The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on.
Playment is an AI-based mobile crowdsourcing platform offering image annotation, transcription, and content moderation for businesses. It is a fully managed Human Intelligence platform that helps organizations offload large-scale data operations. It works on the microwork principle, where a series of small tasks constitute a large unified project.
People across the internet work on the individual tasks in parallel and when all of the tasks are completed, the whole project is marked as complete. Playment functions as an on-demand workforce for enterprises for simple data operations such as cataloging for e-commerce, training data for AI, and moderation of user-generated content. Did you know that Playment was also part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2017 batch?
Read about Playment Company Profile, Founders, Business Model, Revenue, Competitors, Idea, Growth etc.,
Playment wants to deliver a platform where humans and machines can work in unison to solve challenging problems and improve inefficient processes.
Playment – Founders
Playment Founders
Playment was founded in August 2015 by the trio of Siddharth Mall, Akshay Lal, and Ajinkya Malasane. Siddharth and Akshay have studied from IIT Kharagpur while Ajinkya is an IIT Guwahati alumnus. The three founders used to work at Flipkart as senior business analysts and left that organization to focus on their venture, Playment. While working on Playment in the initial days, they roped in Himanshu Sahu—their batch-mate from IIT Kharagpur and ex-Babajob employee—as a co-founder.
Playment – The Idea
At Flipkart, Akshay was part of the catalogue product team, while Ajinkya and Siddharth were involved with Flipkart’s crowdsourced hyperlocal delivery arm. The three at one point realized that there was an undiscovered opportunity in the catalogue-crowdsourcing combination. The trio gravitated towards the idea of crowdsourcing catalogue operations. They felt it could help Flipkart and went ahead to validate the idea. The concept of automating the crowdsourcing concept clicked them during this idea validation stage, and the three decided to give the concept a shot through a new venture i.e. Playment.
Users, known as “Players” on the Playment platform, can browse through existing tasks and complete them in exchange for points. These points can then be redeemed for vouchers on online e-commerce sites such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Paytm.
Playment allows companies to send over sets of training data that need some kind of not-too-intensive analysis and massaging, and then allocates them to a large on-demand workforce (the players) for resolving these jobs through mobile devices. The generated output or result is sent back to the respective companies who use it improve their algorithms — visual search, quality checks of recommendation engines, etc.
Playment users can also do various testing and other actions on their mobile devices. It could be as simple as making small quality checks while they’re commuting, or drawing bounding boxes for visual recognition. The best aspect is that these kinds of tasks can be done from anywhere.
Companies hand over their data to Playment through a set of APIs, and Playment allocates the corresponding workflow for its workforce. It then passes those workflows to the players who pick up from the list of available, incomplete tasks. Siddharth Mall says that with Playment’s approach, the company can expect ROI in as little as a few minutes though it would depend on the complexity of the task. The microtask method permits splitting of complicated tasks into multiple workflows and divvying them out to several individuals.
Playment – Growth
Within eight months since launch, Playment was able to generate over 5 million microtasks for some of the top e-commerce companies in the country and had a capacity equivalent to a 1200+ seater BPO. Over the past year since Playment’s launch, the team claims to have distributed more than Rs 1.5 crore to their players.
Playment claims to have annotated 50 million+ tags on its platform with over 65,000 profiled players on the app. The company now claims to have a capacity equivalent to a 3,000-seater BPO generating about 1 million tags per day.
Playment asserts working with 15 enterprise clients, including Flipkart, Myntra, Ola, Shopclues, Limeroad, Paytm, and Roposo.
Playment – Revenue Model
The company charges on the basis of per unit of data operations. Playment retains a portion of these charges while distributing the remaining to the players involved in the microtasks.
Playment has raised $1.6 million as part of its Pre-Series A funding till date. The investment was led by Y Combinator, Sparkland Capital, and Silicon Valley angel investors such as Ryan Petersen (CEO, Flexport), Max Altman, and others.
Playmentraised a seed round funding of $700,000 from SAIF Partners, and they were recently selected in the latest batch of Google Launchpad.
Playment – Competitors
Playment’s most formidable competitor is the Mechanical Turk from Amazon which also accomplishes these kinds of small tasks. Mall says the question of whether he would get support from investors and potential customers boils down to Playment ensuring that the quality of results is high, given the volume of requests received. That’s the goal Playment is gunning for, and Siddharth Mall hopes that this target would make Playment more successful than Mechanical Turk.
Playment wants to become the largest workplatform in the world. They are expanding globally and targeting international e-commerce for cataloging, social networks for content moderation, and AI-based companies for training/testing as a service using the existing Indian workforce.
The office ambiance and décor plays a very important role in the analysis and definition of the experience of employees and clients in the 21st century. As a business, the ability to display an edge and personality has become a prerequisite. To instill a communicative and collaborative aesthetic to the office space, various realms need to be delved upon. One of the major points of consideration among others is “furniture”. However, in the era of start-ups and small businesses generating pioneering ideas working on tight budgets, the scope of buying furniture which is design specific and unique proves to be a financial nightmare. In such cases, renting is a much safer option than actually purchasing units. Hence, with the varying taste, needs and requirements of consumers, renting furniture has become a millennial need and choice, and RentLite is established to take care of this need. RentLite offers trendy and functional office furniture on rent so that the start-ups and corporates can keep their workspaces stylish and updated without worrying about the budget.
