As I walk through Andheri’s MTNL Lane in Mumbai, every so often crossing a structure with the words ‘WOW Express’ splashed across them in lively blues and greens. I get the sense that the tech-enabled logistics startup is a bastion in the making – not just physically in the area, but allegorically in the industry too. I enter a cushy, air-conditioned lounge-like space with bright green plants juxtaposed with elegant white desks, and walls with art that constantly remind the three dapper gentlemen who had built the space what they were, are and always should be about.

When asked about the wall and everything it was trying so earnestly to communicate, Sandeep Padoshi, one of the founders, goes on to elaborate upon their seven commandments that managed to make a company dealing with a seemingly commonplace service into one with a heart, soul, passion and vision.

1. “Thou shalt respect law, stakeholders and all the members of the family”

“While other companies may be operations-driven, we choose to be HR-driven. We don’t call our employees delivery boys, but call them ‘service marshals’, which in itself is granting dignity to their profile,” says Sandeep.To value a company asset that manages customer queries and route optimisation alike, the startup invests in them through gestures like being the only logistics company which provides breakfast at branch. “We have experienced less than five percent of attrition and most of the people who started with us are still with us,”Sandeep adds. Indeed, WOW Express has one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry.

2. “Thou shalt deliver wow service”

The company, the founders claim, lays utmost importance on delivery. “All these billion-dollar baby companies place all the emphasis on their website, the UI, the product range, and the experience online, without realising that the essence of online shopping is procurement of the product, that is, delivery. It is an equally important part of the process, if not more,” explains Sandeep.

Grooming their staff is at the heart of their services.”The delivery boys are the face of the company. We train our staff to be competent enough to represent our clients as well as our brand name and reputation, by teaching them to be well-spoken, well-mannered, trained to handle customer queries, and in many cases, even learn the product thoroughly so that they may address complaints, installations, returns as well as refunds,” says Sandeep.

3. “Thou shalt take risks”

This commandment applies to the founders’ attitude. From just two offices in Surat and Mumbai, the startup has now grown to over 20 across eight Indian cities, through constant innovation and intuition, which started even before WOW Express came about. All three founders – Sandeep Padoshi, Jayesh Kamat, both at 40, and MazharFaruqi at 45 years of age, had successful careers spanning 15 to 20 years each. But when the e-commerce wave hit, they weren’t going to be left behind. Sandeep, who had been handling sales and distribution for various popular publications like Reader’s Digest and Amar Chitra Katha, felt he knew the home-ordering consumer in and out, considering Reader’s Digest had been following the cash-on-delivery model right from the start. He had corporate ties with Mazhar and Jayesh for seven years and knew them as veterans in the logistics space, thought he could certainly use their combined wealth of experience, to capture market share when only few competitors were in sight.

4. “Thou shalt also be bold and accept change”

With more and more e-commerce websites shifting their operations from the part-inventory, part-marketplace model, to a fully marketplace one, the trio anticipated this new trend would create chaos in the logistics world,as delivery and courier companies found it increasingly difficult to aggregate orders from vendors across the country, and then deliver it to different locations. WOW Express created a first-mile pick-up network and claims to be the largest such mechanism in the country. It handlesall of Rediff’s first-mile pick-ups, and a third of Paytm’s. “We greet our competitors at our first-mile centres every day, and harmoniously hand over our business to them,” Sandeep jokes.WOW also offers last-mile delivery, reverse logistics and warehousing services.

5. “Thou shalt swear by your smartphone”

Sandeep strongly feels that technology is an enabler. Hiring people who own smartphones, the service marshals are to post updates in real time to ensure complete transparency. Failed attempts of delivery should be supported with evidence by the marshals: a photo of the doors of the customers.

Much in keeping with the new IoT wave, the team has equipped all their service marshals with scanners that can be strapped on to their hands, so that scanning details of consignments to be picked up happens accurately, automatically and in real time.

The company also attracted SCM Pro’s attention as the year’s ‘Most Innovative Logistics Company’, ironically for reverting to good old methods to right some wrongs on behalf of humanity—it gave marshals sports bicycles for deliveries, thus saving fuel and also helping its staff own the bikes. The company also does motocycle based deliveries.

6. “Thou shalt make all efforts to stay ahead of competition”

God is in the details, and the trio has made some small, albeit powerful, alterations in their deliverables to stay ahead of competition in this field that allows for little creativity. According to Sandeep,the Indian 3PL (third-party logistics provider) market is all set for a robust growth in the next four to five years. “I believe the industry will touch the figure of around Rs 48,000 crore by 2019. In this booming market, we are one of the best and promptest in the country for COD remittance, as we deliver payments within 48 hours to the clients. We also offer card on delivery service,”Sandeep says. Their main competitors are Delhivery, EcomExpress & GoJavas. Even the e-commerce arm of traditional companies can be considered as competition.

In six months, the company has not only gone from two branches to 20 in over eight cities, but is also delivering for Flipkart, Snapdeal, Rediff, PayTm, Nykaa, Fashion and You, and Amazon.It delivers close to 15,000 shipments daily, with targets to reach Rs120 crore shipments for fiscal 2017, revenues of Rs1,000 crores by FY 20-21 and be amongst the top five logistics company in India within the next five years. Its business volumes have experienced a 50 percent growth month on month.

WOW Express raised a round of funding in July, from the promoters of ONIDA group, the Mansukhanifamily’s ‘tamarind family trust’.

7. “Thou shall build a company with a soul”

“We don’t wish to just acquire business and show growth – we want to focus on our bottom line, which is making the delivery experience as enjoyable as the online shopping experience for the consumer – through satisfied staff that feel strongly about their duties, and who are provided the comfort and ease of state-of-the-art equipment, and made to feel like the most important cog of our machine,” says Mazhar.

Winter is coming. The phrase from Winterfell seems to hold very true for the startups today. After news of firing from biggies like TinyOwl, Housing, and Zomato, and news of unrest at the Bengaluru office of the B2B logistics player Roadrunnr, Grabhouse, the real estate startup, has allegedly mass fired its employees.

Sources claim that the news reached the employees today and the number of people to be fired is yet to be confirmed. (Update: Sources put the number at 177. YourStory could not independently verify this claim.) The Grabhouse team has confirmed the news of the firing but has refused to share the number of employees it has fired. A YourStory source claimed that it is a mass firing. However, we haven’t been able to touch base with the source again for more details.

It is a grim turn from what Yourstory covered a few months back. During Diwali, Grabhouse had kept the spirit of Diwali alive for its employees by giving their team a long and happy Diwali weekend from October 11th to 16th. The employees were also given Amazon gift vouchers as a gesture to thank them for their hard work and contribution towards the company’s success. Unfortunately, the company couldn’t keep the same spirit alive for Christmas and New Year.

Pankhuri Shrivastava, Co-founder and CMO Grabhouse, confirmed the firing by saying that they’ve been forced to lay off employees due to the restructuring process the company is undergoing.
She added that Grabhouse is increasingly focussed on creating better technology solutions to connecting home seekers and owners.

“As we continue to try and build stronger technology solutions, we are closing down the aspects of the business that’s operationally intensive –- this restructuring has forced us to make some tough choices. During this period, we will take all measures to ensure our customers and services remain unaffected,” added Pankhuri

Launched in 2013, Grabhouse isa community-based online exchange for finding rented accommodation. It offers houses in Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune. The company has claimed to attract traffic of 1.5 million monthly visitors, and Pankhuri had said that they close about 85-90 deals on a daily basis.

In January this year, the company had closed a Series A funding of $2.5 million from Kalaari Capital and Sequoia Capital. The company had previously raised $500 K from India Quotient and independent investors.

The new investment was believed to be utilised to develop innovative products and improve the existing technology to enhance the end-user experience and to increase the company’s footprint across major cities in India.

While the more detailed aspects of the reasons for firing have not been shared by the Grabhouse team, Pankhuri added that they have organised a special recruitment team to help the fired employees find their next role soon.

YourStory take

In the past few months, the startup world has unfortunately been abuzz with news of firing, slower funding, operations shutting, and general unrest. Most of the reasons cited by the companies have been towards them restructuring their companies or closing of operations.

Grabhouse isn’t the first real estate player to hit a rough patch in these terms. Biggies with deeper pockets like Housing have seen a spurt of mass firing of its employees. Over the years, several questions have been raised on whether these real-estate online portals actually solve consumers’ need and requirements.

Over the past few months there also has been a stronger emphasis on following a leaner model and more robust business models. Many also believe that firing is a necessary evil in the overall ‘setting right’ of the ecosystem, and the founders in several cases need to take drastic steps to ensure that the balance and sustainability is restored.

You’re in the market for a loan. As a consumer you have the option to go to online web aggregators, third-party vendors or banks and financial institutions. After working for different banks like HDFC, Citibank, ICICI and Yes Bank, Manavjeet Singh saw that these solutions did not actually bring the borrower and lender together.

Loan is a complex product where several parameters like eligibility criteria and availability play a critical role. Having a vantage view of the problem made Manavjeet see problems at both the banking and consumer fronts.

Working on the closure gaps

One of the biggest challenges banks face in loans disbursement is controlling customer acquisition costs. This is mainly because in India there is a large base of people who are yet to take loans, making customer acquisition an important aspect for banks.

Customers, understandably, worry about the turnaround time. Banks, on the other hand, concentrate on verifying files. So, when aggregators, who see customers as leads to be sold to banks, come in, disbursement of loans don’t go the way they should.

“There are several aggregator platforms but there is no platform that helps lender and borrower to not only actually meet but also work on closure of the loan,” adds Manavjeet. This led to the birth of Bestdealfinance, now known as Rubique. It is a lending platform that focusses on bringing the borrower and lender together and also on the final closure process, with the use of technology.

As there already are sites that focus on credit cards and personal loans, the team wanted to cover the whole gamut of loan and lending services, from personal loans and credit cards to SME and retail loans, with a focus on actual disbursement.

With his background and experience in the sector, Manavjeet found that it wasn’t difficult to on-board the banks and financial institutions. However, being in the space of fintech, they found it difficult to on-board the technical talent and know-how.

As the basis of Rubique was to build a clean line process of connecting the banks and the individuals, technology was important. This is where Sandeep Nambiar, a family friend who was working in Nomura, Japan, joined in as the Co-founder.

However, the team realised that going purely online was not the solution, especially when disbursement and closure was the key. Manavjeet says in India online is still in its nascent stage, as touch-and-feel experience is important for finance in India. He adds that while one might run algorithms and get the basic details online, RBI requires the basic KYC (know-your-customer) signatures and documents.

Rubique works on an online and an assisted online model. So, while the process online is seamless—where a customer chooses a product, uploads the documents and other details—Rubique also has an intuitive call centre connected to the site. This means the customer care can get in touch with the client whenever there is a visible shift in behaviour online.

For example, if someone stops at the uploading stages or the choosing stages, the call centre gets in touch with the customer immediately and helps him or her in the process.

Citing an example of a truck loan financing done in Mumbai, Manavjeet says they hired 20 students for a week and did a basic survey on whether the truck owners would take on this option of an online and assisted online approach, and everyone was open to the idea.

