The competitions are increasing rapidly in marketplace. These increasing competition can cause threat to every ongoing business. So it becomes important to determine such competitions and make strategies to exist in the market.
The Porter’s Five Forces of Model is a tool which analyses a business competition and helps determining the level of competition an industry can face. This model was given by Michael Porter (a Harvard Business School researcher) in 1979.
The tool focuses on five forces which can have an impact on the whole industry. Even after 40 years, it’s one of the effective methods widely used to do competition analysis.
Five Factors to Analyse Industry Competition
Five Factors of Porter’s Five Forces Model
According to this model, the five factors to analyse industry competition are:
1. Threat of Entry
We have already seen the rapid competition among the brands and industries. The new brands entering the market are creating competition for the existing brands as well as in the industry. But what if there are high cost and lots of process required to enter in the industry? There will an entry barrier among such industries.
But what if it is easy to set up a business in the industry? Then there will be more threat of upcoming competitors in the market. So under this factor, the threat of entry will determine the industry competition. If there are difficult or strong barriers then business will have fewer competitors.
For Example: It is not easy to enter in the Airlines Industry as it involves huge cost. So the industry will always have few players than most industries. But it’s easy to set up a café in the town. So there will be more players or more threat of entry in this field. The business dealing in the industry will be able to earn a limited amount of profit because there are more players in the market.
There are industries which have no or few close substitutes available in the market. But there are also industries which have one or more substitutes available in the market. The companies dealing in the industry with no or few closer substitutes will have an advantage than the ones with more substitutes. Even if the company increases its price to earn more profit, the customers will have to buy the product.
But in the other market with more substitutes, if the companies increase the price then the customers will switch to substitute products. So the number of substitute products or services will determine the competition of the industry.
For Example: There are more vehicles running on petrol, so the increase in the price of petrol won’t cause any change in the demand. There are no options available with them. But if the price of coffee will get increased, then people may switch towards tea (which is closer substitute of tea).
3. Industry Competition
An industry competition comprises the total companies which deal in particular industry. If there will be a large number of companies in the same industry, then the competition will be high. There will be cut throat competition in the market. Even a single change in the price or quantity can show more response in the market. The consumer’s enjoy lots of available opportunities with them.
If companies increased a slight price in the competitive environment, then the customers will switch to other suppliers. If any company started giving exclusive deals and products at discounted rates, then the customers will move towards such business. The customers’ loyalty is diminishing these days. Consumers are much focused towards getting quality products at cheaper rates.
In such a market, the businesses are dependent upon market forces to determine the prices. But if there is less competition in the industry, then the companies will have the advantage of maximising the price and earning huge profits.
In the market, the powers remains among such businesses whose products are more demanded and few suppliers are there. So if you deal in such a business where the raw materials are heavily demanded and available with few suppliers, then you may have to suffer from the strong bargaining power of suppliers.
The suppliers can sell the materials at a higher price, and you have to take it because you need raw materials to run your further business operations.On the other hand, if there are more suppliers and raw materials are easily available, and then you will be able to buy materials at fewer rates.
Suppose, a person running a shoe manufacturing unit will be dependent upon the leather. If there are less leather suppliers then the shoe brand will have to pay more to get leather. His business unit will solely be dependent upon leather because he cannot make shoes without it. So anyhow, he will have to buy the leather even at high price.
The business enjoys huge profit if the product is scarcely available i.e. heavily demanded but quantity is less. Whenever the demand of product gets increased, its price also gets increased. The heavy demand of products requires more products to be supplied. But due to the limited availability, the product only reaches in few hands.
There will be more buyers in the markets, but few sellers. In such a case, the buyers will have to accept the product even at high price. But consider if there are more sellers in the market? In this case, the buyers will have more power to bargain and get their price reduced.
So the business will have to sell products at less cost. By this way, he will earn low profits. If the business doesn’t reduce cost, then the customer will switch to other seller and his stocks will remain unsold.
The customers become more sensitive to price if they find more options in the market. If the industry has more sellers, then the company won’t be able to earn more profit. He will have to agree with the buyer, because of large number of sellers available. So companies dealing in such industry will have more threat to buyer’s bargaining power.
Today, with everything available on the touch of our fingertips, finding a house is yet a particularly difficult task. Subbu Athikunte, Ambareesha Athikunte, Mayank Pokharna thought of making it hassle-free and consistent experience. So in 2015, they came up with their startup SimplyGuest to make both the handover and handoff procedures of a rental transaction a conflict-free, pleasant experience.
SimplyGuest offers fully-furnished homes for working professionals close to their workplaces. These accommodations are completely managed & rent is inclusive of monthly bills: electricity, water, 30-100mbps WiFi, DTH, unlimited LPG, maid services, repairs, and maintenance. The flats are hassle-free, where SimplyGuest takes care of everything form paying utility bills, providing maid services, taking care of repairs, replacing LPG cylinder.
SimplyGuest also takes care of finding qualified flatmates, their entry, and exits. Tenants can move to any house in our network when they change jobs at no extra cost. SimplyGuest also has hostels; these are professionally managed to pay guest (PG) facilities. Hostels are slightly cheaper, provide quality food, and also have lesser lock-in periods.
Customers who are predominantly singles can choose from private flats ranging from studio rooms, 1BHKs, 2BHKs, 3BHKs, or live in a trendy co-living facility. These homes come with add-on services like meal delivery, bicycle rentals, car parking, furniture rentals, etc. SimplyGuest takes off keeping the homes clean and tidy on a day-to-day basis.
The idea, in the long run, is to be a space management platform. Customers should be able to rent just about any kind of space: houses, garages, storage spaces, bungalows, stadiums, parking spaces, etc via SimplyGuest, hire additional services via the platform, pay rent, and walk out when the need stops.
SimplyGuest – Target Market
According to a recent PropTiger study, co-living in India has the potential to become a USD 93 billion market annually. Co-living is an umbrella term used to refer to student housing and PGs. Another report by JLL states that the real estate renting industry is majorly divided into working professionals and student accommodation:
Number of Singles, Professionals, Paying Guest Rentals = 15M
Number of Student Accommodation on Rentals in India = 10.4M
Nearly 31.56 million people rent homes in urban India (2011 census) = $22 billion
Subbu Athikunte, Ambareesha Athikunte and Mayank Pokharna are the co-founders of SimplyGuest. Subbu and Ambareesha, the brothers started SimplyGuest in 2015. Mayank was an early customer of SimplyGuest but liked SimplyGuest concept so much that he joined full time in 2017.
Subbu Athikunte is a software engineer. He worked at Apigee (later acquired by Google) before quitting to start SimplyGuest. He has worked on distributed systems, analytics, big data, cloud computing, UI, develops and nearly everything else in the field of large-scale software projects. At SimplyGuest, Subbu takes care of tech and product development along with supply acquisition.
Ambareesha used to work on civil and PWD projects before SimplyGuest. At Simplyguest, he takes care of all the ground operations from setting up new properties to maintaining and servicing the existing ones.
Mayank Pokharna did his BE and MBA from Nirma before starting his job at Practo. In his previous role as chief of staff at Cuemath, he worked on streamlining multiple business processes to drive productivity and sales. At Practo, he was responsible for creating and managing end to end operations and business intelligence processes. He was a SimplyGuest customer before joining hands with Subbu and Ambarish. At SimplyGuest he takes care of sales and marketing functions and anything that lies in between.
