When Chandigarh-based Prashant Sharma (22) and Mohak Goyal (24) went to Gurgaon earlier this year, it was with the intention of selling a mobile application, Instaport (the “Uber for mini trucks”) to a company. What the duo ended up doing, instead, was staying back in the city and unearthing a business case for another app altogether.

What caught the youngsters’ attention was all the people clicking pictures of the plates they were served at restaurants, or doing check-ins. They realised that customers are constantly engaging with the brands by doing indirect marketing of a specific brand in social media.

So Prashant and Mohak came up with the idea of Buck Apps this April, which enables merchants to analyse the number of footfalls and spends of customers, thereby helping them to reach out to their existing customer base. The users, on the other hand, can get rewards for their spending and visits at their favorite outlets. The app discovers nearby stores and incentivises the customers’ activities. Prashant, a final year student of Punjab Engineering College says,

If a customer visits a restaurant and uploads his bill on Bucks platform he/she will be enrolled to the loyalty programme of that restaurant and will be given an option to choose any one offer from three verticals (saloon, departmental store and clothing). That’s how cross promotion is done and it increases visibility for everyone.

The duo has bootstrapped Buck Apps with Rs five lakh, earned from their previous ventures, including Mohak’s scholarship (a branch topper).

Entrepreneurial journey

Prashant had always had a flair for entrepreneurship. He started his venture, UCUPS, in 2014 while in the second year of his college. An advertising company, it used to generate money by placing advertisements on disposable paper cups (used for chai, coffee, shakes etc.). However lack of supply chain management led Prashant to shut down the venture last April. Prashant recalls,

In a span of six months, I have generated revenue of Rs 15 lakh from 10 clients. We used to charge the clients for manufacturing and distribution cost of the cups. Then these cups with advertisement on them are sold to merchants at a much lower rate than that existing in the market. That’s how it was always a profitable business.

Later, in 2015, Prashant tried his hand at developing a product around on-demand food delivery. But, later, he realised that he was good at marketing and operation only and needed someone to handle the technology. At this juncture, he met Mohak, who is an alumnus of Punjab Engineering College, and was working on the project Instaport.  Fascinated by the idea of the project, Prashant had joined hands with Mohak.

Initial phase

Buck App was launched in Chandigarh by the name of Instacart, as a loyalty solution for restaurants to rewards their customers according to their spending at a particular outlet. When they failed to gain significant traction in one month, Prashant and Mohak huddled again and finally settled on rewarding the customer for each visit.

And this time they went out to all the four verticals—food and drinks, salon, departmental stores and clothing—in the market. Then they upgraded the app, named it Buck Apps, and started giving merchants access to analytics and technology that would help boost their profits.

Revenue generation

BuckApp charges Rs 4,000 per month for every outlet and currently has around 130 outlets in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali and Ludhiana using the app. Of that number, 23 are paid customers, while the rest are on a three-month trial. The startup is growing by 40 percent month on month.

BuckApp has witnessed 3,000 downloads in three months and received bills worth Rs 15 lakh with an average ticket size of Rs 1,000. Around 50 to 60 bills are added on daily basis from various outlets.

The startup has a team of 12 people, and going forward, it will set up operations in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. It expects to witness 400-500 downloads per day.

Market overview

The offline retail market in India is set to reach $1 trillion by 2020. A report by Ernst & Young says the current market size is close to $600 billion with less than 10 percent of organised retailing and 90 percent of them are semi-organised.

Much like Buck Apps is Gurgaon-based Crown-it app, which lets customers collect crowns from local businesses in the form of cashback, to redeem goodies like online shopping, movie tickets and phone talk time. With Gurgaon-based Magicpin, students can post selfies taken in a local shop and submit a photo of the bill on the app. After which, rewards points reflect on the app, which later can be redeemed in small retail business.

Buck Apps

Technology has become the key driver for Indian startups. And what better place to build a strong Indian technological base than in Bengaluru? “All the key top technical talent is in Bengaluru, it was about time that we set up a strong nerve centre and base in the city,” said Sanjay Mohan, Chief Technology Officer, MakeMyTrip, at the opening of the company’s new technology centre in the city.

Founded in April 2000 by Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip has been one of earliest Internet travel-based companies in the country. Headquartered in Gurgaon, the founding team has experienced several highs and lows, from the dot-com boom to its subsequent bust, from investor pull-out to the 2008 economic crisis.

The Bengaluru centre will be play a key role in the company’s future plans and innovations. Chief Product Officer Anshuman Bapna explains that the focus on setting up a Bengaluru office was to build a centre that drives all product and platform innovations.

Building a complete travel and transportation ecosystem

The company aims to build a complete travel and transportation ecosystem that helps the Indian traveller end-to-end on every trip he/she takes.  Products like route planner, travel advisor, recommendations for hotels, booking ease are some of the key innovations the team is currently making on the platform.

From the time MakeMyTrip went public with its IPO, it seems to be steadily moving towards the –singular goal of raising funds from Chinese travel service provider Ctrip early this year, making key hires from competition, acquisitions and acquihires.

The company is setting up a team of over 200 engineers, product managers and designers in the Bengaluru centre, which will have end-to-end ownership of product development and innovation.

Bengaluru: nerve centre for innovation and development

On why Bengaluru, Anshuman says,

“We fundamentally aim to make MakeMyTrip an intensely tech-led company and what better place than to start with Bengaluru. We aren’t trying to ape the West or look at China; our aim is to build innovations that intuitively help the traveller at every stage of his or her travel. And these are fundamentally Indian innovations.”

The vision for Bengaluru will be:

1. Building the MakeMytTrip core platform with strong focus on mobile: While the focus will be on mobile, the team intends to build the platform for low bandwidth and low-end phone user segment.
2. Incubate new product lines – The team aims to experiment with disruptive products in transportation, solve the problem of trip planning and build trip companions that use machine learning to help travellers during their trips. In terms of disruptive products in transportation, Anshuman adds that they are looking for partnerships, and developing other new products to help transform the way Indians travel.

Thrust on mobile

Indian travel has gone online and is strongly a mobile-first economy.  A report by IAMAI and KPMG projects that India will reach 236 million mobile Internet users by 2016, and 314 million by 2017.

Looking at this trend, MakeMyTrip has bolstered its mobile strategy over the past year. Today, it claims to have over 50 percent of the overall online flight booking market share, and over 23 million app downloads.

MakeMyTrip generated a revenue of $121.2 million in the quarter ending June 30, 2016, showcasing an increase of 29.4 percent over revenue of $93.7 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2015.

Some key innovations the team has incorporated include ‘Route Planner’, which enables users to search across a billion route-and-mode combinations within India, and ‘Buddy Planner’, which creates connections from Point A to B even when no direct connections exist.

Apart from this, in the last six months, the team has worked on fare alerts, calendar alerts, which let you know when the best time to travel to a location would be, and at the best price, and instant refunds in case bookings fail.

The team is also looking to change the way its progressive web apps (PWAs) interact with the user. Anshuman says,

As of now the mobile web is just a modified version of the desktop. We want to change that and focus on desktop as a separate interface and mobile as a separate one. Mobile cannot be a downsized version of the desktop.

Aggressive push into hotel and accommodations space

“While flights contributed to most of our revenue share, we now are noticing a shift towards hotels and holiday package bookings, and that will be the key focus for MakeMyTrip this coming year,” notes Anshuman.

The company’s revenue contributions from non-flight bookings, that is, from hotels and packages, increased to 56.3 percent in 1Q16, while its gross bookings for the period was $565.9 million, marking an increase of 27.4 percent.

MakeMyTrip made a revenue of $95.6 million in the quarter ending June 30, 2016, showcasing a 32 percent increase from $72.5 million in quarter ending June 30, 2015.

The company’s year-on-year growth in this segment was due to strong growth in the standalone hotel booking segment. The team has also built products and services that not only help consumers book more easily and faster, but has also propelled the supply side to help serve the hotels in revenue generation.

The focus isn’t just on hotel bookings, though. The team is looking to integrate and aggregate all the non-hotel stay options on a separate platform called RightStay, which had a soft launch on Android and already has over 5,000 downloads.

Anshuman says,

RightStay works as a separate entity, the platform as of now says ‘powered by MakeMyTrip’. With this we intend to disrupt the homestay and non-hotel stay options. In a way, we will be competing with ourselves. But like always the idea is to disrupt ourselves before others do.

Website

One of the biggest deterrents for people to report a crime they witnessed or take any legal action in India is the tardiness in closing a case. Rishabh Gupta and his family were stuck with case proceedings for over eight years. This was when Rishabh (29) realised he wasn’t alone and that there were many like him facing the same challenge.

“Not only is it difficult to find a lawyer experienced in your type of case, but following up during case proceedings can be a nightmare and there is no fee transparency,” he quips.

This was when Rishabh, an IIT Rourkee alumnus, realised the need for a better legal system in a democracy such as ours. Myadvo was then born, to become a legal concierge service that connects clients to the right lawyers, based on their requirement and budgets.

Roping in friends

Rishabh roped in Kushal Bhagat, his friend from IIT Rourkee, who dealt with similar legal hassles. Rishabh points out that there are over 50 million individuals and corporates who need to engage a lawyer every year and yet there is no platform that provides curated and relevant information on lawyers, to find and engage them for their legal battles.

With Myadvo, the team decided to build an in-depth lawyer profiling mechanism that covered their areas of practice, client reviews, education, consultation charges and other dynamic variables. The information is dynamically updated using an algorithm.

“Additionally, we also provide support to our clients during their case, by assigning them a case manager, who follows up with the lawyer, helps file documents and keeps the client updated on the case progress,” says Rishabh.

However, coming in from a pure technology background, the team initially found it difficult to convince the lawyers.

Running round courts

Explaining the troubles they faced Rishabh explains:

For the first few weeks, we walked into lawyers’ chambers in Saket Court, Tiz Hazari Court and Patiala House Court, convincing them of the value-add that we could bring. That is how we got the first 50 lawyers to register on the platform. Later, we used SMS campaigns, a lot of cold-calling and email campaigns to on-board lawyers.

On-boarding clients wasn’t an easy task either. Rishabh says that in the cold Delhi winters, they would distribute pamphlets outside Saket court and carry a tablet to convince people to take a look and pose a question on the website.

This was how they found their first client in a woman fighting a divorce and child custody case. She was unhappy with her lawyer and when the team showed her profiles of lawyers practising in Saket Court, she ended up hiring one of them.

Soon enough, the startup was flooded with queries on its site, thanks to referrals and leads.

Workings of Myadvo

Starting out in September 2015, this Delhi-based startup now has a team of 12 people. The initial team was built of friends: Harshal Gupta, a former American Express employee, Sahil Grover, former Lead Sales, Zo Rooms, Saurabh Dalal, former DCE employee, Ujjwal Agarwal, Neeraj Dwevedi of Zomato and Vasundhara Shankar.

Once the team began operations, they found that providing active case support wasn’t that simple. “We decided to assign young lawyers as case managers, to help in case support,” says Rishabh.

Users can engage with MyAdvo in multiple ways. They have the option of posting an anonymous question on the website and receive legal advice from expert lawyers around them. They also can search through lawyer profiles and directly book consultations with the lawyer suiting their requirement.

Corporates, SMEs can simply post their legal project on the platform and receive proposals from multiple expert law firms within 24-48 hours.

Working along differentiators

According to a news report, over 20 million cases are still pending in Indian courts. It is, therefore, no surprise that startups are mushrooming in the space to help individuals, corporates and SMEs fight their legal battles.

