If you are tired of repeatedly explaining your address to visitors over phone, Pataa, a digital addressing app, can be of great help to you. Pataa creates a unique shortcode for your long address which makes it easy to share. Developed by Indore-based startup Pataa Technologies, the app aims to solve the poor addressing system in the country, which is costing us a lot of time and money. It also offers voiced instructions, road information and navigation, besides providing a live visitor tracking system. With revolutionary technology and state-of-the-art features, Pataa is going to be the next big thing in the world of addressing. Rajat Jain and Mohit Jain, the Co-founders of Pataa, speak more about this unique innovation, in an interaction with Ramesh Kumar Raja. Excerpts:

What is Pataa all about and what motivated you to foray into this space?

We identified the problem of unstructured and unnamed addresses in India during our travels. We realized that it was difficult to locate and share addresses. Apart from this, we observed that most people find it very frustrating when they have to explain an address over and over again to a visitor or a delivery guy. Finding a global solution to this day-to-day problem, we built a team of software engineers and intellectuals who created this amazing app.

What are the services that Pataa offers and how helpful they are for day-to-day life?

We’re all familiar with the hassles of repeatedly explaining our address to visitors and delivery guys over phone on an everyday basis and still they land up at the wrong place. Sometimes one is in a meeting or occupied with something important and is not in a position to give instructions. With Pataa, you can say goodbye to all your address explaining and sharing woes forever.

You can create your personalized or customised short code like ^SINGH221, ^KUMAR100, record voice directions in your voice to your place from a close by landmark, create Pataa extensions which can be shared by each family member or office colleague on the same address. Some locations like campuses or gated communities might have special remarks for visitors, for e.g., basement parking, one way etc. Pataa app allows the user to add these special remarks so that the visitor has prior information.

The app also provides a live visitor tracking system which enables tracking of food and courier deliveries easy in real time.

The best part is that your personal short code remains the same even if your location changes which means that you don’t need to explain your address again and again.

Can you please tell us about the technicalities involved in delivering navigation/tracking services? Does AI/AR/VR have any role to play in this regard?

Pataa is built upon secure AWS infrastructure with NodeJS based microservices and scalable architecture. It consumes many AWS services, but not limited to EC2, VPC, Load balancing, Auto scaling, S3 Bucket, Polly, Cognito, ACM, Route53 and more.

Pataa mobile app is built with native platforms of iOS and Android and developed in Swift and Java respectively.

What makes it different from others in the business of navigation?

Pataa believes in reaching out and providing solutions to all sectors of the economy, that is, B2B as well as B2C. We provide end to end compatible addressing and navigation solutions for the industry. Right from manufacturers in the industrial areas who need bulk deliveries, retailers in the market to ecommerce service providers and platforms- Pataa is useful to everyone. We feel when each one is benefited with the features we have to offer, it leads to the ease of operating in the entire ecosystem.

Many service providers will be benefited by Pataa’s unique offerings like short code, recorded voice directions, photos, extensions etc. All these features help delivery and parcel guys save time and fuel because they can reach their destination quickly and easily. This gives them an edge as prompt services lead to customer satisfaction and hence retention. At the same time, the end users are of equal importance to Pataa, who can easily use the above-mentioned features to share their address and make it easier for visitors to reach them.

Another advantage over other apps is that the Pataa app is also available in Hindi which makes it accessible for people in rural areas. Some of them do not even have an address which makes receiving deliveries impossible for them. With Pataa, they can easily procure loans, buy and sell land, farm equipment and do business.

Emergency services like ambulance, police and fire brigade can now reach a person without wasting time and lives can be saved.

With the Pataa Block Code system, the entire globe has been divided into 53 trillion blocks with an accuracy of 3*3 square meters. In other words, this accurate location can be shared with anyone making situations like emergencies easy to deal with.

How is the response of Pataa app on Google Play and App Store?

The response is tremendous. We have 3 million downloads in a matter of 3 months and enjoy a rating of 4.1. The numbers speak for themselves.

Who are your prominent subscribers in India and what is your business model?

We aim to provide every Indian a unique digital address through Pataa. The app is absolutely free of cost because it is our vision that maximum Indians should benefit from it.

Are you looking for collaboration with smartphone players similar to Google Maps that comes inbuilt with Android phones?

Yes. And along with that we are working towards collaborating with navigation and ecommerce companies.

How do you look at India as a market and what’s your strategy to popularise Pataa app?

The Pataa app aims to integrate all Indians, with special attention to rural India which lacks the basic infrastructure for addressing. Keeping this in mind, the app has a Hindi version along with the English one, which makes it accessible to every urban and rural Indian. Apart from this, great care has gone into making its interface and features user friendly. It can be easily run by a professional or a homemaker because its instructions are simple and functional. The app is available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. We aim to reach maximum users through every available platform.

What are the features that you are planning to add in order to make this app more unique?

Our future offerings include- drone delivery systems, autonomous vehicles and Block Code. We hope that in future every global citizen will be able to take advantage of the Pataa app and reach their desired destination with precision and ease.