StartupTalky

Tag: bangalore startups

  • Colangels – Connecting you with right people

    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 the organization it is based on.

    Note: This Startup has been shut.

    We hardly know any startup who has aggregated the needs of the startup community & tried to solve the problem through technology. Most of them have been doing individually or a very small part of it; some with tech & some without tech.  Colangels is a tech platform to simplify and bolster the footings across all verticals for startups to synergise with mentors, budding talent, aggregating co-working spaces and investors for angel and crowdfunding investments.

    Know more about Colangels Company Profile, Founders, Revenue Model, Growth, Competitors etc.,

    Colangels – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Colangels
    Founders Simran Chhabra, Shruti Kaur
    Founding Year June 2018
    Sector Recruitment/HR
    Headquarter Bangalore

    Colangels – About
    Colangels – Vision and Mission
    Colangels – Founders and Team
    Colangels – Idea
    Colangels – Name and Logo
    Colangels – Product/Service
    Colangels – Revenue Model
    Colangels – Customer Acquisition
    Colangels – Startup Challenges
    Colangels – Growth
    Colangels – Building Work Culture
    Colangels – Funding
    Colangels – Advisors and Mentors
    Colangels – Competitors
    Colangels – Recognition
    Colangels – Mentors/Investors
    Colangels – Partners
    Colangels – Technology Stack /Tools / Softwares
    Advice for candidates who aspires to join Colangels
    Colangels – Future Plans

    Colangels – About

    Colangels is a tech platform to simplify and bolster the footings across all verticals for startups to synergise with mentors, budding talent, aggregating co-working spaces and investors for angel and crowdfunding investments.

    It provides a network where startups and entrepreneurs can meet mentors/investors and raise funds. The platform also helps in raising funds through crowdfunding and helps startups to find and hire people for their companies

    Colangels – Vision and Mission

    Colangels wants to become an epitome of the startup industry by helping startups scale up exponentially by connecting them with Mentors, hiring talent, doing alliances, etc.

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    Colangels – Founders and Team

    Co-Founders of Colangels are Simran Chhabra and Shruti Kaur. Later, they roped in family and friends, Shruti’s husband Aman Singh, and Aman’s friend Prateek Lamechwal in the team.

    Colangels - Founders and Team
    Colangels Team

    Shruti Kaur

    Shruti hails from Ranchi and has been predominantly into teaching. It is rightly said “A teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others”; and that’s what the Shruti believes in and thus came up with the idea of Colangels. Shruti has done her MBA & B.ed. from Ranchi University. She leads growth at Colangels.

    Simran Chhabra

    Simran has done her MBA from Amity University & was into recruitments before starting Colangels. She leads recruitment at Colangels. She believes in starting small but doing something which is scalable & provides an extraordinary experience to the users.

    Aman Singh

    Aman did his grads from BIT, Mesra & a post-graduate diploma from Stanford University, United States. He has been working in the e-commerce, retail, recruitment industry since last 7+ years.

    Prateek Lamechwal

    Prateek did his graduation from Jain College, Bangalore & has been handling family business since then. He is a fitness enthusiast and is a certified sports nutritionist apart from being a part of Colangels.

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    Colangels – Idea

    The idea struck Simran during her stint with her first job at Beam Commerce wherein she was looking to do an alliance with Flipkart but did not know whom to reach out to. She connected with a couple of category managers but that did not help. Reaching out to the right person became a big problem. So, she thought of a platform where anyone can reach out directly to the Alliances head/Co-founder of the company easily.

    Colangels, if broken into words, defines the objective, the target audience & the vision behind it. (the characters below in the words in uppercase are from the name of the startup)

    Colangels Logo

    COLlaborate with COmpanies & COLleges in a way so that they GEL with each other for mutual growth & end up becoming an ANGEL for the start-up community. The logo shows a hand in hand, showing collaborations or working together and helping each other grow.

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    Colangels – Product/Service

    Colangels provides an ease to reach out to the investors globally across Industries to help entrepreneurs validate/scale up their idea. This can be done just by sending them the elevator pitch at the press of a button.

    Colangels Product

    Along with this, Colangels also tries to connect founders with the right mentors. We always came across multiple websites which showcase the name of mentors but it has always been at the jurisdiction of that website if they would be connecting us to a mentor which ideally flushes out some of the great ideas which startup founders have. The platform doesn’t charge anything for connecting entrepreneurs with mentors or investors.

    Colanagels can help your startup grow fast by connecting you with the right person or co-founder for alliances and partnership with a top organisation. It does a 5-step verification at the background to make sure the message reaches out to the right person.

    Changes are bound to happen in any product or service that is how the best products are made. So, Colangels keeps on implying changes to give the best product to our consumers. (They are currently at an early growth stage where the beta version of the platform is already live.)

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    Colangels – Revenue Model

    A major source of revenue for Colangels is hiring done through the platform for Internships & Jobs. The company counts Alibaba, Amazon, Chaayos, Flipkart, ShopX, Unicommerce, Roposo, Urban Ladder, Instamojo, Milkbasket, etc. as their clients.

    Colangels – Customer Acquisition

    Colangels mainly helps startups connect with mentors, potential talent, aggregating co-working spaces, investors for angel & crowdfunding investments. So the main target audience is:

    • Working Professionals looking for Jobs & Networking
    • Mentors
    • College students looking for Jobs, Internships & to connect with Mentors
    • Startups looking to hire professionals for Job & internship

    Initial customer acquisition was through references & prior work experience.

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    Colangels – Startup Challenges

    It was difficult to ask for time from Industry specialists (CEO’s/CXO’s, etc.) who can be potential mentors on the platform, but once they helped them understand the model & the difference the platform can bring in the startup ecosystem; most of them agreed to be a part of it.

    Colangels – Growth

    Until December’18 the platform had 10,000+ users in less than 6 months. The company is looking to gain traction of 100,000 users in next 6 months & 1 Million+ users by end of 2020. Colangels is currently operational in Bangalore & Gurgaon. However, they have plans to entering Mumbai as a location in the next couple of months.

    Colangels – Building Work Culture

    In the interview with StartupTalky, Simran said that they believe in flat hierarchies and everyone in the organization is very much approachable at any given point in time.

    It is important to have fun at work without compromising on the organizational goals. We also have an offshore every year to a location where the entire team works for a week & parties together.

    Colangels – Funding

    As of October 2020, the company is bootstrapped.

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    Colangels – Advisors and Mentors

    A lot of people from the hiring and e-commerce space have advised Colangels. Most of them were friends and were connected beforehand with the founders. In a way, all the advice taken was unofficial. No official mentor was reached out especially for advice or mentoring purposes.

    Colangels – Competitors

    Colangels doesn’t directly compete with any single organisation. There are multiple platforms for hiring like Linkedin, iimjobs, Naukri, etc. but the closest would be AngelList. However, Colangels differentiates itself from Angellist as Angellist doesn’t connect you with mentors.

    Colangels – Future Plans

    The company is expecting to reach to 1 Lakh users in the coming months. By the end of 2020 it is looking at a user base of a million users.

    Colangels plans to go global in mid-2019 when they enter SEA & that’s when they will take Indian talent from tier-1 colleges to SEA for internships & full-time placements as there is a massive increase in demand for Indian talent.

    Colangels – Recognition

    Colangels has officially been affiliated to the Jharkhand government and would be helping startups in the state grow exponentially. In fact, IAS Sunil Burnwal (Industries Secretary, Jharkhand Govt.) quoted, “This is one of the finest & promising tech platforms I have come across in the country”.

    Colangels – Mentors/Investors

    Colangels counts following as their mentors:

    • Ankit Khandelwal (COO, Unicommerce)
    • Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Founder, PayTM)
    • Nitin Jain (Co-founder, OfBusiness)
    • Bhavna Agarwal (CEO, NDTV Gadgets360)
    • Sahil Barua (CEO, Delhivery)
    • Narinder Singh (MD, Numero Uno)

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    Colangels – Partners

    Colangels has an official partnership with Internshala which enables them to inculcate growing startups hire the best of interns across different verticals.

    Colangels – Technology Stack /Tools / Softwares

    The company uses a variety of services, tools and programming languages to make up its core infrastructure. At the front end, their servers run a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) stack with Memcache.

    Advice for candidates who aspires to join Colangels

    In an interview with StartupTalky, Colangels founder Shruti kaur said that

    We hire both interns and full-time employees across verticals. We look for a candidate who is full of confidence, energy, has knowledge about their field, has great communication and entrepreneurial skills, is high on enthusiasm and is always open to learning.

  • Corefactors – Helping Businesses to Boost Revenue With Teleduce

    Marketing and sales are the lifelines of any business. Managing and converting leads through appropriate campaigns and communications is equally important for a startup, an SME or an established large scale business.  Various sales and marketing automation tools are coming up for simplifying the process of lead management, lead conversion, customer management and various sales and marketing related tasks.  

    However, it is seen that a business has to use various software for managing all these tasks. Corefactors, a Bangalore based startup is making sales and marketing easier through Teleduce – which provides a seamless experience from Lead generation to lead conversion to customer retention to customer support.

    Startup Name Corefactors Software
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Founders Sharmila Sundaram & Vimal M
    Sector Sales and Marketing Software
    Founded 2013
    Parent Organization Adnaks Marketing Solution Pvt. Ltd.

    About Corefactors
    Sales and Marketing Software Industry
    Founders of Corefactors and Team
    How was Corefactors Started?
    What is Corefactors?
    Corefactors – Revenue Model
    Corefactors – User Acquisition
    Corefactors – Funding and Investors
    Corefactors – Startup Challenges
    Corefactors – Competitors
    Corefactors – Growth
    Corefactors – Awards
    Corefactors – Future Plans

    About Corefactors

    Corefactors is a leading campaign management, business communication and analytics company. It’s platform offers Mobile Marketing, Lead Management, Business Communication and Communication analytics features.

    Corefactors was founded in 2013, with the mission to design user-friendly and efficient marketing, sales and communication solutions that helps small and medium businesses to generate the best possible revenue faster.

    This Bangalore based startup envisions to become India’s no 1 ISM (Integrated Sales and Marketing software) by on-boarding 5000 businesses by 2022 and to become available across the world serving 50000 businesses by 2030.

    Sales and Marketing Software Industry

    As per Gartners and Datanyze report 2018, SaaS CRM market in India is valued at $462 million. While the global market for SaaS CRM is $42.1 billion. Again for marketing platforms, the market size is $500 million in India and $7.63 billion globally.

    Saas Market Indian and the World - Corefactors | Teleduce
    Saas Market Indian and the World

    Founders of Corefactors and Team

    Sharmila Sundaram and Vimal M are the founders of Corefactors.  

    Sharmila Sundaram is a computer science graduate. She does customer acquisition and handles large key accounts in Corefactors.

    Vimal M joined  Sharmila in 2013 through a mutual friend. He is an Engineering graduate and an MBA. In Corefactors Vimal is responsible for managing business development, customer support and finance functions.

    Karthikeyan, Jithin and Nagarjunan are key technical guys who built the product from scratch with the help of Senthil Basuva Raj and Siva Subramanian. Corefactors has a team of 25 members.

