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  • CareerLabs: Building a Road Map of Success for College Graduates

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by CareerLabs.

    Bangalore-based CareerLabs is an EdTech platform helping young professionals and college graduates build a concrete road map for their careers. It is India’s first Profile-Building Platform to help students prepare for their professional life beyond college. The startup has conducted more than 150 Recruitment drives and partnered with various other industry leaders like DR. Reddy’s, HelloIntern for exclusive programs that bring students closer to the industry and provide direct Job Opportunities.

    StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Santosh P N (Co-founder & CEO, CareerLabs) to get insights into the startup story and the roadmap of the organization. In this article, you’ll know how Byju’s ex-team founded CareerLabs, its business model, future plans, and more.

    CareerLabs – Company Highlights

    Startup Name CareerLabs
    Founders Santosh P N (CEO), Krithika Srinivasan (Director, Service delivery)
    Headquarters Bangalore
    Founded 2019
    Industry Edtech
    Website thecareerlabs.com

    CareerLabs – About and Vision
    CareerLabs – Market Opportunity
    CareerLabs – Inspiration and Idea
    CareerLabs – Product/Service & USP
    CareerLabs – Founders and Team
    CareerLabs – Name, Tagline and Logo
    CareerLabs – Business Model & Revenue Model
    CareerLabs – Startup Launch
    CareerLabs – Challenges Faced
    CareerLabs – Funding & Investors
    CareerLabs – Competitors
    CareerLabs – Tools used to run the startup
    CareerLabs – Awards and Achievements
    CareerLabs – Future Plans
    CareerLabs – FAQs

    CareerLabs – About and Vision

    CareerLabs is on a mission to enable 1 million students to learn and earn better with the necessary guidance. Most students in college aspire to land their dream job, but due to the lack of industry-relevant skills, they end up in the wrong placements. Students in their initial careers need hand-holding; at CareerLabs, the team offers students more than six courses that fit their interests and strengths with its career recommendations track. It is a year-long journey that students take up with CareerLabs and with real-time projects and hands-on experience at the end of the courses. These projects and experiences help students kick start their careers.

    CareerLabs Growth
    CareerLabs Statistics

    CareerLabs – Market Opportunity

    CareerLabs services undergrad college students to pursue up-skilling towards higher studies and placements. This is enabled through courses, test preparation classes, consulting services, and self-learning modules. It caters to all graduate students across India. The opportunity size for this market in India is $2.51 Billion that covers skilling, certification, and higher education.

    In the next five years, the market opportunity of Career Labs is –

    CareerLabs Industry Details
    CareerLabs Market Opportunity

    CareerLabs – Inspiration and Idea

    PN Santosh (Co-Founder/CEO,) Krithika Srinivasan (Co-Founder/Director service delivery), and Prasanna (VP, People & Process) have been part of leadership roles at Byju’s. Santosh was one of the founding members of Byju’s from 2008 to 2019. He was also the first student of Byju’s in 2007 and first employee in 2009. The relationship with Byju’s goes long. Santosh was looking after the entire test preparation domain in Byju’s where he was helping students with GRE, GMAT, MBA admission in India & abroad, and anything related to college students going for a master’s program.

    Krithika, now Co-Founder and Director of Service Delivery at CareerLabs, joined Byjus where she used to take care of Admission Consulting services. Krithika is a double master’s from the University of Michigan and also India’s only Harvard-certified admission consultant. Prasanna who later joined the team at Byju’s is an IIM Bangalore graduate and was looking after the B2B marketing initiatives.

    Clocking $4 million in revenue and on the way to hitting $10 million, the trio had already built a massive connection with colleges and was actively servicing around 15,000 students for Byju’s. In 2019, this college segment became smaller and smaller as Byju’s started focusing on school students. Whereas, the current founding team of CareerLabs was always determined to serve the college segment. Thus, the decision to start CareerLabs was marked upon in August 2019.

    The idea here was to have a solid focus on college, their students, and help them in their career path, whether it’s a master’s program or getting into a perfect job. They started with a hundred-member team and now have close to 200 members with base offices across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai.

    Santosh PN (Co-founder & CEO) added – “The inspiration was, if you go to any college today, not more than 20% of students want to think about a master’s as their primary choice after graduation. Majority of the students are looking for jobs, and it’s understandable. Many of them would have taken a bank loan to do a master’s for graduation, a family situation, or might be looking for a break. All of this pushes them towards taking up a job. So many college TPO, Principals, Chairman, and students came to us and asked, why don’t you help our students in terms of getting a good job, because that is a primary requirement”

    CareerLabs – Product/Service & USP

    CareerLabs predominantly works with pre-final engineering college students where the students join its flagship one-year-long profile builder program.

    CareerLabs - Service/Product
    CareerLabs Profile Builder Platform
    1. Career Discovery & CareerWizard: When students sign up for the program, the team at CareerLabs first moves them from confusion to clarity. They help students understand the best-suited platform. They call this step Career Discovery. What happens in the space is, students take a bunch of diagnostic tests, the data is fed into the recommendation engine called CareerWizard. This helps the team to map the data to the right career track. It’s an AI-based recommendation engine. Krithika (Co-founder) is the brain behind the design and modeling of this engine.
    2. CareerLabs has successfully built some attractive models, where the moment a student enters the platform, the model can map the student to a cohort of students in the last few years. Based on this data, it recommends the top six career options, which are the students’ best fit.  
    3. This journey is mostly completed in the 3rd year of college; now, when students enter their 4th year, they have to decide whether they want to go for a job or go for a master’s program. Depending on their decision of a job or a master’s program, CareerLabs prepare them accordingly.
    4. For instance, in the case of employment, CareerLabs does the finishing school aspect where the team focuses on actual soft skill training, technical interviews, and prepare for the recruitment drive they conduct on their platform.
    5. In a master’s program, the startup prepares the students for entry-level exams like GRE, GMAT, etc., and helps them get into a good and best-fit master’s college.

    USP of CareerLabs: It has 55+ career tracks on its platform and the team works with the industry with relevant industry-related content on the platform. The recommendation engine has been a huge hit amongst the students, one of the major reasons why they sign up for programs with CareerLabs. It is the only platform in India that is focused on providing end-to-end solutions to help students build their Profile for various goals in Higher Studies and Placements.

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    CareerLabs – Founders and Team

    PN Santosh (CEO) and Krithika Srinivasan (Director service delivery) are the founders of CareerLabs.

    • Santosh drives Revenue and growth
    • Krithika drives Service Delivery and Operations
    • Prasanna drives People and Platform Product
    • Current team size: 200+ Employees
    Founders of CareerLabs
    CareerLabs – Founders and Team

    Commenting on the work culture and hiring nature of CareerLabs, Santosh said –

    As a team who has been inside BYJU’S and seen growth, we knew from day 1 that the right culture and right values with aggressive growth are the foundational DNA of CareerLabs. When we are working directly with students and hand-holding them to craft their careers we cannot afford mistakes. Hence the culture is highly individual ownership driven that enables us to scale holding the right values.

    When it comes to career options, students need to explore, experiment, and then decide the right path. What better way to do it than in a Lab, that lets them experiment and explore their Career options before deciding, with proper guidance. Thus ‘CareerLabs’ – the go-to place for all your career needs.

    #Discover #Explore  

    CareerLabs – Logo

    CareerLabs – Business Model & Revenue Model

    CareerLab’s Products, Services, and Courses are the revenue-generating units of the business. Customers subscribe for the use of its platform and services on an annual basis. It generates revenue through subscription fees.

    It also generates revenue when students take upon the online courses available on its platform. Through the platform, customers upgrade to learning and skilling courses which generate the second part of revenue. Outside of the platform customers directly enroll in its courses which generate the 3rd part of the revenue.

    CareerLabs – Startup Launch

    CareerLabs had a running channel of college partnerships which the team leveraged to engage and onboard the first 100 customers for the flagship profile builder product. Though they had the tools to automate this process, the team decided to opt for a manual approach to get first-hand feedback from each student at each step and of course, correct the workflow and services. This helped them in tweaking their product.

    “Students don’t join us for a course, they join us for a journey”, Santosh added. It’s long and it’s rewarding. This is the basic approach they take up in the platform. Students who enroll, travel this journey as a group with other peers in the program, and hence there is inbuilt community support that drives participation and completion. The user retention is anchored on the DNA of the Platform.