Delhi-based LawRato raised a funding of $100,000 from a group of angel investors, BITS Pilani alumni-founded GetLegal raised an undisclosed amount of funding, Legistify and National Law School alumnus-founded Vakil Search raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Kalaari Capital.

Currently bootstrapped, Myadvo, claims to have already generated close to Rs 15 lakh in revenues, helped resolve 9,500 legal queries, facilitated over Rs 1.5 crore in lawyer fees and has expanded its lawyer network to 1,000 lawyers spread across 85 cities.

“We’ve grown our revenues at a compounded rate of roughly 85 percent month-on-month. We generated Rs 5.7 lakh in revenues in June alone, turning operationally profitable,” says Rishabh.

By June, the team also collabarated with corporate players like Karbonn, Panasonic and Hindware for their consumer litigation cases. They are also helping them with lawyer discovery, price discovery and case updates. they claim to be helping these corporate players with over 500 consumer litigation cases spread across 50 Indian cities.

The team charges a nominal fee from clients who book a legal consultation or legal service through MyAdvo and a subscription fee from the lawyers.

Speaking about the differentiator, Rishabh says that their depth of lawyer profiling and active client support leads to higher fulfilment. He adds that they have helped people across property issues, medical negligence, divorce, child custody, immigration, cheque bounce cases, consumer cases, legal drafting, intellectual property disputes, fund raising for startups, amongst others.

“Soon we’ll be coming up with applications that automate case support and helps lawyers manage their cases,” says Rishabh.

Website

Binay, 28, who recently got married, has been facing problems in bed, right from the wedding night. The fact that they haven’t been able to consummate their marriage  has been affecting his marriage.

Twenty-year-old Adhikar is hooked to live sex chat and porn sites. He is unable to sleep without watching porn.

Both are seeking help on Cupidcare.

The website gives room for various such queries, posed to doctors and specialists.

According to a research, one in every five individuals suffers from sexual health concerns. Most males—as many as 75 percent—are reluctant to talk to their doctors about sexual problems. It is a staggering number and demands immediate concern.

Sriram Varma and Krishna Teja, colleagues at a Bay Area-based healthcare management consulting firm, realised that while there are many online platforms offering various kinds of healthcare solutions, there’s no platform dedicated to sexual health concerns.

Since October last year, after meeting sexologists, gynaecologists and psychologists to understand the need for an online platform. The team realized 70% of cases can be dealt online.

In April 2016, they launched Cupidcare, a sexual health startup enabling customers to remotely interact with verified sexual health experts and also book diagnostics anonymously.

“We have tried to offer solutions in the area of healthcare where people are hesitant to open up,” says Sriram, 26.

He adds that through this platform, people from all walks of life and age groups have been able to address their sexual health concerns. “We are glad that in 3 months of our operations we are able to touch the lives of students, IT professionals, Working women, LGBTQs to 60Yr old gentlemen. Our user concerns range from Psychosexual disorders, irregular periods to unwanted pregnancies.”

The Hyderabad-based platform provides text, audio and video-based consulting. There are 20 providers, including doctors and counsellors, sexologists, psychologists, andrologists, psychiatrists and gynaecologists, available on the platform.

The platform offers three kinds of services – users can ask questions, privately consult doctors and enjoy diagnostic facilities. Users can get their questions answered from specialists through online and also take discreet diagnostic tests , where blood samples, urine samples are picked up from the customer’s place of comfort.

Asking questions is free of cost, in which case the platform offers preliminary answers from the specialists. on queries. The second service is private consultation where the patient can seek both online and personal appointment with a doctor or health expert.

The diagnostic services, which are available in Hyderabad only, are chargeable. Currently, they offer diagnostic services such as STD tests and sexual potency tests in Hyderabad.

Sriram says that for online consultation, the service is available across the country. However, for personal appointments, the service is available in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, and Kolkata.

Business model

Till now, the duo has pumped in Rs 10 lakh into the platform. They have invested the money in technology, marketing and customer acquisition.

The platform follows a revenue sharing model with doctors and diagnostic centres.

According to Sriram, the platform is witnessing around 40 percent month-on-month growth and has served around 600 cases online, of which 30 percent are international patients from US, Europe, South East Asia and Africa.

Targeting expansion

By the end of the year, Cupidcare plans to on-board more than 50 experts on the platform and reach out to almost all Tier-I cities.  It is also looking forward to partnering with schools to offer sex education to children.

“Today, our focus is to reach out to as many cities as possible. To achieve this expansion plan, we need more funds. We are in talks with some investors and will soon be able to raise funding,” says Sriram.

Is Cupidcare alone?

The healthcare sector was estimated to be worth $75 billion during 2012-13 and is projected to reach $280 billion by 2020, according to a report released by India Brand Equity.

In a market of so much potential, Practo is another similar platform that covers the entire gamut of doctors for appointments. Tencent-backed Practo is among the leading players in this space, having acquired multiple startups such as Fitho, Genii and Qikwell. Practo has also entered the online medicine ordering segment.

Portea is another established player in this sector. Early this year, it acquired a majority stake in PSTakeCare.

Lybrate is yet another platform that helps patients communicate with a network of doctors through a mobile app or online. Last year, it secured $10.2 million in Series A funding from Tiger Global Management, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, and existing investor Nexus Venture Partners.

These platforms offer complete appointment services to patients. Apart from these, new platforms are also coming up to create a niche for themselves in the segment.

Website

Given the multiple questions investors asked Hemalatha Annamalai, raising funds could not have been an easy task. The founder of Coimbatore-based Ampere Electric recalls,

When an investor provoked me to prove if we have the tenacity to pull out big players from the electric vehicle game who have long arms and deep pockets, it gave me the guts to look straight and tell him, ‘Sir, the big players are fighting not to lose on a brand created; I am fighting to win to create something new.’ He then realised that he was talking to a daring entrepreneur who would not accept a NO easily.

Hemalatha’s sheer persistence in due course has attracted the investment from Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, Ratan Tata, last year. This year, Ampere Electric has raised $1 million from  Infosys Co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan along with participation from Venk Krishnan, CEO of NuWare and Partner NuVentures, as reported by VCCircle.

Today her venture is one of the few to have made their mark in the developing Indian electric vehicle industry. Founded in 2007, the company is in the business of designing and manufacturing e-cycles, e-scooters, e-trolleys (for carrying load), and special-purpose vehicles for waste management and to cater to differently abled persons. The cost of e-cycles ranges between Rs 20,000 and 30,000 and e-scooters are available in the range between Rs 20,000 and 45,000.

Hemalatha is quite content with setting up base in Coimbatore and is reluctant to move to metro cities. She asks,

Who will then give jobs to people in tier II, III, and IV towns if everybody moves to metro cities?

According to a Yourstory Research report, the startup fraternity attracted a total funding of $1.42 billion in Q1 2016 and $870 million in Q2 2016, while Q1 2015 had seen a total infusion of funds worth $1.7 billion and Q2 2015, $3.8 billion.

This year, startups from Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad seem to be the front runners in the funding game. Sectors receiving heavy funding include Healthcare, Marketplace, SaaS, Fintech, -E-commerce, Edtech, and Hyperlocal.

Do investors treat startups from non-metro cities equally?

IDG Ventures Founder and MD TC Meenakshi Sundaram stated that they do not differentiate among startups based on location but go by the quality of the entrepreneurs. However, 80 to 90 percent of the deals that happened through IDG Ventures were from cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai.

“VCs are travelling to smaller towns these days to evaluate the availability of highly specific investment opportunities,” says Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures. He highlighted that unavailability of infrastructure (roads, power, water, and internet), language, local political issues, and limited channels of marketing and distribution are some of the factors that deter startups from remote areas from to attracting capital.

Unlike metro cities, the ecosystems in small towns are restricted to limited infrastructure, dearth of talent pool, unawareness of the market competitions, and smaller client base. Sundaram emphasised that strong angel network, mentoring startups in those areas, and supportive role of incubators and accelerators are the need of the hour to elevate the ecosystem.

“Chandigarh Angels Network (CAN) has been trying to build the local startup ecosystem. We mentor startups, invest in them, help them validate their ideas, and offer them our business networks. We have also sensitised over 5,000 young, wannabe entrepreneurs via startup bootcamps, startup weekends, and hackathons,” says Vineet Khurana, VP (Operations), Chandigarh Angels Network.

Founded in September 2015, CAN has 26 investors and has made three investments — inventory liquidation platform JumboBasket, social learning platform Eckovation, and DoneThing, a concierge delivery, bill payment, and personal assistance platform. Their range of investment is between Rs 10 lakh to 2 crore.

“Startups in smaller cities need to become more mature with better capabilities. They should spend more time learning about the key factors required for their venture to succeed,” says Priyansh Rai, Investment Associate, Swan Angel Network (Indore).

Swan Angel Network was started in January 2016 and now has 38 members with a committed capital of about Rs 15 crore.  Last month, they have committed to investing in Onspon, an event discovery and sponsorship platform. They invest in the range of Rs 50 lakh to 1.5 crore.

Madurai-based Nativelead Foundation’s range of investment is between Rs 10 lakh and 50 lakh. Founded in 2012, the angel network has 145 investors and two portfolio companies in the water technology and agriculture sectors. Geographically, they cover Tamil Nadu’s tier II and III cities, among which Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Erode, and Salem are a few.

Is geographical location a barrier for small-town startups?

Lucknow-based EduAce Services Founder and CEO Gaurava Yadav does not consider location a barrier when it comes to raising funds. Instead, he believes small towns offer more opportunities as compared to metro cities.

According to him, getting access to investors in the world of internet is not a challenging task, thereby minimising geographical barriers. If one has the knowhow of the markets he/she is going to target accompanied by the right set of products, one will be able to attract investors regardless of where one is based. Economic manpower, strong operations, low burn rate, and high cash flow will definitely lead to success.

EduAce Services offers holistic learning solutions for students between Class VI to XII which include General Knowledge and Quizzing Aptitude Test (G-QAT). With 2,500 schools and 2.5 lakh students on its platform, this Lucknow-based edtech startup recently raised $1 million funding. Why he chose Lucknow over Delhi and whether he planned to expand operations beyond Lucknow were a couple of the things Gaurava had to explain to investors.

 A $1 million fund for a startup based out of tier II, III, or IV cities is huge because the cost of operations is one-third of the total expenses of a startup based out of a metro city,” says Gaurava.

Founded in 2010, Madurai-based poultry farming startup Happy Hens raised Rs 50 lakh from Native Lead Foundation. They cater to 45 outlets across Bengaluru and produce 25,000 eggs per month. The startup also claims to have received a lot of queries from Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai.

“An entrepreneur may have the knowledge of the product or service he is into but may not have the experience on the financial aspects and its presentations. When we were asked what amount of money we wanted to raise, we underestimated our requirement. That’s when the investors asked us to rework on the financials which made us do the exercise all over again and it was a great learning experience,”says Happy Hens Founder Manjunath Marappan.

According to Vikram Gupta, there are two types of business models that are suitable for the tier II and III towns:

(1) The ones that have been proven in the metros and are now ready to be launched in tier II and III towns

(2) The ones that are suitable primarily for tier II and III towns. Moreover, they should develop products and solutions that are highly localised.

Ensuring growth

Small-town entrepreneurs should focus only on creating sustainable business models to gain an edge over their peers in metro cities. Moreover, getting the right co-founders and mentors who can bring enterprise-level expertise and capabilities can also lead to incremental growth. There is no reason why  startups from interior locations cannot grow if they have the capability to think big, plan strategically, and build strong teams.

