VOIZD- Voice without Fear, is world’s first anonymous social networking platform allows to record and post a 30 second audio clip instantly. The highlight of this platform is to express your true feelings without any fear of getting judged or trolled as you will be remaining anonymous for everyone.
Mastermind behind this concept, Sameer Agarwal, who himself is a victim of social media threats and troll attacks, realized the need and came up with VOIZD. SMEpost.com caught up with Sameer Agarwal, Founder of VOIZD
Q: What is VOIZD? When was it started?
A: VOIZD is an AUDIO based Anonymous online social space where people around the world share real thoughts and experiences and trade advice. What’s catchy is that, you get to share all the above anonymously AND in VOICE without the entire persistent real name trapping of other networks.
The app protects your identity, so you can go all out sharing what you actually feel without having to fine-tune it (i.e you can be 100% real), so basically it Gives you the Power to share your thoughts without the fear of being judged, labeled and trolled. It is an anonymous sharing app where you can divulge your deepest secrets to an audience of unknown people, and respond to their secret confessions or questions. The app was beta launched in Sep 2016.
Q: Tell us about the idea behind the concept?
A: During 2013 general elections while sharing his opinions on many issues I started getting death threats and troll attacks, initially I thought it’s isolated to political opinions but soon I realized that our society in general has become quite intolerant towards opinions and thoughts which are divergent from mainstream. I also realized that we as a society subconsciously judge and label people based on their every thought and action and hence most people are always trying to fit in with the status quo even with very basics of their expressions that seeded the idea of creating a safe space where people can be themselves.
While the app was still on the drawing board a conversation with an acquaintance made the team realized that traditional social spaces today are owned by English speaking Audience and people who are not very comfortable with English or other written forms get hard end of the stick, hence the team decided that Audio/ Voice based expression should be mainstay of the App, As everyone can speak even when they are not very comfortable in writing. What voice also does is that it keeps the essence, emotion, tonality, of the poster and hence the message intact leading to a deeper connects between the poster and listener.
Q: Throw some light on the challenges that you have faced. Tell us about your learning lessons?
A: VOIZD is currently bootstrapped by the founders. We aim to start monetizing soon using Branded – “Ask Opinions”, Mix of High Value Engagement and sponsored ad units like Audio (ask opinion), Contests /brand games/surveys, Audio commercials in Play list and Sponsored Brand Voiz/Trends/Users etc.
Q: What is the funding status of VOIZD? Throw some light on your future plans.
A: Indian startup ecosystem is skewed towards ecommerce/ transactions based business models and VOIZD is trying to built a social networking product with social impact out of India which is unheard of, plus it is easy to raise funds for copy past business models from western world but not when you are trying to do something totally out of the box. Even startup accelerators applications don’t have a column for mobile social; they have for everything from payments to commerce to food delivery but not for social startups
On the product side while Audio is super engaging, UGC around Audio is hardly attempted in India which has both tech and acceptability challenges as with any new concept
Q: What makes you different from other Mobile App? How will you define the USP of VOIZD?
A: Expressing your true thoughts on identity driven social networks means being trolled by people who do not share the same opinion as yours. It is at the cost of being judged by your very own family, friends or co- workers.
On Voizd you can freely express every opinion & thought in your own voice in 30-second anonymous audio clips. Since there is no sign up hence people connect with your thoughts/opinions than your identity leading to thought becoming more important that the user.