    As a platform for students’ skilling and growth, CareerLabs brings all stakeholders into a single place to let interactions and synergies evolve. This was strategically planned so that they had various engines of teams and platforms running for each stakeholder of this platform. It had a student engagement engine and the team kept scaling their outreach to the level that as of now CareerLabs has reached out to more than 200,000 students and engaged them actively.

    Colleges trust CareerLabs to deliver what it promises due to various strategic moves like the partnership with AICTE. CareerLabs is the official partner of the AICTE NEAT 2.0 initiative under the Ministry of Education, GOI

    There is a Corporate outreach engine that engages and brings in meaningful opportunities for students including exclusive workshops, job opportunities, internships, and industry-led training programs. The startup has conducted more than 150 Recruitment drives, partnered with various other industry leaders like DR. Reddy’s & HelloIntern, and signed an MoU with Tech Mahindra for exclusive programs that bring students closer to the industry and provide direct Job Opportunities.

    A variant of its offerings is a CareerLabs Assured Placement Program, this program was an instant hit amongst college students.

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    CareerLabs – Challenges Faced

    Just like most initiatives, CareerLabs also faced pandemic challenges. The resolve of the team was to the level that they met the Covid-19 challenge head-on. With so many uncertainties for students and colleges, added to that economic downturn that dried up the job market for freshers, the CareerLabs team worked round the clock to help students in these difficult times.

    While the startup’s revenues also took some hits at an early stage, it recovered well with full digitization of its student engagements and brought one step ahead on adjusting the evolving behaviors and learning patterns of the students. As a brand that is taking students through the journey of Profile Building, CareerLabs’ major challenge was to evangelize the concept of Profile building for students. 90% of students were unaware of this. Students were under the impression that doing a course or a certification can land them a job! This led them to sign up for run-of-the-mill services where they ended up losing money and time.

    CareerLabs started by evangelizing the concept of Profile building through workshops for more than 1.5 Lac students over 1.5 Years continuously both physically and digitally. This was building India’s 1st Profile Building Platform in the form of the ELEV8 App that provides students an experiential journey for students.

    As a startup that is ambitious and rapidly scaling, the team experiments at the frontier opportunities and technologies. One of its experiments that worked well is the recent initiative to organize placement opportunities for more than 3500 students from Engineering colleges in Telangana within a span of 3 weeks.  

    CareerLabs – Funding & Investors

    CareerLabs has raised USD 2.2 Million in its Pre Series A funding (equity funding).

    It will be spending 30% of this funding for technology development (including enhancement of the AI-based recommendation engine and completely automated servicing portal), 40% for new product development (including in house content development, an app for nurturing and servicing the students, and unique product for international markets) and 30% for recent talent acquisition (esp. in product, tech and sales roles).

    CareerLabs – Competitors

    CareerLabs, as a platform, works with students to solve multiple pain points. For each of these pain points, there will be a discrete local competition. But no one can provide a complete holistic end-to-end solution for college students at scale and at an affordable price.

    Hence at a Profile Building Platform level, there is hardly any competition for CareerLabs. Nevertheless, the competitive advantage for CareerLabs comes from a combination of excellence in product, data-driven Intellectual Property. The Profile Builder Product is solutioning at a level that other course solutions providers cannot scale too. The Recommendation engine, which personalizes the entire Profile building journey, ensures students’ right fit and stickiness.

    CareerLabs Competitors
    CareerLabs – Competitive Landscape

    CareerLabs – Tools used to run the startup

    • Leadsquared for CRM
    • CleverTap for Product Data / Marketing Analytics
    • DoveTail for Customer Research
    • Jira for Project Management
    • Exotel / Ameyo for Calling solutions
    • Gsuite for Emails, among many

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    CareerLabs – Awards and Achievements

    CareerLabs was awarded the Future of Workforce award in 2020 for the APAC region in the APAC EdTech Competition.

    CareerLabs – Future Plans

    “Sustained, aggressive Growth is our mantra as we head towards directly impacting and working with 1 Million students to help them learn and earn better” Santosh added.

    CareerLabs is expanding geographically across all regions in India with centers coming up in Delhi, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.

    It is expanding its product portfolio to help Engineering, BBA, and soon Commerce students and colleges. Apart from this, the startup also plans to expand into various higher education admissions spaces across specializations.

    The CareerLabs ELEV8 app is going to do what BYJU the learning app did in the School space. The app is providing a solid platform for students to explore, build a profile and apply to jobs and internships in a single place. The added advantage of the app is the unique Higher education options and exploration built in to cover end-to-end requirements for students.

    CareerLabs – FAQs

    What is CareerLabs?

    CareerLabs is India’s first Profile-Building Platform to help students prepare for their professional life beyond college.

    Is CareerLabs an Indian Company?

    Yes. Careerlabs is an Indian company headquartered in Bangalore, India.

    Who founded CareerLabs?

    PN Santosh (CEO) and Krithika Srinivasan (Director service delivery) are the founders of CareerLabs.

    How does CareerLabs make money?

    CareerLab’s Products, Services, and Courses are the revenue-generating units of the business. Customers subscribe for the use of its platform and services on an annual basis. It generates revenue through subscription fees and also by selling its courses online.

    How much funding has CareerLabs raised?

    CareerLabs has raised USD 2.2 Million in its Pre Series A round.

  • RevFin – Bringing Financial Inclusion In tier II and III Cities

    RevFin is a financial technology (Fintech) startup which is aimed at building the world’s most advanced digital lending platform. The platform will be used to underwrite and manage consumer loans to finance clean technologies through our own NBFC.

    Through the unique approach to underwriting, rich value proposition, and a differentiated distribution model, RevFin plans to build a lending book of INR 500 Crore ($45 Million) in the next 5 years, with ROE of 20%+.

    Their vision is to create a lending platform that is agnostic of language, literacy, geography, and culture. Once the platform has been proven successful, they will use it to rapidly scale the lending book in India while leveraging the platform in other geographies.

    Currently they have financed E- Rickshaws in West Bengal (Kolkata), Bihar (Muzaffarpur), UP ( Jhansi, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Ghaziabad, Noida), Uttarakhand (Dehradun), Punjab (Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar), Rajasthan (Dausa), Haryana (Hisar) and Delhi.

    It now plans to expand to Maharashtra, Gujarat and some more towns in UP. It has partnered with six manufacturers of electric vehicles, who have dealership presence in over 10 cities/towns in India. The collections rate is over 100% and has pipeline for loan demand of over INR. 10 crores a month.

    RevFin – Highlights

    Startup Name RevFin
    Headquarter NewDelhi
    Founder Sameer Aggarwal
    Sector Fintech
    Founded 2018
    Parent organization Revfin Services Pvt. Ltd.

    RevFin – Industry Details
    RevFin – Founders
    RevFin – The Idea and starting up
    RevFin – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    RevFin – Product
    RevFin – Business and Revenue Model
    RevFin – Customer Acquisition
    RevFin – Funding
    RevFin – Challenges
    RevFin – Advisors and Mentors
    RevFin – Acquisitions and Merger
    RevFin – Awards & Achievements
    RevFin – Future Plans
    RevFin – FAQs

    RevFin – Industry Details

    Consumer lending market in India is over $300 billion. Currently, over 3 lakh electric three wheelers are sold in India and over 1 lakh electric two wheelers. Taking average financing of INR. 1 lakh for electric 3-wheelers and INR. 50,000 for electric 2-wheelers, the market in which RevFin is operating stands at INR 5,000 crores. This market has very poor availability of financing and in our opinion; the market can grow 10-15X in the next 10 years.

    RevFin – Founders

    Revfin is founded by Mr. Sameer Aggarwal. Sameer is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and has worked in consumer lending for 13 years, most of which were spent working in London with HSBC.

    Sameer has worked in both prime and subprime lending space. During time in HSBC, he has worked in UK, France, Turkey, Egypt, UAE, Hong Kong, Australia, Philippines, USA, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. He has wide ranging experience in organization strategy setting, fund raising, managing large cross functional/site teams and converting a traditional lending business to a platform based digital business.

    RevFin – The Idea and starting up

    Being a part of the fintech industry in the UK, Sameer had the opportunity to experiment with many unique ideas. While researching the Indian market, he found three clear trends –

    • Consumer fintech companies were focusing on lead generation, but not on lending;
    • Lending fintechs were focusing on SMEs, not on consumers; and
    • There was very little use of technology, analytics and alternative data/techniques.

    All of the above gave rise to the idea of Revfin. At the same time, their core lending focus was on retail consumers.

