Today’s world is extremely social and we all love hanging out with our friends for movies, hang-outs, eat-outs, holidays and a lot more. Get-togethers are so much fun, but managing the shared expenses isn’t! Keeping a track of the expenses and calculating ‘who owes how much to whom’ is a pain. Writing behind notepads, splitting on calculators and using spreadsheets have now become a passé!
With KnoDues, the tiresome task of keeping tracking of dues become as easy as chatting! KnoDues is a smart phone app designed to ease out the complications faced in tracking & splitting of shared expenses with friends. Essentially, KnoDues is your Shared Expenses Buddy! KnoDues, as the name suggests, helps you to know all your dues at any point in time and also encourages you to settle them in a timely fashion.
KnoDues allows you and your friends to keep a track of all your shared expenses on the go. The app automatically syncs contact list of the user and makes it very simple to add shared expenses for friends – they can easily be selected from the contact list. KnoDues instantly sends updates to friends for any new expenses added. Also, the app provides friends access to a common shared screen where all dues can be seen and expenses can be added or edited from either ends. So when you’re heading out with your friends for a movie or a lunch next time, you don’t need to hesitate from paying up for them, just add & track the expenses paid on KnoDues!
Know the Features
KnoDues works entirely on mobile phone numbers, which makes it extremely handy to share expenses on the go. There is no need to know your friends Email IDs! Also, the app automatically syncs the contact book of the user, so friends don’t need to be added to the app first in order to add expenses. The feature of Creating Events & getting Event Summaries in the app is extremely useful for friends who stay together in shared apartments/hostels or when they are going out for any trips. The UI/UX of app has been designed to be extremely simple and appealing to the users.
KnoDues has an interesting feature called “Events” – users are allowed to create events and add their friends to this event. So next time around when you’re planning that exciting trip with friends, simply create a trip event on KnoDues & add your friends to this event, and then each one can record expenses paid by them. KnoDues would automatically provide an “Event Summary” of who owes how much to whom!
KnoDues keeps a track of all the expenses, and specifies how much you owe to your friends or in case you’re lucky – how much you get from your friends!
“More Friends, Less Dues”
KnoDues pitches itself forward with this tagline because they truly value your friendship and sincerely strive to never let your dues spoil even a single one of them! With KnoDues, it gets very easy to avoid awkward situations of reminding friends for their dues. Users just need a simple click on the app to remind their friends for their dues. Users can also inform their friends as to how many days they intend to clear the outstanding dues. Such clever features can certainly help save some misunderstandings!
The Due Size
The market size for KnoDues is massive with the primary market being the Urban Indian Youth falling within the age group of 16 to 28 years. This is a blue ocean product with no Indian players in this segment and hence the market opportunity for KnoDues is extremely lucrative & promising. But they do face competition from a couple of International products; however their presence in India is minimal. The product further has the potential to tap in all the age groups who love to socialize. Further, KnoDues is confident that they offer a much easier and more comprehensive solution to the problem of shared expense management for their users.
Know the Due Story
Saket Bagda & Sahil Sethi are two young, energetic & self-motivated individuals who’ve shared a close friendship over a long period of time. They happened to pursue their graduation degree together from Christ University, Bangalore, where they were also hostel-mates. Saket went on to secure his MBA from IBS Hyderabad, while Sahil earned his MBA from TAPMI, Manipal. Both of them have the experience of being associated with reputed companies. Saket has worked with Ernst & Young (India) in the Risk Advisory practice, while Sahil has worked with CRISIL in the Credit Ratings division.
The idea of creating KnoDues germinated in Saket’s mind when he was sharing an apartment with Sahil while working in Gurgaon. Constant hassles faced while tracking shared expenses for their apartment led to a conviction that this was an actual pain. And so, KnoDues was built by people who had faced the problem of managing shared expenses and truly understood it!
Sahil Sethi and Saket Bagda are both MBAs with specialization in Finance and their graduation was in the field of commerce. The best solution they had in mind for the problem they wanted to solve, was a simple to use and yet effective mobile app. However, there was a major challenge ahead – becoming Tech Entrepreneurs with absolutely zero knowledge of the Tech side of things.
“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you are not a painter’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” -Vincent Van Gogh
This Van Gogh quote was one of the major pointers that helped them to take a bold decision. Here is a list of specific pointers that helped them take the plunge into an ocean of the unknown:
- Idea Validation
- Getting to Know the Right People
- Self-Belief
- Perseverance
- Optimum utilization of resources
- Continuous Learning
The co-founders duo started working on the idea in March 2015. They formally incorporated a private limited (Simpler Everyday Concepts Pvt. Ltd.) in July 2015 and the product was launched on Google’s Play Store in the month of August 2015. The company currently has only two employees (the co-founders) and there are separate teams working on Marketing & the application development (not on company’s payroll).
The Due Journey
It’s been a little over six months into their full-time startup journey now and it has been absolute roller-coaster ride! The journey till now has been incredible with some amazing highs and heartbreaking lows. Their take away on their journey so far is that
“The feeling of having built & launched something of your own is humbling! It’s almost like having your own baby! You get so much attached to their product and really wish the unconditional best for its future. Sometimes this does lead to frustration when things don’t work out as planned, but then that’s a part of the journey! You learn so many lessons on a daily basis and amongst them patience is the one thing learnt we at KnoDues appreciate the most! Each day has been more exciting & challenging than the previous one”.
The Actual Dues
The app and the company is currently not making any revenues. They are evaluating multiple opportunities and options for monetizing the app. However, the current focus of the team is on making sure that they get the product right and that the users have only good to speak about the app. Monetizing the app can be done anytime, but currently, their focus is only on making the customers happy and satisfied with what their product has to offer.
They have not raised any external funds till date. The organization is bootstrapped and currently running through personal savings of both the co-founders and through financial support from their families. Currently they are in the process of stabilizing the product and may start to seek funds in the near future to implement further product improvements as well as to achieve higher growth & scale.
“We like to celebrate every little milestone, and for us, well begun is work half-done!”
The App only model has been on offer only in India on the Android OS 4.2 and above. Their product has been in the market hardly for a month now and they feel its pretty early days to comment if it would prove to be successful. They have received 500+ downloads within the first week of their launch, And a rating of 4.8 on the Google Play Store does speak volumes about their product.
Going forward, they intend to make KnoDues an end-to-end solution for its users in terms of managing shared expenses. They intend to incorporate various new exciting features & functionality to the app, which they have received in terms of feedback from their current users! Further, they would be launching KnoDues on the iOS & Windows platform soon. They’re sure the path ahead would be even more uncertain & full of challenges, but they’re sure it’s going to be worth it!