“Just by giving options, we cannot help the customers. There are cases when the customer doesn’t want to upload the documents; in these cases the customer care gets in touch with the consumer and helps them. With SMEs, the main challenge is how to make the documentation file for the banks. This is where we come in and help,” he adds.

The technical aspects of fintech

Once you apply online for a loan, the matchmaking algorithm kicks in and options are given. The matching is done by not only bringing the bank criteria and eligibility into the picture but also customer needs and requirements. Rubique works on the basic principle that every borrower has a lender.

Once the process is initiated, Rubique also initiates the CIBIL or credit eligibility score criteria. If your score doesn’t match the required criteria, the team ensures that the loans are disbursed through other financial institutions or NBF (Non-Banking Financial) companies, if not banks.

Since March, Rubique has received over 11,000 applications and has had close to 2,300 application approvals. It has disbursed loans worth Rs 150 crore till date. It has on-boarded 41 banks and NBFCs, including Ratnakar Bank to an ICICI. The tie-up processes are still on.

The team also integrates with the banks’ internal systems to help create a seamless process. By the end of the year, online integration will be done with 20 product integrations.  The company was incorporated in October last year, but the actual loan disbursement and process began in March this year, after on-boarding 20 banks.

Not all banks are yet completely online and don’t have internal tech systems in place. Manavjeet adds that even with the new e-KYC policy in place, we still have a long way to go. “We are working closely with banks and other financial institutes to build a seamless online connectivity process,” he says.

What do the numbers say?

Rubique ties up with banks even if they do not have a strong online presence, as the focus is on disbursements. The team is simultaneously working to integrate the online processes, while helping the end-consumer get the loans.

The revenue generation for Rubique is from the banks. While the basis points vary according to the products, the average basis is from 70 to 150. By the end of this month the company will have revenue of close to Rs 3 crore, says Manavjeet.

In October this year, Rubique raised a funding of $3 million from Kalaari Capital. The team has now got the core team on board. Anadi Mishra, ex-VP Engineering Analytics, Myntra has joined as CTO and will be heading the tech hub in Bengaluru.

Anadi says that the next round of value creation in Indian economy is going to happen in the space of technology in finance. To innovate and build tech products in this space, analytics will play an important and integral role. He said that Myntra is a great place with a solid team, but building something from grounds up has its own charm.

“It is a subject matter very close to my heart. And an opportunity to work on this with smart, dedicated and passionate professionals geared up to break new grounds in this space can’t really be missed,” adds Anadi.

While building the tech side to ensure a seamless loan disbursement process, Rubique believes that the lending segment of the financial services market still has a long way to go. “We are aiming to blend domain expertise with technology in this space and work on a solution,” says Manavjeet.

YourStory take

In 2014, investments in the segment shot up to $12 billion from $3 billion the previous year. It is believed that various verticals of the banking system will be broken down and made simpler with the use of technology.

These include money transfers, account management, lending, and investments. The space is projected to grow at 48 per cent year-on-year. In Silicon Valley, the investments in the space shot up to 117 per cent and the total investments in Europe was at $1.48 billion.

While the numbers in India are yet to catch up, as the year comes to an end, we see a growth and visibility in the number of fintech startups in the country. Close to 60 per cent of Indians are unbanked and 90 per cent of small businesses have no links to formal financial institutions.

However, over 60 per cent of Indians own mobile phones and over 60 per cent will own a smartphone by 2019. This growth around smartphones is believed to have ushered in a new era in the financial sector in the country. How far the startups will go in creating an actual ‘disruption’ is yet to be seen.

In real life unlike the one in ‘reel’ life, the elderly do not get relegated to character roles. They simply vanish from the picture. From mass media to advertising to businesses — a world where youth is worshipped, it would seem there’s no country for old people.

In another 10 years consider the population that will comprise the silver brigade. These are people who have led active lives, built companies, created records, and yes, ‘disrupted’ many an old way of doing things. Will they be content with living a ‘retired’ life? Do they expect their children to drop their careers just to take care of them when they fall ill?

For an entrepreneur who is always looking for an opportunity, this could be a golden one. According to a joint report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Help Age International, “India has around 100 million elderly at present and the number is expected to increase to 323 million, constituting 20 percent of the total population, by 2050.”

Business of ageing

In the past couple of years, a few startups have come up with ideas to serve the 60 plus segment of the population either by focusing on building a social platform for them or by offering a range of services and commerce.

Startups like Goodhands, Senior Shelf, Pramati Care, SeniorWorld, and Silver Talkies try to cater to all the needs of the senior population and have been founded by ‘younger’ people after their bad experiences related to care for their elderly relatives.

For 51-year-old Vladimir (Vladi) Ruppo, however, it was more personal. “I don’t want to depend on my kids. I would like to age in the company of my own,” he says. Vladi, who has been living in Bengaluru for the past 16 years, has started Beautiful Years (launching in a beta version) with an aim to “improve the lives of senior people and of those who care for them by facilitating mutual support, bringing innovative products, and providing socially reviewed listings of elder care services.” Adds Vladi, “We are going to be the TripAdvisor or Zomato of senior care.”

Vladi is a seasoned software executive with almost 30 years of international experience. Born and brought up in St. Petersburg, Russia, he worked for 12 years in Jerusalem, Israel, before moving to Bengaluru. He came here in 2000 to set up a branch office of a British MNC from scratch – and eventually brought it up to 2,200 people.  “My initial six months’ contract extended into 16 years,” he says.

After stepping out of his big role as VP Engineering at Cisco towards the end of January 2016, Vladi wants to now focus on Beautiful Years.

It is not about the age

“Can I tell you a story about my aunt? She is 86 now. She told me recently, ‘Every time I look at the mirror, I wonder who this ugly, old woman is? She is not me: I know that I am exactly the same person I used to be 60 or even 70 years ago! Still, others can see only that old woman, not me.’ Are senior people well understood? Are they understood at all?” asks Vladi. A question that led him to build Beautiful Years mostly with his savings.

The platform is free for users and Vladi plans to make money through its e-commerce portal that serves this specific segment. “Our e-shop provides life-improving senior care products as small as nail cutters with a magnifying lens; book holders; tablet cutters and crushers; motorised wheelchairs; patient hoists and much more. In addition to locally manufactured products, Beautiful Years is going to import advanced high-tech products from overseas — from augmented reality glasses for Parkinson’s patients, allowing them to steady their walking, to special shoes for diabetic patients; apparel for bedridden patients and much more.”

Those who buy senior care products probably need related services. “We list providers of caregivers, physiotherapists, home diagnostics services, and medical equipment suppliers,” adds Pavithra Reddy, who is volunteering to verify service providers listed on the site.

Vladi also plans to run campaigns with large hospitals, banks, and real estate companies to bring in revenues.

Living with grace

But at the moment, Vladi is most enthusiastic about building a community for elders who want to share stories and seek companionship. He also wants to give space to the people who take care of seniors, and who are often not young themselves. Vladi adds: “There is so much to do for those who take care of seniors and those who are not young themselves! The least we can do is to share stories of beautiful lives of our parents and grandparents – there are many amazing inspiring stories on the site. There is a section, ‘Beautiful Ageing’, on our portal. It sounds like a contradiction in itself – but is it really? Can’t ageing be truly beautiful, not just graceful?”

A few years ago, after losing her husband, her sister, her son, and her son-in-law, Vladi’s aunt at the age of 83 learnt computers and started writing memoirs about people she loved and beautiful lives they lived. “She has become really passionate about her writing as it has given her a new meaning – to become a voice of people and generations gone. That way she has also become an inspiration and hope for her grand and great grand-grandchildren,” says Vladi.

Young in mind

It is debatable if Indians are more caring towards their elders, but daily reports of senior deaths in crime sections of newspapers hardly serve the cause. Once the ‘Pensioner’s Paradise’, Bengaluru now drinks from the fountain of youth that the IT and its related industry seem to draw continuously.  Similar is the case with other bigger cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

But the middle-class retiring population will not go down quietly into the sunset. As Vladi says, “It is sometimes more difficult to manage 10 people than a thousand as there are no systems in place; everything becomes a challenge. And I love it – I want to prove to those startup kids that my generation can still make it happen!”

Website

HealthAssure is not yet another healthtech startup connecting patients with doctors. Yes, it does link patients with doctors and clinics for primary care, but its founders chose to target only corporates.

While startups like Practo and Lybrate help patients choose a doctor and book appointments, HealthAssure partners with corporates on one end and hospitals and insurance companies on the other end.

Tie-ups with corporations like Deutsche Bank work in sync with the health benefit plans of the organisations. The HR department gets a platform that checks on the different health benefits that can be given to the employees and the tests they have undergone or have to.

The insurance partners work as a third party check. Once a user requests for health or life insurance with any of HealthAssure’s partners, like Apollo Munich, Religare, or Cigna, the insurance provider’s agent collects the information and passes it on to HealthAssure.

Taking a different route

The team at HealthAssure then helps the individual with their mandatory checks and tests. HealthAssure has tie-ups with close to 2,000 healthcare institutions and professionals in 800 cities in India.

Citing an example, Varun Gera, 45, Founder and CEO, HealthAssure, says, “If a female patient, an employee of any of the corporates it has partnered with in Jalandhar wants an X-Ray, ECG, and an MRI scan and also wants to meet a dietician on a Sunday, HealthAssure will find the place closest to the patient that is open on a Sunday and has a female technician.”

As the doctors and healthcare institutions have tie-ups with HealthAssure, the doctors can log in to get access to patient details. Test results too are uploaded in the database and shared with the insurance companies. Based on this, insurance companies take it further thus reducing the cases of fraud.

A spokesperson for a leading health insurance company that has forayed deep into the healthcare space says, “Working with HealthAssure has been a great experience. Not only do we get access to a premium quality network for our clients but also innovative IT solutions that make great business sense.” The spokesperson spoke on the condition of the company not being named.

The beginnings

Varun’s experience as CEO of healthcare firm United Healthcare India made him realise the gap in the primary services healthcare marketplace.

Varun and his colleagues from United Healthcare India—Ninad Raje, Delly D’Souza and Satish Prabhu—realised that most of the health insurances and benefits focussed on special and specific care. “You might not go to the hospital every day but you definitely go to a primary care centre once every two months. And the market size of the primary care space is $80-90 billion,” says Varun, who co-founded the company in 2011. Blood tests, radiology, diagnostics, MRI, ECG, consultations, dietary checks all fall under primary care.

The team knew from the beginning that they had to take a B2B approach and first worked on building their network and database. “With the tie-ups and benefits we give, we ensure that the database is more than just a directory. Every organisation is assured of the quality of doctors and healthcare institutions on their platform,” adds Varun.

Learning to be an entrepreneur

On the challenges in donning the role of an entrepreneur, Varun says, “What you’re trained as an employee is very different from an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, you are doing everything and starting from ground zero, whether it is when you’re talking to the electrician or the plumber or a team member of your client, you are nobody. And that’s a little difficult initially.”

HealthAssure follows a centralised model of operations, so all centres across the country are connected to one central platform and call centre. This, Varun says, was difficult to sell, but today they have built their network and database on this.

Number crunching

The team claims to be doubling in size annually but declined to comment on its revenue. HealthAssure follows a subscription-based model, taking 20 per cent of every case closed. The team claims to close over 15,000 cases every month.

