VALUE over PERFORMANCE -

Rippletech

Rahul Kayastha CEO- Rippletech

“Our objective is to not only fulfill the consumer’s need, but to also form an unconventional venture that everybody would appreciate”

Rippletech: Nepal’s Own OEM Laptop Brand, established in May 2021 is a recent startup moving forward with a transcendent objective of satisfying the goal of Nepalese individuals for gaming laptops. As the first laptop manufacturer of Nepal, Rippletech is moving ahead with the objective of providing high performing laptops to Nepalese individuals at affordable price, while being committed to empower the strata of Nepalese gamers by giving premium and cost-efficient laptops and custom-built PCs in reasonable price. In order to understand this visionary idea and get more insights into the brains off the company, we had an opportunity to interview Mr. Rahul Kayastha, CEO at Rippletech, who shared his stories, struggles, and his journey behind the creation of Rippletech.

Q1. Can you share the story behind the creation of your company?

When I was in Malaysia for my psychology degree, I was in need of a Laptop. Since it was during the time of COVID-19, I had a hard time finding a suitable laptop there. In hopes of finding a suitable laptop, I stumbled upon Nepalese laptop market where I immediately noticed a vast difference in Nepalese laptop market and the Malaysian laptop market. I realized that it was very difficult and expensive to find authentic and high performing laptops in Nepal. Seeing that huge difference in Nepalese laptop market and the Malaysian laptop market, I decided to launch Nepal’s first laptop manufacturer who creates, designs, and assembles laptops, PCs, etc. to provide high performing products to people at a reasonable price. That is when the idea of Ripple came to my mind. I was highly inspired by a similar kind of System Integrator OEM in Malaysia named Illegear, who provided similar kind of services that I had in mind at that time. Seeing how Illegear was providing best performing laptops at a reasonable price in Malaysia, I thought the same thing would be possible in Nepal as well. Hence, by following and implementing ideas of Illegear, I saw a vision for my business and that is how Rippletech came to its existence.

Q2. What goals do you wish to achieve through Rippletech? What ideas do you acquire for future expansion of your business?

Purchasing a laptop in Nepal can be 20% to 30% more expensive than purchasing a laptop in the US. Our main goal is to provide high performance laptops according to the preference and need of Nepalese people at very affordable rates.

Mr. Kayastha further explains, ‘As for our ideas for future expansion, we are continuously focusing on how we can develop from an electronics manufacturer level to an industrial level. For that we have a vision to implement and create affordable banking sectors, technological sectors, etc. in Nepal to help in our overall modernization and walk on the path of industrial capacity.’

Q3. Who are your targeted customers and how do you differentiate your laptop manufacturer to other laptop manufacturers?

We are primarily focused on gamers, creators, professionals, etc. who are in need of high performance laptops at affordable prices. We are slowly planning to move our target customers towards general consumers in the future but as of now our targeted customers are creators, gamers, and professionals like software engineers, architects, etc. While creating laptops, we have a design philosophy, i.e. Value over performance. Every business runs on their own motivations and philosophies. For instance, some laptop manufacturers deliberately makes lower quality laptop series just to increase reputation for their other series laptops. Mr. Kayastha adds, “Each and every business has their own cohesive brand image, product line etc. As for our philosophy, we believe in Price to Performance philosophy and that is what makes us stand out from the rest of our competitors. We focus on analyzing and using the best designs, best configurations, etc. that gives users the best performing laptops at the lowest price possible.”

Q4. What are your current marketing strategies for your company? What were the challenges that you faced during the starting phase of your business?

Marketing can be done in various ways. As for our company, we have both social media promotions as well as physical promotions. We follow SEO marketing through Google, and do our marketing through YouTube. Not only that, we frequently sponsor events as a way to promote our company.

Everybody faces challenges when it comes to opening a business. For me, I mostly faced challenges while managing and maintaining logistics especially in the context of Nepal. I also faced challenges on customs and Nepalese legal framework which created a hindrance in our economic standpoint. Being a new company we faced difficulty in making ourselves known to people since we had little to no backup and support. It was a constant struggle to create a brand image and gather trust from people in the market. Those were the struggles we faced during our starting phase of Rippletech.

Q5. Lastly, which laptop from your laptop line would you suggest for the students?

As of now, we are yet to create laptops specially designed for students. But if I were to suggest one of our laptops for students, I would suggest Pandora Creator Edition which uses a 12th gen Intel processor. I think out of our laptops, this laptop would be the most suitable for students.

The overview of Ripple has surely given us a perspective of it being one of the pioneers in the OEM laptop manufacturing industry of Nepal, with a vision to provide better performance and quality products at more affordable price providing a better value for money for customers. The company has surely raised some eyebrows, and caught hold of the market wind through their pricing, product placement, and marketing skills, all while focusing on their target market segments.

- Dikshya Khadgi Editiorial Team

Technology has encompassed the world into a tiny village, and the internet has been one of the major contributors for this globalization. From the creation of ARPANET by the Department of Defense (DOD) in late 1960’s to the current state of the internet, engulfing almost every aspect of our lifestyle, it has surely travelled through major changes. And these changes have largely influenced the world in drastic measures. From phones to laptops to watches and even the sandwich toasters, everything is connected to the internet. Our modern world has surely become the internet of things.

But this love for the internet wouldn’t have been possible without the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), continuously trying to provide internet service to the users. Among one of the oldest private ISPs of Nepal is WorldLink. Starting their journey from providing email services, they are currently the largest private company to provide internet (FTTH) and the biggest network service provider of Nepal. WorldLink can be considered one of the leaders in innovation in terms of technology.

WorldLink’s prominent network technology, with its own VSAT uplink terminal, has contributed significantly towards strengthening its network structure and creating a better foundation for its brand name back in the starting days. With a widespread optical fiber infrastructure, this ISP provider has currently been providing high speed internet connection to its widespread target customers as per their bandwidth requirement.

WorldLink has been constantly working towards its mission and vision of providing high speed internet to connect everyone with better service. The company surely is proud of its 2 hours customer service where they give a commitment to solve any of your network issues by their support and maintenance team within a short time. MyWorldlink app has surely made interaction with their home network and ISP easier than before.

A commendable service provider, WorldLink has been providing a unique service in the market, i.e. its Wi-Fi Express service, where any WorldLink customer can connect to “MyWorldlink” SSID Wi-Fi onetime and use the internet in almost 14000+ hotspots area of Nepal. And you are probably aware about the “Free_Worldlink_Wi-Fi” SSID Wi-Fi in cafes and public areas where everyone with a Wi-Fi connection can use the 500 MB of internet without paying a dime. And this has surely helped general public to quickly connect to high speed internet without having to use their mobile data and also keep themselves entertained while running their errands.

Worldlink has grown its roots deep down in the network sector of the IT industry, and it has planned to spread out its hands to provide the best network service in each and every corner of this Himalayan nation at affordable prices. Moreover, we’re here in eager anticipation to witness further new strategies and services that this ISP giant will hopefully innovate in due course of time.