Interview : Kalyani Khona, founder of Inclov on her Startup Journey and inspiration behind it.

Kalyani Khona is going places spreading the message of love ever since she founded inclov, a matchmaking app to help differently-abled find partners. We discover more about the journey of this firebrand startup woman, what she thinks, how she thinks and how she makes things happen, all in this very inspiring interview.

To begin with, Kalyani you did your Bachelor's in Management studies and you had very good options for jobs. So why did you choose to be an entrepreneur?

There was already a part of me that wanted to do something by myself. Secondly, the space I wanted to get into was matchmaking and there weren't many options that fit my requirement. Like there were matrimonial sites in 2014 when I started this but I wanted to explore different ways of matchmaking. For example, what makes two people connect or what kind of things bring two people together? It looked like a really exciting project and it really started with a very small idea. I also had the mindset that if this does not work out I can always get a job. That was my backup so I thought why not give it a shot?

Because I was just 21 when this started. Having started early was a good edge because then you get one or two years to figure out what works and what doesn't work and then you jump right into the market. I think those things came very early to me that I want to do something different at least in my twenties. I want to add some uniqueness to my portfolio. So that is when I kind of decided that I will stick to my own thing. I did try to get some internships here and there but nothing really worked for me. I wanted to create my own culture, my own company so it made more sense to work by myself.

Did you get all the support from your family?

Yeah, I have an extremely supportive family. In fact, ours is a crowd-funded app so there is a family of 140 people who funded this. It is just not friends and family who live in my vicinity or who I grew up with. There are 20 people back at the office now and they are like super supportive. It is a fireball of so much support coming to me that it is tough to think that it is not working out. Because somebody is always behind my back saying no no no, just go for it! I have been very lucky that way.

Tell us more about Inclov. What is it and how does it work?

So Inclov is world's first matchmaking app inclusively designed for people with disabilities and health disorders to find a life partner. This online mobile application is supplemented by social spaces. It is offline mate up for people who meet on the app to actually meet in person in places that are accessible and have wheelchair ramps and sign language interpreters and so forth. It all started in 2014 as a small matchmaking agency. It was a very small boutique firm where some families would come and fill a form and fill in the register and I would start procuring profiles for them. Later I realized this is not the most scalable way because matchmaking works on a database. The larger pool you have, the bigger are the chances of match becoming faster. So I realized I need to mobilize this crowd on a platform and I can't do it by myself. Also, I realized I needed to look after people like their physical impairment, their medication and there was so much to remember and to put that on paper was very tough. So we decided to crowdfund for the mobile application and to start working on an Android version. Of course, now we have iOS, android and we are launching web portal in next 10 days.

Great! So do you think the physical places also need to be friendlier for differently abled people? Don't we have many places like roads or malls?

Right. So my question has always been towards the fact that when they were building roads or any building why didn't they think of it? The people in charge of construction didn't think how would people with a wheelchair would go in? And this is not only for people on wheelchair it is also for elderly, pregnant women or women with kids in a stroller. So what were they thinking? That is why diversity in hiring is very important. This perspective would have come if someone in architecture team with some disability would have said that guys this plan has some flaws. So my question first was what the thought process was when these places were created? And now that they have been created how you can make them accessible with the least resistance. And it is not easy for people in wheelchairs to go to a bar and to find a life partner or a date or talk to somebody new. Think about it. Four people lift one and get him into the bar, he has already lost his first impression. The girl will think that if somebody has to support him how is he going to support me?

It does not include people basically.

Yeah, our society has been designed to make minorities feel marginalised because their thoughts or their voice is not raised in parliament and everywhere. There is not much representation of this. Which is why it gets reflected in public places.

Brilliant! As you mentioned our country, in our country young people do not have that freedom to choose their own life partner. Given our religion, caste system etc. In this scenario, you are saying that there is no barrier to find love. How do you say that and how do you do that?

You would be surprised! We run this division called Inclov select which is like premium matchmaking service. Where we are 40 people and 90% of the audience that has signed up for the premium service have said that caste or religion is no bar for them. When it comes to somebody with physical impairment, that is where my expertise lies, matching their mindset, their intellectual level is what we do. Like if somebody is deaf they need the other partner to know sign language. So these basic criteria like their help, their impairment need to be met. They have to be given a choice to find somebody who fits them. Because it is not easy to live with physical impairment and then you have a partner who does not understand can be overwhelming and might feel like a burden later.

So, it is people with disabilities and not their families, who are required to make the decision irrespective of religion or income, but consider what they require or what they think would fit better in their independent lifestyle rather. If somebody is on a wheelchair and goes out once a month, he may not go for somebody who likes to go out every day. These are small but important individual aspects where parents have very little say in. So far, the parents we have met are extremely supportive. Sometimes they come and tell us to not worry about the religion or anything. They want compatible partners for their sons and daughters and education is more important than religion or caste.

You said it is an inclusive app. So do you allow people without the disability to join the app? Does it include other people?

