Digital marketing is not just a trend now, itâs one of the most essential mediums to drive sales for the company. To optimize this process and to provide the best MarTech products in the market, Kuldeep Chaudhary launched ADOHM in 2017.
ADOHM is a platform that uses the power of big data and incorporates machine learning techniques, applied propensity models, predictive analysis and other AI applications to deliver highly personalized communication across multiple devices and channels. Built from scratch using AI, ADOHM is an autonomous machine that requires little or no human intervention and can execute ad campaigns seamlessly across different paid channels, including mobile, social, video and display. ADOHM comprises a Marketing Suite, Sales CRM, Chatbot and Google My Business Dashboard.
ADOHM is an Artificial Intelligence-powered platform that automates the entire advertising process by uniting ad campaigns from various platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Taboola and offers an end-to-end solution for all digital marketing needs of brands and businesses. Beginning with a marketing suite for advertising, a sales CRM for lead management and automation, Google My Business for managing business location listings, auto-replies and an in-built chatbot, ADOHM is a truly autonomous machine that delivers impactful campaigns with little or no human intervention.
The main idea at ADOHM is to build products using more futuristic technology like Facial Recognition, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and the biggest pool of data consisting of patterns combined with facial information. The core belief is to build an original product from scratch in MarTech and rather than copying similar techniques.
According to the State of Marketing Report, India, the MarTech Industry is being adopted in India in a big way. Digital Media is getting expensive due to competition and brands are looking to derive greater advertisement returns and a connected view with the marketing technologies. This industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 44% for the next 5 years. India as a country has a projected opportunity of $250-300 million. The idea is to grow and expand in India and the European and US Market.
ADOHM – Founders and Team
The founders of ADOHM are Kuldeep Chaudhary, Sandeep Chaudhary, and Nishant Chaudhary.
The roles of the co-founders are divided as follows:
Kuldeep is the CEO of the company and heads the management of the company
Sandeep is the mind behind the innovation and strategies of the companies and the clients
Nishant is the conceptual mind behind the smallest details behind the quality of work that the company produces.
ADOHM currently is working with 30 employees
ADOHM – How did it start?
ADOHM, as a concept germinated when the trio Nishant, Kuldeep and Sandeep, the three brothers working at Nikulsan Digital Agency (parent company) understood their clients/manufacturers’ requirements of high ROIs and seamless optimization of their businessesâ digital campaigns in a cost-effective manner. This led them to develop the AI-powered product which is poised at helping businesses optimize their digital campaigns, use ad budgets effectively and generate leads at an affordable price. âThe initial people that we talked to were our clients which helped us understand what problems they are facing in real-time.â Says Kuldeep Chaudhary. Â
ADOHM – Name, Tagline, and Logo
The name ADOHM is a combination of AD + OHM. Ohm is the unit of resistance, the idea here was to remove any resistance that came in between while running ads and marketing campaigns. Hence, the name ADOHM. The idea was to convey that ADOHM makes running marketing campaigns as easy as using a smartphone powered by Artificial Intelligence.
ADOHM – Startup Launch
The techniques that worked the best for the ADOHM team were cold calling and Google Ads. These two techniques helped them gain a lot of traction and created a lot of buzz in the market through which they got a good number of clients.
The revenue model of ADOHM is based on a license per user for the Sales CRM and the Google My Business Dashboard. The Marketing Suite runs on Pay as you use, a model where the user can recharge a sum of money for their marketing campaigns and 5% is charged as platform fees for that out of the amount that is recharged. The licenses have 4 different plans â Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise. The price of the licenses is based on the number of features required by the customer.
ADOHM – Startup Challenges
The most challenging part for ADOHM was to explain to the consumers that they are facing a problem and creating a need for a solution that will help them with their end to end marketing. âIn the beginning, it was very difficult to make people understand what solutions we were offering and how it will solve most of their marketing challenges.â Added Kuldeep Chaudhary.
Another challenge for this venture was to manage the attrition rate of the employees as it was a fast-paced growing industry and the churn of employees was very high.
ADOHM – Growth
ADOHM is currently working out of Bangalore, London, and New York. Some of its notable clients are â Sobha Developers, Apollo Hospitals, Puravankara, Brigade Group, Barbeque Nation.
ADOHM – Awards and Recognition
The awards and recognitions received by ADOHM are:
Digital Startup of the Year â Global Marketing Awards
The best campaign in Healthcare and pharmaceutical â Indian Marketing Awards
AI platform of the year â Zendesk
Best AI Platform â Realty Proptech Summit
ADOHM – Future Plans
The future plans for ADOHM are to expand in the European and North American markets.
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Whoever quoted first impression is often the last impression couldn’t have stated the truth better; people tend to generalize one’s personality and upkeep from appearances. Therefore, having a good wardrobe is more than a necessity these days. But when one looks for quality clothing from big brands, shelling out money becomes an obstacle. And if you consider international trends, the price blows through the roof! To make fashion that’s popular across the globe affordable and accessible, a venture based in India is working relentlessly and that’s Tisharth.
“Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing wellâ, said Vivienne Westwood. And it makes sense. Fashion makes one look appealing from the outside and confident in his/her skin. Fashion designers are constantly coming up with different designs and innovations to meet the needs of different occasions, seasons, locations, tastes, body types, etc. The creative minds are always on the prowl for inspirational patterns and designs. Shivani Jain of India is one such passionate designer who conceived her prĂȘt clothing label, Tisharth, to meet international cuts and fits.
Tisharth deals with women clothing that is classy and trendy. Tisharth exists to provide high-end fashion which is comfortable and high on style at affordable prices. The venture caters to the apparel needs of women of all ages and build.
Tisharth – Industry Details
The fashion industry in India is growing rapidly. The segment is expected to grow at 15% CAGR till 2022. A recent report forecasts the apparel market in India to be valued at $102 billion by 2022.
Reports by Facebook, KPMG, and Nielsen narrow down to the same findingâwith internet availability no longer being a hindrance, consumers in tier two and three cities are becoming familiar with brands and products through e-commerce and social media.
Mobile platforms are expected to influence nearly two-thirds of the purchase on apparel and fashion accessories by 2022.
Fashion industry is growing rapidly in the modern generation. People are now more careful for what they are wearing. So, Tisharth team see themselves making a fashionable future for others.
Shivani Jain is the founder of Tisharth. An alumna of NIFT, Shivani started working from the early age of 19. She ran her own label in the beginning, then worked for 10 years as a designer and a fashion merchandiser before taking a sabbatical to be with her growing children. Her love and passion for fashion designing could not keep her away from work for much long, and she launched her own prĂȘt label, Tisharth by Shivani, in 2015.
Tisharth currently has a skeleton crew of 15 people comprising designers, tailors, embroiders, and assistants.
Shivani Showcasing Her Creations at a Fashion Show
Tisharth – How It Started
There was an instance when Shivani needed a stylish dress reflecting international cut and fit but could not find it locally or online. The failure compelled her to take the mantle on herself and make such apparels available to all. She decided to launch a label that would cater to global trends, aesthetics, and quality.
Tisharth – Name And Logo
The word Tisharth has been derived from Shivani’s kids’ names.
I took the first 4 letters of my son’s and daughter’s first names. Â It was always my dream to start my very own label but I took a sabbatical to raise my children. So I Â named my label after them.
The logo is a cloth hanger with the word Tisharth hanging from it. It aptly captures the essence of fashion!
