Winkl: A platform where users can scroll through 1000+ influencers ranging from micro-influencers to Bollywood celebrities

Marking campaigns and promotion events is quite a difficult task where manual operations play a vital role in successfully executing. However, getting an influencer on board can get the job done for it to be even better. However, reaching out to them and even finding out how much it would take to get things done is quite a laborious and time-consuming task as most influencers don’t tend to reply as well. However, with AI, data, and machine learning, getting the right influencer for you can be availed through Winkl. 

Winkl is a platform where users can scroll through 1000+ influencers ranging from micro-influencers to Bollywood celebrities having nationwide support. It’s quite the platform if you want to get anyone of them onboard your campaign. But then the platform showcases all the details regarding the engagement ratio, the number of followers, their recent post, history, and so on. Hence, using this platform to segregate which influencer would be perfect for your campaigns can be seamlessly availed. To learn more on this, Bangalore Insider had a brief discussion with Rahul Singh, the founder of Winkl to learn more about the company, its inception, and other interesting things around the same.  

Give a brief info about your start-up?

Winkl is an influencer marketing ecosystem that helps brands & marketers with running highly impactful influencer marketing campaigns at scale, using technology, data & automation. 

What made you start your start-up and what problem does it solve?

We started Winkl when we tried doing influencer marketing for one of our earlier start-ups and realized it was very painful and time taking to run a campaign. Every step of the process was very manual, painstakingly slow, un-scalable and highly inefficient. We believed we could solve this problem by creating a full stack ecosystem approach to influencer marketing and by leveraging technology and that is how Winkl was born. 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this start-up?

The founders started Winkl right after college (NITK Surathkal). In college, the founders built 3 other products together and managed to sell one of them as well, while in their 3rd year of college. Rahul has experience working at Flipkart for about 8 months during his graduation. 

Where is your start-up based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

Winkl is based in Bangalore (however, our team now is completely remote and spread across more than 15 cities in India). We started off with Bangalore because its easier to higher really good tech talent in Bangalore. 

As a start-up founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

As a founder, something I am very paranoid about is the question that are we adding enough value to our customers and can there be something that we can do better? Simply relying on the fact that you have created one of the best products in India for influencer marketing is not enough, paranoia helps you to push boundaries. 

Who are your competitors and how are you better than them?

Anyone doing influencer marketing is our competition, there are hundreds of small agencies that do influencer marketing along with social media and digital marketing. We have focussed primarily on influencer marketing and that focus has helped us become one of the top companies in this space. 

How hard is it to have a work-life balance as a start-up founder and how do you manage it?

The concept of work-life balance does not exist. Rather, work and life is integrated well for me and I do not look for balance. I make sure to take enough breaks, vacations on a frequent basis along with work. 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

We have raised $120k in angel funding from prominent angel investors and founders of other startups. In the last 6-8 months, we have become profitable and now looking to raise funds to grow our business at a 5x rate than what it is currently. 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

I think people think that I work a lot, but the reality is I also make sure to disconnect from it and spend time on my hobbies and passions. 

What gets you excited about this company?

We live in a time where individual content creators & influencers are going to be the superstars of tomorrow. Building a business with creators at its core has a huge potential and I cannot wait to unlock this potential over the next 10 years. 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

I wake up at 8, spend time working out, chores etc., and start work by 10:30 am. A day is usually filled with sessions with my team, calls with customers, or something important about a new feature that we might be launching. This goes on till about 8/9pm, post which I read a book, indulge in gaming etc., and go to bed by 1am. 

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

The founding team met each other when they were hostel mates in college back in 2013. Since then, they have been working together and have built 3 products together. The rest of the team was built over a period of time by references. 

Know a great startup story or want to share your own? Write to us at bhumikka@insidermediacorp.com and we will get back to you. For more updates follow Bangalore Insider on Facebook and Instagram.

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