Facebook Backs Indian Skill and Hobby Startup Skillmate Under FBStart Programme
Social media giant Facebook has backed skill and hobby app Skillmate. The company received $40,000 worth of credits and services from Facebook and its partners like AWS, Dropbox, Adobe and MailChimp. The skill and hobby start-up has been selected by Facebook for its global programme, FB Start which helps early stage mobile start-ups. As part of the programme Skillmate will also get access to the community of developer and mentorship from FB's headquartered team of engineers.
Skillmate | Concept Note
Skillmate is a location based mobile application that connects people over skills and hobbies. It let's you learn something new, teach your talents, and partner for fun things with people near you. Simply put: Teach Music, Learn Photography, and Partner for Cycling or badminton with someone near you. Share skills and connect with talented people in the neighborhood.
Key advantages to users
•Aggregates Teach, Learn and Partner. One does not require 3 apps to be teacher, learner and partner. Leads to ease and convenience.
•Hyper-personalization: Skillmate removes deterrents while selecting your teacher/learner or partner by providing smart demographic filters. Make your choice on the basis of distance, gender, age, skill resume, gender, availability and fees. Typical use cases are as follows:
-A woman can connect for cooking classes with another woman.
-You might want to go jogging with someone from your age bracket.
•No Commission, zero registration fees for teachers (first year). Teachers can teach their skills without paying any signup or registration fee or paying a commission for getting student leads. This is different from the normal industry practice.
•Teachers are not given the option to find students. It is always prospective students that approach a teacher. At Skillmate teachers can find and connect with students too.
•The platform is open to all i.e. from a musician to an academician, from a photographer to a salsa dancer. Skillmate opens doors to talented students, freelancers, and homemakers to teach their skills to others nearby.
•Contextual ratings and enhanced safety features for users inside the app.
•'No intrusion platform' with an in-app chat. Strong emphasis on privacy and protection. No random calls or texts. Users don’t need to share any personal information with others unless they want.
•Clean, young UI/UX for the tinder generation of today.
•Simple/quick sign up
Skillmate Features
●Teach, Learn Partner: Share any skill with people around you.
●Clutter free interface.
●Skill Showcase: Add pictures of something you created, give a one-line bio of your credentials and a link to your online portfolio.
●Trust Meter: Profile verification to ensure credibility.
●Chat-in-app
●Rate and Get Rated
●Filters: Filter profiles on basis of age, gender, distance.
●Teach what you know: Everybody is talented in one-way or the other! Barter or charge a fee - you choose
●Free and simple sign up process
Team Members
The founding team comprises of Arjun Khera, Anil Khera and Gitanshu Soni. Arjun, Founder & CEO, is an alumnus of LBSIM (Delhi) and has a streak of winning ideation contests like LG Smartphone Idea Camp. Mr Anil Khera (alumnus of YMCA) is the Tech Advisor and has close to 30 years of experience with big banners like Wipro, ATOS and NIIT. Gitanshu, Marketing Strategist is an Ex-KPMG and an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management and a Delhi University alumnus. Besides the above we have strong in house design and product development team lead by DCE Engineers.
Current Traction
•Selected for FBStart up program with FB's investment of USD 40,000 in credits: December,2016
•Won the Times of India's Times App Search Contest: June,2016 (Pre Launch)
•Launch: Early August
•Downloads: Crossed 10,000
•Rating: 4.4(225)
•Total User profiles/Skill Cards: 15000+
•Daily swipes and connections: 500+ and 80+ resp.
If you want to download the app, click here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Skillmate&hl=en