At SimplyGuest, they believe in value delivery. The core of the philosophy being every action should add incremental value to the overall business. They are a tiny team and let their software make up for the small team size. Currently, they are all working remotely and are on the field most of the time. And here, they treat everything as a software problem. This helps them find solutions that are more scalable and reduce points of conflict. The big vision for SimplyGuest is to become a platform for services that can be consumed by its tenants.
How was SimplyGuest Started
Simply Guest started as a listing website for certified rental homes. The listing had verified information about various aspects of the house, something similar to a used car in Maruti Suzuki TrueValue. People weren’t interested in it. House hunters don’t do things systematically. They trust they will get a good house. In reality that never happens. They’d rather stay in a suboptimal house.
SimplyGuest pivoted to listing PGs and faced different challenges there. PG owners weren’t open to upgrading their facilities with technology. However, during the research for this project, they visited numerous PGs and realized that they were nothing short of cattle-houses. Even if tenants were willing to pay a higher monthly rent, they couldn’t find a decent PG.
That’s when they decided to create an alternative to paying guest accommodation. Around May 2015, they rented a flat in an upscale apartment society, furnished it with everything a family would require, got a very good WiFi connection, DTH, LPG, made the kitchen functional and hired domestic help; it was everything one could possibly ask for in a house. People could rent rooms in a good apartment without worrying about finding other flatmates. Very soon, the flat was fully occupied and that was the starting point for these brilliant minds. This setup provided the best of both worlds. Comfort and privacy of living in a furnished flat and services as you get in a PG without any unnecessary restrictions.
SimplyGuest – Name, Tagline and Logo
Once they had the idea in place, they started noting down all the names that could describe it. Made a list of 20 names in a couple of months, out of which shortlisted 5 and sent a survey to all their friends and colleagues. SimplyGuest was the second most popular and got selected because they couldn’t get a .com domain for the most popular name.
The SimplyGuest team then went on and created a gig on Fiverr to create a logo for SimplyGuest. But they didn’t like the logo that was received. So they created something on their own with limited Photoshop skills. After some dedicated conviction, they got the logo right and it’s the same that they are using till now.
The easiest parts were done first; building the website. They didn’t have any houses to rent, so they took photos of the house where one of the founders was living in and listed it and marked it sold. But they still had to find a house to let out and also needed to find homeowners. Hence they started going around nearby areas looking for ‘To Let’ boards in front of the houses, call them up and explain SimplyGuest. After 10 unsuccessful attempts, they finally found an empty house. The owner was residing in a different city and they managed to convince him to let his property via SimplyGuest.
Finding the first customer was the toughest part. The founders would stand in front of the big corporates on Bannerghatta Road and distribute flyers with house details in it. It was awkwardly embarrassing at first, but they didn’t know any other way. Few people agreed to hear them out of pity.
few people agreed to hear me out out of pity. Only one boy was interested, but our first house was meant for girls. I made a list of offices nearby, started visiting them one by one; we’d try to meet their admin or HR teams, but nobody seemed to care. Had I built something nobody wanted? – SimplyGuest co-founder Subbu recounts.
It had been one and a half month and they were paying for an empty house. None of the marketing channels had worked. They had a few inquiries but nothing potential yet. They were losing hope and they were starting to think that they probably won’t be able to find customers. And Subbu was anyway not able to sell it and had a lot of free time. They thought, why not find a house for the boy who was interested earlier. They went looking around and found one flat close by; it was turned into a PG. Subbu was walking around the building checking the house, some guys staying in it mentioned they weren’t happy staying there; the PG owner had promised them something and hadn’t delivered; maintenance was bad and it didn’t feel good staying there. He explained to them what he was doing and they found it interesting and wanted to check out even though the only house SimplyGuest had then was for girls. They visited the house and loved the concept. Subbu asked them if they would rent it from him if he found them a good home, they said yes. And finally, they were excited.
Subbu came back home and started searching for a house for the potential customers he had met. Bhanu found a house close by; it was within walking distance of their offices. Two of them worked at VMW while the last one worked at Honeywell. They liked the flat and asked them how much it would cost. Subbu hadn’t worked out the details yet he promised them to keep the prices low and get back to them. Only part of the problem was solved but he still had to meet the house owner and convince them about bachelors staying in the house. Subbu met the owner and figured she didn’t mind letting it to bachelors. He went back to the guys, told them about the rent, after they agreed upon the price, he told them they will have to pay an advance as a token of confirmation. They were happy because they were getting a private room with an attached bathroom at a low price – almost for the price of a double-sharing room. They gave him a cheque for 5000 rupees. And Subbu had sold a house that he didn’t have!
The same week someone called him after seeing one of the sun packs – a small 2×1 feet display ad they had set up near the house. The caller was from Lucknow and was in Bangalore searching for a house for his younger sister – she was a postgraduate student in a dental college near Meenakshi Mall. They visited the flat and liked it. The girl wanted to move in next day itself; they were staying in a hotel near-by. In two days, two more girls made bookings.
And then they started listing properties in existing classified/listings websites. This started giving some leads. And in those days, even one lead was a life-saver.
SimplyGuest – Business Model and Revenue Model
Simply Guest lets house owners rent their flats via their platform. They can rent unfurnished, furnished, and spare rooms via SimplyGuest. They find tenants for these houses, help them move-in and take care of household needs. They take a cut in the revenue generated every month for the services they provide.
They have 4 renting models:
Rent houses on a fixed rent
Rent houses on a revenue-sharing model where they take care of finding customers, managing them and the owner takes care of providing services
A car parking marketplace
Co-living projects.
SimplyGuest – Competitors
Major market players have come and played this field. NestAway is one of them. GetSetHome, VivaReal, PGstay, RentMyStay are some of the entities having a great market standing.
SimplyGuest – Growth
Somehow, the SimplyGuest team feels they had gotten lucky to find the first 16 customers. Things happened too quickly from a hopeless state of 45 days without a single customer to 100% occupancy in the next 30 days, numbers in the spreadsheet were overflowing. This could be a beginner’s luck, and they didn’t want to get fooled by it. Even if they weren’t lucky, and achieved all this by hard work, they had to find ways to replicate this.
They also started trying out SimplyGuest advertisements on the traffic police warning signs. The majority of the calls originating from this were for BTM Layout, specifically Stage II. It became apparent that they needed some houses in BTM Stage II. Hence they started looking around for to-let boards in BTM Layout and onboarded a full building.
They installed sun boards, a small 1×2 feet semi-plastic board that you find in malls, in front of the house, and around BTM Stage II, these are different from sun packs. Since they had signed these houses and realized BTM is a hub for young people. Every second house had been turned into a PG; they thought they’ll be able to sell their new houses very quickly.
People started visiting the flat after seeing the to-let board in front of the house; they were having 8-10 visits a day. They had a free listing on OLX and Quikr and these channels also started giving some leads.
They then went on to open up a referral program; every successful referral would get Rs 2000. They also messaged existing customers about it and created a WhatsApp group for every house. A customer from House #4 referred to three of her friends; these guys were college-mates and wanted to stay together at BTM. (One of them was Mayank; he later became a core part of SimplyGuest)
The marketing channels they tried to find customers were helping them in other ways. A lady called them one day and wanted SimplyGuest to rent 4 flats in Vijaya Bank Layout! Subbu was surprised to know that she had taken his phone number from the sun packs they were using for finding guests. The flats were in the final stage of construction and they had already started looking out for customers. She and her husband showed us the flats, these flats were close to SimplyGuest’s previous properties, and they ended up taking the property.
