We Wanted to Reimagine Concept of Surveys

THE IDEA: Platform helps enterprises create personalised surveys for customer experience, employee pulse checks, market feedback, and derive reports and insights.

EUREKA MOMENT: Shihab Muhammed, co-founder of SurveySparrow, said his own reluctance to fill in surveys that failed to pique his interest drove him and Subin Sebastian towards creating an engaging platform.

“I used to put off completing boring surveys. However, I was very prompt in replying to queries on WhatsApp or Google hangouts,” Muhammed said. He was an early founding member of software firm Freshworks, while Sebastian was an engineer at web-based business tools company Zoho. “A normal survey completion rate stands at 10-15%, and our aim is to take it to over 50%,” Muhammed said. “We want to help enterprises go beyond surveys and own the entire customer experience life cycle.”

EARLY DAYS: During the early deliberations, the SurveySparrow team wondered whether market was big enough for them to have a play. It decided to serve mid-market businesses which need a feature-rich solution but can’t afford enterprise products. “Once we nail this target segment, it’s easy to arrive at the key features and roll out a minimum usable product,” Muhammed said.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE: SurveySparrow, made in Kochi and based in the US, faced difficulty in attracting talent early on. “In a startup, keeping your team morale and motivation up is very important. We rented two flats and converted them into a guesthouse. We hired a cook who made different cuisines so that people moving to Kochi felt at home,” he said. Figuring out a profitable customer acquisition channel was also challenging.

WHERE THE STARTUP IS NOW: It has facilitated over 20,000 surveys for 10,000 customers in 108 countries. Its clientele includes PaySafe, FedEx, Deloitte Digital, SAP, and Siemens. The firm recently raised $1.4 million in seed funding and is in talks for another round.