Tisharth logo
Tisharth – Product
Tisharth brings you fluid feminine drapes in flattering international silhouettes.
We are a prĂȘt fashion label for women. We specialize in western and fusion wear. Each garment is created with a story and a different silhouette.
The Tisharth team experiments with embroideries and fabrics to deliver high-quality apparels exuding quality and class. Moreover, Tisharth’s embroidery techniques are unique to the brand and can only be matched by haute couture labels.
TISHARTH is based on a simple retail model. It launches two well planned collections every year. Each collection is inspired by a unique story. The collections often grace ramps and popular fashion events.
The company sells its products through various sales channels such as fashion exhibitions, collaborative stores, online platforms, social media handles, or from its flagship store in Gurgaon.
Tisharth – Customer Acquisition
A Model Wearing Tisharth Creations
Tisharth markets itself by participating in events, exhibitions, and fashion shows. It’s highly active on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Tisharth – Funding
TISHARTH is a 100% sole proprietorship company. Currently, Tisharth has not resorted to any sort of funding and has sufficient capital to take care of its operational expenses.
Tisharth – Challenges
The early days of the startup were arduous since creating quality apparels at affordable prices was no easy feat. To break even, let alone creating profits, in such business models requires serious ingenuity. With solid determination and resolve, Tisharth started in-house production in order to achieve the standards it was looking for. When Shivani began her venture, there were only two markets for western wear in Indiaâthe retail stores of  renowned designers, and the flea markets. Her challenge was to establish a brand that was high on fashion yet affordable and easily available, in the midst of intensive competition.
There is no direct competition for the label. However, Shivani tells Tisharth is on par with Michael Kors, Armani, and Calvin Klein in terms of the price bracket. She draws inspiration from established brands to create new designs.
Tisharth – Achievements
Tisharth has presence in both India and abroad. The label is sold across various stores in Delhi, Mumbai, and Jaipur. The company has been able to allure customers from different countries courtesy of its rich catalog.
Tisharth’s creations have been  showcased  at various Fashion Weeks. The company’s kitty consists of the India Runway Week 2017, the India Fashion Week London 2017, the New York Fashion Week 2018, the Times Fashion Week 2018, and the Paris Fashion Week 2019.  Its collections have been appreciated by all and publicized by the industry big shots as; there has been press coverage from domestic and international media as well. The venture aims to have international celebrities endorse it in the coming time.
Nushrat Bharucha promoting Tisharth’s collections
Tisharth – Technology Used
Tisharth makes use of excellent craftsmanship. It has state of the art imported sewing machinery for achieving flawless stitching and detailing. The in-house craftsmen create and execute impeccable apparels through deft handwork.
Shivani with her team is ready to disrupt the fashion industry.
I and want my label to be available at the stores all over the world. I want to be known as a designer with a global recognition
Tisharth – Founder’s Advice
Shivani believes it’s never too late to start living your dream.
You have to believe in yourself and work really hard to achieve your goals. Always be truthful and keep your eyes open at all times, as you never know when the inspiration strikes.
On the go entertainment is still in its nascent stage in India. While today we are  almost habituated to using fast internet all  the times, most of us must have experienced the anxiety of not being able to access internet during long travel. Long journeys become boring in the absence of something to keep us entertained and engaged. So till now, it was like either you have to take the pain of loading your mobile with songs, videos and movies every-time before travelling long distance, or get bored. But thankfully now, on the go entertainment scenario is changing, and a startup that is making a major mark in this sector is GoldSeat. Gold Seat, is currently covering the bus travel segment, and offers WiFi-connectivity on bus, plus a vast collection of movies that travelers can enjoy either on their mobile phones by downloading the GoldSeat app or on the GoldSeat screens installed in the buses.
GoldSeat is a Delhi based startup that is changing the traveling experience for many long distance bus travelers. GoldSeat offers two great ways to access seamless offline entertainment. One, it offers free WiFi to passengers inside the bus. Secondly, it has a wide collection of movies that travelers can access either on the GoldSeat screens installed in the bus, or on one’s mobile by downloading the GoldSeat mobile app.
In order to access the high-end entertainment services provided by GoldSeat on mobile, one needs to follow three simple steps listed below:
Connect to GoldSeat Wi-Fi
Download the GoldSeat App
Enjoy free Wi-Fi and Unlimited Entertainment.
GoldSeat provide licensed content that runs seamlessly on travelers’ devices without them having to worry about data costs
As a value-added to Bus Operators, GoldSeat also provides a host of live features under GoldLiv service such as Live Cameras, GPS, Passenger Information System, Automated GPS based announcements, live alerts. GoldLiv night vision cameras could carry a recording of up to 30 days and could be accessed remotely by the travel operator.
Latest HD content which runs seamlessly without any data cost and even without connectivity, multi network wifi, offline entertainment and IOT for a connected bus experience are the USPs that GoldSeat boasts off.
GoldSeat was co-founded by Gaurav Kapahi and Nischal Khetarpal. The co-founders met each other at their common workplace, HCL technologies. It is here Gaurav discussed the idea of GoldSeat with Nischal, and soon they went working on the idea to make it a reality.
Gaurav Kapahi is CEO of GoldSeat. He is an MBA (Marketing) graduate from MDI Gurgaon with over 13 years of work experience. In his last assignment, he was the Marketing Head of HCL Technologies.
Nishchal Khetarpal is CTO of GoldSeat. He pursued marketing in MBA from Amity Business School. With an overall experience of 15 years, Nishchal has tried his hand in eight different businesses before GoldSeat. Previously, he headed Digital marketing at HCL Technologies.
The company is currently operating on the bootstrapped model. GoldSeat has 14 people on rolls, six people outsourced. This startup has an open work culture with a limited/ flat hierarchy to ensure a more agile setup and quick decision making.
How was GoldSeat Started
Gaurav Kapahi was once traveling from Bengaluru to Delhi, and the in-flight entertainment (IFE) system of the plane has stopped working. To keep himself occupied, Kapahi turned to his mobile phone. The phone, however, had limited content, making Kapahi’s overall journey quite boring.
I realized how important it was to have access to entertaining content, especially if you are one of those people who can’t sleep while travelingâ whether on a bus or on an aircraft
This experience has sowed the seeds of an entrepreneurial idea. Now that idea has fructified to provide travelers access to quality entertainment content on their phone.
The GoldSeat  team undertook extensive research to study the market. It mostly relied on secondary research while primary research was conducted in the Delhi NCR region. In secondary research, GoldSeat relied on the publicly  available information concerning public transport and the sale of buses. Through the research findings, it was understood that the public mode of transportation was mostly neglected by large service providers. GoldSeat has calculated the total number of luxury and semi-luxury buses in India which are numbered at 45000 and are increasing at an average of 20% annually. This means that the market is growing faster than all other modes of public transport.
Going ahead with the idea Gaurav and his team conducted a demo for one of the largest bus services that catered to the tourist segment, mainly inbound tourists. This demo provided the team at GoldSeat comprehensive feedback, prior they commercially launched service for daily transit buses. GoldSeat with various pre-launch research and preparation was established in January 2017
Idea for the name came from the fact that all journeys start by booking a seat or choosing a seat and we wanted to elevate that experience of someone’s journey to a GoldSeat experience which was entertaining, connected and premium – Gaurav says
GoldSeat Logo
GoldSeat – Business Model and Revenue Model
GoldSeat business is B2B while its offering is B2C. The company charges the owners of buses on a monthly basis based on a subscription model. Even both the hardware and software are on the subscription model with few options that are based on the needs of the operators.