Established in April 2019, RentLite is a path-breaking idea, on the quest of revolutionizing the buying behavior for workspace products. RentLite helps to solve the capital and operating expenses related concerns for young entrepreneurs and corporates alike by letting them take the latest furniture affordably on rent, without the need to spend a fortune on buying furniture. Along with an assortment of design possibilities, RentLite also offers flexible finance options for the users.
The distinct furniture configurations by RentLite like chairs, workstations, and pedestals can be rented for an affordable amount serving the commercial flexibility for its consumers.
Since all furniture rented out is manufactured by India’s leading furniture manufacturer, Featherlite, the consumer has an assurance of uncompromised quality and durability. The vast experience in a commercial design that comes with the association to a brand like Featherlite has further created an effective base of expertise in quick and hassle-free office furniture renting, aiding ease of a Plug and Play setup.
The sustainability quotient has been maintained in all the products manufactured, as RentLite being a new age progressive company, believes in conserving the environment through eco-friendly practices. The furniture is produced in solar-powered factories and produces minimum carbon footprint emissions further reducing environmental pollution.
Kush Jawahar and Kiran Chellaram are the minds behind RentLite.
Besides Rentlite, Khush Jawahar is also the director of Featherlite, which is a leading furniture manufacturer in India. Rentlite is an expansion of Featherlite in the office furniture renting segment. Mr. Jawahar is also associated with several other companies functioning in various sectors.
Kiran Chellaram is currently the Digital Brand Manager at RentLite. An expert in marketing and digital marketing domain, Kiran besides Rentlite is also looking after the marketing tasks at Featherlite
Rental Furniture Sector in India
The concept of furniture renting is gaining popularity and the trend is here to stay. In India, the market for furniture rental is expected to increase to $800-850 million until 2024. In the last 3-4 years, the furniture rental industry has seen a 1000% growth, and interestingly, besides Tier I cities, furniture renting is becoming popular in Tier-II cities as well. Around 15% of furniture rented is for the offices, which shows that there is a huge scope for office furniture renting in India.
Currently, the company is generating a monthly tangible business of over 10 Lakhs. The company intends to expand its affairs to a monthly revenue of 1 Cr. by the year 2020. The courageous plunge in an industry full of competition with such vigor makes it a rather radical business outlook. But Kush and Kiran have proved that to be challenged and take challenges is not a big deal.
In such a short time frame, these young entrepreneurs have already completely furnished two MNCs in Bangalore as well as nine startups in sectors like food processing, construction, recruitment technology, and the aviation industry. They also have MNCs working in financial services, digital marketing, telecommunication services sector in Delhi NCR as their clients.
There was actually a time when the world was going nuts over messages and then there came a time people completely got over it. And just about this time, there was a set of entrepreneurs who were adamant on the insight that text messages will rise to its importance again. With the same insight, MSG91 was founded in 2010 by Pushpendra Agrawal, Shubhendra Agrawal, and Ankita Agrawal.
Headquartered in Madhya Pradesh, MSG91 works as a communication medium between companies and their customers by providing the former with enterprise messaging solutions. MSG91 provides several tools and add-ons to send bulk SMS other than the web application. All in all, it is designed for small, medium or large-sized businesses.
Pushpendra Agrawal, Shubhendra Agrawal and Ankita Agrawal
Sector
Enterprise solution
Founded
2010
MSG91 – Introduction
With this effortless service of MSG91, the text messages reach its receivers 9.9 out of 10 times because if anyone operator fails, MSG91 delivers it through another parallel operator. But the common question is “doesn’t every bulk SMS providers do that?” And unlike the obvious, the answer is not really. Normally when one operator fails to deliver a message, most bulk messaging providers procure another operator to send the remaining messages which means that the undelivered messages were never really addressed.
But here at MSG91, it has a system wherein the receivers of previously undelivered messages also receive the message from other operators. Another important USP of MSG91 is the “Send OTP” service. This service particularly ensures the successful delivery of one-time-passwords (OTPs). And in case the OPT is not delivered, the users are given an option to receive a phone call at a zilch cost to the sender.
MSG91 also provides its users with a major differentiator called the mCampaign. The mCampaign service gives its users the power to make the most optimum use of customer analytics like segregating the customers, following up, converting leads and make genuine use of each message that is delivered. At MSG91, start-ups get 25,000 messages absolutely free when they first sign up with MSG91. And this is for every month up to six months. All in all, the startup gets to use 1.5 lakh free messages.
More than 1,000 start-ups have signed up for this service. MSG91 also wishes to give back to the community through selling cost-effective SMS plans to NGOs and has on-boarded their first customer for this initiative namely Prayas Corp, an NGO that works in the field of education and healthcare.
USP and Innovation
MSG91 strives hard to make the messaging industry absolutely nonpareil. The team wishes to raise the standards of express SMS services through a robust mechanism and the world’s best reseller panel. Nothing inspires the MSG91 team, Messengers91 more than the prospect of transforming lives and enterprises through determined and dedicated support services mechanism.
MSG91- Vision & Mission
The team at MSG91 is on a mission of making the messaging industry absolutely nonpareil. They wish to elevate the standard of express SMS services through the world’s best reseller panel and a robust mechanism. Nothing inspires their Messengers91 more than the prospect of transforming lives and enterprises through their dedication and determination in Support Services.
