StartupTalky

Tag: Crafting Bharat

  • Crafting Bharat: A Podcast Series, Released Its Second Episode With Rishabh Sood, Co-Founder and CTO of BluSmart

    Rishabh Sood, co-founder and CTO of BluSmart discusses his founder journey, building a sustainable business and adoption of EVs with host Gautam Srinivasan.

    Over the past decade, the Indian Startup Ecosystem has undergone an exceptional evolution, surfacing as a vibrant and dynamic landscape for entrepreneurs. India is hosting a plethora of startups ranging from tech-driven to those focused on social impact and sustainability.

    The “Crafting Bharat – A Startup Podcast Series” powered by AWS, and an initiative by NewsReach, in association with VCCircle, unlocks the secrets behind these successful entrepreneurs’ journeys aiming to equip aspiring entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts with invaluable insights. The podcast series is hosted by Gautam Srinivasan, famed for hosting a diverse range of TV and digital programs, currently consulting editor at CNBC (India), CNN-News18, Mint, HT Media, Forbes India, and The Economic Times.

    India’s rapid urbanization is contributing to rising pollution levels, but visionary founder Rishabh Sood, co-founder and CTO of BluSmart is revolutionizing the ride-hailing sector with electric vehicles (EVs). In the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series, Sood talks about his founder’s journey, building a sustainable business, and adoption of EVs.

    Explore the tales of Indian startup founders’ transformation from dreams to reality, navigating challenges to seize opportunities through the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series.

    Crafting Bharat, Episode 2 With Rishabh Sood, Co-founder & CTO, BluSmart

    Segment 1: The Incubator

    How did you scale up but remain close to your customers in identifying their pain points, and, once you solve those issues, how do you keep the product relevant?

    The idea is that when you scale you need to do things which do not scale. Many companies do this when they scale, they start looking at customers as the data points. They will make pie charts and try to figure out why their customers are unhappy, we also did that but what we also did was to always try to maintain our ground connect, so, we would become customer support agents for a day and receive customer complaints, feel the pain & anger, and empathize with them. This is what helps us to stay relevant, we physically go through individual complaints. The idea is to capture the emotion. When you start looking at the suggestions or feedback as data points and in pie charts, you lose the emotion out of it.

    You could iron out the issues with a unique full-stack playbook that learnt from degraded user experiences of your competitors due to their asset-light models and resolve these issues to create a WOW experience while onboarding and retaining customers?

    If we built the same tech, built an aggregator model or if we get driver partners with their own cars then we will land up with the same problem, so, we fundamentally changed the business model and built the technology for it. And that is what helped us to figure out that we need to have the cars in our control, that way we can make sure that the condition is extremely good and well maintained. The schedule model was also a game changer for us and the reason for us to do a schedule model was because you cannot do a real-time ride with 70 cars.

    How is AWS enabling BluSmart to power up its backend to overcome issues around quick ride-matching, zero downtime, etc., and save operational costs while supporting your net-zero ambitions?

    AWS has been a trusted and supportive partner for us right from day one. We’ve built a lot of technology and machine learning algorithms for our scheduled ride model wherein we were able to make sure the car reaches on time. 97% of our rides are reaching in time with zero cancellations. We had to predict time required for a ride during different times of the day for which we built out machine learning models which we are running on the AWS infrastructure, and it’s been running smoothly.

    Segment 2: The Accelerator

    What’s the one lesson from BluSmart’s relatively slow expansion strategy that startup founders can learn from?

    We started with Delhi and today we have 7000 cars spread across just two cities; Delhi and Bangalore but these are big markets. I would say if you’re able to succeed in Delhi then there is no reason why you will not be able to go to any other city and succeed. That’s what you need to do, even when you are going slow you need to build things with scale.

    What’s the best mantra to maintain long-lasting co-founder relationships?

    I think what it really boils down to is trusting each other and having confidence in the ability of each other but at the same time you need to question and push each other as well. You need to maintain that balance of trusting but also really push and ask questions.

    India’s startup ecosystem is undergoing a significant transformation as the motivated founders lead with exceptional innovation. The passion and vision of the entrepreneurs is keeping the Indian startup ecosystem in motion. 

    Stay tuned to the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series as they bring you these inspirational entrepreneurs for insightful and candid discussions with Gautam Srinivasan.

    BluSmart: Founders, Business Model, Revenue Model, and More
    BluSmart is an Indian ride-sharing company that has a fleet of EV vehicles. Here’s a look at its business model, revenue model, founders and more.
    StartupTalkyShalini Rath

  • ‘Crafting Bharat – A Podcast Series,’ Premieres Its First Episode With Vinayak Bhavnani, Co-Founder and CTO of Chalo

    Vinayak Bhavnani, co-founder and CTO of Chalo discusses his entrepreneurial journey, building bus transport technology and trends in the Mobility industry with host Gautum Srinivasan.

    India has emerged as the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem over the last decade. Startups play an active role in surging innovation and job creation in India. The pandemic exposed the flip side of all sectors, but it accelerated digitization globally, and even more so in India.