Udupi-based mobile solutions provider Robosoft Technologies bore testament to that when it raised Rs 22 crore from Kalaari Capital in 2013 in its first round of funding. The story of how Robosoft Founder Rohith Bhat dared to build an IT company in Udupi, generating hundreds of jobs in the town, is one that has encouraged many. It forced a lot of people into thinking about what they could achieve in a big city if someone could do so much in a small town.

Last April, the company secured its second round of funding from Ascent Capital with participation from the existing investor Kalaari Capital. Founded in 1996, Robosoft partners with clients both in India and abroad, with a majority of business coming from US-based clients. Rohith says,

Everybody struggles to raise funds irrespective of where they are based out of. VCs do come down to small towns to evaluate your business model if you have built an innovative product. One should focus only on escalating the business without losing hope.

At 4 feet, 11 inches, Neha Satak from Beawar in Rajasthan stands tall in the crowd of young entrepreneurs today. Giving up promising prospects in the US, she returned to set up a space technology company out of India in 2014.

Astrome Technologies, the company she started with Prasad HL Bhat, Chairman and CTO, is all set to shake up how internet connectivity is available not only in India but also everywhere else in the developing world. If you thought Google’s Project Loon and Facebook’s solar drone project were mind blowing, then listen to this.

“Imagine if you are able to stream a full HD video from any remote location in India. That is the goal of our company in 2020. We plan to provide broadband internet service using a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit with our patented MM wave technology,” says Neha.

What this essentially means is that her company will be delivering internet from space. Ground technology has to do a lot more in terms of money and effort to provide internet connectivity to non-urban areas. In India, the number of internet users is growing fast — with 277 million users, it has surpassed the US to become the second largest internet user market after China – but in terms of internet penetration to the non-urban areas a lot of work still remains to be done.

“Just like cable TV from space is 100 times cheaper, delivering internet from space will be cheap and fast,”

says 31-year-old Neha, who is the CEO of her company.

A small star in a universe of giants

In 2013, Google launched its Project Loon using high-altitude balloons to create an aerial wireless network. In July this year, Facebook’s solar-powered drone, which is designed to beam internet to remote regions, successfully took its first flight. With such giants taking over the space, does a puny startup from India stand any chance of success?

“They are not our competition. In fact, they may need us as backup charging posts. They are more like floating telecom towers,” Neha explains. But this does not mean she will not have to contend with other heavy-weights. Companies like OneWeb, Space X, and Boeing have plans to launch a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit for the purpose of providing internet connectivity to remote areas. Says Neha,

“We differ from them because of our patented wireless communication tech that provides us more communication capacity. Our 100 Gbps versus their eight Gbps.”

So what stops the space giants from doing this? “They are not concentrating on developing core technology yet,” says Prasad. There are different elements to this technology: there’s the transponder, the satellites themselves, and then there’s the launch. “For example, Space X is excellent in space launches. OneWeb has set up a factory in Florida to manufacture satellites. Both are using technology which is tested and established. Whereas, we are venturing into an industry with technology which is new,” says Prasad.

Adds Neha, “It has a tremendous payback in terms of cost. These big companies are concentrating on business innovation whereas we are concentrating on technology. There is no such low earth constellation right now, so their focus is to get the infrastructure going, while our focus is to innovate on that and have high-speed transponder technology ready.”

Solving real problems

For the next two years, Astrome will focus on building this technology, while in the third year, they will launch three to five satellites, which will provide connectivity to IoT, edutech, tracking and monitoring, and telemedicine sectors. Following that, the startup will launch its full constellation of 100 to 150 satellites, which will give 24/7 internet.

(Prasad explains the space technology scenario in India in the video below.)

At the moment, besides the two founders, there are five other people in their team. “We have some interns in Europe, and a panel of advisors from IISc and IITs,” says Neha.

Astrome Technologies was seed funded by IISc and operates out of the Entrepreneurship Centre Building, Society for Innovation and Development (SID), Bengaluru. The founders are now focussing on angel investment and looking at raising funds in stages.

“As a company, we understand space business is tricky from the investors’ point of view. Our approach has been to raise funds in stages. We want to create a model where we take money, create value, and monetize it and then move ahead into the next phase,” says Neha. The two founders are creating Astrome as a global company out of India, and a for-profit one.

Big dreams

Neha spent six years in the US where she completed her PhD but ultimately wanted to start something on her own. “I always had this dream to start a company in the aerospace field,” she tells me. She would routinely write to her IISc professor (she completed her masters in Aerospace Engineering from IISc) talking about this dream of hers.

Around the same time, Prasad, who was working on an e-commerce startup, was sharing his similar dream with the same professor. “Our professor put us in touch with each other when he realised we both wanted the same thing,” says Neha.

The two had, however, met for the first time while working on a project in IISc together. “That was when our space dream started,” says Prasad. They designed and built micro-aerial vehicles (a miniature version of drones) for surveillance that could be hand-launched.

Small step in space

Prasad, who hails from Shimoga, did his Systems Engineering from Surathkal and then moved to Bengaluru to join IISc for his masters. He subsequently did his PhD also from IISc, spending a good seven years there. Prasad credits his wife for supporting his entrepreneurial dreams.

Neha belongs to a small town called Beawar, which is an hour’s drive from Ajmer in Rajasthan. She studied there till Class X and moved to Jaipur for Class XI and XII. She was always interested in space, and attributes a 1960s American television sitcom that inspired her to pursue that dream. “Funnily enough, I would love to watch ‘I Dream of Jeannie’, where an astronaut falls in love with his female genie. It was aired on Sony channel dubbed in Hindi. I would watch it without fail,” she says laughing. In fact, both Neha and Prasad are sci-fi buffs, and one day hope they can travel to space. “I don’t think there’s anyone working in this field who will not want to go in space,” Neha says.

Despite being born in a Marwari home and having grown up in a small town, Neha was never under pressure to conform. Her parents encouraged her and her two siblings to pursue higher education. “My mother spent her whole time thinking about our careers. I can see how Rajasthan has changed so much now. If one family sends a daughter to study engineering, others also want to do the same. Our milkman, who is also a school teacher, was asking my mother one day about how to send his daughter to an engineering college,” says Neha.

Clearly, Neha has been able to inspire her town. Though it’s one small step, but as the famous saying goes, it could be a giant leap for humankind. A fact worth rejoicing as we mark India’s 70 years since independence.

The eureka moment

“How many of you daydream?” Sanjeev Bikhchandani looked quizzically around the room filled with students and faculty members. He surveyed the sea of faces and noted only seven or eight  raised hands. He loved to daydream, he said: when he was 10, he dreamt of a world of arc lights, the world of Rajesh Khanna; at 11, he envisioned a fast-paced cricketing career like that of Sunil Gavaskar; at 12, he aspired to be an entrepreneur.

On finishing school, Sanjeev was sure of his pursuit. He joined Horlicks after graduating from college. He survived through it all: bureaucratic systems, top-down decision making, and intense competition. Once called upon to test a design change on short notice, Sanjeev braved a hot, dusty journey in an overnight bus from Chennai to Madurai. “It was November 1989, I didn’t know a word of Tamil and I’d have been murdered if I’d spoken Hindi,” he recalled vividly. “They said, ‘Go back and reduce the price! Did you come all the way from Delhi to ask us such stupid questions?’” 20 such conversations was the threshold for Sanjeev, who realised the futility of the sales function. He decided that the rat race wasn’t for him: “I just didn’t want this life.”

Life at IIMA

“We were all a bunch of misfits,” Sanjeev described his batch of PGP 1989 at IIM Ahmedabad, which had a staggering 50 percent foraying into entrepreneurship. Their generation was not one that was brought up to change the world through entrepreneurship. Their duty was to study hard – the only “salvation”, as Sanjeev described it. He must have been of a different bent of mind, for one of his batch mates, Prof. Arvind Sahay, reminisced about how Sanjeev always knew that he wanted to create something. “What makes him an entrepreneur is his sense of curiosity.” He highlighted Sanjeev’s knack for observing customer needs upfront. As a result, his company was not built on technology but on solid customer insight.

Sanjeev echoed this thought as he typed out on a blank slide:

Businesses are built on deep customer insights.

He attributed his first project idea to his experience with the Placement Committee at IIMA. Acting as a concierge, he escorted company representatives from dorm to dorm, brought them tea and coffee, and took them out for lunch. He noted an interesting phenomenon: competing companies would latch on to a candidate with an offer and a caveat that they would drop the offer if the candidate did not accept it immediately. “This was my first product idea. If companies can come to blows over recruiting bright talent, and if someone were to do a salary survey of what companies are offering fresh MBAs, that report would sell like hot cakes,” Sanjeev explained.

He suggested that entrepreneurs base their idea on a customer insight, so their likelihood of success is very high. “Solving an unsolved problem increases the chances that you’ll get a hot product. If you hit a hot market, people will want to buy your products and you won’t have to sell – that’s a great position to be in.”

Taking the plunge

Ideating on how to solve an unsolved problem is all fine, but how do you drive yourself to actually do it? How do you take the plunge when your friends are landing corporate jobs and earning twice, maybe even thrice as much as you are? Where does the motivation come from? Of course, as Sanjeev described, one factor is that an entrepreneur does not follow the rat race but creates his own track. “I was really afraid for the first two years. It took courage to leave my job. I was attached to my pay check. I was still afraid for two years after leaving – it took me those two years to get used to living off my wife’s salary!” He narrated how he stopped meeting his friends for those two years as he could not foot his share of the bill at the five-star hotels they would frequent.

Financial constraints remain a major part of any entrepreneur’s life – Sanjeev was no stranger to this fact. Eventually, he took multiple jobs to increase income once his wife quit her job in 1995. Be it newspaper journalism or teaching at primary schools, Sanjeev put himself through the grind to realise his dream. “You don’t necessarily feel the pain once you’re making the sacrifice, but in the long-term, it has an impact.” He may not have been able to afford to live in a better part of town, or send his kids to the kind of schools that his wife wanted to. “But that’s a choice we made,” he asserted.

There is no doubt, however, that personal sacrifices are an occupational hazard: “If you dream of a work-life balance, don’t start a startup,” Sanjeev quipped, “It’s a 24/7 job, you have to obsess over it.” His theory is that most successful startups are not started by 50-year-olds precisely because startups are extremely demanding. According to him, the biggest and best companies in the world are founded by people in their early 20s.

At the same time, he pushed aside all notions of the “glamour” behind entrepreneurship and called attention to his key lesson: keep expenses low.

“The truth is that, at the early stage of a startup, most spreadsheets you look at are fiction,” Sanjeev explained. “It’s the stuff you do to justify a deficit with that size of funding.” He recounted how any money raised was kept safe and then spent judiciously. For instance, out of $1.7 million at a Rs 44 exchange rate, Sanjeev used only $1.2 million and put the rest in the bank.

Busting a few myths

How many of us think of entrepreneurs as dynamic, driven risk-takers? “A good entrepreneur is risk averse,” Sanjeev elucidated. “Be a little fearful so that you mitigate risks.” In fact, what he drew out beautifully is that entrepreneurs often take a low-risk path, and that is, in fact, the difference between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs: how they handle downturns.

Entrepreneurs do not need venture capital to succeed. Giants like Infosys and Reliance themselves did not start out with venture capital. In fact, there was no concept of venture capital in the 1990s, but companies were built. “You might be more successful without venture capital,” Sanjeev continued, “Your customer’s money is always better than an investor’s money.  If you get your customers’ money repeatedly and make a positive margin, it means you probably have a viable business.” Take note, potential entrepreneurs: if you have a viable business, investors’ money will follow, but if you get investors’ money, it’s not guaranteed that you will get customers’ money as a result. A big believer in bootstrapping, Sanjeev emphasised how it taught him the value of money and ensured that his product looked appealing to the customer and would earn returns. To this end, he took no salaries from his own company for six whole years.