GoldSeat – User Acquisition and Growth
GoldSeat, to gain its initial customers relied on establishing a direct connection with the bus operators. The GoldSeat team went to each of the bus operators and personally explained the benefits of using GoldSeats’ services. Gradually, they introduced their clients to newer technologies. Cold calling and persistent follow-ups are a few of the techniques that GoldSeat has managed to employ successfully in building a secure network of service.
Furthermore, continually adding new services to the portfolio has kept GoldSeat updated, accommodating, and relevant for bus operators. GoldSeat also partners with software providers, bus aggregators, and ticketing platforms to increase their presence across the country.
GoldSeat – Startup Challenges
Funding is a crucial thing for every startup to build a core team and begin operations. Previously, we struggled to determine the core target group, as customers are scattered and the sector is unorganized in India. Apart from that, recognizing their needs was a major barrier because they didn’t give much priority to licensed content – Gaurav says explaining the challenges the startup faced
The GoldSeat  team emphasized on helping bus operators understand how the solution could engage customers. Once that was done, the next challenge was to get their payments on time; the company is consistently working to improve both, compliance from the clients’ side and to provide updated quality content from their team.
In June 2018, GoldSeat raised $ 3 million funding.
Date
Stage
Amount
Investor
June, 2018
Series A
$3m
Undisclosed
GoldSeat – Future Plans
GoldSeat has recently collaborated with Railyatri.in for its Intercity Smart Buses. It currently offers services to private players across Northern and Western regions, including Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Delhi, and cities in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
Gaurav founded GoldSeat with the idea of providing entertainment services to travelers in all forms of transports. By 2020, the brand plans to be the leader in the bus segment and has already started initiating operations in railways and airlines. The company plans to have a well-established distribution network spread-out pan India over the next five years. The brand aims to have visibility in each and every part of the country and to be the top-notch player of travel entertainment.
Feedback is the truest essence of business operations. With all the branding marketing initiatives undertaken by the brands, it becomes imperative for them to garner correct and complete feedback from their consumers. With the vision to build an optimum feedback software out there, Mike Slaats launched Upvoty in 2018.
Upvoty is a user feedback tool with feature voting. With Upvoty you, as a software owner, one can easily collect and manage all of the user feedback such as feature requests, bug reports, or other ideas. Also, one can implement the feedback boards and product roadmap seamlessly into the application. Users can submit new feedback or upvote on existing ones. This way, as the product owner, one is always on top of customer needs.
Upvoty is the solution to an endless feedback loop. The Upvoty team themselves has experienced the hassle of collecting and managing feedback from different channels such as chats, emails, and phone calls. With this platform, the users have a central place for all of your customer feedback. They can create different boards for different purposes. Users can submit new requests and upvote on existing ones. Through Upvoty they can also communicate each step of the way by notifying all the voters that a request has gone âin progressâ or set to âliveâ. One can also comment and create discussions with users about why they need certain features and can even create a product roadmap to show your users whatâs next. Thatâs how the platform provides one simple overview.
Upvoty – Target Market Size
Upvoty is focusing on SaaS companies. It launched its product as a general feedback tool for basically everybody. The team that thought every startup needs feedback to build a better version of their product, so they all would want to have software like Upvoty. Wrong. If thereâs one thing the team has learned is that one has to narrow down the target audience and focus on one core (smaller) group. And thatâs when the Upvoty team started to focus on SaaS specifically and since then has grown tremendously.
âThe SaaS market is an amazing community-driven world. We are getting tons of great feedback about our product, which helps us make it better and better.â Says Mike.
Founders of Upvoty and team
Mike Slaats, Founder of Upvoty
Mike Slaats is the sole founder of the company. Currently, Upvoty is a team of five and the team works fully remotely. Upvoty is looking forward to expanding its remote team with people in Europe, the Americas, and Asia because it is managing clients from all over the world. And this would improve customer support if the team can be present in all timezones.
How was Upvoty Started?
Upvoty is not the first startup that this team came up with. Before Upvoty, the team worked on another startup and it grew very quickly and because of the user growth, the amount of feedback quickly grew too. They received feedback on many different channels such as chat, phone, email, and social media. Thus, the team was required to find a way to collect and manage feedback in a better and efficient way.
They researched the existing feedback tools and concluded that there wasnât any who was either good enough or affordable for a startup. And thatâs when they decided to build one.
To validate the idea for a feedback tool like Upvoty, the team launched a landing page with an animation video and explained what Upvoty was all about. âWe shipped it into the wild and quickly we received sign-ups from potential customers. After a few weeks, we hit 500+ sign-ups and thatâs when we knew we were on to something.â Says Mike
And they started coding the SaaS and after 5 months shipped the first beta product in November 2018. Upvoty offered the product for free to the first few customers in exchange for feedback, which helped the team build a better first version. In February 2019 they finally launched publicly and grew to an MRR of over $1,000 in just a couple of months.
Upvoty – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Upvoty logo
The founder Mike had come up with the name âUpvoty.â He was playing around with some names and eventually stuck with Upvoty because it was playful and would suggest immediately what it does: upvote! The tagline âInstant feedback, instantly better productsâ really assist in telling the audience what can do with this product.
Upvoty – Startup Launch
Upvoty was launched on the founderâs social media channels, who had a big follower base on both Instagram as his newsletter. He also did a small YouTube series from designing the tool to the launch. Upvoty also launched in beta on Betalist, and later on publicly on Indie Hackers and Product Hunt. This resulted in new signups for the beta type and helped spread the word of the launch.
The founder did a lot of interviews, shared a lot of the progress on his Indie Hackers profile, Twitter, and Instagram, and the team mainly focused on content marketing on the blog. Since they are more focused on their ideal ICP, with everything they do in marketing, they are getting more and more hits on the website. This resulted in more signups and paid clients. âWe recently released an eBook which helped us get in front of 10s of thousands of new potential customers.â Said, Mike
Upvoty – Business Model and Revenue Model
Upvoty does not have a free plan or a freemium model. It started with paid plans right from the beginning. Its cheapest plan starts from $15 a month and allows the user to create 2 boards, have 3 team members, and 150 tracked users. Tracked users are users who participated on the boards by either upvoting, commenting, or posting new ideas. If one needs more users, team members, or boards, Upvoty has two other plans: Super Power ($25 a month), or our Unlimited Plan ($99 a month) which has everything included unlimited.
Upvoty – Startup Challenges
Branding is a major challenge in the SaaS world. There are a lot of SaaS competitors and Upvoty is in the constant need to stand out. Thatâs why the team focuses so much on sharing the progress with the community. They are all very appreciative. Launching the eBook, for example, wasnât written to target potential customers, but just to share the process and progress on launching SaaS. âBecause we gave away free knowledge in a space where our target audience is actively present, it did target some new customers.â Said Mike. Also, Upvoty tried to grow with paid ads, but it has too much competition from bigger software companies.
Upvoty – Growth
Upvoty recently signed its first enterprise company which is a major bank from India. They are coming on board with Upvoty for a great annual revenue plan.
Upvoty – Future Plans
Upvoty is aiming for an MRR of $10,000 before the end of 2020. âWeâre hoping to accomplish this by doing more demos, making our product better for bigger teams so we can acquire bigger companies and enterprises. This should boost our MRR.â Said, Mike.
