The Indian startup circuit has produced many companies that have performed exceedingly well in the bigger stage. With a huge population, India has produced many successful businessmen who have revolutionized the startup circuit. Now, amongst the startup circuit, the hostel industry has been one of the most unique areas where entrepreneurship has left a small mark.
Well, in this particular area too, a company named GoStops, has been making giant strides. This company has been making life much easier for Indian students as it is quite difficult to get a proper living space when a student is far away from home. So, let us have an insight into the story of GoStops.
Quick Facts – GoStops
Company Name
GoStops
Headquarter
Delhi, India
Sector
Hospitality
Founder
Pallavi Agarwal, Pankaj Parwanda
Founded
2013
What is GoStops?
GoStops is one of the most unique companies one would come across. It is India’s fastest growing premium chain of youth traveler hostel and has been raising an undisclosed amount of funds as a part of its funding in 2019. Later, in 2020, it raised another round of funding from Atraxn Partners, which is an angel investor firm headed by Nirmal Singh and Pawan Kumar.
GoStops Logo
The company came into the circuit in 2013 and it was founded by a Delhi-based couple Pallavi Agarwal and Pankaj Parwanda. The company leases manages, franchises real estate assets, which are later on designed, transformed, marketed, sold, and operated as youth hostels in business and leisure locations which are often preferred by the millennials. Almost 70 percent of its inventory comprises dormitories and 30 percent constitutes of private rooms.
In 2012, the CEO and co-founder Pallavi and her husband went backpacking across Europe and returned to the country being fascinated by the hostel culture. The first thing that crossed their mind was why a similar model for travelers looking for premium quality social accommodations did not exist in India! Then, Pallavi decided that Varanasi will be the first choice to open the hostel because the city attracts both foreigners and tourists equally.
Currently, the company operates 12 hostels in Agra, Amritsar, Bir, Dalhousie, Delhi, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Mumbai, Nagpur, Rishikesh, Udaipur, and Varanasi.
Apart from that, they have a total capacity of 800 beds across the country and their annual turnover is about 800 crore. As per the team of GoStops, they have grown at the rate of 2.5 times each year and have been making a mark in the startup ecosystem.
The co-founder Pallavi graduated from Kamla Nehru College in 2003. Later, she started as a consultant with The Smart Cube in 2004. There, she gained expertise in industrial and monetary services. Later on, she did her Master’s from the International Management Institute in 2007, and worked at Tata Capital, MNC Millward Brown, and Quantum Consumer Solutions.
Her husband Pankaj is a BE in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka and is the man behind the startup. Pankaj has worked at Nokia, ZTE, Huawei, and Erricson. After working in the corporate sector, the couple decided to give entrepreneurship a change and implemented the travel-inspired idea.
Founders of GoStops – Pankaj Parwanda and Pallavi Agarwal
The company has been a success because the individuals working at GoStops are themselves millennials and they understand their audience. The co-founders and senior management workers are all in their 30s and the rest of them belongs to Gen Y and Gen Z. Presently, the startup has 25 members across product operations, sales and marketing, business development, and support functions.
Although there are a couple of hostel startups in India, the company claims that there are no direct competitors as company like GoStops has a unique business model and is performing exceedingly well in the circuit. This accounts for the fact that the customers can choose from short stay, long stay, and experiential opinions on their website. After one has done the bookings, they can check-in at the properties and avail the services at the hostels. The services are 24X7 security, 24X7 front desks, A/C, Wi-Fi, space for co-work, housekeeping, and many more to name!
Now, the main aim of the company is to expand its footprint across the country by doubling its capacity to 1,600 beds in the next year, and hence, a company like GoStops sets up the benchmark for other companies to follow!
An explainer video is a short and powerful video that captures your brand assurance. It shows potential customers what you do and why should they care about it. You need to think of it as an elevator angle in the video.
There are various types of explainer videos. You can use it to suit the brand style and objectives. Irrespective of the explainer video styles you are choosing. Your goal should be to explain your product or service while answering the questions. That what’s in it for them.
Benefits Of Explainer Videos
Explainer videos are all about making a confusing idea easy for the users to identify with and understand. There are various popular ways to take in brand information. Most of the people choose explainer videos than the type of video content.
This can be easy to get caught up in sharing the features for your service. But you need to remember that you are not making these explainer videos for yourself. Instead of explaining how great your product is, you should show how your service will help them.
Who Is Your Audience
Who’s your audience
If you don’t know your targeting people. You will not be able to speak effectively. Keep in mind that the people for a particular video might not feel the same as your entire market.
What problem will be solved by using your product or service?
How will you help to solve their problem? Address these points.
What do you want from them
Do you want them to subscribe to you? Sign up page for trial. Visit the website you have mentioned.
A well-written script is a solution to a successful explainer video. This is an important part of making a video on which everything else is built. You should find someone who takes a fresh view of your company. And Explain your video in a way that anyone can understand and support your product.
Any of the professional video companies will need to fill out a creative brief first. It will help you think about your business at a high level and will make you define the things that matter. You need to make sure you go through similar exercises before getting started.
3. The Shorter The Better
I realize you have a lot of things that you want to share with people about your business. But this video should be meant to be an overview. It should include the hook that will interest people in taking the next step.
Demand For Video Content Is Increasing
The typical rule of thumb is 150 words per minute. You must have been able to read faster than that. Also remember, you need the breathing room and the time for the message to sink. The longer the video will the less will pay attention.
Trying to keep yourself from telling everything about your service will be the toughest part. The tip is to cut down the script and make it very concise.
Nothing will ruin a video faster than poor audio. We would have the voice whose quality is fine but the voice is not clear with words. And maybe the delivery is not good. You should try to be as professional as possible.
5. Add some fun
It is important to create a video that connects with your people. But you also would have noticed, people want to watch entertaining videos.
Just adding something different in your video can keep you go long way. It actually works and people really can connect with your service or product.
You don’t know what a song can do. Music speaks emotions more clearly. It has the ability to set the tone of your voice in your video. Sometimes you will have the song in your mind. At times you have no idea for a song, you can use different tools available.
7. Plan To Launch
Most of the people get so excited about making video and forget to plan for the launch. A successful video will require these three things:
39% People Want Explainer Videos
Select video host
There are lots of options available when it comes to video hosting. Such as Wistia, Vimeo, Vidyard.
