The Story behind Shaukk

Suffering from a similar plight, Aseem Khare, an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, would itch to play football with friends but instead found himself around people that weren’t into sports. The IIT-B graduate who later joined work at Nomura was still on the lookout for people to share a game of football with. Not letting work deter him from his goal, Aseem didn’t wish to drop his shaukk just because he couldn’t find a group to play with. He then became aware of people who dropped their interests and passions because they couldn’t find someone like- minded to share it with, that’s when Shaukk was born.

Every problem has a solution and that’s exactly what Aseem did. His intense brainstorming led him to create a simple solution to the prevalent problem i.e. ‘Shaukk’. With a firm backing from colleagues and friends, Aseem started working on the idea and finally concluded with living his passion full time and took charge as CEO of Shaukk.com.

Hyper Local in nature, Shaukk connects you with like-minded people in your locality – known and unknown and defines an interest community for you. Further, Shaukk helps you discover new happening events around you.

What makes it different?

When asked how Shaukk is different from other platforms like Facebook, Aseem highlighted some interesting facts; “First, Facebook has groups at a very macro level. There’s no chance that when I want to play football in my locality, I will like to put it up on the globally wide or city wide group. So in essence, the hyper local interest groups are what one needs and this is what we have at Shaukk. Each interest group can be tagged by location, so one can create or join – Powai Music Lovers or Foodies @ Andheri. Second, though many people create and participate in events on Facebook, these events have some problems which we are solving at Shaukk. I can’t see new events pertaining either to my interests or my locality or both. Practically, as an interest lover, I want to know what event is happening in my interest in my locality. Even the smallest of catch up event would work for me, but that is not possible over Facebook. Last but not the least, on a macro level we are in some way just the opposite of Facebook. Facebook is for bringing all your global connections online and establishing your virtual world. Facebook is too global and Shaukk is the new local.”

Shaukk wants you to go back to the real world by encouraging you to go offline and enjoy your interests within your locality.

Challenges, Difficulties and more…

Technology, Content & Marketing – these are the main pillars to develop a vibrant social network. As the CEO of Shaukk, his job is to effectively manage all these aspects which he finds to be a tough challenge.

As far as technology is concerned, Facebook, Google have set the bar very high. To build all the features, which have now become kind-of necessary in any social network, is definitely challenging. They have expanded their tech team and are constantly working towards enhancing the user experience, which they believe is Paramount.

Marketing is what has differentiated successful companies from the rest – e.g. Facebook, Apple. Marketing of such a network is one of the biggest challenges. They have a chicken & an egg problem to solve. Users want events where they can enjoy their interests whereas the event creators want people. They are attacking it at both the ends.

Aseem wishes he knew about marketing and the whims and desires of users when he conceived Shaukk. What saved the day was a bunch of helpful close friends that thrust him with a long list of features that they wished was a part of the brilliant thought. “But it was a huge encouragement nevertheless, because that gave me so many better ways to improve Shaukk and also re-certified that they loved the concept of Shaukk – since they just wanted new ‘features’ but not a new ‘concept’!” added Aseem.

How’s it trending?

Shaukk started off in Powai and is now scaling up to locations beyond Powai and the response has been very encouraging. With a massive number of supporters that keep sharing and liking the idea of Shaukk on Facebook, it is evident how popular the website has become. Delhites too seem to love this idea and have been looking ahead for a launch in the capital. Shaukk has already formed a vibrant and interactive group for Football, Trekking, Salsa and Board Games.

The Future Wishlist!

Their future plan in the bucket is a mobile app, making it easier for today’s Smartphone generation. Also coming up is a New Feature, which will enable people to read, comment and interact over their interest related news. There are more features in store. Stay Tuned!

Besides being mesmerized with his own startup, ‘Avanti Fellows’ has caught his attention.

Follow your Shaukk

– Got bored of sitting at home and watching TV or going to the same restaurant over and over again? Want to try out cool events and venues around?

– Want to enjoy your interests but don’t have friends who share the same interests as you have and are in the same locality as you are?

Relive your interests near you with Shaukk!

The post A Passion For Football Leads An Investment Banker To Drop His job And Follow His ‘Shaukk’ appeared first on .