    Corefactors work culture is centered on ownership, decision making and responsibility. Team members are given opportunities to take responsibility and make decisions. Besides, there is no defined leave policies in the company, which gives a sense of freedom to the employees and help them achieve work-life balance.

    How was Corefactors Started?

    The idea of designing Teleduce came to the Corefactors team, while Corefactors was operating as a marketing software reselling company. They noticed that many businesses faced problem in using the marketing software, which inspired the Corefactors team to design something which could help the businesses to generate more revenue faster.

    Way back in 2013, we were reselling marketing software products. We were working with more around 50 customers in 8 months. During the journey, we found many businesses were struggling to use the product and were still not able to generate revenue. We got the spark in 2014 and started building the product Teleduce with the help of the customers whom we worked with. The name of the product- Teleduce was coined by one of our friend Mr Hari.

    Corefactors was working with educational institutions, real estate, spa and saloon and health care industries. Corefactors was working with Finance, Educational institutions, Real estate, spa and salon, Healthcare and more. Many customers supported Corefactors team in designing Teleduce by sharing their business problems, how they work and provided feedback on the product periodically.

    Corefactors Logo - Corefactors | Teleduce
    Corefactors Logo

    What is Corefactors?

    Corefactors offers Integrated marketing, sales and business communication services. The product offered by Corefactors is Teleduce- a cross-functional sales and marketing software with integrated communication and CRM automation capabilities.

    Teleduce integrates the functionality of a CRM with a lead, cloud telephony and campaign manager. It offers a unified digital dashboard for lead tracking, multi-channel communication, sales automation, marketing automation, and marketing analytics.

    Some features of Teleduce are–

    • List Manager – to sort and categorize contacts for efficient follow-up.
    • Content manager to Design email & landing pages using intuitive drag and drop designer. Store images, documents, audio, video, email templates, SMS text, etc and use across platform.
    • Multi-channel marketing allows marketers to market products through SMS, Voice Calls, Emails, Missed calls, Landing Pages and Social media.
    • Telecalling campaigns– helps in running and tracing telecalling campaigns.
    • Lead Box – to manage, score and convert leads
    • Inbuilt cloud phone for all  inbound and outbound communication
    • Unified Dashboard for Marketing Campaigns, Business communication and Lead Management
    • Analytics platform to monitor, track, and analyze sales data, ROI, etc.
    • Customer success Manager- It helps to increase the attrition and reduce the retention rate.
    Teleduce By Corefactors
    Teleduce – Integrated sales and marketing software.

    Teleduce works for any company offering all products and services. Send Emails, SMS messages, Voice Calls, Social Media Campaigns and more online. Get the most out of your resources and manage leads across multiple channels. Our USP is one platform, integrated, data-centric, flexible and eventually generate results.

    Corefactors – Revenue Model

    Corefactors’ product, Teleduce is priced per user per month. The company  has 3 different packages as per the business needs.

    • Seed Plan- Rs 700/user/month
    • Sapling Plan- Rs 1200/user/month
    • Tree Plan- Rs 2500/user/month

    Corefactors – User Acquisition

    Corefactors has not spent much on paid marketing. From 2013 to 2015, the only paid marketing channel that Corefactors used was Justdial. Thus the company acquired its first 100 customers only through referrals and JustDial.

    Corefactors – Funding and Investors

    Corefactors has raised 2 rounds of seed funding till date.

    Funding Date Funding Stage Funding Amount Investors
    2016 Seed Undisclosed FHS
    February 19,2018 Seed Undisclosed Ah!Ventures

    Corefactors – Startup Challenges

    As said by Sharmila, scalability of the product was a key challenge that Corefactors initially faced. In marketing space, mass reachability & personalization is a primary need and product should support that. Corefactors initially had glitches in handling large campaigns.

    We learned on the go, leveraged cloud solutions like AWS and Azure, built scalable solutions. Today we handle billion reach every day.

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    Corefactors – Competitors

    Some of the main competitors of Corefactors are Zoho, Leadsquared, Insightly, Sugar CRM, Pipedrive, Rsoft, Kayako, Archiz, HappyFox and Desk.

    One platform, integrated, data-centric, user experience and transparency are some of the USPs of Corefactors that differentiate it from the competitors.

    Corefactors team believes that benchmarking itself against its competitors and sometimes also with itself keeps them motivated to do better.

    We benchmark ourselves on different parameters with different competitors and also we benchmark ourselves over time. We took benchmarking seriously and become better every day.

    Corefactors – Growth

    Corefactors started earning profit since 2015, i.e 2 years from its inception. Currently the company is witnessing a steady growth. Some of the achievements of the company are-

    • Steady growth of 25% YoY.
    • Currently, Corefactors is serving 450+ customers and around 2000 users.
    • Product usability score of Corefactors’ Teleduce is 72.
    • The company is working with reputed FMCG stalwarts like Pidilite, IFB, Godrej, banking businesses which includes, Ujjivan bank, Fincare bank, finance businesses like Finzy, Loanyantra, RupeeCircle, Omlp2p, real estate companies like Godrej, Brigade Group and Health care companies like Vmedo, Pristine hospital, Manipal Hospital and more.

    Corefactors – Awards

    Corefactors efforts towards simplifying the process of sales and marketing have been recognized by various organizations. Corefactors has received the following awards-

    • CIO 20 Most Promising Marketing Technology Companies 2016
    • KPMG Hot 100 race to grace Award 2017
    • Software suggest awarded Teleduce as best marketing and communication product 2018

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    Corefactors – Future Plans

    In the year 2019-20, Corefactors has plans to expand in Tier I cities in India and serve international markets like USA and the Middle-east countries.

    Serving customers with empathy is our key strategy. We support them for their success. We strongly believe that, if our customers are successful, we will succeed.

    Corefactors – FAQs

    When was Corefactors founded?

    Corefactors was founded in 2013, with the mission to design user-friendly and efficient marketing, sales and communication solutions that helps small and medium businesses to generate the best possible revenue faster.

    What is Corefactors?

    Corefactors is a lading campaign management, business communication and analytics company. It’s platform offers Mobile Marketing, Lead Management, Business Communication and Communication analytics features.

    Who are the founders of Corefactors?

    Sharmila Sundaram and Vimal M are the founders of Corefactors.  

    What is Teleduce by Corefactors?

    Teleduce integrates the functionality of a CRM with a lead, cloud telephony and campaign manager. It offers a unified digital dashboard for lead tracking, multi-channel communication, sales automation, marketing automation, and marketing analytics.

    What are some features of Teleduce?

    Some features of Teleduce are-

    • List Manager
    • Content manager
    • Multi-channel marketing
    • Telecalling campaigns
    • Lead Box
    • Inbuilt cloud phone for all  inbound and outbound communication
    • Unified Dashboard for Marketing Campaigns, Business communication and Lead Management
    • Analytics platform to monitor, track, and analyze sales data, ROI, etc.
    • Customer success Manager

    What is DLT registration?

    Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is a block-chain based registration system. According to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), telemarketers have to be registered in the DLT platform. It is being issued in the public interest to control the SMS spam from various marketing firms.

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  • Grexter Living – Changing the way Youngsters Live

    When a student crosses the border of his domestic state into a foreign metropolitan city, he is nervous, curious, and anxious about how the new location and surroundings are gonna treat him. A young person often finds various ways to learn and grow from, many of them are harsh real-life situations. But his rented accommodation shouldn’t be one of them as well. Peaceful and friendly living space is what we all want and look for. But sadly, it isn’t always the case. Rude landlords, unaffordable PGs, restrictions, an inspection of locality, distance and so many more factors together give us a picture to make decisions upon. Here, Grexter comes to your solution.

    In the last decade, the definition of renting has significantly changed. Grexter Living was established by Pratul Gupta & Nikhil Dosi, with the simple idea of changing the way youngsters live in India. They aim to eliminate the key problems that plague the rental accommodation sphere by providing state-of-the-art, fully-managed, and affordable co-living spaces. Committed to revolutionizing the renting space, Grexter offers end-to-end housing solutions to students and working professionals in Bangalore.

    Get an Insight on Grexter Living Company Profile, Competitors, Business Model, Funding, Founders, Growth etc.,

    Company Highlights

    Startup Name Grexter Living
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Founder Name Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi
    Sector Co-living
    Founding Year 2016
    Registered Entity Name Grexter Housing Solutions Private Limited

    About Grexter and how it works
    Founders of Grexter and Team
    How was Grexter Started
    Grexter – Launching
    Grexter – Name and Logo
    Grexter – Business Model
    Grexter – User Acquisition
    Grexter – Funding and Investors
    Grexter – Startup Challenges
    Grexter – Competitors
    Grexter – Funding and Investors
    Grexter – Future Plans
    Grexter – FAQs

    About Grexter and How it Works

    Grexter Living offers functional and built-to-suit urban studio rooms that provide all the necessary amenities and, at the same time, are aesthetically appealing. Catering primarily to salaried employees, fresh graduates, and techies in the age group of 18-30 years, the spaces they provide consist of a large common kitchen with another huge designated area that has lounges, gaming consoles, and home theaters.

    Grexter Living
    Grexter

    All you need to do is go to Company’s website and select the co-living space closest to your workplace or college. Once you have selected the space you can schedule a visit on a particular date and time. During this visit, someone from their team will show you the room as well as the common spaces on their property. If you like it then you can book the place. Once the booking is done, you just need to show up on the date of your move-in along with your luggage. Rest is taken care of by the team.

    Founders of Grexter

    Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi are the co-founder of Grexter Living.

    Pratul and Nikhil befriended each other at a cultural event, and straightaway realized that they shared an inclination towards entrepreneurship.

    Pratul facilitates the growth of the business by shouldering the responsibility of business development and managing the entire product and strategy. A B.Tech graduate in Chemical Engineering from the esteemed IIT Madras, Pratul worked for nearly 4 years in investment banking with stints at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank after graduating in 2011. He then joined a venture capital fund called Acumen for a brief period.

    Equipped with the insights he gained throughout his professional sphere, he aims to make it the biggest provider of co-living spaces for youngsters across the top 8 tier I cities of India.

    Nikhil graduated in chemical engineering from  IIT Madras in 2013  and worked for Reliance before deciding that he had to reconnect with his friend and embark upon building a business.

    How was Grexter Started

    In the year 2015, Pratul was working with a venture capital fund called Acumen which is based out of Mumbai. During his stint there, he worked on an investment deal for a PG accommodation provider. While Working on that deal, Pratul studied the rental housing market of India in detail. This coupled with his own struggles of finding good accommodation in Mumbai made him realize that he is supposed to work on this and solve this problem, not only for his own self but for millions of Indian youngsters like him.

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    Grexter – Launching

    Grexter Living
    Grexter bangalore

    Grexter decided to operate from Bangalore as the city has a very cosmopolitan nature. With rapid urbanization and an increase in population, it is amongst the fastest-growing cities in India. Every year, lakhs of young adults migrate to Bangalore for better career prospects. Unfortunately, a majority of them are forced to stay in cramped PGs without having access to basic facilities. Grexter wanted to address these issues by providing them with affordable yet quality co-living spaces at prime locations. For company, marketing was never a priority, they focused on making a product that speaks for itself.