    As they started their operations, they got an early opportunity to test lending in electric three-wheeler market. This market did not have organised finance available at a national level. So, they tied up with some manufacturers to test the scale and ease of the market. They realised that there is huge untapped potential in the market and the players in the market are working with them to develop the complete ecosystem for manufacturing, sales and financing of such vehicles.

    Friends and family were not very pleased initially for Sameer as he gave up his job in London. However, once the decision was made, all of them have come out to help him build the company. Many people, including the investors and other startup founders, encouraged him and provided him with a lot of insights and advices.

    When I came up with the idea, I was clear that our company will completely revolutionise the way lending in done. Therefore, the first name that sprang to my mind was Revolution in Finance. Later, we chopped it to RevFin.

    Revfin Logo

    When they started designing it, they wanted to use the rupee symbol and modify it to make it unique. Finally, after trying several versions, the logo had been created in such a way that it represents the rupee (for loans) but also ‘R’ in both Hindi and English. Since it’s an ‘R’, it also represents Revfin.

    They realised how difficult it is for people to get a loan. Also loans are not very accessible for most people as they get declined by banks and other institutions. To be true to their objective of financial inclusion, their loans must be Convenient (to apply and process) and Accessible (high approval). Hence RevFin – Convenient, Accessible Loans!

    RevFin – Product

    Revfin provides 2 types of loan.:

    The first is a regular personal loan. This loan can be taken for a variety of purposes and is paid back in equal monthly installments.

    The second, RevLoan, is an unsecured credit limit that you can use at any time per your need. In this, you can draw down any amount in denominations of INR 1,000 up to your credit limit.

    Revfin product

    The platform is very focused on use of technology, analytics and alternative techniques like Psychometrics, Biometrics and Gamification. The platform is accessible through web, iOS and Android App.

    RevFin – Business and Revenue Model

    The RevFin business model is very simple. A customer applies for a loan. The company charges a small fee and interest to every customer who is approved a loan.

    Three strong points which makes RevFin unique are:

    • The digital lending platform uses alternative data and techniques to make lending decisions. This helps increase approval rates and provide loans to even those who do not get loans from traditional institutions.
    • Distribution of loans in a very under penetrated market
    • Unique features like Gamification that are designed to help customers be financially prudent and RevLoan which helps them in emergency situations.

    When we first started, we wanted to enter several verticals in parallel. But we decided to focus on one big opportunity to start with and then expand in to other verticals/segments.

    It uses third party data like credit bureaus, KYC checks for loan approval.

    RevFin – Customer Acquisition

    While we are still quite small, our distribution tie- ups with manufacturers is helping us expand quite quickly at a low cost and low risk.

    RevFin – Funding

    Revfin has raised a seed fund round in October 2018 from a group of angel investors. The investment was led by Harash Jain (CEO, Litejoy International and UK-based businessperson), Anil K Goyal (Founder, Anil K Goyal and Associates), Anil Lanba (Senior Technology Executive, EVP Pyramid Consulting) and Krishan B Singh (Investor based in New York).

    The main thing is to show your commitment to your idea through your knowledge, deep belief and also by putting your money in to the mix.

    RevFin raised around $4 mn on October 20, 2021, in a mix of debt and equity round summed up as its Pre-Series A funding round led by Dheeraj Jain, Redcliffe Life Solutions, Let’s Venture Angel Fund, Anuraag, and Ruchirans Jaipuria, Rishi Kajaria and more. With the infusion of the latest funds, the startup is now eyeing to help the low-income consumers of India to embrace EV solutions. Furthermore, RevFin is also planning to expand its operations.

    RevFin – Challenges

    The biggest challenge with our business is to get a modestly educated person in a Tier III town to apply for a loan on an App. The first time they went to a customer they thought they had got it all wrong and that this concept would never work. Soon, they changed their UX simple enough that anyone can understand the process. Also they now ask their distribution partners to help customers understand the process.

    In Tier 3 towns, people find it hard to believe that they can apply for a loan on an app and then actually get the money in their account!

    I had travelled to remote parts of the country to approve loans. This also gave confidence to both the customers and the distribution partners that we were a serious and a real player.

    RevFin – Advisors and Mentors

    In setting up RevFin, Sameer is supported by many strategic advisors/investors, including Fintech executives, accountants and entrepreneurs based in USA, UK, Dubai and India.

    Anil K Goyal – runs a full stack CA/financial advisory practice with Accounting, Tax, Audit, Wealth, FEMA, Company Secretary and Legal verticals.

    Alok Verma – CA based in London, with expertise in private equity, M&As, SMEs

    Harsh Jain – Serial entrepreneur with business in UK, Dubai and India in travel, aviation, electric cigarettes.

    Krishan P Singh – New York based fintech/Investment banking expert

    Anil Lanba – expert in IT services and recruitment, currently EVP at Pyramid Consulting

    RevFin – Acquisitions and Merger

    Revfin acquired an NBFC, Aristo Securities Private Limited in October 2018.

    RevFin – Awards & Achievements

    Revfin is a recognised as a startup by DIPP, Government of India.

    RevFin – Future Plans

    We have tied up with several electric vehicle manufacturers. However, we are still not financing in all the geographies they have dealerships in. Therefore, the next step is to go in to newer geographies of our existing partners. We are also looking at financing electric two wheelers and variants of electric three wheelers.

    RevFin – FAQs

    What is RevFin?

    RevFin is a financial technology startup which is aimed at building the world’s most advanced digital lending platform. Revfin provides 2 types of loan at the moment.

    Who is the founder of RevFin?

    Sameer Aggarwal is the founder of RevFin.

    What are the RevFin loans?

    Revfin provides 2 types of loan:

    The first is a regular personal loan. This loan can be taken for a variety of purposes and is paid back in equal monthly installments.

    The second, RevLoan, is an unsecured credit limit that you can use at any time per your need. In this, you can draw down any amount in denominations of INR 1,000 up to your credit limit.

  • Greg Moran Success Story: Personal Life, Career, Vision

    Every Middle-class person has a dream to buy a car. People in India think owning a car is a matter of prestige, while people don’t think that today it’s just an extra burden upon your expenses. Gone are those days when a car was considered a luxury.

    Greg Moran and his partner David Back established Zoomcar, a self-drive car rental firm that allows users to hire vehicles on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis, to modify and cultivate this mindset.

    Greg Moran: Biography
    Greg Moran: Personal Life
    Greg Moran: Career
    Greg Moran: About Zoomcar
    Greg Moran: Vision
    FAQ

    Greg Moran: Biography

    Born 25th October 1986, New York
    Citizenship American
    Education University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California
    Title CEO & Co-founder of Zoomcar

    Greg Moran: Personal Life

    Greg Moran was born in the New York City of America. His parents had a love marriage; his mother was an Italian lady who shifted to New York after her marriage.

    Greg did his early schooling in New York and went to Philadelphia for his graduation at the University of Pennsylvania. He studied International relations. Greg is also fond of cooking and his specialties are pasta in fresh pesto or meatball, coconut curry with prawn or chicken, salads, and chocolate cheesecake. Not only he tells about his cooking but has a craze to visit a Dosa eating competition sometime.

    Greg has a lot of hobbies that include playing piano and hitting the golf links. When he is not doing work and zooming around he goes to visit different golf fields.

    He is also researching sustainable development to create a sustainable economic zone for the people around the globe.

    Greg Moran: Career

    After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he began his career at Cerberus Capital Management as Summer Associate from July 2006 to August 2006. In 2007 he joined Fieldstone Private Capital Group Ltd as a Financial Analyst. After doing the job for several years, in 2011 he opened up his firm Greg Moran Consulting.

    With the failure of his consulting company, in 2013 he and David Back founded Zoomcar, a self-drive rental car-based company in India. David returned to the US in 2005 after his marriage and Greg continued with Zoomcar and services in India.

    Greg has also worked in the worldwide energy and infrastructure industries in a variety of financial, operational, and strategic capacities. Greg was involved with projects worth over $12 billion on six continents at this time. Solar power, wind power, and energy storage were among his major focus areas within the industry. Zoomcar is also a model of sustainable development that also caters to the self mobility needs of people in India.

    Greg Moran: About Zoomcar

    The Self Drive Car rental company was initiated in Bangalore in 2013. It was first started with an initial investment of $215,000 and a pack of seven cars. Zoomcar was a new concept in 2013 as there was a rise in Ola and Uber that were providing a chauffeur-based service, whereas Zoomcar was one offering a 100% pure-play, self-drive car rental service in India.

