Today, a huge number of startups are setting their foot in the industry and are conquering the world with their innovative ideas. These startups follow different types of business models. A business-to-business startup, commonly known as a B2B startup, is a huge thing in the market these days. The whole idea of a B2B company is to establish a business that caters to the needs of other businesses. According to a report, 85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal.
However, running a B2B startup is a tough task as owners of such businesses need to look for suitable clients who require the goods or services that the company is offering. Moreover, generating B2B leads for your startup can become a hectic job and cause excessive levels of frustration. So here is our B2B marketing strategy. It will help you to generate B2B leads for your startup and proceed with their work strategies.
Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing mainly involves the vending of one company’s products and services to another company’s products and services. The goods could be used for the production of some other goods, for reselling it to the consumers or could be used in the general operations of the business.
Pre-requisites for a Business-To-Business Marketing
B2B marketing requires products for other companies. You should not just start off without even a rough idea in your mind. This will only lead to unproductive outcomes and will take you nowhere. The first thing that one should do is think about the product, its merits, and its demerits.
Several questions should come to your mind before finalizing anything.
Is my product beneficial for the company?
What would be the gain that my product/service would provide to the clients?
How much will my product/service help the clients to earn?
What are the main advantages of my product/service that make it better than the others in the market?
What efforts can be made to improve the quality of the product/service?
What is the price structure of a similar product in the market?
Conduct a thorough analysis of your products and services. Customer feedback is the best way to do this.
10 Ways of B2B Lead Generation for Your Startup 2022
Diversity
All buyers of a B2B company will have different needs and wants, so an entrepreneur must make sure that their content addresses all the needs and demands. The content should fit the shoe and not be focused on just one thing to attract buyers from all around the globe.
Stand Out
The capabilities of a startup are judged by the content that is posted on their blogs or social media websites. Hence, this content needs to be attractive with infographic inputs and strategically placed to allow buyers to find them easily. Moreover, it gives a boost up to the startup showing true data in their content which makes them trustworthy.
Pricing
It is not a common practice to post prices on the company’s website as it hinders the chances of getting many opportunities, but if the prices are not posted, most of the queries would be to know the cost but not generally buy the services. Posting prices would decrease useless traffic and allow more room to focus on potential customers. Furthermore, the pricing strategy should be decided with a thorough competitive analysis for breakthrough performance.
Relationships
Having a healthy relationship with the client’s company is extremely important for the business to flourish, thus, building a good connection will allow the business to grow through word-of-mouth marketing. Although, word-of-mouth has a different approach it has always had a high conversion rate.
Marketing
Marketing is the best way to generate leads. In today’s technology-driven society online marketing is the major contributor to an increase in sales. Services can be marketed depending upon the needs of various buyers using social media platforms, blogs, or a well-developed website. Creating an email database to send occasional newsletters to potential buyers helps in boosting the business. In other words, email marketing is a great tool to generate B2B leads for the business.
Sign up forms
Sign-up forms for the company website should not be very long as that irritates buyers. The easier the signing up process the more potential buyers will sign up and add to the business. They should contain the basic details like name, email, phone number and address but not a whole lot of information that can be asked in later stages.
Optimize the Landing Page
The homepage of the company’s website or the social media profile should be SEO-friendly. Articulating content that would attract people. Make your content in such a way that it is displayed clearly on top Google searches. Most people do not go to the second page while searching for something on Google to make sure that the website comes in the first page in Google searches related to the keyword.
Have a Q and A section
Have a FAQ section, which is clearly visible on the website, to answer the most common queries on the website for people to properly understand the services. Ask present clients about the issues they may have faced while registering on the website, collect the information and create a questionnaire with answers by the team.
Buy Leads From Various Platforms
Startup owners can also buy leads from various online platforms that are selling them. There are many sites that provide quality leads with accurate information. B2B companies should collect as many leads as possible from these sites to help them in progress.
Hire
Owners can also hire a company that specializes in lead generation or hire freelancers that can generate leads and do promotions. Hiring freelancers residing in different countries can be profitable and will help in getting leads from various different countries. It is also inexpensive in nature and provides a quality result to generate B2B leads for your company.
B2B Success Stories on Social Media
Approximately, 69% of the Indian B2B marketers agree, social media is one of the major tools to engage potential customers. Statistics regarding the success of lead generation for B2B companies using social media marketing are quite high. B2B buyers are much more attracted to brands that have a strong social presence. They prefer the companies to present the information via social media.
Some of the successful social media campaigns implemented by a few companies are:
iYogi
iYogi being a technical support company faced many difficulties in generating leads and creating brand awareness for its new service; Digital Service Cloud. The company chose LinkedIn to focus on the key areas of interest and target audience. The campaign was a huge success and helped to achieve 62% of the follower base in the duration of just three months.
Deskaway
The company chose Twitter along with paid media and Adwords for the purpose of selling its web-based team along with the project collaboration software. Product announcements, news, and blogs were shared on a continuous basis and thus, generating leads.
Conclusion
The above two examples show that social media is really an efficient tool for B2B marketers. It not only helps to increase brand awareness on a huge scale and target a bigger audience but also establishes a company as a thought leader. The company gets to connect easily with the clients and the prospects. Good relations are built with the people who can influence the industry. Social media and email marketing also trigger word-of-mouth conversations and help in optimizing the conversions for B2B companies. Keeping these important points in mind shall go a long way for B2B companies in creating a huge client base and gaining success in their business proceedings.
FAQs
What are 4 types of Marketing Strategies?
Four types of marketing strategies are:
Market Penetration Strategy
Market Development Strategy
Product Development Strategy
Diversification Strategy
What are the four types of B2B Markets?
The four basic categories of business customers in B2B markets are producers, resellers, governments, and institutions.
Is Amazon a B2B OR B2C?
Amazon is both business-to-business B2B and business-to-consumer B2C.
Auto rickshaws are an essential medium of transportation in India, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. However, the sector is still unorganized. Owing to this, auto-rickshaw drivers have been frequently spotted sitting idle, while many commuters have to face inconveniences finding auto-rickshaws. To fill this gap, Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal founded Jugnoo in 2014.
Jugnoo is India’s largest technology-driven on-demand auto-rickshaw aggregator, which connects riders with safe, reliable, and convenient auto-rickshaws with just a few clicks. Here is a detailed company profile of Jugnoo, complete with all about Jugnoo, its Founders, Funding and Investors, Business Model, Revenue Model, Name and Logo, Marketing Campaigns, and more.
Jugnoo initially started as an on-demand auto rickshaw service and introduced various user-friendly features to make it easier for users to book a ride. In 2016, Jugnoo introduced Jugnoo Bot, which allowed Facebook users to book a ride through Facebook Messenger, Jugnoo’s website, or its Facebook page. Jugnoo also offers a Multilingual interface for drivers, with over eight languages other than English.
As Jugnoo started gaining popularity as an auto-rickshaw aggregator, the founders leaped and launched various new services. The other services offered by Jugnoo are –
Dodo deliveries – It enables vendors to deliver goods to their customers. Dodo deliveries is now renamed as Jugnoo Delivery.
Flight map – It is a comprehensive routing solution, that solves travel salesman and vehicle routing problems.
Fatafat – Hyperlocal deliveries like food, grocery, veggies. Fatafat was shut down in October 2015. The service was launched again in Chandigarh in May 2016, after acquiring SabKuch Fresh.
Menus – The company had earlier launched Jugnoo meals. However, it was closed down in October 2015, and in 2017 it was re-launched as Menus. Jugnoo Menus has brought onboard popular restaurants and outlets like Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Baskin Robins, Super Donut, Burger point, Rolla costa, Copper Chimney, Marky Momos and Dhaba.com
AskLocal – The AskLocal feature of the Jugnoo app will not only provide local information but is also a platform where the users can ask questions, give recommendations, and share content. It is a geolocation-based platform and is operational across all locations covered by Jugnoo.