    Co-Living – Market and Industry Details

    India’s co-living segment has huge growth potential. According to the latest projections by RedSeer Consulting, the domestic co-living market will be worth more than 2 billion USD by 2022. The number indicates the increasing demand for tech-enabled co-living facilities in the country. According to a survey, over 50 percent people in the age group of 18-35 years are willing to rent co-living spaces and pay up to Rs 15,000 a month in top Indian cities including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. Although the concept of co-living is more popular in the metro cities, it has started to catch up with the residents of tier II and tier III cities as well.

    The term Grex is derived from the Latin noun ‘grex’ meaning ‘flock’. The co-living company builds inclusive surroundings for youngsters who come together to live with them, their community symbolizes the flock that sticks together no matter what. Grexter is a representative of the flock it belongs to. They added the word ‘living’ to Grexter to explain their offering better – living spaces for the young.

    grexer living

    Company’s logo has 3 circles – the smallest one on the outside represents the tenant, the bigger inclusive one represents the surrounding, which the tenant is just about to enter, while the center circle represents his private zone which is his own personal space amidst the larger community. The whole combination also looks like a “G” representing Grexter.

    Grexter – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Grexter works on operator model in which they sign buildings with minimum 100 beds capacity by entering into a long-term lease with the owner of the property. They promise a minimum rental plus a revenue share with the owner. After adding operating cost and margins they rent these beds to the end-user at a competitive market price.

    Grexter – User Acquisition and Growth

    Grexter not just provide a place to live but each one of their building is designed to connect and inspire people. Their living spaces foster human connection and enable people to lead more fulfilling lives. From common areas and designated game zones consisting of the foosball table, table tennis table to weekly events such as Karaoke night, poetry & storytelling night, Yoga sessions and much more, the co-living startup try their best to keep the tenants entertained by giving them a chance to socialize and forge connections. The cultural activities and events are ever-changing and bespoke to each location. That’s what differentiates Grexter Living from other co-living spaces and has worked from the very start to attract people.

    It currently operates in 21+ Locations across Bangalore has 2200+ beds and 3000 beds in the upcoming 6 months. Their Current Annual Revenue rate is of INR 19.2 crores and an occupancy of 95% at mature locations.

    Grexter Living Acquihired i2Stay. It will expand the scale of operations of the combined entity and also enable it to move into new cities. i2Stay provides affordable accommodation targeted at working professionals. As part of this deal, Rajasekhar Gowrineni, CEO of i2stay, joined the team as the Managing Partner for South India.

    “We are extremely happy to welcome Rajasekhar on-board. Rajasekhar has been a pioneer in space-saving concepts, and through this partnership, we will be able to leverage his expertise and years of experience. We are already working on some really innovative co-living design ideas and hope to bring them to life very soon” Said Pratul Gupta, Co-Founder, Grexter Living.

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    Grexter – Funding and Investors

    Grexter Living had raised a Pre-Series A investment worth $1.5 million (INR 10.6 Cr) from Venture Catalysts earlier this year.

    This funding helped us to scale up our operations and strengthen the underlying technological framework.

    Key Investors include  – Apoorva Ranjan Sharma (Founder, Venture Catalysts First Investor in OYO), Anuj Munot (Director, Kalpataru Group), Abhishek Bhatewara (Director, Rohan Builders), Naveen Garg (Ex – B2B head, PNB Housing), Anuj Golecha (Samyakth Group) and Siddharth Kothari (Om Group)

    Grexter – Startup Challenges

    The most challenging part for this co-living startup was to find a good quality supply i.e. properties. To overcome this, the company has partnered with various real estate developers. They also have some of the top developers of the country as their investors. It has created a think tank within the company which is helping them acquire the best properties in the most prime areas of the country.

    Grexter – Competitors

    StayAbode, Stanza Living, Colive, NestAway, Zolo, Coho, OYO Life are some of it’s competitors in the industry. What makes Grexter Living different is the fact that it endeavors to create true co-living communities by charging all-inclusive rent for studio rooms that are new-age and transparent in resident policies.

    There are quite a lot of competitors in the market for Co-living spaces but the aspect of affordability is one of the key USPs of Grexter Living. The rent for a double-sharing room starts at INR 9,000, where single room rents start from INR 16,000 (including utility charges and maintenance). They see co-living as a platform for people’s life for becoming the best self by being part of something bigger. For sharing space, skills, resources and dreams with other inspiring and creative people. For living a life on purpose.

    Grexter – Future Plans

    Grexter plans to increase their citywide footprint to 5,000 beds by the end of 2019. They are also looking to expand their operations into Pune and Hyderabad in 2020, and have 20,000 beds in their inventory.

    Grexter – FAQs

    Who are the Founders of Grexter Living?

    Pratul Gupta and Nikhil Dosi founded Grexter Living in 2016.

    How much is Grexter Living Funding?

    Grexter Living raised a Pre-Series A investment worth $1.5 million (INR 10.6 Cr) from Venture Catalysts in 2019.

    Who are the Key Investors in Grexter Living?

    Apoorva Ranjan Sharma (Founder, Venture Catalysts First Investor in OYO), Anuj Munot (Director, Kalpataru Group), Abhishek Bhatewara (Director, Rohan Builders), Naveen Garg (Ex – B2B head, PNB Housing), Anuj Golecha (Samyakth Group) and Siddharth Kothari (Om Group).

    Who are the Top competitors of Grexter Living?

    StayAbode, Stanza Living, Colive, NestAway, Zolo, Coho, OYO Rooms are some of Grexter’s competitors in the industry.

  • Zerodha vs 5paisa: The Top Contenders In The Brokerage Industry

    This stock broker comparison is between two of the biggest discount brokers in India. This article will compare 5paisa and Zerodha based on their brokerage charges, account opening charges, maintenance charges, exposure margin, trading platform and more. This comparison will help highlight the major difference between these two brokers to help you find the best on your preference.

    A brief history on Zerodha

    Zerodha is the biggest private discount broker in India and was founded in the year 2010 by Nitin Kamath. It is known to be one of the best for traders and investors looking for low brokerage, reliable trading platform and easy interface. It has over 2.2 million clients that contribute over 15% of daily retail trading volumes across NSE, BSE and MCX. Zerodha is the largest stockbroker in India and is headquartered in Bangalore. It offers zero brokerage on delivery trading and a flat rate of 0.03% or Rs 20 per executed on other segments.

    Zerodha offers a zero brokerage charges for delivery equity investment and direct mutual fund investments. For the other services like F&O, currency and commodity trades across NSE, BSE, and MCX it offers a flat brokerage of flat Rs 20 irrespective of the trading volume. The number of active clients on NSE is 9,09,008 as of November 2019. The other services it offers it offers Direct Mutual fund investments, Kite APIs.

    Zerodha vs. 5paisa logo
    Zerodha vs. 5paisa logo

    A brief history on 5paisa

    5paisa is a public discount broker that provides you the platform to trade in stocks, futures and other option at the lowest cost of Rs 20 flat per trade, even if you trade 10 crore. It is headquartered in Mumbai and is a part of India Infoline (IIFL). It is leading non-banking financial institution in India with two decade long experience as it was initially incorporated in 1995. 5paisa was relaunched in 2016.

    It was reintroduced new brokerage model for online retail broking services and also got demerged itself from IIFL so that it can get listed on the stock exchange. 5paisa capital started trading on NSE/BSE in November 2017 making it the first to be listed in the financial digital marketplace. 5paisa capital provides a platform for all financial products which include equities, derivatives, mutual funds, commodities, bond and debentures, insurance and personal loans.

    The account opening process for 5paisa is totally paperless based on Aadhaar. 5paisa provides the trading facility in mobile, browser and desktop platforms. The number of active clients on NSE is 1,06,280 as of November 2019. The other services it offers are Mutual Fund Investments, Research reports, etc.

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    The side by side comparison of 5paisa and Zerodha

    5paisa vs Zerodha Charges and AMC

    5paisa trading account charges is Rs 650 while Zerodha takes Rs 200 as account opening charges. 5paisa Demat Account AMC (annual management charges) charges is Rs 540 which is charged at Rs 45 per traded month and Zerodha Demat account AMC charges is Rs 300.

    Types of AMC 5paisa Zerodha
    Trading Account Opening Charges ₹650 ₹200
    Trading Account AMC Charges free free
    Demat Account Opening Charges free free
    Demat Account AMC Charges ₹540 (₹45 per trade) ₹300

    About brokerage plans and brokerage charges

    Both the platforms do not provide multiple, monthly or yearly plans and only offer single broker plans. But when it comes to brokerage plan details 5paisa is a discount broker which charges a flat fee of Rs 20 per executed order for equity cash and equity F&O, including currency and commodity. This is the lowest brokerage plan offered by the offered by the best brokerage house in India. Zerodha on the other hand, charges Rs 20 or .03% whichever is lower for equity intraday, F&O, currency and commodity. No other upfront brokerage or turnover commitments on your trade.

    Brokerage Charges 5paisa Zerodha
    Plan Name Flat Fee Rs 20 Trading Plan Max Rs 20 per order Trading Plan
    Equity Intraday, Futures, Options Flat Fee Rs 20 0.03% or Rs 20 whichever is lower
    Currency Futures, Commodity Trading Flat Fee Rs 20 Flat Fee Rs 20
    Call & Trade Charges Rs 100 per call(No limit of orders) Rs 50 Per Executable Order

    Demat account opening charges

    This table shows the difference demat services that both the broker services provide and its charges.

    Demat account 5paisa Zerodha
    Demat Account Opening Fee Nil ₹50 (Stamp charges payable upfront)
    Demat Account AMC ₹540 (Charge ₹45 per traded month) Individuals/Non Individual – ₹300 + GST Non Individual – Corporate – ₹1000
    Dematerialisation Charges ₹15 per certificate + ₹40 as postal charges ₹150 per certificate (+ ₹100 Courier charges)
    Rematerialisation Charges ₹15 per certificate or ₹15 for every 100 securities or part thereof whichever is higher + ₹40 for courier ₹150 per certificate + CDSL charges + ₹100 Courier charges
    Transaction Charges (Debit or Sell) ₹12.50 per transaction per script • Market Trades: ₹8 + ₹5.5 •Off-Market Trades: 0.03% of ₹25 whichever is higher

    Order Types

    The main Orders that all the broker platforms offer are CNC order (cash and carry), MIS order (margin intraday squareup), NRML order (normal margin). There four types of orders Cover orders provides additional margin and are placed  for an compulsory stop loss and this is a intraday position. The second one is the Bracket order where you lock in a profit by bracketing an order with two opposite side orders. This will help you get a higher margin and limit your loss.

    The third order is the after market order that are sent to exchange on the next day. The last one is GTC which are Good Till Cancelled order, which means you can buy or sell equity limit orders and your orders will remain in the system until its executed.

    Order Types 5paisa Zerodha
    CNC, MIS and NRML orders yes yes
    Cover order and Bracket order yes yes
    AMO-After Market Orders yes yes
    GTC-Good Till Cancelled yes yes

    Investment offering

    Investment offers contain Equity Derivatives (on both exchanges NSE/BSE), Commodity Trading (both brokers offers this on MCX), Online Mutual Fund Investment (offered on online mutual fund investment option) and Portfolio Management Services (both the brokers don’t offer this).

