A little background info about myself.
I have been selling online since almost a decade. I started off my online career with Baazee.com (which was later acquired by eBay). Loved every moment of it. And at one point in time, I was the highest-rated power-seller on eBay.in.
I then moved on to selling ebooks and audio courses online. Built several niche sites. But unlike eBay, I liked the fact that I did not have to courier any products to my buyers. Again, I loved the freedom of what I was doing. I was earning more, and at the same time, had more time on hand!
But although life was comfortable, I felt like there was a vacuum waiting to be filled by something more meaningful.
The crazy idea that would challenge me on all fronts!
Then, around 3 years ago, something happened. Something that would render almost all my past online experiences nullified! Something that would make me invest all my savings. And something that would make me dream and think bigger than ever before. And regardless of the challenges, something that would make me happier!
We got a crazy idea – to create a website that would make people Happier…
…a site that would enable people to cherish every moment of their lives, and live it with child-like enthusiasm, excitement and joy.
To quote the renowned author and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra, “Happiness is the goal of every other goal”. Being Happy is our real nature. Anything other than that means we are not being what we are meant to be.
This was such an abstract thought, and I wasn’t even sure where to start.
Since I had previously sold so many ebooks, I wanted to create something that was less theory and more practical. And also, since I always liked reading self-improvement books, I knew that most of the times, we read, but hardly implement what we read. So this strengthened my belief that our site needed to be activity-oriented. That was a good starting point.
The birth of Revelri
Our site was called Revelri.com.
For me, with my very limited resources, Revelri was a BIG project. And during these 36 months, more ideas flowed in, and it became BIGGER…much bigger than what I had initially envisioned!
Although this journey has been an exciting one, it was not without its own share of impediments! With the extremely limited resources I had, I faced several roadblocks and challenges – I had people quit on me, I faced technical hurdles, and sometimes I even wondered if following my dream was the right thing to do! But I am glad that I believed in myself.
I bootstrapped all the way through, exhausting all my personal savings.
We had launched Revelri twice earlier, and got around 13,000 members. But after some time, most of them became in-active. We realized that we were weak on engaging our users, and needed to do something to improve that.
So, last week, we re-launched Revelri as a “gamified” version of itself, where we used game elements to make the site more interesting.
So what is Revelri?
Very briefly, at Revelri, we provide users with simple, personalized Happiness Activities that help them improve various areas of their lives – health, relationships (with spouse, children, parents, with themselves, environment, etc), helps them grow spiritually, and even improve life at work. But more than anything else, Revelri helps them take life less seriously, have more fun, and lead happier and meaningful lives.
As users perform the Activities, they earn badges, and move on to higher Levels where they do other things that improve their Happiness.
Need your suggestions and feedback
Revelri is by no means a finished product. It is a constant work-in-progress. We have adapted, learned and re-invented ourselves, but never changed our main focus of spreading Happiness.
We request you to spend some time checking out the site at www.Revelri.com and give us your valuable feedback/criticism that will help improve Revelri further.
We know that there are a few things we need to work on:
1. Integration with Facebook. Make it more social.
2. Have a responsive design so that the site can be accessed using other devices.
3. Work on our HELP section.
4. Create a mobile app
Apart from these (or maybe even for these!) if you have any feedback, do let us know.
Although with this launch, we have a added a monetization model, we are yet to start earning. Any inputs on that front would be welcomed too!
Thank you.
Manish Golchha
Abhishek, my first reaction to your website – Asking me to play games for next 10days…………..why should I ????
Then I start reading your entire content but I feel, not to bind users with 10days clause. You have to make games interesting and end everygame in such a way that user feel or want to come next day to play more & win badges, points etc. It’s like Saas Bahu serial where they keep tap on your mind by ending each episode stating tomorrow you will see exciting climax in story.
It’s purely my thought and genuine feedback as a customer. I liked your idea and website but binding any user’s I feel is like – End of game.
Abhishek Revelri Agarwal
Hey Manish, thank you for taking out the time to go through the site. Really appreciate it.
Revelri is not a game, in the strict sense. It is more like a real-life game, where we encourage users to start developing a habit of performing the Happiness Activities. Normally they say it takes around 21-days to form a habit. But we feel 10 days are enough to start getting into the groove of things.
During these 10 days, the users are ideally supposed to perform 10 Happiness Activities. And based on how many activities they perform, we grade them. If they qualify, they move on to the next Level. If they don’t, they can re-play the game.
So in a way, these 10-Days are not really binding because the users can re-play the Level (unlimited times) once the 10 days are over. In order to keep things simple, we haven’t gone into details about this on the Home Page. But if users feel confused, we need to re-word our content and provide more clarity. And maybe even provide a video.
Once again, thank you for your feedback Manish. Different people’s opinion are very valuable as we can look at things from different perspectives and vantage points.
Manish Golchha
Hi Abhishek, then as you said, need to re-word your content. As a user my first impression was I need to play game for 10 days.
Also to my surprise, when I tried to signup to try out games, error:This email is already registered with us.. It means I had registered on your site earlier.
All the very best !
Abhishek Revelri Agarwal
Point well taken Manish. We need to clarify things a bit further on the page.
And yes, just checked and you are already registered on our site 🙂
Abhishek Revelri Agarwal
Looking for some more feedback!
If you want to log in, you can use the following test ID
Username: parulrungta
Password: 123456
Thanks!
Nitish Mehta
Hats Off to u ..!! wonderful concept , and amazing execution ..!!
things you should have
1. and most imp have a site tour ..!
2. don’t send password in email , not secure after registering
3. give task that can be executed on real time .. I mean it is tough to dough or to charity , i mean it should be something everyone can do , and that too while he/she is still browsing your site . I hope you are getting my point
4. finally dont shoot this many email u have very good interface use it and have notification
Abhishek Revelri Agarwal
Thank you Nitish for your time:
1. Site tour:
Yes you are right, we need to have that. It is crucial 🙂 And also a detailed help section using videos/text.
2. Password in email.
We did it because we wanted to decrease one field (re-type password) during the registration process. But yes, we do understand the security aspect. And will weigh the options and see if we can work on that.
3. Activities
The tasks given to the users are random. So some users might get difficult a Activity. If an Activity is not relevant to a user, or he does not want to perform it for whatever reason, he can “FLIP” it and get another Activity. There are many simple Activities as well. 🙂
4. Many mails
Yes, agreed. When a person signs up, he gets several mails. We can surely cut that down, or maybe club everything in one or two mails. And yes we do have a notification area in the member’s area 🙂
Once again, thank you for your feedback Nitish. If there is anything else you feel needs improvement, please let me know.