A marketing plan
What if your video will not get viral. In that case, you can take some steps to do extra for video. You can also use your blog, newsletter, email, and social media channels to share your video.
Integrate the video to your website
Various companies like to put the video front and center on their homepage. It’s upon you wherever you want to place it. It should get integrate easily with your content.
If you are thinking of making explainer videos this year. I think these tips will help you out with very basics in the right direction. It will save you much time and money. But also they will help you make a video that provides real and better results. Did you used the guide and learned along the way?
Rohan Murty (37 years) is a junior fellow of at the Harvard society of fellows and founder of Murty Classical Library of India. He is also specialized in automation using Artificial intelligence sources.
Read more to know about Rohan Murty.
Rohan Murty
Rohan Murty- Biography
Name
Rohan Murty
Born On
1983
Nationality
Indian
Occupation
Founder Murty Classical Library of India and Junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows
As everyone is aware of, Rohan Murty is born to Narayana Murty, founder of Infosys, Sudha Murthy. He is the Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Soroco, a digital transformation company, engaged in specialized automation using Artificial intelligence. A total worth US$500 million (as on December 2019)
But he went into headlines when he began his ambitious project to establish “Murty Classical Library of India”, which is a continuation of the Clay Sanskrit Library Project headed by Sheldon Pollock.
Rohan Murty got married to Aparna Krishnan last year.
Rohan Murty Marraige
Rohan Murty- Education and career
Rohan had his schooling at Bangalore till 12th standard, and then he moved to US to pursue a degree in computer science from Cornell University. Interestingly he had his PhD in 2011 and the thesis was on “Opportunistic Wireless Networks“.
He is the founder of the Murty Classical Library of India, which is a continuation of the Clay Sanskrit Library Project headed by Sheldon Pollock a Padmashree Awardee as the chief editor.
Rohan Murty- Challenges
Rohan has a point when he makes it simple by saying,
When western classics can find a place in our curriculum, then why don’t our classics.
He argues, Indian literature and culture is so rich that many scholars even having no connection to India have told great of it. They have researched over the years, and translated them for the world.
His Father and in particular his mother is an avid reader, and even she has a personal library. So obviously he hails from reading environment but certain observations drove him to take his passion to an altogether different dimension.
He saw at Harvard that there was not enough contents from India to be included in their curriculum under foreign language segment when Indian literature and culture is far richer than any others.
Thus came the idea of Murty Classical Library of India. Here Indian classics are translated and published by Harvard University Press.
The Murty Classical Library of India aims to siphon out three to five new volumes of Indian classics every January. So far it has able to translate about 23 to 25 volumes.
These books are available on platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon and cost are Rs.300 to 400 . Some of examples are..
Sindhi poetry, Shah Jo Risalo.
Kannada poet Raghavanka’s 800-year-old work,
The Life of Harishchandra
The Story of Manu
The Epic of Ram, Volume 1,2,3,4
The History of Akbar, Volume 1,2,3,4
Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women
And many more.
Interestingly some of Indian classics have been placed in foreign universities and there have been demand to publish them in their languages.
In 2016 a petition was framed demanding removal of Pollock Sheldon as the chief editor. The petition revolves around the book The battle of Sanskrit in which The author Rajiv Malhotra blames Pollock being not Dharmic and choosing political methodology in writing the books.
But Rohan rejected the petition and stood his ground to retain Pollock stating that, best possible scholars will be deployed for Sanskrit language.
Rohan Murty- Facts
Rohan Murty does not lets anyone borrow books from his personal library.
The couple, who met through common friends and have known each other for almost 3 years.
Rohan Murty doesnt take his father’s title. He misses the ‘h’ in his title Murty.
Rohan is not a’the scion’ to Infosys. Infosys keeps family members of the founding team away from executive positions.
One can say he is the proverbial ‘Superman of Indian Geeks’. Rohan was named as a Computing Innovations Fellow at MIT before moving to Harvard University for his doctoral studies.
Apart from MIT’s he was part of two more prestigious fellowship programmes — Siebel Scholars Fellowship and Microsoft Research fellowship.
Some of Rohan’s favorite classic quotes are:
“In god we trust, everybody else brings data to the table”
“Progress is often equal to the difference between mind and mindset”
“The softest pillow is a clear conscience”
Rohan Murty, a young person who decided to not walk in his father’s footstep. Even when his father has already paved a golden road for him. Instead he decided to pave his own path and and work in a non-profit manner. He is truly a philanthropist and a patriot who is contributing to save our rich culture.
The world of the startup ecosystem is backed by the investors who work tirelessly to ensure that the companies face no issues related to establishing their mark in the big stage. Well, one of the main areas of the startup ecosystem is gaining popularity is the prop-tech startup circuit.
Well, today, we are going to discuss the Singapore-based prop-tech startup named Homzhub. The main agenda of this company is to help investors seamlessly invest as well as manage properties through Homzhub.com in India and Singapore. Let’s have an insight into a Prop-Tech startup: Homzhub.
Quick Facts – Homzhub
Company Name
Homzhub
Headquarter
Mumbai, India
Sector
Real Estate Services
Founder
Harish Taori
Founded
2017
An Insight on Homzhub
Now, recently the company has announced its foray in elected Indian cities to help the investors to seamlessly invest as well as manage properties through Homzhub. The funds will be deployed to enhance the company’s technology platform, which has gained some popularity due to the increase in the dependency of the online sector during recent months.
In India and Singapore, the landlords spend a huge amount of money and valuable hours on finding the properties to invest, then renting and managing them without any sort of deep insights on their financial performances. This experience is very stressful especially when the landlord is not in the same city and does not have any reliable person to guard the functioning of the rented house. Now, this issue has been addressed by Homzhub!
As per Mr. Bharat Mandloi, who is a serial entrepreneur and a veteran investor, he exited his real estate investments in India because he faced humongous challenges in managing his assets. The functioning of the industry is opaque and grappling with issues like loss of confidence in property developers, lack of trust, and questionable ethical standards of intermediaries. At present, according to Mr. Bharat, the industry in the country is ripe for disruption.
