Q. Hello Kavi. Can you tell us about yourself?

My native is Thanjavur . My father is a government servant . My brother is a farmer . I finished my B.E( I.T ) in Annamalai University . M.E ( Computers ) in Sathyabama University .

Q. When & how did your entrepreneur desire started & blossomed?

A.  Am basically a WEB 2.0 enthusiast and was an addicted user of Various sites like Orkut , Facebook etc. Always thought these networks were not for India.  India is very different and our people always want a face to face interaction.

So wondered how it would be to build a network that helped people to find the same frequency persons in their neighborhood itself. That is when we started building this network.

Q. What are you hobbies other than your business?

A. Watching movies, reading books and roaming around with my friends.

Q. Tell us how areapal.com took shape?

A. As mentioned, when I got this idea of root level INSTA NETWORKING, I went to Anna University and started telling my friends about this idea. They were excited and so instantly we formed a team of interested students and started building this project. So we got contributions from lots of students from various colleges. That is how we have built the product which you are seeing now.

Q. Tell the challenges you faced (Pre formation & post formation)?

A. Our initial problem was lack of funds. We somehow managed to get some small loans and also put our own money for renting servers etc. Distributed different modules to various people / freelancers and got it done. We all took different roles in developing the project from designing, strategy to coding, DB designing etc.

Q. Tell us about areapal.com’s business model?

A.   “ The most interesting person you have been searching for all over the ( web )world may be just a street away – areapal.com helps you find him “  - as per our slogan , areapal is a platform that helps people to connect in a very drilled down manner based on their locality ( area ) . We are trying to remove the 6 degrees of separation and connect people in the first degree itself.

Q. Have you accomplished everything you dreamt about areapal.com?

A. Nope, still there is a lot to accomplish J

Q. What is your experience in approaching VC & angels?

A. In India we feel that approaching VC’s is a bit difficult at the idea or seed stage. But approaching angels is a bit easier.

Q. Will this recession have any impact in your plans? If yes how do you plan to overcome this recession?

A. ‘ areapal ‘ is a community driven project with contributions in various verticals from a wide pool of enthusiastic youngsters / students .  In fact we are also in plans to convert this project as a FOUNDATION and help all the youngsters own a particular city in areapal and earn via. it. So we are fully equipped to face the recession J

Q. What are your future plans?

A. Connect full India “area by area wise” and help user contributed local data flow in a more consumable manner to all the people .

Q. What is your advice for new startups and wannabe entrepreneurs?

A.  I always liked the line “… You should first START to become GREAT “   . Guess it was told by Abraham Lincoln.

Thank you very much Kavi for sparing your valuable time with us and it was really inspiring to be with you. We wish you all the very best…