Hi awesome folks,
This is Pallav from Griggi. We are an early stage startup (pre-launch) and we are on a big mission to create a WiFi sharing ecosystem in India so you never have to use your expensive 3g and instead use a nearby WiFi no matter where you’re. I’m sure we have all faced this problem of not having a good internet around when we are outside of our houses and even if there is free WiFi available, the speed is usually crappy.
We are at initial steps of partnering up with local businesses like restaurants, cafes, coworking spaces where people like to use WiFi. To understand better on how it works and what’s in it for small businesses, read this.
Griggi Advantages
1. Miniscule cost – There are no ‘recurring’ cost with Griggi. You just need to pay one time router cost. We even discount that if you have more than 100 users using Griggi every month.
2. Abuse control – You can specify total data shared every month & the WiFi sharing will be disabled once that quota is hit. You can also specify per user quota (total quota / expected users) & each user who surpass his quota will no longer be able to use WiFi for that month. Most WiFi owners keep extremely slow/annoying speed to prevent abuse but you do not have to.
3. No sharing password – Griggi provides an open WiFi to which only Griggi registered users can connect. A new user can register with Griggi by connecting to your Griggi WiFi. Dont worry, we have built-in abuse control & open WiFi does not mean WiFi up for abuse.
4. User data monitoring – We do a book keeping of every user. Users need to register with their mobile phone number so they can be tracked. This is in accordance with Indian laws for WiFi sharing.
5. Extremely user friendly – We have built innovative ways to ensure your users have a great experience using your WiFi. They get to see the speed they are getting upfront, their data quota etc.
By the way this is how Griggi dashboard would look like –
So far the feedback has been tremendous. We took the lean approach and validated the idea first. In fact the story was so interesting, it was published on Yourstory.
Now we are starting to ramp up our partnerships and looking for community members who can help us accelerate it.
Would you guys be kind enough to connect me to restaurants, cafes, coworking spaces or companies similar to oyo rooms etc. so we can partner up with more small businesses?
We are looking to target Bangalore and Delhi first.
You can message me here or reach me via –
email – pallavkaushish@gmail.com
twitter – @pallavkaushish
facebook – fb.com/pallav.kaushish
asha chaudhry
hey pallav,
how different are you guys from qlicket?
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/the-new-qlicket-com
ps: you also might want to check these guys out – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/app-to-help-you-find-a-wifi-cafe-3
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
when you say the response has been tremendous, can you share details? Where are you guys live?
Pallav Kaushish
Sorry for the late reply, I vowed not to touch my laptop last weekend. 🙂
After reading about Qlicket, the biggest difference I would say is the overall vision. We are not trying to build a WiFi management software for companies but a WiFi sharing ecosystem so you can share, use WiFi at any Griggi enabled venue using a virtual currency called Karma GB.
For example, if you’re sharing your home WiFi with neighbors(yes anyone can do that not just businesses), you’ll get Karma GBs which you can redeem by using free internet at any Griggi enabled place, be it a cafe, restaurant etc, without even needing to ask them the WiFi password because those places are griggi enabled and authentication is centrally managed through Griggi platform. So when you connect to their Wifi, you’ll see Griggi login page, you put in your login credentials and you’re connected to their WiFi. 🙂 Similar to how you do it on airports.
You can even charge for the WiFi internet data you’re sharing and then withdraw that money at the end of the month.
Also, our business model is different from Qlicket because they work on licensing and subscription and we work on one time cost of router. So if anyone wants to be a part of the ecosystem, all they need to do is buy a router from us which typically costs Rs 800-1000 (even more depending on the range) and they can start sharing WiFi with anyone. That’s not it, we are even going to give the router for free if a venue gets more than 100 users signed up in a month which is simple because most of the small businesses get a lot more users than that.
Hope that clears up the difference. Thanks for asking Asha.
Pallav Kaushish
Sorry for the delayed response Alok.
We are still in the early phase and we have not started creating a product yet because we first want to get 50 small businesses onboard with the idea and nail down the exact requirements that we might not have thought of. We will only get to product development when we have reached this milestone which should be within 1.5 months.
We have spoken to about 20 restaurants, cafes and coworking spaces and the response has been very positive. 9 of them are ready to pilot the product as soon as we launch and some of them were so excited that they wanted to buy a Griggi router right away. (See my response to Asha’s question above for better explanation of how the whole process works).
The simple idea is to work with these small businesses to understand their problems so we can make the product in sync with it and not just based on what *we think*.
We also tested the demand on B2C side through hackernews and reddit and even though the responses were fragmented, the overall response was positive and people are willing to try it out.
Hope that answers the question. Would love to hear any follow up questions. 🙂
Amit Shroff
Hey Pallav,
So how is it going. Are you operational in Delhi NCR or How do I use your service if I don’t have Kerma GB’s. I use a netgear & linksys router at home and office, can I install your software on it.
Also, can i set a limit, say if I want to limit user to say 3GB every month. How would a Grggi member use my network..
Regards,
Amit
asha chaudhry
hey happy b’day pallav! have an awesome one!
any updates on griggi?? would love to hear more!