traffic numbers. Except for the global leader Buzzfeed, WittyFeed powered ahead of all other viral content providers in the short time since its inception in 2014.
“Amazing” early days
The two founders Singhal and Vaishnav at their college in Chennai, put together a hugely successful page on Facebook – Amazing Things in the World. The page went on to garner a whopping 4.2 million followers. “We realized that with such numbers it was time to monetize the audience. With our research and experience, we also surmised that the number of audience out there in the virtual world is mind boggling. But, there is a huge gap in the quality and quantity of content on offer.
The two founders Singhal and Vaishnav at their college in Chennai, put together a hugely successful page on Facebook – Amazing Things in the World. The page went on to garner a whopping 4.2 million followers. “We realized that with such numbers it was time to monetize the audience. With our research and experience, we also surmised that the number of audience out there in the virtual world is mind boggling. But, there is a huge gap in the quality and quantity of content on offer. From here the i ..
Singhal says WittyFeed is a modern day blogging platform for everyone who loves to express and explore stories. “It is basically a YouTube of content. Anyone who wishes to write, can come and start writing, and our in-house team of editors make sure that it goes viral and reaches the right audience,” says Singhal.
The site also offers features for the readers. Readers can build their own feed by selecting five of their favorite categories and can also start a discussion on the story with a feature called live-commenting, wherein, the guest does not need to login to leave a comment. For publishers, Singhal says the startup is building tools that can tell them what to post and when to post so that their pages grow as fast as they should. The trio have been smart to realize that the going does not have to be ..
WittyFeed was founded by Vinay Singhal, Parveen Singhal and Shashank Vaishnav in October 2014. It runs under the parent company Vatsana Technologies. It has received the Fastest Growing Company in IT Sector award by All India Achiever’s Foundation in 2015. WittyFeed was selected by Google among an elite group of startups for case studies on successful companies using their products.In February 2017, Wittyfeed became the 20th most visited website in India, ahead of Twitter and Instagram.
How does your team curate content?
WittyFeed.com has an available base of 6000 influences on the platform. Hence, the content was very much in demand, which was impossible for us to create on our own! Thereby made WittyFeed.com a platform where any blogger or writer could sign up, write for us and monetize their creations easily.
This motivates the writer to focus only on the writing part and we take care of all of its outreach and monetization parts.
For now, the ratio is 80-20. 80 percent of the content comes from all across the world and the rest 20 percent is done by the in-house writer team. Furthermore, all of the content is carefully filtered and edited by an in-house Editorial Team of the company.
What are some notable examples of experiences that you came across while your journey with the WittyFeed?
“Well, we’ve been bankrupt 8 times for starters”, laughs.
Also from the start, we’ve been in debt too for a many numbers of times! It has been a roller-coaster ride, with several ups and downs!
“The only thing is that it has helped us who we are today. Too much money is a big problem. Innovation ceases to happen that way. We decided whatever will happen, whenever will happen, we’re going hang around and will never give up!”
There’s too much fascination with the money! So, are you thinking about what company is doing or what the company is actually worth?
WittyFeed.com is currently a completely bootstrapped company, which gives a lot of flexibility and freedom to do whatever we want. This has been quite a big factor in touching a mark of 120 M unique visitors in a month. That’s a lot of people to touch, inspire and provide them with your views! Our content is more about making people happy, entertaining them and inspiring them. All this does make a huge social impact and we try to use it wisely and eventually we end up making money as well.