Domestic house help in general, and cleaning dishes specifically, has been the surprise element that makes customers stick to a house. If they can provide this consistently, they can retain almost all customers. Houses need regular maintenance for long-term use, initial customers don’t stay put if the house becomes unlivable. Plus, if the commuting time to the workplace is manageable, people stick around the house. Scaling this business is not as easy as adding servers and staff; operations are the key. Scaling physical operations takes time and sustained the effort.
Spending on advertising will get new customers, but it doesn’t help to retain existing customers. New customers are a finite set, whereas existing customers pay recurring rent. That’s what they are currently focusing on.
Providing consistently good services year-long matters more than discounts. If the bed goes vacant for a day, the revenue is lost permanently. House owners may not want to absorb this cost. Simply Guest calls this angel-stays.
They operate in about 15 locations in South Bangalore. Unlike their competitors, SimplyGuest operates shared houses, co-living properties, and also hostels (PGS). This covers the entire breadth of home options.
With the advent of online shopping and e-commerce portals, the local shopkeepers have taken a hit. We know this for a fact that the brick and mortar stores are bearing loses in today’s digitized world. To combat this problem, Mr. Yashraj Bhatia came up with the idea of shopping online but with local retailers.
Think about it. When we are shopping online, how often do we come across a local seller from the nearby spaces? Rarely! Hence with Yashraj’s brilliant idea and his startup Bajar, which is a mobile application, he has strived to create a platform for retailers in the offline markets, giving them the ability to showcase their products to the online markets.
Founded in 2019, Bajar is a platform for retailers in the offline markets giving them the required platform to showcase their products to the online markets. The sole motive behind this application is to create a platform where the customer is purchasing online, with all its benefits and comforts. But instead of purchasing from an e-commerce website, the consumers buy from their nearest local retailer. The application is a purely retailer-centric platform.
The application doles out to be a ‘Virtual Store’ for retailers who are given the ability and space to display their products online as they do in their stores physically. The idea is to create a platform where the consumers get to purchase online with all its comfort and convenience, but instead of an e-commerce portal, they buy from their nearest local retailer. Bajar wants to create a retailer-centric market rather than a product-centric environment which is the case in usual market places.
Bajar – USP
This startup rides on the vision to support local businesses and customers. The creative idea of this startup is to create a selling platform that would give power to the retailers and each locality would have its market catering to the residents. The unique selling proposition of Bajar is in being the vendor concerned platform rather than a platform that is flooded with a plethora of products.
Yashraj Bhatia is the founder and CEO of this innovative startup, Bajar. He graduated from Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, University of Delhi and is also an alumnus of Springdales School.
How was Bajar Started
The idea that gave birth to Bajar came to Yashraj during a mall visit. He was there to do some light shopping but he felt ill-equipped to know what the shops are selling. This got him thinking about how the markets and retailers are so unorganized. There is no go-to app that lets the buyers know which shops are selling what.
If one stands in the market today, he is bound to run after references and struggle for information regarding a reliable vendor for simple needs. Consumers keep asking questions like “Hey, where can I buy furniture?” “Do you know someone who sells Laptops?”, “Is this retailer any good?” to their friends and family.
So Yashraj felt like doing something about this situation. He was more inclined to create a platform for retailers, rather than becoming an e-commerce platform. For him, an expansion into a selling platform would give power to the retailers and each locality would have its market catering to the residents. He realized that the current eCommerce websites concentrate more on the products rather than the vendors. He aspired to change the situation by identifying a feasible solution. And this is how Bajar was conceived.
This was back in January 2019, when he sketched out the whole app and the screens on his iPad and began scouting for developers to turn this into a fruitful reality. His interest in technology and development guided him to shape his ideas to a fully functional application. He was fascinated by the advancements in the sectors and yearned to utilize it for the upliftment of the community. He identified the right resources to develop a user-friendly and reliable mobile application. The application went live on 1st August 2019, and since then it has listed 4000+ retailers from major markets of Delhi.
Bajar – Name, Tagline and Logo
“The name was something I did a lot of thinking about.” says this young entrepreneur. Yashraj wanted it to be relatable yet unique, at the same time, he wanted the name to be something that is easy to share. He also felt that the brand name should also be able to conveniently express what the application does. “Bajar” felt like something relatable.
Bajar Logo
He leaned for a Hindi name particularly because it gives the vibe of the country. After finalizing the name, it was just a matter of time before the logo was ready that took the brand name forward with the bag behind it which easily signified shopping.
Bajar App Logo
Bajar – User Acquisition
The initial bunch of customers for Bajar were Yashraj’s family and friends. As the application started to list retailers, they became the initial batch of users for the application. As Bajar moved forward, the initial traction they received was from simple social media posts. And it was simply amazing. As they explained what the application does on their social handles, the number of users kept multiplying.
Bajar extracts its primary revenue from retailers for “On-boarding”. This is just a fancy term used for defining a retailer who is using the ‘Retailer’ app to manage their profile. Once on-board, the retailer is entitled to add products and offers and reply to ratings and reviews, with a simple, easy-to-use app, designed especially for them. Other revenue sources include advertisement sales and featuring offers and retailers on the application.
Once sale/purchase is conducted on the platform, they charge a minor convenience fee depending upon the size of the transaction.
Bajar – Startup Challenges
The biggest hurdle for Bajar was to explain this new and advanced concept of shopping to retailers as well as end-users. People, in general, take a lot of effort and persistence to adopt something new and move out of their comfort zone. Even if the new and updated things bring more convenience and comfort, the big cloud of being in the comfort zone always hangs above everyone’s mind.
Bajar – Competitors
Bajar as such has no direct competition as of now. In the listing sphere, there are many shops listed on Google and Justdial, but none of them cover all of the markets like Bajar does or allow the retailers to list their products.
Retailer Markets are so widespread and in such huge quantities that there is massive scope to grow not just in NCR but pan-India. Also, the consumers have well received his idea for a retailer-oriented application. Hence this increases the chances of successfully penetrating in the Indian market.
Bajar – Future Plans
The future plan for Bajar is to expand the application to pan India. The founder’s vision is to target the small retail market among metropolitan cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
Bajar, as a mobile application is not about being a regular shopping experience. It’s solving a bigger problem in the economy. We in this age of digitization need to take everyone up the ladder with us. Hence this idea of empowering the local retailers with digitization is remarkable.
With all the buzz about waste management in the country, it has become imperative for us as citizens to abide by it. Vinayaka Kashyap & Vinod Jaganathan in 2014 took up one such initiative. In a nutshell, they do the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction for large scale biogas plants. They also offer solutions to passionate householders who want to take care of their waste on a daily level too.
Their philosophy behind the venture is really interesting. They are capitalizing on the word Quantum which means the behavior of subatomic particles. They aim to garner the support of all subatomic entities on the planet who will help them realize their mission to make Mother Earth a greener one for the generations to come. Hence the name Quantum Green and the idea is “a quantum leap into a greener revolution.”
Established in 2014 and based at the garden city of Bengaluru, QG envisions to provide unparalleled services in the fields of waste to Energy and Solid & Liquid Waste Management (SLWM). To endeavor this, QG is backed up by a team with rich experience in waste to energy projects. Quantum Green builds biogas plants for a variety of its clients by offering its Engineering, Procurement, and Construction services thereby ensuring a turnkey solution to its customers. The company’s expertise not only includes conceptualizing Waste to Energy projects but also backing it up with scientific waste processing, and reliable and efficient energy distribution. As an integrated technology company, Quantum Green has expertise in Design, Supply and Installation of Biogas plants for varying applications ranging from small scale Household Cooking to mega-scale Industrial Cogeneration purposes viz., Thermal heating, Power Generation and Bio-CNG Bottling plants.