    Investment Offering 5paisa Zerodha
    Equity Cash and F&O yes yes
    Currency Deravitives and Commodity yes yes
    Mutual Funds and ETF yes yes
    Bond / NCD yes yes

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    The PROS and CONS of Zerodha

    PROS:

    • Free equity delivery traders. No brokerage charges for Cash-N-Carry orders.
    • Zero brokerage charges for delivery trading across segments and exchanges with a maximum brokerage of Rs 20.
    • Excellent trading platforms (KITE) available for free.
    • Easy and fast online account opening with simple and flat brokerage model in all other segments and exchanges BSE, NSE and MCX.
    • Over 10 lakh active customers and 10% of daily volume at BSE, NSE and MCX.
    • Zerodha Referral program offers 10% brokerage share to clients you refer.
    • Good Till Triggered (GTT) order are available which are similar to orders.
    The premium options offered by Zerodha
    The premium options offered by Zerodha

    CONS:

    • Doesn’t provide stock tips, research reports or recommendations.
    • Call and trade is charged at extra Rs50 order and auto square off is charged at extra Rs 50 order.
    • Doesn’t offer 3 in 1 account.
    • Doesn’t offer unlimited trading plans and AMC free demat account.

    The PROS and CONS of 5paisa

    PROS:

    • Flat fee brokerage. Pay just Rs 20 per executed order with no worries about the size of the trade.
    • Free trading software including 5paisa mobile app and trading terminal.
    • Up to 20 times exposure in intraday trading and 4 times more exposure.
    • 3.5 times more exposure in derivatives Intraday Trading.
    • It is the cheapest broker, flexible brokerage plans and research reports available but at an extra cost.
    The premium options offered 5paisa
    The premium options offered 5paisa

    CONS:

    • Call and trade is charged at Rs 100 per call in addition to the brokerage. Any number of trades can be placed in one call.
    • Research and advisory is available at extra cost.
    • Higher exchange turnover charges in comparison to other popular discount stock brokers.
    • Higher demat debit charges Rs 25 per transaction.
    • NRI trading and Demat account is not available.
    • Doesn’t offer commodity trading.

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    The premium services offered by zerodha and 5paisa

    Zerodha, being the biggest discount broker in India has over 22 lakh clients which is because of trust and brand value. Moreover, initiatives like educational facility (Varsity), investment in IPO’s from the same dashboard, free direct mutual fund investments, etc create more value for its clients.  Zerodha has got a bigger range of partner products that help traders and Investors like Streak, Sensibull, Learn app, etc.

    Whereas on the other hand, a few known advantages of 5Paisa over Zerodha is that they offer Research reports and robo-advisory to their clients, which Zerodha doesn’t have. However, this facility by 5Paisa is offered only to its clients with higher plans. In addition to that, the multiple flexible brokerage plans offered by 5Paisa can also be a little advantageous for volume traders.

  • The Rise and Fall of ‘Doodhwala’: India’s Largest Online Milk Delivery App

    Startups fail and the reasons are many. While everyone loves to hear about success stories, it’s the failures that teach a greater lesson. Bangalore based ‘Doodhwala’, a promising startup delivering fresh milk and groceries direct to doorstep, recently stopped operations and the news has concerned the startup community. However, the reason for the shut down is not known yet. As communicated by the founders of ‘Doodhwala’, ‘FreshToHome’—another Bangalore based startup delivering meat and sea food—will now serve the subscribers of ‘Doodhwala’ in Bangalore. While we are still figuring out what could be the reason behind the wind up, lets have a look at Doodhwala’s journey.

    Doodhwala Highlights

    Startup Name Doodhwala
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Co-founders Ebrahim Akbari & Aakash Agarwal
    Sector Ecommerce
    Founded 2015
    Parent organisation Banger Tech Pvt. Ltd.
    Website www.doodhwala.com

    Doodhwala – About
    Doodhwala – Founders and Team
    Doodhwala – Starting up
    Doodhwala – Name, Tagline and Logo
    Doodhwala – App
    Doodhwala – Business Model and How it works
    Doodhwala – Funding and Investors
    Doodhwala – Advisors and Mentors
    Doodhwala – Startup Challenges
    Doodhwala – Competitors
    Doodhwala – Growth
    FAQs

    Doodhwala – About

    Founded in 2015, Doodhwala was the first in Bangalore to bring fresh farm milk directly to customers. Besides Bangalore, Doodhwala operated in Hyderabad and Pune. The startup delivered milk, fresh dairy products, groceries, fruits, and other fresh daily essentials direct to home.

    Doodhwala was launched with the vision to be the largest and most loved fresh milk & daily essentials delivery service across India, taking pride in excellent customer service and enhancing India’s disorganized milk delivery network, employee satisfaction, and return on investment.

    Doodhwala shut down

    Doodhwala – Founders and Team

    Doodhwala - Founders
    Doodhwala – Founders

    Ebrahim Akbari and Aakash Agrawal founded Doodhwala in 2015.

    EbrahimAkbari, is an engineer by training, a serial entrepreneur by profession, and a marketer by passion. Along with his co-founder, he scaled Doodhwala from a 5 member team to a 400 member company in just three years, making Doodhwala India’s largest subscription-based e-grocer. Ebrahim leads Doodhwala’s growth and geo expansion. He brings on board a unique perspective on business strategies combined with rich experience of effectively deploying business resources. A savvy negotiator with inherent entrepreneurial skills, he understands the entire supply chain industry and has co-founded a business model that has revolutionized the way people in India are buying milk and local dairies are selling milk.  

    Prior to establishing Doodhwala, Ebrahim Akbari was heading a 20-year-old family business of Industrial Field Supplies in Oman. As a Managing Partner, his focus was on scaling the business across and outside Oman along with looking for new growth areas and markets. Within a year of Akbari’s leadership, the company’s turnover increased by 30% and geo-expansion in Dubai proved to be a profitable move within the first year of operations.  

    Ebrahim, is a skilled theatre artist, an avid reader, and a gold medalist swimmer. A regular speaker at industry forums and platforms, Ebrahim recently spoke at the VCC Food and AgriSummit and The National Food Processing Conclave, in New Delhi.

    Aakash Agrawal has a proven track record of successfully leading a company’s operations and sales. He previously co-started a steel fabrication company, UPPL, in 2010 in Odhisa where he drove operations and infrastructure implementation. Under his leadership, the firm within 5 years of successful operations clocked INR 20 crore of turnover, and won the ‘Vendor of The Year’. Post Aakash’s exit, UPPL is one of the very few board run SMEs in India catering to the heavy engineering industry.  

    Aakash spearheads the logistics and operations of Doodhwala. He possesses an entrepreneurial mindset, employing strong team leadership to create an outsized impact with limited resources. With rich and multi-functional expertise, Aakash has created competitive advantages in key operational areas for Doodhwala and developed a cost-effective omni-channel distribution/logistics network.

    A great believer in the saying, ‘we will either find a way or make one’, Aakash spends much of his spare time reading about politics, history, current affairs, and traveling around the world.    

    Within three years, Doodhwala grew from two people to an organization of 1000 people.  

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    Doodhwala – Starting up

    One late night in 2014, Aakash and Ebrahim were working on a different business project, working and munching on cereal with milk. They realized that there was no milk for the second serving of cereals. This left them wondering how life would have been easier if there had been an app for ordering milk. Soon they grasped that they unknowingly stumbled upon a great business idea which was too exciting to let them sleep.

    They wanted to immediately check the feasibility of this idea, and so around 4 in the morning, they were out and about to see how the milk supply market actually worked. This was followed by weeks of research and surveys and finally, they launched a beta version to test the market. They were amazed at the response they received. Consumers loved the idea of hassle-free home delivery of milk. They were looking for a new age ‘Doodhwala’ (milkman in Hindi), and this laid the foundation of Doodhwala.

    Consumers were looking for better ways to find good quality unadulterated farm milk, they are for an organized hassle-free way to get milk. They, in a nutshell, wanted a punctual, cost-effective, and a non-traditional option. Led by the increasing level of urbanization across the Indian population as urban consumers prefer clean, hygienic and ready-to-drink milk and dairy products – quoted Doodhwala co-founder Ebrahim Akbari

    Doodhwala was designed to be the 2.0 version of the traditional Doodhwala. Doodhwala’s tagline is “India’s largest fresh milk delivery app”.  

    In a nutshell, the tagline spells out that we set standards of excellence in fresh milk & daily needs delivery by being one of the pioneers in this space, and by innovating cutting edge mobile technology .

    Doodhwala Logo

    Doodhwala – App

    The Doodhwala mobile app lets users order fresh milk and groceries easily.

    Fresh milk is a part of every household’s regular purchase. Traditionally, Indians have been reliant on their local milkmen for milk, but the urban India crowd needed something more than just milk – they need ease, freshness, and reliability. That’s the problem Doodhwala solved.

    Variety of milk is a convenience that neither the local doodhwala nor the kirana store can match. Doodhwala boasted of the largest variety of milk. The platform had 70+ types of milk. Be it A2 milk, organic milk, goat milk, camel milk, or lactose-free milk, Doodhwala offered varieties to suit eclectic dietary requirements, making it the ultimate destination for all kinds of milk.

    Besides milk, Doodhwala also delivered fresh dairy products, confectionery, bakery products, juices, fruits and vegetables, other grocery consumables, personal care products and many other items of your daily needs right to your doorstep.

    Some USPs of the Doodhwala app were:

    • An easy to use app to manage for all your daily essentials, with trusted deliveries before 7 am even for orders placed until 11 pm the night before.
    • Subscription or creating a customizable delivery schedule made it easy to plan all repetitive purchases.
    • One can easily modify, cancel or pause one’s subscription at any given time.
    • The no checkout feature (no constant topping of wallet) was a sure favourite amongst customers.
    • Zero delivery charges.
    Doodhwala Warehouse

    Doodhwala – Business Model and How it works

    There many things Doodhwala did differently than previous and current players that made its business model robust and cost-effective.  

    The main highlights of Doodhwala’s business model were:

    • The hybrid model for last mile workforce – Consisted of existing milkmen and part-time workers.
    • Efficient mapping of delivery routes – Significantly lesser number of delivery executives were required to complete ‘x’ amount of deliveries since all the delivery routes were mapped efficiently.
    • Lower dependence on manual strength – Planned delivery leading to a lower dependency on delivery executives as well as inventory.
    • Unlimited Delivery Base – Focus on morning delivery helped easier hiring – basically, anyone interested in working for a few hours in the morning could be a Doodhwala delivery executive.
    • Resource optimization – Planned demand reduced inefficiencies and optimizes better utilization of resources.
    • Drastically reduced cost – The right combination of technology and process in every step of the cycle – procurement, warehousing, and sorting reduced cost.
    • Predictive inventory – Subscription model made way for strong predictive inventory algorithms which ensured almost zero wastage.
    • Advanced algorithms – Cost-benefit approach towards technology laid such that every implementation either increased revenue or decreased cost across Doodhwala’s supply chains
    • Single delivery slot network – The network of milk delivery guaranteed low mid-mile costs due to an obvious reason i.e, no traffic in the morning hours. Plus, it also guaranteed no peak hour rush.
    • Market and Demand Analysis – Adoption of Omni channel is driven by digital demand. It allows optimization on the logistical front, better inventory management across all points of sale.
    • High customer density – To curtail last mile costs, Doodhwala completed 10000 deliveries every hour. Each delivery executive completed 100 deliveries in a 3-hour shift.
    • Efficacy of micro-delivery model over on-demand fleet – Ensured higher customer engagement and focused on high frequency – everyday delivery.  