    In India, that was a big step forward. It was understood that there would be demand for this kind of service, it also had the potential to grow and blow up the Indian markets.

    Zoomcar services allow customers to hire a car and drive it whenever they want, and they also provide a large selection of automobiles to meet an individual’s demands at the touch of a button.

    Zoomcar provides their customer a hassle-free experience by saving a lot of money without any long-term commitments. Greg came up with advancements for Zoomcar as technology progressed, such as the ability for customers to check availability and reserve a car of their liking with the touch of a button on their smartphones.

    Greg Moran: Vision

    Greg is always passionate about sustainability and has a dream to create a better sustainable economic development model for people all around the world. He also once said in an interview that ‘If not Zoomcar, I would likely have been an investor in technology companies within the sustainability domain.’

    Although Zoomcar’s business strategy is based on sustainability, it also responds to the market’s demand for easy self-drive transportation. However, Zoomcar has always succeeded in carving a niche for the disruptive offering.

    Several startups and taxi aggregators have followed Zoomcar’s lead and entered the self-drive mobility market, which only serves as confirmation of our goals. One of the focus areas is by adding more and more vehicle models which will be offered to the customers on a subscription basis.

    A survey has shown about 50-60% majority in the demand for premium hatchback in 2019 but as of now, it has gone up by 70-80% in the recent 3-4 months of post-Covid-19 lockdown. The company will now be attentive to the subscribed customers and will provide additional benefits to satisfy their needs.

    Even nevertheless, the need for mobility service is as pressing as ever. Because individuals would avoid taking public transportation to stay safe from the virus, the demand for rental vehicles will only increase. This industry is looking at various car subscription models to serve the needs of the customers and increase the business in the car rental industry.

    FAQ

    What is the education qualification of Greg Moran?

    Greg Moran has completed his B.A in International Relations from University of Pennsylvania.

    When did Greg Moran founded Zoomcar?

    Greg Moran and David Back founded Zoomcar in 2012.

  • Can Tesla Sail Through Competitive Indian Seas?

    Tesla is an electric vehicle producer headquartered in California. It was founded by Martin Eberhard and Mike Tarpenning in 2004. The company was named as a tribute to electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. In February 2004, via a US$6.5 million investment, X.com co-founder Elon Musk became the largest shareholder of the company and its chairman. He has served as CEO since 2008. The company manufactured its first car in 2009, named The roadster. It was followed by new and efficient models ever since.

    Tesla’s Ingenuity
    Tesla’s Global Headstart
    Tesla’s Gateway to India
    The Anticipated Competitors of Tesla

    Tesla’s India Specific Challenges
    Conclusion
    FAQs

    Tesla in India Analysis

    Tesla’s Ingenuity

    Tesla Supercharger

    • Tesla supercharger is a fast charging vehicle technology made by Tesla. It is a 480-volt direct current fast charger for all their electric cars. The Supercharger network was introduced on September 24, 2012, with six Supercharger stations. As of February 18, 2021, Tesla operates over 23,277 Superchargers in over 2,564 stations worldwide[2] (an average of 9 chargers per station).
    • Tesla launched the “Destination Charging location” network in 2014. Equipping chargers to hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and resorts to provide on-site vehicle charging at twice the power of default home charging.

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    Tesla’s Global Headstart

    Tesla broke ground on the Gigafactory in June 2014 outside Sparks, Nevada. The name Gigafactory comes from the word ‘Giga,’ the unit of measurement representing “billions.” The Gigafactory is being built in phases so that Tesla can begin manufacturing immediately inside the finished sections and continue to expand thereafter.

    Tesla opened its first Gigafactory in Shanghai, China. It was impressively built in less than Six months. It was also the first automobile factory fully owned by outside authority in China.

    Gigafactory (Image via Tesla)

    Watch Below Governor Brian Sandoval and Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla Motors, announced that Nevada has been selected as the official site for the Tesla Gigafactory. Tesla will build the world’s largest and most advanced battery factory in Nevada which means nearly one hundred billion dollars in economic impact to the Silver State over the next twenty years.

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    Tesla’s Gateway to India

    Tesla India Motors And Energy Private Limited is a subsidiary of Tesla Inc. The company was registered on 8 January 2021 in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It has officially registered with the Registrar of Companies in India at its Bengaluru office. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has confirmed the entry of Tesla in India

    Tesla should “make cars in India, sell in India and export from India,” and rely on local suppliers, Gadkari said at an India Today Conclave

    Though there has been no formal announcement by the company on its India plans yet. Whatever be the plans the company is asked to manufacture and then sell in India and not to sell cars “Made in China”.

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    The Anticipated Competitors of Tesla

    The Future is Electric, this is not a future sentence anymore. We are already witnessing companies manufacturing and people moving to Electric vehicles. Several top performers in this field in India are pointed below.

    Tata Electric

    Tata EVs | Tata Electric Vehicles
    Tata EVs | Tata Electric Vehicles

    Tata is an already established and trusted brand in India. In order to boost EV future plans the company plans to invest $1 Billion Tata Motors electric vehicle subsidiary, Tata Electric.​​ Tata Motors recently struck a deal to raise Rs 7,500 crore from TPG Rise Climate and Abu Dhabi’s ADQ. This is a major fundraising by an Indian carmaker to boost the clean transportation segment. For now the company has introduced two EVs in market:

    • Tigor EV
    • Nexon EV

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    Hyundai

    Hyundai KONA Electric
    Hyundai KONA Electric

    Hyundai Motor Company is a South Korean multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. They also hold a dominant share in Indian car segment through their operations in India. They launched their first EV, The Kona Electric to tap the newly formed demand in this sector.

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    Mahindra Electric

    Mahindra Electric car
    Mahindra Electric car

    The automotive giant is not left behind in the market of EVs. It has already started to manufacture automobiles that are powered by electric means.

    Examples Include:

    • eVerito
    • eSupro
    • e2oPlus and more

    Morrison Garages India

    Morrison Garages
    Morrison Garages

    British automotive founded by Cecil Kimber in the 1920s, and M.G. Car Company Limited.The Indian subsidiary was set up in the year 2017 and began its sales and manufacturing operations in 2019. Now, it is a celebrated car brand in India. Last year it came up with the MG, ZS EV. The MG ZS EV is not just India’s first pure Electric Internet SUV, but also a catalyst for change. The EV is powered by i-Smart EV 2.0. Style, substance, performance.

    Mercedes Benz

    The car brand that is synonymous with luxury, came up with an all electric vehicle in oct 2020. The Mercedes Benz EQC Electric, with the same elegant style and the same robust lux that is always expected from the automobile manufacturer.

    Mercedes EV Launch

    Tesla’s India Specific Challenges

    Charging Infrastructure

    The one necessity of electric vehicles is its charging demands and it’s a new concept to the world. So generally charging Infrastructure becomes a little problem for developing countries. In a developing country like India, The charging Infrastructure that is needed to jump on the EV trend is not ready. There is a lot of space left to fill in this domain. The Government of India is trying and boosting the process to develop the infra as soon as possible.

    Cost

    Another crucial thing in an EV is the battery, The lithium Ion battery. Every EV is powered by a battery that has to be imported in India. In case of four wheelers, Most EVs in India provide a range of 200 to 250 km and cost between Rs 14-20 lakhs which does not give a cost advantage compared to higher range cars in the same price range.

    Lack of Renewable Energy

    In India most of the electricity is made by coal burning. If we see EVs running in our markets then electricity demand will shoot up. Which will moreover push the companies to produce more and more electricity. Which will cancel out the motive of reducing the greenhouse gas emission because coal burning itself emits GHGs.

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    Conclusion

    Tesla has plans of getting in the Indian market and most probably it will enter. But the company will see many aforementioned edges and challenges that will ruffle their feathers, Like the Charging Infra, GHG emissions and Cost control issues. Moreover, seeing the current face of the government, and watching the relations with China, it will oppose selling “Made in China” cars in Indian Markets. Either Tesla has to start manufacturing in Indian Borders or have to find other ways to tackle the obstacle. In a nutshell, we can say that If the company has to expand and plant roots in our subcontinent, then it has to be agile and innovate in accordance to the demands here. It will have to improvise a bit.

    FAQs

    Is Tesla allowed in India?

    Tesla has got approval for four of its variants by the Indian government.