“Advertisers perpetuate the myth that brands are made by advertising, so people spend more money on them, thinking it’s an important function,” Sanjeev added. He stayed away from this herd mentality, focusing mainly on the product and customer experience in his first five to six years at Naukri. They had no advertisements, while competitors advertised freely with four times their money. “But we beat them because of our customer insights,” Sanjeev said, smiling.

A common question that came up was on the “vision” for Naukri. Sanjeev clarified that he didn’t always have a vision for Naukri. In fact, he believed that vision was often too big a word attached to entrepreneurs. “When we launched Naukri, we had no vision. We simply said that if we can get 1,000 companies a month to pay Rs 500 to this one-dollar startup, that’s 60 lakh a year. It looked like a nifty idea! Three years after launching Naukri was when I got my vision.” He’s a firm believer that vision evolves along the way but cannot be what success is attributed to. In his mind, the primary issue to be highlighted was how one sold people his/her idea.

One very important issue Sanjeev addressed that was possibly on a lot of minds in the audience was the stereotype that entrepreneurs are extroverts. “This is not true. I was an introvert. I absolutely hated speaking in public. Necessity is the mother of invention.” Describing himself as a shy student, Sanjeev detailed that he stepped out of his introversion because he had to.

Deconstructing the education system

One cannot have a conversation on a career path without criticising the education system that came before it. Sanjeev has a different view. He swears by his education and states unequivocally that he benefited from it. “You are taught 10,000 things and you don’t know what you will use. But the point is that you are taught to critically analyse and understand why what is happening is happening.” He also could not deny the fact that his being from IIMA opened doors for him. However, once the doors are open, it’s up to you to go somewhere. Highlighting the problem-solving approach, Sanjeev commented that a good business school, while helpful, was only one of the many factors in success.

The next steps

“Understand the value of money. Spend every rupee sensibly.” Sanjeev’s biggest challenge when he started Naukri was “having no money, poor infrastructure, operating on one floor out of my father’s house with no electricity”. He assures his listeners, however, that all hope is not to be lost. “Identifying the right opportunities is 60 percent of the reason for success. If the customer doesn’t need your product, sales will be difficult, and you’ll typically not break even or be viable in the future.” Observing customers, being the customer – these are activities that will help identify unsolved problems. “You should be an innovative first mover. What you’re doing should not be copied so easily.”

Sanjeev also assured the audience that, in the beginning, most ideas were small. What was important was to dream big even while starting small. If one were to start small, the cost of failure would be low. “A small failure is not a failure, because you’ll still survive.” In a sense, that was why he considered it better to have no money on starting up. If people were to work with you then, it would be solely because they believed in the product, idea and person. “Be the kind of person people want to work with,” Sanjeev said, “You have to sell them your idea. After a few years, you’ll call it a vision.” He was met with deafening applause from the crowd, whose questions and remarks at the end of the session suggested that a significant number of them felt more confident about carving out a niche for themselves.

Check out the full video of Sanjeev’s talk at IIM-A:

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

Jakamo’s founders are the classic example of how, when opportunity comes knocking, one needs to be ready. The Finnish entrepreneurs Jarl Matti Anttila and Anssi Uitto used to work as consultants to develop customer-supplier relationships in manufacturing industries. One day, their customers asked them to suggest a tool that connects companies like Facebook connects individuals. “They wanted a secure channel where they could share information with each other in both directions, but we couldn’t find any. So we finally decided to create it by ourselves,” says Jarl.

It was an idea served to them on a silver platter directly by the potential users, and Jarl and Anssi took the chance. They say that,

In manufacturing industries, the value creation has nowadays moved into the customer-supplier relationship. This has given rise to the need for a shared place to process information and collaborate fast, in real-time, wherever you are.

Creating a whole new way for manufacturing firms to interact

Before them, they say, the only ones able to connect all the players in the manufacturing industry were physical agencies. “We see as our main competitors the extranets,” says Jarl, “But they are all designed for one single company, meaning that suppliers need to visit them all separately, which is not an effective way to process information. Compared to them, Jakamo is much more cost effective, collaborative, versatile and easier to use.”

He explains that, “Unlike the traditional systems, Jakamo solves a chronic problem of scattered information sharing between manufacturing companies, making it available, visible and manageable for both customers’ and suppliers’ employees. This increases significantly the speed of business and white-collar productivity. And our software is so easy to use that although there’s a help page available, nobody’s ever used it! ” Knownto be pioneering this type of service, Jakamo was patented in May this year.

Being ready to grab opportunities and learn from the past

The ability to sieze the opportunity was not only helpful in developing the initial idea, it was also useful in building the team. Jarl shares, “There have been many funny coincidences during our journey. For example, I got introduced to our Head of Technology during our mutual friend’s bachelor party on a sailing yacht in the Helsinki archipelago. You never know when and where you meet the right people! Eyes should always be open.”

The development process has been the most challenging, especially during the prototype phase. Jarl recalls that, “Before Jakamo was founded, we were forced to kill our first prototype and start from a clear desk again. That was a hard decision, because we had invested plenty of time and money on the prototype. But in hindsight, it was actually a relief for us to start designing the solution again with a previous model we could test our progress against.”

The road ahead

Now, the team has reached 10 members and proudly boasts of Marten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL and current CEO at HackerOne, as their advisor. Jakamo is free to use for any company, including subscriptions for advanced users for 6 and 18 euros per user per month. Jarl shares that the company is not yet profitable, but that is not their main concern. He says, “We first want to build a solid customer base globally, profitability comes later.”

In this respect, they are doing well. Jarls shares that, “We started to get international users during the first few months and, in fact, the service was designed and built for global use. Today, we have more than 1,000 customers across 40 countries.” They have around 25 customers in India and most of them are subcontractors for big European manufacturing companies. The future looks bright for this Facebook of the manufacturing industry.

Website

The fashion marketplace

The online commerce boom has given a big boost to the sales of many different product categories, but perhaps none more so than fashion. Be it high street or fast fashion, the online marketplace for apparel is packed with multi-category giants, specialist fashion portals, boutique designers, and garage outfits, all competing for a share of the market that has been forecast to grow at a CAGR of 63.45 percent in the next four years [Source].

Elanstreet steps in

While consumers are spoilt for choice,  keeping up with fashion trends, developing a personal style quotient, and selecting the appropriate clothing or accessories can still be quite vexing. This is where a new-generation startup like Elanstreet comes into the picture. While personal styling has always been the domain of the rich and famous, Elanstreet aims to make it more accessible to consumers at large. They not only offer various types of personal stylists who can guide buyers but have also worked out affordable fee structures to keep it light on the pocket.

However, Elanstreet is not only about hiring personal stylists — it is a portal for online shopping as well. According to Gargi Banerjee Koul, Co-founder, Elanstreet, “We offer a styling experience that brings together the luxury of personalised shopping and the ease and access of e-commerce. Our style partners offer bespoke sartorial advice and product recommendations depending on customers’ personal tastes and preferences.”

How does it work?

Elanstreet offers two types of services. The first one is a subscription model package (monthly or annual) where one can appoint a dedicated personal stylist. The stylist offers one free style consultation per month, unlimited on-demand style advisory through chat, and unlimited curated lookbooks from around the web on request.  The second is a one-time package (and this has some variations as well) called Style 911, where a customer can get style and lifestyle evaluations, basic colour and body type analysis, personalised style recommendations, and a certain number of curated or individualised lookbooks. So, all one has to do is select the type of service, consult a stylist, and start building a wardrobe that is personalised to the individual’s tastes and preferences.

What’s in it for the stylists?

This is the exact question I posed to Gargi, who is actually. very interested playing a big role for talented individual stylists around the country. She says, “Elanstreet is a platform for all stylists to increase their reach and augment their earning potential. They basically get to monetise their advice, become style influencers in society, and build long-term relationships with clients who are not located in their hometown. They also get access to the tools and technology developed by Elanstreet for facilitating the consultation process.” Elanstreet has empanelled a host of stylists with different types of expertise:  image consultants, makeup artists, colour analysts, wardrobe experts, lookbook creators, and even fashion bloggers.

E-commerce

While Elanstreet offers many curated styles and trends, they also have an impressive array of brands  on their website. Some of the brands they partner with in the categories of men’s and women’s clothing, footwear, accessories, and jewellery are Manoviraj Khosla, Dash of Vodka, House of Fett, Nuteez, Sheer Bliss, Remanika, Anju Agarwal, Prym, Shuffle, and Amrita Singh Jewelry amongst many others.

Back to the beginning

Gargi did her post graduation from Symbiosis and then worked for 12 years with HDFC Bank, rising up to the level of a regional head. But in early 2015, when Gargi was on a sabbatical and at a crossroads in her career, the idea to start Elanstreet was born. Gargi says she always felt strongly about making first impressions: “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. As someone who was in a senior management role in a large consumer-facing bank, there were several instances when the opportunity to build a relationship with a customer was established within the first five minutes of a meeting.  It’s all about confidence and overall presence. While most people recognise this, very few actually look for guidance as they don’t know whom they should reach out to, or they think that such personalised advice would come at a price. On the other side, there is a growing community of fashion stylists and image consultants who are passionate about their work and would like to see their knowledge and experience add value to peoples’ lives.”

Funding and scaling

Rahul Koul, also a co-founder and Gargi’s husband, says that Elanstreet is bootstrapped by choice. They have put in a sizeable investment and are prepared to rough it out while building the complex platform and acquiring the right partners. At the moment they have 18 employees on board and have arrangements with a host of stylists and brand partners.

Marketing

While the target consumer is in the age group of 25–45 years with a sizeable disposable income, almost anybody who wants to have a persona style statement fits in. Their strategy is to do a few intensive on-ground activation programmes in corporate campuses and malls and rely on the power of the digital medium (social Media and blogging) for spreading the word. Currently, Elanstreet’s website gets about 3,100 hits per day and their online customer list is also growing. Any big budget communication strategy based on expensive traditional media spends is not yet on the cards.

Competition

There is no like-to-like competitor in this category in India, though some online fashion retailers partially try to address the personal style advisory angle by curating fashion trends across the e-commerce marketplace and offering them to customers. The notable ones among them are Limeroad (founded in 2012, $50 million funding in three rounds), Voonik ($20 million in Series B funding), StyleCracker ($1 million in seed funding) and 20Dresses ($1 million in seed funding).  At Voonik and StyleCracker, shoppers can get answers to their fashion-related queries. At 20Dresses, consumers can take a quiz to help find their style quotient. However, none of them offer a personal stylist that one can sign up for and interact with for any length of time.

In the US, though, there are quite a few personal styling startups that are similar to the Elanstreet model, albeit with a few variations or differentiators. Stitch Fix (2011, $16.5 million in Series A and B funding), Keaton Row (2011, seed funding of $3.5 million) and Trunk Club (2009, $12.4 million in funding; subsequently acquired by Nordstrom in 2014).

According to ASSOCHAM in a YourStory report, the apparel segment had the highest growth in 2015 at 69.5 percent, higher than even electronic goods which clocked 62 percent [Source: http://yourstory.com/2016/01/indias-e-commerce-assocham/]. This augurs well for all sorts of players in the online fashion retail space, and judging by the trend in the US, the personal styling market should be able to attract sizeable funding. However, with so many fashion retailers entering the fray, Elanstreet might have to step on the gas to scale in a big way in the immediate future.