Jugnoo – Industry Details
A study conducted by EMBARQ India has shown that there are around 50,000 auto-rickshaws in the tier 1 cities of India. Again in tier 2 cities, there are approx 15,000-30,000 auto rickshaws. The concept of the auto-aggregator is quite new in India. However many newbies, as well as leaders like Uber and Ola, have entered the autoaggregation sector.
Jugnoo was founded by Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal in 2014.
Jugnoo Founder- Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal | Success Story of Jugnoo
Samar Singla
Jugnoo co-founder, Samar Singla is an alumnus of IIT Delhi, graduating with a BTech degree in Physics. Before this company, Jugnoo, Samar also founded Click Labs. He also has been a researcher at the University of Maryland and IBM. Singa has also contributed as a scientist at CERN, Geneva. His mission is to change billions of lives with the help of technology. Samar is now the CEO of Jugnoo. Besides Jugnoo, Samar is also serving as the CEO of JungleWorks. Founded in 2015 by Samar Singla, JungleWorks provides a complete technology stack for businesses.
“We don’t want to compete with these gorillas (Uber and Ola). We are currently following the Cockroach approach: Our focus is on survival, not winning. Also, we focus on growing in spaces where there is no competition” – Samar Singla, CEO, Jugnoo.
Chinmay Agarwal
Jugnoo Ex-Co-founder and COO Chinmay Agarwal, is also from IIT Delhi. He pursued a Master’s in robotics from the University of Genoa and was a scientist at Smart Cane. He was also the Co-founder of Click Labs along with Samar. Chimay also has a patent of Methods and applications for altitude measurement and fusion of user context detection with elevation motion for personal navigation systems.
In the beginning, Jugnoo’s founders, Samar and Chinmay were unaware of the major influence they were about to make on the daily lives of the common commuters and the auto drivers. Initiated with a casual attitude, soon they realized the situation was way more challenging than anticipated.
Jugnoo is Samar’s third venture, after Prodigy Foods, which he exited in two years, and started SaaS technology solution provider Click Labs.
The company has 400+ employees currently. Samar stresses the need to keep the employees motivated. He feels talking to the employees, being transparent, and aligning with them for the long term is truly beneficial for the company.
Jugnoo – The Idea and Starting Up
Samar observed that the major issues in the auto transport network were the obstinately uncooperative attitude of the auto drivers, unavailability, and unreasonable charges. The idea was to tap the potential public transport medium in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, i.e., the auto-rickshaw, so the public can hail it by using the mobile app, and the auto drivers can save on the waiting time; a concept similar to the taxi services like Ola. Jugnoo auto app was introduced on all the major platforms in smartphones such as ios, Android, and Windows. Users can also book Jugnoo rides using Jugnoo’s Facebook bot.
Jugnoo – Name and Logo
Jugnoo means firefly. According to Samar, the word Jugnoo is related to nostalgia and happy memories. When people see a Jugnoo auto with a sticker of the brand, it becomes easier for them to remember the Jugnoo company. The name, thus, has a recall value.
Jugnoo Logo | Success Story of Jugnoo
Jugnoo – Business Model
Jugnoo has ventured into different businesses in both B2B and B2C segments. While it started operations in the B2C segment as an auto aggregator, Jugnoo also launched other B2C services like ‘Fatafat‘ and ‘Menus‘.
Jugnoo forayed into the B2B segment with, with B2B logistics service, ‘Jugnoo Delivery‘ and comprehensive routing solutions, ‘Flight Map‘
As regards the auto aggregator service, pricing for Jugnoo autos differs on a city-to-city basis. The strategy is to be the most affordable A-2-B transport option for the app users in that city. Some cities have a base fare + per km + per minute charge, some cities operate on meter fare. You can check the rates in different cities by downloading the app and searching for the cities. The fare is displayed in the bottom bar.
Jugnoo – Revenue Model
Jugnoo charges a commission back from the drivers. The commission rate is 10% of the ticket size in most cities. It runs a number of incentive schemes for the drivers, this again is based on the stage of maturity in a city and the engagement level of the drivers.
It is trying to build efficiency in the market where the final income of drivers through Jugnoo should increase to significantly more than what they were earning on the road and the customer gets a predictable and cost-effective medium of transport.
For food delivery, the company charges merchants a commission and pays the auto drivers for delivery.
In the initial days, Samar and Chinmay themselves met the auto drivers and explained the concept of the company. Convincing them to integrate technology into their routine work was quite a challenging task. Besides, for making the Jugnoo app familiar to the target customer, the app was launched at PECFEST of PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh. Also, free rides were provided to people in Chandigarh.
“The response was phenomenal and gave us the initial kick, to begin with” – recalls Samar.
Jugnoo – Marketing Campaigns
The marketing strategy of Jugnoo is simple; the company makes the customers and drivers its promoters. Jugnoo has tapped the dual capacity of home delivery and on-demand availability of public transport. The company is growing exponentially in major metros by forging a strategic alliance with partners that adds to its potential customer base.
Jugnoo also made a media presence by making Saumya Tondon, a well-known TV and films actress its face. According to Samar, Jugnoo has benefited a lot from word-of-mouth publicity. Jugnoo runs user referral programs and social media campaigns to attract new customers. The company has stayed in buzz with news like enrolling the first female auto driver, crossing 10k rides per day in Delhi NCR, backing series B funding even after the shutdown of Fatafat and Jugnoo Meals.
Jugnoo has raised a total of $16 million funding in 4 rounds from 8 investors. Funding details of Jugnoo are-
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
Apr 18, 2016
Series B
$10 million
Paytm
Jun 5, 2015
Series A
$5 million
Snow Leopard Technology Ventures
Apr 20, 2015
Seed Round
$ 1 million
–
Jan 20, 2015
Angel Round
–
–
Jugnoo – Growth
Since 2014, when Jugnoo has been founded, the company saw numerous milestones achieved with the passage of time. Here’s a glimpse of some of the prominent ones:
The company has completed 29 million rides to date
Jugnoo has footprints in over 120 Indian cities
The company boasts of having 8 million users
It now has over 0.1 million drivers onboard
Jugnoo – Challenges
In Samar’s words, the initial Jugnoo challenges, which could be attributed to the demography of the tier 2 locations, were the reluctance of the drivers to use the technology and to break the mental barriers of the customers and introduce new ideas.
The two other major hiccups in the otherwise seamless journey were Jugnoo Fatatfat, which did home delivery of custom orders from stores within the city to customers. It was launched in March 2015 with an idea of in cashing the auto network, however, it was shut down after being operational for eight months. Also, Jugnoo had to close down Jugnoo Meal in October 2015.
However, the company later re-launched Fatafat and launched Jugnoo menus. Team Jugnoo stands by the bumpy rides and says that they have chosen to be careful rather than keep investing in something which out returns us a loss. All this while they used less than half of their reservoirs and concentrated on growing as a lean and productive unit.
Jugnoo has a great market presence in the arena of Auto rickshaw aggregators competes with startups like mGaadi, TeleRickshaw and AUTOnCaB’s. However, the concept of Jugnoo is unique as it focuses only on auto rickshaw space.
Jugnoo is the only startup company in India to focus exclusively on auto-rickshaw space. Hence, our market is different and much bigger than the other players in the industry. Also, we are an aggregator in the true sense. We believe in leveraging existing supply rather than creating a new one.
Jugnoo – Partners
For expansion and enhance customer base Jugnoo tied up with a travel search engine called Ixigo, a personal assistant application by the name of Helpchat (Tapzo), a public transportation information mobile app Zophop, an app with meta-search platforms to compare modes of transport on the basis of price called Oye Taxi and Scoot.