    Since milk allows for high frequency and a daily delivery model which means for an ‘n’ number of deliveries to a customer we don’t have any additional cost i.e, no incremental delivery cost. Secondly, focusing on high density allows for costs which are 1/10th with 6-10 times efficiency. We also implement a clever usage of modern-day Technology. Thirdly our Unique business model has allowed us to scale and stay one step ahead of the competition – Ebrahim said explaining the business model.

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    Doodhwala – Funding and Investors

    Doodhwala raised more than $14.2 Million in funding in 3 rounds. Doodhwala’s funding details are:

    Funding Date Funding Stage Funding Amount Investors
    August 2017 Seed Round Undisclosed Tom Varkey
    February 2018 Seed Round $2.2 million Omnivore Partners
    November 2018 Series A $12 million Undisclosed

    We have always believed that the philosophy of ‘raise only when you need to’ is a golden rule which is ignored too often at an early stage of a business. Most founders raise too early and end up diluting a significant portion of their equity before the business establishes itself. Aakash and I retain over 80% of the equity even though Doodhwala is the largest milktech company at 13 lakh liters of milk a month. Having a sound cap table is particularly attractive to potential investors, for it greatly assists founders in later stages of their business – Ebrahim

    Doodhwala – Advisors and Mentors

    Cristina Berta Jones, the former COO of Naspers, served as an Advisor and board member. Cristina brings several years of strategic leadership experience in spearheading mergers and acquisitions, portfolio management, and strategy for prominent B2C E-Commerce companies. She led the largest divestiture of Allegro group for $3.25B and was pivotal in driving the MakeMyTrip and Ibibo merger. She previously served on the board of Flipkart, Souq.com, eMAG, Takealot, Konga, and TBO Holidays.    

    Doodhwala – Startup Challenges

    According to Ebrahim, the last mile delivery is the biggest challenge for every e-tailer in this country. Low efficiency of resources and route-planning problems are the core issues that cause the whole system to be inefficient and expensive. This paired with the challenges in delivery infrastructure bring additional problems to the state of the last mile. However, Doodhwala had a hybrid model for its last mile workforce which consisted of existing milkmen and part-time labor.  

    We require a lesser number of boys to complete x amount of deliveries since our delivery routes are mapped efficiently. in other words, we have a lower dependency on labor. This ensures we never have peaking problems.  

    Doodhwala – Competitors

    Doodhwala – Growth

    Within 3 years of operations, Doodhwala witnessed extremely rapid growth:

    • The company was doing around 30,000 deliveries a day.
    • It grew 5 times during 2018-2019 with an 85% customer retention rate. While most companies and online e-commerce retailers struggle with the frequency of purchases, Doodhwala received customers at a minimum of once a week for a recurring purchase, making its retention rates one of the highest in the industry.
    • Doodhwala was one of the largest milk e-tailers moving 13 lakh liters monthly and had the highest delivery fulfillment rate at 99.8%.
    • Doodhwala had industry’s lowest operational cost at 5% cost of sales.  

    Doodhwala’s shut down, despite having a wide base of happy customers, left many guessing the possible reasons behind the shuttering.

    FAQs

    What is a Doodhwala?

    Doodhwala was a milk delivery startup.

    Who has founded Doodhwala?

    Aakash Agrawal and Ebrahim Akbari has founded it in 2015.

    When did Doodhwala shut down?

    It shut down in october 2019.

  • Taski – Your Journey to Productivity with Better Decisions!

    Decisions are hard and time consuming. Taski helps you make right decisions every-time. Taski is trying to cater to this problem by providing a web app which helps you take better and faster decisions with a wide number of frameworks like SWOT, RICE, etc. It has been featured as #3 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.

    Read this article to know about Taski, products, founder, business model, startup launch, challenges and future plans.

    Taski – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Taski
    Headquarter Bengaluru, India
    Sector Productivity, SaaS
    Founder Mohit Khare
    Founded 2020
    Website usetaski.com

    Taski – Target Market Size
    How was Taski Started?
    Taski – Product/Services
    Founders of Taski and team
    Taski – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Taski – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Taski – Startup Launch
    Taski – Startup Challenges
    Taski – Future Plans

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    Taski – Target Market Size

    Taski works in the productivity domain. The market is growing highly as more and more people get on internet and want to sort their busy lives.

    Some research shows that every person takes around 70 important decisions and over 35,000 simple decisions daily. Surely, this domain is going to expand much more in coming years with daily increasing internet users.

    How was Taski Started?

    Taski originated from a simple problem. We all make decisions! Sometimes it’s as simple as tea vs coffee and can be as complex as deciding new product features.

    Taski founder Mohit personally faced a lot of problems in making decisions on which framework to choose, which companies to apply to, and which features to build first for his ideas. He did some research and read some brilliant articles on taking decisions.

    After browsing through multiple articles, he found there are so many frameworks that work perfectly in certain scenarios like SWOT and Eisenhower Matrix.

    Taski SWOT Analysis
    Taski SWOT Analysis

    Unfortunately, there are no proper tools for people to use frameworks to make decisions. Mohit Khare did some research and asked around many product managers on how they make decisions. Many did use such frameworks, but mostly on excel or on paper, which is not the best solution. He even got a very good response and interest in the idea of improving decision making.

    Taski Ikigai
    Taski Ikigai

    Finally, he decided to build something clean and simple which almost anyone can use across any platform (web/mobile). Mohit’s idea for the MVP was to keep it as simple and intuitive as possible, give users a way to make and share their decisions.

    Also read: How to Boost Productivity- Make Every Minute Count With These Hacks

    Taski – Product/Services

    Taski is a simple responsive web app which works both on mobile and web platform. As you go to usetaski.com, you see a set of tools to make your decisions. Head over to the “how it works” page to learn more about each of the available frameworks. Suppose you start with the SWOT framework, you see a list of predefined sections where you can add your tasks, you also have the option to mark them as done, Ability to delete the task and easy task addition with just enter key.

    Taski website snapshot
    Taski website snapshot

    Taski also provides an option to share your decisions and research in multiple formats like Image, PDF, Markdown, and Document.

    Founders of Taski and team

    Mohit Khare is the founder and maker of Taski.

    He is currently focusing on building core features of Taski. Although a lot of people have reached out to collaborate, he will be focusing on expanding team as the platform gets more users.

    Relevant read: List Of The Best Calendar Apps to Stay Organized in 2020

    Since the product was focused around increasing productivity with decision making and at its core, it uses the task model, Taski came up as a short and subtle name for the product. Most importantly, Mohit could find a good domain for this.

    Taski Logo
    Taski Logo

    The logo again is highly inspired by the task and checklist model. Since essentially Taski uses a checklist to get work done, the logo signifies that with 2 symbolic checkmarks.

    Taski – Business Model and Revenue Model

    Currently, Taski is free for everyone. The founder initially wanted to see how people respond to it. There have been multiple feature requests, some of which will come up with a pro plan where you can save your decision in a personalized dashboard and have access to many other frameworks. Stay tuned, a lot of features are already in development.

    The plan is to go with the Freemium business model, core features of Taski will remain free for use but you wouldn’t want to miss out on the Pro version. You will see the pricing and details around it soon.

    Also read: Pabbly Connect: One Platform to Automate All Your Integrations

    Taski – Startup Launch

    Taski has got over 10K page views in its first week and over 3000 users have already tried the platform. Right now, the only platform Mohit used for marketing was social media like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and product launch sites like Product Hunt, Betalist, etc.

    Taski – Startup Challenges

    One of the challenges was actually figuring out which frameworks and decision tools people actually use and how do they use it right now. You need to find the problem before building a solution. There were minor tech blockers as well but that is always there and you get past them eventually.

    Taski – Future Plans

    Future plans include launching a personalized dashboard for users for easy management. They also have a plan for launching a team-based version for Taski.

  • Explara – Helping Startups in Monetizing and Generating Audience for their Events!

    We keep hearing about the milestones and challenges that startups keep facing in their initial years. One of the most prominent ones is that creative entrepreneurs and businesses have to struggle a lot to monetize their events with also bringing the audience to these events.

    Therefore to empower these entrepreneurs to explore their endeavors and grow their business while taking it to the customers across the globe, Santosh Panda launched Explara in 2008. Explara helps creative entrepreneurs and small businesses to monetize from events, online selling, community, and crowdfunding.

    Explara – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Explara
    Headquarter Bengaluru, India
    Sector Online Ticketing, Event Promotion, SaaS
    Founders Ashok Kumar, Santosh Panda
    Founded 2008
    Legal Name Signure Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
    Website explara.com

    About Explara and How it Works
    Explara – Target Market Size
    Founders of Explara and team
    Explara – Startup Launch
    Explara – Startup Challenges
    Explara – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Explara – Competitors
    Explara – Funding and Investors
    Explara – Acquisitions and Mergers
    Explara – Growth
    Explara – Future Plans

    Check out this List of Top Startups in Bangalore | Best Bangalore Startups

    About Explara and How it Works

    Explara is a SaaS (Software as a Service) based platform that sells tickets in different event categories like sports, travel, and food, and has tied up multiple theatres and multiplexes in states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. Explara is a great combination of an event platform combined with a me-too ticketing site which is a boon for event organizers.

    So ideally, Explara takes care of pre-event, event-day & post-event needs of the organizations. Cutting the long story short, it covers the end-to-end needs of an event and therefore becomes the go-to place for organizations that want to create mega-events.

    Explara has events majorly in:

    • Biz & tech
    • Learning & classes
    • Entertainment & shows
    • Sports & outdoor segments.

    Explara offers the following products:

    • Event Ticketing & Registration
    • Online Selling & Payment Solution
    • Crowdfunding & Donation
    • Community & Membership

    Explara’s Enterprise Products ranges in:

    • Event Management Cloud
    • Membership Cloud
    • Event Day Mobile App
    • Submission Software

    Explara – Target Market Size

    According to a RedSeer report, the online ticketing market in India has recorded quarterly revenue of $28 million.

    Moreover, RedSeer’s Online Ticket Market Updates states that 50% of the industry revenue has been coming from movies, with the next big contributor being events. Sporting events, concerts, and other live entertainment shows were the significant money-making aspects of the almost $330 million in revenue generated by the online ticketing industry in 2017.

    With the big guns relentlessly acquiring smaller competitors in this domain, according to Wikipedia, a CAGR of 20% is expected in the online ticketing industry by 2020. According to reports, the global online event ticketing market size is expected to reach USD 67.99 billion by 2025.

    Relevant read: BookMyShow – Saving You The Hassle Of Booking Entertainment Tickets

    Founders of Explara and team

    Explara is co-founded by Santosh Panda and Ashok Kumar.

    Co-founders of Explara
    Co-founders of Explara

    Santosh has an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School and is CEO and Co-founder of Explara. Before launching Explara which was formerly known as Ayojak, he was a member of the board of advisors of Target and was a Senior Software Engineer at eBay.

