Find products/services recommended by friends – Revaalo

There is a strong competition in every segment of market. The scenario is good for the consumers since because of heavy competition there is always a check on the price, however, every story has a second side to it. With so many options comes confusion for consumers. Last month a friend of mine wanted to buy a mobile phone for his brother. He had a budget set in between 12000 to 15000 and he thought it will be easy choice for him.

How wrong he was! There are so many companies which offer a product in that price range and with similar specifications, whom to trust? When you go to the reviews section you will see a complete range of reviews – 1 Star to 10 Stars. That makes situation even more complex for you.

To answer my question of trust – we have a solution now – Revaalo.com

Start-up which aims at helping consumers make informed decisions by providing them unbiased trusted consumer reviews. Now just imagine when next time you go to buy a product and you see a review of your friend – how is that going to help your decision making?

The Concept

Studies have shown that if a user wants to buy/use product/service, 9 out of 10 users will search for reviews online.

Generally rating in review site is puzzling, 1st reviewer may say 10 rating & with the review “Best review on the Earth”. Next reviewer will give 1 rating with a review “Worst service on the Earth”.

As an end user who is planning to use the service, it’s completely puzzling which review to believe since he does not know the reviewer in person. Revaalo gives the reviews from known users/trusted users/experts (Users whom they know in real world). So, deciding on any local business and products will be easy with Revaalo.

Why this idea?

According to statistics 92% of the people look for reviews online before buying or using a product or a service. The idea is to help people make better decisions. The reviews present online are not trust worthy, where as reviews on Revaalo are categorized on reviews by verified users and reviews by verified friends. That would help an end user make better decisions.

The minds behind the idea

Rajashekhar H

Co-founder, has 14 years experience in software industry, Engineer and PG from IIM Calcutta

Rajath Bhat

Co-founder, 3 years experience in s/w industry, MTech from IIT

Before Revaalo, both the co-founders were working in the same company. Thanks to Bangalore traffic -they used to get enough time during office commutation to discuss about the entrepreneurship and Startup discussion.  Co-Founders have discussed multiple problems right from Grofers, Healthkart, medical checkup, farmer’s crop insurance etc. For some there was already a startup working and for others they were not able to come up with a working business model. When Co-Founders discussed about trusted review/recommendation/rating problem, there was no ready solution & that was trigger that started www.revaalo.com .

Story so far

As they say, when you start a business to solve a common problem which everyone around is going through the chances of success are much higher. Since the team at Revaalo is doing exactly the same they have got a great response since inception.

Within 6 months of operations they have got page visits of greater than 6 lakhs and they are able to get around 2000 page hits daily.They are getting more than 200 requests for adding new business every week.

The Future

 With a great idea and an experienced team, Revaalo is looking to get investors on board to expand their operations in other cities as well. Currently operating in Bangalore with the listing of 17 more cities, we are sure to see them in other cities soon. They want to make this one stop place for checking any product or a service before anyone goes ahead in buying or using them.

We wish Team Revaalo all the best and hope to bring you the news of their expansion soon.

To get the team going – ‘Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together’.

Business/Sales ethics

Ethics comes into play in your everyday life even when you don’t realize it. You would have definitely received some extra bucks from a shopkeeper at any store, what you did in that case? The situation is an example of ethical dilemma. But this points to personal ethics – how you handle such situation. Business ethics comes from the individuals who are part of an organisation. For any organisation it is very important to make sure all the employees are given clear instruction about the ethics they need to follow. For personal ethics all you need to keep in mind is ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.

Business ethics, also called corporate ethics, is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines the ethical and moral principles and problems that arise in a business environment. It can also be defined as the written and unwritten codes of principles and values, determined by an organization’s culture, that govern decisions and actions within that organization. It applies to all aspects of business conduct on behalf of both individuals and the entire company.

Not all behaviour that is unethical is illegal. Let’s take an example. Real estate builder advertise that he is giving 10 percent off for the first 100 customer and customers decide to buy that. But once they see the price break up they see some extra charge of 10% which are not usually present or charges are marked up than the market.

Ethical Behaviour in Sales –

Ethical behaviour is more important for Sales team than any other team because sales people are the people who interact with customer directly. What the sales people say to the customer and how they behave in front of the customer is direct reflection of the organization and its ethics.

Let’s take this situation for a real estate agent. He has got a great house in his listing and if he is able to sell it he could make handsome commission on the sale. He had a look at the property and found out that there is internal leakage in the wall. He asked the owner about it. Owner told him that he will take care of it for short term as getting rid of the issue will cost big bucks. Owner also warns him that if he go ahead and disclose this information to the buyer he will take authority from him to sell the property.

In a situation like this, it’s best to remember that doing the right thing can be a hard choice and might not be advantageous to you. Although you really don’t want to lose this listing, the right thing to do is to disclose anything that affects the value or desirability of the home. Even if you think it might not be a major issue, it’s always best to err on the side of honesty and disclose the information. Either withholding or falsifying information is lying and therefore unethical.

You have to start from the personal ethics and make it a habit to follow it in your organisation also. I love this quote from Peter Drucker, famous management consultant and author, “Start with what is right, rather than what is acceptable.”

As a company it is very important for you to make sure ethical behaviour is followed. These are some of the points you can take a note of describe desirable and undesirable selling behaviour promote high standards of practice reduce the risk of fair trading breaches help staff make ethical decisions.

It is even more important for the startups not to forget basic business ethics. They have limited resources and finances which can force them to go the other way. Any brand or big company is made on very strong business ethics. If you are trying to be one practise business ethics.

Mention in comment any situation in which you were in business/personal ethical dilemma.