The payment gateways like Paytm and Mobikwik have digitized payments for Jugnoo. Punjab National Bank and Piaggio provided the drivers with easy funding options. Collaborating with connoisseurs from the industry like Anand Prakash also made Jugnoo shine brighter.
Jugnoo – Acquisitions
Jugnoo has acquired three companies to date (November 2023). The company acquiredSabkuch Fresh, a logistics services firm that delivers groceries, and hence expanded its services to grocery and fresh meals, food delivery from a choice of restaurants, payments, and deliveries. It acquired Yelo previously in July 2015. In July 2016, the company acquired taxi aggregator BookMyCab, which operates in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad and is licensed to operate in Delhi.
In FY 2017-2018, Jugnoo’s revenue doubled to Rs 11.7 crore from Rs 5.14 crore in FY 2016-2017. While Jugnoo’s losses came down to Rs 16.34 crore in 2017-2018 from Rs 17.39 crore in 2016-2017.
Jugnoo – Achievements
Put together, some of the major achievements of Jugnoo are-
It established itself as the leading auto-rickshaw aggregator company of India, with around 40,000 people transacting per day.
The company has developed customer-centric services such as B2B deliveries, Food grocery, and meal delivery using auto-rickshaw, which is a unique business idea.
The startup has come up with the latest technologies like Jugnoo Bot which allows the customer to hail rickshaw from any platform, Flight map which aids the drivers in planning the routes to save time and fuel, a multi-lingual interface for drivers and AskLocal, a hyperlocal geo-location-based feature that helps users to stay connected and share content.
The company is constantly exploring new avenues. It has launched its services in diverse fields like 3D printing with Printo, end-to-end field force management solution Tookan, real-time customer support app – Fugu, workflow automation tool – Bumbl, and geo-analytics technology – Data Loops.
The company has been able to attract funding from biggies like Paytm and Snow Leopard Technology Ventures. Jugnoo raised a whopping $16 million in external funding.
It has more than 12000 autos registered with it.
The startup is operating across 120+ cities.
It has a registered user base of over 8 million.
In April 2018, the company started operations in Singapore, it had to close down in August 2018, owing to challenges it faced while recruiting drivers in Singapore. However, Jugnoo tied up with Singapore’s local aggregator app Kardi. It is providing technical expertise and engineering support to Kardi.
Jugnoo also affirms to have an international presence in Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka, Bermuda, Panama, Mombasa, Oman, Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, England, UAE, and the US.
Jugnoo – Conclusion
Undoubtedly, Jugnoo has improved the wage scenario for auto-rickshaw drivers as well. A Jugnoo driver earns about Rs 70-80 per trip on average. A dedicated driver earns up to 25k per month and this is possible by optimized usage of their time, live know-how of best paths they could take to reach the destination, and of course less bargaining.
Team Jugnoo does not favor perks and considers them as a sign of weakness of their business model. In India where approximately 30 million auto rides are taken and Jugnoo is currently involved in 0.1 % of it, hence there is a huge potential to be exploited. The startup aims to extend its services to the remotest corners of the country. Also soon it aims to become a major international player.
Jugnoo – FAQs
What is Jugnoo auto app?
Jugnoo is a Chandigarh-based e-taxi or ride-sharing platform that focuses on the aggregation and ride-sharing of auto-rickshaws.
Who are the founders of Jugnoo?
Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal are the founders of the Jugnoo app.
What is Jugnoo model?
Jugnoo works on a ride-hailing model that earns from the commissions of the rides through its app.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by SleepyPanda.
With the advent of young Indian players and big brands in the Indian Mattress industry, many customers have switched from traditional street-side shops and local ‘Bhaiyas’ to branded mattresses. It is undeniable that the organized sector is multiplying in India with rising demand for good quality mattresses by customers. One of the startups in this industry, SleepyPanda is here with its innovatively designed mattresses.
Founded by Ms. Monica Thakur, Mr. Suhas Masuti, and Mr. Veerendra Koujalagi, SleepyPanda is gearing to disrupt the bedding industry! Since its inception, SleepyPanda has been growing immensely, with 35 mattresses sold in the first week itself. The company targets to sell at least 1200 mattresses per month and secure 100 Cr sales by the end of FY21.
StartupTalky interviewed Ms. Monica Thakur, Founder & J.MD of SleepyPanda to get insights into the Startup Journey and Growth Story of SleepyPanda. Know all about SleepyPanda’s products, How SleepyPanda started, its history, future plans, founder, competitors & more in the article ahead.
SleepyPanda deals with the mattress and provides comfort at an affordable price. SleepyPanda kicked off in 2020 with a simple idea to improve peoples’ well-being through comfy sleep experiences.
The long-term vision of SleepyPanda – To get into the furniture business as well.
The short-term vision is to get the change in sleeping style from using traditional to modern mattresses.
The Core Belief of SleepyPanda – “People should get this Quality and comfort across pan India”
SleepyPanda – Mattress/Bedding Industry Details
SleepyPanda Industry -The bedding industry
Target market size- Age group 20 to 60 years pan India
Future Prospects of SleepyPanda in the next five years – In Top 5 best mattress brand
The memory foam bedding market is gearing for growth of more than INR 300 crore by 2022. Given the current scenario, memory foam is touted as an ‘In’ thing. Body pain and aches are appearing to be driving up the demand for memory foam. Who would have thought that our key working hours and day will be spent working on the bed? Sleep has never been more critical – and challenging – during periods of stress, fatigue, and untimely routines. Changing lifestyle and working patterns —are leading to create this new market for the startups. The bedding industry and mattresses as a category have welcome news for this industry.
The wave of technology has revolutionized the sleep industry. With huge expertise in coir, cotton, and foam, the unorganized sector has a significant role in the Indian mattress industry. The Indian mattress market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10 percent and is on route to attain a USD 2.5 Bn mark by the year 2022.
Reminiscing the start journey of SleepyPanda, Monica Thakur (Founder of SleepyPanda) says –
“We got into the mattress business because I didn’t like the people who do not believe in Modern mattresses. As with thought, my mother and other family members too were facing back pain issues due to traditional mattresses, thus there comes thought for purchasing a modern mattress and to experience the WOW feeling!
When I went with my mother to shop for a new mattress. This idea of having a business in the bedding industry came to my mind. We were still sleeping on the mattress that we had purchased 7 years back after shifting to a new house. I wanted to continue with the same but the issue is not 1 or 2 they were many hence we decided to get a new mattress. I personally felt I should not repeat the same mistake that we have done 7 years ago. So was hunting for a good mattress to solve the issue of my family because, Good sleep=Happy Family.
After experiencing the buying process, I felt, nothing had changed, and we were depressed. The stores were dull and unfriendly, the salespeople pushy, and showed 2 to 3 varieties of the mattress. Also, we felt awkward to have a trial at a store in front of people and were uncomfortable too.
The sales and prices were different in every store, so it was impossible to compare the shops, and I later learned that this is actually a confusing state for us. We came back with an empty hand and my mind full of business ideas with the bedding industry. Which would not just build a better mattress, it would totally change the mattress buying experience.
When I did not find my wow feeling I decided to give this to all the people across Pan India with just a single click. This idea of having a bedding industry came to my mind with the behind the scene story which was matching with other business partners too and we decided to get a life for Sleepypanda comforts Pvt Ltd. Through various google research, we found that comfortable sleep requirement is never-ending demand. Hence we started with this”
SleepyPanda – Products/Services
Sleepypanda Comforts Private Limited is the manufacturer and wholesaler of Vita Ortho Memory Foam Mattress, Mattress Protector, vita Ortho and Luna dual comfort Ortho mattresses, natural yoga mats (Samba, Darba, Banana), Sofa cum bed, memory foam, and microfiber pillows.
USP and How the Product Works
SleepyPanda helps you to get rid of sleepless nights. Its Vita Ortho memory mattress helps to get relief in Backache, Cool gel technology used in memory foam helps to maintain the body temperature as per the room temperature, 100 night trial period – if the customer doesn’t like the product then they can return it with full refund assured.
