Yash KotakCo-Founder & CEO of Znapin Published On: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 Views 1848

"Go all out for what you love doing and keep at it. There's no short cut to success."

With more than 20 years of experience in the technology sector, Yash Kotak has worked in several companies and formed many of his own. A true entrepreneur at heart, Yash is a college dropout by choice and CEO of Znapin.

According to Yash, Social Media is flooded with Bots and fake accounts. With Znapin coming into the equation, people can enjoy authentic content with real people. With more than 2 Billion active social media accounts, Znapin capitalizes on creating fun content to drive user engagement. To tackle the problem of fake social media accounts, Znapin simply does not allow uploads from gallery and only allows taking Booms, which are user clicked pictures.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

Simply put, znapin is “Visual Twitter on steroids”. Znapin mixes perspective with creativity. Thus providing users a medium to express themselves and voice out their opinions on trending topics.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

Social media platforms all provide avenues of passive entertainment with each moment spent leading to boredom. This is the primary reason for decreasing user engagement and participation on most mediums. The fire to change perceptions to visuals gave us inspiration to march ahead.

What is your life mantra?

Evolve, don’t revolve!

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

Assembling a team of like-minded people to believe in you and then the idea to be worked upon has been the biggest challenge. Adding to this are the early departures of the key team members who get poached in the beginning phases is truly nerve wrecking.

How did you overcome those challenges?

We’re currently travelling all across the country (India in my case) to meet the potentially best candidates to make them believe in us first and then the idea.

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

We’re bootstrapped, now actively raising our Angel round.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?

We regularly take a znap-out session inter mingling with the people around at Cafes, Pubs, Lounges asking for constant feedback for our platform. This is done by the whole team which makes it a fun activity. We have mini hackathons where spin off at least 2 products in 24 hours. Of course the pizza parties continue with gaming sessions to release stress.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

Persistence.
Patience
Repeat 1 & 2

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

Trello, Medium, Fun Run 2.

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

The ability to switch on and switch off without negating any crucial factor.

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

Not sleeping on time.

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Go all out for what you love doing and keep at it. There’s no short cut to success.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Dwelling in the past.

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Respect your team for what they are. Charge them up regularly, doesn’t matter if you need to be a clown. They’re with you because they believe in you.

What are your plans for next 3 years?

To make znapin the number one social media platform.

If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

Nothing

What are your top three getaway destinations?

Singapore, Lonavala & Shirdi

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

“Buy a smile a day, it doesn’t cost anything.”

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