Warranties, a set of terms and agreements established by the manufacturer, are used to signal high quality and increase customer trust.
But when something you own breaks down, are you, the customer, ever able to successfully locate the manual for the product–originally purchased two years ago? Or do you struggle finding the warranty at a time of urgent repair or replacement?
Ishu Singh can empathize. One day, after trying to fix a broken appliance back in 2017, Singh was unable to locate his warranty, and could not recall any of the product’s terms and conditions. He grew frustrated and impatient, unable to understand why it was so difficult to keep track of warranties and user manuals.
Singh, who comes from a family of entrepreneurs, used the experience as motivation to create Innstal, an app that helps you replace traditional hard copies of warranties and manuals with accessible, digital copies. With the click of a button, you can find nearly 1.5 million manuals, curated for all sorts of product users. These documents can either be downloaded or viewed directly on the app, in both text and video format.
Users also have the option to add multiple warranties to the app for different products. After a warranty is claimed through the app, an email is pushed to the manufacturer to process the claim. In the future, the app will also directly link to the manufacturer and further speed up the process of claiming a warranty.
The idea for the Innstal app finally came to fruition in 2019, after it made its formal debut on the Android market.
But this innovative idea and all its success didn’t come to Singh overnight. For example, during the early days of Innstal, Singh struggled to fund the project. Despite his family running a successful business back in India, Singh never asked them for any money–instead, he was determined to gather his own resources, working two extra jobs to raise the funds he needed.
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But even more concerning, and potentially much more destructive–Singh encountered people who went out of their way to plant seeds of doubt into his mind. They made it clear that they hoped to see Innstal fail. These toxic people with their discouraging comments affected the entrepreneur tremendously, making him question whether they were right and he was wrong.
As it turned out, Ishu Singh was right all along.
Despite the self-doubt and financial hurdles, Singh believed deeply in Innstal and never gave up. Ultimately, Singh’s powerful vision of this app became the North Star to guide him along the way, and which helped him succeed under his own power – self determination.
