Early Start to Entrepreneurship

Still in school, Siddharth Shetty already has a grasp on what it takes to crowdfund projects
Early Start to Entrepreneurship

Of late, crowdfunding has captured the imagination of the world and it has slowly permeated into India as well. Crowdfunding, also called crowd equity is a platform for individuals to seek monetary support via the Internet. In India, there are very few players in this field and Siddharth Shetty is planning to make waves with Fundlined. For someone who wasn’t familiar with coding and didn’t know what crowdfunding is, this 17-year-old did a pretty good job of building this product from scratch in nine months. A bootstrapped venture, Shetty hired freelancers to create Fundlined after listening on the radio about a startup conference, and has since learnt to code.

Based in Goa, Shetty says, “I knew zilch about coding. I am learning to code from my web development team and I am glad I did it. Now, I cannot think of anything beyond coding.” Aiming to get into any of the IITs, NITs or BITS, he has planned to drop a year and write his board exams next year to concentrate on his startup. From starting in April 2013 to the current beta state of the website, he says, it has been a heady journey where the learning curve has been very high and he is looking forward to writing more lines of code. He also asserts that for a platform like Fundlined, it is the amount of marketing and visibility that will determine its success and has roped in a social media company in that respect.

“We have around 20 projects that will go into campaign mode on Fundlined soon. Fundlined’s USP is that we will engage with campaigners on a personal level, understand their needs and promote them on various platforms. We get a profit of five per cent of the proceeds if the campaign is successful. If unsuccessful, that is if the pledges do not match the amount required for the entire fund, 15 per cent of the proceeds will be the fee charged. We do this to encourage campaigners to make that extra effort!”

Shetty says there is low penetration in the Indian crowdfunding scene because not everyone has  a credit card or a PayPal account, which are the payment modes on other portals. He proudly says that Fundlined offers multiple payment options, including netbanking and mobile payment. Fundlined has also launched a contest where a successful campaign can fetch extra money and there are more than Rs 20 lakh up for grabs. To know more, visit www.fundlined.com

— mathew.maniamkot@gmail.com

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The New Indian Express
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