Homzhub Logo
Well, amid chaos, Homzhub observed an opportunity to transform the landlord’s experience by bringing together the technical, financial, and logistical solutions. Homzhub’s real estate assets and tenancy platform empower the landlord with knowledge. Transparency, and ease of remote management of properties portfolio across countries. The company has a deeper understanding of India and Singapore’s markets. Hence, Homzhub delivers seamless transactions and professional management of properties in a tax-efficient manner.
According to Jaideep Nikam, a member of the Board of Directors at Homzhub, the company’s cross-border real estate investment and management proposition address a key concern of the ever-growing geographically mobile generation. It also covers the key concern of the ever-growing geographically mobile generation. Apart from that, Homzhub satisfies the customer’s deeper need for diversified wealth creation and at the same time, it generates work for the local vendors enabling the economy to prosper sustainably.
Talking about the team, a strong culture of Integrity, Transparency, and Mutual Respect and a highly energized young team has made sure that the performance is highly efficient and the team caters to the need of its clients well.
Founder of Homzhub – Harsih Taori
The team of Homzhub also aims to build a cutting edge technology platform and evolutionary business model to nurture a harmonious ecosystem, where the landlords, tenants, developers, and real estate agents execute property transactions in a highly efficient manner with complete peace of mind. The company has a strong focus on respecting the privacy and ensuring the protection of consumer data and hence, Homzhub has been making headlines within a short period.
We provide you a house…You make it a home…It becomes a heritage! Create a heritage of your own with Homzhub. pic.twitter.com/V1gJrMdYrf
Presently, the company has an aggressive roadmap of 100,000 user sign-ups by the end of the year and it will be expanding its sales and support the presence of other cities with Bangalore being high on priority. Now, the team of Homzhub has been working on the plans to expand its footprint across the country to become a pan-Indian player within three years.
Homzhub is one of its kind. It has been making a mark on that aspect of the startup ecosystem which was untouched and hence, has been successful in a short period. Now, with a growing need for real estate and prop-tech startups, Homzhub is the front runner and the face of the genre in the Indian startup ecosystem. Hence, a company like Homzhub is vital for the startup ecosystem.
If the customers have committed to buy a product. Your duty is to get them through checkout as quickly as possible. Most of the online stores find the best way to reduce the number of steps is to use one-step checkouts. But that one step checkout is not different from five-step checkout. If the one-page checkout asks the same details from the customers.
The only main difference is that the customers have to look more. To ask fewer details from the customers, the checkout will have to take the burden.
According to a report, 27% of US online shoppers dropped their carts due to the complicated and long checkout process.
WIDGET: leadform | CAMPAIGN: undefined
Here we will see few eCommerce checkout tips on how you can optimize your checkout process. And get a fast conversion rate and sales.
1. Registration
Many eCommerce sites make you register before moving to checkout. This is the reason for cart abandonment. The best option is to provide a “continue as a guest” button and this will take the user to checkout. The accounts get created during the checkout, this looks faster to the customer. You have to also include a sign-in form for the existing users who also want the convenience of fast checkout.
The Online Registering Process
23% of customers will abandon the shopping cart if you will try to force them to create an account.
Web forms demand addresses in the same format that people write on envelopes. This is something users are familiar with and decreases the chance of errors. However, in today’s world, we can gather info and categorize relationships into tables. This works in a better way to format the fields.
By removing the zip code form to the front of the address entered. We can use info that is already available to us in order to streamline customer input. By using the free lookup tables, a checkout can match the values for the city, state, and country from the zip code. This work is done by checkout. Thus it eliminates the need for customers to type in the information.
First impressions make an impact on the checkout page. however, a clean and clear checkout page is the first step for having a great checkout experience. The first thing you should do is to remove distractions. A great way to keep your customers focused. You should remove unnecessary links and form elements etc.
Cart Abandonment Vs Checkout Abandonment
Another element that affects the customer’s decision to go further for payment is the checkout form. The fewer elements the checkout form contain. The fewer chances that the customer will complete the order.
So, stick only with the expected fields and save the customer’s time. The customer will have to fill in more fields and will take more time. So try to make the form filling process quick. Apple has a distraction-free checkout page that asks only for essential information.
There are specific websites where entering your bank account or credit card details is the only way to pay. However, in providing credit card information manually will take time. And everyone hates it.
Recover Abandoned Carts
If you are still thinking about why people love PayPal then it’s because it’s fast. The credit card information of the customer with their shipping address is already saved in PayPal. This will eliminate the need for manually typing the details.
It will be too frustrating every time you buy a new product and you have to enter your credit card info manually. If you are also not accepting PayPal Or Google Wallet on your website. This is the time, you should do it now.
5. One step Checkout
If the customer is committed to buying a product from your website. Your duty is to get them through the checkout quickly. The only mantra to do this is only to ask them little info.
Various eCommerce stores are powered on a hosted solution where you can’t customize the checkout. While shopping carts such as magneto get hosted by the companies that make these solutions. Get switched to a community of the software might give you the flexibility you want. This should be the last alternative. But for having high-grossing eCommerce stores. A 1-10% conversion increase in quarterly sales is something you will need to upgrade.
Magento 2 is the one-step checkout which speeds up the whole shopping process. This will enhance customer satisfaction. You can purchase an extension or get or custom-developed using your developer. Sometimes checkout extensions that are already existing.
What to do about the limitations to simplify your checkouts
You can create a feature request ticket to your hosted solution’s support system. And tell them that this is a feature you want which directly relates to your store conversion rates. This way there will be dual incentive to make to the next version release.
You can also move to a self-hosted eCommerce solution. Shopping carts such as Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento Go are hosted by the companies that make the solutions.
For any type of eCommerce, the checkout process is important. The process has various elements that require lots of tweaking. However, if you do it the right way. You can reduce the cart abandonment problems. You can increase your conversion rate. And finally you will reach your goals. Remember this is all about removing distractions. Try to make the process easy and quickly. To find out what works, you need to customize and test checkout to maximize your conversions.
This post will cover a few side business ideas you can execute from the comforts of your home in 2020. You will be able to supplement your existing income or even rebuild one from scratch. It’s all about using one’s entrepreneurship skills and existing abilities.