Indian consumers are still unaware of the necessity of a modern bedding space in today’s hectic and chaotic lifestyle. As a result, they continue to use traditional products, which not only fail to guarantee quality but are also highly overpriced. SleepyPanda endeavors to change this perception. The brand also provides 100-night trials of ortho mattresses so that consumers can make experience-based decisions after using them firsthand. Other added benefits include free shipping and a whopping 10-year warranty.
Monica Thakur, Suhas Masuti, and Veerendra Koujalagi are the founding team of SleepyPanda.
“We are Mutual friends and one day I informed them of the idea behind good sleep and everyone showed interest to start this brand” Monica added.
Stressing on SleepyPanda’s Work culture, Monica says – It is flexible. Employees are encouraged to work when they like and how they like it’s just that the work should be effective and completed in time.
SleepyPanda – Name Meaning and Logo
The significance of the name SleepyPanda – As pandas live half of their life in resting, enjoying, and sleeping, Panda was incorporated in the name and logo. The team wants users of its mattress to experience the same sleep as a panda with no worries.
SleepyPanda Logo
SleepyPanda – Growth
Since its inception, SleepyPanda has been growing immensely, with 35 mattresses sold in the first week itself. The company targets to sell at least 1200 mattresses per month and secure 100 Cr sales by the end of FY21. Although the brand is present in PAN-India, it majorly aims to cater to the South India market, including Bangalore, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, Telangana, Kerala, followed by Mumbai and Goa.
Further, it looks forward to becoming a thought leader in the modern bedding space by crafting high-quality products to address all consumer concerns, while also giving back to society through various CSR initiatives, and thus making a difference in the world, globally.
SleepyPanda – Business Model and Revenue Model
SleepyPanda’s business model is simple, B2C i.e, Business to Consumers. It is the process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers. SleepyPanda makes money by selling its products online.
SleepyPanda Revenue Model
SleepyPanda – Competitors
SleepyPanda’s top competitors are Wakefit, Sleepycat, Emma, flo Mattress, and Duroflex.
Few tools which SleepyPanda uses to run the startup – Google Analyticshelps SleepyPanda to track the traffic on its website and Freshdeskfor CRM ticketing tool.
SleepyPanda – Future Plans
SleepyPanda plans to add new technology depending upon the demand and requirement. “Once the bedding industry is set we will get into home furniture.” says Monica Thakur, Founder of SleepyPanda.
SleepyPanda – FAQs
What is SleepyPanda?
SleepyPanda deals with the mattress and provides comfort at an affordable price.
Who are the founders of SleepyPanda?
Monica Thakur, Suhas Masuti, and Veerendra Koujalagi are the founding team of SleepyPanda.
Is SleepyPanda an Indian Company?
Yes, SleepyPanda is an Indian company headquartered in Bangalore.
How SleepyPanda makes money?
SleepyPanda’s business model is simple, B2C i.e, Business to Consumers. it makes money by selling products online. Its products include – Vita Ortho Memory Foam Mattress, Mattress Protector, Microfibre Pillows, etc.,
When situations turned worse for most of us due to the Covid-19, and all of us were restricted to our homes with few hopes of breaking the chains and going out, EaseMyTrip managed to sail past the hurdles and made their stock market debut on March 8, 2021.
The journey wasn’t an easy swim on calm waters though!
Covid-19 has turned the tables for all of us and on almost all occasions, it has been for the worse. The period of the pandemic has seen everything including layoffs, pay cuts, dissolution, and liquidation but in the midst of all these horrors, EaseMyTrip, led by the brothers, Nishant Pitti, Rikant Pitti, and Prashant Pitti, launched its Rs 510 crores initial public offering (IPO).
After the co-founders diluted their 25 percent stake, they were set to issue shares worth Rs 510 crore. The company stated they were oversubscribed by 159 times, which put forth a demand of around Rs 44,881 crore. The total valuation of the company stood at Rs 2,040 crore during the IPO, as per the reports.
Prashant Pitti, one of the co-founders of the company made it clear that EaseMyTrip has never been a company that heavily stressed on marketing. “The company was profitable and growing. It felt like a good fit for the IPO”, added Prashant.
Each share was sold at Rs 187 during the IPO, which is now trading at Rs 230. The shares of EaseMyTrip have thus generated around 23% profit for investors within just two months.
EaseMyTrip was successful in making a business of Rs 4,204 crores in the previous financial year. The EBITDA of the company for FY20, as per Prashant, was Rs 49.8 crores, and that for nine months of the financial year 2021 was around Rs 43.4 crores. It was towards the end of 2020, in the month of December that the company’s overall cash or cash equivalent raised to Rs 208 crores from Rs 148 crores in March 2020.
According to Prashant, the company has listed 17 percent of the share amount above the premium, which is still consistent.
Why was this feat hard for EaseMyTrip to achieve?
EaseMyTrip is a company that drives its sales through its wide range of travel booking services including flight booking, booking of hotels, and processing visas. For a company that is based on the travel and tourism industry, the coronavirus pandemic was surely an uphill journey more than ever. However, according to the company, they have been frugal, curtailed a lot of things, went wise with several others, and aimed for the bigger goal to pull off such a feat!
EaseMyTrip Profit
How did EaseMyTrip manage to achieve this feat?
The growth that EaseMyTrip showed during the pandemic might seem unprecedented to most of us but it is simply a result of a lengthy effort for days, months, and years.
EaseMyTrip made a breakthrough in the market
EaseMyTrip, the brainchild of the Pitti brothers was started by the idea of helping people go about their travel bookings seamlessly and bringing parity to the whole booking process.
Back in those days people exceedingly relied on the booking agents to make their booking possible, and ultimately ended up paying more to them. In one such flight booking made by the father of the co-founders, the Pitti brothers discovered that their father paid more to the agent than the actual prices online. This incident led to the launch of EaseMyTrip in 2008.
The Delhi-based online travel agency initially aimed to ensure that the travel agents would receive the same prices and commissions as they did from the other similar booking websites.
Furthermore, they also ensured that the customers would also stay in this loop and would receive the same prices from the booking agents. Moreover, the team also wanted to build a software as a service program that would serve as an easy-to-use webapp that would make travel bookings hassle-free.
While the travel booking agents initially had to pump in some money with each airline to avail of the bookings, they received only around 3-4% commission. However, EaseMyTrip, on the other hand, came up with the idea of letting the travel agents book for any airlines against an initial deposit of Rs 50,000 and allowed a 5% commission on the same. This helped them effectively reduce their capital expenses and increase their profit margins.
Bootstrapping their way forward
As soon as EaseMyTrip was launched, the founders decided to raise money to start with their company, however, the market was found unfavorable soon after that. EaseMyTrip focused on a B2B market, which was something unique in the market that was already full of B2C companies like MakeMyTrip and Cleartrip. This well made EaseMyTrip a competitor to the already established online travel companies and also left bootstrapping as the only option left.
EaseMyTrip bootstrapped their business success as a B2B company, and soon entered the B2C market offering the facility to avail their services without any convenience fees.
Countering the Covid-19-induced adversities
Though EaseMyTrip was a running business well before the pandemic struck the markets, waddling through the pandemic was difficult for any business, and EaseMyTrip was not an exception. However, the company had to win over the situation anyhow, which they managed with the help of some laudable efforts from their end.
Rising up to the dizzying demands
As soon as the lockdown was announced, the government decided to resort to extreme restrictions on traveling, including a dead stop of both the railways and domestic and international air travel.
This resulted in multiplied call volumes. EaseMyTrip also had to abide by the work from home culture and resorted to WhatsApp messages to tackle the overflow of calls, which were then responded to by the executives one by one.
