We got to hangout with Vipul Mishra, Co-Founder of CanvasFlip – the fastest and most awesome way to design an interactive prototype. If you are a business that needs to design an app, read on…
What prompted the idea for CanvasFlip and who is your main target audience?
As a start up in the user experience domain, we get many requests inquiring about the standard practice in mobile app UX. Most queries relate to challenges faced in visualizing application flow among product managers, app designers and app developers. To address this challenge, CanvasFlip, a SaaS based mobile apps prototyping platform that aids in the designing process and allows multiple stakeholders to collaborate, was conceived. Our TG is any business that needs to design an app that gives an awesome experience to their customers.
Tell us about the main team at CanvasFlip and what keeps you all motivated and inspired to improvise and innovate?
CanvasFlip is our most recent venture which I co-founded with Manish. Manish takes care of the product development and operation, while I take responsibilities of business development and marketing. Me and Manish started our professional career together at Mahindra Satyam and launched Yougle.in, FbViralVideos, Slurrp and few mobile games as a hobby projects.
In earlier days, our motivation was to challenge ourselves if (and how efficiently) we can solve a particular problem. If there was something that could be done better, we took at shot at it. But now, feeling of making life easier for our clients while building a sustainable and profitable business is what keeps us improving and innovating.
How does CanvasFlip’s subscription work? Is it a free app? What are the available subscription plans?
We offer a 30 day trial period at the end of which users are given the option to subscribe to a monthly or annual plan. As a practice we don’t charge subscribers for a normal overage usage, charges are levied when the overage is consistent.
Describe the features of the app? How does it work? What sets it apart from the competition?
The very reason we founded CanvasFlip was to enable Mobile UX Flow visualization for all the stakeholders (Product Managers, App Designers and Dev team) rather than focusing only on app designers.To realize our vision we introduced few unique and disruptive offerings:
Automatic UX Sitemap generation
(When you create the prototype of your mobile app, a UX site map is created enabling a top level view of your project)
Real time Collaboration with team
(You can communicate with your team in real time. Suggest changes and track them)
How has the journey been so far? What have been the best rewards? What have been the major challenges? What is the biggest learning you got so far?
It’s been great and with CanvasFlip being judged as the winner of the first edition of Hot100 Technology Awards, 2014, I can say it has been rewarding as well. Shortage of skilled people is one of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs in this field face. Finding people with above par programming skills was a major hurdle. Everyday has been a learning experience for us. Some of the most important things that we’ve learnt in the process of setting up canvas Flip are – commitment is the main differentiator between dreamers and achievers; overcoming the fear of taking risks is important for success and achieving your vision; and most importantly your product must add value to the client, otherwise it is of no use.
What are the future plans for CanvasFlip? How do you envision the company taking shape in the coming years? Are there any new offerings that customers should be looking forward to?
We started to make life easier for all stakeholders in an app development process and I believe we have just scratched the surface. We interview 20-25 Product Managers, designers and app developers every week to identify the user behavior. Based on their feedback and usage pattern, we are constantly improving to offer the best in class experience of prototyping and collaboration.
We are soon coming up with ready-to-use App UX templates in various category to save hours of research time for budding entrepreneurs. Also, very soon users will be able to change their flow directly from UX Site maps/flow-charts. Every Sunday, we make a minor release and new features are communicated over the email. So, register at CanvasFlip.com and we’ll keep you posted about new updates.
After the interview with Vishal, we just wished we were hired and paid well by a company to create apps. We would be rocking the scene !! On a serious note, it is heartening to note that we are racing ahead, pace by pace, to be the ‘product nation’ of the world. And the ‘wind beneath our wings’ is disruption and innovation. And the team at CanvasFlip seemed to have aced that.
Wishing them luck…
With inputs from Ritika Singh