Interview with Sunil Coushik, co-founder of Ogywawa

Sometime back, I was invited by Preetam Rai to attend the launch of Ogywawa, an interesting web service integrating with the mobile phone for users to buy drinks for friends. If this is not interesting, Sunil Coushik, the co-founder of Ogywawa, started the company BubbleMotion (funded by Sequoia Capital and based in Singapore). We managed to get him to come on board to talk about Ogywawa and the challenges ahead for this festive season if you are thinking of gatherings and meetings with friends from clubs to pubs.

BL: Hi Sunil, thank you for accepting an interview with SGE. Tell us about yourself and what have you been up to before Ogywawa?

Sunil: Hi – I have been an entrepreneur all my life. I started a newspaper when I was 15 – that’s how I got interested in ventures.

In 1999, we started a company called Ceasewire labs working on mobile messaging and collaborative filters for mobile networks. We started with 6 people and sold the business in 2000 to an internet consulting company based out of Santa Clara. I then started Bubble Motion with my partner in 2004.
In 2007, last quarter I decided to take a small break.

In 2008 – Ray Koh and I started working on ogywawa.com. We needed engineering help, so we decided to recruit our third founder – Sandeep back in Bangalore to help us scale ogywawa.com.

BL: What is the motivation behind Ogywawa? Is it just to give you ample supply of free drinks for chatting up ladies in bars?

Sunil: We just kept asking ourselves what friends buy each other – the answer was drinks. We organized an experiment with a group, earlier this year and received some encouraging feedback. We also felt that if we could approach a few things differently then the original idea would have a potential for business here. So we continued to work on what might make sense in Singapore. So in short ogywawa will be an interesting social network that people will use to find unique things to gift in Singapore.

BL: How does Ogywawa work for the customer who uses your services?

Sunil: With Ogywawa you can delight your friends with drinks, personalized “adventures”, beauty treatments, great food and other interesting stuff. On the website, you can decide the kind of gift you wish to give, fill in your details
Select the type of gift you wish to give. On the order page, you will be asked to fill in your and your friends’ details. Click on the “Proceed” button and then check out by paying using your credit card or PayPal. Your friend shall receive an SMS alerting them about your gift and a gift coupon number that can be redeemed at a partner establishment. Pls take a tour here: http://ogywawa.blogspot.com/

BL: What are the top 5 features which you want us check it out in Ogywawa?

Sunil: We think interesting features are:

• OGYME: Request your friend to buy any gift item you like from ogywawa store.
• OGYLIST: Allows you to add items to your wish list called Ogylist – and twitter the url / blog it or have it on Facebook status
• Mobile Coupon: A coupon is sent to the recipient. This can be redeemed at any of our participating outlets.

BL: One of the difficult parts of Ogywawa is that you need to coordinate with bar outlets, do you face considerable challenge in convincing them to try your solution? Any interesting stories to share?

Sunil: We do face issues coordinating with outlets, but we feel that as we make our presence felt our teething problems would slowly fade away and would make business sense in the long run.

One of the best things about Singapore’s businesses are they are always eager and open to try new ideas. The bigger challenge, however, is to build upon this ‘interest’ to bring about meaningful revenue. And in the end, it’s all about making people’s lives easier and fun.

BL: Are you planning to bring Ogywawa into online social networks in the form of app?

Sunil: Yes we are going to be on social networks shortly.

BL: What are the three attributes that an entrepreneur should have in your opinion?

Sunil: (1) Ability to understand and add ‘value’ in the context of the business, (2) Lust for money and (3) Lot of enthusiasm.

BL: So, when will I have the chance to buy anyone in any bar out there?

Sunil: We are in discussions with a lot of outlets and we promise that you will soon see the adoption of ogywawa by the outlets.

BL: Thank you for the interview, we wish you all the best with Ogywawa. Also to our readers: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.

Related posts:

1. News Flash: Launch of Ogywawa at Le Noir, Clarke Quay
2. Interview with Ray Koh of PickaPoken – Bringing Poken to Singapore