The company received an initial seed amount from serial entrepreneur Rajul Garg, followed by an undisclosed pre-series A.  The team now is looking for the next round of investment of $7 million.

YourStory take

While the healthcare market is still in a nascent stage in India, it is expected to reach $280 billion by 2020 (Forbes). No wonder then that last year, close to 7,500 startups across the globe were looking to develop digital solutions in the healthcare space.

While several startups in India are working towards bringing medical practitioners and consumers’ closer using technology, there seems to be a problem at the supply end.

The paid healthcare apps market is believed to be growing at close to 33.8 per cent CAGR.

In the Asian market, Japan and India are believed to be the emerging and most promising countries for healthcare apps. For new healthtech companies, customer adoption is a challenge. By partnering with corporates, HealthAssure is able to solve this problem.

Like HealthAssure, a number of young healthtech companies are coming up in areas as diverse as medical devices and hospital management. India needs all of them.

Website

Data from Google shows that while four in five consumers are looking to make local purchases, consumers require pricing and data availability across stores in their vicinity to make effective local buying decisions. At present, when consumers search for  local options, they are most likely to find Yellow Pages and review sites with limited, static content. To fill this vacuum, Sujit Thomas Zachariah (44) and Rakesh Raghuvanshi (46) floated Nifty Window.

Nifty Window is a hyperlocal discovery and omni-channel conversion platform for brands with brick-and-mortar presence. It leverages brands’ offline assets and drives online consumers to nearby offline stores or to the brand’s online store. Sujit says,

We work primarily with brands that have multiple locations across the country, including owned outlets, franchises and dealers, and help drive footfall to the local outlets.

The platform uses its patent-pending technology to deliver contextual content to likely search queries in the customer’s path to purchase cycle, utilising geo-spatial data-driven content, lead and transaction optimisation.

Coping with e-commerce onslaught

With the onslaught of e-commerce in the past few years, chains with brick-and-mortar stores have been on the back foot, with many wondering if the digital era would result in the end of offline retail. Sujit adds,

Their typical initial response has been to open their own e-commerce store, often overlooking their unique offline network advantage across the country. There was no solution in sight that helped such stores attract consumers from the online channels.

Brains behind Nifty Window

Given their deep domain expertise in local digital marketing and retail brand activation or last-mile connect, the duo came up with a platform to attract consumers from online to offline stores. “There was plenty of supporting data showing that this concept with proper strategy and execution can be really disruptive in helping offline brands turn the tide,” says Rakesh.

Prior to Nifty Window, Sujit was a Product Director at Yahoo! US, where he led merchant experiences across Yahoo! Small Business and Yahoo! Local. He has authored six patents/trade secrets and over 20 publications. He holds an MBA from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo.

With over two decades of experience in brand marketing and communications, Rakesh has built two leading activation agencies, founded Live1India (a pioneer retail consulting group in engagement and memories-based communications) and has been involved in the launch of more than 35 leading global brands in India. He has won global communication strategy pitches for global brands such as Gillette.

Named in the Tech 30 list for Yourstory’s TechSparks, 2015,  , Nifty Window was launched in May 2014 to help brands influence millions of consumers directly each month with local buying needs located in over 200 cities, with more than 50 per cent of the influence taking place over mobile devices. “On an average, brands have seen 3X to 4X improvement in their ability to influence consumers in the vicinity of their outlets, all organically,” says Rakesh.

Leveraging online platform

While there are plenty of solutions available to brands focussing on repeat business from existing customers with loyalty and smart re-engagement-based solutions, there are hardly any platforms focussed on helping acquire new customers. Sujit adds,

Our initial challenge was to educate them on alternative ways to leverage the online platform than pure-play e-commerce, and the importance of content online and transaction offline from consumer decision-making perspective.

With initial clients showing a surge in sales, the duo has been able to enable many brands understand the power of their physical stores, and also maximise sales now by combining both online and offline marketing.

The company has a clientele base including Domino’s Pizza, Unilever, Harley Davidson, Decathlon, Future Group, Titan, Aditya Birla Group and Kotak Mahindra Bank in India. Nifty Window works on a fixed-plus-variable pricing model. At present, Nifty Window claims to have one million users and it influences five million searches every month.

YourStory‘s take

Local marketing for brands is a $50-billion opportunity and is growing at a rapid pace, driven by mobile adoption and hyperlocal automation possibilities. Built as a scalable platform offering, Nifty Window has the ability to cater to multiple brands, across business verticals and geographies, enabling a future where online and offline commerce co-exist instead of rooting each other out.

Globally, there are a number of players specialising in brand content marketing, like HubSpot, local paid content syndication like Yext, GoDaddy, ConstantContact, and outlet landing pages/websites (e.g. Where2GetIt). In contrast, Nifty Window offers performance-driven local marketing based on unique, structured content such as pricing and availability and hyperlocal analytics.

Website

Campus merchandise seems to have caught the attention of quite a few startups bridging the gap of supplying organized ‘pride wear’ inventory. There’s Alma Mater  Store, eSparsha, and Pridewear to name a few. An Indore-based startup is all geared to challenge players in this segment.

CampusMall.in, a multi-channel brand licensing company, helps students and alumni across India to flaunt their institute pride by providing high-quality personalised merchandise. Their merchandise reflects the ethos of the institute. Headquartered in Indore, CampusMall assists elite schools and colleges across India to set up their merchandise engagement programmes.

“Institutes can also procure consistent quality, reliable service, and timely product delivery of uniforms for their students. The current network is highly fragmented and unorganised,” says 32-year-old Co-founder and CEO Ankur Gupta, an MBA graduate from DePaul University, USA.

“Alumni or associations can get memorabilia designed and delivered by licensing with us. We can offer them a plethora of options for events, reunions, promotions, etc.,” adds Co-founder Arpit Badjatiya (33), an IIM-C graduate, who majored in Engineering from Purdue University.

Is CampusMall a shopping mall?

CampusMall is a one-stop e-store for any institute that wants to build a strong emotional connect among students, faculty, and alumni and even aspiring students. Licensed merchandise includes T-shirts, polos, hoodies, sweatshirts, mugs, caps, and accessories, etc.

“Overall, our idea is to organise the institute branded merchandise and uniforms while ensuring that the institute or alumni associations are benefiting from branding,” briefs Co-founder Siddharth Badjatiya (32), a computer science engineer, who got his masters from USC Los Angeles.

A common passion, an unmet need

Ankur spent almost a decade in the US, where he was working for a noted insurance brokerage company Marsh. H eventually got interested in education startups in India after observing some and decided to take up an education Smart Class franchise in India.“ I moved back to India in August 2011,” informs Ankur who, after visiting over 100 schools and colleges across the region, sold nothing. He eventually joined hands with Arpit and Siddharth, who had founded a company selling ERP to educational institutes, and were ideating on an institute merchandise portal. Ankur decided to chip in but the three of them got onto a new direction.

“We realised most of the colleges and institutes approached bulk wholesalers or retailers for their apparel needs. Alumni associations, on the other hand, got merchandise customised once or twice a year during reunions or founders day. The supply usually was limited in quantity and quality along with the problem of dead stock or dearth of stock,” informs Ankur.

“We found a whole new un-organised market waiting to get tapped. Our vision was to provide a dedicated e-store for the institutions and associations so they could shop without cost or management hassles,” adds Arpit.

Campus wear and competition 

CampusMall’s first customer was The Daly College, Ankur’s alma mater, followed by noted names in the segment, including SIMSREE, Narsee Munjee Institute of Management, SP Jain in Mumbai, NIT Kurukshetra, The Scindia School Gwalior,  Lawrence School Lovedale and the likes. The startup engages with its customers in three ways:

• Level 1: A dedicated merchandise e-store where students and alumni can buy pride wear memorabilia online (e.g.  iitm.campusmall.in).
• Level 2: Extended online catalogue to students on campus at discounted pricing via the Student Engagement Program.
• Level 3: Fulfilment of bulk requirements on campus for uniform, events, and customised merchandise needs.

“The HRD ministry reports that there are 14 lakh primary and k-12 institutes, over 700 universities, and at least 36,000 colleges across India. A research report by Icon Group International (a leading market research group) estimates uniform business in India to be approximately $ 1.4 billion (2013). We have carved out a demographics consisting of 1,000 institutes who would be our primary targets based on their legacy, heritage, and geography,” informs Arpit.

According to him, “Each of our competitors has a niche offering while we want to be the ‘go-to-brand’ in the segment. Currently, we run dedicated online stores for over 85 institutes based in at least 40 cities across India. In the near future, our plan is to run e-stores for 500 institutes, which is a curated list of schools and colleges.”

The founders draw inspiration from various books and experience as students in the US educational system. However, Ankur is specifically stumped by the book ‘Execution’ by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy. “The gist of it is that there are a lot of great ideas and many talented people chasing those ideas, however, it’s the execution that really defines your success,” he says.

Website

“My mother would pick my bra for me. I didn’t even know there were different kinds and varieties till the bigger stores and brands came into town,” said a young woman on Thursday at Zivame’s first lingerie fitting lounge.

Sipping on wine and surrounded by pretty lacy lingerie, the women present had no qualms in opening up and discussing body types, cup sizes, shapes and under busts.

Did you know that a woman’s body changes shape every six months, and, along with it, her bra size. The average number of times a woman needs to change her bra in a year is at least once in three months. In fact the kind of bra one wears can change the shape and look of one’s body.

Free fittings, consultations and sessions helped women choose a bra according to their body shape and size. Richa Kar, Founder and CEO, Zivame, who was present at the opening, said, “The reason I started the lounge was not to focus on the sales or the promotion of the brand but to truly educate women. Most women even today are clueless about the fit and sizes of the lingerie they need to pick.”

Not a store but a fitting lounge

The fitting rooms have over 16 different sizes and measurements shown with different categories and types. Customers can walk in and enter their details on a tab for the professional fitters and experts. After this, they are measured and fitted and can then pick and choose the kind of bra they want to try out. If convinced, they can make an online purchase right there or can decide to later on.

While the lounge stocks Zivame’s in-house brand for the touch-and-feel experience, at the time of online purchase, customers can decide to pick any brand they want. The merchandise displayed at the lounge isn’t for sale.

Why a fitting lounge

According to a survey conducted by Zivame, four out of five women are not aware of the right size for themselves and have been wearing ill-fitting bras all their life. About 82 per cent of the Indian women have never received professional help in finding the right bra.

Lingerie shopping involved walking into a small boxed store and looking for bras that seemed to fit the bill. It took a while to understand the right procedure to measure and the differences. The team at Zivame decided to look at the different barriers that a consumer faces when she walks in to buy her bra.

“While we say we have a lot of sizes, varieties and brands, there was no offline place where a woman can walk in to find what a D or a DD cup is and the difference between them,” said Richa.
So is this Zivame’s foray into the offline market? Not according to Richa.

She said that it would defeat the initial vision and idea of starting Zivame, if that were the case. She wanted the store to provide a perfect touch-and-feel experience to complement the online store. “At an offline store, you need to worry about inventory and operations. The reason we started this lounge was to make the whole bra and lingerie buying experience more comfortable and easier,” says Richa.

