MUMBAI: When BITS Pilani graduate Shreyas Kendurkar figured another entertainment-inclined opportunity (in another form) has knocked on the doors, the engineer and former vocalist of a rock band grabbed it with both hands and brought it down to handsets. The COO of Gigstart, a start-up portal and mobile app community for artists and clients, Kendurkar joined the already formed Gigstart effort in early 2014.
The idea for Gigstart was conceptualised in 2013. The ex co-founder of Gigstart, Atit Jain, approached Kendurkar with Gigstart and the roadmap concerning the idea. It was only at the end of the year did Gigstart receive seed funding, easing up the mechanism and technical support to enhance the product. Elaborating on the concept, Kendurkar says, “In a way, it’s like your eBay or Facebook but exclusively for artists and artist clients. A musician or an artist creates a profile, uploads the content, and the team at Gigstart verifies the authenticity of the content. It does not matter if your content is amateur or world-class, Gigstart is a platform for every one with any entertainment content. A singer-songwriter who performs in a mall or a celebrity singer with immense experience, Gigstart will find a potential planner for its users.”
With at least 5500 artists across 17 categories, the app/webservice boasts of 700 band profiles, 794 singers and 131 instrumentalists. “The response for the music category has been amazing. The app’s presence on iOS and Android helps its outreach further.”
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Potentially, Gigstart acts as the bridge between the entertainer and the planner enabling the initial, middle and conclusive steps to the entire process. Gigstart does not represent any of the artists exclusively, and branches out of the conventional methods of online communities. “The artist mentions the booking rates (minimum and maximum) and the event planner approaches the artist through the profile and books the artist (if both sides find it effective). However, right now, it is only the artistes that pay Gigstart, out of commission basis.”
Gigstart plants to eventually roll-out subscription based model to garner more revenue for the concept, and with a team of seven people, Kendurkar hopes to introduce technology (and the app) as a disruptive element in talent management ecosystem.
Earlier this year, the joint venture of CAAKwan acquired Gigstart, however, the COO informed that the American entity would leave the project soon. “Kwan would continue to own Gigstart. The developments do not affect Gigstart’s long-term goals of creating swifter and better ways to connect artists to the planners.”