    Explara founder Santosh has a decade of diverse experience in the software industry in the UK, USA, Finland, and India. He has extensive experience in product development, consulting for FTSE 100 companies, and start-up companies across the globe. Some of the organizations for whom Santosh, owner of Explara, was involved in building products are BBC iPlayer, eBay UK, Cyclone Commerce, OnStation, William Hill, Spoke Software, and Vodafone.

    Ashok has an MBA from the University of Bradford. He is the co-founder and Vice President – Operations at Explara. Before Explara, he was a tech lead at MindTree Ltd.

    Explara – Startup Launch

    When Santosh launched Explara in 2008, he did see that this industry was an unorganized marketplace. But fortunately, it started through a supplier marketplace route. This means that the startup is offering a robust platform paired with a set of event ticketing/registration & management solutions to make it easy on the event organizers & promoters.

    Explara – Startup Challenges

    One of the biggest milestones that Explara faced was an intense competition. And to combat that and to engage more users on its platform, it has devoted consistent efforts and has been seen innovating in the existing features and also launching new and exciting features from time to time.

    Going along the same lines, Explara came up with a solution for solving the event discovery on the social horizon by launching a new feature called “Event Discovery Solution”. This new feature brings all the events at one platform of the users’ interest. Also, one such initiative in the past was when Explara had launched a feature called Community Solution platform.

    Also read: MeraEvents: Redefining Event Ticketing And Management

    Explara – Business Model and Revenue Model

    As we know, Explara is a cloud-hosted event solutions platform, it mainly focuses on four service areas namely event ticketing/registration, payment processing (online, offline), merchandise selling, event marketing, and logistics.

    Explara Logo, tagline
    Explara Logo

    Now, a user can create an account on the platform for free and organize free events at zilch cost. And if you’re wondering how does Explara make money? This is how. Explara charges a nominal fee applicable when the event organizer uses the platform for a paid event/conference/meet-up.

    Explara – Competitors

    The top competitors of Explara are Townscript, MeraEvents, BookMyShow, KyaZoonga, Nearify, Magnet, AllEvents.in and Events High.

    “There has been competition from the day we launched in 2009 to date. Our focus has been to remain focussed on customer needs and build to solve their pain points. We as an organization believe in the culture of heads down work-in-progress models. Hence we didn’t pay much attention to how competitors were doing”, said Santosh Panda, the founder of Explara.

    Also read: Online Marketplace for Venue Booking ‘VenueLook’ Forays into end-to-end Event Planning Services

    Explara – Funding and Investors

    Explara has raised a total of $486.4K in funding. Here is a list of all the funding rounds:

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    February 2013 Venture Round – HBS Alumni Angels, Srijan Capital, Blume Ventures, Rajan Anandan, Kishore Warrier
    November 2015 Seed Round $486.4K Hyderabad Angels, Ness Wadia

    The investors include Harvard Business School (HBS) Alumni Angels, Srijan Capital, Blume Ventures and angel investors including Google India MD Rajan Anandan, Kishore Warrier, businessman Ness Wadia, Singapore Angel Network and Hyderabad Angels.

    Explara – Acquisitions and Mergers

    In April 2015, Explara acquired IndianStage. It is an event ticketing platform for performing arts. With this, Explara was all set to add more cities to its kitty with access to the theatre and entertainment segments.

    Also read: BunnyBash- Making Event Hosting Effortless

    Explara – Growth

    • More than 20,000 suppliers
    • Serves 5000 events every month.
    • Handles more than 1,000 transactions a day
    • Has executed more than 50,000 events

    Explara – Future Plans

    “Our current focus is India, though we are digitally growing in other countries. We intend to serve India fully before we look for our physical business presence in other countries”, concluded Santosh Panda.

  • Big Biking Commune – An Umbrella for Motorcycling Community

    India is the largest market for two wheelers in the world and it is only natural that the roads are overwhelmed with a majority of the population using it for commuting within the city for work and mobility. But in this melee we find another large group of riders who are driven by their passion for motorcycling and use their bikes to journey long distances not just within their State but across the country and also are brave enough to cross borders on their motorcycles.

    You will find them as part of large motorcycling clubs or even solo riders or a group of friends going on long rides on their motorcycles and increasingly many large motorcycle brands have also moved into this space to organize formal and large rides for their customer base.

    Big Biking Commune has created one of the largest, strongest and the most trusted network of motorcycle riders from across regions in India bringing them together as part of one large community. Read this article to know more about Big Biking Commune, a Bangalore based startup founded by Arun Kumar.

    Big Biking Commune – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Big Biking Commune Pvt Ltd
    Headquarter Bangalore, India
    Sector Motorcycling / Touring / Cruising category
    Founder Arun Kumar
    Founded 2018
    Parent Organization Big Biking Commune Pvt Ltd

    About Big Biking Commune and How it Works
    Big Biking Commune – Startup Launch
    Big Biking Commune – Target Market Size
    How was Big Biking Commune Started?
    Big Biking Commune – USP and Innovation
    Founders of Big Biking Commune and team
    Big Biking Commune – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Big Biking Commune – Business Model and Revenue Model
    Big Biking Commune – Growth
    Big Biking Commune – User Acquisition
    Big Biking Commune – Startup Challenges
    Big Biking Commune – Future Plans
    Big Biking Commune – Funding and Investors
    Big Biking Commune – Competitors

    About Big Biking Commune and How it Works

    Big Biking Commune is one of the largest aggregator platform for the motorcycling community in India and worldwide, catering to the Touring, Cruising, Off-roading and Adventure Motorsports. The Big Biking Commune is the ‘Go To Destination’ that brings together passionate bikers, motorcycle brands, riding clubs, Accessories, Custom and Vintage bikes, bike rentals, bike tour operators and all related products and services under a single roof.

    As a Commune the company is all about creating and curating new experiences for the motorcycling community, putting together events and entertainment to celebrate being a biker, networking and learning from experienced motorcyclists, checking out new motorcycles, discovering new biking trips and routes, meeting with new biking buddies and riding out together celebrating the essence of being a biker.

    Big Biking Commune – Startup Launch

    Big Biking Commune started out by hosting the first of its kind annual celebratory event for the motorcycling community in Mahabalipuram, India at a beach side private property in February 2019. The inaugural event attracted over 3500 bikers from over 150 biking clubs and had 25 of the top motorcycling influencers share their experience mixed with some excellent stunt shows and off-roading experience.

    The inaugural event witnessed big names like Maral Yazarloo (Queen of Motorcycling), K. P. Arvind, Rajini Krishnan, Bullet Bose and many more well known names in the motorcycling community talking part in this festival.

    The response to our inaugural event was overwhelming with motorcycle enthusiast cutting across clubs, brands and individuals, all finding a common bonding under our platform. This has encouraged us to think big and look beyond the horizon and go unconventional, says Arun Kumar, Founder of Big Biking Commune.

    Since then, the Big Biking Commune has curated a unique branded proposition. Today, it has become one of the largest aggregator platforms earning the trust and goodwill of the biking community. They have created one of the largest networks of bikers bringing together clubs, bike brands, individual riders, biking influencers as a binding force in the category.

    Our founding vision now is to create the biggest experiential motorcycling commune benchmarked amongst the best as a globally leading brand; today we have aspirations to take the brand offering beyond India and into the global markets – Arun Kumar.

    Relevant read: Goibibo – India’s number 1 online travel booking portal.

    Big Biking Commune – Target Market Size

    Big Biking Commune is operating in a informal and fractured market category (Clubs, solo riders, Brand clubs), there are no structured reported numbers, but working on guess estimates, they are working on putting some researched numbers and structuring the category in an organised manner. Having said that, they are working with the information available on motorcycle sales figures in their category.

    “For example we know that there are around 3.5 million Royal Enfield motorcycles on the road and they continue to sell over 7 lakhs motorcycles annually. Similarly we know that Bajaj has sold over 2.5 million motorcycles in our category (Pulsar, Dominar, Avenger) and continues to add over 1.5 million more annually to the market size, likewise TVS Motors sells over 5 lakhs Apaches every year. And if we add in the international brands in our category like Harley, Indian, Triumph, KTM, Kawasaki, Ducati, Benelli, Suzuki, Yamaha (in the 200 cc and above category), we know that we are sitting on a sizeable growing market” says the Founder.

    But on the other side they have built a database of motorcycle clubs. At present they have over 2,500 clubs on their database and given the average of around 25 members per club, that gives them a reach of around 62,500 bikers who are in their category.

    How was Big Biking Commune Started?

    The promoter and founding partner of the Big Biking Commune, Arun Kumar comes with over 20 plus years in the event and activation industry. Having worked for brands like Hero Motors, Honda Motors, TVS Motors handling their commuter side of the business, he wanted to create, own and run his own brand IP and leave behind a legacy that people will remember him by.

    The inspiration to do something in this category came from observing that every weekend all the highways out of Bangalore had bikers zipping in and out for rides in large numbers. That is when he woke up to this opportunity and started looking at this rage more keenly.

    Some more research showed that events like India Bike Week and Riders Mania had over 5000 bikers assemble for a 3 day celebration and festivities. And brands were trying to streamline a club format activity for their customers like the HOG, Dominar, Apache, KTM etc. Their first inaugural festival (under the Big Biking Commune) was held at Mahabalipuram in a 40 acre resort. They got over 3500 bikers attending the fest and revelling in the biking brotherhood.

    Big Biking Commune – USP and Innovation

    Big Biking Commune is coming up with a technology based app that will become a single point of convergence for the biking community. It will bind all stakeholders and ecosystem partners on one side and bring in all the bikers onto the platform, building on a strong and robust networking model for the commune.

    The uniqueness of the app is that it will be a neutral face for everyone (irrespective of the bike or brand or rider) to find common ground to engage with each other across different products, services and solutions. They understands the existing pain points in the community and also the offerings from mobile apps which fall short on important biding points which they will be addressing.

    Apart from the app, they have created and curated unique brand properties like the ‘MotoYoga Day‘ which combines Motorcycle Day and Yoga day together (June 21st) and highlights the importance of a strong body while going out on long rides. India Tourism took interest in this proposition and supported the Yoga camp for motorcyclists in Chennai and Bangalore.

    Similarly, the WOW rides (World on Wheels) got Tourism Malaysia interested in typing up with them to promote tourism destination on motorcycles in their country.

    Emboldened by the positive response from the tourism sector, their Motorcycle Tourism Summit will be the first such initiative in the world that will open up a new category in the tourism sector and make people take notice of the opportunity motorcycling can offer to the growth of the tourism market.  

    Also read: Deep Kalra: Travel Booking Made Easy Through MakeMyTrip

    Founders of Big Biking Commune and team

    The Big Biking Commune has been initially funded in-house under parent company Axiom Gen Nxt Pvt Ltd who have infused the initial funds to get off the ground. The firm is owned by Arun Kumar who himself is the leading role model and ideator of the Big Biking Commune and inspiration for the core team.

    They trademarked the brand name and formed a private limited company under the same name Big Biking Commune Pvt Ltd looking at the opportunity and recognizing the need to create a separate legal entity to build and grow this market.

    Arun Kumar is Founder and Convenor Big Biking Commune
    Arun Kumar, Founder and Convenor Big Biking Commune

    Arun Kumar, the Founder Director is a self made businessman having started Below the Line activations and events way back in the late 1990’s. He has worked long and hard to build one of the largest activation companies in India with branches in 5 cities and a staff strength of around 30 people. Today Big Biking Commune has become his most passionate work and he devotes maximum time to shape and structure the brand and realize its potential.

