Tired of Google's long list of results? This start-up can help narrow down your options

Expert advice is only one call away with Teja Gudluru’s app UDo. He tells us about the plans he has in store for the app and how it can get you expert answers ASAP
Gudluru is piloting with a client which is present in more than 17 countries | Pics: R Satish Babu
Gudluru is piloting with a client which is present in more than 17 countries | Pics: R Satish Babu

What was the last thing you googled? If it was a health-related query, the internet must have convinced you by now that you have a life-threatening ailment. If you were trying to find a suitable career, it must have confused you with several options. If you wanted to know whether a transit visa is needed for a stopover of more than nine hours in Singapore... don’t ask Google. Just take it from Teja Gudluru when he says that googling won’t help at all. “When it comes to specific situations which require judgement, these standard apps or the internet just don’t work,” he says. 

But Gudluru’s mission with UDo is not to replace Google — they just want to offer customised answers to your queries, or in Gudluru’s words, “We want to make everybody lazy,” and with an expert just one call away, we would say that Gudluru is getting mighty close to achieving that. But on a more serious note, he highlights the mission of his start-up, “We want to use technology to enhance human interaction.”

Better together: The founders of the UDo app

UDo is an application, available on Android, that brings together a range of experts who you can turn to for advice on anything — from interview tips to help with picking restaurants. “It is this innate quality of advising that we are tapping into,” says Gudluru. It’s quite simple really! Just download the app, search for an expert and call them (now, you can also schedule a call) and find your answers. These answers come from certified experts, certified by the company only after they give a credibility and competence test along with their KYC. Following this, a verification call and a short interview is conducted to ensure that the ones who finally get to answer your queries are competent enough to do so.

Gudluru is an international trainer, motivational speaker, behavioural coach and management consultant, and by continuing with these pursuits, he is funding UDo. The app remains free for students to use and yet, pays experts to answer queries. So, for now, the small and passionate team which includes Baba Sai Batte and Komal Kumar Raghupatruni are bootstrapping. And to sustain this model further, they want to focus on their business-to-business model. 

In a country that loves giving advice, it is a taboo to seek advice as well. We are trying to use technology to enhance human interaction through UDo’s intervention

Teja Gudluru, founder, UDo

Through UDo, Gudluru also wants companies to utilise their internal talent pool — people who have been in the organisation for a considerable amount of time and know their way around clients and even bosses — to help out those who are new, through UDo, which could be their internal coaching app. These senior members will be available on-demand to help their juniors crack a tough deal, over a call. “Just like companies now say, ‘Follow us on Twitter’, I want them to say, ‘Talk to us on Udo’,” says the 37-year-old. 

UDo, Gudluru says, can also help create mobile employment and citizen inclusive governments. “If the government is ready to support us, we want to bring on to our platform retired personnel, government-registered tour guides and more to help the many tourists who visit Hyderabad and help them navigate the city better, to inform them about travel expenses, how to bargain and more,” shares Gudluru, who is in talks with a London-based company for a partnership and already has the Government of Malaysia on board.      

Five Point Someone:
UDo provides customised advice from experts
The certified experts are available on call
Anyone looking for an expert opinion can schedule a call
One can also opt for an expert along a wide range of verticals
If you are an expert, you can get paid too by registering with them

Gudluru recalls for us how, when they started, they decided to go full throttle and launched as many as 20 verticals of experts, but soon found that they weren’t receiving much traction. But they rectified it and decided to concentrate on only five areas including relationship advice, stress management and wellness. While this challenge has been dealt with, another one persists — of reaching out to more people and keeping the calls free while paying experts for advice. But we’d say they are on the right track.

For more, click on udo-now.com

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