In Nigeria today, there are myriads of issues to discuss ranging from health to the economy, technology, relationship, security and many others. But the million naira question is where do you have such discussions? Your immediate answer will be social media. Yes, social media but it is dominated by people who are unable to relate to your issues (personal or societal) because they are miles away. Where do you now have discussions with people that are within your location? The platform for you is Tatisis. Tatisis is an online location-based discussion platform. Techawk had an exclusive interview with a co-founder of the startup. He threw more light on what Tatisis is about and much more. Excerpts
Can you tell us about Tatisis?
Tatisis is basically an online digital platform that connects people or users to live discussions from the comfort of their location where they can create topics, learn, ask, and discuss happenings with people in their location or other locations at an instant duration.
How will you describe the reception of Tatisis so far?
Tatisis at first came across to many as confusing in its early days, this probably was because the idea behind what can be done with the platform did not really seem clear. Over time, we see users/people using it for what it really is – a location-based platform for everything. Reception of the platform has been growing steadily, to say the least. It’s great to see people get exactly what can be achieved with the platform.
What motivated you to establish Tatisis?
Tatisis was borne purely out of the need to help people connect better along the lines of their location. We believe people relate better with others when they have something in common – in this case their location. We see users on Tatisis discuss everything from local politics to events. Seeing people share values and actionable information was why Tatisis was built in the first place and also what motivates us.
Who are your competitors and what are your plans for becoming the market leader?
Our competitors are every other website/platform out there. But more seriously we have platforms like Quora, Reddit etc to contend with. We hope to lead in local markets for now rather than globally and to lead we need to understand what our users want, and if we stick to evolving in that direction, we will eventually get Tatisis to where it needs to be.
What do you need to scale your business?
As with every other platform, content is King. Scaling to us means more content and engagement which directly translates to more relevance.
What are the challenges of running your startup? Where do you see Tatisis in the next five years?
Our challenges include the cost of being operational – which is high. Also included is the cost of everything from marketing and promotional campaign to platform managers. However, these challenges are the realities of every startup. We hope to surmount them going forward. We see Tatisis becoming a go-to service for every local information you might need in Nigeria.
What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?
As co-founders we are not really big on giving out advice, we believe more in having passion for what we do. If you care about your business enough, you will do whatever it takes to see your business become successful. Passion for your business is feeling the same way you felt about your business the day before. If you wake up and don’t feel sure about what you are doing, change your business.
You can contact Tatisis at support(at)tatisis.com for enquiries.