    Which Indian company ties with Tesla?

    Sona Comstar Ltd., Sandhar Technologies Ltd. and Bharat Forge Ltd. are among some Indian companies already supplying components to Tesla.

    Does Tesla manufacture only electric cars?

    Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles but also manufactures scalable clean energy generation and storage products.

    Who is Tesla’s biggest competitor?

    Some of the Tesla’s competitors are:

    • Tata Electric
    • Hyundai
    • Mahindra Electric
    • Morrison Garages India
    • Mercedes Ben

  • Netflix Viewership And Its Effects on E-commerce & Economy | The Netflix Effect

    You would be living under a rock if you don’t know what Netflix is. It is the world’s most popular subscription based video streaming service. Founded in 1977 and was originally a DVD rental service. In 2007 it began streaming cinema online (OTT Service) and became the Netflix that we know today.

    Streaming services such as Netflix have changed the way we consume media in the world today. With the emergence of “binge watching” we now have access to and can consume more entertainment than ever before. But how are these new opportunities affecting our culture as a whole? As of July 2021, Netflix has 209 million subscribers. That is a huge number and It grows around ten percent every year. With this number of viewers watching everything that Netflix produces, there are some “after effects” too. Effects that continue even when your favourite movie or series come to end. So what are these Effects and how are they relevant to us and the Environment/Economy around?

    Netflix Effect
    Queen behind Chess win
    Squid Games in Real
    The Imitation Game
    The future of advertising
    Conclusion
    FAQs

    Netflix Effect

    The Netflix Effect

    We are talking about the Netflix Effect. This term can be used to describe several events that are the consequences of the culture that borns out of Netflix’s shows and movies. For instance Actors that became a sensation overnight or certain products after being used in a film or show getting huge demand from everywhere. With a huge audience waiting eagerly for the next season of shows or sequels, this effect is obvious and inevitable in all senses. To get more clear let us take an example.

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    Queen behind Chess win

    The Queen’s Gambit is a TV series, released on Netflix in October last year. The plot was about an orphan chess prodigy who dreams of becoming a chess grandmaster someday. The show soon became one of the most popular shows on Netflix. Before its release, if you’d asked the general public whether a show about chess could bring in millions of viewers and break Netflix records, chances are most wouldn’t have believed you. YES, A record-setting 62 million households chose to watch The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 day.

    With this rising viewership, the show created a cult, a culture that interested a lot of people. The after effects of this huge Fandom were many. To count a few, the show soared sales of chess boards, people all of a sudden began learning how to play chess, The original novel became a bestseller and Chess-dot-com (Online Chess platform) saw huge sign ups, Chess apps downloads went up by many folds. This is what happens when a show becomes immensely popular, People start copying and imitating their favourite characters in the show.

    Google Trends showing splurge in “Chess” term in UK

    Squid Games in Real

    The most recent Netflix blockbuster “Squid Games” has become a pop culture phenomenon. Released in September, It is a Korean Horror-Survival series. Striking a chord with the audience, The show has produced massive ripple effects in trends. From Squid games themed fashion lines to viral challenges on Tik-Tok.

    Squid Game Costume
    Squid Game Costume

    All of a sudden everyone is mentioning a reference from the show. People are cosplaying the characters, Learning korean, Not to mention Dalgona candy sales are at an all time high, and oh my gosh !! White sneakers are generating 7800 percent more sales than before. Vans(Shoe store) is having a good boom after this. Duolingo’s Korean learners increased by around 40% and everyone just wants to jump into the fashion.

    A character from the show “HoYeon Jung” became an overnight sensation when her IG followers jumped to the sky, was roped in by Louis Vuitton and was made the face of the luxury brand.

    HoYeon Jung Instagram
    HoYeon Jung Instagram

    Squid Game is still producing viral benefits for brands.

    The show was viewed by over 142M households worldwide and generated an estimated $900M in value for Netflix. (The series cost Netflix only a little over $21M.)

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    The Imitation Game

    As google is synonymous and an official “Verb” for searching, Netflixing has become a synonym to “binge watching”. Ask for binge recommendations and most and all you get is Netflix produced stuff. It has changed how we consume media for entertainment. Online streaming is not killing cinephilia, but rather it is changing the way we view movies and interact with that particular medium. I would also say that cinephilia is not dying and, in some ways, I would say it is stronger than ever.

    The reason why I have named this para as ‘Imitation Game’ is that people imitate what they find superior or heroic or just greater-than-life. There is a quote that goes here very smoothly

    – “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” – Jim Morrison.

    When people watch their favourite characters doing something, they seek to imitate them. Like the prodigy that plays chess in “Queen’s Gambit”, Made people like chess, play it more and speak about it more. “Squid games” made people hop into themed jumpsuits and play challenges and imitate the show. The behaviour of liking and copying people’s favourite, can or maybe has already become a business marketing technique. How far it can go and how dynamic it can be, we will witness.

    The Future of Advertising

    The instances of Netflix’s rocketing sales of on screen products proves the point that it can be a marvellous advertising powerhouse. Brands can take note of these effects and market their products as a story, or woven as a story, a series, show or any piece of cinema to lure cinephiles.

    Netflix Is Ad Free, but It Isn’t Brand Free – A Tribune Article

    In another recent cross-promotion, Netflix charged the clothing company Diesel a license fee to make outfits inspired by “La Casa de Papel,” one of Netflix’s most popular shows. Online ads from Diesel hammered home the connection by showing the Netflix name, mentioning “La Casa de Papel” and featuring characters in the distinctive red jumpsuits worn by the show’s protagonists.

    Netflix Effect on Diesel Clothing Company ad

    Conclusion

    Netflix doesn’t run ads on its platform but has somehow magically has become a coveted marketing platform in the world. The top streaming service provider restrains commercials but is trying to figure out a way on how it can work with brands to direct the crowd. Netflix is highly cautious about his brand image too and even continues to refute the idea of introducing an advertising model similar to the majority of other streaming services have adopted.

    Nevertheless as per studies and reports and as per viewers’ own discretion we can discuss and establish that sooner or later Netflix can approach brand advertising and product placement in maybe a different manner than the rest. This expansion in this scope is going to give a strong back support to the company, providing them with more options and more stability. If this happens then the world of advertising will surely see a splurge. The advertising will be more specific and widespread, the characters more colourful and the Fandom more wholesome. In the meantime, marketers should pay attention to what’s taking the streaming world by storm – it may help them to boost sales.

    FAQs

    How many customers does Netflix have?

    Netflix has about 209 million paying customers globally.

    Which country uses Netflix the most?

    Netflix is most watched in South America.

    How much money does Netflix make?

    Netflix generated total revenue of over 7.3 billion U.S. dollars in the second quarter of 2021.

    Which Netflix series has the most views?

    Netflix top 5 series by total view in 1st month of release are:

    • Bridgerton, season 1
    • Money Heist, part 4
    • Stranger Things 3
    • The Witcher, season 1
    • 13 Reasons Why, season 2

    Some of the most popular series on Netflix are:

    • The Witcher
    • Sex/Life
    • Stranger Things 3
    • Money Heist
    • Tiger King

  • Free Ways to Get the Most From a New Business

    Starting a business is always an expensive process, but some steps aren’t quite as costly as newcomers might think. With the right approach, it can be possible to make appreciable savings on a range of important business startup factors, if you know where to look. Consider the following options and you could see some serious advantages in the long and short term, alongside the always appreciated benefits of lower stress levels.

    Finding the Right Mortgage

    If you operate a physical business, then the most profound ongoing cost is likely to come from your mortgage. Though many local businesses can help deliver expertise in this area, people juggle hectic lifestyles and need to deal with their mortgage queries in a convenient and flexible manner around work schedules and other responsibilities. Luckily, online options now exist to make things easier.

    Trussle is an online mortgage advisor which utilises advanced AI, as well as human experts, to quickly compare more than 12,000 different mortgages, with decisions returning within five days. Rated 4.8 on Trustpilot, this system boasts average customer savings of £290 a month, with no cost to the customer. For physical businesses, online options such as Trussle are beneficial because they are an affordable, time-saving alternative and massively convenient for modern-day users.

    Online Visibility Through Social Media

    The other methods we consistently see new business owners underestimate are the benefits that come from free advertising via early and ongoing social media engagement. According to Pew Research, around 72% of Americans use social media, with similar numbers extending to the rest of the developed world. In other words, if you fail to engage within this market, then your business is going to start on the back foot.