Who doesn’t love to stay fit? While everyone wishes to live a healthy and active life free from ailments, owing to the unhealthy and inappropriate lifestyle that most of us follow these days, we become susceptible to many diseases. Knowingly or unknowingly we adopt many unhealthy habits which may prove detrimental to our health in the long run. We lack motivation and guidance required to maintain a healthy lifestyle. While all of us cannot afford the luxury of hiring our own personal nutritionist, wouldn’t you love it if someone is always by your side taking care as you are about to eat? If yes, then there is some good news. PurpleTeal, a startup which is operating both in India and abroad, brings to you ‘Tweak & Eat’ an app that will give you practical and real-time advice on how to tweak your meals to make it healthier. Tweak & Eat Âź was launched in 2017 and is designed to help users with weight-loss and management of diet-related health issues.
PurpleTeal is an established mobile Health (mHealth) service provider. It operates an automated, personalized mHealth messaging platform for Telcos and consumers. PurpleTealâs mHealth platform and apps engage subscribers to take better care of their health and wellness, by educating them and prompting them to take appropriate and timely health actions.
PurpleTeal’s core business is a smartphone app âTweak & Eatâ which offers just-in-time meal advice to subscribers. The company has headquarters in Foremont (California) and Chennai (India).
The companyâs vision is to âKeep Everyone Healthy, Looking Good & Feeling Great!â and their Mission is to âTransform Health & Wellness across the Globe!.
Even people who are aware that diet is important for good health, find it difficult to remember and follow their diet plans or principles (e.g. eat fewer carbs). They need specific, real-time advice and hand-holding at the âpoint of consumptionâ. PurpleTealâs âTweak & Eatâ App, makes it easier for people to make long-term dietary changes through incremental changes to each meal through personalized âtweaksâ. Each meal is a âteachable momentâ. âTweak & Eatâ makes it simple by relieving people of the onerous work of remembering, recording, counting, tracking or analyzing their food intake: Users just need to send a picture of the meal in front of them and the nutritionists will tell them how to make that meal healthier for their body profile.
Mr. Narayanan Ram and Mr. Anand Subra are the founders of PurpleTeal.
Mr. Narayanan Ram, is the CEO of PurpleTeal. He is an experienced entrepreneur with deep roots in the information technology industry. By education, he is an electrical engineering graduate. He graduated in 1993 and joined Cirrus Logic. From 1993-1996, he worked in Cirrus Logic holding different posts. In 1996, at the time of leaving Cirrus Logic, Mr. Ram was Director of Video Telecom Products.
In 1997, Mr. Ram founded SeeItFirst Inc., a video software tools company. From conceptualizing, architecting and implementing the first ‘interactive frame-based video streaming technology’ to receiving patents for the same, Mr. Ram has a lot to his credit. Besides, he was also successful in attracting investments from NBC/GE, MKS Ventures, and Deutsche Bank. He launched the first product in 1998 and built up a blue-chip customer base with over 100 implementations in the US, Japan and India. Mr. Ram formed and guided a strong management team and Board of Directors for SeeItFirst. SeeItFirst was acquired by the UB Group in 2001. Mr. Ram continued as CEO of SeeItFirst until 2004. Â
Dr. Anand Subra, is the Chief Knowledge Officer of PurpleTeal. He is an IIT alumnus and is a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is the co-author of many journal papers and holds US and foreign patents. He is responsible for new product development and providing knowledge support for strategy, marketing and delivery initiatives.
Anand previously worked with IBM for 20 years in various departments like sales, marketing, consulting, and strategy and business development. Anand helped a number of multinational firms in successfully developing and implementing their business strategies and operational initiatives. He led the business development of IBM innovation management services and also spearheaded these services in the healthcare industry.
The founders Narayanan and Anand were always looking for new ways to improve peopleâs lives and periodically meet in some locatioThe founders Narayanan and Anand were always looking for new ways to improve peopleâs lives and periodically met in some location to brainstorm new ideas. During one such meeting in Silicon Valley in 2015, they were discussing the obesity and overweight epidemic and looking at various sites and apps that were addressing the fitness/wellness space. They wanted to make a difference to people with weight-related health issues.
Narayanan and Anand were struck by the level of effort required to use some of the other health & wellness apps and felt that these apps appealed more to âpower usersâ, who used these apps for record-keeping and validation from other users. Most likely, they had already established a âhealthyâ diet and exercise habits and were using fitness apps to further hone their habits. Power users were deeply engaged with the quantitative aspects of the app and reveled in data entry, analysis and feedback. In contrast, âaverage usersâ would consider these requirements to be very onerous and were likely to stop using the apps in a short while. This made them feel that they could come up with a much easier approach, one that would appeal to the average user, and require far less effort, but also provide useful functionality for power users.
Taking a step further, Narayanan and Anand consulted with their friends and others about what they would want in an ideal weight-loss app, and what they have experienced with other apps. They found out that what most people needed was not just information and actionable tips/instructions, they also needed hand-holding. They felt they were left to their own devices at meal times, especially in certain situations like a buffet, eating out with a group, someone pushing unhealthy food, etc. Â
They realized that while it is one thing to âknowâ that curtailing carb intake leads to weight-loss, it is totally another thing to take the appropriate actions when sitting at a meal filled with all sorts of carb-temptations! What would really help was telling them which items to avoid and which to eat, and how much. This would make things far easier.
They also observed that while existing apps placed a lot of emphasis on recording and analyzing every morsel eaten by the user, informing the user to the nth degree of detail, but not really motivating any lasting changes in behavior. Also, these apps coached users âafter-the-factâ, i.e. the app would tell them what all they ate and how they could do better next time – after they had already eaten their meals. Users would have to remember the instructions and make sure they followed them â all on their own! Â These made Anand and Narayanan feel that they could do a whole lot better by hand-holding the users as and when they were actually eating their meals. They wanted to design something which would free the users from remembering the instructions from their last meal and from entering any data. Thus the idea behind âTweak & Eatâ was formed.
Anand and Narayanan soon started Executing this idea. They analyzed a large number of papers and journal articles as well through which they found some very interesting information. One is that people lost some weight on almost every âdietâ, but were unable to sustain them; the lost weight invariably came right back! This is a widely recognized phenomenon, aptly summarized by American humorist Erma Bombeck: âIn two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.â
Mark Twain, another American humorist, once said: âGiving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.â The same can be said for weight-loss!
Another very surprising finding that stood out was that exercise did not play an important enough role in weight-loss! Diet played a far greater role and therein lay the rub because people find it very difficult to sustain drastic changes to their diets over the long term.
The PurpleTeal team started developing the app based upon the various findings. They laid out the technical design and requirements, applied for US and International patents (still pending), and began development. The team came up with an approach that would require very little user effort (most of the work would be done by nutritionists). â it would allow people to eat what they normally did, but with a âTweakâ (meal-modification) under the guidance of nutritionists.
All the user would have to do is to take a picture of their meal and send it to âTweak & Eatâ. The rest backend activity would be manned by qualified nutritionists. Within a minute, the nutritionists would send back a tweak. No data entry, no remembering anything⊠it couldnât be made any easier than this!
The name Tweak and Eat came from the idea that â the user will eat what he/she would normally eat and just âtweakâ (make incremental changes) the meal a bit to suit the userâs body profile and achieve his/her specific goals.
What is PurpleTeal
The Companyâs core business is a smartphone app and Service called âTweak & Eatâ. Â ‘Tweak & Eat’ aims to empower health-conscious subscribers with âJust-in-timeâ meal advice (i.e. âTweaksâ) from nutritionists who analyze the nutritive content of each meal and make suggestions for improvement.