Regardless of where you’re, thanks to the conveniences afforded to us by the internet, making money is no longer a constant and never-ending struggle. With the proverbial world at our fingertips, as long as you are aware of how to take advantage of the chances found in the computerized ether of the internet, you can earn money through these side business ideas, even if you’re in a tight bind.
If you’re nice with kids and know how to explain complex topics to them, you can generate a side income by teaching kids. There are several online platforms that pay well for tutoring small children.
You don’t need high-end knowledge and expertise as it’s going to be a simple curriculum. You need to follow a set of templates and course related material. If you are a native English speaker, you’ll be in more demand since modern-day parents want their toddlers and children to be fluent in English. Here are some platforms where you can teach kids:
Vipkids.com
Vipkids.com offers fourteen to twenty-two dollars an hour for teaching in English. The platform is similar to video calling on Skype.
Vipkids.com covers 35 countries, 60,000 plus educators, and 500,000 plus learners.
Sayabc.com
Another platform to teach kids, Sayabc.com pays for both hourly and minute based sessions. It offers a video conferencing platform to connect with students and teach them.
Sometimes, it’s economically feasible to get a loan from an individual rather than a bank or commercial organization. You can be that individual.
You decide the interest rates to be levied. Don’t expect people to take money from you if the interest rates are abnormally high. Start by offering small or medium level loans and establish your reputation as a lender. The aim is to build a loyal customer base and then watch the magic of word of mouth publicity.
Graphic Design
Graphic Designer
If you have knowledge about graphic designing, why not turn it into a source of side income? This one’s a great side business idea for someone who has a knack for creativity and ingenuity. There are thousands of freelancers who make big bucks through graphic designing. You can become one of them. And if the stars are in your favor, with hard work and perseverance, you can turn your stint as a graphic designer into a full-time business.
99 designs
99 designs is one of the decent graphic designing platforms where you can persuade prosperous clients as a freelancer.
Design Crowds
Design Crowds is another immediate alternative to 99 designs. It has all sorts of programs and is created mainly for graphic designs and web design.
99 designs and Design Crowds are two platforms which will help you evolve in your graphic designing journey.
Blogging is the full-time profession for many. If you know how to write well and can spare some time, why not start a blog as a side business? Blogging isn’t a path to overnight success. Nor will you start earning hundreds or thousands of dollars immediately. It will take serious time and efforts to come up with a successful blog.
There are two kinds of blogs: generic and niche specific. A generic blog doesn’t restrict itself to one topic and is generalized. A niche specific blog targets one particular domain or topic. It’s your call as to which kind of blog you want to start.
Once you have launched a blog and start seeing considerable traffic, you can enable advertising (AdSense for example) and affiliate marketing posts. To earn even more money, turn your blog into a brand.
Sell courses or content through your blog. You can perform a bunch of different stuff with a blog. Hence, a blog is a high-potential small business idea that can churn profits in the long run.
It’s all about digital presence today. Having a website is an essential commodity to remain feasible nowadays. Three factors decide the popularity of a website: user-friendliness, relevance, and design. If you have knowledge about coding and have worked with developing websites, web designing is an awesome small-scale business to implement.
Just see the number of freelancers who make a handsome amount through web designing freelancing. Use them for inspiration. Unlike earlier times, web designing is not just about knowing HTML and CSS. You need to know Javascript, Angular JS, Node JS, etc.
In case you don’t know coding at all, you have to first learn how to code. Otherwise, it’s impossible to indulge in graphic designing. Solo learn is one such app to learn coding.
Solo learn
With this app, you can learn various coding languages. You build a profile and earn accomplishments by completing different tasks. You also get a diploma if you complete the entire learning track for a language. There are games where you contend with others and earn bragging rights.
While having a computer is necessary, it’s even more important to know where to get your computer repaired if it breaks down or malfunctions. Computer repairing is an evergreen business. In case you don’t know about internals of a computer or laptop, there’s no dearth of people who know how to repair electronics. Partner with one. He or she will take care of the repair aspect while you’ll be responsible for bringing in sales.
Remember, the number of computer users outnumber the ones who know how to repair them. Take advantage of this demand-supply discrepancy and start thinking of computer repairing as a small business idea to implement.
Cleaning Business
Everybody wants their homes or offices to be professionally cleaned sometime or the other. They do it themselves which eats up a lot of time. They will readily pay for someone to clean their place. You can take advantage of this requirement. Starting a cleaning business doesn’t require rocket-science kind of knowledge. It’s more about knowing what materials are useful for cleaning depending on the requirement.
For example, you can’t use a solution that corrodes interiors. Similarly, you should know which cleaning detergents or materials may leave permanent stains if not used correctly. Here are some requirements to start a cleaning business:
• Mops and brooms.
• Cleaning solution(s) like detergents.
• Tape and cloth to cover areas that need to be left out.
If you have a knack for mixing and music mashup, you can think of becoming a disc jockey (DJ). Whether it’s marriage, birthday festivities, clubs, or concerts, DJs are in constant demand. As far as the equipment is concerned, an essential setup for every DJ consists of monitor speakers, a mixer, turntables, headphones, vinyl records, laptop/computer, and DJ software.
This side gig will take you to places once you gain experience. Start with small events, and gradually move to higher-level and larger audience festivities.
Uber or Lyft Driver
This is a nice side business to earn some cash if you have a valid driving license and know how to deal with customers. Anyone can drive, but to keep calm and hold your nerves while dealing with different customers is essential for an affiliation with cab-hailing providers.
Just like you are asked to rate delivery service boys (Swiggy, Zomato, etc.) or drivers from Uber, customers will also rate you based on your driving and other factors. The target as an Uber or Lyft driver is to ensure you constantly receive great feedback and 3+ stars.
Niche Website
Start a specialized website as a side business and earn money along with reputation. How many resources on the internet deal with embroidery on rice beads? Not many, right? Though niche domains don’t have too many followers, they have their own place and irreplaceable standing.
But the concern with niche websites is that you need to have expert level knowledge. If something is specialized or rare, it means only few gurus exist in the domain. You need to have solid understanding of the domain, and more than anything else, your experience in years and visible portfolio will bring traffic to your website.
You can review different websites on the internet. Review here includes how user-friendly the website is, its design and layout, and whether it’s beneficial or not.