    The most basic way to begin on social media involves setting up a Facebook page. As noted by Overlo, roughly 2.8 billion people use Facebook monthly, making it the single widest-reaching advertising platform in the world. At the very least, work on a Facebook page should include general operational data like hours and target audience, as well as basic contact information. Depending on how much your demographic engages with Facebook, you also might want to consider daily updates.

    Outside of Facebook, social media integration again depends on demographics. If you run an artistic style of business, then Instagram or TikTok could be a great way to engage your customers. This is especially the case if you can illustrate your products or services directly through images or video, which tends to be more appealing than a format of text dumps.

    Finally, if you want to advertise quick specials and savings, Twitter can also be worthy of investigation. As one of the low data and more fast-paced social media options, Twitter users are likely to be better primed to timed offers than customers of other social media sites. Boasting 206 million daily active users according to Backlinko, this is another potential audience that can’t be ignored.

    Rounding out social media, the last suggestion we’d have is to ensure that each platform you use links to the others and that each offers strong cohesion between the rest of the group. You always want users to be able to relate your pages both to the other social media sites and to your business as a whole. Failure to achieve this goal can lead to confusion and lost customers, so putting the effort into consistency is key.

    Though managing a mortgage can be achieved in the short term, social media engagement is an avenue that’s going to require ongoing work. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it will be easy, so be prepared to make mistakes and adjustments as you. Remember, it’s not a race, and every failure can present another opportunity to learn. Take your time, listen to customer feedback, and your odds of success will be better for it.

  • Finly – Tools to Help Businesses Manage Expenses Better

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Finly.

    Keeping track of expenses and payables is crucial for every business. Account Payable automation or AP automation software simplifies tasks like submitting invoices, managing approvals, and processing payments in a fast, error-free and transparent manner. This is the reason why many businesses are adopting Accounts payable automation these days. As reported by Adroit Market Research, the Account Payable Automation software market will be valued at US $ 4 Billion by 2025. One of the top companies providing this software in India is Finly. Finly also offers software for expense management, e-procurement, budgeting and offers various expense and budget-related insights that can help managers and accounting professionals take important business decisions.

    In this article, we have covered all about Finly, its founders, the story behind the inception of the startup, its products, revenue, and plans.

    Finly – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Finly
    Headquarters Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
    Industry Financial Services, Accounting, Information Technology, FinTech
    Founders Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G
    Founded 2015
    Current CEO Veekshith Rai
    Website www.finly.io

    Finly – Latest News
    About Finly and How it Works?
    Finly – Name and Logo
    Finly – Founder and History
    Finly – Mission and Vision
    Finly – Business Model
    Finly – Revenue and Growth
    Finly – Funding and Investors
    Finly – Competitors
    Finly – Challenges Faced
    Finly – Future Plans
    Finly – FAQs

    Finly – Latest News

    In December 2019, Finly raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors like Gemba Capital, AngelList India, Omphalos Ventures, Social Capital, and 91springboard.

    We believe the team has built a fantastic SaaS product for the global market,” said Adith Podhar, Gemba Capital managing partner. “With Finly, a CFO can time his payments to better manage cash and capture early payment discounts, reduce invoice processing time and costs, and engage the accounts payable department in more strategic, higher-value activities.” Adith added.

    About Finly and How it Works?

    Finly is a financial management and governance software business. It provides a platform that enables businesses to automate, get visibility into, and manage their expenditure swiftly.

    Finly created cloud-based expenditure management software to automate all corporate payments and transactions. The company’s software allows businesses to use cashless transactions by providing expenditure management, money distribution, digital payments, automated collection, and vendor payments.

    Finly began with a simple notion: to help businesses better understand their spending and costs. Finly was created to help your organization establish better procedures, resulting in a system that is much more cost-effective and time-efficient. They believe that by replacing standard cost reporting systems with Finly, they would be able to make the entire process more hassle-free, resulting in higher employee satisfaction.

    Finly offers a SaaS component that automates all financial operations within the company. To digitize all external financial transactions, the SaaS component connects with every type of payment instrument in India (UPI/ NEFT/ IMPS/ RTGS/ Prepaid Cards/ Credit Cards) enabling businesses to make seamless transactions.

    The SaaS solution allows multiple stakeholders (spender/reviewer/finance team/vendors) to interact and cooperate while giving the finance team comprehensive insight. The solution maintains all internal corporate systems up to date with real-time financial activities.

    Finly maintains all corporate business systems in sync and provides the most dynamic reporting on the industry by giving the company comprehensive visibility into its spending. Their objective is to give finance teams technology and analytics that allow them to have powerful insights into their spending, allowing them to make informed strategic decisions and removing any cost management roadblocks as your company grows.

    Finly offers software for company cost management, digital cash distribution, vendor payments, and GST-compliant invoicing and payments to assist businesses to automate and simplify their spending.

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    The ‘Fin’ in Finly refers to the company’s financial management and governance software business.

    Finly' s Company Logo
    Finly’ s Company Logo

    Finly’s tagline says, “Control, Optimize & Strategically Reduce Business Spend By Digitising Accounts Payable Process with a Scalable AP Automation System”

    Finly – Founder and History

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G founded Finly in 2015.

    Veekshith Rai - Co-founder and CEO of Finly
    Veekshith Rai – Co-founder and CEO of Finly 

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G had been friends since they were adolescents, and after graduating from an engineering school in Bengaluru in 2012, they got interested in digital money. Veekshith worked for Mindfree Labs, and Vivek for Accion, and they both worked in IT. However, after only 3 years, they realized they had arrived at a major revenue opportunity: expenditure management.

    Finly, a company expenditure, and cost management solution, was born out of this need.

    “Before settling on this concept, we had honed in on five challenges we were interested in solving,” Veekshith explains. “We put together pitch decks and contacted industry experts, investors, and advisers. We froze upon Finly and developed a prototype to obtain our first set of clients after feedback, numerous revisions, and a lot of deep ideation.”

    During the initial stage, the founders narrowed down possible clients regarding the problem and other factors and shared the product concept with Chief financial officers. After receiving a partial payment, they began development on the system and rolled it out in stages.

    Finly – Mission and Vision

    Finly’s mission and vision statement say, “Finly Corporation is committed to providing our clients with a high-quality product and outstanding service. When clients use any of our goods or services to develop projects, we try to offer them security and peace of mind. We strive to be at the forefront of innovative technology and manufacturing processes.”

    Finly – Business Model

    Finly is focusing on the B2B market since the B2C market has been significantly disrupted by technology like UPI and applications such as PayTM and PhonePe, which have reduced reliance on cash.

    Businesses, on the other hand, continue to rely on traditional payment processing systems. This is mainly because of two reasons: banks’ ongoing concentration on major operations and their failure to consumerize modern banking technology with software commodities that address current business demands.

    Finly’s business model is built on a per-user, per-month cost that is determined by the module selected by the client. They also demand a transaction fee, which is determined by the form of transaction utilized by the company.

    “Payments, an integral part of financial operations, remain disconnected from current processes. But payment technologies like UPI, currently open only to the B2C segment, will further drive adoption of digital payments when rolled out to the B2B segment,” says Vivek.

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    Finly – Revenue and Growth

    • Finly’s yearly revenue is now projected to be $7.1 million.
    • Finly’s revenue per employee is expected to be $145,000.

    The founders invested little more than Rs 1 crore in the firm, which is producing close to Rs 7 crore in revenue. The founders however have not confirmed the company’s revenue.

    Finly – Funding and Investors

    Finly raised an undisclosed amount of funding in December 2019.

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Dec 21, 2019 Seed Round – Das42 Capital, Gemba Capital, Social Capital, 91springboard

    Finly – Competitors

    Finly is a SaaS company that competes with Expensify, SAP Concur, Zoho, Pleo, G2 Storefront, Happay, and Fyle.

    Finly – Challenges Faced

    According to Veekshith, the road ahead isn’t really a bed of roses.

    • Changing the habits of finance teams is one of the company’s difficulties. However, Finly combats this challenge with a robust customer success staff that follows up with its clients after the transaction.
    • The other challenge for the company is having strong business professionals with a mix of sales, technology, and financial skills.

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    Finly – Future Plans

    Finly presently works with over 100 clients, and is working to increase the client base. The company will add more intelligent products to its suite in future.

    V Ganapathy, CEO of Axilor Ventures, says: “This market is a big opportunity and this startup helps clients track all their financial expenses. We believe Finly has figured out the market reach and is scaling fast.”