âTweak & Eatâ helps subscribers make informed food choices and changes for the meal they are just about to eat, based on their individual body parameters and specific health goals. All the subscriber has to do is to take a picture of their food plate and send it to us using the App. Tweak & Eat nutritionists then view the plate and make appropriate portion control, food swapping or eating sequence recommendations in less than a minute. They may also make suggestions for future meals, taking advantage of meal-time âteachable momentsâ to educate subscribers about healthy eating.
Tweak & Eat also supports integration with devices like Fitbit, iWatch, etc. and enables personalized reminders to be set for breakfast, lunch, dinner and other meal-times. Â
âTweak & Eatâ is training and using Tweakyfai (its proprietary AI platform) to help nutritionists do a better job of giving real-time advice and information to users. Tweakyfai also automates some activities such as generating nutrition labels and escalating exceptions.
Important features of âTweak & Eatâ App are–
My EDR (Electronic Diet Record) â It contains all the current and past tweaks of the user along with the nutritionistâs comments and nutrition labels. It also shows the rating the user gave to each tweak.
Nutrition Labels â It helps users see the macronutrient contents of every meal. These labels are created instantly by Tweakyfai, PrpleTealâs AI platform.
Recipe Wall– Users can find healthy recipes here.
Tweak Wall â User can share the tweak from My EDR on the Tweak Wall
My Nutrition â Helps users monitor their calorie and micro-nutrient intake trend.
My Fitness â This features allows âTweak & Eatâ to be connected to other health and fitness related devices like fitbit and iWatch.
Some premium services included in the Tweak & Eat app are–
Weight Loss Service– Here the user gets a personalized diet plan from a nutritionist assigned to him/her.
AIDP (AI based Diet Plan) – Â under this service the user gets personalized diet plans generated by the AI platform tweakify. Besides, the user also gets to chat with nutritionists under this plan.
Twetox– it offers personalized detox plans to the user.
Besides âTweak & Eatâ, PurpleTeal has another app named âMy Health Assistantâ, which help people to maintain better health by guiding users to prevent âat riskâ conditions and help manage diagnosed conditions better. Â
Some other mHealth messaging services provided by PurpleTeal are–
Live Well â It provides daily health tips, periodic risk awareness alerts and tips on how to prevent diseases.
Lose Weight â It provides daily tips to lose weight.
Quit Smoke â Provides daily tips to quit smoking based on established behavioral change models.
Be CALM â Provides tips on stress relief and stress handling.
Well Woman â Provides tips on womenâs health
Healthy Heart â Provides tips to manage or prevent cardiovascular diseases.
Prevent Diabetes â Provides tips to prevent diabetes. Build awareness of early signs and symptoms of diabetes.
Manage Diabetes– Provides tips for long term diabetes self-management
Pregnancy â Provides daily tips to to-be moms on various aspects of pregnancy
Prevent Cancer– Provides daily tips and information about risk factors and symptoms of cancer. And provides guidance regarding how to prevent cancer. Â
Food Plate with Nutrition Labels
PurpleTeal – Launching Startup
PurpleTealâs core product âTweak & Eatâ app was first launched in India, followed by Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Kuwait and USA, Â Besides, it launched the App & Service on Google Play Store and Apple Store in 2017.
Tweak & Eat runs its services on a freemium model. While the base app and services are free, fee is charged for the premium services. Pricing ranges from INR 49 to INR 3,999 in India.
PurpleTeal – User Acquisition
As said by Narayanan, for âTweak &Eatâ PurpleTeal got its first 100 customers just through word of mouth publicity. PurpleTeal also promotes its apps and services through Google Adwords and with the help of its Telco partners.
Google Adwords is very effective in reaching millions of potential subscribers. We have existing relationships with Telcos from our âHealth Tipsâ line of business, and through them, can reach 100âs of millions of potential subscribers. Once we get to that level, it becomes easier to grow because of the heightened visibility.
PurpleTeal – Competitors
Though there are many apps related to health, âTweak & Eatâ is quite unique from the rest. It’s simple, real-time, meal modification advice from nutritionists at the time of consumption is a feature that no other app provides.
We will make it difficult for others to duplicate our app & service by speeding up our response time and making the nutritionistâs advice easy to act upon and instructive for future meals.
PurpleTeal – Growth
âTweak & Eatâ Â has been able to gain popularity among its target audience. The app’s popularity and growth is shown by the following facts-
The app has gained popularity in different countries apart from India like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and the USA.
The App caters to the daily meal-time needs of more than 500,000 users.
âTweak & Eatâ ranks as the 4th trending App on Google Play Store in the health & wellness category and is one among the top performing health & wellness channels according to Youtube with the engagement increasing 300% month-on-month, over the last three months. Â
Future plans for the next 2-3 years is to rapidly grow the installed base and increase user engagement. We are now in the testing stages of an AI nutritionist that can reliably (more than 90%) identify a large number of foods. Our AI nutritionist will get better over time, as we continue to train it with âreal-worldâ images of meals sent by our users. This is an important point because training an AI nutritionist using stock images is easier but not very reliable.
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 Little App.
Connecting customers with merchants and retailers isn’t easy. There are various major and minor hurdles that need to be taken care of. The Bangalore-based startup Little app was started with the very aim of connecting customers with their nearby businesses.
Launched in 2015, Little App, (Little Internet Pvt. Ltd.) is a hyper-local deals discovery platform was started for connecting people to merchants across services like restaurants, spa, salons, activities, etc. It let customers discover services and offer at their favorite offline stores. In a way, it acted as a sales channel for shop merchants and created a win-win situation for both customers and merchants.
Founded by two seasoned entrepreneurs Manish Chopra and Satish Mani, Little App had an interesting journey from its inception in 2015, to its acquisition in 2017 by Paytm and later its merger with Nearbuy.com. Little App currently has over 3 million users and more than 40,000 live offers. Little App is one of the fastest-growing coupons and deal websites that is offering up to 70% off on fun activities and daily events.
Here is all you would love to know about Little App.
Little app co-founder Manish Chopra, also served as the CEO of Indiaâs leading online fashion brand, Zovi from 2012-2018. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey with Zovi and Little App, Manish worked in different roles as (Strategy & Planning and Director) at Microsoft, (Director of Product Marketing) at Oracle, and Vice president of Intiqua.
He completed his Bachelorâs Degree in Physics from The University of Punjab and later went on to get his MBA from S.P Jain Institute of Management and Research. Manish, who served as the CEO of Little App, left Little App after its acquisition by Paytm, and its merger with Nearbuy. Currently, Manish is Director and Head of Partnerships at Facebook (India).
The founders of Little App
Little App co-founder Satish Mani is a die-hard tech and fitness enthusiast. He has created top-class portals and is a thought leader in his domain. He was also the Co-founder and CTO of Zovi.com. Satish did his Master’s in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering from Old Dominion University. Â With more than 20 years of product and development experience in B2C as well as B2B environments, Satish helped build one of Indiaâs most admired travel portalsâCleartrip.
Satishâs interests include system architecture for scalability, UI/UX, German shepherds, and product development. Satish served as the CTO of Little App from its inception till its acquisition by Paytm. Currently, he is SVP at MakeMyTrip Travel Services Private Limited.
Around 2015, Manish and Satish saw a lot of traction towards online marketplaces. They went after a huge opportunity at that time in the Indian mobile platform (O2O space). The duo realized O2O (Online To Offline) was about to explode alongside smartphone growth.