MSG91- Founder
Pushpendra Agrawal of Msg91 came back to his home-town Indore after completing his MBA in Dubai, he thought it made sense to set up his business here. “This is a safe place. Of course, it is home,” he says, adding, “But more than that it is also cost-effective for a first-time entrepreneur. You can hire people on a long-term basis which otherwise in a big city like Bangalore is an expensive proposition.”
MSg91- The Idea
MSG91 is a technical tale of three young entrepreneurs, who started an IT firm because they wanted to see the world use the IT industry in right sense, and they had faith in their innovative minds and had the guts to chase their dreams. They wanted to bring about a difference. This tale has, today, completed four years in the industry. And the mantra to the Company’s success is being creative in the hard work that they did over the years.
When they started four years back, the Indoris were yet to hear government announcements of making their city the IT hub of the state. But these young entrepreneurs were too futuristic to wait for the government to decide their city’s future. They wanted to carve a future of their city with their own hands. And they decided that this is time. The three of them started the company and executed their plans, and today, the Company has a creative force of 50 people.
MSG91- The Team
Pushpendra Agrawal, Founder & CEO- Pushpendra started as a businessman then turned into a student and eventually became a Serial Entrepreneur. Through his series of ventures, he seems to be on a mission to elevate technology for startups and the massive next-generation companies. After MSG91, Puspendra also has co-founded Walkover Web Solutions.
Shubhendra Agrawal, Founder – This founder of MSG91 is an absolute Finance man. Ideally a Mathematics freak and an Engineer who cares not very much about academics. He is actually the one who started the company MSG91 by bringing in the first 100 clients.
The core team has 15 members who are directly involved in supporting customers. Meanwhile, 35 other members are busy in research and development. The company’s clients trust MSG91 to deliver, come what may.
With MSG91, the SMS reaches its targeted receiver 99 percent of the time. And that’s only because if one operator fails, MSG91 delivers it through another operator.
Doesn’t every bulk SMS provider do that? Not really. When a message is not delivered by one operator, most bulk messaging providers get another operator to send the remaining messages. This means that those undelivered SMSs are never really addressed.
But MSG91 has a system where receivers of previously undelivered messages also get the message from other operators.
Another key unique selling proposition (USP) is MSG91’s Send OTP service. This service specifically ensures the delivery of one-time-passwords (OTPs). And for every OTP that doesn’t get delivered, the users can opt for a phone call at no extra cost to the sender (in lieu of a message).
MSG91 gives you a major differentiator called the mCampaign. The mCampaign service gives you the power to make optimum use of customer analytics. They help you to segregate your customers, follow up, convert leads – make REAL use of each SMS delivered.
Start-ups get 50,000 messages absolutely free of cost when they sign up with MSG91. This is for every month up to six months, so a start-up practically gets 3 lakh SMSs to use. More than 1,000 start-ups have signed up for this service. MSG91 also wishes to give back to the community through selling cost-effective SMS plans to NGOs and has recently on-boarded their first customer for this initiative – Prayas Corp, an NGO that works in the field of education and healthcare.
MSG91- Growth
Over 5,000 customers, including major and well-recognized brands like Barista, NTPC, Policy Bazaar, Razorpay, 1MG, Ixigo, Blackbuck, Mahindra, MakeMyTrip, etc
A client base over and above 14,300
Operational in India and 192 countries worldwide.
MSG91- Business Model
MSG91 as a company that should be highly dependent on a competent sales team actually does not have a sales team. That’s for the reason that MSG91 believes in onboarding potential clients by providing excellent post-sales services. India’s leading bulk messaging provider is held together by their team of Support Heroes who are supremely dedicated to educating the users about using bulk messaging to optimally solve their problems. The company’s holistic service module is supposedly their biggest sales pitch.
MSG91- Acquisition and Mergers
As a part of their acquisition strategy, MSG91 wants to go global, marking its presence in every corner of the world, while the domestic process has just started with ToSMS acquisition.
MSG91- Marketing Campaigns
MSG91 has launched several campaigns to garner publicity and create a high brand recall. They had done a campaign in the past which aimed at automating the communication process for budding startups. Any Indian start-up can avail 10,000 SMSs every month by signing up with this campaign. The SMSs could be claimed against placing MSG91’s start-up logo on their website. The invitation procedure will be processed through the recently launched portal
Mr. Pushpendra Agrawal, the CEO, MSG91, explained how this initiative came into existence: “I visited many European startups recently. And I envy their work culture. Unlike Indian startups, western startups employ the energy of their majority workforce in ideation. The processes that can be automated are automated right from the outset. Human intervention is limited to monitoring. Rest energy goes into conceptualizing new ideas. That’s where they are a step ahead.”
Mr. Pushpendra Agrawal, CEO, MSG91, explains how this initiative came into existence: “I visited many European startups recently. And I envy their work culture. Unlike Indian startups, western startups employ the energy of their majority workforce in ideation. The processes that can be automated are automated right from outset. Human intervention is limited to monitoring. Rest energy goes in conceptualising new ideas. That’s where they are a step ahead.”
MSG91- Competitors
When we talk about companies that are operating in the same segment as MSG91, there are a few namely Gupshup, Route SMS, Solutions Infini. But again, all these companies have a very different model and base concept. But all in all, all these companies are contributing their bit in improving the business flow by providing optimal text message services.