    Finly gives CFOs and finance teams comprehensive insight and control over payables. All while improving Finance Teams’ productivity by over 80% via the use of a sophisticated Finance Communication Framework to automate tedious and repetitive procedures and ease wireless communication within Finance Teams. With its intelligent software Finly is all set to change the way Finance teams across industries work.

    Speaking about Finly’s vision, co-founder Vivek AG says, “We think that the future generation of finance teams will not spend time on manual labor for day-to-day activities such as processing vendor payments, reconciling invoices, tracking advances, and so on. Finly will assist finance teams in important duties such as analyzing and tracking vital indicators related to the company’s growth.”

    Finly – FAQs

    What does Finly do?

    Finly is a financial management and governance software business. It provides a platform that enables businesses to automate, get visibility into, and manage their expenditure.

    Who founded Finly?

    Veekshith Rai and Vivek A G founded Finly in 2015.

    How does Finly make money?

    Their business model is built on a per-user, per-month cost that is determined by the module selected by the client. They also demand a transaction fee, which is determined by the form of transaction utilized by the company.

    Which companies do Finly compete with?

    Finly is a SaaS company that competes with Expensify, SAP Concur, Expensify, Zoho, Pleo, G2 Storefront, Happay, and Fyle.

  • Buttons Matter On Your E-commerce Website | How To Choose Effective Buttons?

    Every little function leads to customer user satisfaction. The world is now functioning with the help of online businesses. Online businesses have evolved way too far since the past few years. Several companies have a unique way of getting their customers to click the checkout button.

    Each button that the company uses on its site is responsible for some action. The marketers of e-commercial companies work on getting as many people to click buttons on their sites so that business takes place.

    Buttons are significant to improve the user experience. These buttons are responsible for more income for the e-commercial business. E-commercial websites come up with attractive buttons so that customers can interact with the site.

    Choosing Buttons For Your E-commerce Business

    Conclusion
    FAQs

    Choosing Buttons effectively for E-commerce Business

    Choosing Buttons For Your E-commerce Business

    With stunning design and an easy navigating user interface, e-commercial websites tend to spend a large part of their time spending thinking about putting desirable buttons. Neither too many nor too few buttons should be drafted while designing the interface.

    It is difficult to choose from different types of buttons as there are unlimited types to choose from. An easy task can be quite difficult sometimes as the customers are the ones coming to your site. Keep the following suggestions in mind to select ideal buttons for your site.

    WIDGET: leadform | CAMPAIGN: undefined

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    Contrasting Colors Are a Must

    Sometimes colors drive customers towards clicking the checkout option as e-commercial websites can achieve massive conversion rates. Website owners can use any color of their choice which they feel is most suitable.

    Experimenting during the initial stages of color selection will give an idea of how and what color buttons should be. Be careful with the overall design and the buttons that you choose for your website because the interface should resonate with the feel of your brand.

    Keeping An Ideal Shape & Size

    Buttons that you may use on your website have now got their ideal color but what about their shape and size? Websites must keep decent-sized shapes and sizes of their buttons so that the attention of the visitors can be caught.

    Try experimenting with either a round or a rectangular-shaped button. Analyze whether or not customers are visiting your website more frequently or not. Depending on the results you can decide to use other types of shapes and sizes.

    Create A Sense of Urgency

    While shaping the buttons of your website you are being responsible for the marketing of your business. You want visitors to click on the checkout button as many times as possible. So, creating a sense of urgency for them would give your business an opportunity for business growth.

    Anything that illustrates an emergency or an urgent situation can be used in buttons. For example, if your e-commerce website is into booking tickets for events then you can use words like ‘Hurry’, ‘Book Now Pay Later’, ’Tickets Selling Rapidly Book Now’, etc.

    Work On Your ‘Call To Action’

    Call to action button on E-commerce site
    Call to action button on E-commerce site

    Call to action means encouraging a user/visitor to purchase an item or a product. This can only be done if you stick to using meaningful and attractive words on your buttons. Try using words other than ‘Submit’, ‘Buy Now’, and other such types of words. The aim should be to compel visitors to take action.

    Words should be such that will drive the visitors to click on that checkout button. You have to come out with such types of words so that more and more visitors get inclined towards your call to action button.

    Action-Oriented Words Can Get The Job Done

    Using action-oriented words on your website might give the visitors an urge to click on them. Well, action-oriented words will play a crucial role in your online business. Action-oriented words will convert into actions.

    Examples of action-oriented words are:

    • Add to cart
    • Get it now
    • Subscribe
    • Book now

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    Conclusion

    A simple yet effective button selection for your e-commerce business can generate revenues. This is why it is important to choose buttons that will attract visitors to your website. In the end, anyone with an online business would want customers to click that buy button.

    However, to make that happen is not an easy task. Customers would want an easy and simple user interface so that they feel easy to operate. Try to bring in standout features to your e-commerce website so that you are different from your competitors.

    FAQs

    How do I gain visitors to my E-commerce website?

    Follow the basic tips given below to gain visitors:

    • Keep an easy user-interface
    • Eye-catching website design
    • Build goodwill before indulging in promotional activities
    • Appreciate the feedback and work on the negative ones
    • Keep your focus only on your mission and vision
    • Do not force your visitors to register on your site

    How to use the perfect buttons on my e-commerce website?

    You need to experiment after choosing buttons because customers can get attracted to any type of button. Try not to keep too wacky buttons.

    How to provide standout features to my customers?

    If you want to provide your customers with extra features then you need to first plan what you can offer. Study your competitors and then you will have an idea about how you can provide extra features to your customers.

  • Gaming Content Creators – A Viable Profession in the Digital era

    This article has been contributed by Mr. Shivam Rao, Co-Founder & COO of Trinity Gaming.

    The general consensus in the bygone days around gaming was usually associated with someone who is lazy. Fast forward to the present, it is now a billion-dollar industry making it one of the most powerful sectors to be associated with. Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple all have plans to enter the gaming industry with the purpose to allow players to stream games without the need for a computer or a video game console. (source: investopedia.com)

    One cannot overlook the potential the gaming industry has, and with that, we have seen the rise of gaming content creators. These content creators work to further enhance the produced content with a purpose or a goal. They play, engage, share their experiences, review them, and have the power to create a narrative around them. Esports is regarded as the best form of entertainment with virtual reality adding yet another layer to it. The gaming industry also enjoys the benefits of penetrating the demographics. It has an interesting mix, attracting generations from earlier and later in life.

    This has resulted in the demand for this special class of creators who are collaborating with brands to connect with the new audience. Brands are marketing through gamers, knowing this can enable more meaningful connections.  This has proved to be a good medium for them to advertise, and interestingly out of all the influencers in the market, gamers are known to have the best audience engagement in terms of viewership and audience-creator relationships.

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    In the case of gaming content creators, the most common way to generate revenue is through super chats, YouTube membership, and brand endorsements, and so on. And once the loyal followers are built, brands are looking for collaborations to target the new followers. Dominated by the younger generation, it promises a great scope for the youths who share a deep interest in esports and wish to pursue a career in something they enjoy. It is for anyone who loves esports/virtual gaming and can smartly blend humor to it. These talents are getting the recognition they deserve and management companies similar to ours, are stepping in to nurture them, guide them, build a network and connect them with the best brands to associate with.

    Since its inception, Trinity Gaming has created a unique ecosystem for the gaming content creators like Dynamo, Jonathan, Alpha Clasher, Shreeman Legend, Antaryami along with others who have been working with India’s top brands and have successfully established themselves. The new segment has also witnessed the growing popularity of women creators like Annie, Mystic Ignite, Unicorn IB, Pooja Bisht who are now donning the space.

    Building a career as a gaming content creator might seem a simple way to earn and an easy road map to fame, but that isn’t the case always. One has to be really persistent and needs to develop a certain set of skills. Some of the key factors that a creator must develop to ace in this industry are:

    1. Maintaining Originality
    2. Developing a signature style
    3. Communicating and engaging with the audience while ensuring no one is offended
    4. Ideating content that fulfills the purpose – Entertainment
    5. Must be an esports fanatic

    Anyone who desires to be a gaming creator needs to develop and experiment with these skills. It is a new-age profession that is for anyone and everyone.

    With the gaming industry becoming more complex, there has been a rise of the gaming community that respects each other and thrives together. The community brings inclusivity in diversity. Creators, as an integral part of the gaming community, have a huge spectrum to explore and ideate great content which will only support them to grow.