Their projects are smarter as they leverage upon the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) to remotely administer, monitor, operate and maintain the plant. By doing this, they ensure optimal plant availability and longevity as the information they gather from the plant’s smartness will ensure that it operates seamlessly and any outage/breakdown small or big is either predicted before or attended to immediately. This acts as a gateway for building smart infrastructure which is self-sufficient and run with minimum human intervention.
Their clientele includes Individual households, Hotels, Canteens, and Industries such as large Food Processing companies. This indicates that their product range and solutions address a vast target community/sector. Applications of these biogas plants vary from basic cooking to thermal heating, bio-electricity, and bio-CNG. The largest plant is a 50 Tons Per Day (50 TPD) unit for a food processing industry and the smallest is a 2 Kg per day unit for a simple household.
The scenario for Waste to Energy in India is picking up steam. Quantum Green is in this business from the past five years and the team is seeing a surge in the number of inquiries they get year on year. They see a lot of bulk waste generators showing genuine interest in either composting or building biogas projects. The earlier notion of waste as just a waste and the need to get rid of it crudely is a thing of the past. Waste disposal costs and landfilling is getting unviable for them. Pollution control boards are doing their part in ensuring that compliances are in place to dispose of waste in an environmentally friendlier manner. Now clients look at waste as a healthy source of energy and show interest for these plants. They understand that by putting a biogas plant, they need not depend on fossil fuels such as diesel and furnace oil anymore. In some cases where electricity is scarce, the client is more than happy to convert their waste to valuable power. As you see, waste to energy project helps the client to take care of their businesses more effectively and efficiently. Also, the government’s initiatives such as “Swatch Bharath”, “Make In India”, “Smart Cities” etc. are good for this sector. No wonder why so many plants are getting commissioned like never before.
Quantum Green – Founders and team
Mr. Vinayaka Kashyap: BE, M Tech with 15 plus years of Sales and Marketing experience in the Capital Goods industry catering to the Power Plant Sector (Thermal, Gas, Renewable and the Captive sectors). Worked at Triveni Steam Turbines, CICB Chemtron, GE Gas Engines before starting QG
Mr. Vinod J: BE, Elec with 18 plus years of Sales and Marketing experience in the Capital Goods industry catering to the Power Plant Sector (Thermal, Gas, Renewable and the Captive sectors). Worked at Triveni Steam Turbines and Thermax before starting QG
While Vinayaka takes care of Sales & Business Development, Vinod is into Finance, Admin and HR. They are a lean team of about 8 including the founders.
How was Quantum Green Started
The founder’s decision to take up entrepreneurship and starting this business was sudden. That happened in June 2014 when Vinod’s erstwhile friend and old colleague from Triveni Steam Turbines, Steam Turbine manufacturing company based at Bangalore, Mr. Vinayaka Kashyap met him. Vinayak was then working on many Waste to Energy projects, typically Biogas plants. He elucidated Vinod on how waste had become such a menace and how it was affecting the common man and posed a huge danger to the future generations. Being a father of two, Vinod was concerned the world that we leave behind for our children can be so hazardous. After knowing more about the subject technically, he decided in his heart that as a responsible human being, he should join Vinayaka and strive for a greener revolution.
The word Quantum means the behavior of Subatomic particles. They aim to garner the support of all subatomic entities on the planet who will help them realize our mission to make Mother Earth a greener one for the generations to come. Hence the name Quantum Green and the vision is “a quantum leap into a greener revolution” which is the tagline.
Quantum Green Logo
Quantum Green – User Acquisition
Quantum Green’s website is efficiently and professionally managed by the internal team and they do have channel partners who promote the business.
Being salesmen for most of their lives, they know for sure that a genuine relationship with a client, will yield business and repeat orders. This means that they will have to stick up, stand tall and present themselves to the clients’ end whenever there is a need. Clients do appreciate such an attitude. Their previous experience in turnkey businesses gives them an additional advantage on how to conceptualize, interface and commission plants. Clients are very keen on prior experiences as they do not want errors from inexperienced contractors which could damage their reputation as well as cause a business loss.
Quantum Green – Business Model and Revenue Model
Quantum Green’s business model is to provide end to end turnkey solutions to bulk waste producers. In a nutshell, they do the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction for large scale biogas plants. And they also offer solutions to passionate householders who want to take care of their waste on a daily level too.
Quantum Green – Funding and Investors
They were actively looking to raise funds during the initial days to expand the operations. However, since the biogas concept had not gained much momentum in the country at that time, investors were skeptical to put money in the business. Luckily, one of their best friends showed interest and eventually did one round of seed funding for them. Post that round of funding, they did not scout for any other funds. They believe they will raise funds at the right time to support their business growth.
Quantum Green – Awards & Recognitions
Quantum Green has been awarded with “Brightest startup award by TERI” in 2017
From starting in 2014, in five years, little did they expect that they would have orders converted into repeat orders (key accounts). They started with consultancy orders first but slowly ramped up to taking turnkey orders from the same customers. Indian Navy, Mother Dairy Fruits and Vegetables, ISRO, AL Jaleel, Gun Shell factory and EUROPEM are a few prestigious clients that they have onboard now. From operating a 50 Tonne per day plant (Mother Dairy) to building containers which house equipment of the biogas plant to one of the largest kitchens in India (EUROPEM), their journey has been great, if not dreamlike. To summarize the following have been our professional achievements:
Building a very good clientele.
Building a very good and reliable vendor pool.
Building a strong in-house engineering team
Building a dedicated, diligent Commissioning team
Business-wise, they want to have key accounts, and now they have 4 reputed ones. Financially, they are growing at 30% YoY. Since this is a startup, they have consciously kept the human resource lean for easy collaboration and business operations. They also have hired immaculate professionals in different verticals. For now, they are concentrating on the South market and will eventually expand our operations to the North in upcoming years
Once again, the policy here is to gel well as a team. Know each other well, both professionally as well as emotionally, know one another’s strengths and weaknesses and together as one cohesive unit work towards the common goal which is to take our planet to a Greener Revolution.
More and more Indian youth today are looking for freelance jobs. As per data, India ranks as the 2nd largest freelance workforce after the US. A major factor that has facilitated the growth in number of freelancer is the emergence of the online freelancing platforms. Also professional networking sites like LinkedIn has made lives easier for those who want to find a part-time or full-time job. Yet another new innovation in this direction is Lemonop. Founded by Sateesh Havannavar, Ramkiran Bhat, and Swaroop Chand, Lemonop is a single platform that acts both as a freelancing platform and professional network. The startup is on a mission to make “Work Finds People” happen.
StartupTalky interviewed Lemonop CEO Swaroop Chand to understand the platform better.
Lemonop is a combination of a freelancing platform (Lemonop Gig Engine) and a professional network (Lemonop Twyne). So it is somewhat like a lean Upwork + LinkedIn for people who are in their early career. From the young generation’s point of view, it’s a single Android mobile app and a mobile website for iOS users. From the companies point of view, Lemonop is a technology platform which simplifies their ability to build on-demand, short term workforce quickly, tap into the energy & skills of digital native GenZ and to spot their future talent early. Companies can also gain from GenZ as consumers because co-creating with this generation is a powerful way to understand, engage and win GenZ.