Having raised its Series C funding round in September, Zivame claims to sell one bra every minute. Close to 60 per cent of revenue comes from its in-house brands. And 30 per cent of the revenue comes from Tier II and III cities. Shapewear has seen a 336 per cent increase in one year.

Also read: With 300% YoY growth, how Zivame is aiming to dominate the online lingerie segment

YourStory take

The idea of a fitting lounge is not a new concept globally. Victoria’s Secret and other lingerie stores abroad mandatorily have a fitting lounge. Brands like ButterCups too has a fitting lounge. Richa said that Zivame’s was set up with the vision to help women get the best quality lingerie, and remove the taboo associated with its purchase. The brand aims to launch 10 such fitting lounges across the country in the next three years.

According to the Global Lingerie Market report compiled by Research and Markets, the global online lingerie market is pegged to grow at a CAGR of 18.18 per cent. The report covered Europe, APAC, North America and rest of the world.

In the US alone the market is believed to grow at 16 per cent. Online lingerie store PrettySecrets raised a Series A round from Orios Venture Partners and India Quotient; Cloe is backed by Mountains Partners and was rebranded ‘Clovia’ while raising a Series A from Ivycap Ventures.

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The growth of smartphones and online transactions, while very positive trends, could also place a large section of the population under the threat of cyber attacks. Twenty-year-old Siddharth Raja developed iFreedom as a solution.

India is witnessing amazing growth in the smartphone market and is expected to have 314 million mobile Internet users by 2017. But as a largely mobile-first internet country, the high cost of mobile data and lack of security over public Wi-Fi systems are barriers that need to be overcome.

With the volume of monetary transactions occurring online over public networks rising, even amateur hackers could exploit the situation for their benefit.

Image credit: Shutterstock

What is it?

iFreedom is an app that compresses data and also provides a secure way to browse the Internet on public Wi-Fi hotspots. The app has an infrastructure that helps secure transmission of encrypted data over the Internet using protocol technologies like VPN, SSH Tunnelling and some new packages designed by the startup’s internal team. It claims to be able to save about 100MB of data for 1GB of usage. It can also break Wi-Fi filters like Fortiguard and Cyberroam and provide better security.

Story so far

Siddharth is currently a student at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. He started iFreedom in late-2014 as a project in college with his own savings, when he had to access international journals and was unable to do so due to country restrictions. The first version of the app got about 20,000 downloads within three days. Owing to the scale and high traffic, the hosting company that provided the servers decided to discontinue their service.

Encouraged by the feedback and responses from users, Siddharth decided to rebuild the app by hosting it on his own servers. He spent about three months on the process and finally went live with the app in January 2015. He first launched it only on Android and then based on feedback worked on an iOS version too.

Siddharth utilises the Internet extensively for his college work and believes that, “If everyone can harness the full potential of the Internet, without any restrictions based on location or other factors, it would be even more powerful!”

He is currently in the process of applying a patent for the technology used in his app. He has a team of four server specialists and few Android, iOS and Windows developers who assist him. Within the first three months of their operation, Siddharth says that over 10 million GB of data was transmitted  through iFreedom.

This app also has a 128-256 bit RSA encrypted connection to ensure data security of its users. On the functioning of the app, Siddharth says,

Text data is more compression-efficient and hence saves more data of the user. iFreedom has very good compressibility factor while using services like instant messaging, browsing Facebook posts and comments (excluding picture and video content), browsing informative websites like Wikipedia etc. Our app also has a ‘stats’ tab which shows amount of saved data in a particular session. That also shows real-time data graph and usage.

The app has seen good traction and was among the Top 10 free app downloads in India and Top 30 in USA on the Google Play Store. The app is free for end users and the startup is currently sustaining itself through in-app ads. Siddharth says,

“iFreedom is being used in 89 countries worldwide and it has more that 25 lakh users. We have received sponsorship of $100,000 from tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook and also have a tie-up worth $25,000 with IBM for its softlayer and Bluemix cloud infrastructure.”

Currently, iFreedom is focussing on improving its features and getting more users on board. In the future, Siddharth plans to offer custom encryption and compression services to businesses. On what makes his app stand out, he says,

We have a mechanism that ensures that no two users’ data is mixed or interfered on our servers. This also ensures that our servers are secured, and even logged in users can’t access other users’ data or hack into the servers.

What we liked

The app has a simple interface and the features are self-explanatory. Over the course of a few days, I was able to verify most of the claims of the app. I was able to experience about 11 per cent compression for outgoing data and about seven per cent for incoming data on an average.

The app has potential use cases in a variety of locations such as restaurants, government offices, schools and colleges or wherever one is dealing with sensitive information, but still need to access public Wi-Fi networks. It automatically picks the server with the best performance, but users can also manually chose servers of their choice based on their need.

What could be improved

While techies will probably be convinced at this stage to try out the app, to generate wider appeal the user interface could be further enhanced with better use of colours and more prominent buttons. Also, currently the ‘stats’ option provides information only about the current Internet session that is in progress. Providing users with historical data about all their past sessions would be a useful feature.  

YourStory verdict

With smartphones and Internet becoming a large part of our lives, we are now more vulnerable to hacking and other cyber security threats. Currently, the worldwide cyber security market is estimated in the range of $71 billion in 2014 to more than $155 billion by 2019. Global spending on mobile and network security is estimated at $11 billion annually.

Earlier this year, digital security firm Uniken, which works with banks and other financial institutions, had raised $2 million (Rs 12 crore). Then there are players like Appknox that help businesses better secure their apps. On the other side, there are startups, like Gigato and Mcent’s Jana, that are trying to make mobile Internet more pocket-friendly for end users-. iFreedom’s app sits at the intersection of cyber security and bringing down the cost of Internet data. While it is still early days, iFreedom has a lot of potential to go after the Indian and global market.   

Website: iFreedom

What do you think about this app, do let us know in the comments below. Also do check out other apps under our App Fridays series.

After graduating from business school, Vikas Goyal experimented with various e-commerce models to run a successful business. In 1999, along with a friend, he started kirnanbazaar, an online grocery store. In 2007, he launched dealpedeal.com, an online platform for deals and discount. However, his ventures hit a roadblock and the business couldn’t escalate.

Years later, while discussing with his friend the dependency of business on agriculture and over-dependency of agriculture on monsoons and government aid, Vikas, 38, realised there are many inefficiencies that have become a part of farmers’ lives.

He did some research on the sector and found that there are very few digital startups catering to the needs of farmers. Technology is changing our lives and consumption behaviour but farmers are still untouched by it and are relying on old methodologies. While some progressive farmers use technology to enhance productivity, the pace of adoption is slow. So Vikas started Agroman, an online platform that will cater to the needs to farmers.

Launched in November this year, Agroman is an integrated agriculture portal providing agro-services to farmers and acts as a product and price discovery platform. “We are focussed on providing information on tractors, agro-implements, seeds and fertilizers to farmers, and also help them buy the best products to suit their requirements. We also offer online mandi service where a farmer can buy, sell and rent agriculture produce and products. We provide information on government schemes and agriculture subsidies, agro expert services, latest agro news and crop management information. Our offline model is designed to develop market and generate demand,” explains Vikas. He has more than 15 years of experience in strategy and planning with corporates like Zee, Essar and Airtel.

Starting out with his personal savings, Vikas used the investment for the product and platform building. The current revenue model is subscription-based and from ads. The company is targeting the 70 per cent of Indian population that is dependent on agriculture, besides aiming at influencing consumption behaviour of rural population.

Agroman claims to have 10,000 page views a day. It’s also planning to produce content in Hindi and Punjabi by January next year.

Challenges: before and after

Building the platform for farmers was not an easy task. The biggest struggle was figuring out a way to cater to the needs of such diverse a population as building one product for everybody is near to impossible in farming. Nevertheless, Agroman claims to have started with one product and, over a period of time, will develop and expand its offerings to other segments.

The major challenge, according to Vikas, in this segment is changing the mindset of the stakeholders. Most of the industry is unorganised with no standardisation or industry benchmarks. Indian farmers are not at the forefront of technological advancement and most of them use age-old practices for farming and are dependent on government subsidies and programmes. There is a huge information asymmetry in the market resulting in inefficiencies. The business world views farmers as a backward community that requires no product innovation. A farmer delays the purchase due to lack of information or not knowing the opportunity cost. These are issues that affect the potential of Indian agriculture.

Vikas adds that this challenge will take some time to overcome, but is conquerable and stakeholders will see merit in using Agroman for growing income or saving money.

Another challenge Vikas faces is the low Internet penetration in the farmer community. However, the platform is trying to reach out to farmers through content and field men. These field men are the people who go to farms and meet farmers personally and display the platform. “We believe once people understand the benefit of technology, they will definitely adopt it. Today, people in villages are hooked to social media. Why, then, can’t they start using services that can help them in business,” asks Vikas.

Product roadmap

Currently, Agroman focusses on acting as an online mandi for agro-related products such as tractors, agro-machine, seeds, fertilizers, insecticide and pesticides, and also to provide information on government schemes and crop management and offline areas to farmers.

In Phase II, Vikas says there are plans to work with industry to launch online sales of agro-products, launch on-demand expert services and extend activities of the team members on the field to promote soil healthcare and water testing. These services will be available through both Internet and mobile platforms.

Market overview

The agriculture industry contributes to 17 per cent of the GDP of India while 70 per cent of population is dependent on it. However, farmers are still dependent on government subsidies and freebies and are yet to possess a system of self-reliance.

Recently, startups have started taking up the initiative in this segment. They are keen on bringing in new technology to help farmers and create a technology-enabled ecosystem for them.

EM3 Agri Services, Agro Star, Crop In and many such startups are offering various services to farmers, including farming-as-a-service, financial inclusion and field work.

On competition, Vikas says that the agriculture industry is vast and can accommodate many players. Startups entering the space will fasten the process of improvement in the condition of Indian farmers. He thinks it is an opportunity for him to work with these startups to bring the much-needed change in this industry.

Besides, there are a number of NGOs working for the uplift of farmers, but most of their work is more from a social perspective rather than a business one. There is, therefore, a need to do farming as a competitive business entity and bring in efficiencies.

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At 85, Pandit Jasraj’s voice sounds as timeless as it can get, embodying the lasting legacy of Tansen and Baiju Bawra. He believes that each day of an artiste’s life is a struggle – a saadhna. A room in his house is dedicated to the awards and accolades he has received, which includes Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padmashree, Sangeet Natak Akademi award, and Master Dinanath Mangeshkar award. But even as melodic and gamut as his voice, his humility is beyond compare.

Pandit Jasraj belongs to the Mewati Gharana of Hindustani classical music, an offshoot of the Gwalior Gharana. Influenced by Sufi and Kirtankar styles, the vocals practised in the Mewati Gharana uses an excess of sargam and tihais, and has developed a texture of its own. Pandit Jasraj was just four years old, when he was appointed the State musician in the court of Osman Ali Khan, Hyderabad’s last Nizam. Over the past eight decades that he has been practising classical music, he has seen times change. He has come a long way, and is widely considered one of the greatest innovators in classical music today, primarily because of a form of jugalbandi called jasrangi that he created and mastered, styled on the ancient system of moorchhana, a unique collaboration between a male and female vocalist, both singing different ragas at the same time.