    Also Read: Fantasy Games in India: Everything you need to know

    With the ease of accessibility to the internet, the current generation spends more time, consuming content digitally. The rise of digitalization, changes in perspective, technological advancement, and the mounting interest of people are some of the prime factors that have supported the industry and behold a strong future. This is the right time to identify the power of esports and establish to rightly fit into this popular sector.

  • Quickshift (QS): End-to-end fulfillment solutions for your eCommerce business

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Quickshift.

    Quickshift (QS) offers a complete suite of fulfillment services for any D2C brand that wants to scale up quickly while offering the best customer service. Through its tech-enabled, multi-city warehouses and integrated shipping, it offers- transparent order management, storage, shipping, COD, RTO, Non-Delivery Receipt (NDR), and ultimately customer delight. Its shipping coverage is 29,000 Pin Codes across India and is currently servicing over 150 D2C brands.

    StartupTalky interviewed Anshul Goenka & Prodipto Roy (Co-founders, Quickshift) to get insights into the startup story of Quickshift. In this article you’ll discover how Quickshift was conceptualized, its business model, funding, and more.

    Quickshift – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Quickshift
    Founders Anshul Goenka (CEO), Prodipto Roy
    Headquarters Pune, Maharashtra
    Founded 2018
    Industry eCommerce fulfillment
    Website quickshift.in

    Quickshift – About and Vision
    Quickshift – Industry Details
    Quickshift – Idea and Inspiration
    Quickshift – Product/Service and USP
    Quickshift – Founders and Team
    Quickshift – Business Model & Revenue Model
    Quickshift – Launch and Marketing Strategies
    Quickshift – Growth
    Quickshift – Funding and Investors
    Quickshift – Competitors
    Quickshift – FAQs

    Quickshift – About and Vision

    Quickshift (QS) offers a complete suite of fulfillment services for any D2C brand that wants to scale up quickly while offering the best customer service. A challenge for a D2C brand today is how to fulfill in a cost-effective manner within a time frame of same-day or 1-2 days if they get an order from another part of India typically 2000 km away. If the brand does not service, then they risk disappointing the customer, and cannot build scale, thus increasing their Cost of Customer Acquisition further. This is where QS steps in. Through its tech-enabled, multi-city warehouses and integrated shipping, it offers- transparent order management, storage, shipping, COD, RTO, Non-Delivery Receipt (NDR), and ultimately customer delight.

    QS wants to be the company of choice for any brand marketing its products digitally. It wants to be recognized for its tech-leadership, building inefficiency in the post ‘buy’ phase of the customer, a critical time when the Post Purchase Dissonance sets is and the same can be lost.

    QS’s team believes in the Indian consumption story. It seems tremendous opportunity in the consumer value chain that technology presents. These would start forming as the endeavor grows.

    Quickshift – Industry Details

    The total logistics market in India is about US$ 215 Bn in Yr. 2020, it is expected to rise to US$ 450 Bn.  Like-wise the 3PL logistics market is about US$8 Bn, likely to expand to US$18 Bn in the same time frame. Based on current data, QS’s market share of this serviceable 3 PL market is 0.2%.

    Source: Edelweiss Report (3PL)

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    Quickshift – Idea and Inspiration

    The business model has been functioning of research as well as evolution. QS in its very early days was offering fleet as well as fulfillment, it realized the need for technology and the substantial difference it would make in Order Management, right up to the customer and then the payment process. Hence QS started integrating the full value chain. Once brands onboarded, they got the advantage of integrated processes. They no longer had to talk separately to tech enabler for Order Management, a warehousing company (and multiple ones for different zones), a logistics/courier partner for the last mile, etc., steps that increased the no. of transactions and created complexities. Instead, QS was answering that. The brands themselves asked QS to open more centers to enable their fulfillment go pan India, and hence came the multi-city distribution plan.

    Quickshift – Product/Service and USP

    QS has built integrations with all leading marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, Ajio, etc as well integrates with any own developed e-com platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, etc. On the shipping side, Quickshift can reach out to 30000 Pin Codes across India through its affiliations promising same day and next day TAT’s. It has its own fulfillment centers in Mumbai, NCR-Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, and Kolkata, all tech-enabled to manage the process efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. It provides a dashboard to its customers that offers them to have a birds-eye view of its stocks across warehouses, its orders getting processed, despatches, COD’s and also insights into its sales and inventory.  

    • QS reduces the costs of fulfillment by over 35%
    • For a brand, it provides a single point of contact for Warehousing, Order Processing, Shipping, and Technology
    • In addition, to International brands that would like to create a distribution network to tap the Consumption potential in India, QS provides a one-stop-shop to establish its reach within India

    Quickshift – Founders and Team

    Anshul Goenka (CEO) and Prodipto Roy are the co-founders of Quickshift.

    Co-founders of Quickshift
    Quickshift co-founders – Anshul Goenka and Prodipto Roy

    Prodipto recently joined as a co-founder, however, the founders knew each other since the inception of Quickshift and he was advising and mentoring the startup throughout. When Quickshift reached a decent scale and the workload starting increasing, it is then when Asnhul proposed to Prodipto to come in full time as a co-founder. Prodipto saw value in what Quickshift was building and for the team, he brings 2 decades of experience with him, therefore it was an easy match. Currently, Anshul looks over Operations, Tech & Product, Finance, While Prodipto looks over Sales, Marketing, CRM and we jointly discuss strategy, hiring, etc.

    The current company Size is about 30 Corporate employees including Tech, Ops, Sales and Marketing, MIS & Finance. They have additional 70+ folks working across fulfillment centers in various cities.

    The hiring process of Quickshift is very simple. The candidate should be driven by Quickshift’s mission and vision and should be able to see value in what the team is building. Experience and Skillset do matter but eventually, the candidate should be passionate about what the startup envisions.

    QS team
    Quickshift Team

    Quickshift – Business Model & Revenue Model

    All brands need storage, order fulfillment, and shipping. QS provides that. It has a pay-per-use model for charging its customers. It charges for its services rendered for example Platform fee, Inward processing, Storage, Order Processing, and Shipping. It has an EBIDTA of 60%.

    Quickshift – Launch and Marketing Strategies

    The first part is to go after a genuine problem statement that has a large market. If your product or service truly solves the pain point then getting your first set of users is not very difficult.

    The second part is to have great/committed folks join your team.

    Your first set of customers has to be handheld. The founders have to actively be involved in their day-to-day affairs. Regular interactions with your first set of customers help you learn and better the experience that you are building. A relationship has to be built and your clients have to be like your partners through thick and thin.

    Quickshift has recently started marketing across digital mediums, only when the team was sure that they have a product that is ready to take on the market, did they aggressively build campaigns. Initially, it was more about performance marketing but we have also focused on building a ‘go-to’ brand, which has top-of-the-mind recall be it with its potential customers, employees, investors, etc.

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    Quickshift – Growth

    QS is operational in Mumbai, NCR-Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Pune. Its shipping coverage is 29000 Pin Codes across India. It is currently servicing over 150+ D2C brands.

    As the trends move more towards online/eCommerce and social commerce consumption, Quickshift is in a space that is bound to grow. It has plans to scale up in terms of its capacity, more technological introductions that further enhance the customer service feature as well as make the entire fulfillment experience seamless, more efficient, and more competitive are planned.

    Quickshift – Funding and Investors

    Quickshift’s funding details are as follows –

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    July 2021 Seed USD 770,000 Anicut, Axilor

    Quickshift – Competitors

    Shiprocket, Wareiq, and Eshopbox are the competitors of Quickshift.

    Quickshift – FAQs

    What is Quickshift?

    Quickshift (QS) offers a complete suite of fulfillment services for any D2C brand that wants to scale up quickly while offering the best customer service. Through its tech-enabled, multi-city warehouses and integrated shipping, it offers- transparent order management, storage, shipping, COD, RTO, Non-Delivery Receipt (NDR), and ultimately customer delight.

    Who founded Quickshift?

    Anshul Goenka (CEO) and Prodipto Roy are the co-founders of Quickshift.

    Is Quickshift an Indian company?

    Yes. Quickshift is an Indian company headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra.

    When was Quickshift launched?

    QS was launched in 2018.

    How does Quickshift make money?

    Quickshift has a pay-per-use model for charging its customers. It charges for its services rendered for example Platform fee, Inward processing, Storage, Order Processing, and Shipping.