Lemonop App Screenshots
Taking their innovative vision forward, Lemonop is launching a ‘first job’ feature based on users’ gig and Twyne activities on the platform. Real-world activities or projects done on their initiative is a great way to spot strong talent. This feature will not just add immense value for youngsters by helping in finding their first job, but will also help companies scale their early career hiring beyond the set of colleges they visit.
We not only believe in the efficiency of gig economy for early career training, we also believe the earliest professional network is incredibly valuable – Swaroop quotes
The core belief of this initiative is that the industry & the young generation, who are the future innovators & workforce, will need to come together & collaborate to solve large problems such as employment generation, skill-building, skill gap reduction, etc.
According to the NASSCOM, FICCI, EY report of 2017, 17 million new entrants join the workforce each year and 5.5 million new jobs are created in the same period. This is just the Indian scenario and given that worldwide the numbers are much bigger, Lemonop has a huge scope of growth, as its products are relevant globally.
The industry will see a lot of impact due to exponential technologies, #HumanMachine and due to disruption in education models (e.g. Lambda school). During such times of uncertainties going forward, the Lemonop team see Lemonop & their model as a stabilizing agent to the users (both companies and the young generation).
We also strongly believe that gig work can be the economy’s largest training ground for students and new grads, at the same time enabling them to add immense economic value – Swaroop says explaining the importance of gig work
Lemonop – Founders and Team
Lemonop co-founder & CTO Sateesh Havannavar, – Graduated from B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering. Sateesh has co-founded Talentspear, a HRTech startup in the year 2015, which he exited in 2018. Sateesh held different technical roles with different organizations before starting up his own venture. Sateesh worked as a Senior Java Consultant at SAS, Technical Lead at FICO, Senior Developer at Oracle and a Software Engineer at igate Global Solutions typically where he started off his career.He also worked as a Senior Integration Analyst at UBS for a year.
Swaroop Chand, co-founder & CEO- Graduated from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka. Swaroop has 18 years of experience in software product engineering, product strategy, software services. He has also been a former Director at Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd.
Ramkiran Bhat, prior to Lemonop worked at SpaceMatrix. He is also working as Associate Director of UF Architects, a Architecture & Planning startup
In addition to their roles, Sateesh and Swaroop focus on sales to the demand side (companies) & Ram focuses on community building on the supply side (students & freshers)
How was Lemonop Started
The first spark of inspiration to the founders came from noticing that the college goers of India are keen to do some part-time work, not just the internships mandated by universities but in non-academic areas as well. The youngsters were willing to follow their hearts into unique career paths as well, which does not have much to do with their academic specialization.
Initial the thoughts were discussed among five people, three of which are now co-founders of Lemonop.
We initially saw an opportunity for tech to help not just to simplify and scale this space, but also add many more values such as giving youngsters the ability to test different industries, hunt for opportunities in an interest / hobby area, build a portfolio of work experiences to improve chances of finding a job soon after college etc – Swaroop speaks on the Lemonop idea
As they researched the space more, they realized that there’s so much more that can be done. They could play a significant role in the entire early career ecosystem and help the young generation of India irrespective of their goals being company jobs, solopreneurship or entrepreneurship. As a result, the economy can also benefit from better skill building & employability.
The name Lemonop was inspired by the lemonade stand — a culture in the western countries where parents help their children prepare lemonade and sell it during summer. The idea is to teach young people about entrepreneurship, customer service, money management, basics of finance, teamwork, etc at an early age. The founders believe that they are peers to collegians, where the lemonade stands as experience for school children.
Lemonop is also a tribute to “LMNOP”, the way we sing the alphabet song.
Lemonop Logo
Lemonop- User Acquisition
Lemonop got its early users by recruiting them manually. They started with the demand side (companies) and went to their own network first. Next, they made walk-in visits to companies of all sizes in a few select areas of Bangalore. That is how they got their first 25-30 companies. They then focused on winning top gigs that they were sure would delight the young users and are truly incredible opportunities. They had gigs like model making, food photography, etc in place. Once they had such gigs, they went on to visiting colleges to address the young generation users and when they saw how great the gigs were, Lemonop got its first 500 supply-side users.
After the initial hustle of recruiting early users, they started delighting their users with valuable product features. For example, for the supply side, they added features like a weekly bulletin called Byte to learn cool stuff in 1 min, a series called Rocktalk to help youngsters learn from people who have excelled in unique careers, a finance education series called #LearnMoney to only name a few. These features not only delighted the users but also triggered a bit of word of mouth to generate more than 35K registered users for Lemonop.
Lemonop- Business Model and Revenue Model
For Lemonop, revenue comes from the companies in the form of per-post charges, annual subscriptions or a percentage on top of the total amount disbursed using Lemonop. They do not charge students/freshers anything. Also, they don’t take any take rate (percentage cut from their earnings) either.
Lemonop- Startup Challenges
Like all marketplaces, Lemonop too had to face the chicken-and-egg challenge initially -who comes first and why? However, unlike other marketplaces, they couldn’t go after their supply-side first. They decided to go after the demand side (companies) first and although there weren’t any supply-side users initially. They told the companies that they’ll manually go to campuses and tell about their gigs and recruit applicants for their gigs. So basically, they offered their services as a sweetener to the early clients. Their quality of gigs has always been outstanding and when they showed them to students & freshers, a good number signed up to apply. They continued to grow both sides of the marketplace using a mix of hustling with the above model, focusing on extremely high-quality gigs, recruiting users on both sides manually.
1010 data, 10 times, 11 online are some of the companies running the same race in the spectrum as Lemonop. Though the market standing might not be that high but these companies have been in the industry for quite a while now.
Lemonop – Growth
Lemonop currently has 35000+ students / freshers and 450+ companies registered with it. Companies have posted gigs for 10+ different cities in the Lemonop platform. As regards clients, Zomato, Whacked Out Media, Dunzo, MTV UP!, Flipkart, Caratlane etc are some big names in Lemonop’s client list. It has also partnered with 91Springboard, Innov8 (now OYO Workspaces), Brand Capital and a few more
Lemonop – Future Plans
The short term plan is to grow to over 2 lakh registered users this financial year. The future plan is to expand to multiple cities including select tier 2 and tier 3 cities and introduce work from home / work remote gigs to enable young gen from these cities to do gigs. The insight behind this goal is the fact that great talent can come from any city and any college.
Books are regarded as one of the best ways to engage people with unique concepts and ideas. If you are looking for a way to pass across your ideas and thrill people to understand a concept, writing a book about it is highly recommended. The same ideology applies to entrepreneurship. For people who have experience with establishing a startup, writing a book on how to do that is one of the best ways to help people see your ideas.
For entrepreneurs, writing about that experience is never a big deal. As scholars, learning about the many rules of writing can prepare you for that. Tools can also come in handy. One of many is the PaperLeaf Canada tool, which handles writing assignments for scholars.
Becoming a successful entrepreneur comes as a very long and hectic process. Although the rewards are almost endless, striving to become one from an early age is the best way to do this. Students are the future entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Most successful entrepreneurs understand this fact and have come up with the best books to help inspire and motivate these young people. In this article, we will discuss must-read books that scholars should engage themselves in to become successful entrepreneurs.
8 Must-Read Startup Books For Scholars
There are a great number of books in the world. But only a small percentage of those offer unique insights and great ideas of how to efficiently establish a startup. For scholars, reading these books before graduating is sure to get you on the right path and prepare you for what lies ahead in the field of entrepreneurship and business. Luckily, these books can always be obtained from popular online stores. Here’s a brief overview of some of the most recommended books you, as a student, must-read.
