2020 feels like a machine that has been built to churn out bad news at an increasingly dangerous speed, there seems to be so much negativity in the world that positivity has gone into hiding. Constantly coming across bad news does great harm to one’s mental health and it becomes hard to stay motivated and happy during these trying times. Love Alert is a mobile application that sends love, positivity and good vibes through push notifications. The next time you receive a notification it shouldn’t fill you with dread but rather motivate you to do better! In conversation with Co-founder Rishabh Gupta, we learn about Love Alert and how it aims to spread happiness, love and good vibes.
What is the startup/product about? Give us a brief description of it.
The world today has become increasingly negative, mostly for reasons out of our control. To tackle the same, we decided to do our bit for the society drowning in this sea of bad news and leveraged our skillset to build an app. And so, Love Alert was born.
Love Alert is a simple mobile application that sends across, love, positivity and good vibes from us to you via push notifications. An app that serves as a motivational tool that can ease one’s mind.
A daily dose of motivation that helps not only to have a brighter outlook on one’s own life but spread positive energy around others.
How many co-founders are there? Please introduce them and their backgrounds.If there are multiple co-founders, please mention how did you meet one another?
Two Co-Founders.
Rishabh Gupta – Economics graduate from Warwick (United Kingdom). Worked previously as a Business Analyst within Cyber Security and then a Product Development and Innovation Manager within People Analytics at Barclays, London. Back in India, working on helping spread love, positivity and good vibes with Love Alert.
Akash Wadhwani – Data Visualisation graduate from University of The Arts London. Experience of working in Aviation Industry (Rolls-Royce) and consulting (Deloitte) as a Data Analyst. Currently on a mission of spreading love, positivity and good vibes all around the globe.
How big is the entire team currently?
We have 7 full-time employees, currently amidst the hiring process for more graphic designers.
How did you come up with the idea? What motivated you to do this?
The world 🌎 today has become increasingly negative, mostly for reasons out of our control. The tragedies, it is undergoing seem unending — whether that is via US polarisation by George Floyd killing, airplane crashes, the Australian bushfire, floods in Indonesia, riots in Delhi, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, locust swarms, gas plant explosions, you name it. It just doesn’t seem to stop!
I recently had to seriously modify the notification settings on my phone because I was starting to develop a negative association to any phone alert sounds. I had been getting way too many news alerts and emails with negative content and I had to restructure things so I wouldn’t be avoiding messages and calls out of fear.
To do something for the society and fix my relationship with my phone notifications, we leveraged our skillset and built an app. And so, Love Alert was born.
What is your target market? Why do you think your product will appeal to?
People working from home + lockdown (try including everyone)
People struggling with having a positive mindset. Furthermore, going through mental health issues.
What are the marketing plans apart from the product hunt/beta list launch? How are you planning to acquire new users?
Product hunt was to get technical feedback on the app and gain some credibility before we open the app to the world.
Marketing plans – reaching out via social media platforms, mental health forums, universities and other learning platforms.
Do you have a separate dedicated team to take care of marketing (digital marketing/traditional marketing)? Which digital platforms are you focusing more on?
Yes – we focus more on instagram and facebook/reddit forums because of increased presence of our target audience
What according to you is the biggest challenge that you faced? Is it product development or marketing or scaling or … ?
Marketing – converting people to spend some effort in self development by downloading the app
Who are your competitors/alternatives? What sets you apart from them?
Because it is a social entrepreneurship, hence our competitors are friends. However, we do not have any direct competition (from what we know already). Indirectly, mental health apps like Calm or Headspace might be close. The way we are different is that we are a lot simpler when it comes to focusing on yourself. We work to nudge a chain reaction of positive thinking via our push notifications.
What are the future plans with the product/startup? Any new features you are planning on?
Yes, the features we would like to include – bespoke nudging. Personalisation in terms of focus on what aspect of self development. Whether that is to nudge along the lines of love, positivity or even tackle a mental health condition.
Know a great start-up story or want to share your own? Write to us at interact@insidermediacorp.com and we will get back to you. For more updates follow Venture Mirror on Facebook.
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