    (L to R) The team - R Ramasubramaniyan (Co-Founder and Brand Architect), Arun Kumar (Founder and Convenor), Krishnan Iyer (Co-Founder), Madhu Narayan (CEO), Samuel Thomas (Co-Founder)
    (L to R) The team – R Ramasubramaniyan (Co-Founder and Brand Architect), Arun Kumar (Founder and Convenor), Krishnan Iyer (Co-Founder), Madhu Narayan (CEO), Samuel Thomas (Co-Founder)

    He is joined by the other Co-founder R. Ramasubramaniyan who comes with over 30 years of experience in the Marcom domain. As the Brand & Tech Architect, he is tasked with shaping the brand direction and creating values in several sub-brands and is also driving the technology architecture to give Big Biking Commune the edge it needs to bring in some path breaking initiatives in the motorcycling community.

    The name Big Biking Commune came up after they were toying around the idea of what name to keep for their event and after running through many names the thoughts kept coming back to the original name Big Biking Commune.

    Firstly, we wanted a name that would work across geographies. So we avoided anything regional or local. Also, we were clear that while addressing the biking community, we wanted the bigness of the idea of bringing them all under a single umbrella, hence BIG and also we wanted to avoid a limited club format, hence the broader name Commune fitted in well and thirdly anybody who does biking becomes part of the commune making it Big. So all these thought process took us to the same destination – Founder, Big Biking Commune.

    As for the logo look and feel, they looked at a few international events like the Sturgis, Daytona, Phuket bike week etc and knew that they wanted a rugged, sturdy and macho kind of brand design.

    Big Biking Commune Logo
    Big Biking Commune Logo

    The retro handle bar and headlight design with the BIG taking more space, the side wings meaning riders can aspire to more and the Commune as an integral part of the logo unit. Keeping it to simple black and white with a dash of red at the bottom gave the logo its final look and feel they wanted. Today it has grabbed attention very fast amongst the biker community and is one of the fastest brand setting new benchmarks for biker experience in such a short time.

    Big Biking Commune – Business Model and Revenue Model

    The business model or revenue model is simple –

    1. Events and experiences – Their flagship event and other interim events will attract sponsor money.
    2. Technology & App – This is a long term game plan, where initially they will onboard bikers into the app and integrate rides and activities through the app. They are also creating multiple revenue models around the app like ticket sales, merchandise sale, sponsored rides, in-app adverts etc which will grow as the base grows.
    3. Network platform – As one of the largest aggregator, once we have all sides of the game on the table, the upside revenue stream from multiple platform and network effect will fully open up the revenue potential with e-commerce, market place models, referral streams and many such innovative initiatives on the plate.

    Big Biking Commune – Growth

    They launched their flagship biker festival and the inaugural event saw over 3500 bikers take part in it. And today Big Biking Commune have access to over 2,500 biking clubs. Not being complacent, they also reached out to over 100 biking community influencers.

    They also got the support from sponsors like the Tamil Nadu Tourism, Apollo tyres, TVS Motors and many other biking brands and accessories who placed their faith and trust in the concept and took part in a first of its kind event in Mahabalipuram.

    “The journey has been brutal and tough and we weathered many a storm to come so far, the journey ahead also is not easy but we have now gathered a large base that looks at us to glue them together into a single commune and we are receiving more support each passing day from the biking fraternity. We have had more success from directly reaching out to bikers over a call and speaking to them, of late social media is getting a larger response from bikers who want to be part of our platform”, says Arun Kumar, the founder of Big Biking Commune.

    Also read: ScoutMyTrip: Helping You Plan Those Memorable Road Trips!

    Big Biking Commune – User Acquisition

    Nothing fanciful than directly speaking to the bikers has worked well for the company, till date they have not spend a single rupee to advertise on social media, all page fans are bikers (they have about 3000 page likes and growing), they believe in organic and genuine likes and they are going to stick to that method.

    What has also worked for Big Biking Commune is the innovation they are bringing to this community in curating experiences. They are the only ones to first introduce Yoga to Motorcyclists and created a MotoYoga day for them. They also branded thematic rides called the WOW Rides (World on wheels) which saw some internationally acclaimed bikers on the ride.

    They curated weekend ride called the Filter Kaapi ride for South Indian bikers. Like this the company is working on innovating in the category which is making them popular and bikers are reaching out to take part in these activities.

    Big Biking Commune – Startup Challenges

    The company did not see any major challenges so far, everything they did was organic and every biker they reached out to has never said no and in fact they also managed to pull in the 1960’s Sholavaram bikers (all septuagenarians) who shared their crazy days with the youngsters at the event. Big Biking Commune experimented with serious discussion, fun beach side activity, off-roading, stunt shows and exhilarating evening musicals which gave the ambience a festive tone.

    Big Biking Commune – Future Plans

    All these items are WIP (Work-In Progress), the team is still working with back of the envelope calculations and taking inputs from some mentors and advisors on the business side of the commune. However their plan stays firm with the focus on the annual Flagship event and they have bigger plans to take them global in the next couple of years. The app will be a tipping point which is what they are working on today.

    “Our vision for the next five years leans heavily on taking our brand global, starting out with South East Asia by early next year (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and Indonesia are big markets for our category).”

    They have already made some initial outreach into these markets in the last 6 months in building a strong network with biking clubs and are in touch with over 250 clubs and top bikers in these countries.

    We will then push on to Europe and USA (two of the biggest markets with large motorcycle communities). And in terms of growing the commune, we are looking at tapping corporate and college communities as they offer good potential for this format. More than anything else, we are keen to pursue the Tourism industry which is slowly waking up to the potential of leverage this new category to drive growth and promote tourism through motorcycling”, quotes Arun Kumar.

    Must read: Taxidio Taking Care of Your Travel Planning Woes

    Big Biking Commune – Funding and Investors

    The initial funding (seed and angel) has been in-house with the parent company holding the ship together. They are now working on the range and need for funds and calibrating their business plans to pitch to raise funds.

    On a ballpark estimate they are looking to raise money in the 10 to 30 million USD range initially. But this also might get revised, all their plans are currently fluid and are being assessed in multiple formats across multiple business streams.

    Big Biking Commune – Competitors

    In terms of competition, Big Biking Commune do not have any. There are annual biker festivals like the India Bike Week and Rider Mania. Biking clubs do their own small get together and ride outs; no one has consolidated this space into a common commune platform, which is what they have done.

  • Retail Insights- Helping the Companies Achieve Operational Excellence Through Retail Optimization

    With the technology advancing so fast, we have a ready-made and excellent solutions for all the contemporary business operations. To make the next generation retail digital and seamless to achieve the highest operational excellence, Vishnu Gullipalli launched Retail Insights in 2014.

    Startup Name Retails Insights
    Headquarter Bangalore, India
    Sector Retail Technology
    Founders Vishnu Gullipalli
    Founded 2014
    Parent Organization Retail Insights Consultancy Private Limited
    Website theretailinsights.com

    About RetailsInsights and How it Works
    Founders of RetailsInsights and team
    How was RetailsInsights Started?
    RetailsInsights – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    RetailsInsights – Startup Launch
    RetailsInsights – Startup Challenges
    RetailsInsights – Funding and Investors
    RetailsInsights – Awards
    RetailsInsights – Business Model and Revenue Model
    RetailsInsights – USP and Innovation
    RetailsInsights – Growth
    RetailsInsights – Competitors

    About RetailsInsights and How it Works

    Retail Insights works by enabling technologies through omnichannel integrations, platform modernization, APIs Builds, exclusive support services, and store digitalization. It also provides digital solutions viz. POS, commerce platforms, order orchestrations, returns management, drop-ship, last-mile deliveries, store automation, marketplace integrations, warehouse automation solutions, and interactive walls.

    Retail Insights also provides the following retail solutions:

    • Specializes in white space/bespoke/custom applications across the Retail value chain using NextGen, AI, and other emerging technologies.
    • Solution accelerators Ecommerce, Supply Chain Visibility, Trade Promotion, Smarter Checkouts, POS Testing and In-store digital engagement – Video Walls, Order Management, Headless Commerce, Trade Promotion, Promotion and Price Optimization, Employee Engagement and Omni Fuse.
    • System integrators for a leading platform like Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe, Magento, Diebold POS, Kantar Retail, GK Soft, and CRM Loyaltics.
    • Established a high-performing team of dynamic retail domain SMEs and Delivery team 100+ project implementation experience.

    Also Read– SFarms India Success Story

    RetailsInsights – USP and Innovation

    Retail Insights is a one-stop solution for Retail combined with high-end technology. The major USP’s include-

    • Omni (All) Channel Commerce – This platform provides connected customer experience from different channels way uniquely than others.
    • Digital Consumer Experience – Proactive and reactive communication on the platform allows personalized, contextual customer engagement.
    • Order Management – Retail Insights tackles the problem of lack of visibility in inventory and orders coming from different channels.

    Founders of RetailsInsights and team

    Vishnu Gullipalli is Founder & CEO at Retails Insights. Vishnu has an MBA from Ohio University USA and has spent the last 15 plus years working with various retailers across the globe on Omni Channel and Digital Transformation Program likes of TESCO, IRI, Harman, Happiest Minds, Hyvee, and Clarks UK.

    Faizal Insights

    Faizal is the Delivery Head. Faizal also has an MBA from Ohio University USA and 15 plus years of experience in working with companies like Zensar, IBM, Oracle, Accenture as Retail Solution Architect. In the past, he has had hands-on experience in ERPs like Retek, JDA and Infor. He was also at the position of engagement manager for Landmark, Tj Maxx, Shoprite, Vodafone, Marks, and Spencer, etc.

    How was RetailsInsights Started?

    The Retail Insights team had observed that SME & Enterprises work with a lot of technology companies ranging from large, medium and small. And the common issue that each of this company faced was that “tech people don’t understand business”

    Retail Insights solved this problem by bringing in the latest technology stack with a niche partner ecosystem along with flexible engagement models helping retail and brands “Buy Anywhere, Sell Anywhere and Return Anywhere along with operational excellence.” Retail Insights has worked with hundreds of retail and wholesale businesses to help them implement powerful technology stack to ace the O2O experiences to compete with the digital powerhouses.

    Also Read – Challenges faced by SaaS startups

    The tagline of Retail Insights is “Your Chief Omnichannel Officer” which came out of the vision that wanted to come across as retail is the company’s passion.

    RetailsInsights – Startup Launch

    The Retail Insights team’s expertise in domain + technology has helped them to provide customers with the best solution, adding value and quality along the way. They have collaborated with partners who are helping and advising them to achieve their organizational goals and accelerate towards technologies and services in the retail sector by leveraging the industry-led strengths in omnichannel retailing and digitization. Also, Retail Insights is the go-to for Retail Digital Innovation dialogue with clients across the globe. Both Strategic leaders in Omnichannel and Digital Transformation programs capability to translate initiatives with short to long-term deliverables.

