When one thinks approximately a social community in which fashion aficionados live, breathe, and indulge day in day out, one infrequently pics 3 IITians in the back of it! Interestingly, the trio of those IITians have not best advanced a social community but has additionally managed to deliver over 2.5 Mn fashion aficionados on a single platform.
IIT Delhi alumni Mayank Bhangadia, Avinash Saxena (ex-CTO of Zomato) and Kaushal Shubhank commenced Roposo in July 2014 in the realm of favor discovery by using developing a social platform for fashion. In a small span of time they managed to get 2.5 Mn users on-board. Now they're raring to hit the eight Mn mark this yr as the tribe of fashionistas multiply at the platform.
Interestingly, what stimulated the trio became now not an interest in style, however an motive to clear up the hassle of discovery, help people locate stuff relevant to them. No marvel the platform has been named Roposo (derived from the French word Apropos, this means that relevant/suitable).
“The maximum essential issue about discovery is relevancy. And the exceptional manner to do this is to by replicating the actual international. So, we desired to make a platform which replicates the sector round us. In the real global, your choices are influenced by means of influencers, travel, and matters round you. And users are most energetic in fashion. It is some thing you do everyday. So, we wanted Roposo to be that location wherein human beings can come together and get stimulated with the aid of others,” says Avinash. Avinash and Mayank had in advance co-founded a gifting startup called Giveter.
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Roposo CoFounders L-R Kaushal Shubhak, Avinash Saxena and Mayank Bhangadia
With 2.5 Mn users, more than 2 hundred celebrities, designers and stylists on the platform, and over 6,000 manufacturers from throughout 550 stores, Roposo has come an extended way in cementing its position to grow to be the fave social destination of fashion fans in only years. After winning within the fashion and styling category, it has now brought classes like home decor, journey, food, and so forth. Which are bringing an increasing number of customers to the platform, reworking it right into a social community for human beings with like-minded interests in those broad heads. No marvel, Roposo that is amongst India’s first fashion discovery systems, is slowly morphing into one of India’s desired fashion social networks!
Landing 2.5 Mn Users In Two Years
Roposo’s traction has extended extensively with the release of its app closing year. The platform already garners over 1 Mn screen perspectives and posts a month and has clocked 2.5 Mn app installations to this point. Out of that, 1 Mn came inside four months of the app release.
Once a consumer downloads the Roposo app, he/she can share fashion inspirations, put up images, DIYs, or fashion tales, follow and interact with customers/celebrities/designers whose styles they like, make a listing of lists of testimonies and products for destiny reference, repost testimonies they prefer on the platform, and store for new products and developments which might be curated, personalized and updated every day. In quick, users can socialise fashionably in this style social network, preserving abreast with new style trends.
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Crossing the two Mn consumer mark in a year isn't always an clean experience. And to pinnacle it, the user generated content platform claims that the fashion memories are developing 4X every month. There are some cool things which Roposo has completed, which is amplifying its ever-growing network of style aficionados.
The Style Check-In Option
The style test-in option permits customers to update their region together with their style posts. Thus the geo-tagging allows other users to peer what’s trending in which part of the u . S ., thus preserving them in music with patterns which are in style.
Near You Feature
The Near you characteristic will enable you to look posts that have been made by way of customers near your location. This way one now not only knows what’s in trend close to one but additionally receives to recognise of many local boutiques and groups in fashion near one’s region. One also can without problems chat with customers via messages, enquire about merchandise and expenses. This will quickly become live in-app chat, making it a real time style community of sorts.
Celebrity Fashion
Getting celebrities like Nargis Fakhri, Sania Mirza, Jacqueline Fernandez, Rocky S and Ritu Kumar on the platform changed into one successful hack which has led to improved traction as fashionistas always need to be in sync with what their preferred celebrities are wearing.
The latest video characteristic permits customers to create brief movies on fashion, makeup, and things of their hobby, therefore including any other layer of deeper connectivity with the platform. Think of it as Facebook of fashion, in which from posts to photographs to motion pictures – the whole lot is available on the platform.
Adds Avinash, “The platform is fast turning out to be a hotspot for style fans who want to discover the ultra-modern tendencies and flaunt their very own non-public style. We aim to attain out to an increasing number of users and take the total determine to eight Mn with the aid of the end of this monetary. With the reaction that we've obtained from the marketplace in addition to buyers, we're confident of our growth and of amplifying our user base appreciably.”
Avinash’s optimism isn't unjustified given the truth that to mark the of completion of three hundred and sixty five days of its app, Roposo is celebrating the accomplishment and bolstering its increase with the launch of its men’s platform. The move is in line with the massive demand, each from its current ladies customers and from men themselves, to open up the social network to men’s style and can be the subsequent good sized step in Roposo’s evolution because the ultimate social vacation spot for all fashion fans within the u . S . A .. Roposo’s men’s style platform is likewise going to map and generate content for greater male-applicable interests which includes bikes, devices, vehicles, adventure gear, and so on.