Finally

Gargi and Rahul are very focused on building the platform right to become a complete one-stop-shop for everyday fashionistas. With dynamic market trends and the galloping nature of e-commerce the stakes are high and competition severe. Still, I manage to ask them about their retirement plans. Not in a long time, there’s so much to do — their expressions said it all.

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While dealing with the death of a loved one is traumatising enough, many families have the harrowing job of sieving through the financial mess often left behind, right after their erstwhile breadwinner’s passing. Nirmal Rewaria, Sushant Kumar and Pinki Dodhia, who were working together in a finance company, saw how trying this time could be when one of their clients passed away, leaving behind a wife and children who were absolutely clueless about his investments. The idea for FinPeace Technologies rose out of that difficult encounter, in January this year.

The Mumbai-based startup comes to the rescue of the dependents of deceased breadwinners, by helping them deal with the entire hassle of disorganised finances, unknown investments and cumbersome paperwork. The startup helps ensure the dependents receive all the financial benefits deceased left behind for them.

The founders realised this was a common enough problem, as people defer dealing with the topic of death and discussions on how the family has to manage finances and investments. So the trio spent six months creating a service named ‘Beyond Life’ for the dependents to get ownership of their assets. The startup appoints a counsellor for each family, while handholding them to deal with the financial complexities.

No one can ever prepare one’s loved ones for his death. Today, Rs 64,000-crore worth of unclaimed money is lying in suspense accounts with various financial institutions in India,” says Nirmal (47), who has over 18 years of work experience in financial markets including Standard Chartered Securities and Edelweiss.

How does FinPeace work?

“When a client passes away, FinPeace ensures that his or her documents reach a ‘Deputy’ we appoint, in a simplified and sorted manner. The Deputy gets complete guidance on getting ownership control of financial assets through a dedicated counsellor,” states Pinki, who has around 12 years of experience working with Kotak Securities and Edelweiss.

The startup creates short videos and infographics for clients and deputies in the form of engagement programmes to educate them on ways to preserve money. To ensure the smooth process of documentation, FinPeace also consults with a few lawyers to seek advice.

eVault App

FinPeace has launched a free app, called e-Vault, which will enable users to upload the documents by clicking a picture from their smartphone. The data will be preserved in an encrypted format accessible to users at any point of time. In less than a month, the app has seen 250 downloads.

The app also comes with a thoughtful feature of recording the last wishes of the client. It is then handed over to the family after the death, in a CD along with a guidance kit.

We bootstrapped the company with Rs 75 lakh. Putting together money to scale up has been the biggest hurdle during the initial stint,” says Sushant (37), who has over 14 years of experience in financial markets, including Motilal Oswal and way2wealth.

Peeping on B2B model as well…

FinPeach Technologies works with corporates, whereby HR heads incorporate this service under their employee engagement programme, at a subsidised rate.

Beyond Life’s annual subscription service amounts to Rs 365 a year. Apart from the subscription-based revenue model, the startup is also planning to generate revenue by tying up with online will service providers to assist their clients. They expect to earn a revenue of about Rs one crore in the first year of operation.

Finpeach has a team of 12, which is a mix of technology professionals and financial market experts. Currently operational in Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad, the startup plans to reach around 10 lakh users in the next two to three years.

A glimpse at the fintech space

Technological intervention in the financial sector has transformed the entire mechanism around bank transfers, loans and payment. Even National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched its interoperable payments system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), earlier this year. Further, the RBI is looking to regulate P2P lending platforms and get them to register as non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs).

The number of fintech startups funded in the first half of 2016 equals the total number of startups funded in the sector in 2015.  According to YourStory Research, $1.2 billion has already been invested in fintech startups in the last two years.

Fintech companies that scooped up decent amount of funding as of 2015–16 include Paytm ($700 million), Freecharge ($80 million), Mobikwik ($75 million), BankBazaar ($60 million), LendingKart ($42 million), PolicyBazaar ($40 million), Vistaar Finance ($39 million, according to the exchange rate then), Capital Float ($38 million), IFMR Holdings ($26.8 million) and Electronic Payments and Services ($25 million).

Finpeace Technologies

A technocrat, J Sasidhar became an entrepreneur as early as 1987 and founded Dharma Systems, a software company that operated out of India and the USA. In the 25 years of running his software company, he noticed that people who worked in the corporate world were not able to achieve their goals, and that the ensuing confusion and disillusionment destroyed their personal lives too. That was the reason, in 2012, that he put his technology business on the back-burner and invested $1 million to study why people suffer to find a work-life balance.

“Living my own life was a trigger. I noticed that I could easily achieve some goals but found that others were very difficult. And being exposed to two cultures — in the USA and India — which had opposite views on achieving goals, added to the difficulty in understanding what could be achieved and what could not,” says Sasidhar, Founder of Dharma Life Sciences, LLC. He adds that while Indian culture revolves around fate — if it is not meant to be it won’t happen — Western culture is based in the belief that anything is achievable if you work towards it. “I was not happy with either explanation and I felt that scientific research could solve the riddle,” says Sasidhar.

He started with a team of five researchers to gather data on employee behaviour and life goals. In three years, the data showed that employees were indeed not meeting their goals in organisations and that companies believed them to be expendable. There was no harmony in the system. Dharma Life’s researchers also signed up 500 people from the corporate world so that their behavioural traits could be studied. The findings were startling on how it impacted personal lives and organisations. For example, employees took work home and brought personal life to the office Dharma Life’s psychology and personality development experts’ work with corporate employees who connect to the self-awareness programme delivered through an app. The expert allows the employee to discover the strengths and weaknesses of different traits.

Every year, several go-getting youngsters are afflicted with psychological disorders and suffer from low self-esteem.

According to an ASSOCHAM report, due to demanding schedules, high stress levels, and performance-linked perquisites in the private sector, nearly 42.5 percent of employees are afflicted with depression or general anxiety disorder. Government employees, whose work environments are not as psychologically taxing, are much better off. The report titled ‘Preventive Healthcare: Impact on Corporate Sector’ reveals that the rate of emotional problems such as anxiety and depression has increased by 45–50 percent among corporate employees in the last eight years. The report is based on the views of 1,250 corporate employees from 150 companies across 18 broad sectors like media, telecom, knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), etc. The report included major cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, etc. A little over 200 employees were selected from each city on an average. In terms of those afflicted with depression or general anxiety disorder Delhi ranks first, followed by Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Pune respectively.

For Sasidhar, understanding the root was the problem.

The root is the trait

“The starting point was stating the problem. Once the problem was stated then it would show the path to the solution for an individual,” says Sasidhar. The problem was stated as follows: is there a boundary placed on a person in his attempt to reach his or her goals in life? If there was a boundary, then what would be the attributes of the boundary and what would be the methods to move the boundary? So Dharma Life defined the attributes (genes, environment, mind, and luck), after which it was a matter of adding the right people who had the background to research the solution to the problem.

As part of the field research, Dharma Life had many individuals from Indian corporations who went through initial tests with the utmost secrecy. The startup found how certain traits (physical, dietary, mental) were creating barriers for an individual’s personal and professional growth. These traits in turn affected entire corporations. Dharma Life realised that if they could solve this at an organisational level, then they could grow much faster. They began to map these traits and created learning and development programmes for organisations.

“What we learnt after talking to a number of corporate managers was that leadership training was notorious for not changing the individual at all.  However, corporations were spending significant resources on learning and development,” says Sasidhar. Dharma Life’s USP was that they could map their programmes to the business bottom line. The startup also predicts the percentage improvement of any measurable goal that the organisation wants from an employee. According to Deloitte, the consulting company, a global organisation could spend close to $600 to $1,000 per senior executive per year on leadership programmes. But the impact on an organisation is barely measured, which is what Dharma Life wants to achieve.

The business model and competition

The business model is based on a corporation asking the leader or employee to take up the programme by downloading the Dharma Life app. The app is also open to individuals outside the corporate world. It is a module where a coach (a life expert) is assigned to the employee and there are certain tasks provided that help the employee understand his or her traits to become aware of their selves to align their goals in life. The corporation pays for the research provided by Dharma Life. Sasidhar has launched this business in the USA with three corporations and has covered 1,000 employees so far.

Since the business with corporations is in the pilot phase, there were no testimonials given. Dharma Life Sciences is yet to draw substantial revenue. The founder believes the business will make money once there are more than 10 paying customers. The fragmented competition in this field includes companies like Stillwater, HR Global, and UrbanPro.

“This is a fragmented industry and needs to scale based on core research, which a corporate must be willing to pay for, otherwise the business cannot be scaled up,” says R Natarajan, CFO of Helion Ventures.

No wonder Dharma Life has started work in the USA. It is one place where this research platform can be monetised with corporations. For now, ways to make people not just productive, but to allow them to live life to the fullest with no psychological breakdowns need to be found.

By all accounts, the summer of 1969 was an eventful one for the world.

In June, newly-elected US President Richard Nixon began the promised withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam as part of the new US policy of Vietnamisation, In July, astronaut Neil Armstrong took one small step, making a giant leap for mankind. In August, a three-day music festival on a dairy farm some 40 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock in upstate New York went rogue, attracting over 400,000 fans and changing the history of rock and roll.

On the other side of the world, India was having a significant year too. Excited by the power of communication satellites, as demonstrated by the live transmission of the Tokyo Olympics across the Pacific in 1964, Dr Vikram Sarabhai began work on a robust space programme for India, which culminated in the founding of The Indian Space Research Organisation on Independence Day, 1969.

The Rajdhani Express was introduced the same year, and the Indian National Congress split into two factions, one led by Indira Gandhi and the other by Morarji Desai.

Dreams of gold

And in faraway Russia, Mantu Debnath became the first Indian gymnast to win an international competition, winning gold at the India-USSR Cultural Exchange while competing against the ‘unbeatable’ Soviets.

The news sent 11-year-old Bishweswar Nandi, an aspiring gymnast growing up in Debnath’s hometown, Agartala, into a tizzy of excitement. One day, he promised himself, he would win gold medals like Debnath, maybe even in the Olympics! Surely there was no law against dreaming!

Nandi grew up to become a five-time National gymnastics champion, and was part of the Indian team at several international tournaments, including the 1982 Asian Games, but he never made it to the Olympics. Until this year.

This year, Nandi came to Rio, not as a competitor but as a coach, accompanying his now-famous protegee, 23-year-old star gymnast Dipa Karmakar, the latest in a long line of star gymnasts that have come out of Tripura since 1968.

Not many people know it, but gymnastics is a real ‘thing’ in Tripura. Twenty-four gymnasts from the state, three Arjuna Awardees among them, have won 60 national medals over the past 50 years.

Almost every school has its own gymnastics centre, and many community centres train children for free. Here as elsewhere, sport is seen not so much as leisure but as a way to keep children gainfully employed and out of mischief, apart from being a passport out of poverty to money, recognition, and a government job.

In Tripura, gymnastics is simply what children do.

Humble beginning

And it all began with one man and one propitious meeting almost three thousand kilometres away from Tripura.

Way back in 1963, a sports instructor with the Sports Authority of India called Dalip Singh met a Russian gymnastics coach at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala, and got some insights into what coaching, particularly gymnastics coaching, was all about.

Two years later, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) sent Singh to Tripura to scout for gymnastics talent. Singh plunged into his job with gusto, hiring carpenters to build basic vaults and beams in the community weightlifting centre in Agartala, the Vivekananda Byamagar.