No matter where his musical concerts take him to, Pandit Jasraj visits Hyderabad every year during the last week of November to ponder over his life and times. He visits his father Pandit Motiram’s grave and recalls his upbringing and childhood. His father was a classical singer too, who passed away when Jasraj was just four, but his teachings were good enough to last a lifetime. In an exclusive interview with YourStory, near his father’s grave in Amberpet, Hyderabad, the legend recalls his life and struggles, and admits that life for an artiste is a continuous struggle.

Pandit Jasraj thanks his teachers and luck for his accomplishments. At the age of 14, when he was a tabla player, he was deeply distressed by the way accompanying artistes were treated. Jasraj vowed not to cut his hair until he learned to sing. He finally cut it after garnering his first AIR Radio performance, two years later, where he sang Raga Kaunsi Kanada. He received training from Maharaja Jaywant Singh Waghela and Ustad Gulam Kadar Khan of the Mewat Gharana.

Jasraj soon moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata), the City Of Joy bursting with art patrons. Back in those days, the city was booming with legends like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Allah Rakha, among others, jamming together in concerts that went all night. But young Jasraj’s life was not going to be easy. He recalls his mother’s prolonged battle against cancer.

The maestro recalls, “I couldn’t save my father, because I was too young. But the very thought of losing my mother was devastating. There was this one incident when I walked all the way to central Calcutta searching for the medicines the doctor had prescribed. When I finally found the medicines I was looking for, I gave the chemist every penny I had in my pockets, and told him that I’d pay him the rest of the money once I have it. He declined saying, ‘Have you ever heard medicines given on credit?’ Suddenly, the owner of the shop walked in and paid for the medicines. He probably knew I was a classical singer.”

The singer also recalls how during the heights of his struggle, help came in the strangest of ways. He says, “I couldn’t afford a doctor for my mother. The doctor had asked for Rs 15 as his visit fee, but left with no other option, I still called him home. I told him that I’ll be singing on the radio that evening and he must listen to the programme if he finds time. The doctor said that classical music did not interest him, and he would be visiting his niece for dinner. The next day when he came to visit my mother, his mood had changed. He said that my programme was played at his niece’s place and everyone loved it. His niece had also told him about the state of poverty among classical singers, and about their struggles. The doctor charged only Rs two for every future visit to my place. His niece was Geeta Roy who later grew up to become the famous singer Geeta Dutt.”

A deep believer of humility and love, Pandit Jasraj believes that “success depends on struggles and hard work, but luck plays a great role too. We must never let success fill us up with arrogance or pride, because that undermines our struggle, which is equally important.”

Pandit Jasraj muses his days spent in Hyderabad. He recalls how on his way to school, he used to stop at a roadside hotel and listen to the tunes of Beghum Akhthar’s ghazal Deewana banana hai to deewana bana de, warna kahin taqdeer tamashaa na bana de. “This was the song which motivated to me quit school back in those days,” he smiles.

Pandit Jasraj holds with him a legacy of musical marvel, which can only be attained through years of rigorous riyaz. He spends a lot of time teaching. When asked about the message he wants to share with our readers, the master says, “There is only one lesson life has taught me: perseverance. If you want to sing, then practice, learn. There is no shortcut.”

If you are a college student or professional living in another city, nothing can replace the care packages of homemade goodies from your mother. When he was studying in IIT Kanpur, Nitesh Prajapat (25) realised that when the goodies ran out, local substitutes never satisfied.

Petha from Agra or Kolkata misti (sweets) would never taste the same when bought from a shop in Mumbai or Bengaluru. This personal need gave way to his business idea later.

After graduating from IIT Kanpur in 2012, Nitesh joined Hero Motors Corp. for a strategy role. While looking after product development, he had to travel to two new destinations across India ever month.

These trips enabled the hardcore foodie to sample delicacies at their place of origin. This made Nitesh start to wonder how to make them available to others who cannot travel.

He discussed this with his uncle Narendra Prajapati, 35, a foodie himself and the conversation culminated in Appeti, which was set up in February 2015.

Passion for Appeti

Nitish is in his first year at IIM Calcutta. He has a unique approach to his stint there. It was not to land a lucrative job in an MNC – he was the only one in his batch of 500 not to sign up for campus placements – but to learn the ropes of business to augment his startup. Opting for only those courses which he thinks will benefit his learning, Nitesh vows to drop out if his studies get in the way of running Appeti.

Ensuring authenticity

Appeti is a curated online marketplace offering authentic Indian delicacies from regional establishments at their place of origin.

From Gujarat’s khakras, Hyderabad’s Karachi Bakery biscuits, Agra’s pethas, Kolkata’s rossogullas to Panipat’s pachranga achaar, Kerala’s banana chips and Ooty’s chocolates, the firm claims to deliver everything right at the doorstep of customers in any part of the country by sourcing them from the place of origin.

According to the founders, the firm has an active network of 27 vendors across 14 cities of India, offering 240 different kinds of delicacies and products from Ludhiana, Agra, Ahmedabad, Pune, Goa, Hyderabad, Mysore, Indore as well as Kolkata.

“The driving force for us is ‘food’. We want to take the responsibility to make sure that customers get the opportunity to relish traditional, regional delicacies across India,” Nitish adds. 

The team is made up of 10 individuals with seven freelancers helping with the operations and orders at the different cities of operation.

On delivery, Nitesh says they only sell delicacies with shelflife of seven  to 10 days.  Their partnership with courier companies ensure deliveries take place within four days of purchase.  They are working towards reducing this time to two days.

The firm is also working with Indian Institute of Packaging, West Bengal, to devise better packaging to prevent food from spoiling, as well to retain freshness.

Packaging includes customised detailing of the cities the food comes from.

The company website has 2,000 unique visitors and the app has had over 1,000 downloads so far. The firm also claims to have a network of 700 subscribed customers as of now.

Revenue

The firm went fully operational this Diwali and has closed 400 orders till now. They plan to bump this number by 500 by the end of this year. All this with no marketing, says Nitesh.

With the average ticket size of an order being Rs 600, the firm receives an average of 10-15 per cent of operating profit from each order.

Nitesh says this tends to depend on the size of the order. If the order is less than Rs 499, the operating profit might increase to 30-35 per cent, since the logistics cost of Rs 50 is borne by the customer. Usually, the partner vendor provides as much as 40-45 per cent of discount to Appeti.

In November 2015, the firm managed to garner Rs 80,000 as profits and plans to increase it in the coming years. The initial investment of almost Rs seven lakh has been funnelled into hiring, packaging and technology.

Future plans

The startup has plans of operatingin 28 cities in the next six months, expanding the current team to 25 full-time members.   It also plans to increase product offerings to 600 on the platform.

Further, the firm is set to jet abroad by April next year for deliveries in London, New York, and Pennsylvania.

For easily perishable commodities, the firm will be looking at intra-city delivery to Jodhpur, Jaipur and Kolkata, starting January 2016.

The platform will also work as a classifieds for vendors of various cities with the top five having their own customised pages on the platform.

Plan are also on to empower housewives in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities by getting them onto the platform to sell their delicacies.

YourStory take

These are difficult times for food tech startups. This year saw Dazo and SpoonJoy shutting down, while TinyOwl scaled down operations to just Mumbai and Bengaluru.

There has been a dip in the funding as well. According to YourStory Research, the investment in the month of April alone was a whopping $ 74 million on a total of seven deals. In August, this dipped to $19 million with a total five deals, while September saw this number further drop to two deals.

The initial euphoria was largely driven by the fear of missing out.

Kanti Sweets has collaborated with UrbanPiper and hyperlocal delivery RoadRunnr to take the sweatmeats hyperlocal in Bengaluru.

As food tech businesses are operation-extensive, in order to be sustainable, hyperlocal businesses need investors with deep pockets to support them.

One thing going for Appeti is that they are able to show profits right after a few months of operations.

However, the challenge remains on sustainability with customer acquisition being an expensive affair. As Anand Lunia, Founder of IndiaQuotient, says “Food business needs to self-sustain at least for a decade before the dynamics change. For that you need passion.”

Website: www.appeti.in

When he was born, neighbours in the village suggested that his parents smother him. It was better than the pain they would have to go through their lifetime, some said. He is a “useless” baby without eyes… being born blind is a sin, others added.

Twenty-three years later, Srikanth Bolla is standing tall living by his conviction that if the “world looks at me and says, ‘Srikanth, you can do nothing,’ I look back at the world and say I can do anything.”

Srikanth is the CEO of Hyderabad-based Bollant Industries, an organisation that employs uneducated and disabled employees to manufacture eco-friendly, disposable consumer packaging solutions, which is worth Rs 50 crores.

He considers himself the luckiest man alive, not because he is now a millionaire, but because his uneducated parents, who earned Rs 20,000 a year, did not heed any of the ‘advice’ they received and raised him with love and affection. “They are the richest people I know,” says Srikanth.

Underdog success story

What is it about stories like Srikanth’s that so inspire and fill one with hope? Could it be the multiple zeroes after a dollar sign or the belief that you and I can achieve similar success if we set our minds and hearts to it? Underdog success stories touch a raw nerve. After all, everyone faces adversity, they dream, and they work hard. It is another matter that only a few cross the threshold of limits set by society.

In Srikanth’s case, it is his sheer tenacity that shines through the dark clouds of his misfortune. Being born blind was just one part of the story. He was also born poor. And you know what that means in a society like ours.

In school, he was pushed to the back bench and not allowed to play. The little village school had no way of knowing what inclusion meant. When he wanted to take up science after his class X, he was denied the option because of his disability. All of 18, Srikanth not only fought the system but went on to become the first international blind student to be admitted to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

As author Paulo Coelho says, “We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favour, even though we may not understand how.”

Today, Srikanth has four production plants, one each in Hubli (Karnataka) and Nizamabad (Telangana), and two in Hyderabad (Telangana). Another plant, which will be one hundred percent solar operated, is coming up in Sri City, an integrated business city in Andhra Pradesh, 55 kms from Chennai.

Angel investor Ravi Mantha, who met Srikanth about two years ago, was so impressed with his business acumen and vision for his company that he not only decided to mentor him but also invested in Srikanth’s company.

“It was a small, tin-roof shack in an industrial area near Hyderabad. There were eight employees and three machines under the shed. I expected him to talk about how he wanted to make a social impact, but was surprised by the business clarity and technical knowhow in someone so young,” Ravi says.

They are raising $2-million (around Rs 13 crores) in funding and have already raised Rs 9 crores. According to Ravi, his personal goal is to “take the company to IPO.” A vision to build a sustainable company with a workforce comprising 70 percent people with disability is no mean task. “Srikanth’s vision is inbuilt in the company. It is not just a lip service to CSR,” adds Ravi.

Isolation a big curse

“The isolation of differently-abled people starts at birth,” Srikanth said in his first public speech on the INKTalks stage in Mumbai last month. According to him,

“Compassion is a way of showing someone to live; to give someone an opportunity to thrive and make them rich. Richness does not come from money, it comes from happiness.”

