Apurv Bansal, an IIT graduate, was trolling the internet for a gift for his girlfriend. But the enormous number of products on e-commerce sites, and all sites claiming to be the best, left Bansal confused. Worse, he got snubbed by his girlfriend for his failure to get her a good gift.
Around the same time, his batchmate Prateek Rathore, who was doing a management course in Spain, was also looking for an anniversary gift for his parents. He too was unable to pick one that his parents would like, and he had to ask his sister back home to buy a gift from a nearby mall.
When they realized that many others faced the same problem, the two put their heads together to find a solution.
Rathore, who returned home after his studies abroad, convinced Bansal to leave his lucrative career in Bain & Company, and the two began work on their venture: wishpicker.com. They also roped in Tejendra Singh, a BTech in computer science from IIT Patna.
Bansal says wishpicker.com is a onestop solution for everyone's quest for a good gift -- be it for a friend, parents or boss. "Gifts are curated from the best online stores, and this helps you get access to the best that is available across the web, all in one place," he says.
Some 20 e-commerce portals are on board now. Among them are Flipkart, HappilyUnmarried, and Ferns and Petals .
You can fine-tune your search by getting recommendations based on the Facebook likes and interests of the recipient. "For example, if a person has 'liked' Sachin Tendulkar on Facebook, the gift recommendations for that person will include memorabilia of the cricketer. Soon, users will have an option to get recommendations based on the recipient's tweets and other social activity" says Bansal.
The company was started with a seed capital of Rs 15 lakh, which was drawn from the founders' personal savings. Bansal said they are in advanced stages of talks with a few investors.