Exec Digital catches up with Daniel Jupp, founder of newly-launched search engine Oparla, and finds a burgeoning product in the making
By Ben Lobel
Oparla – could it be the next Google? 29-year-old British founder Daniel Jupp is sure that it can. Under the intriguing premise of paying people to surf the internet, Jupp aims to make his product a household name within five years.
So how will the user payment scheme work?
Initially what we’ll be doing is a daily prize draw. When you register as a user you are automatically entered every day into our daily draw with the chance to win between £10 and £1,000. After that, we’ll be looking at other ways to reward our clients. As far as I’m aware, we are the only search engine that plans to pay or reward its users.
What are some of the other features of the product?
When you have your favourites on a computer and you go to another machine, the favourites are gone, so we’ll have an ‘online favourites’ function. We’ve also got a star ratings system for websites, giving the opportunity to warn other users about problems with ordering goods online from certain websites, or conversely recommend other websites.
How has the marketing process gone?
All our marketing has been done offline through radio, TV, and magazines. We’ve committed a significant amount in the first month. Getting advertising is obviously key and it’ll be around three or four months before we can generate revenue from that.
Where do you see the product in five years' time?
Hopefully we’ll be a recognised name. There are always new things popping up online, Twitter, Digg, and so on. Now is a great time for a new search engine in the UK.