Innovator’s Dilemma
The author of the book had one thing in mind; to help readers see why businesses fail. As a student, you will find the usefulness of this information when you begin a startup of your own. It includes a collection of stories about companies and businesses that failed despite doing things right. Asides these stories, the book also provides information on budding trends as well as the importance of emerging as a market leader.
Innovation, Commercialization, and Start-Ups in Life Sciences
This book provides facts and ideas based on real-life experiences. It teaches scholars the process of launching an innovative technology as a commercialized product and also teaches them about the many risks, pitfalls, and mistakes that must be avoided.
Founders at Work
This is another book that is made up of a collection of stories. However, these stories come as interviews with famous founders of some of the world’s most successful technology companies. With a book such as this, scholars are sure to get most of their doubts about establishing a startup.
Startup Idea Action Plan
This book offers a wide range of ideas to help people start their business. It provides a list of ideas and steps and serves as a guide to help people turn their ideas into a real business. It works on teaching people how to get their first potential clients even before the availability of products.
Change by Design
This book was written by the CEO and president of IDEO, one of the world’s greatest design firms. Through his experience with design and entrepreneurship, the book provides unique ideas on how people can use designs to improve business and startups.
Crossing The Chasm
Marketing is a large part of every business or startup. If you are searching for how to bring technology products to larger markets, then this book is for you. As scholars, understanding the ins and outs of high-tech marketing can get you prepared for what lies ahead.
Become Your Boss in 12 Months
This book not only provides you with ideas of how to become independent but also how to start and successfully run your business. It lays out insights on how to tackle and avoid pitfalls involved in running a startup and how to better strategies marketing.
Pitch Your Business Like a Pro
It teaches people some of the several techniques involved in obtaining business funding. It is equipped with enough ideas to help you create the best business plan and also engage your business with the major funding options available to it.
Conclusion
Writing is a huge task to do. Online services offered like those at EssayYoda can be of great help during times like this. Asides from that, the books listed above can be of great value to you as a student. Reading them preps you up for what lies ahead in the field of entrepreneurship. Good luck
After completing your studies, it is a relief when you get the chance to practice and earn from their career. This is often a wonderful opportunity whereby you get the chance to build your life and do what you have long been preparing for. However, the world has changed and opportunities are not as abundant as they were before.
For you to quickly get into the field of your career, it is required that you write a dissertation, which is the support document submitted alongside your academic qualifications as evidence of your research and findings.
Here are the best ways that show the importance of a thesis and how it helps find your first job.
A dissertation best defines your skills
In the current competitive job market, employers are seeking the most skilled graduates to work in their institutions to help move their businesses forward. Possession of the required skills and exemplary personal traits will go a long way in helping you get and maintain a good job for a promising future.
However, employers will not know your abilities by looking at you and hence the need for evidence. By completing your dissertation, you present your abilities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to work independently in your field of specialization to employers.
If you have the skills and still not confident to write a quality dissertation, you should get dissertation help from expert writers online. A request to find free plagiarism checker at EduBirdie will ensure high-quality assignment writing work and delivered on time. The writers are specialists in the subjects they handle and know their job well.
Proves self-confidence
Nothing pleases employers than to find a confident employee who can professionally handle tasks in their field without strain. This will give them the satisfaction that you can deliver as expected as well as solve any arising problems with ease.
A well-researched dissertation will help you find first job opportunities as it tells your employers that you are an expert in your field and that you can work independently and deliver as expected without supervision or you can prepare an essay topics to write about your stury. This will be a perfect opportunity to prove your self-confidence which will help get a good job for you.
It boosts your networking skills
Whether you’re talking about the dissertation you’ve written in your classroom or in front of a panel, this provides you with a way to practice your public speaking skills. You can use such experiences to pursue a career as a trainer, an educator or similar jobs that require suck a skill. Furthermore, public speaking also allows you to become more effective at networking – a very important aspect of employment.
When you write your dissertation, this includes the development of other skills that you can use to gain a competitive edge in the job market. If you can remember the dissertation that you enjoyed writing the most, you can analyze it and see how it can help you with your networking and with your career.
An opportunity to standout
Currently, most fields are flooded with graduates who are seeking jobs. Unfortunately, the opportunities available in the job market are less compared to the workforce available. This could pose a challenge to you due to the high competition and a well-written dissertation will help you beat the completion, is to stand out among the rest.
The research involved in the writing of a dissertation clearly shows your abilities to work, research and expresses your extent of knowledge in the field of your career.
This serves as an added advantage to your academic qualifications while preparing for the job interview as a student. The employers seek candidates with sound knowledge in their field and their ability to apply this knowledge in real life.
A silent communication of your limits
It is important to know that it is likely that those assessing your dissertation have adequate knowledge in your field of specialization. The quality of your dissertation will tell your employers the time you took to piece it together.
Therefore, it proves to them that you not only possess the endurance to withstand long working hours, but you can also work under pressure to make sure that your tasks are completed on time.
A well-researched dissertation shows employers that you have the commitment, self-motivation, perseverance, and critical thinking skills. All of these are important elements that establish your competence as a viable applicant for any job. Without talking, your written work showcases your skills and abilities to the people you want to impress.
Conclusion
Currently, employers are not only looking for degree holders but masters of their fields of specialization. Presenting a well-written dissertation alongside your academic papers will make you stand out from the crowd and elevate your chances of landing an interview.
Writing a dissertation is a tedious task but it’s worth it, for it is the key that will open great opportunities for your future. So be encouraged to do your best in delivering a quality well-written dissertation for with it you will be at better grounds to show your potential employers your abilities, your worth to their business and add to your experience for the future.
When it comes to a business the most significant thing is funding and if it’s a startup, funding becomes more important. The survival of a business hugely depends on it. In a startup, funding is important so that the business can meet its expenses, as the profit will be mediocre at first.
Finance is the fuel needed to run any business. There are numerous stories of entrepreneurial ventures which could not survive despite having great potential tanking, due to a shortage of funding. Getting funds is especially challenging when a business is in the startup stage. Hence, it is important for emerging entrepreneurs to be aware of the various startup company funding options.
According to a report, Indian startups raise a record $3.9 billion so far in 2019. So we have compiled a list of sources from where you can raise funds for startups, in India.
When loans are given by individuals or a group of people instead of banks and other financial institutions, such loans are known as micro-loans and the technique is called microlending. Micro-loans can be a good source of startup funding for small businesses. Microloans are unsecured loans. The credit score of the borrower is a guiding factor for the lender; it helps in deciding the interest that the borrower would pay to the lender in addition to the original principal amount.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding
Using an online platform, individuals interested in raising funds for their initiative can make use of crowdfunding. The investor gets some form of equity or reward in exchange for the contribution. KickStarter, GoFundMe and Indiegogo are some of the most popular and top-ranked crowdfunding sites. Crowdfunding is a good startup funding process because it is easier to acquire than traditional bank loans.
Line of Credit
Once approved for a ‘line of credit’, the borrower gets access to a pool of money. But only when he actually takes out some amount i.e. borrows from the pool, he is subjected to the interest that would be charged. The benefit of this type of loan is the low-interest rate charged as compared to bank loans or NBFC loans.