This not only boosted the goodwill of the company during these testing times but also helped in keeping things on a budget.
Early refunds policy
Deeming that the people are scared as well as scattered all across the country, EaseMyTrip decided to refund the money of their customers on a priority basis, even before the airlines refunded them their money.
This immediate refund policy was something really unique and positive responses came pouring in from all around the world in favor of EaseMyTrip all around the social media platforms, which further increased their reputation and added to their credibility.
Wise advertisement campaigns
As soon as EaseMyTrip absorbed the positive vibes, they thought it fit to come up with a unique advertisement campaign on social media, titled “Saath Laakh Crore ka Kharcha”.
The sole motive of the advertisement was to share the message that the Indians spent around Rs 7 lakh crores annually for their vacation. Therefore, they can easily avail of their bookings via EaseMyTrip, which is a 100% Indian company with huge benefits.
For this advertisement, EaseMyTrip had to reach out to 5-6 celebrities but the responses that the company received were overwhelming!
Discounts were curtailed
After the lockdown was lifted for the air travel, EaseMyTrip soon found out the pulse of the customers and discovered that they weren’t much concerned about the discounts and were only looking to make their trips possible. Therefore, the company reduced their discounts and managed to draw in the one percent commission that they received after negotiating heavily with the airline companies.
No pay cut policy
Payment deductions were on a rise with the COVID-19 and are always silent blemishes to a company. Therefore, EaseMyTrip ensured that they would not adopt such practices even if they had to shed some of their total strength. They reduced the total number of employees from 450 to 370 in the first wave of the coronavirus spread but they haven’t opted for any further reductions or pay cuts since then.
The Future Ahead for EaseMyTrip
“People travel for work, leisure, and to meet extended family. All this has stopped now, but it will restart”, going by the words of Sreedhar Prasad, Advisor, Analyst, ex-KPMG, and ex-Kalaari Capital.
Conclusion
The travel and tourism industry happens to be one of the worst affected industries post-Covid. However, the industry would soon rise and will be among the first set of booming industries.
FAQ
Who is the Founder of EaseMyTrip?
Nishant Pitti is the founder and CEO of EaseMyTrip, the company commenced its operation in 2008.
Is EaseMyTrip profitable?
According to a Motilal Oswal, EaseMyTrip is the only OTA in India to have a good net profit margin over the last three years.
Nowadays, most web designers use web design templates for their work. Though they might require some customization to meet your needs, web design templates offer numerous advantages. The website template can be customized to your requirements by changing the colors, pictures, and text so that it ends up looking quite different from the original. It also saves you a lot of time and is cost-efficient.
With a ready-made website template, you don’t have to imagine what the finished product will look like, whether the web developer you’ve chosen has understood your requirements, whether your website will have to go through several changes and iterations before you’re satisfied with the end-product.
Themesberg was created to bring quality code and templates together. They use unique and new design trends created solely by their team and innovate the process of developers by their products.
Themesberg offers both free and premium high-quality website themes, templates, and UI kits that web developers and companies can use to create beautiful websites and applications. They sell professional design and code to save time and money for clients.
The company’s short term goal is to expand the variety and number of themes to at least 50. They also seek to integrate their products into technologies such as React, Vue, Angular, and so on. Their long term goal is to surpass ThemeForest as the leading market shareholder for website themes and templates.
The core belief of the team is quality above quantity, respect for clients and partners, and growth no matter what. Based on these three principles, Themesberg became one of the fastest-growing websites in the industry market.
Themesberg – Target Market Size
The industry the startup currently targets is software development and design, particularly for web interfaces. The market size is huge and there is no real way of calculating it. A good indicator would be popular related websites such as Github which has almost 400 million unique users every month.
“I believe that the software development industry will continue expanding in the next few years and we will see new and better frameworks and technologies emerging that will help developers save time with boilerplate code and enable them to focus on building awesome features”, says Szőgyényi Zoltán, founder of Themesberg.
The inspiration came from the fact that there were not many high-quality themes and UI Kits out there. Excluding a few exceptions such as the products from Creative Tim, most web-based UI kits out there were disappointing. Also, the founders love building beautiful user interfaces and websites and it helps to do something that they are passionate about.
In terms of research and idea validation, they already knew there was a fully developed market for this just by looking at the traffic and sales of some of the best-performing companies in this industry, such as Envato, Creative Tim, and so on.
Themesberg was created out of passion and dedication for high-quality user interfaces and clean code. It is a project that is continuously in development and the co-founders are already working on ways to improve the experience of their users using the website and products.
“The people we most usually talk and listen to are first of all our clients, regardless of whether they have purchased something or not. We listen to their feedback and most of the time apply it to our vision. Themesberg is being molded by the direct demands of the market. Secondly, we closely work with our partners: Creative Tim and AppSeed.”, said Szőgyényi Zoltán.
Themesberg – Product/Services
Themesberg website is the platform where the company promotes, list, and makes its products available. The products there solve two big problems: development time and premium design. Using a theme from themesberg will save you a lot of time and money just by reducing your development time with boilerplate code while making sure you make use of one of the most well-designed user interfaces out there.
The startup’s main innovation is the quality of products and the fact that they list a lot more details for each product on Themesberg, such as the file structure, overview of all of the pages, and so on. Of course, innovation is something that is in the making. Next year from now you will probably see a lot more unique traits to its marketplace.
The co-founders never had an “initial product” idea. They just created a website listing their work, then step by step added new features and updates which started defining what Themesberg is today, namely the place to go to download and purchase high-quality website themes, templates, and UI kits in various front-end technologies.
Founders of Themesberg and team
Themesberg is founded by Szőgyényi Zoltán and Tanislav Robert.
Szőgyényi knew Robert since his university days back a few years ago. They wanted to start something together even then but they were just not ready in terms of knowledge and experience.
“One day he asked me some question about Javascript and he showed me his project that he was working on, which was called Pixel UI Kit. I really liked what I saw and I proposed to him to create a team together and take it to the next level.”, recalls Szőgyényi, co-founder of Themesberg.
Since then they created a website called Themesberg and currently, it has 10 free & premium products, over 2,000 registered web developers, and companies with a monthly growth of both traffic and sales.
Robert is the boss when it comes to design and product development and Szőgyényi is the guy who helps him with code development, marketing, and the general vision and strategy of the company. They make up a great team! Both the co-founders learned at the same university in information technology of West University from Timisoara, Romania.
The company size still consists of only the two co-founders but they are seeking to expand the team soon. They don’t have a well-defined work culture just yet, but they have a focus on quality rather than deadlines. Remote work is something that is integrated into their daily schedule as well.
Themesberg – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Themesberg Logo
The “berg” from Themesberg comes from the word “iceberg” which would indicate that the products not only look really nice, but that they also come with clean code, great customer support and the long term benefits you get by working with these themes.
Themesberg – Business Model and Revenue Model
Themesberg offers three types of licenses for each product: freelancer, company, and enterprise. All of them are carefully built to match the needs of each type of customer and business. Additionally, they offer a lot of free products as well which serve as a demo for their PRO themes.
The pricing range is between $49 and $999 for all its products and licenses. They only pay a small commission to their payment and tax processor called Paddle for each transaction.
The co-founders used everything they could. Social media, friends referral, Hacker News, Indiehackers, Product Hunt, Reddit, and so on. As months passed by, they launched new products and wrote high-quality content on their blog about web development and design, their traffic started to grow.
“One interesting thing is that our most searched keyword on Google is actually ‘Themesberg’. This means that people are highly likely to come back to our website when searching for website themes, templates, and UI kits. We’re also building a brand, not just backlinks!”, says Szőgyényi Zoltán.
The company also regularly launch open source projects on its official Github page and that helps it drive traffic to the main website and products.