When Srikanth was growing up, his father, a farmer, would take him to the fields but the little boy couldn’t be of any help. His father then decided that he might as well study. “In my parent’s entrepreneurship model, I was a failure. In entrepreneurship, we have a lean business model where we evaluate an enterprise and say how quickly it fails.” Since the nearest school in his village was five kms away, he had to make his way there mostly on foot. He did this for two years. “No one acknowledged my presence. I was put in the last bench. I could not participate in the PT class. That was the time in my life I thought I was the poorest child in the world. It was not because of lack of money but because of loneliness.”

When his father realised that the child was not learning anything, he admitted Srikanth to a special needs school in Hyderabad. The boy thrived in the compassion he was shown there. He not only learnt to play chess and cricket but excelled in them. He topped his class, even embracing an opportunity to work with late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in the Lead India project.

But none of this mattered much because Srikanth was denied admission to the science stream in class XI. He cleared the Andhra Pradesh class X state board exams with over 90 percent marks, but the board said he could only take Arts subjects after that. “Was it because I was born blind? No. I was made blind by the perceptions of the people.” Having been denied the opportunity, Srikanth decided to fight for it. “I sued the government and fought for six months. In the end, I got a government order that said I could take the science subjects but at my ‘own risk’. ”

Thus not ‘risking’ anything to chance, Srikanth did whatever he could to prove them wrong. He got all the textbooks converted to audio books, worked day and night to complete the course and managed to secure 98 percent in the XII board exams.

Fortune favours the brave

Sometimes, life mimics a steeplechase. Especially when it comes to those it has big plans for. It did not give Srikanth enough time to bask in his victory when it threw another spanner in the works. He applied for IIT, BITSPilani, and other top engineering colleges, but did not get a hall ticket. Instead,

“I got a letter saying ‘you are blind, hence you are not allowed to apply for competitive exams.’ If IIT did not want me, I did not want IIT either. How long can you fight?”

He chose his battles carefully and did his homework searching the Internet to find the best engineering programme for someone like himself. He applied to schools in the US and got into the top four – MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon. He went to MIT (with a scholarship) as the first international blind student in the school’s history.

It wasn’t easy adjusting to life there, but by and by he started to do well. Towards the end of his bachelor’s course when the ‘what next’ question came up, it brought him back to where he had started.

“Many questions bothered me. Why should a disabled child be pushed to the back row in the class? Why should the 10 percent of the disabled population of India be left out of the Indian economy? Why can’t they make a living like everyone else with dignity?”

He decided to give up the ‘golden’ opportunity in corporate America and came back to India in search of answers to his questions. He set up a support service platform to rehabilitate, nurture and integrate differently-abled people in society. “We helped about 3000 students in acquiring an education and vocational rehabilitation. But then I thought what about their employment? So I built this company and now employ 150 differently-abled people.”

Good always rebounds

Entrepreneur bravehearts like the warriors of Paulo Coelho always find one unflinching support, an anchor to keep them afloat. In Srikanth’s case, it is his Co-founder Swarnalatha. “She was his special needs teacher in school. She has been his mentor and guide through all these years. She trains all the employees with disabilities at Bollant thereby creating a strong community where they feel valued,” says Ravi, adding, “Srikanth is a true source of my inspiration. He is not only my young friend and protégé but is also my mentor who teaches me daily that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.”

The boy who was born blind is today showing many the path to real happiness. He says his three most important life lessons are:

“Show compassion and make people rich. Include people in your life and remove loneliness, and lastly, do something good; it will come back to you.”

Website

Let’s face it: traditional gyms have become passé. We no longer rush to get a year-long membership at our local gym every January, because we know we cannot muster enthusiasm to visit it everyday. This is why  Deepak Poduval and Rishabh Telang started  Cult- the Workout Station this year. Cult is a Bengaluru-based fitness startup focused on training programmes that use no machines or equipment.

Cult provides a mix of martial arts, yoga and outdoor activities that have fitness in their core. It has neither treadmills nor fancy all-in-one fitness machines, but contains a boxing ring, jump ropes, boxing bags, tyres/hammer, speed chutes, resistance bands and plyometric boxes.

Rishab says,

Cult focuses on correct form and posture to avoid common workout injuries. We don’t recommend any supplements, powders or pills. We do, however, ask members to eat clean and follow a decent lifestyle that does not involve a strict diet. We make sure that we often take them out for running, cycling, swimming or make them play a sport.

A great learning curve

While working at Wipro, Deepak, 34, spent his weekends meeting entrepreneurs who regaled him with their stories, of success and failures alike.

He himself took the plunge in 2010, by launching his first startup: Tangible Experience, which does immersive dome projects, natural user interfaces, projection based technologies, tech museums, in India, Europe, US and Middle East.

The serial entrepreneur is setting up a logistics technology startup as well, to be launched early next year.

Deepak got his engineering degree in Computer Science from VTU, Karnataka and an MBA from Symbiosis, Pune. Before beginning his entrepreneurial journey, he served as Global Head – Marketing for Retail & Consumer Goods, SBU, at Wipro Technologies.

Rishabh, 30, Deepak’s brother-in-law, was a crossfit – L1 trainer and a globetrotter who has trained with international athletes. Before beginning his entrepreneurial journey, he worked at Wipro Technologies and FMCG major Reckitt Benckiser.  Rishabh has an MBA from BIMM, Pune.

Initial hurdles

Educating people about the machine-free workout station was the first challenge for the duo. Additionally, located in Sarjapur Road in Bengaluru, they ran into infrastructure challenges as Cult is a ‘warehouse gym’ that requires a non-traditional setup.

Customer acquisition

 Started with a seed capital of Rs 75 lakh, Cult acquired its first customer through outdoor training activities done at the nearby lake. According to Deepak, word-of-mouth helped get a majority of their clients, so far.

With a team of nine trainers, Cult has, within six months, reached more than 200 memberships (it offers only annual and bi-annual memberships). The company’s page on Facebook has more than 20,000 likes.

Some of the users join Cult for achieving their fitness goals and some want to pick up the sport to become a career athlete.

Cashflow

 Cult charges Rs 30,000 and Rs 48,000 for bi-annual and annual memberships, respectively. Members can do any number of classes and can choose any class from the schedule that includes ‘strength & conditioning’, Muay Thai, boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, yoga, power stretch and open outdoor workouts.

The startup also conducts a sparring session called Beat Down, which is meant for members who wish to participate in championship bouts.

 Rishabh says,

Since we have not spent any money on marketing, our gross margin is extremely high. However, the biggest chunk of our monthly expenses goes in paying our trainers, as opposed to spending more on high machine maintenance bills, huge power bills etc. as in a typical gym.

Corporate workshops and bootcamps

 Cult organises workshops on functional fitness, self-defence, combat sports and body conditioning for corporates. Bootcamps that are customised workshops based on the needs and the interest levels of clients are also held. The startup also holds pre-and-post-marathon workouts in association with Decathlon.

On the margins from these workshops, Deepak says, “These workshops are charged separately as they are specifically designed and customised based on the client (corporates). They also help in building the awareness levels on how the workouts benefit them. Lot of real-life scenarios are enacted in these workshops to demonstrate and equip them for self-defence.” The startup will also launch a fitness programme for the 60+ age group which will be guided and conceptualised by senior doctors and cardiologists along with the Cult’s fitness experts.

Expansion through franchise model

Going by the franchise model, Cult, by February 2016, will open two more centres in Bengaluru. The startup claims to follow a tightly-controlled and centrally-managed franchisee model, as opposed to a more disconnected franchisee model, where franchise owners will be given an initial training before running the centre.

Cult was incorporated as Cult Fitness Pvt Ltd in Nov 2015. After Bengaluru, it will expand across India mainly to Tier II cities. In terms of revenue, it is expecting to touch Rs 2.5 crore by FY 2016.

Youstory’s take

 With profound changes in the lifestyle and income levels of people, the wellness industry in India has become a sunrise sector, and is set to grow by 20-30 per cent year on year.

Currently, the market is estimated at Rs 490 billion, dominated by weight loss and beauty treatment services. A Deloitte-IHRSA report indicated that there are 4.8 million fitness seekers across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Bengaluru-based Trueweight offers comprehensive solutions for weight loss, and customised nutrition counselling, along with a ‘super food’ kit. Another Bengaluru-based startup is Gympik, which is an online marketplace for fitness and wellness services. It is expected to generate a revenue of Rs one crore in the next fiscal year. Mumbai-based Fiticket has tied up with 450 gyms and fitness studios and has witnessed 500 bookings per month in its beta version.

However, Cult does not compete directly with these startups. With its key focus on “machine-free fitness with internationally experienced trainers,” the startup seems to be carving out a niche for itself in this overcrowded market.

Cult

In the era of social media, where every brand is creating content, you need to create yours at a frantic pace to keep up with the times and be visible.

But in this race of content creation, a lot of brands lose the core purpose of why they are creating content in the first place. It is a trap and once you get into it, it will be very difficult to get out.

The core purpose of content is to communicate with your users regularly so that they start engaging with you and recognising you in the clutter. And eventually, they should be your customers. Content should be about creating a mindspace in your consumer.

Content marketing fails when the content fails to serve the purpose of the brand, which is to eventually generate more sales.

This is a grave challenge I discovered with Grabhouse.com, a real estate platform in India. They are recently in the news for mass layoff of employees. Startups mostly hire loads of marketing, tech and sales folks when they raise investment, and eventually when they fail to generate sufficient revenue, they have to get rid of overheads, the bulk of which are the sales and marketing folks.

However, this is where the biggest irony of Grabhouse is; I never knew it was a real estate listing portal in the first place. This is because I had always known Grabhouse to be a viral content magazine, much like Scoopwhoop or Buzzfeed. They share every possible article that can go “viral” and can get loads of clicks and page views.

And this is the failure of content marketing. Grabhouse’s content, however awesome they might be, has failed to serve the purpose of the brand ‘Grabhouse’, which is into real estate listing.

If as a potential client I have known Grabhouse as a content magazine and not a real estate platform, I will never use their platform if I need to look for a new apartment. And this is an EPIC FAIL.

If you are a brand manager, you have to decide what kind of content makes sense for your brand and how you should create it. The content should be about people and their lives and not about you. However, you also need to understand how the content fits into the overall objective of your brand. Do not just get into the race of creating viral content that is interesting and exciting for your audience, but does nothing for your brand. Every brand should not treat content like Buzzfeed does.

Content is a way a brand creates a positioning in the mind of the customers. If I am a skincare brand, I want my content to help me achieve this positioning in a customer’s mind. I do not want my prospects to identify me as a lifestyle magazine.

This is where Grabhouse’s strategy had gone completely haywire.

It ended up creating a parallel asset known as Urban Cocktail which is a lifestyle and news magazine. And this asset is completely unrelated to what Grabhouse is.

The Urban Cocktail magazine will be getting loads of website hits and page views, but clients will never know that it is a real estate portal.

Another major blunder with Grabhouse is that they have created this parallel asset under the Grabhouse domain. This is a disaster because people will never get to know what Grabhouse truly is.

Urban Cocktail

And there is no way for a user to traverse to Grabhouse homepage from their Urban Cocktail page, unless they scroll down all the way to the footer.

If you do not want users to go to your homepage, then why create it as part of the domain?

I am sure the reason they did this was to generate traffic and hits which will help them in their SEO efforts to rank up against CommonFloor and others in Google search results. But the strategy is wrong, because the brand positioning is lost.

