Filebite is a social storage platform used for the organisation and management of your files in a privatized and secure cloud. Whether you are a professional, small business or a student, Filebite offers a social and practical service to suit your file needs all based under a stylish and easy to use interface. And I was lucky enough to get a written interview with Sunil Mark Singh, co-founder of Filebite.
Faizan (Interviewer): When did you come up with the idea of Filebite, how did it come about? Did you think about it while you were at university? What was your main goal in setting about realising the idea of Filebite?
Sunil: We came up with the idea of Filebite at university; both Jason (co-founder) and I were doing our dissertations at the time. I studied how social media can affect business performance and he studied cloud security, both of these topics provided a base to what Filebite should incorporate. We wanted a system that would benefit the user through communication and collaboration but remain simple and practical.
Faizan: How did you go about executing your idea? Do/did you manage university and work for Filebite at the same time? Were there any sacrifices you had to make in order to make your idea a reality? Or did you work on Filebite after university? Did you try for a job or was Filebite your absolute goal?
Sunil: We spent our time at university researching our market, so when we left we could focus on making it a reality. We knew we had to make sacrifices; we had to work our nights and weekends to really make it happen. It’s not an easy lifestyle, but you look at it as an investment to your future. This is also why helping start-ups and young people is important to us, so they know that you don’t always have to follow the rule book.
No, university didn’t help us. We learnt a lot at Bournemouth university but I think the time was right to explore avenues outside.
Faizan: Who funded your idea and did you approach many? Did your university help you in executing your project, is it privately funded or is it self-funded? How did they help? Share the best advice you got in establishing Filebite.
Sunil: We funded Filebite from our savings. There is no external help financially. We believe that we can do this ourselves and are not afraid of learning from our mistakes. If someone decides to come and help, then we will always put the business’s best interests first. At the end of the day, we are the ones who run it.
The biggest tool we had to get Filebite going was our mind-set. If you want something, you go and get it. If you don’t quite get there, change your path and try again. It is a challenge and that is what is exciting about it. I think if you focus and set your mind to something, then you can do anything. That would be the best advice to get started.
Faizan: What do you think of Universities at the moment? Are they encouraging entrepreneurs or are students being put off by the university burden? Do you think students are motivated enough to realise the ideas they have?
Sunil: To be honest, I do feel they could do more. I think it is expected for their students to go into jobs to hep build their connections. We both did placements and the Uni was extremely supportive. However, always wanting to do my own thing, I believe that side wasn’t given enough encouragement, especially after I left.
I think you get so sucked into completing work for your classes, its difficult to go into the unknown and try and do it yourself. At university, you have that time to really stimulate ideas, it doesn’t mean you have to give up the student lifestyle, it just means you have to be organised. Students have so many great ideas and we would love to see more of them starting their own businesses after university. We realise it is hard, so if their was some kind of mentoring support, that would be a really positive thing , especially for the UK. That is something that we would love to do as we establish ourselves.
Filebite User Interface of Career Geek Blog
Faizan: How is Filebite different from other cloud services and is it aimed at today’s social network and social sharing graduates and students?
Sunil: We want to make Filebite not just about file-storage, we want to combine a number of features such as simplicity, practicality and sociability to provide an overall experience. The UK cloud is underdeveloped and we want to put us back on the map with a tech platform. We adopted a ‘simpler is better’ mantra to make sure people understand. However, we are constantly listening to feedback and looking to improve it to make it better. The market moves pretty quickly so we just have to make sure we keep on top of it.
At the minute we are looking at small businesses and developing something appealing for them as our target audience. However, as we have a free side, we would encourage students to sign up and use us when sharing work. When we were doing our dissertations I used email. It was boring and tedious. I think Filebite can combat this issue and make sharing work docs a bit more interesting. Due to automatically sorting your files into categories and allowing multiple versions of the same file can help to organise your work.
Faizan: What are your aspirations for the future with regards to Filebite? How are you planning on expanding/developing/getting a wider audience?
Sunil: We are looking at taking Filebite to the next level with a more professional and simpler user interface. We feel we have a good understanding of what we can do to make it a success after receiving feedback. It will take a lot of work and effort, but then again that is part of the challenge. The site is monetised through packages, so money we get will get put back into the company to improve it and focus on other marketing techniques that cost a bit more than our current budget. Hopefully it will be worth it. Onwards and upwards.
Faizan: Thanks for the interview, Sunil. Good luck with carrying Filebite forward and I am sure this interview will help other graduates strongly look into entrepreneurship.