Themesberg – User Acquisition
Partnering up with Creative Tim surely helped the duo drive some more interest towards Themesberg because they carefully select the partners they decide to work with. They even launched a joint project together with them called Impact Design System PRO which brings together the best of two worlds: front presentational pages and high-quality admin dashboard interfaces.
Other than that, Szőgyényi and Tanislav kept focusing on providing high-quality content, products and generally improving their marketing strategies and website. They haven’t really invested any money into advertising so most of the growth was organic. That may change in the near future.
The major challenge was reaching $1k monthly revenue. It’s really hard to do that with only a few products and a new website that doesn’t really have traffic.
“The first year was difficult and I believe the only thing that kept us moving was our passion and dedication to building high quality user interfaces and to make Themesberg the market leading website for the industry.”, said Szőgyényi Zoltán, co-founder of Themesberg.
One of their experiments that didn’t really work out was creating highly specific and niche website templates. The problem was that the market was not that big and the demand was low. So the duo slightly repurposed some of those templates and now they have a much better conversion rate.
Themesberg – Growth
The main headquarters of the company are in Timisoara, Western Romania. The monthly revenue is around $3-4k with a goal to reach at least $10k by the end of the year. The user base is over 2,000 web developers and companies. Market share is probably no more than 1% at this point.
Notable clients include developers from universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, and so on. The main partners are Creative Tim and AppSeed. Their website has been growing month by month and currently, it has around 40k unique visitors every month with a goal to reach 100k per month by the end of the year.
Themesberg hasn’t raised or is seeking to raise funds in the near future. They want to keep the current shareholders’ structure.
Themesberg – Advisors and Mentors
The company’s mentors are our clients, partners, families and friends.
Themesberg – Future Plans
Our plans for the next two years are to expand the product catalog and the variety of technologies we integrate them with. We will probably tap into the CMS market with offering WordPress themes at some point as well. For sure we want to reach around $40k monthly revenue and at least 400k monthly visitors for our website in the next 2 years – Szőgyényi Zoltán.
Themesberg – FAQs
What is Themesberg?
Themesberg offers both free and premium high-quality website themes, templates, and UI kits that web developers and companies can use to create beautiful websites and applications. They sell professional design and code to save time and money for clients.
Who is the founder of Themesberg?
The founders of Themesberg are Szőgyényi Zoltán and Tanislav Robert.
How was Themesberg Started?
Themesberg is a platform started in 2019 with the initial objective to become the best web template/theme and UI resource for developers and companies across.
Buyers usually search for vendors in popular business directories, which is why many small local business take the help of online directory service platformlike Justdial to be able to sell B2B products add get a free listing and grow their business online. This is helps the small businesses to sell directly to customers as these services offer mobile apps and attract huge traffic. While it is also free to list your business on Justdial.
The Mumbai based company runs an India specific local business listing platform Justdial and has expanded the scope of its B2C transaction based services by adding product e- commerce market place. Founded by V.S.S Mani in 1994, Just Dial is a local search firm that provides both B2C and B2B listings of small and medium businesses across the country.
It also provides services across multiple platforms, including the internet, phone, wireless and print. It counts Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and SAIF Partners as its investors. Just Dial becomes first large Indian listed firm with presence in product e-commerce business. Another small public listed firm is Intrasoft Technologies, which runs 123stores.
The firm had started what it called the Search Plus or transaction services where it allowed people to order food online from local restaurants and even book a doctor’s appointment and flight tickets and much more. With product e- commerce it is now entering a much wider market which can add to its revenue stream.
The company has added a shop online feature on the homepage where it lists products across several categories like mobile appliances, electronics besides a host of others including those that are put out by big e-commerce marketplace such as tiles, sanitary ware, bicycle, paints, etc. Since it is a market place it connect consumers to third party vendors and only acts as a platform linking the buyer and the seller while simultaneously facilitating transaction.
How Justdial helps local businesses through Justdial Search Plus
In the process it comes across as another hyper local e-commerce platform which links local shops to consumers online. This makes a sense for Justdial as it extends the offering by allowing those local sellers already listed on its platform to sell products.
However the consumer would absorb the Justdial offering given there are specialized e-commerce ventures that are doing a similar job with better UI/UX is something that would get to know as Justdial shares user statistics. Justdial also offers same day delivery for some products since Just Dial primarily leverages local sellers, it can actually cut down on delivery timelines.
The site claims some products like grocery and medicine ordered through its platform will be delivered in an hour while for some others like electronics, Just Dial says it offers a ‘7-hour express delivery’ for orders placed before 2 PM and the offer comes with Just Dial’s written guarantee along with manufacturer’s warranty & original invoice. Orders post 2 PM will be delivered in the next 24 hours.
In the day age, where innovation is considered to be an important asset for online business in order to beat competition and stay ahead in the market, the most well-known online classified player in India is going back to the basics to increase the growth of your business online.
Justdial has implemented plans to reinvent its newer offerings such as inventory management platform for sellers Justdial Omni its payment wallet Justdial Cash and Monetization of its advanced meta search cum marketplace offering Search Plus. The public company is looking to put all its energies behind reviving its core which is the search business and its listings model.
Justdial Omni
Justdial Omni is a premium service which is offered by Just Dial group as a business outsourcing tool. This online directory services platform was launched by Justdial Omni in 2016 in order to help small business manage their online and offline sales. It give you the option to outsource multiple task to JD and focus what is absolutely necessary for running of your business. You can sell multiple channels from one platform with the help of Justdial.
The Services Offered by Justdial Omni
Services Offered By Justdial Omni
Website – expand your market base by selling products on your very own website.
App – reach out to your tech savvy customers through a personalized Android app.
Justdial – sell your products on Justdial, anything, anytime, anywhere
In store billing – Justdial Omni delivers the most adaptable and advanced billing systems providing end to end customer service operations.
Other Marketplaces – make shopping easier for your customers by collaborating with e-commerce giants in the near future.
The activities that Justdial Omni provides
Another Set of Activities Justdial Omni
These are Optional premium services you can choose according to the need.
Centralized Inventory management
Advanced reports and analytics
Easy and quick bailing systems
Campaign and discount offers
Customers and suppliers records
Inquiries and lead management
Calendar and appointment scheduling
Website and mobile apps.
The Justdial Omni will be plug and play as it is cloud based solution which can be accessed over cell phone via a dashboard V.S.S Mani explains in the analyst call. The product will allow small businesses to manage their inventory, billing and third party logistics. The product will also allow businesses to integrate bar code and QR code systems. As enablers, we always think for our vendors and they would probably lose their market share to online players.
Just Dial has also come up with another way of helping businesses online with the help of Justdial Cash, which is a payments platform integration for its Search Plus suite of services. Just dial has also tied up with another existing mobile wallet service provider instead of applying for a prepaid payment instruments (PPI) license itself.
Justdial needs a wallet to operate Justdial Cash because it is a marketplace and not an eCommerce player that owns the inventory or services that customers were buying on its site. It is effectively operating a closed wallet which does not need a license. This helps customers and small local businesses online as, when customers buy from merchants and service provide via Justdial, it needs a semi closed prepaid payment instrument or a semi closed wallet.
Just Dial Limited is a company that provides local search for different services in India over the phone, website and mobile apps.
What does Justdial do?
It provides local search-related services to users across India through multiple platforms such as website, mobile website, Apps (Android, iOS, Windows), over the telephone and text (SMS).
How to add your business in just dial?
How to add business in just dial:-
You can either list add business to Justdial for free, or get a paid listing.
For a free listing, just go to www.justdial.com/Free-Listing and provide all the necessary details of your business.
For a paid listing, visit www.justdial.com/advertise and fill in the details and choose from the different packages provided by them.
What is Justdial revenue model?
Justdial works on collecting data and providing information to users through Phone, SMS, and the Internet. The company’s revenue model is of Premium subscription or listing of classified ads, Analytical reports, and Data selling to buyers. Initially, it used to work as a telephone directory-based model.