Does that mean companies should not create a parallel asset if there is an opportunity?

Aabsolutely not. But the parallel asset should not be used under the mother brand, unless the mother brand is as famous as Coca Cola. When your mother brand is not yet a household name, you risk your sub brand taking over the mother brand and this leads to a disaster, which is what Grabhouse has ended up doing.

From the looks of it, Urban Cocktail might be generating more revenues through advertisements than the real estate platform.

What should Grabhouse do next?

If I were in charge of Grabhouse’s marketing and branding strategy, I would first disassociate Urban Cocktail from the Grabhouse domain. Let them be two parallel assets that run independently.

Grabhouse should focus on creating content around real estate and challenges that customers face while looking for accommodation in a city. There are loads of interesting concepts one can play around with without getting too de-focussed.

Next is obviously working on the core real estate platform. There is a huge challenge in the real estate sector and lot of big companies are struggling to generate enough revenues to meet shareholder expectations. So the focus should be on how to make the platform better and serve the needs of the customers and solve their problems.

I believe Grabhouse has understood this and this is the reason for laying off their staff.

However, they should still use their content folks to keep the Urban Cocktail asset alive for sometime and see the potential upside to it. Later, they may sell Urban Cocktail to Scoopwhoop or any other content magazines. That can definitely be a great exit strategy for some of the investors.

Grabhouse will need fresh inflow of funds to keep both the assets alive, but that is a chance one needs to take to see if the company can grow big.

About the Author:

Raunak Guha is the Co-founder of Rankhigher.in, a digital marketing consultancy in Bengaluru. He is passionate about how content can be used to tell brand stories that can generate sales and engage the audience. He can be contacted at raunak.guha@rankhigher.in

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

The Delhi government’s odd-even traffic rule compounded by Supreme Court’s ban on diesel cars and SUVs with engine capacity of over 2000cc have opened doors for startups offering commuting services.

Carpooling, self-drive, and on-demand service providers are set to provide alternative modes of transportation to commuters when the odd-even trial will be conducted in Delhi. Private vehicles with odd and even registration numbers will ply on odd and even dates from January 1 to 15, in the government’s bid to battle the increased pollution levels in the capital city.

In an effort to make self-drive more accessible and convenient during a time of heightened traffic woes in the city, Zoomcar is all set to expand its doorstep services to Delhi. The company is exploiting the new odd-even rule and encouraging the idea of renting cars for the daily commute.

It has designed special packages such as Zoom Commute for corporates and office commuters looking for an economical weekday commute option.

Greg Moran, CEO and Co-Founder, Zoomcar, says, “Self-drive is today seen as a green alternative to owning cars as it increases the functionality of cars, which end up being used only when it is absolutely necessary, thereby bringing down the overall number of cars on the road. Our professional teams also ensure that the maintenance of the vehicles is up to date, thereby alleviating the problems of vehicle management and pollution from the customer’s mind. We see this as a suitable option to check Delhi’s growing traffic concerns.”

Another player in the segment, Revv, observes the surge in booking during the days of the odd-even trial to be an advantage. “Self-drive, carpooling, and shuttle services will tend to gain. During this time, the booking demand has already been augmented by 30 percent,” says Karan Jain, Co-founder, Revv.

He adds that he will observe the demand at the real-time and extend the services to the carpooling segment as well accordingly.

Besides car, autorickshaw service providers are also looking to gain from the developments. One such company is Jugnoo, an on-demand auto-rickshaw platform which also provides hyperlocal delivery services for food and groceries via its own network of autorickshaws.

Samar Singla, CEO and Co-founder, Jugnoo, says, “A lot of people already depend on autorickshaws. We have about 1,000 autorickshaws in Delhi and would be happy to contribute to cater our services to the people. We would also be collaborating with the government and Poocho App service. For Jugnoo, this rise in demand means more opportunity to cater to, so we will continue to focus on increasing our fleet for more reliable and consistent service.”

He adds that with technology-driven autorickshaw aggregators, more and more customers realise how convenient the whole process of hailing an auto has become, as opposed to the earlier conventional, time-consuming process.

Yourstory take

Uber, Ola, BlaBlaCar, Shuttl, and many other platforms, too, have planned to take advantage of the business opportunity, when half the cars go off the road in the state capital.

After Bengaluru, Uber is introducing carpooling service in Delhi. Ola has introduced Ola Share, where customers can travel with members of social groups they are part of, without having to share their ride with strangers. In a move to push the government’s trial, Shuttl has launched a website called oddevenbyshuttl.com, a platform which provides information on the odd-even rule in Delhi.

These efforts from startups will surely help car commuters find an alternative in the coming days. However, it’s not going to provide a complete solution and Delhi requires a more robust transport system to accommodate the lakhs of extra commuters.

Meanwhile, in a new development, the neighbouring Gurgaon road and transport authority has stopped Shuttl and Ola Shuttle services in the city.

In order to allow startups to provide innovative solutions to problems, the government should formulate clear guidelines and policy instead of creating hurdles in their way.

We live in a world where energy conservation is no longer a choice but a necessity. For some years now we have believed that the use of renewable forms of energy will not only help conserve the remaining non-renewable forms of energy, but will also help thwart its depleting growth and harmful effects on nature. Solar energy is one of the most easily accessible forms of energy.

The Solar Store, an online store in Lucknow, was established in 2008 by Yogi Tripathi to ensure that solar energy is effectively used in everyday means. Yogi, 33, is a mechanical engineer from the Army Institute of Technology, Pune, has always had an interest in solar energy and its benefits. He also went to Australia to pursue his masters in Solar Energy, but returned after two months thinking he needed to do some real work in the space.

Looking at bigger ideas

Several different ideas like solar cell making plants and electric cars cropped up. Yogi was even successful in converting his Maruti 800 into a solar electric car with a range of 60 kms.

Yogi adds that the car came with 2KW solar panels with a cost of Rs 5 lakhs. He says that it could save the cost of fuel consumptions and even reduce electricity bills. The single charge of the car would cost Rs. 45–50 for 60 km, whereas the same distance in a petrol car would be Rs 325. He claims that the battery could last for 50,000 kms.

However, Yogi found that there were several financial constraints and decided to work on projectors and solar energy gadgets. In 2010, when Yogi developed several test products, like electric cars and home emission control systems, he received market feedback that India was in its nascent stages and it would be a great place to begin with low cost products.

Also read: Lucknow-based Save India Grain works with cluster maps to reduce post-harvest grain loss

Looking at alternate solutions

Every year, India uses around 360 crore AA/AAA/C and D cells, which is discharged. Solar Store decided to build battery chargers with the rechargeable NiMh cells. “This lasts close to 1,000 charge/discharge cycles. We also have our solar cell chargers, which ensures that the batteries can be charged anywhere using sunlight,” adds Yogi.

Solar Store has targeted market suppliers like Eveready, Nippo, and Duracell. Yogi says that earlier they would get sales of close to Rs15,000–20,000 a month.Today, he claims that they are generating sales of Rs1 lakh per month.

The limited profits again get eaten up into operational expenses leaving with no advertising budget. Despite various efforts, Solar Store is yet to find a capital investor. “As far as my knowledge goes, we are the world’s cheapest supplier of cell converters and the only solar cell and mobile chargers manufacturer in India,” says Yogi.

Yogi adds that they are working on unique innovations, which include motion sensor based street lamp, only 18W power consuming battery powered air cooler, and auto cut battery chargers which not only stop charging the 12V battery when full, but also auto disconnect the power supply.

The team is aiming to raise Rs.10 lakhs for online visibility and Rs.50 lakhs to work on developing a dealer and distributor network. The team is seeking crowd funding at Ketto.

 YourStory take

 Although there is an increasing awareness of the benefits and use of green energy, India still has a long way to go when compared to its western counterparts. Globally, the concept of solar mobile phones, heating devices, and chargers isn’t new , but it is yet to create a dent in the Indian market.

Also like other manufacturing materials, the manufacture of solar products depends heavily on China and Taiwan for its imports. Nevertheless, the idea of green energy is slowly picking up in India. How far Solar Store will ride the wave is yet to be seen.

Website

Sarthak Chhabra and Yogesh Arora are serious innovators. Since their college days, they both worked together to build innovative ideas like health product Pedofit, which was among the top 100 business plans around the globe at Stanford University’s E-BootCamp. The product offered IT solutions to corporate companies to monitor and analyse the health of employees. But the duo didn’t pursue the venture further due to their inclination towards different and more exciting ideas.

After passing out of college in 2014, Sarthak and Yogesh worked in two different MNCs, but didn’t stay for long, as they wanted to pursue entrepreneurship again. While they were working on an idea, they were on the lookout for affordable workspaces, but could not find any. They met several people from other startups and small companies going through same workspace problem. The duo, therefore, decided to put their heads together to solve this issue.

In September 2015, they launched Altf Coworking, a platform to help startups and freelancers find affordable shared workspaces. The platform aims to motivate people to share workspace as well as resources and save their time and money.

“You can think of our current venture as Oyo Rooms for workspaces. Right now, we are working towards utilising under-utilised spaces and turning them into co-working spaces. We have already launched two spaces in Gurgaon. Within a month, another space is in the pipeline in Central Delhi,” says 23-year-old Sarthak.

Investment and revenue model

They started out the platform with an investment of Rs 10,000 on marketing and zero investment on real estate. The revenue model is based on monthly, weekly and daily payments. Besides, they also generate revenue with the help of an offline service portal where customers can take the services from their exclusive service team.

“While most co-working spaces offer their space at around Rs 7,000 to 8,000 per month or Rs 600 to 800 per day, we are able to drop the prices to Rs 5,000 per month and Rs 200 per day which is by far the best pricing anyone can offer in Delhi-NCR with the same amount of services,” says Sarthak.

In two months, he says they have reached the revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh per month which has been growing at a rate of 30 per cent per month.

Challenges and growth prospect

Sarthak, however, adds that getting people accustomed to the product is a difficult task. “With our portfolio being developed offline, we would be able to take our clients into confidence and get the first set of customers for online platform from offline channels only.”

With their offline product in market, the founders say they are able to generate a decent revenue and are certain to expand the product with its online platform.

Market and competition  

According to NASSCOM, over 3,100 startups are present in India, making it the third largest base for entrepreneurship in the world. With over 800 startups setting up annually, there would be 11,500 startups by 2020, employing over 2,50, 000 people.

Apart from mobile workers and startups, there is a huge population of freelancers, which can be estimated by the number of freelancers listed on different platforms like WorknHire and Freelancers.in and Upwork. At Worknhire, there are over one lakh freelancers listed from India. Upwork has a database of over nine million registered freelancers.

Sarthak finds the numbers as potential customers of the co-working space.

In the co-working space segment, 91springboard, Stirring Minds and Investopad, among others, are some of the platforms in this segment. Besides, Breathing Room and MyCuteOffice are different office space aggregators.

Website

Startup boom continued in India with more rigour than ever before in 2015. The past year has seen a makeover of the ecosystem with more players coming in and some major ones disintegrating. It also witnessed the birth of major deals and more inflow of investment.
For some startups, it was the best of times, and for some others, it was definitely the worst.

YourStory finds out the top trends which ruled the scene in 2015.

