Startup Model – Making Phone Answering Intelligent

The Model: An app which can tell you who is calling, even though the number may not be saved in your phone. Once you download the app, it pulls in your contact directory to build on it’s database. This database is used to attach a name to a phone number.

Startup Doing It: Truecaller (Swedish startup)

What I Like:

Core Idea – Users are always interested in knowing who is calling them. This tendency is strong enough to build a scalable business around it.

Innovative – The idea is great. Implementation is what holds the key. The model used by Truecaller is amazingly innovative and has a virality factor inbuilt in it.

Difficult to Replicate – Since this startup has scaled extremely well, a new entrant will find it very difficult to enter into this space. Since privacy is a big issue for users, downloading a new app seems like a difficult proposition.

My Concerns:

Regulation – This model involves pulling data from a user’s phone. Since data privacy is involved, regulation will play a big role in hampering the sustainability of such a venture.

Revenue Model – Building a sustainable and regular revenue model is important. Since the main asset of the startup is the data and data sharing has covenants attached to it, how to monetize the asset best is a question which needs to be addressed.