Over the next couple of decades, using only such primitive equipment, Singh produced a string of national champions, including Nandi’s idol Mantu Debnath, and later, Nandi himself.

In what seems like a fantasy story, Singh also convinced the government to let him bring in teams of some of the best gymnasts in the world – from Russia, Germany, China – to Tripura, so that his students could watch, interact with, and compete with them.

Dalip Singh never returned to Patiala, staying on in Tripura until his passing in 1987. With his death, gymnastics in Tripura went into a bit of a downswing. But it is back in the limelight now, thanks mainly to Singh’s students, Nandi and Debnath foremost among them, who are carrying the torch forward, training scores of young hopefuls like Dipa.

Tryst with destiny

Nandi first met Dipa some 15-odd years ago as a perky little girl of eight who had just won a gold medal on the balancing beam at the Northeastern Games in 2002. Her father, Dulal Karmakar, a weightlifting coach with the Sports Authority of India, clear that his children should be involved in sport, had done a quick SWOT analysis on Dipa’s build and personality – small, stocky, strong, full of restless energy – and decided it had to be gymnastics, perhaps hoping fondly that she would be able to master a sport he had once tried and failed at.

He began to take her with him to the same Vivekananda Byamagar that Dalip Singh had first fitted out as a gym, where she began training with Nandi’s wife, Soma, a national-level gymnast herself. After Dipa won the Northeastern Games, Soma brought Dipa to her husband and suggested that he take over her training.

Neither guru nor shishya (if you asked them, both Nandi and Dipa would say theirs is more a father-daughter relationship) has looked back since. For over a decade and a half, the two have spent at least four hours a day in each other’s company, the one scolding, coaxing, pushing, and praising, the other protesting, obeying, learning, and following.

It was Nandi who first urged Dipa to go after the Produnova, the dangerous forward-handspring vault technique involving two forward somersaults, and built her first rudimentary practice handspring with spit, duct tape, and discarded scooter parts. It is he who has now removed the SIM card from her phone, to make sure that she is not disturbed before her big night tonight when she performs in the Olympic final of the women’s vault.

Long years ago, Bishweshwar Nandi, Dalip Singh, Manto Debnath, Dulal Karmakar, Soma Nandi and scores of unknown others on the journey of an Indian woman to an Olympics gymnastics final made their own separate trysts with destiny.

Tonight, at 11:17 pm IST, on the eve of their country’s 70th Independence Day, they will redeem those pledges, if not wholly or in full measure, very substantially indeed. A billion brimming eyes, and a billion full hearts, will be watching.

(Roopa Pai wrote this post originally on her Facebook wall)

On Friday, founders Komal Talwar (XLPAT Lab) and Mausumi Acharyya (Advenio) were picked for an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel’s business capital for this year’s Start Tel Aviv, a global competition celebrating women entrepreneurship. They were picked from among five Indian finalists, and will join founders from 22 other nations at the event.

A five-day brainstorming meet — September 25 to 29 — it is meant for establishing ties with potential customers, partners, and high-profile industry leaders. Lectures and workshops with Israeli investors and professionals are some of the highlights of the event.

Tel Aviv’s startup ecosystem is well known for its tech talent and multinationals. The startup scene there is also gender neutral, ranked as the top hub for women outside the US. According to a Compass report, Tel Aviv has 20 percent women founders, while the European average is 17 percent.

The India leg of the competition took place in Gurgaon, attended by Israel’s ambassador Daniel Carmon. Here’s a look at the five finalists that fought it out:

XLPAT Lab: The startup is associated with patent and technology coverage in more than 120 countries, allowing users exhaustive patent searches and calling itself the world’s largest technology database. XLPAT says its advanced automated features have led to a good fall in time spent in patent searches and technology analysis, thereby reducing the per hour cost for clients.

Advenio: The website of Advenio TecnoSys says it was founded with a vision to provide artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning-based computer assisted detection (CADx) for diagnostic clinical imaging. Their aim: to develop universal and equitable healthcare.

Technology Uncorked: The platform, founded by Meenakshi Vashist, calls itself a community of innovators, developers, dreamers, and creators, with the plan to use technology to innovate and change the way the world interacts and responds. They hope to fulfil dreams of creating a new gizmo, gadget, or toy. A young company, it employs young minds for ideation and hardware, software innovations, to bring out ‘designed and manufactured in India’ consumer electronics products and educational kits.

Medimojo: Founded by Dr Shikha Suman and Vikas Ranjan (co-founder), the startup aims to use technology to improve public healthcare by early detection and evidence-based treatment. They envision disease prevention, preserving and personalising health records, thus keeping people out of hospitals and cutting down on healthcare costs. A digital health assistant, if you will.

EZspend, better known as EZdhan: Founded by Neha Jetley, a former Wall Street investment banker, the startup offers an easy way to manage money. Neha launched EZspend Prepaid Payment Solutions in 2011, with the aim of providing financial inclusion to Indians. The company offers a pre-paid bankcard for those wanting to transfer or spend cash safely, in collaboration with YES Bank and MasterCard. Thus the card is a preloaded payment card that can be used at POS terminals and even for online shopping.

All in all, it is quite a head start for women entrepreneurs in India. They have achieved global recognition as also a chance to represent India in the world’s startup capital.

Picture the national flag fluttering high up in the sky and your heart will swell with immense pride. Of late, India’s distinction of being a country with unity in diversity seems to be at stake owing to frequent unrest in various parts of the country. But irrespective of all the strife and enmity, a small group of economically-backward women from different religions have dedicated their lives to making our symbol of national pride. These women are employed by the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyog Samyukta Sangha (KKGSS) in Bengeri village of Dharwad district, which is home to the sole manufacturing and supplying facility of the Indian flag for the entire country.

History of KKGSS

KKGSS was founded on November 1, 1957, by a group of Gandhians who came together to create a federation for the growth of khadi and other village industries in the region. Venkatesh T. Magadi and Sriranga Kamat were chosen as the first Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively.

Soon after its establishment, about 58 institutions around the State were brought under the aegis of the KKGSS and the federation started functioning with Hubli as the head office. The head office is spread across 17 acres and along with the manufacturing facilities, it also houses a training college to train students in textile chemistry.

Even though the production of khadi began in the year 1982, the flag manufacturing unit only started operations in 2004.

The founders fought for the flag facility to be established at the KKGSS for the benefit of the economically-backward classes who lived around the area. Today, over 100 specialist spinners and weavers are employed in making the flag,

says Nagaveni Kalwad, Manager-Flag Section, KKGSS.

The federation, which was started with an initial investment of Rs 10,500, manufactures flags worth over Rs 1 crore per year today.

Why it is the only facility

KKGSS is the sole facility in the country to manufacture the flag conforming to the standards laid down by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The cloth, a material that is much stronger than jeans, is spun at KKGSS’s weaving unit in Bagalkot and divided into three lots. Each lot is then dyed with one colour of the Indian flag. The cloth is then cut to size and the blue Ashoka chakra is printed on the white cloth. The three pieces are then stitched together to make the Indian flag.

The KKGSS’ flag facility has about 60 sewing machines to maintain precision while stitching. Each flag must conform to a critical criteria. The material undergoes an 18-time quality check before it can be used. The width and length of the flag should be in the ratio 2:3 and the chakra needs to be printed on both sides of the flag, with both prints perfectly matched. The BIS inspects each lot that is shipped and even the slightest mistake can result in a whole lot getting rejected. But despite the strict quality control, there is still an annual cancellation rate of 10 percent.  

Each lot that is shipped is subjected to an inspection by BIS and any issue with a single flag could result in the whole lot being rejected. The flags are manufactured in nine sizes, the smallest one measures 6×4 inches while the biggest one is about a 21X14 feet.

Owing to the strict norms, the workforce has mostly remained the same over the years.

Most new workers find it difficult to conform to the strict guidelines and go away in search of easier jobs,

says Nirmala, who has been working at the facility for over 10 years.

For workers like Nirmala at KKGSS, making the flag is not just a source of livelihood but is their way of serving the nation, something they are proud of and want to continue doing for the rest of their lives.

All those flags you see atop forts, offices, playgrounds, international forums, they are all made here, we make it,

they say, gushing in unison.

And what do they think about the differences that have split our countrymen?

All of us here at KKGSS belong to different religions, but once we are inside the premises, all our focus is on getting the National Flag right. There is no time for futile thoughts like those; most of all the hate is being spread by a few for their vested interests. We need to stand united during such times and go about discharging our respective duties with sincerity,

they say.

Food for thought at times like these, isn’t it? Happy Independence Day!

We may be inching closer to 70 years of independence, but we have a long way to go in terms of freeing ourselves from hunger and attaining freedom in the true sense. India and neighbouring Pakistan — celebrating 70 years of independence today — are rife with tension and agitation, but it is rare to find people looking at the larger picture.

According to a Times of India report, as of May 2015, over 194.6 million people were undernourished in India, and UN statistics show that Pakistan is home to over 41.5 million undernourished people.

So as these two nations gear up to welcome their 70^th year of independence, the Robin Hood Army is working on #Mission500k to unite Indians and Pakistanis into action and collectively serve over five lakh people.

With #Mission500k, the Robin Hood Army aims to help people realise that hunger is a real problem. Neel Ghose, VP Operations, Zomato, and Founder of Robin Hood Army says that until we hit the streets, it isn’t really possible to gauge how deep the problem of hunger is.

He adds that there are more deaths through hunger than AIDS, malaria, and terrorism combined.

What is the idea?

Neel says:

This actually dawned on us last year. We had Robin Hood Army chapters across India and Pakistan; each of these chapters work on a hyperlocal format and look after their neighbouring community. We thought Independence Day would be a great opportunity for all the teams to work together on one mission to address a huge common problem — hunger.

To get this going, the team tied has up with Uber, Zomato, Snapdeal, Oyo, Grofers, Inshorts, Roposo, InMobi and Pressplay, while VH1 has driven the message through the music fraternity with artists like Farhan Akhtar, Uday Benegal, and Vishal Dadlani coming together to be a part of this movement.

Speaking of why he tied up with these startups, Neel says that these are young teams who are used to building quickly and creating impact disruptively. With these teams coming together, the Robin Hood Army has a very good opportunity to create widespread awareness and real impact.

Sarah Afridi, who set up the Robin Hood Army in Pakistan, says

What we need is not monetary contributions, but just the time and compassion of our fellow citizens.

Feeding over 6,22,470 people and more

For over two years, this unique volunteer-driven group has been working towards providing food for all those who need it. The journey began with six volunteers and one night of feeding 150 people, and now there are over 5,215 ‘Robins’ in the ‘army’ across 30 cities in seven countries, who have fed over 6,22,470 people.

The ‘army’ of young professionals across cities ties up and works with restaurants, collecting their excess food and distributing it to those who need it.

“When there was a little scepticism about whether the food is actually reaching the people who need it, we decided to actively put up the images on our Facebook page,” adds Neel.

Each startup is leveraging their core model and reach to help contribute to this mammoth project. Uber is providing transport across India and Pakistan, Zomato is helping reach out to restaurants through a microsite, InShorts is creating awareness with news bytes about the movement which will go to lakhs of users, Grofers is enabling their users to donate non-perishable food items via the app, while Oyo is serving breakfast on Independence Day through food sourced from all its properties.

Besides the actual contribution, each startup is working to push the idea of #Mission500k through social media/blog posts/mailers to their users asking them to join the movement.

