Interviewed by Viet Ha Tran, Senior Associate Director of Admissions for Finance Master Programs.
Happy New Year 2015 to all of you and welcome back from your vacation! We would like to share with you an interview we did with Niraj Pabari just after his New Year holidays about his newly developed mobile application.
Niraj Pabari is an Indian Swiss citizen; he holds a Masters in Finance from IE Business School (graduated May 2013) and Bachelor in Finance and Bachelors of Arts in International Relations from Webster University, Geneva. Niraj has 3 years of work experience in Finance between Geneva and Dubai. Before IE, he worked for such companies as Thompson Reuters Geneva, Management Trustees Geneva, Axia Investments SA and was also External Relations Manager for AIESEC Geneva. Right after IE, Niraj got a job in JP Morgan Dubai, and he was working there for about a year and a half. In October 2014, he decided to leave JPMorgan in order to launch his own startup, Airporter App Ltd.Â
Viet Ha: Hi Niraj, I greatly appreciate your time for this interview despite your hectic daily schedule, I just learnt that you recently created an exciting start-up, can you tell us what motivated you to launch this mobile application startup?
Niraj: Thanks for having me here. I got the idea of Airporter (the name of our upcoming application) sitting in an Airport almost a year ago. I was bored as I did not have a tablet or a laptop. Everyone around me was typing away on their mobile phone/tablets/laptops and I thought that it would be nice to have something which would allow everyone to connect. After sharing this idea with some friends and family, and surveying over 250 people, I saw that an application that would allow people to connect to each other within airports would appeal to people.  Â
Viet Ha: And what will this application do?
Niraj: The goal of Airporter will be to allow people within airports to connect. How many times have people been stuck at the Airport because they were either early, their flight was delayed or they were just bored and didn’t know what to do? Airporter will solve this issue. It will allow you to connect to other people within the same airport and socialize. Who knows, you could end up making a new friend, meeting your future boss or a potential business partner. The possibilities are limitless. Â
Viet Ha: Who are you working with on this project?
Niraj: Rinat Diniulov, who studied with me during my Bachelor’s degree joined in as a partner in the startup and has played a key role in securing GPB 200,000.00 in seed series investment for the startup. We have partnered up with Alexander Kraev for our designing, Evernet Technologies in India for our software development, and with Atit Shah from Create Entertainment in New York, U.S.A who is producing the application launch video. Â
Viet Ha: What gave you the courage to go by yourself and start this adventure?
Niraj: It was firstly the support of my family, but also the training I got at IE Business School, especially the Knowledge Incubator course, which taught us how to think about creating a startup to pitching it to Investors. The Master in Finance really gave the students the tools to be successful working for multinational organizations but also those who wish to be successful as entrepreneurs.  Â
Viet Ha: What are the next steps for you and when is the app being launched?
Niraj: We are currently putting emphasis on the application launch video which we are aiming to release with the beta version of the Airporter by between February and March 2015 on the Apple Store after which we will launch the Android version.Â
Viet Ha: I look forward to downloading the application soon and best luck with your project! Â
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