Pushing content anytime, anywhere, on any device

It is in a small second floor office on Chennai’s East Coast Road that the two decided to locate their fledgling venture.

The ECR, as the road is commonly referred to, is better known as the city’s entertainment zone, what with the scores of resorts along the beach and a handful of theme parks. But, for Thiyagarajan V and Ravi Kannan KR, both serial entrepreneurs, there is hardly time to relax as they chart out plans to grow their venture, Knobay.

As they explain, Knobay – derived from knowledge and bay – is a content-based, interactive technology platform that helps users connect with their clients. It can work on any device and can be used either online or offline.

Knobay’s clients include a school that wants to push out lesson plans and assessments to its students; Naturals, a beauty salon that wants to engage with its regular customers and give them periodic beauty tips; and, Fitness One, a fitness company that is constantly in touch with those who use its facilities to monitor their regimen.

“We launched it three months ago. It is self-funded,” says Thiyagarajan. The duo has spent about ₹3 crore on the technology. Thiyagarajan owns 60 per cent of the venture and Ravi Kannan the balance. “We thought we will fund it ourselves and get it launched. It takes quite a bit of time to raise funds. It will be a distraction at this stage for us,” adds Thiyagarajan.

After finishing his B.Com, Ravi did a three-month course on computers at an institute in Chennai. Ravi has been building IT products for nearly 25 years and has worked in the US in the software industry. He was also involved with TutorVista, which got bought out by Pearson.

Thiyagarajan, who studied Electronics and Communication Engineering from Madurai in Tamil Nadu, worked in Siemens after completing his engineering degree. He describes his stint in Siemens as a good one as “they groom engineers very well.” “At a young age, you do engineering, meet clients and then collect the payment too,” he talks of his Siemens days. He has a couple of other ventures, including one that provides home healthcare.

According to Ravi, teachers in the school that uses Knobay’s platform use it to create lessons, which can be plugged into any computing device and projected on an LCD screen. After the class is over, the teachers use it to create assessments, worksheets and activities and send them to the kids. At present, they are doing it within the school, but from next year, they are going to give it to the children to use it at home.

Schools sign up and Knobay hosts everything for them. They get access to the software using which they can create the content. Another application allows the content to run on a laptop, iPad, Mac or any android device, which is how the children access the content.

Fitness One uses Knobay’s platform to assign a trainer and a dietician to its members, who will design specific programmes for each customer and check regularly with the members on how they are progressing with the regimen even when they are not in the gym.

Shortly, Knobay will open up its platform, which means if a customer wants to use it, the company can go to the site, download the platform and using the authoring tool, host the content.

Thiyagarajan believes in the Visa/MasterCard model for revenues – a percentage of the transaction amount. For example, in Fitness One whenever a membership gets renewed, Knobay will get three per cent of the renewal amount. “I am a great

admirer of that model. In the US, it was a big deal breaker for us,” he says.