There are several ways to perform your review services. You may set up a profile on the website concerned and provide comments. Or you could set up a survey oriented website where you post the review question and others tell their opinion through polls.
There are tons of categories of reviews. Some of them are Amazon consumer reviews, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. You can also setup a blog where each post is a review on something. However, you’ll have to come up with creative and intellectual ways to differentiate yourself from other reviewers. You need to show your opinions are worthy.
Invest In Real Estate
You can finance in real estate for as small as five hundred dollars. However, you need to be aware of the risks that come with real estate investment. The returns are well-documented, and you can make up to about eight to twelve percent annual return or more. This is equal to, if not more, than what you can make on the stock market.
You can modify your portfolio. Notice all sorts of properties and decide what’s in your budget. Having a foresight of the expected returns is essential so that you don’t dream the impossible.
If you scour the internet, you will find platforms dealing with wholesale and bulk purchases. Alibaba is one example. In the flipping business, you purchase stuff for cheap from one platform and sell it at a higher price on some other platform. One example is eBay.
And this business idea is known to be effective and profitable. Several individuals are making serious money through flipping.
Sports Coaching
If you’re a state-level athlete or have won laurels in some sport, you can offer coaching services to beginners. No, your aim need not be to help people qualify for the Olympics. Say, you are a good table tennis player and have won events and tournaments at school-level. You can thus help a kid or absolute beginner to grasp the basics of table tennis.
New generation parents won’t their children to be active in different sports. Take advantage of this demand. The biggest factor here is to not lose patience. Beginners ask all kinds of questions and take time get the technique right. You have to keep calm.
Transcription Services
Transcription assistance is simple to fulfill because all you have to do is listen to audio and have it written somewhere. People want transcriptions for blog posts, journalism, and naming. You can visit transcribeme.com to get an idea on how to become a transcriptionist.
This job requires attentive listening skills and proof-reading. Proof-reading because the content needs to be accurate and in sync with the audio. You don’t want any kind of knowledge or mastery to initiate this small business.
If you know about any other side business idea that’s worth implementing, do comment below.
High-quality content and inbound links are the two essential factors used by Google to rank a website for search. According to a study on Local search ranking factors, quality, and quantity of the links. These are important factors across search engine results.
So this is obvious that a strong inbound link profile holds a big impact on the ranking of the website pages. But this is also the most confusing and challenging process to complete. 41% of the large companies consider difficult for SEO tactic in link building.
Everything in SEO strategy link building is under your control. This depends on your industry’s relationships and the ability to get favor from other pages.
Hence the goal of this post is to provide you the basics of link building. Also, you will know the basic link building tactics.
What is Link Building?
It is the action of increasing the quality and quantity of links. That points to your website from other related sites. Links are the factors that help you get more traffic in two ways.
If any site is linked to you, the traffic to that website will come to your website and get to know about your service. From here you can engage and turn them into sales. A backlink from a famous business website will carry more weightage than from a low traffic blog.
Create a Link Building Team
Also if your website points to irrelevant links. Then there is a chance that you get penalized and not rank at all. The links that say references about the real world get considered to be of higher quality.
So the main thing is links from partners, customers, distributors, publications, and organizations of your area get higher weight from Google. And you should focus on these links for your business.
Before starting to link building, you need to have:
Link the worthy sites
A poorly structured and designed site is the biggest turn off for people who want to link to it. Your site should look professional. Also, you have to make sure you have a great brand website with a logo, business details, page, etc.
Link the worthy content
Just a website with certain pages detailing the products and services you provide is not enough. Products and services landing pages are the least to get a backlink.
Only when you own some kind of blog with high-quality content. People would want to link to. It is easier to build links to an information resource despite landing pages.
What Comes Under SEO Link Building Strategies
Competitor link analysis
To find out the kind of links and link building methods that work best for the business. It will be a great idea to see your competitor’s links and how they are getting them.
Today using the SEO tools you can analyze which websites are linking to the competitor website. Also what type of pages they link to and types of pages. You can make a list of your competitor’s websites along with the key pages and their URLs.
Start Building Relationships
80% of link building strategies include reaching out to people who don’t know you. It is important to know the correct way of building relationships with people related to your area.
It will be better to be friends way before you want a link than to reach out only you need help. A warm email will always work better than a cold email. Start to follow them, understanding their content, use their products, and help them. The sooner you start acknowledging them the more they will be helpful to your needs.
So putting these complications in your mind. Let’s see the basic link building tactics.
Backlinks are the easiest to use from your contact in the industry. All you have to do is inform and ask your contacts. These could be the partners, suppliers, distributors, vendors, or anyone related to your business.
Strategy For Link Building
Also if you become a member of your local/national chamber of commerce and trade associations. You can request to get included in their online member directory. If they don’t have one, you can volunteer to help to build it for the benefit of other members. By doing this you only won’t end up getting a backlink from the directory but also will build a relationship with other members. And some of them would want to link to you.
Help a reporter out(HARO) is a service that connects journalists and bloggers who work on a story with sources. You will just need to get signed up as a source and select topics that are relevant to your niche. After this, you will be getting email requests from journalists asking inputs from experts.
Whenever you see a request that is relevant to your service. You can respond to that with the info that was asked. At the time the reporter finds your response interesting. They will feature it in their story with a link back to your site.
This has been the best source of backlinks. Other similar services include SourceBottle, The Kiti, and ProfNet. If you have time and resources, you can start using these to lift the reach of your link building campaign.
Give Testimonials
This is normal that your business buys and uses goods or services from other businesses. You can contact each of the vendors helping to contribute a testimonial for their website. If your relations are good, many of them will accept and help you with your testimonial to have a backlink to your website.
If you will be featured in a trade publication will get a little difficult. It involves building a relationship with writers in your organization. To start, find writers and editors employed at key publications in your organization. Find if you have a common friend with any of them. Then request your friend to make an introduction on your behalf.
Guest Blogging
Guest posting is the way of approaching other relevant websites and engaging content for them to get published for the audience. And then after their agreement writing and submitting that content.
What Does Customer Satisfaction Contains
The websites that accept the guest posts. Also allows the authors to provide their bio below the posts. The bio can include the backlink to your website also.
Additionally, as long as that is relevant and natural. You will get the freedom of linking other web pages from the post that you are submitting. However, for putting guest blogging to your work. You will need extremely high-quality content.