India is one of the fastest emerging startup ecosystem. The Indian technological landscape has seen a tremendous growth towards creation of innovative startups which has lead it to become the 3rdfastest growing hub for technology startups in the country. The current article analyses the India’s position as a global startup hub that is becoming attractive for investors startup, and corporates.
From having just a handful of tech companies to couple dozens and now thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem has grown immensely from the past decade. India now has 55,000 startups with more than 3200 startups raising $63 Billion in funding in the last five and half years alone.
The internet has helped paved the way for thousands of startups to rise over the past decade, address unique problems, transform entire industries and create new segments. With deep data insights to influence strategic decision making in governance, investments, growth, and other core aspects driving the Indian startup ecosystem.
Over the years the growth of startups has brought in more international investors and boosted their confidence towards India. Fundraising reported by SEBI registered ventured capital funds grew from Rs.326 Crore in 2014 to over Rs. 2,703 Crore in 2019 showing the increase which is up to 8 times more now. The share of actual capital raised to commitments in 2014 was 35% compared to 61% in 2019, indicating the growing investor interest towards investments opportunities in India.
The most beneficiary sectors are EdTech, fintech, online gaming and OTT, ecommerce and enterprise tech. But because of the covid 19 scenario in 2020, the total capital inflow in Indian startups expected to dip in 202 by as much as 36.2% compared to 2019 to reach $8.1 billion. The total capital inflow in Indian startups for the year 2020 is expected to be the lowest since 2017.
Indian’s Unicorn And Soonicorns
India only a single unicorn in 2012, but in 2016 the number increased 10. It is now the home to 34 well known Unicorns with a combined valuation of $115.5 billion, 52 Soonicorns with the potential to become unicorns by 2022. With an overall funding skyrocketing to $63 Billion from 2014 to 2020. In the past decade, India has shown a great appetite for technology, data and the internet.
Some of the popular unicorn companies in India
Excluding that India has 53 startups in India that have the potential to achieve $1 billion pus valuation by the end of 2022. Out of these numbers the fintech sector has 19 unicorn which is different from the unicorns where enterprise tech startups which have 7 unicorns
Infrastructure And Resources That Help The Startups Growth in India
India now has an estimated 100 plus startup incubators across the country, mostly housed in academic institutions; this number is likely to cross 300 by 2020. This means that there will be a startup incubator in every state, city and town in the country are enabling entrepreneurs to access resources and solve problems in their local areas. Next, we have Co- working spaces that are growing at an exponential rate and this helps entrepreneurs to have office spaces in their neighborhood.
Many states are coming up with policies in 2020, as the government at the central and state level have recognized the potential of startup as a driver for job creation and are hence enabling a better regulatory environment for starting up. The startup culture in India and other policies are looking at addressing the problems of B2C entrepreneur level.
NITI Aayog is in the process of making the necessary infrastructure and resources available through the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). AIM is adopting a more B2B approach by supporting in the scale up of the existing incubators such as NSRCEL, C-CAMP etc.
The Main Hubs of Indian Startups
In 2020, Bengaluru the silicon valley of India is still the startup capital of the country with a total funding amount of $28 Billion across 1,876 deals 2014 to 2020. It’s the startup hub in India for startups. In addition to that the other top hubs are Delhi and Mumbai, while the emerging hubs are Pune and Hyderabad as they have recorded an annual growth rate of 45% and 37% respectively.
Top startup hubs in India as of 2020
In the tier segment Jaipur and Goa have outperformed cities like Hyderabad and have earned their spot in top 10 startup hubs as of 2020 based on the number of funding deals.
The Indian Investor Landscape
From just a handful of investors and a few startups to over 49 thousand startups and over 2,000 Indian and International investors, the startup ecosystem have come a long way in past five years. The International investors now routinely come to India to invest in the burgeoning tech ecosystem. The frequency of participation by the existing investor is on the rise.
The total count of unique investors every year
Many corporations have played a major role in the funding trends, according to Datalabs by Inc42 analysis, 2019 was not one of the good year for venture capitalist. In 2020 however, there are approximately 4,640 active investors in India. Among these 59% (2,751) are angel investors and about 18.3% (849) are venture capital firms. Overall there is a downward trend in terms of unique investor’s participation similar to what has been observed in 2019.
Fintech Boom
The fintech sector continues to grow at rapid speed. Paytm can easily be called a pioneer in fintech as at gave the power of choice and how to spend to people who never had wallets or bank accounts. Following the success of Paytm, many other wallet companies have shown promise. We believe this sector will continue to attract investors’ interest in 2019 as the business ideas in fintech.
The Growth of Innovation in India
The interim budget conveyed the message that India youth should constantly innovate to drive the country growth. Towards this end, the government has pushed for the use of digital technologies through initiatives such as the National Program on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the establishment of nine centers of technological excellence.
While the first decade of 21st century was all about bringing India’s cities and metros online, the past ten years have been about using the internet to create businesses and startups and take the digital torch to rural India. India is today the home to world’s largest working population and startups are expected to take full advantage of this in the next five years.
The country has more than 500 million internet users. Which is why we can expect an active implementation of block chain, AI, IoT and data analytics across multiple technology sectors. For example the IoT in India has reached $15 billion by 2020. It will account for approximately 5% of the total global market. On the other hand, AI is predicted to become as big as $ 15.6 trillion by 2030.
Nevertheless, 2025, the number of startups in India is expected to cross 100K, creating more than 3.25 Million jobs in the process. At the same time, the total funding in Indian startups is likely to increase to over $150 Billion and with the total value creation exceeding $500 Bn. Once the medium and long-term pandemic impact subsides, there’s no stopping Indian startups.
A startup ecosystem is formed by people, startups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location (physical or virtual), interacting as a system to create and scale new startup companies.
What is entrepreneurial ecosystem?
Entrepreneurial ecosystems or entrepreneurship ecosystems are peculiar systems of interdependent actors and relations directly or indirectly supporting the creation and growth of new ventures.
What makes a good ecosystem?
A healthy ecosystem consists of native plant and animal populations interacting in balance with each other and nonliving things, for example, water and rocks.
The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
SnapBizz, headquartered in Bengaluru, provides new age solutions to convert the neighbourhood Kirana stores into smart stores with a host of features to enable the store owner to leverage on latter’s current strengths to gain a competitive edge and increase store profitability.
SnapBizz has helped kirana/ grocery store owners in cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and New Delhi deploy its digital technology-led solutions for running their retail stores. The company has set its eye on digitising over 100,000 kirana stores over the next 18 to 24 months.
Snapbizz transform traditional Kirana stores into virtual supermarkets and give them a competitive edge in the current environment to make them far more profitable.
It is the result of extensive market research and pilot studies done to understand the pain points and key challenges of the consumer goods ecosystem stakeholders (consumer, retailer, distributor, and brand). This has led to the development of a unique disruptive product that delivers material measurable value to each of the stakeholders.
It is driven by a highly experienced team with a proven track record in delivering measurable value both developing and developed markets through successful business models and product innovations. A highly passionate team with in-depth domain expertise and track record in prior start-ups, value creation and successful exits across Retail, FMCG, Telecom and wireless technologies.
Snapbizz creates a social impact by:
Reversing marginalization for SMB’s retailers
Driving digital inclusion in a large section of India’s workforce
Skilling the bottom of the retail pyramid
And, there Driving last mile connectivity by connecting kirana stores to consumers and other ecosystem players like:
FMCG brands and distributors
Cash and carry chains
Research and marketing agencies
Fintech players
Snapbizz- Founder
Snapbizz is founded by Mr. Prem Kumar.
Prem Kumar is an industry veteran with over 30+ years of experience in Retail, FMCG,Telecom, and Technology across developed markets like US and Europe and emerging markets like India, Eastern Europe, China and Africa. In India, he has worked the length and breadth of the country in the FMCG industry and has held leadership roles in companies like Lakme Lever, Benckiser, and SC Johnson.