Equipment Financing
As the name suggests, equipment financing involves machinery or some other item instead of monetary funds at disposal. The idea is to allow businesses to save money on purchasing equipment and use the same for other purposes. So equipment financing can be the funding option for startups that require equipment and machinery.
Angel Investors
Wealthy people who are interested in assisting the business owner through debt-free funding are known as angel investors. They ask for a stake in the ownership of the business and provide advises and suggestions from their own experiences. Such investors usually back early-stage startups that can generate a massive turnover in the future. So if you have a great business plan, then approaching angel investors can be one of the best ways to raise capital for the company.
Venture Capitalists
There are many venture capitalists that readily provides fund for a startup. People often use the terms venture capitalists and angel investors interchangeably without understanding that there are more than just subtle differences. Unlike angel investors, venture capitalists are proper firms aimed at helping businesses to develop. The venture capitalist plays an active role in running the business. Apart from purchasing stakes in the business, the firm has a say in the business’s decisions. There are two types of entities in such firms—‘limited’ partners who inject cash into the venture capitalists’ funds meant for assisting startups, and ‘general’ partners who work alongside the startup by engaging with the startup’s management in business-related decisions.
Government Grants
The central authority of the country also provides loans for startups in different sectors of the economy. In India, there are various schemes such as Credit Guarantee Scheme, MUDRA loan scheme, and Stand Up India scheme under which the Government provides funds to startups.
Also, there are schemes introduced by the State Government of different states of India, like Rajasthan Startup Fest, Kerela State Self Entrepreneur Development Mission, Sarothi startup loan by the Govt of Assam.
Peer to Peer Loans
In P2P lending, people (excluding banks and financial institutions) lend to those in need of money. Now, this may seem like crowdfunding but there’s a significant distinction: In peer-to-peer lending, the borrower has to repay the original principal along with the interest accrued. This isn’t part of crowdfunding, where the investors may not necessarily pay money to the lenders in exchange for their contribution; it could be a reward exchange program as well.
Business Credit Cards
As the name suggests, business credit cards allow borrowers to access a pool of money with a credit limit for transactions. Credit cards are suitable for financing short-term needs and immediate requirements. Just like ordinary credit cards, the card owner is liable to be penalized if the borrowed amount is not repaid in full at the end of the billing period.
Bank and NBFC Loans
Lastly let’s talk about the traditional method of funding, the bank, and NBFC loans. Banks provide term loans, working capital loan,s and asset-backed loans. NBFCs provide business loans too. But the issue with most banks and NBFCs is that they offer unsecured loans to only such businesses that have been in business for at least 2 years and which are earning a specific amount of profit.
While approaching someone for a loan for your startup, ensure that you have an excellent business plan. A business plan is the heart and soul of your initiative or project. It should cover the minute details, must be easy to comprehend, engaging, and enticing at the same time. Above all, it’s the attitude brimming with confidence and the ability to convince that would either make or break the deal!
Conclusion
If you are thinking about long-term sustainability then funding is highly recommended. Funding also helps you to explore the current market opportunities as well. Before going for funding, you need to understand what type of funding is actually needed for your business. The entrepreneur needs to be very careful while selecting the type of funding they are going to choose for their business.
FAQs
Can businesses use GoFundMe?
To start funding for a business, people can use GoFundMe.
What is Startup Funding?
Startup funding means the amount of money required to start and build a new business.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
A lot of work goes behind organizing a successful event. Ideation of the event, putting up a solid organizing team, creating a budget and resorting to it, and deciding the venue are just some of the pain-points. Even after all these efforts, the success of the event comes down to the number of attendees. Promoting an event and enticing people to attend it is a crucial task. If you’re not sure on how to promote your upcoming event or an attendee on the lookout for some interesting program, leverage the power of MeraEvents!
Launched in 2009, MeraEvents connects organizers, delegates and service providers across the country. It offers event organizers with numerous options like listing, promotions, online ticketing etc. The platform adds over 1000-1500 events per month across various categories. Headquartered in Hyderabad, MeraEvents today is one of the best online ticketing platforms in India.
MeraEvents provides value addition to events being organized as it offers benefits such as listing, promotions, online ticketing etc. to the event organizers. MeraEvents’ USP is that organizers can list their events for free. Moreover, they can choose from different paid promotional packages, and benefit from the lowest payment gateway solution for selling tickets, etc. In short, MeraEvents offers end-to-end event technology solutions to its customers.
MeraEvents Logo
MeraEvents is a one-stop platform for all kinds of events. It has events and functions listed across various categories and happening in different parts of India. Professional, entertainment, sports, training, spiritual, campus, and trade shows are just the tip of the iceberg when one considers the categories on the MeraEvents portal. This helps people fine tune their search and narrow down to their desired results. An average of 1000-1500 events are added on MeraEvents every month.
MeraEvents also offer services related to ticketing (both online and offline), registration counter management, and digital marketing.
MeraEvents offers the following solutions at present:
EasyTag: A cloud based check-in and badge printing solution.
Digibroc: An online platform for exhibiting and distributing brochures and catalogs. This platform helps exhibitors retrieve details of visitors who showed interest in the digital brochures and thereby follow up with them.
MoozUp: It is a white labeling solution that lets event attendees and organizers connect and engage with each other—before, during, and after the event.
Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni is the founder & CEO of MeraEvents. After his engineering from JNTU-Ananthapur, Mr. Naidu moved to the United States and started his entrepreneurial journey in 2000. After returning to India in 2007, the challenges he faced in scouting for events propelled him to start MeraEvents as a the answer to these problems. Through Chennapa’s dedication and clarity of thought, MeraEvents quickly emerged as the one-stop-solution for the event industry.
Over the last few years, MeraEvents has grown its staff from 6 to more than 60, expecting to enlarge its team by more than 100 people by the end of this financial year.
According to reports, the global online event ticketing market size is expected to reach USD 67.99 billion by 2025. Again, a ReedSeer report published in 2018 stated that online ticketing market in India recorded a $28 million quarterly revenue.
“The market size for events ticketing in India is $1 billion, but only 10% of the players are using online ticketing platforms”, says MeraEvents owner Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni. There is a lot of scope for businesses to grow if event organizers can realize the benefits of using an online platform.
It was the year 2000 when Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni was working in the US with an IT company. Unfortunately, he lost his job during the dotcom bust of 2000. Naidu was searching for jobs but could not find any, compelling him to try his hands on entrepreneurship and create jobs rather than seeking one. Naidu set up Versant Technologies in the United States in the same year.
Versant Technologies was an end-to-end system integration company that specialized in Oracle Retail and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Implementations. Today, Versant Technologies has a strong presence in North America and India. It was more of a B2B services company and Naidu wanted to do something in the B2C segment. He then started attending a lot of events and seminars to know and learn about the B2C industry.
It’s well-said “What you seek is seeking you”. Naidu found it difficult to attend these events since there wasn’t much information available about them beforehand. Ticketing, badge printing, and meeting other attendees were other challenges. He then started doing research on these events, asking attendees how they got to know about the same. It turned out that attendees had limited means of finding out about an event beforehand—either through word of mouth or through scattered information on the net. There was a lack of a proper channel where anything and everything about organized events and programs could be known.
Having identified the gap, he started a portal in 2009 – an event listing, promotion and ticketing platform to connects organizers, delegates, and service providers in different places. The portal was tactically named ‘MeraEvent’ in order to foster the feeling of association with the event of one’s choice. In 2013, Versant Technologies was taken over by Aspire Systems and Naidu shifted his focus full-time to MeraEvents.
