Former textile tycoon Gautam and quizmaster wife Ami Goradia promoted Hayagriva Software Pvt. Ltd in 2001, to provide a combination of qualitative content and robust technology for school students. In the initial years, Hayagriva developed specialised tools to help teachers and students create their own question-answer banks to raise general knowledge levels for the purpose of self-assessment.

Newspeg. Now, Hayagriva Software is set to launch four specialised applications called fYO, developed around Facebook and internet search. The apps will allow users to search Facebook for posts, videos and photos on subjects of their choice. The suite, which has been in the works for two years, comprises fYO Posts Archiver, fYO Photo Fun, fYO Video Playlist Maker and the ‘mother’ app fYO Ultima.

History. A commerce and law graduate of Mumbai University, Gautam was in the textiles business for two decades before he quit and plunged into software development. Ami is an experienced quizmaster with a commerce degree from Gujarat University.

Direct talk. “We started our software business with YO Knowledge, and over the years we have developed several software products to help people manage the mountains of information available on the worldwide web. Today, one of the biggest sources of information is social media — Facebook (FB), Twitter, Flickr, YouTube etc. There is so much information flowing through these platforms, especially Facebook, yet there isn’t any way by which users can make good use of relevant information. The fYO apps will help users search better, archive and share common-interest information with ease. Once you install our software (fYO Posts Archiver) on the computer, whatever you see on your FB wall is visible in it — it’s like having your news feed in our software,” explains Gautam.

Unique selling proposition. According to Ami, the novelty of the fYO suite of apps which will be promoted in education institutions in “a big way”, is that it will help students manage information smartly.

“Our USP is that Facebook has huge data lying unused because it was never built like a search engine. When you do a search on Google for instance, it brings up results and it ends there. If you find anything interesting in the results, how do you put everything together and share it with somebody or archive it for future use? This is what fYO apps enable,” says Ami.

Price point. The fYO apps will be available in a range of free to premium at a price as low as Rs.150 for lifetime use. “We want to make fYO affordable for every teacher and student to rachet up a revenue of $50 million (Rs.255 crore) in two years,” says Gautam.

Future plans. Currently, fYO apps are PC-based. “But in phase 2, we will help you access all that you have saved on your PC with our apps, using other digital devices, through cloud computing,” promises Gautam, who adds that the company is all set to launch its major productivity enhancement software YO PEDIA later this year. “is a standalone software that will enable users to manage their entire digital life through one window,” says Ami.

Wow!

Jayanthi Mahalingam (Mumbai)

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