    The “Crafting Bharat – A Startup Podcast Series” powered by AWS, and an initiative by NewsReach, in association with VCCircle, unlocks the secrets behind these successful entrepreneurs’ journeys aiming to equip aspiring entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts with invaluable insights. The podcast series is hosted by Gautam Srinivasan, famed for hosting a diverse range of TV and digital programs, currently consulting editor at CNBC (India), CNN-News18, Mint, HT Media, Forbes India, and The Economic Times.

    India’s rapid population growth and urbanization are creating blind spots for innovation, but a curious and passionate founder Vinayak Bhavnani, co-founder and CTO of Chalo, is digitizing the public transport system of India. In the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series, Bhavnani talks about his entrepreneurial journey, building a bus transport technology company, and trends in the Mobility industry.

    Explore the tales of Indian startup founders’ transformation from dreams to reality, navigating challenges to seize opportunities through the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series.

    Crafting Bharat, Episode 1 With Vinayak Bhavnani, Co-Founder and CTO of Chalo

    Segment 1: The Incubator

    Preference for public transport in India is reduced by reliability issues.  Take us through the phase where customers started to see the benefits of using Chalo in terms of reliability and convenience. What did they really like?

    From a customer’s standpoint, there are two key value propositions that we offer. First, being live tracking, bus passengers on average end up waiting for 15-20 minutes per bus ride, leading to 40 minutes of time wasted every day. Our live tracking solution has brought down this time to less than 2 minutes which is a massive delight. And second, is that back in 2018-2019 a couple of years after the demonetization we introduced tap-to-pay payments and we saw another surge of customer delight. I think these are some of the unlocks which we were able to leverage.

    Digitizing and transforming public transportation, the gaps are significant. So, why do you believe the challenge of urban public transportation has persisted without a satisfactory solution. A lot has happened including digital payments, digital infrastructure, consumer awareness, consumer habits have changed but still those gaps exist. Your thoughts on this?

    This is a great question and one which needs a lot more reflection. As a fact, the majority of our cities are built for cars and not for public transport. We got it wrong by prioritizing private vehicles over public transport.

    Beyond this, there are 3 more reasons I can think of:

    1. Lack of focus on this category. Most companies would rather build for the top of the pyramid, for the more affluent high LTV users. So we have products for air travel, intercity luxury bus travel but not as much for intra-city bus commute. These bus passengers unfortunately are the lower end of the pyramid. 
    2. Second is the blindspot. Most people think that buses are run only by Governments, and usually there is hesitation to build a business completely dependent on the government. But beyond our metros, most buses serving daily commutes are run by small private operators. 
    3. And the third is complexity. People logistics is complex and already underserved, hence it will take both time and massive innovation.

    You operate in more than 50 cities across India and are present in 5 international locations. All together a lot of scaling up and your cloud ops are powered by AWS. Take us through the cost savings and operational efficiencies unlocked for Chalo with AWS.

    Our vision is to solve end-to-end mobility, we want to make sure that your travel is hassle-free and while the bus is the best main mile or the anchor mile, you need to solve for more accessibility to bus networks or Metro networks and hence, first and last mile must be solved. I personally believe in long-term partnerships and AWS has been one true partner. The biggest test is when adversity strikes, back during COVID time all mobility was at a standstill and we were on a very tight spot. AWS helped us out massively by helping us reduce cost and to extend our commitments, so from a cash flow perspective we are better off as a company. These simple gestures go a long way to build trust and respect which are essential for any partnership.

    Story of Chalo – An App that Simplifies Bus Travel Like Never Before
    Read all about Chalo app that is helping people from buying bus tickets and bus passes, to tracking bus timing, Chalo app is making bus travel smooth.
    StartupTalkyChayanika Goswami

    Segment 2: The Accelerator

    Technical founders need to know when to take off their developer hat and when to put on their business hat. Your thoughts? 

    I follow this one principle which I also preach a lot, and that is to maximize the value that you create. Every time you look at a problem or an opportunity, Think about what’s the best way of solving, and not necessarily the best tech way of solving. In simpler words, we are biased to use our own tools vs the best solution possible. So one always needs to see things from a founder’s perspective vs. a techie perspective.`Tech is a subset – it’s a means and not the end. `

    Your view on traffic in Mumbai versus Bengaluru?

    That’s a controversial question. But traffic is on the rise in all the cities Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. If you look at the number of cars on the road in all these cities in the last decade, it has rammed up. For example, 50% of road space is consumed by cars in Mumbai. And Bangalore has seen a 2x increase in the number of vehicles on the road over the last decade, with almost no increase in the number of buses. So traffic is a nightmare everywhere. We need to solve this. None of us deserve to lose our time and well-being in the middle of congested roads. And I’m hopeful that it will be solved.

    The startup ecosystem of India has been growing leaps and bounds with exceptionally great innovations by visionary entrepreneurs. The increasing adoption of digitization across sectors has created avenues for various budding startups.

    Stay tuned to the Crafting Bharat Podcast Series as we bring you these inspirational entrepreneurs for insightful and candid discussions with Gautam Srinivasan.

    Focusing on maximizing value and finding optimal solutions instead of fixating on familiar paths leads to better outcomes.

    How to Use Podcasts to Elevate Your Brand and Connect With Audiences
    Podcasting has emerged as another marketing tool to engage customers. Learn how to use podcasts to elevate your brand and connect with audiences.
    StartupTalkyMuskaan Kapoor