Resource page link building depends a whole lot on the type of your business. You will need to find collections and the listings relevant to your expertise. Request to get added to the list.
If you have an SEO software product or a keyword research tool. You can create or submit a profile on sites such as ProductHunt, GetApp, Capterra.
You can also search for blog posts and other pages covering the collection of all the products in your category. If you have a local business, get signed up for sites such as Yelp, Thumbtack, etc.
I know that link building is tough. You have to spend countless hours trying to build links. But some point you were not able to convince anyone to link you. But you should not take shortcuts by buying links. You need to focus on long term strategies. This will ensure that you will be doing better in Google.
And if you are struggling while building links. You can use the above-mentioned ways. They will work well. Also, you will notice results after a few couples of days.
You must have seen many companies which give you an option to buy their “premium memberships”. However, every company calls it with another name for their VIP plans like “Amazon Prime”, “Zomato Gold”, etc. These are customer loyalty programs that reward customers and encourage them to bear additional purchases. There is a series of reasons to do that. Such customer loyalty cards increase sales without compromising marketing budget. Here is why you should provide membership perks.
According to some report success rate of selling existing customer is 60-70% but at the same time, the success rate of selling new customer is 5-20%. Hence, you should focus more on your existing customers to generate higher profit with low cost marketing. In this post, we are going to reveal them all and help you decide whether you should also have VIP memberships or not and how to create A VIP Program for your small business.
When people buy VIP membership in your service, they feel special. It is because, of course, you will provide some special service to your VIP members. If you have a restaurant, you can provide free home delivery, special booking, special treatment, etc. to your VIP customers. It will make them feel different and special.
Permanent Customer
When people will feel special, they will end up becoming your permanent customers. Also, if they have a VIP membership, they will come to you, at least till they have their VIP membership is valid. Moreover, if you can initiate the automatic renewal of their membership, it will be great for your business. I hate Amazon Prime but I still don’t quit it’s membership because I think Rs. 120/month is not a big deal and I don’t have to pay manually its fully automated system.
Reward System
Reward System
You can provide a reward system in your VIP membership. You can give them points on buying something particular or discount on bringing another VIP member. Furthermore, you can test your new service or product by providing points to the VIP members on using it. You can ask for their reviews and make changes accordingly. Moreover, provide points on a particular number of purchases, it will increase your sales.
Increase User Base
As people will share their code and bring you more people to get rewards, you will acquire more customers. It will eventually increase your sales. However, please don’t overdo it if you don’t have enough funds. Customer loyalty program ideas help a lot in building your customer base.
VIP Cards
VIP CARD
If you provide customer loyalty cards to your VIP members, it will be great for marketing. Most of the humans are social animals, and they like to show off. Most of your VIP members will show their VIP cards off to others. It will be great for your marketing. Also, when your VIP member will see their VIP card, it will remind them about your service. They are more likely to come to you if they see something related to you again and again.
Customer Loyalty
I’m not buying Netflix’s subscription only because I already have Prime’s. Even though I know Netflix is much better and I hate Prime, I use Prime. It is because, somewhere in my subconscious mind, I have become loyal to it. I don’t want to hassle again to register and buying some other service.
In one or the other way, Prime has made me a loyal customer. Just like me, other people will become your loyal customer and will think a lot before going to another service. And after thinking a lot, if they are lazy like me, they will end up compromising. Unless you give a terrible service, they will be your loyal customers.
Exclusive Sales
You can provide exclusive access to your new product to your VIP members. It will make them feel more special as only they will have that product. Also, you don’t have to worry about the stock. It will be out if your customers are loyal enough. However, analyze your customers first and provide a good exclusive product or service.
If you have a restaurant and exclusively selling a new phone, it will be disastrous, because people come to you for food. Or if your exclusive product is out of fashion as if you are exclusively selling a feature phone or even an old-style smartphone (with bezels), no one’s gonna buy it.
Customers always trust more on their peers and they love to engage with them. Thus VIP Membership program will give you an opportunity to build a community forum where people can share their positive or negative feedback on the same platform. It will help you to make your product or services better.
Should You Provide VIP Membership?
Membership Tier
Although VIP membership is great to have in your business, it depends on the nature of your business. If you have a car showroom, there is no point in giving VIP memberships because people don’t buy cars every day or every month. Whereas, if you have a grocery store, you can provide VIP membership with services like free home delivery and that the customer can give you their grocery list so that they don’t have to waste their time in choosing their stuff, etc. This was just an example. Create your ideas and use them in your VIP memberships.
However, I don’t have to repeat the points of importance but VIP membership work. Your customers cannot go to your competitors until their VIP membership get invalid. Please check your service’s nature if it is compatible with VIP membership or not. Also, you can even lose your other “non-VIP” members if you give stupid service in your VIP membership. Think a lot and then decide on every aspect of your business. Consider it your baby, because it is. Your business is not just your effort, many people, directly or indirectly helped you a lot. So take every step carefully. Do you have a VIP membership to any service? Please comment down below. Also, share this post with all your friends.
Cases of fraud and money laundering are increasing globally. PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2020, reports that 47% of companies experienced a fraud in the past 24 months. Again as per UNODC, (United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime) the estimated amount of money laundered globally in one year is 2 – 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion – $2 trillion in current US dollars. Under this grim situation, it is extremely necessary for the businesses to have a proper identity verification system in place to verify the customer details, to prevent any cases of fraud. Besides it is important for companies to comply with the Anti Money Laundering regulations, and ensure that they are not aiding money laundering knowingly or unknowingly. Keeping up with the demand, the identity verification market is expanding. As per reports, the global identity verification market was valued at USD 6 billion in 2019, and the valuation of the same will be USD 12.8 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 16%.
A company that has emerged as a top player in the identity verification domain is ‘iDenfy’. Kaunas (Lithuania) based startup iDenfy is making it easier for companies to avoid any incidents of frauds and money laundering through various advanced solutions. We interviewed iDenfy co-founder Domantas Ciulde to know about the startup.
iDenfy offers solutions for Automated remote identity verification service, fraud detection and prevention. Its solutions includes ID verification, facial recognition and AML (Anti Money Laundering) compliance. iDenfy’s fraud prevention solution complies with AntiMoney Laundering and Know Your Customer (KYC) directives in Europe, USA, Australia, Asia and Africa.
