GoDaddy, the world’s largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures, launched Flare, a first-of-its-kind, community-based app that helps bring business ideas to life. Flare empowers people to share ideas and get guidance from friends, fellow entrepreneurs, and experts in a fun and collaborative way, providing an immediate resource to receive feedback and drive new concepts or ideas forward.
Announcing the launch, Rajiv Sodhi, Managing Director & Vice President at GoDaddy India and Australia, said, “GoDaddy seeks to inspire budding entrepreneurs and the start-up community in India to chase their dreams. GoDaddy is committed to developing innovative technologies, products and tools designed to empower entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses to communicate, collaborate and grow their businesses
Flare aptly suits the current business environment in India. India currently ranks 3rd in the global start-up ecosystem. The Government’s push to the ‘Start-up’ community through multiple initiatives and improving ease of doing business is likely to promote the entrepreneurial activities further in the country; with several business ideas seeing the light of the day. Flare is where the seeds of ideas go to be nurtured and developed.”
Upon opening the Flare app, users see new business ideas from the community and can swipe left to “skip,” swipe right to “snooze” or tap to learn more and “love” an idea. When an idea has enough “loves,” the entrepreneur behind it can pose questions to the idea’s followers. Users can become followers of an idea and pledge to be a future customer, which provides valuable insight to entrepreneurs on the potential demand for their products or services.
“We created Flare because we recognize that whether you’ve just had a fleeting thought and want to explore where you might be able to take it, or you’ve been dreaming of starting your own business, Flare is the first place to go for someone that wants to the take the next step,” said Tina Nguyen, Director of Product Management, and Co-Creator for Flare.
Flare includes a feature called Top Charts that helps to make it easier for entrepreneurs to gain supporters for their ideas. Top Charts showcases the top 20 most popular ideas within the Flare community on a given day, giving users who may have missed the idea in its validation stage, an opportunity to follow the idea and provide feedback. Flare also enables people to login via both Facebook and LinkedIn, making it easier for users to identify themselves.
Flare also enables people to give back to the community by becoming advisors. It gives people the opportunity to share their knowledge in a given field or discipline with others seeking advice. By supporting a concept, advisors can play an active role during its developmental journey. Followers can also pledge to be a future customer, providing a valuable signal to the entrepreneur about demand and marketability of his or her new product or service.