MSG91- Growth & Future Plans
When asked about the plans ahead, MSG91 co-founder Pushpendra Agrawal added, “We have always been a company that focusses more on ease-of-use. We are focusing on better UX, better UI, better on-boarding. So the future plans are on the same line of thought; trying to make integrating SMS easy in various software, CRM, ERPs. Basically, making SMS more easy-to-use.”
MSG91- Founder’s Advice
Pushpendra Agarwal
Mr. Pushpendra Agrawal, CEO of the company, asked his co-workers to become an art fanatic even while coding. He said, “Every Walker must be a great designer. I want everyone to be a great artist. Whatever you may do, just try to find artistic satisfaction in it. That’s important. And that is how you’ll grow, we’ll grow.”
MSG91 has many known startups like Ladooo and 24×7table that are already using their services to deliver one-time passwords. Various other startups use SMS as an information tool by delivering OTPs, booking details, product delivery confirmation, and other confirmations. The initiative has a clear mission of adding 5,000 startups in the first month. Almost 500 startups including the vigorously growing ones, like Quickveggies, pressplay, home triangle, ixigo, and workxmate are also connected with them.
One of the main reasons for the growing popularity of online advertising is its measurable nature. Peter Drucker, known as the founder of modern management rightly said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Ad-tracking is a mandate for any brand as it is impossible to make the most out of the advertising budget without appropriately measuring the performance of the Ads. RedTrack, a startup based in Vilnius, Lithuania is helping marketers and affiliates to measure the performance of the online ads so that businesses can get the best out of their ad campaigns. StartupTalky interviewed RedTrack CEO Vladyslav Zhovtenko, to understand more about the startup, which is soon planning to open its office in India.
Startup Name
RedTrack
Headquarter
Vilnius
Founders
Vlad Zhovtenko, Stanislau Litvinau and Dmitry Zotov
RedTrack is a cloud-hosted ad tracking software that provides data analytics and campaign optimization solution. It helps marketers and affiliates to track the performance of ad campaigns they run online. The company is focusing on creating an exceptional user experience through product performance, support services, and pricing.
Short term we’ve created the solution for performance advertisers that covers their needs in impression, click, conversion, revenue tracking. Long term we are working towards expanding into a full-stack ad campaign measurement and optimization platform for digital advertising
Ad Tracking and Analytics Industry
Next five years the industry is going towards automation, when most repetitive and manual tasks will be handled by software/machines while humans will focus on creative, planning and strategizing.
Speaking about the ad tracking and analytics Industry, RedTrack CEO Vladyslav Zhovtenko said “We are in adtech / machine learning mix. We estimate that there are at least 5 million small and medium businesses worldwide engaged in buying digital ads and based on the various data sources the market size will continue to grow 20% on average through 2025”
RedTrack has 1 executive and two non-executive founders. Vladyslav Zhovtenko is the executive founder and CEO of RedTrack. Stanislau Litvinau and Dmitry Zotov are the non executive founders.
Vladyslav Zhovtenko – Co-founder – CEO – in digital marketing since 2000. Focus on technology/SaaS companies since 2004 and ad tech since 2012.
Stanislau Litvinau is the founder of several digital companies including Zorka.mobi and Affise, provides support to RedTrack business development.
Dmitry Zotov is a pioneer in high-load performance marketing system development, support RedTrack technology growth.
RedTrack is a team of 15 dedicated people. The current split between two offices and several remote locations helps the company to stay more open-minded and generate non-trivial ideas. The company has rough milestone planning with each team (product/marketing/sales/support) responsible for reaching its goals and coordinating with other departments.
How was RedTrack Started
The founders have been in digital advertising space for many years. They were working on some other tracking and management software for performance networks. While gaining traction with the initial products, they discovered that the large market of digital advertisers remains untapped which induced the founders to start RedTrack to meet the needs of digital advertisers.
“With a solid industry background, RedTrack development didn’t take us long and we validated the idea soon enough. We raised funding, launched the MVP, and in January 2018 start receiving a stable flow of engaged users. Constant communication with the market helped us to identify our primary target audience and development directions: prompt support, consistent service, hassle-free settings, and stable software work” Vladyslav explains
RedTrack – Name and Logo
The name RedTrack is quite self-explanatory. ‘Track’ stands for the core functionality of the company’s product, i.e. ad tracking. ‘Red’ – is more about the passion that the team puts in the daily work.
With regard to the logo, it has a form of a circle. “Circle is the most perfect of creative forms, without beginning or end, without sides or corners. It represents unity and wholeness. The unity of feature-set and customer support, the wholeness of service we provide to the users. While the prominent part on the circle represents experiments we occasionally introduce to find better approaches to product and service” explains Vladyslav
RedTrack allows affiliate marketers and media buyers to run profitable digital advertising campaigns through monitoring, automation and live-human support. RedTrack has attractive features such as–
It is a cloud-based tracker with multiple integrations. Users do not need to install any servers or do geo balancing. RedTrack supports 90+ templates for major Advertising and Affiliate Networks that helps users to set ad campaigns in minutes.
RedTrack has an Intuitive and Clean Interface. Informative pop-ups and easy to read data tables make the platform user-friendly.
It Offers Granular reporting with 30+ data points.
RedTrack allows users to track any traffic, both web and mobile.
The RedTrack software allows connecting an unlimited number of tracking domains.
It allows multi-user access while defining the access level for each member and limiting access to financial data or particular Network or Source.
Its Fraud/bot filtering feature allows users to analyze and prevent bot traffic at several levels.
It allows four flexible postback settings.
