Swipe – access to prices and product reviews recommended by your friends and other people
Posted on December 12, 2010
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1) Who are the founders of the site? Where is the startup based?
Swipe is a 2 member task force – Omair (Development) and Binny (Product). While in college, Omair built a vertical search engine, a marketplace for coders and an American Idol platform. Each of these websites had thousands of users and Omair paid for most of his college from money generated from these sites. He later worked on mission critical payment mechanisms and security gateways at JP Morgan Chase.
Binny managed $14 million in lead generation revenue and products at QuinStreet. Before that he was doing Technology Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. He paid through all of his college by doing part-time and summer jobs selling kids clothes, doing market research and writing technology content. He earned his first money when he was 12 by selling stickers to his school mates. He started his first company when he was 18.
2) What makes this startup unique? What is the technology behind it?
Real time local shopping information helps you get an insight into others shopping habits and saves you time and money, by instantly discovering what others are buying around you. Currently real time local shopping information is not available and is walled in and contained between the shopper and a few close friends.
Swipe disrupts this structure by providing free, completely transparent, up to date shopping information in your area from people you trust. Swipe provides a fun medium through which you can easily share and access valuable real time local shopping information regarding stores, products, prices, deals and reviews.
3) What are the main characterstics of your startup?
Swipe is an easy way to tell your friends what you want to buy and find what they are buying. Swipe helps you shop street smart by giving you access to prices and product reviews recommended by your friends and other people whom you trust. You can share the inside scoop on countless everyday purchases such as food, clothes, gadgets, furniture, books, tickets, gyms, cars, holiday packages, games etc ,etc. Swipe starts social conversations around purchases and helps you discover prices, deals, opinions, locations, stores, products and shoppers – all this in a fun and competitive game environment.
Swipe recently launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt where we were one of the semi-finalists.
Swipe can be accessed at http://www.didyouswipe.com.
4) Is your startup free?
Yes
5) What is your business model?
Swipe intends to make Revenue through:
1. Lead Generation for local merchants
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Mobile coupons
4. Loyalty Programs
5. Analytics Services
6) What is the main idea behind it? Why is your startup worth spending time?
We were active users of Foursquare. After using Foursquare for a few months, wining badges and mayorships we got bored of Foursquare. We felt that what location a person is at, is not very interesting. Rather, what is more interesting is what is the person doing once they get there. We then discovered that almost everyone checking in on foursquare is doing so at a place where they are spending money – restaurants, pubs, gas stations, clubs, shows, grocery, apparel shops etc.
We felt that we could get a lot of value if people shared what they were buying at a location and how much they were spending on it. It would help us discover new stores, products, deals, reviews and prices – shop street smart.
7) What are your plans for the future?
Swipe intends to match users spending patterns with customized offers and help them keep track of their loyalty points at various stores.
Who are your main competitors?
Blippy (http://blippy.com/) and Swipely(http://beta.swipely.com/).