Flipkart, Jabong, L’Oreal, Snapdeal, Tommy Hilfiger, And More
The group has additionally grown from the initial three to more than a a hundred individuals unfold throughout Gurgaon and Mumbai. Its clientele include Flipkart, Jabong, Yepme, L’Oreal, Snapdeal, Tommy Hilfiger, Biba, Colorbar, Fossil, and French Connection.
The startup monetises via the associate model, wherein it receives a reduce for the lead technology. Given the reality that on a mean, a consumer spends one hundred twenty mins at the app in a month, this version has worked out for the startup to be operationally worthwhile, without spending a whole lot on advertising. In the pipeline are plans to discover any other sales channels – in particular advertisements, so one can be finalised inside the coming months.
Along the way, it has managed to choose up hefty investments to the track of $21 Mn from investors inclusive of Tiger Global, Indian Quotient, Bertelsmann India Investments and Binny Bansal. In the most latest round, it raised $five Mn from Bertelsmann India Investments this April.
The Fashion Discovery Maze
Fashion discovery is going to be a multi-billion dollar possibility within the coming instances and it's miles however natural that pretty a few players are already trying to make their mark. Personalised style discovery engine and shopping assistant Fabence, Seedfund-backed Voonik, and Amazon’s Junglee, which makes a speciality of everything below the sun, are a number of the players looking to simplify the maze round fashion discovery. Last August, Voonik acqui-hired Trialkart, a startup that gives a digital dressing room revel in to users, for an undisclosed quantity. This month, it has also acqui-employed three startups, Zohraa, Picksilk.Com and Styl, to construct it newly released premium ecommerce platform Vilara.
Then there is VentureNursery-sponsored social discovery and curation device for ecommerce, Klip.In, which raised INR three Cr ultimate 12 months, and Bangalore-primarily based hyperlocal discovery platform Wooplr, which raised over $5 Mn in a spherical led by way of task capital company Helion Ventures.
Similarly, there's Delhi-primarily based startup Styledotme, a social networking fashion app which has raised an undisclosed amount of investment from Indian Angel Network this February. The app allows customers to immediately get linked with their friends and followers and ask them to vote for the selected alternatives. Mumbai-based fashion ecommerce app Hippily, which has raised $250K in seed spherical of investment this February, additionally offers curated present day fashion merchandise, appears, and collections, specifically for girls to discover, store and proportion from a huge kind of on-line stores. It additionally uses software program algorithms and inputs from social media to personalise the buying experience for ladies. The employer has tie-united states of americawith style stylists to curate products.
Another Mumbai-based on-line style styling platform StyleCracker, similarly is a styling platform for individuals who desire to get styled by means of the usa’s reputed and famend designers inside the fashion industry. Then there may be WithMe – a platform built around fashion suggestion and ideas that help its users determine on what to shop for or put on. Users’ social network and bunch of style professionals solution their fashion queries in real time.
Roposo however is unfazed with the aid of the opposition. As in keeping with Avinash, there's nobody unmarried platform that could collect motion pictures and pix, connect with merchandise they should buy, get in contact with stylists, influencers, celebrities, and artists, and bond in thrilling ways with humans over style and style.
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Says Avinash, “It is a wealthy, growing network and lot of humans are contributing to the platform each day, helping others find out new things.” Lot of those people additionally conduct occasions in exceptional cities which include Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, thus in addition connecting with humans at the platform. The community is anticipated to deepen in addition with the creation of the video function which permits customers to rent more than one quick movies to tell their tales. Going similarly, users might be capable of talk actual time thru the app, which they presently do with comments proper now.
Editor’s Note
As in line with a recent Morgan Stanley record, the Indian ecommerce marketplace is anticipated to be worth $119 Bn via 2020. Added to that, phone customers in India are projected to attain over 500 Mn through 2018, pointing out to the massive possibility handy for fashion discovery startups like Roposo. Needless to say, as an increasing number of human beings come on-line for following fashion developments and searching for fashion tips, style social networks will extend, gaining greater traction and large wide variety of ecommerce customers who might need to leverage their networks for boosting income. Thus the bigger the community, the better its possibilities of being at the top of the listing of desired visual discovery platforms through ecommerce organizations. In that feel, Roposo’s ever increasing community of favor enthusiasts bides well for it.
By adding greater categories together with journey, domestic décor, it's going to in addition deepen its reach. What is vital is to consciousness on differentiating itself from the extensive list of style discovery apps to stay at the top of its recreation and now not come to be as one in the list of many such discovery apps. How Roposo leverages era to acquire this is something with a purpose to be really worth searching out for, as it weapons for the subsequent 8 Mn customers on its platform.