RedTrack offers many more cool features and added with excellent customer support and competitive pricing, it is one of the best products for ad tracking and analytics.
RedTrack was started with a focus on affiliate media-buyers and started to work on making their tracking less attention/resources intensive. As later it expanded the product it entered the “traditional” digital advertising customers with its measurement and monitoring products that help cut costs up to 10 times compared with existing solutions.
“ I would say that the current vision is different from the initial plan. However, it is less pivot more an evolution based on user demand” Vladyslav said.
RedTrack – Revenue Model
RedTrack is a SaaS solution which offers monthly/yearly subscription plans. The product generates recurring, re-seller, and referral revenue with an emphasis on first.
Emphasizing on RedTrack’s revenue model Vladyslav said, “We see that volume defines cost more than features. So, customer monthly fees are largely defined by the sheer volume of trackable events. Our most popular package is the “PRO plan” at USD 79/month. But for those companies who need to track and manage their teams of publishers, we created a separate pricing plan which starts at USD 179/month with Publisher Panel option included. As we know, it’s the most affordable solution on the market”
RedTrack – Funding and Investors
RedTrack has received an angel round from a group of investors that helped it to build MVP and validate the product with the market. The company is now looking into the next round to support its growth and development plans.
RedTrack – User Acquisition
In the beginning, the company allowed to try RedTrack for free and asked for feedback. Then the most important phase came: establishing a trusting relationship with potential partners and a wide audience. RedTrack achieved this through excellent customer support.
RedTrack has been providing excellent support that motivated its clients to come back and share their experience with others. This approach is recognized both by industry influencers and partners, which let the company acquire a good mix of direct and referral traffic.
“People who come to RedTrack website have heard about it and have a positive opinion about it, not just follow paid advertisements for fun” confirms Vladyslav.
As far RedTrack’s marketing strategy is concerned, there were three main directions that helped the company to grow: building relationships with partners, valuable content creation, and experiments. In regards to the experiments – RedTrack was the first one to run webinars with its partners. These webinars showed people how to run ad campaigns. These experiments proved beneficial for RedTrack and its partners and thus the company established itself as a customer-oriented tracker with excellent customer support.
It is clear to us that the more the company grows, the harder it gets to save the integrity and live up to the promise of providing excellent service with hassle-free settings and constant product improvement. So far, we manage to do it. We’re focusing on providing real value to our clients with education and useful content and steadfast attention to their pain and needs.
RedTrack – Startup Challenges
So far the most challenging part was to discover the right product development pace.
As the CEO puts in, “It took us some time to properly plan and direct our product development. Mistakes we made, created a huge gap between features developed in the back-end and features actually usable through UI. We lost some pace, learned our lessons, and now we catch up and shift towards steady and predictable product growth”
RedTrack considers Voluum and as its major competitors.
While it is Voluum that proved SaaS for AdTracking as a model and keeps offering great products.
RedTrack – Advisors and Mentors
“We have a number of great people mentoring our start-up with some of them being the pioneers of ad tech as an industry. They are amazing minds and modest people so unless you are our next potential investor – they prefer not to boast” said Vladyslav on asked about the advisors behind RedTrack.
RedTrack – Acquisitions
RedTrack has not acquired any startup to date. But the company has some acquisition goals and may acquire startups that are likely to help RedTrack with the development of complementary technologies and user base extension.
RedTrack – Awards & Recognitions
RedTrack strives to offer the best quality service to its users and this effort has been recognized by the industry. A month ago RedTrack was awarded the Best Support Award by Software Suggest. Besides RedTrack continues to receive recognition from its users which are of the best value and a source of motivation for the team.
RedTrack team at affiliate summit at Moscow
RedTrack – Growth
Currently, RedTrack has two offices in Vilnius and Minsk, and consider India to become its next location as the customer base is growing significantly here. Some of RedTrack’s performance metrics are-
Its customer base has grown by 300% in the last six months
The MRR grew more than 300% by the last six month
RedTrack has been officially recognized as software with the best customer support by SoftwareSuggest.
RedTrack`s beliefs that features can be copied, while service and attitude – not. So for us providing great customer support is as essential as providing great product. Feedback from our users shows us that we’re on the right path.
“Design is thinking made visual,” says Saul Bass, American graphic designer and Academy award-winning filmmaker. Without excellent graphics, a brand cannot communicate about its ideas and products to its customers. While a customer tends to remember and recognize a brand through its logo, good graphics help a brand connect to its customers well. Again with businesses going digital, another important requirement for every business big or small is its own website. To cater to these essential creative requirements of businesses, HAPPY PENGWYN DESIGN STUDIO was started in 2015 by Jitender Jit Singh, a passionate web/graphic designer and photographer.
For Jitender, HAPPY PENGWYN is the way to redirect his passion for graphic designing and photography towards creating excellent creatives that help businesses grow. StartupTalky interviewed Jitender Jit Singh regarding the idea, the struggle and the story of the startup which was started and managed solely by him in the initial period.
Happy Pengwyn based in Punjab is a graphic and web designing startup. Besides creating amazing websites and designs for its clients, the company also deals with social media marketing and develops corporate presentations. Guided by the core belief “When we grow others, we grow ourselves”, Happy Pengwyn strives to create designs that not only looks good but also helps its clients in growing their business. It helps its clients in creating their brand from scratch to bringing them online – all of this under a single roof.