    “Our D.A.R.E (Different, Anywhere, Relationship, Experience) solution framework has helped retailers and brands gain an edge over competitors.” Says Vishnu

    RetailsInsights – Startup Challenges

    Along with the plethora of challenges that a tech startup faces in the country, Retail Insights majorly faces Human Resources hurdles like employee retention and building a core team with the right set of talented employees.

    RetailsInsights – Competitors

    Large IT companies that are revolutionizing and moving towards retail digitization are the main competitors of Retail Insights. “We have a powerful tech stack of tailored retail solutions where we not only provide insights to our customers but also to help them understand their business challenges and ground reality which allows us to stay ahead of the competition.” Says Vishnu.

    Retail Insight’s expertise lies is a domain, technology, and accelerators that the team has built over the years, where the customers are able to see the tangible solution before it even freezes the solution scope which is far better than long SDLC process where the competition usually takes a longer route.

    Also read –

    RetailsInsights – Funding and Investors

    Retail Insights is completely bootstrapped and has been positive in terms of business numbers since the first day of inception.

    Checkout Indian Startup Funding Data here.

    RetailsInsights – Growth

    The Retail Insights team has grown enormously year over year and in 2019, the team has grown to a strength where they significantly contributed to increasing the consumer base.

    Retail Insights team

    Retail Insights also entered new markets entered like Dubai, UK, and the USA

    RetailsInsights – Awards

    •Well recognized as the Chief OmniChannel Officer for Retailers and Brands. “10 Best Retail Solution Company in APAC”.

  • AirCarry – Shop Your Favorite Products Across the World Right Here

    There are particularly two things that every person loves to do – Shopping and Traveling; apart from exploring and enjoying the various lip-smacking cuisines/food. Today we live in an interconnected world and as the world is getting smaller, people are getting exposed to wonderful products from across the globe. But most shoppers don’t get to enjoy their desired overseas products due to their unavailability in their home country/local region.

    Also, there are times when international products and new releases can be hard to avail of in one’s city or region. For example, limited edition handbags from Chanel or a beauty product from MAC/Clarins. One might want to have access to the new release that only exists in Paris or the US. This leaves you with 2 options – either pay the exorbitant international shipping fee or plead to a friend or family member to bring them their favorite overseas product on their trip.

    To address this issue AirCarry.io was launched in 2019 by Preetham Siddalingaswamy. AirCarry is a web platform that helps Shoppers to get products from anywhere in the world through a verified traveler on the AirCarry community who would purchase and deliver the product for a fee.

    Startup Name AirCarry
    Headquarter Bangalore
    Sector eCommerce, Travel & Logistics
    Founders Preetham Siddalingaswamy
    Founded 2019
    Parent Organization AirCarry, Inc.
    Website aircarry.io

    About AirCarry and How it Works
    AirCarry – USP and Innovation
    AirCarry – Target Market Size
    Founders of AirCarry and team
    How was AirCarry Started
    AirCarry – Startup Launch
    AirCarry – Startup Launch
    AirCarry – Business Model and Revenue Model
    AirCarry – Startup Challenges
    AirCarry – Growth
    AirCarry – Future Plans

    About AirCarry and How it Works

    AirCarry Website
    AirCarry’s Website

    AirCarry is a simple to use web platform that is mobile friendly and allows Shoppers across the globe to get any product from anywhere in the world. A Shopper just needs to paste the product link from the international website and in 3 simple steps will be able to get her/his favorite overseas product through an international traveler. On the other hand, Travellers can capitalize on their unused baggage space and offset some of their travel expenses – Travellers can pick and choose which product they want to deliver by going to the orders page on the website. AirCarry has partnered with robust world-class Payment systems like PayPal, which ensures safe and secure transactions on its platform. Shoppers’ funds are transferred to the traveler only after the Shopper has received the product. Shoppers and Travellers can communicate & clarify all things on AirCarry.io through the AirCarry chat messenger system.

    Also Read: Everything you need To know about Retarget Marketing

    AirCarry – USP and Innovation

    AirCarry wants to develop the philosophy of ‘One World. One Community’ and build the world’s most trusted peer-peer community that brings together Shoppers and Travelers alike. While the discerning shoppers get to buy and experience products they care for, AirCarry wants the travelers to earn a little in exchange that will offset some of their travel expenses and further enable them to travel and see more of this beautiful world, we all call home.

    AirCarry – Target Market Size

    AirCarry is set to disrupt the traditional expensive courier industry by creating its peer to peer gig economy in the Travel space between Shoppers and Travellers. Assocham recently published in EconomicTimes that the Luxury goods market alone in India is over $30 Billion and as per Boston Consulting Group this same market in China is over $120 Billion with over one-third of this spend happening overseas. When you add other product category segments like Electronics, Cosmetics, Beauty products, FMCG, Clothing, automobile accessories, etc and expand it across geographies like South East Asia, Latin American countries, Europe and Russia the opportunity get much bigger, as far as billions of dollars.

    On the other hand, the number of international travelers is increasing exponentially year after year – if you look up at the sky, around 1.2 million people are flying on 9,700 planes at any given point of time. Over 50% of these passengers are frequent fliers or passengers with excess/unused baggage space like young professionals, backpackers, students, etc. AirCarry now provides these globetrotters a way to capitalize on their unused baggage space and offset some of their travel expenses.

    Preetham says: “I realized this is a massive opportunity since nowadays everyone is aware of the various amazing products available across the globe and many times shopping from an international market is a much better option. Most of us in the team have spent our lives living and working away from our home countries before we got together to build this peer-to-peer community. We put in significant time & effort to ensure we design the most user-friendly & a simple system that supports people from different cultures and geographies. AirCarry.io today operates in over 80 countries.”

    Founder of AirCarry and Team

    Preetham Siddalingaswamy, Founder & CEO
    Preetham Siddalingaswamy, Founder & CEO 

    Preetham has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science engineering. After having worked in the IT industry for a couple of years, he went on to pursue his MBA at North Carolina State University in Supply Chain Management and Finance. He has over 14 years of experience in Supply Chain and Logistics in the Oil & Gas Industry by working for the most prestigious Oil & Gas firm, Chevron. As part of Chevron’s future leaders’ program, he got to live and work in several international cities across the globe and is known for building and managing high performing teams across countries and continents. Preetham is passionate about helping people, traveling and is a foodie at heart.

    Preetham is supported by an equally talented, dedicated and fantastic team that shares his passion for travel, technology, and shopping. Most of them have spent their lives living & working abroad before returning to their home country, which has helped them in truly understanding the opportunity at hand and think from the Shopper’s and Traveller’s perspective while designing the product.

    How was AirCarry Started

    AirCarry is built on Preetham’s experiences from the years he spent living overseas as well as in India. Experience of craving for something from India when he was away and on the contrary, longing for a few of the things not available when he came back home. It could have been a breakfast cereal or a sweet that he craved for, or a particular brand of apparel and the list is endless. This left him with the only choice – to wait for a traveling friend, family member or colleague to get those little things that give one joy for such little things are what makes this life joyful, right?

    It is this experience that got him thinking that there are many of us in a similar state of affairs, and this made him float the AirCarry platform. The basic idea was mainly to build a trusted community of Shoppers and international Travelers.

    AirCarry logo
    AirCarry logo

    The logo of AirCarry has a hot air balloon carrying a gift box which indicates the scenic route a product, that is most cherished and desired by a Shopper, takes on its journey with a Traveller on the AirCarry community. The Team truly believes that they are delivering happiness to everyone in the AirCarry Community.

    AirCarry – Startup Launch

    Since the launch, AirCarry has helped people to send gifts to their loved ones living across countries; it has helped parents who have extended their stay abroad to get their life-saving drugs from back home; it has helped a lot of fashionistas to enjoy and flaunt the best apparel, handbags, and cosmetics from abroad. There have even been bikers who have started requesting cool biking accessories from abroad to make their ride look more elegant!

    AirCarry works on the governing principles of Trust & Safety. This is the only peer to peer startup in India which connects Shoppers & Travelers providing a Money back guarantee, ensuring the authenticity of products and safety to all its community members. Travelers purchase the requested product for the Shoppers after the shopper has accepted a Traveler’s offer and deposited the funds in AirCarry payment systems. This ensures that the Traveler knows exactly what they are carrying and are assured of payment once they deliver the product to the shopper. This also helps Shopper that they don’t lose their money, and funds only get transferred to Traveler after the Shopper has received their requested product.

    “Transparency, Trust, Safety, and Communities are at the core of everything we do. Our systems are designed to provide the utmost transparency and reliability right from the time you start interacting with us and our community members. Hence, we provide a chat messenger system on our platform for our community members, Shoppers & Travelers, to chat with one another and clarify all questions they might have about a requested product and indicate the taxes being paid. We take pride in helping every member of the AirCarry community” Said the founder

    Also Read: How to Track Customer Acquisition in SaaS?

    AirCarry – Business Model and Revenue Model

    AirCarry charges a service fee on each successful delivery when it helps a Shopper connect with a Traveller, who purchases and delivers the requested product to the Shopper.

    AirCarry has also been approached by a few brands who want to launch in different geographies where such brands do not have a physical presence. These brands want to deliver their products to international markets through AirCarry community members. The AirCarry team believes there are a lot more avenues in capitalizing on this opportunity.

    AirCarry – Startup Challenges

    AirCarry team realizes that this is a new concept in the Indian eCommerce space and many of its users come to the platform, assuming that they would be able to browse through a product catalog and purchase an overseas product. AirCarry.io is facing the challenge of educating its users that an individual who is already aware of what overseas product they want can use this platform to publish their request which becomes visible to international travelers traveling to their city. Nonetheless, responding to the users’ feedback, the AirCarry team quickly built a blog to showcase some curated deals and international shopping sites from where Users can browse for more relevant products and post their requests accordingly.

    AirCarry, being a bootstrapped startup, is also facing the challenge of scaling quickly since the outreach through social media is restricted without paid advertisements. The team is working hard to create more awareness and visibility of the AirCarry brand.

    AirCarry – Growth

    AirCarry’s growth has been organic through word of mouth and its social media profiles on Facebook and Instagram. Whoever has heard about AirCarry have loved the concept and the platform; people have requested all kinds of items like electronics, watches, luxury handbags, perfumes, clothing, protein supplements, cosmetics, chocolates and now the team is even seeing requests for biking accessories, limited edition comic/action figurines.

    AirCarry has provided a much-needed web platform where people no longer need to wait for a family member to return from overseas or request a traveling friend “Please bring me that from there”. No more awkward requests, no more obligations – now everyone can enjoy all the wonderful products available across the globe without having to pay the exorbitant international shipping fee or having to make awkward requests. All the consumers have to do is post the product link on AirCarry.io and a Traveller would purchase and bring the product to your city. Shoppers are also ensured of authenticity since Travellers must upload the purchase receipt/proof of purchase on the platform. Thus, guaranteeing to the shopper of receiving genuine products.

    Also Read: The Best Calendar Apps that Will Help You Stay Organized in 2020

    AirCarry – Future Plans

    AirCarry.io was only recently launched and made available to the public after ensuring all aspects of its platform was functioning as required. The team wants to work towards making their brand more visible to all Indian shoppers and travelers to such an extent that every Shopper must consider purchasing their desired overseas product through AirCarry. In a couple of years, the AirCarry team also wants to start supporting the B2B space by forming strategic partnerships.