Farhan Akhtar, who has tied up with Robin Hood Army says,

The Robin Hood Army’s desire to feed half a million people across India and Pakistan this year on their respective independence days is an effort I wholeheartedly support. I appeal to people everywhere to participate in this incredible initiative to help eradicate hunger and malnutrition. It’s our world. We have to make it better.

Website

Hiren Tambe, who owns a 500-sqft store in Navi Mumbai, has at least 800 stock keeping units (SKU). Having run the store for over 15 years, he has always understood his typical customer’s requirements. Or so he thought. But with modern retail arriving in his vicinity, Hiren realised that many of his customers were going to his store for convenience. It was then that he realised that he had to invest in consumer behaviour, which meant that he had to figure out that a customer who liked packed juices would also like to buy cheese or soups. That’s when he ran into a startup called SnapBizz, in 2012. The Founder of SnapBizz Prem Kumar walked into the kirana store and explained to Hiren about technology that could connect kirana stores with real time promotions of consumer goods companies.

Hiren was sold on the idea that this technology could not just provide insight into consumer behaviour. “This platform helps me strike better deals with consumer goods companies, and four years later the platform has kept consumers loyal to my store,” says Hiren. He says that his gross earnings have gone up from Rs 1,00,000 a month to Rs 1,50,000 a month. While Hiren was pleased with the money he was earning, Prem realised the psychology of these small business owners.

“I realised that the owner is worried about paying the school fees of his children and running his household on a daily basis. The average Indian looks at family first and his business is built around how we can expenses on a daily basis,” says Prem. He says technology implementations fail because they do not understand culture. He snapped up 50 kiranas in 2012 with the same narrative in the vicinity. This learning has helped SnapBizz become a multi-million dollar business (the company does not want to divulge revenues) that works with more than 1,400 kirana stores across the country.

What SnapBizz got right while others failed?

Startups and large corporates failed when it came to addressing a solution for kiranas or mom and pop stores because they were technology focussed and not driven by the attitude of a kirana retailer. Even the mighty Infosys had experimented – in Mysore – to implement technology with these traditional businesses and failed. Also, SAP had a programme  called “Ganges”, which was shelved because the kirana stores did not take to technology. Then came several startups which said they could provide real time delivery from kiranas and some also said they could connect kiranas to consumers. Even payment or fintech companies are trying to make kiranas work on apps and accept digital payments. Even Reliance Jio is piloting a wallet that connects kirana to consumer. However, the kirana store folks piloted with every startup out there – for the lucrative incentives provided – and once the incentives stopped they stopped using any form of technology. So what was going wrong? These were some of the many questions asked by Prem. He wondered what was wrong with the narrative – about the benefits of technology – or did these retailers not care at all. After working with over 50 kiranas in Navi Mumbai, back in 2012-13, he realised that the problem was not the technology; it was in understanding the social structures of kirana families that influenced his business model.

How does the business work?

Their business model makes money out of the entire consumer goods business chain and includes four components, three of which are paid modules. It comprises a consumer app that allows the consumer to transact with the kirana (which is offered free to the customer). The second module includes software that helps the kiranas capture data of stock that is sold in the store, which then allows them to stock goods based on consumer behaviour. The third module is to help distributors understand what sells in catchments and distributors pay for this data. The final model helps consumer goods companies promote their products in each kirana through a cloud-based promotion-placement model. The final module is the crux of the business. This is how it works?

SnapBizz sells a TV, a scanner, an internet connection and a tablet to the kirana, which the kirana store owner buys for Rs 25,000. The TV is strategically placed in the store for the consumer to view all the promotions of at least 15 consumer goods companies. These consumer goods companies pay SnapBizz to host their promotions on the TV and the kirana gets an added benefit – of discounts – on the product when he stocks these promoted products in the store. The promotions can be changed dynamically and SnapBizz manages the dashboards of consumer goods companies. These consumer goods companies are able to measure an increase in sales because of cross-promotions of their product through visual presentation.

“TV connects with customers at the store and analytics can kick if the entire chain is connected on the web platform,” says R. Natarajan, CFO of Helion Ventures.

Some of the big names that work with SnapBizz include Rekitt and Colman, P&G, Cadbury’s and MTR. A total of 15 consumer goods companies use this real time promotions platform of SnapBizz.

The beginning    

The business began in the most unlikely of ways in 2011. Global corporate Qualcomm was experimenting with the future of long tail business in Navi Mumbai – where they were working with mobile devices that capture information on consumer behaviour and stock movements. They suddenly realised that this was a business worth exploring and began to scout for entrepreneurs who could turn this into a business idea. As luck would have it Prem – who was respected veteran of the consumer goods industry in India and abroad – was living in London at the time and wanted to do something in India.

He had been quiet a successful entrepreneur between 2001 and 2010. Prem sold CISLINK.com, a B2B portal that connected business services in Eastern Europe, and also managed the distribution of a consumer goods company in Russia. In 2009, he founded FLY Mobiles, a Micromax equivalent in Eastern Europe.

“Through common connections Qualcomm reached out to me. They saw the kirana business as a billion dollar potential and I quickly prepared a business plan and flew down to the USA to win the idea,” says Prem.

Prem immediately told the global company that to crack this business one must work with the distribution muscle of the consumer goods industry in India.

“This was the only way to scale up,” says Prem.

Qualcomm conceded that Prem knew his business and helped him to own the idea by putting in seed money. There, the idea of SnapBizz was born and Prem started the company in Mumbai. He solved the distribution problem to get kiranas by working with P&G, who gave him access to the likes of Hiren. He convinced P&G to work with him because of the narrative that he had prepared. “I told them that today everyone was shooting promotions through print ads and posters. Companies were shooting in the blind and I told them that a TV-based visual in the store was far more powerful than a poster in the kirana,” says Prem.

“These businesses are built on scale, the more kiranas they convince to come on the platform the more data they have to work with to sign on consumer goods companies,” says V. Balakrishnan, Co-founder of Exfinity Ventures.

The company has raised close to $8.9 million from a clutch of investors including Jungle Ventures.

The competition

Today after 1,400 kiranas, SnapBizz plans to capture 10 percent of kirana stores in each large city in India. In Navi Mumbai alone there are 40,000 kiranas. In India there are around eight million kirana stores, and based on different reports the size of the market could be as big as 12 million mom and pop stores. SnapBizz wants to go after this market. Along with him there are folks like Xlogix, SuperZop and StockWise. These business models are similar. The management teams of these companies do not have distribution experience, but they have technology and analytics experience. SuperZop has reached 50 kiranas, Xlogix works with a corporate retailer and have reached about four kiranas. So far, StockWise has signed up with 10 kiranas and four corporate retailers. None of these businesses have crossed Rs 1 crore in revenues.

SnapBizz has managed to sign large consumer goods companies to convince their ecosystem to work with their kirana ecosystem. There are more than 200 small, medium and large FMCG companies in India and each of them works with 1,000 distributors on an average.

According to Ernst and Young, the retail market is $550 billion in size and only 10 percent is organised. With companies like SnapBizz even the traditional retailer can become organised.

Website

The e-commerce world has influenced our buying experience as never before. Products are now just a click away. The ease of buying has also helped pushing up the demand.

Now, the student community is well aware of trends in technology, fashion, food and other categories and wants to consume these products and services, but lacks money.

Rajan Bajaj and Deepak Malhotra, who are from IIT-Kharagpur and BITS-Pilani respectively, faced similar difficulties as students. The duo, who met through a common friend, observed that while there are banks offering services like EMIs and credit cards, there are no options for students to take such services. This pushed them to build a solution platform, specifically for students.

In November 2015, they launched Buddy, now Slicepay, a micro-lending platform for students. It offers credits to students without taking collateral of guarantee, recognising the fact that students in reputed institutes have the ability and intent to pay back short-term credit.

Rajan, 23, Co-founder, Slicepay said,

Our aim is to offer a unique solution to students, who are a critical part of the consumer market, and make the products accessible to them and offer a great shopping experience.

With an outlay of Rs 3 lakh, the Bengaluru-based platform began its operation in January 2016 and started offering credits to students.

The platform doesn’t offer direct cash to students, but helps them buy products and services from its partnered platforms. From e-commerce to wallet recharge to many other categories, it has tied up with over 40 such platforms and the number is growing.

According to the platform, students can buy products and use services up to Rs 60,000, which they can pay within 18 months, in various installations. The interest rate charged on it varies between zero and 20 percent.

It says that it is present in over 80 colleges and has offered credit line to 6,000 students, worth Rs 1 crore.

During February this year, the platform raised a funding of $500, 000 from Blume Ventures & Tracxn Labs and now has re-branded itself as SlicePay. The rebranding comes as a part of their expanded portfolio in the field of credit.

How to use the service?

Students who want to get a credit line fill up a form on the website and add their basic information, along with their college ID and address proof. After an hour of processing, the person receives a credit line of upto Rs 7,000, which he can use on the partnered sites.

“Now, there are various sections on the form. Every time, a user completes a section of the profile, he or she gets allotted a higher credit line based on our analysis. If all the three sections of a user profile is filled, he or she can get a credit line of upto Rs 60,000,” says Rajan.

A look on the operation side

To run the operation smoothly, Slicepay has a network of 100 students, called college ambassadors.

The college ambassadors are operation interns and growth hackers. The job of these college ambassadors is to get more customers, do thorough background checks and help in recovering money from defaulters, if any.

To raise continuous credit, Slicepay has also tied up with non-banking financial institutions (NBFCs) and takes services from them.

“Our business model is linked with both NBFCs and merchant partners. We raise credit lines from NBFCs, which we pay to students. In lieu of credit lines, of the interests we receive from students, a large part go to NBFCs and we receive between zero and four percent. From merchant partners, we receive four percent of commission on per order. It’s a high-risk business, where the cost of customer acquisition and marketing is very high,” says Rajan.

Startups rush to acquire students

With 700 universities and more than 35,000 affiliated colleges enrolling more than 20 million students, India offers a large opportunity for platforms targeting students.

And in the market, where around 25 percent of e-commerce is driven by students, many other micro-lending platforms are trying to create a niche.

Quiklo and Krazybee are two other platforms that offer credit line to students and allow users to borrow small sums of money to buy things on different payment plans.

In June this year, KrazyBee raised $2 million in seed funding from two Chinese firms.

In the past few years, there has been a spurt in lending startups targeting their brethren across the segments, categories and target groups. Such lending startups is a boon for the industry and will help building the economy of the country.

Website

In a world of mobile phones and health apps that connect you to doctors, help in consultations, and deliver medicines, there still is the problem of dealing with all the patient follow-ups and calls. This was the exact problem 22-year-old Krishna Chaitanya Aluru’s father, a cardiologist in Hyderabad, faced.

Through his conversations with his father, Chaitanya realised that it was a common problem for doctors – they kept getting calls or messages 24/7. He thought that there had to be a way to organise the process and make the funnel more rational.

It was then that Chaitanya, along with Akshat Goenka and Vamsee Chamakura, decided to start DocTalk in February this year. DocTalk is a mobile app that allows users to stay in touch with doctors easily. Akshat adds that it works as a Dropbox and WhatsApp solution for the Indian healthcare ecosystem.

The trio had earlier founded a startup that had an artificial intelligence, virtual assistant – Genie.

Easing communication between doctors and patients

Explaining how the process works, 23-year-old Akshat says:

We do not connect patients with new doctors, we just streamline the process post-consultation. A patient can subscribe to a doctor and then easily share files and past prescriptions to ensure that the doctor can quickly access the data. Doctors too can upload and share any reports that they might have.