“We deliver what we promise. We are budget friendly. We are consistent. We listen. We argue” Jitender says explaining the companies USPs.
Happy Pengwyn Founder and Team
Happy Pengwyn founder Jitender Jit Singh holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications and has worked with a renowned Educational Group in Punjab as a Web/Graphic designer handling the creative work of all the institutes under the group prior to starting his own venture.
The Happy Pengwyn team consists of experienced graphic and web designers and developers.
How was Happy Pengwyn Started
Jitender has always been passionate about graphic designing and photography, which made him plunge in this domain. Happy Pengwyn was launched with an idea to cater to the creative requirements of corporate and industries in Khanna, Mandi Gobindgarh, Sirhind and Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab. Initially, everything was handled by Jitender alone. The company was able to gain a lot of publicity through word of mouth and started receiving projects even before it was launched. “As soon as we launched, we started delivering creative work day and night” says Jitender, recalling the early days of the startup.
Happy Pengwyn – Name, Tagline and Logo
“We were looking for a brand name that could go well with local clients as well as overseas”
The name has an interesting part to it. ‘Happy’ is Jitender’s nickname, which is added to the brand name.
“We wanted a name that adds a spark to a design agency name. Penguins being a happy species we pinned the name “Happy Pengwyn”.
The name Happy Penguin was already registered with some organization, so we decided to alter Penguin to Pengwyn (The word PENGWYN is a word from the Welsh language where PEN = head and GWYN (pronounced as GWIN) = white.), hence the name “HAPPY PENGWYN” narrates Jitender.
The company’s tagline is “We love to craft awesome designs”
Happy Pengwyn – Funding and Investors
Happy Pengwyn has not raised funding till now.
Happy Pengwyn – Startup Challenges
Meeting deadlines was an initial challenge that the startup was facing. In the beginning lack of manpower made timely delivery of projects quite demanding. However, with team expansion, Happy Pengwyn was able to overcome this phase.
Happy Pengwyn – Growth
The Happy Pengwyn team believes in competing with oneself rather than others and the company is striving to perform better with every passing day. The company has handled a variety of projects and has reputed printing press, healthcare industry, medical professionals, steel industry, schools, institutes and entrepreneurs from Punjab, Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Delhi as its clients. Besides it is also working for clients in Australia and England. Happy Pengwyn is planning to expand its team soon.
We’re your design, development, and marketing partner, committed to giving you the online tools you need to grow-Happy Pengwyn team
Happy Pengwyn – Certifications
Recently, the team has also got following certifications-
Successfully completed the IAB accredited (Interactive Advertising Bureau) – Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certification from Google.
Events bring people together. Everyone loves to be a part of a well-organized event. However, organizing a successful event is by no means an easy task. From flowers to lighting, from catering to artists, there is a lot to be taken care of and everything needs to be perfect. This makes the whole process of arranging for an event quite overwhelming. Now, this is where the event management companies come into play. These companies provide various services for making an event smooth, seamless and successful. BunnyBash is a new name in the event management space which is making hosting an event simple and effortless. BunnyBash provides everything one needs to host an awesome event, in one single platform.
BunnyBash is an event management startup founded in the year 2018. It deals in experimental gifting, surprise planning, event production, and rental services. It provides everything from decoration materials to artists, venue booking and equipment rentals required for an event.
At BunnyBash we are simplifying the service process of the event industry. We wanted the people to feel the hassle-free experience of hosting a party.
Event and Activations Industry in India
Event and Activations industry in India will cross Rs.10,000 crore mark in the year 2020-21. The more interesting part of this data is that it does not include the multitude of ‘unorganized event companies and freelancers’ spread across the country. BunnyBash aims to tap this unorganized segment of the event management industry with the help of technology and creativity within.
Anurag has his roots in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh (UP). Born and brought up at Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, Anurag landed at Bangalore in the year 2007 to complete his graduation in business management. He registered his first private limited firm Green Flag Branding Solutions in the year 2010, and started helping local and hyper-local businesses and institutions in localized marketing and customer acquisition.
Within 4 years he worked with more than 100+ local and international brands directly or indirectly. In 2015, he started consulting educational institutions, restaurants and bootstrap startups for branding and marketing strategies.
Anurag is a born seller. He had the entrepreneurial instinct since childhood. Interestingly, as a child, Anurag always used to find new business ideas to make money.
I remember how I started renting out comic books, some of them were mine and some of them were borrowed from my friends! I used to photoshop pictures, create free websites and email ID, upload songs and videos in phones, screen printed t-shirts and greeting cards to make money.
BunnyBash boasts of a beautiful working space in the heart of the city-Bangalore. The work environment is created to keep the employees happy and motivated.
We had options for the heart of the city however to utilize our money wisely we have taken a place on lease for 25 years. We have built our office to feel in a very unconventional way, mostly it resembles a resort rather than an office, we have a lawn to sit and relax, we also do camping in the lawn. We even rent lawn for parties and other small events. If you want to hire our lawn in the heart of the city, It would cost anyone lakhs. We have saved in a tremendous way. We promote happiness not just through our services but internally in the team as well.
BunnyBash Team
How was BunnyBash Started
The idea to start BunnyBash was born from the belief that the host should also enjoy each moment of happiness and togetherness, rather getting into the hassle of event rentals, return gifts, catering arrangements, decorations, etc. BunnyBash was formed with the aim of making hosting a pleasurable experience rather than a tiring one.