Yes, my aim has always been to create an inclusive platform. It is not like that today I made an app for people with disability, tomorrow I will make an app for people without a disability and then I will make an app for someone who is elderly.

I want to create a platform where everyone could come and put their requirements, then find matches and see people according to their requirements. It is an inclusive platform.

I will just give you an example, like Anjali who is getting married and had got engaged two months backs, she doesn't have a disability. So when she came to us she said she doesn't have a disability and I would prefer you find me a life partner. Now she is engaged to Arpan who has a disability. So they both went into the market and took a walk and she got to experience how it would be. Once she got comfortable with it, they went forward with the engagement and everything. So it is an inclusive platform and everyone is included and 30-40 % of our users are without a disability.

What have been the achievements so far as far as the app is concerned? Like how many people are connected? How many marriages have taken place? How many matches have been made?

So we have around 25,000 people on our platform right now. Around 7,000 connections have been made online. We have reached around 1 lakh people attending social spaces in the last one and a half year that we have been doing every month. And about marriages, we do run a premium program for people who have a disability so that is easier to track. We have 40 people to whom we cater right now and 12 of them are engaged to get married. So that is easier to track but others meet on app and them if they get married it is very tough to track.

So, how do ensure the safety of people especially women?

Being a woman founder I wanted to create an app which even I could use to find somebody. So when you sign up on this app there is a very strong review process. Like there is 48 hours incubation process. We have a team back here that reviews every profile, calls them if anything is pending or if they have not put genuine photos. They can see their profile but they cannot connect to anyone till they get approval from us. We verify mobile numbers as well, for our offline meet ups we take photographs of everyone who is entering with their id cards. We get to know about their discipline and everything right from the beginning. You can't take screenshots on android or iOS mobile application, you can't see any email or phone number. You have to be accepted to chat with this person and only then chat box opens. So it is a very safe and secure app. Also, you cannot share images so it is made to strike a conversation only if both the parties agree to it.

So as there are checks and balances are in place there must be a high success rate when it comes to matchmaking in your app as chances of fraud are lower?

Yeah, the people who come on the app, the value and quality we provide of profiles is high and they tend to stay longer even if they don't find a match in a week or 10 days because everyone coming here is genuine. Even in social spaces the ratio of women to men is equal because women feel safe. Women want to come there and stay there and find somebody.

You mention social spaces. What are these social spaces that you are talking about?

Social spaces are the offline meetups organised by Inclov. We realized that people with disability were talking on the app but not meeting in person. We found out that public places do not have a wheelchair ramp, don't have sign language interpreters so we started these meet ups two every month. In Chandigarh, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore you name it and we have done a meet up there. Everyone comes out of there home once a moth mostly a Sunday and get to meet each other like club members and founders and we have a get-together. So it is a very safe place as we have no tolerance policy for harassment. This leads to that high level of security and we always end up doing it in a place that has very high security like Lalit's or Lemon Tree. Because women feel protected and safe here and the founders are usually present it has just become something where they turn up without hesitation. The social inhibition to come to an open place to look for a life partner has reduced but we are making it a safer zone for anyone to enter.

You do Karaoke also, right?

Yes! And we had Valentine's party on 11th February as well. We keep having these nightlife meetups. People are exploring new things like some of them have seen a bar for the first time and some of them have joined a party for the first time, some of them have done karaoke for the first time. So these are the experiences we want to expose them to.

You are the only woman founder in the matchmaking space. So do you think being a woman is advantageous to you?

I have answered this time and again that my P&L doesn't have my gender written on it. If I don't make a profit I go home just like they do. So it is not an advantage but it has also never been any disadvantage. In fact, the plus point that we were talking that because I am a woman I can think for a large community that is highly under the surf right now and there are so many security flaws on other platforms and I focus on them. However, things like that I don't want you to give you money or I don't trust you because you are a woman has never happened. In fact, my emotional intelligence has got people to connect better than that of the opposite gender.

So how did you fund your company?

We have a set of 17 investors. Initially, in 2015 we were crowdfunded on Wishberry. It is an online platform for crowdfunding your project. We had 140 backers who paid anything between 500 to 5000 rupees and these were people I didn't know. Like I just put my project and the universe supported me.

So you have a lot of pressure on you?

Yeah, but who doesn't have pressure right? That is also I keep questioning. Everyone is doing their bit and have their own challenges. Yeah, these are my challenges but as long as you love tackling them and as long as there is a big picture who is this helping then the other parts become easier for you.

Anything you want to say to young women out there who want to take a course on entrepreneurship?

I think you just need to be persistent and if you believe in something, it will happen.

So you think it is a good idea that women think of entrepreneurship as a career option?

Yeah, definitely. We can handle companies, we can manage things, we are more giving in nature for our teams, for our clients for everyone. So I think this is the course to take if you have an idea which doesn't have a company or project on it and you think you can do it better then give it a shot.

Thank you so much, Kalyani for your lovely inputs. We hope and we believe that your venture takes you places and takes you internationally, you get lots of matches in years to come. Thank you.

Thank you for talking to me today.

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