Ticked something right?! Well the locals make up a big part of a Mumbaikar’s life. Our day starts by boarding a local and ends stepping out of the train corridors.
To us the “12 baje ki dadar local” is like “cherry on the cake” and if we miss it, it becomes a mistake!
Well Sachin Teke was also one of them. To whom the Mumbai local meant travelling to and from work to home. Many of you must be thinking why a local person’s name is mentioned here. But trust me he has changed lives of 10 million people. Yes! 10 million.
About Teke:
Sachin Teke is an IT engineer from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) IN Matunga. He is also an alumnus to the same. He has a MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of management Studies. He began his career working for a software firm developing mobile applications. He resides in Nerul, Navi Mumbai. He is the CEO of Mobond and inventor of m-Indicator app.
About the app:
Ask any Mumbaikar about the app and they will have it installed on their phones. The app is called M-indicator. The app has schedules of trains, buses, metro rails, mono rails as well as ferries. It also gives you news updates about the mega blocks and other news. It has a list of famous places, picnic spots, hotels, hospitals in the vicinity of Mumbai. It also updates information regarding job placements. It has a special chat room for western, harbor and central line commuters. Information about trains, whether it is fast or slow, on which platform it will halt, at what time it will arrive or depart, etc. it also gives information about cancelled trains. A security system for women commuters, etc. Are some of its highlighted features.
How it was built? HARDWORK AND DETERMINATION THATS ALL THAT TAKES!
Sachin used travel all the way from Nerul to his workplace in Seepz. He used to board a train then use a bus and finally an auto to reach his office. As we all know our train schedules. Sachin too used to worry about the train timings and wondered when the next train was scheduled. He had thought he needs to find a solution to his problem. And then with that determination he quit his job and built this app that would do the required.
He designed the app, wrote the code himself and asked family and friend to help him enlist timetables of trains. The process took a few months. On 3rd May, 2010 he launched the app. For the first 6 months they only had 2,500 users but by the end of the year they reached 500,000 users and all due to Sachin’s hard work and determination. Today, M-Indicator has 10 million subscribers and generates $1 million in annual revenue (mostly from Google (GOOGL, Tech30) Adwords) for Mobond.
This is yet another story from rags to riches, about hard work and determination. Most of think for someone else to solve our problems, but how many of us figure out a way to do it ourselves? Think.
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