“The story behind the startup is the word STORY itself! Every celebration has a story, a story of the birth, a story of coming together, a story of feelings, etc; if it is perfectly crafted, that’s the MOMENT! I wanted to craft every story to moments” –says Anurag
BunnyBash is more about making a wish rather than an inspiration. A wish to change the unorganized event industry, wish to establish both online and offline store to connect with the clients, listen to them, take a chance to shape their dream memories. Overall, a wish to establish a milestone remembered for complete event products and rental solutions.
Host should just feel the moments and enjoy it and let us direct and produce a film that will be worth remembering and watching for the rest of our life.
The name BunnyBash is derived by combining the words Bunny and Bash.
Bunny is associated with speed, sensitivity, planning, opportunity and action. It also symbolizes those moments in life when one must “hop to” even in unfamiliar surroundings, using one’s inner light for directions. While Bash means the party or get-together.
BunnyBash Logo
What is BunnyBash
BunnyBash crafts birthdays, baby shower, naming ceremony, housewarming, engagements, surprise planning and all sorts of corporate events. BunnyBash simplifies the service process of the event industry with event & party rentals, party decor packages, party snack boxes, event artists & venue booking and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) party boxes.
It sells DIY party boxes pan India available at its website and marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart. It has specialized packages, including for dogs and cats birthdays, which a lot of us wish to celebrate but don’t know how to or with what. BunnyBash also provides specialized packages for surprise parties.
In E-commerce event planning and organization, there is no theme based decoration available except us.
BunnyBash Products & Services
BunnyBash – Revenue Model
BunnyBash earns revenue through the sale of Theme Decor Packages, Party Snack Boxes and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Party Boxes, customized gifts, etc. and by renting various party equipment. It also earns a commission from venue owners and artists.
BunnyBash – Funding and Investors
BunnyBash is a bootstraped company.
I believe that to start something new you just need ‘JOSH’! Funding is needed for expansion and aggressive marketing.
BunnyBash – User Acquisition
BunnyBash employs both online and offline marketing channels to reach a wider demographic. It emphasizes on community events to reach community people and runs campaigns online to attract the youth. BunnyBash also collaborates with restaurants & other corporates to establish its presence.
Ongoing evolution of our thought process is through our customers.
Getting customers to understand the difference of charges between different packages and products is a challenging task for the BunnyBash team. As Anurag says, many people are not aware of the variety of products available and required for creating an event.
People usually know about different types of phone brands and the specifications however if you ask just randomly how many different types of balloons are there and what makes them different or what are the prices, not many can answer. We have to make them understand why there is a difference between charges and what the difference is.
Getting good human resources is another big hurdle. It is very difficult to find experienced decorators & florists and the vetting procedure takes the longest time.
BunnyBash – Competitors
Anurag believes that the current competitors are the unorganized players and freelancers from the industry. While he feels that the players from the organized sector make the industry more professionally managed, which is beneficial for both the businesses and customers.
I never feel and believe that organized players and budding startups can be a competitor to each other, in fact being organized they strengthen the industry, establish transparency in financial prospects, open room for trained, experienced and professional manpower. We cannot overcome the present scenario with a magic wand, it all depends on the best customer experience we provide, which will lead to a comparative atmosphere and becoming the preferred choice.
BunnyBash – Future Plans
BunnyBash initially started operating in Bangalore. Currently, it has started its store in Mumbai. The company has plans to expand to Pune and Hyderabad by the end of July 2019. BunnyBash also estimates to open 25 offline stores in the next 3 years with an industry-leading online presence.
BunnyBash has no plans of acquire any business as confirmed by Anurag.
A startup is culture of someone else’s mind. If a startup is doing very well in the initial stages, it is because of the effort of the initial support of people who started it without them it would not thrive. And if the startup is not working as needed, it is useless to acquire.
“Being into marketing solutions, I managed completely with brand design, marketing collaterals, co-branding activities and brand activation. As per technology and business automation is concerned, I have utilized the 200% of startup wave in India! Now you get technology essentials either absolutely free or with limitations (ideal for a small team). Now you can travel up to 5 km in just Rs.35-thanks to bike taxi startups, you can reach other cities for vendor tie-ups and meetings via car sharing app, you can get clean and professionally managed hotels at just Rs.499, you can get unpaid and paid highly qualified and intelligent interns via free applications, unlimited calls and 4G internet at just Rs.149/month. I think you cannot ask for more than the current startup ecosystem, not only solving the problems of the society but also of budding startups (Bhai-Bhai)” – Anurag Singh.
A common problem that people from middle and low-income group faces is shortage of money. Many plans and goals remain unfulfilled due to unavailability of money at the right time. Loans, especially personal loans, being collateral free can be a good way to solve this problem of money shortage. However, getting a personal loan is not easy either. From stringent eligibility criteria to extensive paperwork, there are lots of reasons which deter people from taking a personal loan. Thankfully, the situation is gradually changing. Financial institutions are now coming up with various viable loan options. Qbera, a Bangalore based fintech startup is making personal loans available quickly and easily so that you can get money just when most needed.
Qbera offers digital, quick, hassle-free personal loans. Founded in 2017, this Bangalore based startup offers instant personal loans to salaried and self-employed individuals across 900+ cities in India. Qbera’s vision is to provide super-smart, super-quick and super-fair credit services to creditworthy individuals. It aims to serve the underserved segment mostly comprising of individuals with low-to-mid level incomes, lower-than-prime credit scores, and those employed with uncategorized/unlisted companies across 900+ Indian cities.