MeraEvent’s business model is built on commission received from event deals.
MeraEvents started out as a pure event ticketing platform and charged commissions only on the tickets sold. Over the years, it emerged as an event ticketing technology solution provider managing ticket desks in addition to becoming an end-to-end event marketing company.
Event organizers can list their events on the platform for free and create a unique URL for the event. However, they need to pay 1.99% to payment gateways, and a 2% service charge on every ticket. They also have the option to sell directly from MeraEvents wherein the service charge goes up to 8%.
MeraEvents – Funding And Investors
MeraEvents has raised over $ 3.2 million in funding over 4 rounds.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
March 2012
Seed
$1 Million
Undisclosed
June 2014
Venture round
$1 Million
OMICS International
June 2014
Angel
$1.2 Million
Undisclosed
May 2015
Angel
Undisclosed
Undisclosed
MeraEvents – Startup Challenges
A year before Naidu actually rolled out the portal, he was marketing it actively. He even spoke about it at the events he attended. People appreciated his idea, giving positive response. This activity affirmed that the path he was going on was a viable one. Initial sales remained tepid on account of an immature market. Event organizers weren’t averse to publishing their events on the portal; they weren’t fully inclined to own the process. Most of the times, they would fail to intimate MeraEvents about event changes which created problems in smooth execution. Many of the event organizers weren’t very tech savvy, and the MeraEvents team would publish the events for them in the beginning. Thus, the onus on the team was high in the initial days.
On top of that, there were troubles with the payment gateways and their limited numbers. Transaction failure rates through gateways were high. Initially, the portal used the EBS payment gateway and one other. Today, multiple payment gateways like PayUMoney and Citrus, and wallets such as Freecharge, Oxigen, etc. are being used by MeraEvents. In short, initial market penetration was time and effort consuming.
MeraEvents – Competitors
MeraEvents.com is currently one of India’s leading 360-degree event technology solutions provider. It competes with Explara and BookMyShow.
In 2015, MeraEvents announced its partnership with Percept Live Pvt. Ltd, a media and communications firm. The deal size is approximately $10 million worth of transactions on the company’s platform.
According to the partnership, MeraEvents will offer end-to-end event technology solutions, for managing the online and offline ticketing. Along with it, they will provide ground management of entry of attendees at upcoming events of Percept Live across India.
MeraEvents has grown to 60 people working from Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Gurgaon. About 80% of its revenues comes from Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, and the NCR. It sells around 1000-15000 tickets in a day on an average, translating to ticket sales of around INR 3-4 lakhs a day. MeraEvents is selling close to INR 1 Cr worth of tickets per month at the moment and expects this to grow in the coming years.
MeraEvents is witnessing more than 200% growth YOY with the addition of 1000+ new events every month. The company powered 10,000+ events during 2013-14.
MeraEvents – Future Plans
The company will use its funding to expanding its reach to other cities, accelerate product growth and innovation, and invest in additional sales and marketing resources.
MeraEvents – Founder’s Advice
“Have a holistic plan and talk to someone who can give blatant opinions before you start implementing it. Be open and flexible and take a look at market demands while running the business”, says Chennapa.
Becoming the leading head of any company or office is a great honour and opportunity. It always gives a feeling of superiority and strength. As the boss, people get respect, attention, and love from their employees. However, this is not always the case as bosses might become the center of gossip, the one person, the employees dislike with passion and other issues around the workplace. It is better to know that respect is earned, thus, the question arises, how to become a good boss?
According to a report, 86% of companies say developing new leaders is an urgent need. Here are a few ways to accomplish how one can be a proper boss. You Know that when someone is the boss, employees follow their command and just because they do that, doesn’t mean they are doing that happily and it also does not mean they are always entitled to follow the boss’s command. There are qualities of a good boss that one must possess so as to garner the respect that is required from the subordinate. In this article, we will talk about those qualities.
It is very important to let employees feel that they really are a part of the company and not just puppets. Let them feel that they belong in there, like a big family. Employees also have goals, not just for themselves but for the company, too. So, make the employees aware that when the company continues to grow, they will also grow with it. Most of them build their future in the company they work for, so help them to realize it that the growth is also for their own benifit.
Be a Good Listener
Not everyone can be a good listener but in a team, this quality is extremely important to have in a leader. Listening to employees and their problems and attend to their needs is one of the prime responsibility of a leader. Do not focus only on self-growth, try to understand and know the issues, employees are facing and help them find a way out. This is very important to become a good and respectful boss.
Celebrate Success With Employees
In a business, success is not just about you, it should be enjoyed by the whole team because all of them have worked hard for it. Treat your employees to a meal or anything that would simplify the celebration of success and thanksgiving. Do not forget to thank them for the success because they are part of it and make them realise that, the success could not have been achieved without them.
Remember That Mistakes Can Happen
We are human, and mistakes are bound to happen. Although being a perfectionist is important but one also has to remember and consider that mistakes do happen. There are times when bosses might have to consider these mistakes and let them go. When there is proof that it was not committed intentionally, understand why it has happened and do not take too long to forgive.
Identify Employees’ Development Needs
Conduct training for employees to develop their skills and allow them to gain more knowledge about new innovations and ideas. Have personality-building sessions for employees to allow them to grow personally. Every employee needs growth and a boss must take care of that, when there will be growth of an employee, the company will definitely get benefited from it.
Conflict Resolution
As this is a company, so arguments and conflicts can happen anytime, it is inevitable. When there are conflicts in the office, pacify employees as soon as possible and stay neutral towards the causes. Try to see the matter from different point of views. Being biased will only create rifts between the boss and employees, so be impartial.
Sensitivity
When somebody commits a mistake, do not scold them right in front of their workmates but call his attention and inform him about the issue. When someone has done something good, do not hesitate to appreciate them and if possible, give a reward. With this, they will feel more motivated, enthusiastic and important to the organization. It is not one of the most successful methods to become a good and respected boss.
Be a Good Example
When you are the boss, your responsibility becomes double, so be the version of yourself, so your employee can draw inspiration from you. Remember that in the office, everyone is working in one team. Avoid doing things that may disappoint others and reduce their respect for you. Do not allow this saying to come true, “Follow what I say but do not follow what I do.”
Encourage a Good Relationship Among Them
Team work makes a dream work. When you are in a team, you must have a good relationship with your group mates a proper coordination is required. A healthy work environment will help employees work well and thus the company will get the taste of success. When they feel comfortable with each other, they can avoid conflicts and concentrate on getting their work done with ease. Do some in-office activities that will encourage them to mingle with each other and have a good relationship amongst them.
Admit Your Mistakes
As mentioned above, when you are a human , mistakes are inevitable they are bound to happen. What makes you different, is your way of acknowledging it and not repeating the same mistake again. When a mistake is committed by the boss, they should admit it and be sorry for it. Seeing this humility will make employees trust the leadership qualities of the boss.
Conclusion
Being a friend to employees is the first step towards being a good boss. Do not pretend to be somebody else. Be honest in dealing with them and do not build huge blocks for interaction. The more approachable one is, the easier it is to pacify conflicts and solve issues. A good boss results a into a good company, if an employee is happy with their boss, the possibility of growth of that company increases.
FAQs
What are the Three Qualities that make a Good Boss?
The three qualities that make a good boss are, high EQ, Honesty and the ability to motivate.
What are Good Bossess like?
Good bosses earn respect from their employees not demand them.
Are bosses always right?
Bossess are not right everytime, when the made mistake they should apologise for it.