He has been a part of the founding team that built one of the largest retail chains in Eastern Europe. Currently, he is the founder and CEO of SnapBizz which is India’s largest network of kirana stores – a platform that empowers the kirana store owners to leverage their strengths and gain competitive edge in the current changing landscape. Having worked very closely with small merchants across different countries, he is extremely passionate about helping them to be more successful and profitable.
He has been the voice of the kirana stores to represent their best interest across national and international platforms. Infact, he has been celebrating the kirana stores during the Covid times as the unsung heroes who are in the forefront of serving the country’s large population.
Snapbizz- Name, Logo and Tagline
SNAPBIZZ brings to you a “Smart” Billing Solution especially made for kirana/grocery stores. Perform everyday operations easily and much faster. The tagline: “THE RETAIL BOOSTER” goes perfect with ample amount of support they are currently providing to grocery stores across major cities.
Its logo goes with a ‘bar-code’; which is pretty obvious because Snapbizz software is a GST billing software that can be customized to fit your business needs and enables users to attain higher performance.
How Snapbizz started?
The SnapBizz journey began with Qualcomm conducting a pilot in India to introduce wireless technology into the fragmented retail sector. Given the success of the pilot, they were on the lookout for an entrepreneur who had the experience of building a company in the space. Having seen Mr. Prem Kumar’s work with CisLink, an integrated data system derived company, they reached out to him and SnapBizz was born with Qualcomm being their first investor.
Snapbizz- Vision
Snapbizz’s vision is to develop a mobile technology platform connecting all stakeholders of a fragmented retail market ecosystem while adding value to individual stakeholders.
SnapBizz is the result of extensive market research and pilot studies done to understand the pain points and key challenges of the consumer goods ecosystem stakeholders (consumer, retailer, distributor, and brand). This has led to the development of a unique disruptive product that delivers material measurable value to each of the stakeholders.
It is driven by a highly experienced team with a proven track record in delivering measurable value both developing and developed markets through successful business models and product innovations. A highly passionate team with in-depth domain expertise and track record in prior start-ups, value creation and successful exits across Retail, FMCG, Telecom and wireless technologies.
SnapBizz has a range of solutions solutions/apps which allows the kirana stores to carry out the store operations efficiently and effectively. It provides the store owners with their very own consumer app to acquire new customers and service their customers better. Its solutions integrates the kirana stores (via cloud) with FMCG brands, distributors, wholesalers, financial service players and E-commerce players (B2B and B2C) thereby enabling the store owners to get more promotions, better pricing, wider access to assortment, reduce working capital requirements and access to financial services. SnapBizz has had a massive impact on the society – particularly in the following areas:
Digital and financial inclusion of kirana store owners
Reversing marginalization of kirana stores
Skilling people at the bottom of the pyramid
Snapbizz – Business Model and Revenue Model
SnapBizz has developed a unique technology solution for Kirana stores that transforms it into a smart store with the help of a few plug and play options. It has positioned its product as a “money-making machine” for kirana stores as it helps the store owners to improve their profitably. The solutions come with a host of features (back by AI and ML) to help the kirana stores compete with the larger supermarket chains from an intelligence standpoint. The easy-to-use solutions to manage and optimize store operations include:
Point of Sales Solutions:
Based on the business volumes/size of the kirana stores, it has a range of solutions/apps that enables the store owners to digitize all aspects of store operations – billing, customer management, inventory management, online ordering of supplies, create virtual merchandising space, take the store online and cloud-connect them to all the stakeholders of the eco-system to get better promotions/discounts from brands and suppliers
A mobile app that enables Kirana stores of all sizes to go online with their supplies instantly. The consumers can use the app to place orders directly with the Kirana stores – either for pick-up or for home delivery. This enables the Kirana store to manage demand efficiently and prevent over-crowding at the store – particularly during the lockdown period
SnapBizz enables the kirana store owners to focus on their weak areas (Store experience, Offers, Freshly stocked produce) and compete against the bigger ecommerce/big-box players.
Variables that is important to consumers
Customer Satisfaction at Kirana Stores before Snapbizz Deployment
Customer satisfaction at Kirana stores after SnapBizz deployment
Store Experience
LOW
HIGH
Proximity (from House)
HIGH
LOW
Pricing/Offers
LOW
HIGH
Convenient payment options (providing credit)
HIGH
LOW
Freshly Stocked Products
MEDIUM
HIGH
Familiarity with Store Owner
HIGH
HIGH
Sanpbizz- Startup Launch
The Smart Kirana store once cloud-connected presents real-time access to the various stakeholders of the FMCG ecosystem including brands, wholesalers, distributors, advertising agencies, e-commerce (B2B/B2C) players and financial service players. The cloud platform allows FMCG stakeholders to access valuable data on various facets of the FMCG supply chain. The data not only gives them a birds eye views of the sector nationally and by geography but also helps them build meaningful relationships with the Kirana store owners basis demand and supply.
FMCG Brands: SnapBizz retail analytics solution enables them to track the performance of their brand SKUs, competition and that of the category. It also allows them to engage consumers visually and contextually, run targeted promotions, overcome supply chain and assortment challenges and furthermore avoid stock-out situations.
E-commerce players: SnapBizz platform offers them an opportunity to leverage the hyper-local assortment demands, understand inventory and delivery capabilities of the Kirana store so that they can service their consumers efficiently and scale-up operations.
Wholesalers/Distributors: SnapBizz platform enables them to increase share of wallet in the store and garner insights on what they are missing out on selling to the stores.
Finserve players: SnapBizz platform gives them access to reach out and engage the Kirana stores with financial service products while continuously monitoring the financial health of the store.
In the past one month, SnapBizz has launched new solutions that enables these FMCG stakeholders to address the immediate the challenges associated with the lockdown:
SnapSupply: A mobile app that enables FMCG brands/distributors to list their supplies online for their Kirana store network and enables the latter to place orders. This technology solution enables its large workforce to focus more on addressing the prevailing supply chain challenges than on order generation-related operations
SnapPulse: This retail analytics solution enables the FMCG brands to track the performance of the products, competition and that of the category on a weekly and monthly basis. The data is collected from the SnapBizz network of stores across the country and the insights are shared by the subject matters experts/ data scientists working in SnapBizz regularly.
SnapTek: SnapTek enables accelerated technology migration for all FMCG stakeholders with services likes white-label applications, tech consultations, etc.
Snapbizz- Funding And Investors
SnapBizz’s current investors include marquee VCs such as Jungle Ventures, Taurus, Blume Ventures and strategic investors such as Nielsen, Qualcomm, AUO and Mr. Ratan Tata and has raised in excess of USD 14 million over Seed and Series A rounds .
SnapBizz’s top 7 competitors are BeWo, EasyPOS, Eretail Cybertech, Nukkad Shops, Getpose, Vend and Hike POS. Together they have raised over 58.6M between their estimated 449 employees. BeWo is the top competitor of SnapBizz.
Snapbizz – Growth/ Revenue
SnapBizz currently has a network of 10 000+ kirana storesacross 7 major cities across India that collectively do a business (GMV) of approx. of $1 Billion/year. Given its successful inroads into major cities, the company was on its way to build a network of 50,000-60,000 Class A stores and 1,50,000 -2,00,000 Class B/C stores across 42 cities in the next couple of years – and becoming a $ 21Bn platform.
However, given its increasing relevance due to the lockdown (where most grocery fulfilment is being done by kirana stores), the company is now on its way to achieve that target much earlier.
Snapbizz – Future Plans
Given its increasing relevance in the space due to the current circumstances, SnapBizz is on a fast-track mode to build a network of 150,000 stores across 42 cities and becoming a $ 15 billion platform.