“Our vision is to create a full-stack solution, like “SalesForce” in the fraud detection and prevention sector, which would provide essential tools to combat terrorist financing, money laundering, human trafficking, online fraud, and other fraudulent activities.” iDenfy co-founder Domantas Ciulde said commenting on the company’s vision.
iDenfy helps businesses to smoothly and simply verify their customers with all kinds of possible devices (phones, computers, tablets). Customers have to take a selfie and a picture of their ID, while in the background iDenfy does all the magic from checking ID’s validity and all data from it, face recognition and fraud detection.
iDenfy Face Recognition Solution
iDenfy offers advanced features like ‘3D Liveness Detection‘ which ensures that the photograph being submitted by the customer is of a real human and not of any realistic dolls, 3D heads etc. Its ‘OCR Auto-fill‘ feature scans important details from the customer’s ID in just a fraction of a second, and thus makes document approval process faster. iDenfy’s AML solution is also quite full proof, as it instantly cross checks ID details provided by the customer to Government and Interpol database to ensure that your customer is genuine and legit to proceed with financial operations.
“Fraudsters every day are trying to find out how to bypass fraud prevention and detection systems. With time Anti-Money Laundering requirements are going more strictly, as well as requirements for remote identity verification. For companies to onboard customers safely, minimizing fraud possibility and costs, complying with anti-money laundering, and knowing your customer requirements is not an easy task these days. To complete all the mentioned things, the right identity verification partner is essential. We think, in 5 years, the market size will be doubled or even tripled, the market is growing at a very high speed.” Domantas said on the identity verification market.
iDenfy – USPs
Here are certain notable USPs of iDenfy’s Identity Verification services–
Full identity verification service: iDenfy combines advanced Liveness Detection, ID Verification, and Face Recognition into a user-friendly 4-step verification process.
iDenfy customers will save up to 40% of user on-boarding costs, as iDenfy do not charges for unsuccessful verification. The customers will only pay only for those clients who gets successfully verified and on-boarded in their system.
Trusted by 150+ companies worldwide.
Automatic ID document detection recognizes documents by type and country 1300+ documents from 200+ countries supported.
Customer support 24/7.
Each verification is reviewed by human supervision.
Verified in 15 seconds, automatically.
Make the verification interface your own. Use iDenfy’s interface or adapt it to your brand.
Certified face spoofing detection systems.
Combines three different face recognition systems to archive the highest accuracy.
Domantas Ciulde & Gediminas Ratkevicius are the founders of iDenfy. The founder duo knew each other from childhood and grew up in the same neighborhood.
Laimonas was the first employee who joined iDenfy. Laimonas believed the idea as well and he left the big tech company with a well-paid position and joined iDenfy’s small two members team, while the iDenfy co-founders were still working in a 6 sq. m. corner office without any earnings.
Currently, iDenfy is a 20 member team, working in Kaunas Science and Technology Park backed by Kaunas University of Technology.
iDenfy Team
The iDenfy team strives to build a safer tomorrow together!
Idea Behind Starting iDenfy
The initial idea born in 2015, was to create a system to fight against credit card fraud. After researching, the iDenfy team found that the best method to defend from credit card fraud is identity verification. In the same year, after long studies of computer vision and machine learning an identity verification prototype was created. This first prototype however was only able to recognize passports from one country, but even with that prototype during 2016, iDenfy was successful to find its first clients who later became their first investors as well.
iDenfy – Name & Logo
The name ‘iDenfy’, is born from the word – identity.
“In the beginning, it sounds like a brilliant name for our startup but running the time we realized that is one of the most popular typos humans are making. All search engines, proofing tools are detecting “iDenfy” as a word with a mistake and auto converting it to identity. We are still struggling with search engines to recognize “iDenfy” as our brand name, not a typo” saysDomantas regarding the startup’s name.
The commonly used pricing model in the identity verification market is pay per verification. Here, iDenfy has come up with a unique pricing model – pay per successful verification, where, iDenfy charges its customers only for the successfully onboarded customer in their system. While, fake, failed and unfinished verification are free of charge.
iDenfy – Marketing Strategies
The iDenfy team is focusing more on improvising its services and thus to generate a positive word of mouth, rather than spending a fortune on marketing gimmicks. This technique has been successful and today over 150 customers are associated with iDenfy.
“We invested not in marketing, but into technology development. We invested not in the sales team, but invested in researching and communicating what would make our customers’ life more comfortable. We invested not in customers’ on boarding standards and procedures, but we spent time with every customer as they would be our only one, main customer” Domantas quotes
iDenfy – Funding & Investors
iDenfy has raised a total of 320000 EUR funding in 4 rounds till date.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
2017
Pre-seed
90,000 EUR
Angel Investors
2018
Seed
110,000 EUR
Angel Investors
2019
Seed
100,000 EUR
Angel Investors
2019
Seed
20,000 EUR
Startup Hub Poland accelerator
iDenfy – Challenges
Major challenges for iDenfy were technical as the product is software.
“The biggest issues working with computer vision and machine learning were how to make face recognition and optical recognition systems more accurate and how to make them detect fake ID or a fake selfie. Luckily, after sleepless nights, we found solutions” quotes Domantas explaining the technical challenges faced by iDenfy Team.
The second problem was team management. Initially the founders thought that the more the number of people in the team, the more tasks they will be able to complete. But gradually they realized the it is possible to complete tasks more efficiently with fewer employees when they are managed in teams correctly. Currently no more than five employees are there per team.
The third main problem was trying to enter markets without local partners (local distributors). Later the founders were convinced that local partners are important for entering into new territories.
The iDenfy team spent a lot of time on product development, but remarkably less on marketing and sales. After they got the product right, however the team comprehended that that marketing and sales are an essential part to reach out to the target customers.
