Student Entrepreneur | Nihar Thakkar: A bright young mind who solved a daily problem faced by Bengaluru's commuters

Nihar Thakkar is a 14 year old home-schooler who developed an app that helps thousands of commuters every day. The teen developed the app ‘Bengaluru buses — Track BMTC buses in real time’ in 2017 and sees around 9000 downloads every month! The app gives users real-time information about bus routes and bus stops. It helps users track buses and plan their trips based on traffic movement, something which even the BMTC’s official app fails to do.

Dharma Life Sciences caught up with the young entrepreneur to find out how he did it.

DLS: How did you come up with the idea of creating this app?

NT: The app came about from my experience of using public buses. I started going for classes into the city and I had to take two buses. I would be waiting at a bus stop for a long time, not really knowing when the bus would come. It was quite frustrating. I initially used to use BMTC’s official app but it was inaccurate and used to frequently crash. Since I was interested in developing Android apps, I decided to see if I could build an app of my own.

DLS: How long did it take you?

NT: I started working on the app in April 2017 and released the first version in June. It was basic and only allowed users to track buses. I launched the second version in October. It has more features like a trip planner that calculates your entire route for you.

DLS: How did you market the app when it first launched?

NT: There was no advertising whatsoever. It was purely through word of mouth. It started off with just friends and family. My mother sent it to her friends and posted it on social media too. In the first couple of weeks of launching the app, I would get around 20 to 30 downloads a day. Currently, I see something like 9000 downloads a month.

DLS: Did you face any challenges? How did you move past them?

NT: Yes, one major challenge I faced was the uncertainty of the BMTC server. The data is received from the BMTC server, which started crashing as more people started using the app. This negatively impacted the rating because people couldn’t understand why the app wasn’t working. I solved this problem by modifying the error message to specifically state that the BMTC server was down, so that users would have more clarity. I also regularly reply to reviews on the Play Store to explain the situation. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that I can do and the problem still persists.

The BMTC contacted me after The Times of India published an article about the app. We were considering collaborating to improve the service but we are still in talks.

Though technically, this project was part of my regular schedule, it did interfere with some of my other activities. I would end up spending up to ten hours a day working on it and other activities had taken a backseat. My mother would have to remind me to balance my work and then I started to focus on a more diverse set of things.

DLS: Is there anything specific to you as an individual that helped you while building the app?

NT: When I first started home schooling, I used to start on many different projects but give them up once I came to an obstacle that required some time to work around. I realised that to actually build something I had to persist and work on the challenge rather than give up.

Nihar with one of his previous projects

DLS: What advice would you give to other young entrepreneurs?

NT: It is important to have persistence. When you face a hurdle, you shouldn’t just give up. You should try to figure out how to get over the hurdle. It may be difficult at first, but it becomes a lot of fun once you get over it.

I really don’t see why age matters. If you have an interesting project that you are excited to work on, age shouldn’t matter.

DLS: What are your plans for the future?

NT: Regarding the app, I plan to work on fixing bugs and maybe releasing a couple of small updates, but I am currently working on other projects. I see that the app is useful and I want to keep it running. If someone is interested to work on it, I would be very glad to let them take it forward.

As for me, I recently decided not to do my 10th standard board exams and to continue learning the way I have been as I really enjoy it. I have also been interning with a French start-up for the past few months, doing Android app development.

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Nihar is currently exploring other interests. He is working on building a drone and is doing an internship at the Indian Institute of Science. He has also picked up dance, theatre and crochet and is working on crocheting a sweater for his father!

Download his app!