Referoll pays you for your opinions

Referoll.com is the brainchild of straight-out-of-university Ariff Munshi.

As one of the finalists at last year’s Startup@Singapore and Lee Kwan Yew Global Business Plan competitions,  Singapore-based Referoll solves the problem of linking market research projects to much needed participants who come from specific demographics and backgrounds.

Since its launch in November 2011, Referoll has seen a steady growth in users and projects.

The site is a major win-win for both Referoll’s clients and users.

People who sign up on Referoll.com are able to find what Ariff calls lobangs, which colloquially means a money-making opportunity.  By taking part in research projects such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, mystery shopping trips, product testing and even medical trials, users receive attractive incentives such as cash or an iPad 2.

Clients who provide projects are given access to a potential database of test users and save the hassle of hiring expensive HR consultants. A web form is generated specifically for each project for screening interested participants and assessing their suitability.

With a degree in a totally unrelated field to market research, it’s hard to imagine how Ariff was inspired to start Referoll.

“The idea for Referoll came in December 2010. I was approached by a recruiter for market research companies who had collected particulars of  5000 people on Excel sheets across many years. I then noticed that he would tiresomely match respondents from his Excel sheets  to research projects. In that instant, I knew that much could be done to refine his method,” Ariff explains.

That was the genesis of Referoll.

The one year period between the initial conceptualisation of the idea to the actual launch was not all smooth sailing, especially for Ariff, who was not trained as a  programmer.”The main challenge I faced was finding passionate team members with relevant skills to realise my vision, given that I could not afford to pay them,” he said.

He faced the same problem of being unable to find a technical co-founder while working on his previous startup, an audio streaming website. “When I finally managed to rope in a good friend to be a partner, he left after a few months as he decided to work on his own start-up,” he lamented.