It is a gift if you can start up to solve your own problem. Every time Grishma Udani, an avid movie buff and a long time Goodreads user logged on to the world’s largest social network for readers, she wished there was something similar for movies but, never found one. So after years of searching, she decided to build one herself. And that’s how Rinema, the social network for movie buffs came into existence.
With Rinema one can stay organised, discover and share their kind of movies with a set of like-minded folks from across the globe, a space that was missing earlier. Having reviewed it recently, we were impressed with its neat design and useful social features that got us to reach out to Grishma and the team behind Rinema to know more about this exciting new network and its future plans.
Team Rinema consists of two other people apart from Grishma Udani (middle) – Pritesh Jain (on the left) and Danish Satkut (on the right). While Grishma handles the design and frontend development of Rinema, Pritesh handles back-end and architecture of the site and is fond of air pistol shooting. Danish takes care of Recommendations, Movie Databases, Analytics and more. Interestingly, Danish also has the largest film collection of the three, both on Rinema and offline.
Prasant Naidu: What problem are you trying to solve?
Grishma Udani: Rinema provides solutions to the film buffs in two major ways : a) Keep track of movies that you watch – it’s not just about being able to keep a list of movies but, more about giving a film buff an identity on web for their cinephilia, and b) Discover interesting films you would want to watch – we believe the best recommendations come from people with similar taste as yours. So, we don’t just recommend movies to you, we help you find other people who like same movies as you, taste buddies as we call them.
PN: Why should I use Rinema when I have IMDB? What is Rinema’s USP?
GU: IMDB is for information. Rinema is much more social or personalized, if you will. Rinema is about you, your movies, your tastes.
As our tagline, “Your Movies & The Next!” puts it, Rinema does two things: Help you keep track of movies that you watch and help you discover other interesting movies you would want to watch. So we have tools to help you organize your movie collection and tools for personalized movie discovery, neither of which is IMDB’s focus.
PN: Going further what features do you plan to introduce at Rinema?
GU: That list is way too long for me to be able to recount here. But, I’ll tell you this – quizzes, dialogues and stuff that you guys suggested is in there. (Can’t promise when though!)
PN: How has the growth been so far, would you like to share some numbers such as registered users, where all are you seeing the traction from, etc.?
GU: It’s been great. 1/3rd of our users add over 100 movies to their profiles. As of today, our users have added a total of 190,000 + movies to their profiles.
As to where – 29% of our user base is India, 21% – U.S , 20% – Mexico/Spanish and rest is just all over the world.
PN: What would be your possible sources of revenue other than running ads?
GU: Long term – we plan to build tools for indie film makers to be able to promote (and possibly even distribute) their films via Rinema.
PN: Present challenges that you are facing at Rinema considering it to be a user generated content and as a startup.
GU: As for user generated content, our engagement levels are really good, so, it’s not an issue.
As a startup of course there are tons of challenges every day, but then that’s what makes them fun, isn’t it?
Indeed, the thrill in facing challenges is what makes it worthwhile. If film makers can promote and distribute their films to film buffs within a dedicated network like Rinema, the platform will serve much more in the movie business. We wish Grishma and her team the very best for Rinema.