So, Manish and Satish built a team to create an app for connecting thousands of merchants who have services to sell across verticals like health and wellness, food and beverage, entertainment, and last-minute hotel bookings.
âLittle is the âConnectorâ between the customer who wants to have great experiences and awesome deals and the merchant who is ready to offer the same to the customer. We are an online to offline market place, absolutely one of its kinds where customer has all the empowerment to make intelligent choices using our App. The problem solved here is the lack of an organized national player to make this happen. Little does it with finesse using world class app great deals at the right time and NOW, merchant strength and user experience. The real differentiator is the scale and depth of the merchant ecosystem. Fantastic Deals around you â can only be realized by having the largest ecosystem.â explained the co-founder of Little App, Manish Chopra.
Little App Logo
Little App – Major Challenges Faced
Hiring the right kind of people quickly was a significant challenge that Little App faced. They needed senior leaders as well as young dynamic front-line business development executives. Training and retaining them was an obstacle on top of this. Little App also has a lot of competitors in the markets.
Little App website and app were designed to let the users browse through a vast number of deals across various platforms – restaurants, movies, salons, spas, and other interesting activities near them. Now Little App’s services can be accessed through the Nearbuy app. With a user-friendly interface, the Nearbuy app lets its users discover, buy and save on Little App merchants nearest to them.
The little app first user offer allows the customers to get extra offers, redeem coupons, discounts, and other offers where they can save money. The customer can also choose right from the budget to the premium ones. The customers can also find local event coupon deals and get additional cashback when they shop with TopCashback offers. The Little App services can also be used while booking theme parks, medical clinics, and outdoor activities.
Little App services
Little App – Business Model
Little App offered deals of outlets and charged a commission on every deal sold. Customers buy the Little App coupons or deals and pay for them. Little App in turn cuts its commission fee and returned the rest to the outlet.
Outlets: Sell their products/services on Little to attract more customers and fill their tables.
Little App: Has a huge customer base and offers free marketing platform to outlets. In turn, it charges commission for every deal sold.
Customers: Pay a lesser price for their choice. So it’s a win-win for all!
Little App website is a service marketplace that provides a platform for tens of thousands of merchant organizations to reach millions of consumers through smartphones. It charged the merchants a small fee between 6-8% for using its platform which including payment facilitation.
Little App – Acquisitions And Mergers
Little acquired Trideal, a Chandigarh based curated deals marketplace, in October 2015. It also acquired the beauty and wellness start-up Stylofie for an undisclosed amount. Through acquisition of Stylofie, Little App was able to penetrate further within the beauty and wellness segment. With this acquisition, Little Internet Pvt. Ltd. got access to more than 50,000 registered visitors and over 1,000 merchants on the Stylofie platform.
Little App – Funding
In January 2016, Little App raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt Ltd.
Little App raised $50 million (Rs. 318 crores) in July 2015, from One97Communications (which runs mobile payments venture Paytm), SAIF Partners, Tiger Global Management, and others.
The main competitor of Little App is MagicPin, as it is considered to be a top competitor of Little App. CouponDunia is Little Appâs next rival. CouponDunia is headquartered in Mumbai and was founded in 2010. CouponDunia operates in the discount stores industry. Mydala is another rival. Besides, Deal Chaat, Cash Karo, and Coupon Raja have also competed with Little App. Prior to its merger, Nearbuy was also a major competitor of Little App.
Little App – Growth
Little App saw rapid growth with the rapid development of Indiaâs mobile Internet ecosystem. The unprecedented success of the category has been facilitated by innovative technology solutions aimed at benefiting customers and merchants alike. Moreover, the company’s thought process is in sync with the much-needed move by the Indian Government towards digitizing payments.
In May 2017, Â Little App announced the launch of its operations in three new cities â Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. After the launch, Manish said:
âAfter our successful launch in 11 cities, we are excited to roll out our service in Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. They seem to be one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Little App has received phenomenal response and acceptance across all its functional cities. We look forward to revolutionizing these markets as well. We will leverage our technology prowess, deep operational experience, and excellence towards our customer satisfaction.â
Overall, Little App has been a successful startup. It claimed to have over 25,000 merchants across 15 cities offering more than 50,000 live deals across F&B, movies, last-minute hotels, and health & wellness. Little App will continue to serve its user base through the Nearbuy app. The Little App redeem voucher is also a unique feature that is not found in all its competitors. The Little App customer care is also very helpful in finding out the best deals in the town.
The founders of Little app are Manish Chopra and Satish Mani.
What is Little App?
Little App is a hyper-local deals discovery platform connecting customers and merchants across services like restaurants, spas, salons, activities, etc. It helps customers discover services and offers at their favorite offline stores.
How to use Little App?
Little app free download and not paid. Once the user installs the app on their device, they can launch the app and check out the eight categories of deals. After checking the categories, the user can look for Little App promo code and referral code to then avail of discounts and offers.
How does Little App work?
The search platform allows the user to access the best deals for restaurants, movies, salons and spas, and things to do . The customer can browse through a wide range of Little App deals across all platforms near them with the help of the little app nearby.
How does Little App make money?
Little App sells deals and offers of different outlets (events, restaurants, spas etc) and charges a commission on every deal sold.
Where is Little App available?
The Little App website and app are available on both android and apple devices.
What are the competitors of Little App?
The competitors of Little app are CouponDunia, MagicPin, Deal Chaat, Cash Karo, and Coupon Raja.
With all the buzz about the modern technology with AI and VR that seem to be taking the world by surprise one after another, it has become imperative for companies to keep up with these trends and make the most of it. To sufficiently provide a solution to this, Akash Singh, Sharath Keshava Narayana, and Swapnil Jain launched Observe. AI in 2017.
Observe.AI is an AI-powered agent enablement platform for voice customer service. Leveraging the latest speech and natural language processing technologies, Observe.AI enables organizations to quickly analyze 100% of calls. With Observe.AI, support teams improve call quality, monitor compliance, and coach agents into top performers. Observe.AI’s main aim is to transform the $300B voice customer service industry by turning every agent into your best brand representative through AI-based insights and coaching. In a digital world, agents provide a rare opportunity to humanize brands and improve the customer experience, Observe.AI wants to accomplish this through this venture.
Observe.AI is a Voice AI platform that transcribes and analyzes 100% of voice customer service calls by using the latest Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, and deep learning technologies. This solves several problems for Contact Centers:
Fixing a broken Quality Assurance system: On average, only .003% of calls are reviewed for quality and compliance purposes. With Observe.AI, 100% of calls are analyzed. Additionally, with Voice AI call scoring is objective and data-driven (rather than randomly selecting calls to review, which is how the process works today).
Compliance & Security: The platform automatically identifies violations in compliance. Additionally, features like automatic PII redaction protect sensitive user data.
Targeted agent enablement and coaching: Voice AI enables supervisors to provide targeted, data-driven feedback to agents. On average, our customers provide 10X more feedback to agents per MO and have reduced onboarding time by more than 20%.
Operational improvements: With Voice, AI companies improve key contact center metrics, such as improving CSAT (5%); lowering Average Hold Time; lowering Dead Air; and improving the Quality Analyst to Agent ratio
Understanding the VoC to improve Customer Experience: Sentiment analysis via Voice AI helps companies understand how customers feel about the support experience and its products/services with objective proof.
