We’ve been interviewing a lot of startups for the past few weeks. This has been an interesting experience for us. Knowing about startups in books and websites is no wonder very different than getting in touch with someone who is running a startup of his own.
We have this special interview series for our readers to get the first hand information on how did these entrepreneurs reach where they are. I am glad they’re willing to share their experiences for our readers.
Next in the line, we have a yet another promising startup, PicPorta under the lime light. Picporta claim to be masters of automatic image description! I got a chance to interview one of the co-founders, Pulkit. He is a promising Indian entrepreneur by passion.
On asking if Pulkit believes in hiring fresh college graduates, he proudly says,
Yes we do hire freshers – As I mentioned earlier that picporta is 100% passion – and where do you get more passion then in a fresher!
The PicPorta Team – Pulkit with Vijaita Khandelwal and Govind Godara.
We have a summary of his thoughts and reactions to share with our readers,
Picporta is a nice name for a startup. Who coined it and how did this happen?
I coined this term because I wanted an unusual name for my startup. We went through many suggestions from friends and family and finally agreed upon this name.
Did Picporta come out of passion or was it a true business goal?
Picporta is 100 % passion.
You say you work on, “artificial intelligence, machine vision and web 3.0” I would like to know if the word web 3.0 has been officially coined as yet?
Web 3.0 was first coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006 referring to intelligent web. There is no official definition as of yet but it seems soon the official definition will be coined.
Who are the team members apart from you and what are their roles at Picporta?
We now are a team of 3 people including me. Other members are Vijaita Khandelwal and Govind Godara.
Vijaita is project manager and has been working with us since inception – she takes cares of product development and image search algorithm designing.
Govind takes care of QA and helps us in GUI design.
Who amongst you is the most passionate person when it comes to AI?
Me
I remember you guys presented at Proto in Delhi. How the response was thereafter and what did you learn out of the event?
Well the response was tremendous and we were approached by many a VC’s, angels and businesses as well.
Learning at proto has been holistic – for ex. we learnt how to present ourselves before Investors and what an investor expects from a startup like ours.
How was Picporta bootstrapped?
When we started working on Picporta – I had my personal savings and I took some financial help from my parents who always have been encouraging and helped me in all situations.
Do you have some patents for the AI engine/technology you use?
Not yet but we are filing 2 provisional patents soon.
When you say, “automatic description for your pictures”, do you mean you’re the first one or the only one to do it? Or you do have competition as well?
Up to our knowledge – we are a first commercial venture in this space worldwide.
There have been a few research projects going around who are trying to do something similar but not exactly what we are doing. We have been tracking all of them and are quite confident that we are miles ahead currently in terms of technology and features.
What steps do you take to brand yourselves? Both online and offline.
We under consideration for incubation at CIIE – IIM Ahmedabad – if we get through then it will definitely add value to us in terms of resources and brand value.
Also we are working with a team of students of IIM Ahmedabad under their FII program to identify the ways we should approach the market and brand ourselves.
Do you hire freshers? Why? Why not? Also, how do you hire people?
Yes we do hire freshers – As I mentioned earlier that picporta is 100% passion – and where do you get more passion then in a fresher!
Hiring process is quite complicated from our end – as we have to make sure about many a thing when we hire someone and make him/her a part of our dream.
How difficult it is to be a startup in India? Any learning outcomes?
Quite difficult! Especially a technology startup – as people are inertial in adopting you and your technology. There is no proper channel which connects academia, business and governance here in India.
What kind of revenue model do you stick yourselves to? How good has it been by now?
We have three products which we are offering currently and have a few clients as well.
We are having a picture search product known as “Picporta –InImage” which is meant for businesses in print and online media to help them organise and access pictures precisely.
Our next product is “Picporta – ImageSleuth” which is meant for commercial photographers and web designers and is offered as a web/desktop version.
And third product “Picporta – ImageIntegra” is meant for E-Commerce portals and picture portals which helps them integrating their code with our API’s.
Our clients are quite happy with our products and precise machine vision technology and we are getting good responses.
What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had in the business recently?
We have had quite a few surprises recently – especially when we made it to the final round of CIIE – IIMA innovative start-ups and we were amazed equally when we stood first at International Entrepreneurship challenge ’08 at FMS – Delhi.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Picporta guys, Congrats for your venture. It was nice reading interview about you. I am an experienced writer, editor and translator. I would love to get assignment based jobs from you, if you explore this avenue also and market the idea. WE can work out and I can provide you my services for a reasonable fee.
Thanks Regards.
Rafat
I also have been tracking them since Proto’08 and have their demo account.Technology seems to be really impressive and promising.
I must say a daring attempt from an Indian company and its a high tech startup which seldom you find coming out of India.
Way to go Picporta !
My wishes with you guys …………
-
Ajay