Keeping the employees motivated is another challenge, and bonus system is the best solution to it, as said by iDenfy co-founder DomantasCiulde
iDenfy is being mentored by Startup Hub Poland accelerator. Piotr Ciżkowicz, Tomasz Ciżkowicz, Piotr Berta and Marius Parescius are the advisors of iDenfy.
iDenfy – Acquisitions & Mergers
iDenfy Poland is iDenfy’s subsidiary company in Poland.
iDenfy – Awards & Acheivements
Following are some of the awards and recognition received by iDenfy –
2018 Startup of Lithuania award
2019 Startup of Kaunas city award
2019 Startup of the Week in Lithuania
2020 Fintech startup of the year
Shortlisted among the top 10 promising Lithuanian-based startups to watch in 2020
2020 ISO 27001:2013 information security management system certification
iDenfy is operating worldwide. The company reported a user-base of over 1000000, and revenue worth 500k+ EUR. The startup’srevenue grew by 332.25% from June 2019 to June 2020.
iDenfy’s revenue grew by 332.25% from June 2019-June 2020
New contracts growth in last 12 months is 168%.
iDenfy – Rate of growth of new contracts
Number of verification done by iDenfy has increased by 190% in the past 12 months (June 2019-June 2020)
Number of Verification done by iDenfy has increased by 190%
iDenfy team’s major future goals include-
Expansion to global markets
Increasing partnerships with legal and consulting companies
Development of new fraud prevention and detection systems
Improve user on boarding experience and success rate
The company is planning to open a office in India soon.
“We found a great guy Ripon Bownik who will operate and develop expansion in India. Ripon is planning to create a local team, open an office in Delhi. Ripon is currently working on software, and pricing models upgrade for the India market. He is also looking for team members who would connect with him for this project. Our current strategy is to find more partners in their local regions.” DomantasCiulde said about the expansion plans in India
iDenfy – Offers / Coupon Code
StartupTalky Readers can use the coupon code StartupTalky23112-idnf to avail attractive offers on iDenfy’s services
The empire of startup circuits has a plethora of companies that aim to revolutionize society. Now, as there is a development in the technology sector, it is high time that the venture capitals come up and support these companies so that their talents do not go wasted. These venture capitals are the catalysts that help people to realize their dreams and hence, work for a better future.
Amongst all the venture capitals, Indian Angel Network is one such company that thrives on helping the talents to realize their dream and has become backbone of the Indian entrepreneurial system.
Quick Facts – Indian Angel Networks
Company Name
Indian Angel Networks
Headquarter
New Delhi, India
Sector
Finance
Founders
Padmaja Ruparel, Saurabh Srivastava, Raman Roy
Founded
2006
What is Indian Angel Network?
This company named Indian Angel Network is a network of investors keen to invest in an early-stage business which can create disproportionate value. The central people of the company are the leaders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as they have a strong operational experience as CEO’s or a background of creating new and successful ventures. The team of India Angel Network shares a passion to create scale and value for startup ventures.
Indian Angel Network Logo
The company was founded in 2006 as the Indian Angel Network that in addition to money, provided constant access to high-quality monitoring of the companies. The network members, because of their experience and capability are better able to assess the potential and risks at the early stage of any company.
What differentiates Indian Angel Network from Venture Capitals?
Well, till now, you might have got an idea that Indian Angel Network is somewhat unique. To get an insight, here are some of the factors that make them different from traditional companies:
The team of Indian Angel Network comprises of strong entrepreneurial network and operational background of investors.
The team of Indian Angel Network also has the willingness to invest money and time with talented companies and entrepreneurs.
Apart from that, the team can leverage a vast network that makes Indian Angel Network one of the best venture capitals to look out for!
If a simple term sheet is something that haunts you, well, you might be surprised to know that Indian Angel Network has a quite simple term sheet.
Adding on, Indian Angel Network gives quick feedback on the investment decision, hence, you have got someone who has your back.
As discussed, the Indian Angel Network is one of the most unique venture capital firms. Being a mega-company, Indian Angel Network covers sectors like agriculture, e-commerce, education, gaming, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, information technology, internet, lifestyle, manufacturing, mobile, retail, semiconductor, services, and social impact. Presently, Indian Angel Network aims at investing up to USD 1 million with an average of about USD 400-600k and exiting over a 3 to 5 year period through a strategic sale.
The Investment Criteria of Indian Angel Network
The company aims to help out the companies that follow the following criteria:
The company should have high barriers to entry
The team should comprise of a complementary management team
The startup should be a scalable business
Adding on, there should be a differentiated value proposition
Recent Investments made by Indian Angel Network
Recently, the Indian Angel Network invested around 160 crores in startups in major sectors like manufacturing, cleantech, biotech, water, agritech, and cybersecurity. The company has been working closely with the government to help create a more enabling startup ecosystem.
Investments made by Indian Angel Network in 2020
Announced Date
Organization Name
Funding Round
Money Raised
Aug 27, 2020
Phool.co
Seed Round – Phool.co
$1.4M
Jul 20, 2020
Styledotme
Seed Round – Styledotme
₹35M
Apr 28, 2020
Consure Medical
Series B – Consure Medical
₹36M
Feb 27, 2020
MinionLabs
Angel Round – MinionLabs
N/A
Feb 26, 2020
Freshworld
Venture Round – Freshworld
N/A
Feb 18, 2020
MaxWholesale
Series A – MaxWholesale
$3M
Feb 17, 2020
PlanetSpark
Seed Round – PlanetSpark
₹32M
Jan 28, 2020
Carbon Masters
Series A – Carbon Masters
N/A
Jan 16, 2020
ExtraaEdge
Seed Round – ExtraaEdge
$700K
Jan 10, 2020
WebEngage
Series A – WebEngage
$4M
Also, in 2019, the company had stated that it was the year of 11 lucrative exists for Indian Angel Network investors across high-value companies including wench, LBB, TagBox, Proplld, FabAlley, Myspinny, Wow! Momo, Box8, and Native Special.
Well, companies like Indian Angel Network are the backbone of the startup circuit. It is these companies who support the entrepreneurs to be more inventive and hence, work for a better future. Now, with the pandemic haunting the world, it is high time that the venture capitals follow the path lead by Indian Angel Network. These companies have been working closely with the government to create a chance for every entrepreneur to succeed.
As per Padmaja Ruparel, the founding partner of the company, the Indian Angel Network has closed its first fund worth of INR 375 crore in addition to delivering impressive investor return with exists from TagBox and Chakra Innovation. Hence, Indian Angel Network is one of the biggest names in the circuit!
Rishabh Rathi