Patients can download the app and start uploading all their reports with no cost involved. Once patients upload reports, they can connect with their doctor. The platform also validates if the patient is an existing patient of the doctor or not. This is essential as the focus isn’t on discovery.

If a patient’s doctor is not affiliated with DocTalk, the patient gets automatically subscribed after the said doctor is onboarded.  DocTalk has doctors across specialities in Mumbai and Hyderabad. Akshat adds that, through their product, the team has been able to cut down response and remote consultation time by 25 percent.

Changing from the ‘uber-like’ model

The team had initially considered an ‘uber-like’ model for doctors like those of Practo and Lybrate, but after understanding the market, the team realised that the Indian patient still strongly relies on personal referrals when identifying a doctor, unless they are stuck with no other recourse. Also, the model of finding and consulting a doctor on an app didn’t seem conducive.

Akshat says that 75 percent of follow-ups involve discussing a report or a prescription. He adds that one of the main challenges was in the ideation, followed by adding on doctors and bringing in the right connections.  Now the team claims that their doctor base is growing at 100 percent on a week-on-week basis.

The patient base, the team claims, is also growing at about 100 percent on a week-on-week basis, and revenue is growing at 70 percent week-on-week.

Future plans

Most of the patient acquisition up to now was in-clinic as they did not have payment processing built-in, but now the team plans to ramp up acquisition via patient database messages as payment processing is taken care of, thanks to Razorpay.

The health-tech space is deeply funded and has several players; the Sequoia and Tencent-backed Practo, starting from a SaaS platform has expanded to include different verticals of the healthcare system – Discover, consultation, medical records and even medicine delivery. Lybrate is another key player in the healthcare space. In July last year, the platform had raised $10.2 million funding from the likes of Tiger, Nexus and Ratan Tata.

The platform too enables ease of communication between patients and doctors. The team claims that the patients can communicate anonymously with doctors online or through a mobile app.

There is Doctor’s Circle, which manages consultations and helps in patient conversations. There also is Hyderabad-based Caremotto, which focuses on ensuring patients get connected to the right surgeon.

DocTalk is Y Combinator-backed and they are just finishing the YC Fellowship Batch 3. Typically, Y Combinator invests $120,000 in startups for a seven percent stake in equity. In a report in the Times of India, Sam Altman, the President of Y Combinator, said that in the current batch, the founders have personal experience with the problems they are aiming to solve, giving them insight into the market they operate in.

He stated that India is second to the US in terms of applications received, higher than both the UK and Canada.

“Our goal is to make communication more convenient. The patient benefits significantly as they now have a personalised EMR system on their mobile, while the doctors can track patient progress and use numerous other tools that are provided on the doctor app,” says Akshat, a Wharton alumnus.

DocTalk takes an agency/service fee from doctors who charge their patients for a subscription. They take a cut of the patient’s fee.

The team intends to look at the process of patient and doctor communications more closely and make it simpler.

Why do athletes run competitively? For the pure high of winning? For the fame and acknowledgement that attends a winning effort? For the joy that comes from pitting yourself against the best in your field and coming out on top?

Lalita Shivaji Babar, only the third Indian woman to make an Olympics athletics final, began to run competitively for one reason, and one reason only — because winning races brought in prize money, and that money was dearly needed to support her impoverished farmer family in Maharashtra’s water-starved Satara district.

Well before she discovered that there was money, recognition, and maybe even a career in it, though, Lalita was a runner. She ran all the time — obsessively, unstoppably, unnecessarily, just not competitively.

As a youngster, she ran — not walked — four kilometres every day to her school and back. As a teenager, she ran to faraway wells to fetch water for the 17 people that she shared a home with. She ran through the fields as she went about her chores on the farm. She ran barefoot and on all kinds of roads.

And in the middle of all this, she found time to run and chase at kho-kho games at school, because of course, it would be a poor life if you didn’t make time for a sport in it.

Running for money

When she found out that competitive middle- and long-distance running could pay, she began to explore it more keenly, confident, after all those years of running, in her own skill and endurance. Her own family was supportive, but Lalita knew they were defying the village by allowing their daughter to run, and that travelling to competitions involved money that her family could ill-afford. The knowledge gave her feet wings — if she won, she could pay her family back, both in money and a new-found respect from the village.

Her first big pay-cheque, Rs 10,000, came in 2004 when she won a 10-km road race at the age of 15. Lalita was ecstatic. She could make this work!

Coolly, rationally, she explored her options. She would run half-marathons and marathons because there was good money in them for the winner. She would participate in national-level athletics tournaments, but only to use them as a spring-board into international competitions, for as everyone knew, the government took care of athletes who won international prizes well, but didn’t do enough for winners at the national level. Of her own ability to win those national competitions, she was never in doubt.

Lalita began to run with purpose. In 2009, she ran the 3000m in the Asian Indoor Games in Hanoi and finished eighth. Around that time, she was paired with tough Belarusian coach Nikolai Snesarev, who had been hired to coach Indian athletes for the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010. With Snesarev, Lalita got to explore an event she had never tried before — the weird and wonderful steeplechase.

Steeplechase was for men

The original steeplechase was an 18th-century rich man’s sport, an Irish cross-country horse race, where horse and rider raced from ‘church steeple to church steeple’ (steeples being chosen as markers because of their visibility), clearing whatever obstacles they met on the way — fences, streams, low stone walls.

A cross-country running race inspired by this sport eventually transitioned, in 1865, to a race across a flat field, where competitors cleared artificial barriers, and became an Olympic event in the very first modern games in 1896. Over seven laps, the 3000m race involves 28 barriers — each, at 30 inches (in the women’s event), as high as a typical dining table — and seven water jumps — each of which is about 12 feet long and has to be leapt across.

Strangely enough, the steeplechase was only a men’s Olympic event until as recently as Beijing 2008, when the women’s version was introduced.

Snesarev, who coached male athletes for the steeplechase, decided to try Lalita out for it. Just 10 days later, Lalita was hooked. This was the kind of cross-country running she was used to anyway — she could be brilliant at it! But Snesarev quit right after the Guangzhou Games to take up a coaching assignment in Qatar, and Lalita, who still needed the money, went back to running marathons, winning the Mumbai Marathon three successive times — in 2012, 2013, and 2014 — and becoming a different kind of star in the bargain.

Breaking records

In January 2014, Snesarev returned to India to coach. He wanted to train her for the marathon, but Lalita insisted she wanted to try the steeplechase instead. Incredibly, just eight months after beginning serious training, she ‘podium-ed’ at the Incheon Asian Games, winning a bronze in the event at 9:35:37 and breaking the national record in the process.

Since that first glorious international win, breaking records has become something of a habit with Lalita.

At the 2015 Asian Championships, she won the gold and qualified for Rio, breaking the national record and the Games record with a timing of 9:34.13. Two months later, in the World Championships in Beijing, she finished eighth but broke the national record again, with a 9:27.86.

In April this year, she clocked 9:27:09 at the Federation Games in New Delhi, becoming, for a few short weeks, the holder of the best time in the steeplechase worldwide. On Saturday, Lalita stunned the country again, shaving an incredible seven seconds off her own national record to qualify for today’s final with a time of 9:19.76.

If you go by statistics, you will declare that Lalita has no chance of a medal today — after all, five athletes who placed ahead of her in the World Championships will be running alongside her at 7:45 pm IST, including Ruth Jebet, the Kenyan in Bahrainian colours who won gold in Incheon and has posted sub-9 minute times in the recent past.

But Lalita Babar has been running all her life, leaping over the barriers of fear, poverty, dependence, and people that would frown upon girls who run. It will take more than a statistic to stop that kind of girl.

(Roopa Pai wrote this post originally on her Facebook wall)

E-commerce changed the way business was conducted and the marketplace model changed it even further. Now the space is open for millions of potential sellers to mark their presence in the online world and reach out to millions of consumers.

But, is it that easy for potential sellers to reach out to online consumers? What about creating content, branding, execution, marketing strategy and many other intricacies of the online business world? Besides, it is as important for e-commerce players to have more sellers on their platforms.

A few years ago, when the e-commerce business was picking pace in India, Ambud Sharma was observing the development from the US. He was working as a chief technology architect with Comcast then. In December 2013, observing the growth in the Indian market, he planned a business and registered a company with the name Ligo Brands.

In February 2015, he returned to India and operationalised the company in July as an e-commerce retail and services platform specialising in online retail, brand management, seller services consulting and private-label consulting.

“The marketplace model in e-commerce throws open a huge business opportunity for sellers. We observed the potential of this model in India and decided to offer market solutions. We have made the service easily accessible to merchants who can show the true nature of their brands at one junction,” says Ambud, 31.

Ligo follows three kinds of business models — aggregator model, manage services or inventory model and private label consulting model.

Also Read: Cloud-based inventory management startup Browntape raises close to $1 M from Seedfund & Krishnan Ganesh

In the first kind of model, it aggregates products and directly sells on various e-commerce sites.

In the ‘manage services model’, it manages the inventory of sellers and pushes the seller via its own platform.

The third model is private label consulting, in which it controls every part of the brand — from production to marketing to selling of products.

Besides, the company is also into exports, where it liquidates dead products of sellers into the markets of West Asia and Central Africa.

Also Read: The game is on – e-sellers versus Flipkart-Amazon-Snapdeal

Ambud says he is providing a robust in-house and technology-based warehouse. The main feature of the product is that it provides personalised customisation services to customer. It also does unique branding for unbranded stuff by adopting parallel branding or the co-branding model to leverage their brands with world-class brands.

The company works exclusively with its clients on a multi-layer contract basis. “We realise that end-to-end service is strongly needed for merchants,” he says.

Business strategy

Starting out with an outlay of Rs 1.5 crore, Ambud says the firm’s entire services are built in its own courtyard. It has a 30,000sqft warehouse space, with the capacity to deliver 5,000 units per day.

“Initially, we began working with top brands of fashion and accessories, such as Fila, Lee Cooper and Nike. Later, we opened access for less recognised fashion brands to come onto our platform and show the virtue of their products and accessories by adopting a new marketing strategy of parallel branding or co-marketing,” explains Ambud.

Also Read: Indian e-commerce to hit Rs 2,11,005cr in 2016: IAMAI study

The company clocked a turnover of Rs 5 crore last year. They are operating their flagship project in Dubai and have stretched their legs in the US market too.

The company has set a goal to hit turnover of Rs 20 crore this fiscal year and Rs 150 crore in the next five years.

The venture claims to grow rapidly across India and has plans to open warehouses in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

It has six customers and has been associated with 32 brands. It has 60 percent branded products and 40 percent in the unbranded fashion segment.

The venture mainly focusses on shoes and has recently introduced apparel and leather and travel accessories.

E-commerce grew, so did solution providers

In the e-commerce segment, there are multi-category e-retail companies offering full-stack solutions to sellers.

Launched in 2011, Zepo claims it can help one create and run an online store in under five minutes. The Mumbai-based DIY e-commerce platform offers a well-planned front-end, a simple dashboard and accepts online payments with a free payment gateway, as well as helps in logistics with a Bluedart partnership.

A similar platform, Kartrocket, offers end-to-end e-commerce solutions – setting up the website, integrated payment gateway, traffic generation tool, listing on marketplaces, and more than 200 apps along with automated shipping solutions. It plans to expand presence and even has an app to solve problems around cataloguing and traffic generation.

Goa-based Browntape, founded in 2012, is yet another cloud-based software that helps online merchants manage orders and inventory for e-commerce markets. It has an enterprise model crafted for large brands and retailers who have little experience in scaling sales on online marketplaces.