Legacy speech analytics and talent management systems are simply not meeting the needs of the world’s top brands. Today’s Voice Customer Service agents have a unique ability to emotionally connect with customers and are often a brand’s only frontline representatives. Observe.AI strives to turn every agent into the best possible brand representative through AI-based insights and coaching. The prime USP’s of Observe.AI include:
Built for Contact Centers: We offer the highest transcription accuracy in the Contact Center Space (80%, which is higher than Google and Amazon for Contact Centers). We’ve built our entire Platform around the Contact Center use case.
Rapid integration: We are the quickest solution to go live in the Speech Analytics Contact Center industry. Our customers go live in just two weeks and we offer one-click integration with Talkdesk in an industry where it can take 3MO+ just to get up and running.
Proprietary SpeechNLP: Our engineering and Machine Learning teams have rolled out some truly ground-breaking features for Sentiment Detection, Silence Detection, and automated Redaction on calls.
Observe.AI – Target Market Size
Industry: Voice Customer Service
Target Market Size: $300B
Advancements in Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, and deep learning will only continue to dramatically improve. This will increase transcription accuracy while opening up new opportunities to automate tedious processes, such as compliance tracking and quality evaluations. It will also open up new opportunities to augment agents with conversational insights on live calls in 2020.
With these advancements, support teams will be able to use Voice AI more efficiently and intuitively than ever immediately putting the data to practical use. With more voice data, support teams will be able to better understand performance trends and make predictions. New integrations and alliances will also help teams leverage learnings from Voice AI across other channels, including email and chat.
Swapnil Jain, Co-founder & CEO: Swapnil is an IIT Delhi graduate and comes with a strong technology background. Before Observe.AI, he led user growth at Twitter and opened Twitter’s India office. As CEO at Observe.AI, he focuses on product innovation.
Sharath Keshavanarayana, Co-founder & CRO: Sharath is a second-time entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience in building and managing global sales teams at Unbxd, AWS, and Akamai. As the CRO at Observe.AI, he focuses on go-to-market functions, such as sales, marketing, and Customer Success.
Akash Singh, Co-founder & CTO: Akash is an IIT Delhi graduate and has both high-tech and startup experience. He works from Bengaluru and manages the engineering team.
How was Observe.AI Started?
In 2017, the co-founders Swapnil and Akash had a hunch that advancements in Speech, Natural Language Processing, and AI were opening up new opportunities across every industry and vertical. When they took a trip to the Philippines, these two entrepreneurs happened to realized that they could use these technologies to transform the way work is done by the world’s 100M contact center agents.
In 2017, they brought in co-founder Sharath who has many years of experience working in Contact Center software. During an early trip to Manila, they were shocked to see how inefficient agents were working because of outdated processes and technologies. That’s because Contact Centers typically quality check just 1-2% of their total calls. That means agents, who take an average of 1000 calls per month, only receive feedback on 2-4 of those calls each month that are typically randomly selected.
In the Philippines, the co-founders saw that many teams were using multiple systems and spreadsheets just to quality check a single call. At a time when 1 out of every 2 customers goes unsatisfied with their experience, they knew there was a massive opportunity to make life better for both Contact Center employees and their customers. And hence they validated the idea for Observe.AI when the co-founders landed their first 100 clients and drove multi-million revenue in 9MO
Observe.AI – Name, Tagline, and Logo
Observe.AI’s Logo
The tagline of Observe.AI is “Turn every agent into your best brand representative with Voice AI.” That’s because the ventures believe that agents are the voice of the brand, and they interact with customers and prospects more often than anyone else at an organization.
Observe.AI is a product-centric company, and it has built a world-class AI Platform. The numbers don’t lie and this AI-powered agent happens to have an 80% transcription accuracy (vs. industry-average 75%), 80% silence detection (vs 72%), and 87% sentiment analysis (vs. 78%).
“We also take onboarding and customer success very seriously. We get our customers to live quicker than anyone else in our industry (two weeks versus the typical 3MO) and offer dedicated onboarding, Customer Service, and ongoing training.” Said one of the co-founder – Swapnil.
Finally, Observe.AI has the unique advantage of having built several alliances early-on with companies like Talkdesk, Microsoft, and leading BPOs (ERCBPO and ItelBPO).
Observe.AI – Funding and Investors
Over the years, Observe.AI has raised a huge amount of funding. In August 2017, it raised $ 900K in the pre-seed round from Emergent Ventures. Again in January 2018, it raised an amount in the same round worth $120K from Y Combinator. Nexus Venture partners invested $7.1 Million in the seed round in May 2018. Recently in December 2019, it raised Series A funding worth $26.2 Million from Scale Venture Partners.
Work culture: Observe.AI has built one of the most diverse teams in the Bay Area and have a global culture that spans San Francisco, Bangalore, and Dallas, Texas. Two of the company values are trust and transparency. Critical information about the business and learning is shared at every level, and the top-level management trusts every employee to make the best decisions in their role/own their responsibilities.
Hiring: Observe.AI is hiring for roles across every department in our Bengaluru, San Francisco, and future Dallas office.
Funding: With the recent $26 Million Series A round, the total funding stands at $34.3M.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verifiedinformation ondifferent startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
As the new generation, there’s a lot more than money and incentives that motivate us to go to work. Â Well crafted workspaces and decor are one of them. Companies are actively investing in creating interesting and creative work stations for their employees. Exploiting this insight to the core cofounders Anantha VR, Sujith Gopalakrishnan, and Bhavesh Godhania founded Hidecor in 2015.
Hidecor was established with the sole idea of creating office spaces that reflect the vision and ideas that the organization represents. Hidecor helps companies design and create young, lively and vibrant office spaces that make the employees proud of where they work and push them to be more productive each day.
HIDECOR offers three distinct services. These are:
Architecture Workplace Strategy Consulting
Bespoke Interior Design
Creative Space Building
Hidecor strives to be a one-stop solution for any brand who is looking to design and build their new office or simply renovate their existing one to optimize space and improve workforce productivity. .They focus on the real-time problems of clients right from the inception and more often than not, start with finding the right space which fits the client specifications and turns it around to build an agile and futuristic office for its team.
Hidecor – USP
Hidecor’s unique selling proposition is that they build a fully functional and optimized workplace in less than 90 days. The use of technology like BIM, Revit, and VR helps Hidecor to reach the accuracy in everything that they do be it design or operations.
Hidecor – Target Market
According to Statista, in 2016, the global interior design market was valued at approximately 121.1 billion U.S. dollars. The latest data suggests the global interior design services market size will grow by USD 23.15 billion during 2019-2023, with 35% of the growth coming from APAC. In the next 5 years, the market is expected to accelerate growth at a CAGR of over 4%.
Factors that are driving the market growth are:
Increase in worldwide construction activities.
Growth in demand from the commercial infrastructure sector.
Improvement in standard of living and introduction of premium interior designing services.
There is a rise in the demand for smart planning and technology-integrated design services resulting from the development of smart cities, smart government institutes, airports, healthcare, and infrastructure for the public sector, driving the commercial design space.
Anantha VR is the CEO of Hidecor. He is an aggressive entrepreneur with a track record of delivering winning results. He has a hardcore experience in turning around businesses, developing new business units and conceptualizing and launching new products as well as effectively managing international and domestic clients. With a successful sales journey of 13+ years in versatile sectors including Technology, Enterprise Mobility, IT advisory and Research, software products & ICT services, this entrepreneur has done it all.
