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Shark Tank India startup founder narrates how ‘dream come true' turned into 'worst nightmare' in 30 days
Shark Tank India Season 3 contestant Flexifyme's Instagram account was blocked, its founder Manjeet Singh said.
The co-founder of a start-up that was featured on business reality show Shark Tank India last month has sought the LinkedIn community's help after the company's Instagram account got blocked over an alleged logo infringement and other copyrights violations.
Manjeet Singh, co-founder of Pune-based wellness and fitness start-up FlexifyMe, took to LinkedIn to talk about what happened a month after he and the other founders appeared on Shark Tank India.
Describing it as a "Dream come True" situation turning into their "worst nightmare", Singh said the brand's Instagram account was blocked last week without any warning, exactly 30 days after Shark Tank India episode aired.
"We came to know that Sony has reported logo infringement and some other violations against us and seven other companies. All we did was uploading some reels and posts of our own episode & thanking Shark Tank India," Singh said.
"We never had any ill intentions. We were never given any warning email or calls else we would have immediately complied... We have been running pillar to post to get it resolved."
He said the the company has received no response despite writing apology emails to Sony Pictures Entertainment, Shark Tank India, legal teams and Meta teams.
Singh, in his post, shared details of how the startup got a huge boost on social media after being featured on Shark Tank India Season 3.
"Our traffic grew by approximately 80x and lead flow increased by over 40x. We got amazing visibility and branding and we were on the moon literally," he said.
On the show, the company secured ₹1 crore in funding from the show's judges Namita Thapar and Amit Jain.
Singh said the company's revenues started falling since the setback on Instagram
"Our ads account got blocked, it crashed our business and had a significant effect on leads and business. Our revenues have been constantly falling, organic traffic dropping and missing all targets," he said.
Also Read: Startup which got a deal from all 5 judges on Shark Tank India is 'returning' the cheques. Here's why
"Clients are getting worried as we have no social presence and its killer for an online business such as ours."