Hyperlocal revolution

Your local grocer became tech savvy this year; so did your plumber and your local food delivery boys. Biggies like Amazon, Ola, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Paytm entered the hyperlocal grocery services in 2015. Food delivery service Yumist raised $2 million for expansion while Swiggy ventured to Chennai, covering all tier I cities. Home services provider Housejoy went from 40 orders a day to 4,000 in 10 months since its launch in January, while its competitor Urbanclap – backed by Ratan Tata among others — got 3000 vendors in Mumbai alone. Even offline shopping was made easier by Shopsity, a discovery platform, and digital payment provider Momoe ventured beyond restaurants, into grocery stores, spas and salons, and apparel stores.

Indian languages come online

It seems like at least a few entrepreneurs realised that the country does have a huge non-English speaking population – about 70-80%. If Snapdeal led the way in e-commerce by launching itself (powered by Reverie) in Telugu and Hindi, local e-commerce startup Storeking, which functions exclusively with local languages, partnered with wallet services provider MobiKwik to enable expansion. Classifieds platform Quikr is also now available in seven languages. In news media, YourStory set a record by launching in 10 Indian languages, and InShort quickly followed suit.  The trend is sure to grow – Process Nine Technologies Pvt Ltd., which partnered with Snapdeal for translating English into different Indian languages, is already working with players in travel and retail.

Tier II cities not so secondary anymore

Startups looked beyond the metros this year, and found untapped markets full of opportunities! Faaso’s went to tier II cities such as Baroda and Ahmedabad, thus making their presence in total 10 cities while online grocery service Grofers went to 17 tier II cities making their presence in a total of 27 cities. Auto rickshaw aggregator and on-demand grocery provider Jugnoo even announced launch in tier III city Udaipur. Taxi aggregator Ola made it to total 102 cities this year by entering tier II cities, including Kochi and Trivandrum, while rival Uber also took on seven tier II and Udaipur cities making a total of 18. Meru cabs also went on to cover 23 cities altogether. Even pre-owned fashion platforms have seen a majority of their orders coming in from tier II and tier III cities, leading more logistics firms to launch in those cities.

Pooling is a virtue

It was probably the entry of French company BlaBla cars, a long distance ride-sharing service connecting private drivers, into the country in January that ignited the idea of carpooling among cab aggregators in India. Eight-year-old Meru Cabs launched carpooling in September. Around the same time, US-based Uber launched the service in Bengaluru, which was followed by Ola in a month. The trend is sure to grow, with the recent decision by the Delhi government to implement odd-even rule – in which odd numbered cars run on odd dates, and even numbered cars on even dates — provides the perfect platform for these companies to encourage pooling for their passengers in 2016.

Sacking of the masses

Hundreds of startup employees got the sack this year, which questioned the structure, functioning and viability of those businesses. After the firing of Co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav in July, real estate platform Housing fired 600 employees in August and another 200 in November “to control cash burn”. Soon, food delivery player Tinyowl fired 100 employees and shut down its Pune office – leading to Co-founder Gaurav Choudhary being held hostage allegedly by the employees for settlements. Tinyowl’s rival Zomato, which joined the Unicorn club this year, also laid off 10 percent of its workforce in November, followed by its CEO Deepinder Goyal sending an email to the remaining employees indirectly warning them to perform well or leave. Grabhouse joined this list a week ago, when it fired more than 150 employees.

App-commerce comes forward

E-commerce went “handy” this year when biggies like Flipkart and Snapdeal focused more on their rising mobile phone traffic. India is increasingly becoming a mobile-first country, and even startups like Elanic are going app-only for their business. Myntra made headlines when it went app-only in May. Although Flipkart was rumoured to go app-only after shutting down its mobile website, they later settled for a new mobile site — Flipkart lite, which is claimed to be 99 percent similar to the native app but is only 10kb. Rival Snapdeal followed suit with Snap-lite, which is claimed to be 85 percent faster than the original mobile site and is available across all mobile browsers. With almost 70 percent of transactions coming from their apps, Amazon and Flipkart provided some offers exclusively on apps during the festive season sales this year.

Omni channel is born

Online commerce hooked up with offline players this year, and omni channel was born. Taking hyperlocal services to the next level, omni channel strategies brought offline players into e-commerce spectrum. Omni channel retail give more inclusivity — the customers can discover online and get the products from the brick and mortar stores. Some players like Fashalot provide incentives through their app too. Snapdeal’s omni channel platform, launched in October, integrated offline platforms to their business so that the customers can get the ordered product picked up from or delivered from a nearby offline store. Retail giants like Tata, Reliance, Unilever, and Aditya Birla Group etc. also took to online commerce and some of them started selling on Flipkart and Amazon.

Rise and fall of food startups

Food startups ate too much money in the first half of the year, but later it starved to death. Food delivery startups saw a substantial boom in the first half of the year, with $74 million invested in the sector in April alone. However, things deteriorated by August — Zomato and Tinyowl made news for their mass firings, and FoodPanda seemed to have been in trouble too. Lack of funding killed Spoonjoy and Dazo in October, and Eatlo is believed to have shut down too. Inefficiencies in delivery time and poor revenue model have made the food-tech startups sit up and ponder over better strategies for the future.

Startups get Ratan Tata

After retiring from his position as Chairman of Tata Group in 2012, Ratan Tata became pro-active in funding startups as well as tech-based companies. He made news last year when he invested in Snapdeal, Urban Ladder, and Blue Stone. But in 2015, Ratan Tata made 11 investments, including Ola, Paytm, Urban ladder, Xaiomi, Kaaryah, Holachef, CarDekho, and Lybrate. His counterpart from Wipro, AzimPremji, had also invested in Myntra and Snapdeal in 2014, while Infosys Founder Narayana Murthy has invested in Amazon. It looks like corporates have joined the startup game finally, and the younger generation is at an advantage – getting to learn from the most successful entrepreneurs the country has seen.

‘GharWapsi’ of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs

The loss of Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and many other majors in Silicon Valley was India’s gain in e-commerce. Punit Soni, the man behind the revival of Motorola and earlier product manager at Google, left the Bay Area to come and live in India for the first time when he joined Flipkart as the Chief Product Officer in March 2015. Flipkart was also quick in snatching California-based Niket Desai from Google to be its Chief of Staff in April, while Snapdeal hired Silicon Valley veteran Gaurav Gupta as its Vice-President of Engineering. Furthermore, quite a handful of Indian “techies” settled abroad came back to India and launched their own entrepreneurial ventures this year – Vikram P Kumar of Explore, Mehul Sutaria of Transitpedia, SanketAvlani of Taxi Fabric to name a few.

Acquisition spree continues

Since Indian IPOs are not easy to come by, mergers and acquisitions have been the most preferred exit routes for early investors and entrepreneurs. In 2015, around 200 acquisitions and acqui-hires have taken place in the ecosystem – Snapdeal’s acquisition of FreeCharge, Ola’s acquisition of TaxiForSure, Mahindra’s Babyoye, Practo’s acquisition of Qikwell and Instahealth, and Housing’s acquisition of HomeBuy360, have been notable exits. This trend is not going to slow down as many startups have raised larger rounds this year to prepare their war chests. More acquisitions could be in the pipeline for 2016.

Startups do have a heart

In a year when this part of the world witnessed natural disasters which killed hundreds, some startups did their part to help. Proving that it is not just profit margins that they care about, Ola provided boats and Uber gave free rides during the Chennai floods. Paytm provided free recharge to help the public communicate, and Zomato delivered a meal free for every order placed in Chennai.  Data collection startup SocialCops was part of the relief efforts in Chennai floods as well as Nepal earthquake.

India is rapidly growing and as urbanisation turns villages into towns and cities into metros, it is becoming increasingly hard to tell one city from the other. Only a few places have managed to retain the old-world charm and one of them is definitely Mysuru. Be it the royal aura, the signature masala dosas and silk sarees or being the cleanest city in India, Mysuru is definitely more than just a city; it is an emotion.

Vinay Parameswarappa and his friends were in Singapore, exploring the city in a unique tour by foot through ‘The Singapore Walks’ when an idea struck him. Hailing from a city like Mysuru, Vinay realised the untapped potential that his city possessed, despite all the attention it had been receiving and the kind of tourism that was prevalent. He wanted the traveller to experience the sights, sounds, aromas and the true essence of this royal city in the style of a commoner, by foot. Thus The Royal Mysore Walks was born.

Turning ideas into reality

With people opening their homes to tourists in offbeat destinations, travel portals offering lucrative discounts and travel-inspired movies becoming blockbusters, travel has definitely been one of the buzzwords of 2015. But it was not merely a trend that prompted Vinay to start up; it was sheer love for the city and the passion, as he puts it, to show the world the ‘real Mysuru’.

Challenges

From setting up the product, gathering the team to deliver these experiences to establishing a customer base, like with all new ventures, Vinay and his team, too, had their own set of challenges and setbacks.

“It took some time to deliver conviction to the idea of experiential touring in a sightseeing dominated tourism base. However, with continued progress and constant reinvention of the experiences, we were able to deliver quality experiences.” he says.

The team overcame all the initial hiccups by garnering support from other ventures each of them was respectively involved with. Their walks gradually gained popularity and created a lot of buzz attracting reputed travel publications like Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor and National Geographic Traveller, and this slowly helped them build the brand. Today they are rated  #1 activity in Mysuru by TripAdvisor and have been awarded the certificate of excellence third time in a row for their experiential tours.

Months of struggle followed by recognition and awards sounds quite dreamy. But how do you build upon an idea in a place so chock-a-block with tourism-related activities that have existed for as long as one can remember? How do you coax a tourist to ditch that grand-looking tonga and walk around the city instead? How do you startup and shine in a place with so many players?

“Our USP is in delivering tailor made experiences to each of our guests by identifying their interests, whether it is history, art, culture, architecture, food and so on,”says Vinay. Growing up in the royal city meant knowing its best secrets, ones no tour guide or portal will ever have access to and it was this side of the city that Vinay and his team have set out to offer. The Royal Mysore Walks have now established more than 25 varieties of tours and are continually working on introducing more aspects to make the experience more comprehensive. “Whatever be your area of interest, we have a tour,” Vinay says.

Money matters

Living in a city which is as culturally rich as Mysuru and introducing the world to its real culture sounds like an incentive enough to keep doing what you are doing. But how financially viable has the venture been?  What started as a one-member team in 2009 is now a full-fledged company with a team of ten members. “We have registered a constant growth of atleast 25per cent per annum. The business model has been fairly successful and has helped us be sustainable over the past six years,” says Vinay, adding that they plan to further expand within the city in the form of variety of tours and experiences.

When the world takes notice

The Royal Walks have been recognised by the Karnataka Tourism Vision Group Report, UNESCO, CII and various other organisations.  They have been featured in popular national publications like The Hindu, Times of India, Deccan Herald, Outlook Traveller and NDTV Good Times. They have also been featured in international publications such as The Guardian UK, Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveller, Blue Guide and the ABTA.

The success of ventures like these show us why some things are best enjoyed when there is no agenda. You discover the best of places when you take the wrong road. You meet the best people by utter coincidence.  And, sometimes, you just need to take a walk because, you never know, in the process of discovering the place, you might just end up discovering yourself!