Sujith Gopalakrishnan is the COO of Hidecor. Sujith, too has a wide array of experience in the field. Before co-founding Hidecor, he was the head of operations at Pearson Education for three years. He has graduated from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies with an MBA and did his B.COM from Bangalore University.
Bhavesh Godhania is the Principal Architect at Hidecor. Graduated from St Francis school of design with a master diploma in interior designing, Bhavesh has had a lot on his plate before co-founding Hidecor. He was a partner at BG design, senior project interior designer at DSP Design Associates, interior design consultant at Exquisite interiors to only name a few.
At Hidecor, Bhavesh handles the design part while Sujith makes the design come to life at the site by handling the whole operation. Anantha is the face of Hidecor and handles the whole organization keeping it balanced and healthy.
Team Hidecor
Currently, they are a team of 17 people at Hidecor.
Hidecor was founded in 2015 with a vision to become a one-stop solution for workspaces designs. With intense research on workspaces around the globe, Â the Hidecor team realized that the Indian workspace market was not so organized due to a multi-channel approach. So they decided to solve the issue of time v/s cost to enterprises with their transparent operations model, where the team works with manufacturers directly for all the materials thereby cutting corners of dealers or multiple contractors involved which saves huge costs to the client. With the use of technology like BIM, VR, and Revit, they successfully address the challenge of time taken for the delivery of the project.
With a focused approach to making agile and futuristic workspaces, the company wants to be a partner for all enterprises right from the inception of them finding the space. Â They also help their clients to do a preliminary analysis of multiple parameters of any workspaces as an added value factor to them.
Hidecor – User Acquisition
When Hidecor started, they focussed more on networking, leveraging Ex-Corporate Contacts and ensuring that their initial projects are exceptional to create a contagious effect of word of mouth marketing. Also, referrals were cashed upon heavily and continue to be their biggest source of leads to date.
We invest in our team and believe in working with dedicated partners and growing together. Such partnerships have worked quite well for us. Also, the brand-building can’t be done in a day, so we try to keep things as organic as possible. –says Hidecor founder and CEO, Anantha V R.
Hidecor – Startup Challenges
One of the main roadblocks in the way for Hidecor was that the industry, contractors, laborers, manufacturers, and dealers are very unorganized with an imbalance in pricing and timelines. With the help of deep knowledge on 10000+ products across various segments, they bring in the standardization of pricing which helps the client to save a huge cost.
Also, the idea of Hidecor is to design the space with maximum utility. A vibrant office isnât necessarily optimized, especially in terms of space utilization, which in turn can translate into recurring expenditure from the client’s pocket. Hence Hidecor focuses on creating more meaningful spaces with at par industry standards of space utility with world-class designs.
Hidecor – Competitors
This a fairly competitive market. Well, anyone who thinks can design an office space without taking subject matter opinion like Hidecor is competition.
Being trusted by brands like Bigbasket, Decathlon, Titan, Mitra Biotech has been an overwhelming experience for the Hidecor team. Also, most of their business comes through referrals, which is a huge vote of confidence for them showered by their clients.
Also, they won the “Autodesk Entrepreneur Impact Program” in 2019 and use its digital prototyping software for all the projects.
Hidecor – Future Plans
The future initiatives of Hidecor will be focussed on penetrating the international markets mainly Singapore and Dubai.
There are particularly two things that every person loves to do â 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 donât 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 oneâs 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 â 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.
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 â 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.
AirCarry wants to develop the philosophy of âOne World. One Communityâ and build the worldâs 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 â 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: âI 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.â
Founder of AirCarry and Team
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 Chevronâs future leadersâ 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 Shopperâs and Travellerâs perspective while designing the product.
How was AirCarry Started
AirCarry is built on Preethamâs 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.
Name, Tagline, and 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 Travelerâs 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 donât lose their money, and funds only get transferred to Traveler after the Shopper has received their requested product.
âTransparency, 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 communityâ Said the founder
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 usersâ 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
AirCarryâs 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 âPlease bring me that from thereâ. No more awkward requests, no more obligations â 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.
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.
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Making legal documents is a cumbersome process and this is the reason why often common man gets scared with just a mention of legal documentation and formalities. But thankfully now help is at hand. With the motive of simplifying the process of legal documentation, Bengaluru based startup, LegalDesk.com was launched in early 2014 by  two enthusiastic entrepreneurs Ashok Kadsur and Krupesh Bhat. The sole vision of  LegalDesk.com is to make legal services easily accessible.
LegalDesk simplifies the process of legal documentation with its user-friendly interface and using the advantages of digitization.
LegalDesk was ideally designed to help normal people in drafting their legal documents remotely, eliminating the need to visit a lawyer. The needed legal documents can be customized on LegalDesk by filling in the required details. Documents are drafted with utmost caution by a competent team of in-house lawyers of LegalDesk. So all the users have to do is answer some questions on the platform to generate legal documents.
The users have the option to purchase just the softcopy which they can print on Stamp paper before proceeding further. The next option is to let the company handle the Stamp paper printing part. In this case, LegalDesk acquires stamp paper of recommended value and prints the document on it and delivers it to the users.
All the legal forms are subjected to several rounds of review and are guaranteed to be flawless. The users can also customize and add clauses that they feel are necessary in their case.
LegalDesk offers specialized services for startups. It addresses the concerns of budding entrepreneurs through its unique product- Startup Package. This product helps startups with their initial processes like getting registered with required authorities and simultaneously also taking care of all the legal documentation and related paperwork for the newborn venture.
The Incorporation packages at LegalDesk covers some of the most hectic and essential procedures like obtaining the DSC certificate, PAN, TAN, MOA & AOA and their approval and registration of the name. This venture also offers a business documentation package that interestingly offers a set of DIY legal documents and eSigns at a great price.
With the above-mentioned services, there’s a lot more than LegalDesk caters to in totality. They cover a wide range of legal documentation needs. LegalDesk also offers stamp paper printing and door-step delivery services in the majority of the metros and cities.
LegalDesk – Founders and Team
LegalDesk founders Krupesh Bhat & Ashok Kadsur were classmates in college but they followed different paths after graduating. Krupesh after taking his degree in MCA moved to the States after working in India for a while. He worked as a software engineer for ten years in the US and then did an MBA in Finance from the University of Maryland. After returning to the home country, he set up Enclever in Bangalore, a digital media marketing venture
While the other co-founder, Ashok after finishing his graduation worked in a variety of Business Development & Marketing jobs at varying levels with multinationals & Indian companies. After Krupesh returned to India, they went on to curating their own venture- LegalDesk.com
The LegalDesk team consists of Lawyers, Developers, Graphic designers, Digital, SEO, Support & Business teams.
LegalDesk – Startup Challenges
Like any online platform that digitally serves people, LegalDesk too has the same hurdles as constantly being on their toes to ensure that there are no technical glitches on the platform. Next is being in touch with the consumers to ensure their satisfaction in the best possible manner.
LegalDesk – Competitors
With the advent of digitization, there are a lot of other platforms like VakilSearch, MyCase, LogicalDoc amongst a plethora of players that have been entering the industry. With that, the threat of competition is increasing at a substantial level in the online legal services sector.
LegalDesk – Growth
More than 55000 hits per month
More than 6500 registered users
Sold more than 2100 different kinds of legal documents.
LegalDesk – Future Plans
Like most modern-day start-ups, LegalDesk too is hoping to impact the lives of many Indians through its easy and effortless services and products. With firmly rooted values that run in the organization and a competent team that works tirelessly, LegalDesk is shooting for the stars.
