Bobble began its journey in 2015 as a mobile application for turning selfies into stickers quickly sharable more than WhatsApp and the likes. The thought was to make smartphone conversations more expressive. A year later, the New Delhi-based startup launched a devoted keyboard application known as Bobble AI keyboard, to distribute this content and develop its attain.
Starting 2017, Bobble began working with numerous original gear producers (OEMs), major and smaller – the list involves Micromax, Lava, Indus OS, Panasonic and other folks – and ultimately landed into a bigger strategic deal with Xiaomi in 2019 to construct the Mint keyboard, the default keyboard app seen inside quite a few Mi and Redmi phones at present sold in India and Indonesia (Xiaomi has considering that partnered with China’s Baidu, so some of its devices also ship with Facemoji by default in the Indian market place).
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Fast forward to 2021 and Bobble claims it serves more than 50 million customers with conversational content such as stickers, GIFs, and Emojis, its exceptional promoting point becoming deep localisation bolstered by artificial intelligence. Clearly, what ever it is that it has been performing, it has been working nicely regardless of the difficult nature of the category it likes to play in.
“The nature of our category is such that people are not aware that they can change their phone’s keyboard. Not many people are aware that they can go on an app store and search for a keyboard, download it and make it their default,” co-founder Ankit Prasad tells TheSpuzz Online.
But that is altering. “As per our data in 2016 only 3 percent of Google Play Store users were searching for third-party keyboard applications. But in 2020, it increased to 35 percent. So, the awareness has certainly grown.”
Having mentioned that, Bobble acquires as quite a few as 80-85 % customers organically, via word of mouth if you will, which means the Google Play Store has “really insignificant contribution in our growth.” Unlike competitors, Google’s Play Store discovery, or the lack thereof, does not bother it.
David versus the Goliaths
Microsoft with its SwiftKey keyboard is a difficult rival, but an even larger threat is Google due to huge scale of Android. Prasad is rapid to give you a history lesson. “Gboard was launched in May 2016, and it isn’t even the default keyboard on Android (devices). It is the Android Open Source Project or AOSP keyboard, but that keyword is not used by any OEM because it sucks,” he quips, adding “Bobble Indic keyboard was launched (even) earlier in February 2016.”
Bobble is betting on the similar space as these bigger tech giants (there is some competitors also from Baidu and Tencent) but it is confident that it is onto one thing major and “history says that whenever there was a new category, there was always a new winner, because there is always scope for innovation.”
Its exceptional go-to market place technique is centred on partnerships, and these partnerships are enabled by ground guidelines that it creates taking into account the geography, user segment, languages and phone model that OEMs want to come up with and that is how it is in a position to safe bargains.
“The reason why OEMs want to work with us is because of the monopolistic behaviour that Google shows towards them. Nobody wants to be at the losing end of the agreement. Google does not pay them much or help them with any understanding or any revenue sharing. Google does not customise the product for the new phone that they are launching (in India),” Prasad says.
Bobble supports all 23 official Indic languages and keeps an eye-out for user level insights. All its future innovations are centred about these insights. One instance is rolling out a trilingual keypad, so you can use 3 distinct languages on the similar keypad. Another is, bringing emojis up front and give them the similar hierarchy as the alphabets – superior however, make them dynamic.
“We were the first ones to come up with the emoji row in 2017 and in 2020 Google copied that feature. Large tech giants typically lack fast innovation unlike the kind of fast innovation that startups (like us) can afford. Sticker and GIF sharing is a regular thing today, but we designed the first such pre-embedded keyboard technology in the world – Google did not do it.”
To expedite these innovations, Bobble is investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence, each voice associated AI and typing associated AI and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). In the last 5-6 years of the keyboard’s existence, it has invested more than $7-8 million to just create the item. The majority of the one hundred-member group is item and R&D-oriented.
Down the rabbit hole
Bobble’s AI can extract 72 distinct facial function points. It can make you smile in 10 distinct techniques. It can customise your look with accessories. All this, at the press of a button on the keyboard. But the utility of the item extends beyond the realm of creating conversations exciting and engaging.
When you are on Amazon browsing for a item, or booking a cab on Uber, or ordering meals from Zomato, consider your keyboard telling you, “hey, we collated the most value for money offers for you so you might want to check this out.” Bobble can do that.
“When people spend time, generate sessions and execute different use cases through our keyword application, we are able to recommend them certain products and services and make money out of that,” Prasad explains.
Or, it can also take you down the rabbit hole.
“We know the real-time intent and mood of the user through our data intelligence capabilities. We process raw input data that goes from keyboard to different applications on device in real-time and generate intent signals that are then mapped with different products and services or used for other market research purposes,” he adds. Though he is also rapid to point out that, all this is completed in an anonymised manner.
“When you use any of our keyboard products, you can be rest assured that Ankit Prasad is not sneaking into your conversations and Bobble is not taking away that data from your device. We are ethically compliant,” Prasad says moving on to reiterate their privacy policy. Bobble is each ISO 27,001 and ISO 27,701 certified for GDPR compliance – this apparently covers the monetary aspect as nicely.
The information pipeline is managed by Bobble. It is stored on India servers (no information is transferred to any third-party) in compliance with the law of the land.
“Xiaomi is a distribution partner. They are not the owners of the keyboard. Therefore, they have limited access to user information that is needed for their own compliance.”
The business enterprise model entails Bobble “helping” brands in targeting the ideal customer at the ideal time with the ideal messaging, but that does not take place at the price, or threat of information privacy or information safety, according to Prasad.
On to a brighter future
Prasad feels there is considerably bigger adoption and acceptance for startups in India today than say a handful of years ago. Parents do not inform their children not to join startups any longer. They have considerably bigger appreciation for startup jobs. Government policies are also becoming more and more startup friendly, although there is “a huge scope to fill the gap that still exists.” But it is encouraging that the complete ecosystem is becoming mature.
“Government policies were conventionally designed keeping in mind that every business wants to hide their income or trying to do tax evasion or do money laundering and things like that. Startups are changing that mindset. The fact that so many young entrepreneurs are doing this for the first time with a mission and vision in mind (not just for pure money making) has pushed the government to relax different policies (to make business more feasible),” Prasad says.
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All this pushes Bobble to do superior. In the days to come, it is hunting to dive deeper into the conversation media promoting business enterprise (brands like ITC, Cadbury, Nescafe and Paytm First Games are some of the brands that it has been working closely with) and take it to the “next level” by introducing new content formats.
As for particular item capabilities, Bobble is working on a intelligent compose function equivalent to Gmail and LinkedIn as nicely as an automatic OTP fill-in function each of which need to assistance customers save some time and tends to make all-round knowledge smoother and more seamless.
“Apart from India, there are certain geographies across Southeast Asia, where we are getting good traction. These are the areas where we are looking for new partnerships. We are forging new alliances with OEMs and telcos and trying to become a truly global company out of India. That is the next step for us,” Prasad says.