Our core belief is to improve credit penetration in the economy by offering the best-unsecured loan services to salaried individuals in India.
Qbera Founders and CEO
Aditya Kumar, Anubhav Jain are the founders of Qbera.
Aditya Kumar is the founder and CEO of Qbera. He graduated in Economics from the University of Warwick. He is also an MSc in Investments from CASS Business School. Prior to Qbera, Aditya founded Oaktree International School, in Kolkata, which he exited in the year 2014. Aditya also worked with well-known organizations like Lehman Brothers and Clarks Group of Hotels.
Anubhav Jain is an alumnus of IIM Indore, where he did his MBA. He is an IT graduate. Prior to Qbera, Anubahv worked with LoanCircle as Director of Risk and Finance. He also co-founded StudyBud, a platform for simplifying campus placement preparations for institutes and students. At Qbera, Anubhav is the Head of Risk.
How was Qbera Started
The idea started with identifying a fundamental problem in the Indian credit market. A massive section of individuals remained underserved until fintech companies surfaced a few years ago. While a good number of individuals who once found it difficult to get loans can now get easy and convenient access to credit, the underserved market still holds tremendous potential.
The journey began with the understanding that credit penetration is extremely crucial for the economy. Individuals with subprime credit scores and those belonging to mid and low-income levels found it almost impossible to get personal loans from banks or traditional lending institutions. Fintechs have come in and turned the equation over its head.
Qbera started its operations in Bangalore and was launched in partnership with RBL (first lending partner). Initial capital was 3 crores – it was initially directed towards paying salaries of early team members, covering overhead costs such as rent, systems, etc.
Initial people, we spoke to Startup advisors, Industry professionals, Banks and NBFCs who were willing to collaborate in exploring the segment. The response was positive at the very least.
Qbera derives its name from “Kuber”, the Indian God of Wealth/Money.
Qbera Logo
What is Qbera
Qbera is actively addressing the problems of the underserved segment in India by offering instant credit to individuals who found themselves facing rejection owing to low-to-mid income levels, subprime credit scores and being employed with unlisted/uncategorized companies. Any person(salaried or self-employed) aged 23-55, with a minimum monthly income of 20,000 and a credit score of 625 or more can apply for Qbera loans. The best part is that the loan is disbursed within 24-48 hours.
Some of the key features of Qbera loans are–
1. Quick Registration 2. Minimal documentation 3. No collateral 4. Flexibility to Choose one’s own tenure 5. Budget-friendly interest rates 6. Security: Customer’s data is safe with 128 bit SSL encryption. 7. Simple repayment options: Qbera provides easy repayment of its smart loans through automatic debit of EMIs via NACH mandate.
Qbera offers loan amount ranging from Rs.1,00,000 to Rs.15,00,000. APR (Annual Percentage Rate) ranges from 11.99% to 35.99%. Loan lengths range from 12 to 60 months. Administration fee ranges from 1% to 5%.
Qbera’s USP is super-quick, super-smart and super-fair credit services through a paperless and presence-less loan process. Qbera uses alternative scoring methods to view a consumer’s profile comprehensively. Qbera’s eligibility framework isn’t confined to a consumer’s credit score and repayment history and looks at an individual’s social standing, income, ability to repay, employment stability, type of residence, etc. Qbera Focuses on data analytics and predictive analytics to understand consumer behavior much better and used various other methods through available data to more accurately determine a consumer’s repayment capability.
Qbera – Business Model and How it works
Qbera has partnered with Fullerton, RBL and IndusInd Bank to offer instant credit to individuals with a minimum net monthly income of Rs. 20,000 per month. Qbera determines the eligibility of consumers in-house, and Qbera’s lending partner/s come-in during the final stage of disbursement. The risk is shared in accordance with contractual terms with the lender/s.
Qbera – Funding and Investors
Qbera raised a 3 million dollar funding from E-city Ventures – the first round of funding since launching the startup. Qbera has utilized these funds for its expansion plans as well as to scale up its technology and offerings-
Funding Date
Funding Stage
Fundig Amount
Investors
2018
Series A
$3 Million
E-city Ventures
Qbera – User Acquisition
As revealed by Aditya, Qbera’s target market includes salaried/ self employed individuals between 23-55 years.
The industry in the next 5 years is expected to grow steadily, as the demand for credit products isn’t going to cease from any angle.
To generate more business, Qbera expanded its operations to several other cities in India, and also expanded its partner base to seal the deal with 2 other partners – IndusInd Bank and Fullerton other than its initial partner RBL bank.
Key strategy hacks followed by Qbera to expand its customer base are-
Accessing more relevant data and improving scoring models to take a larger view of available consumer data
Focusing on its funnels to convert creditworthy customers
Critically evaluating the mediums that influence its customer acquisitions.
As said by Aditya, arranging for enough capital to lend was one of the biggest challenges faced by Qbera. This challenge was met by Qbera by sealing new partnership with banks and NBFCs.
Acquiring an NBFC license is another challenging task. Futile tie-ups and unprofitable partnerships with channel partners is also a challenge for the company, which requires efficient handling.
Qbera – Competitors
LoanTap and MoneyTap are two core competitors of Qbera. Qbera is inspired by the excellent marketing campaigns run by LoanTap and MoneyTap.
Some other competitors are InCred, CapitalFloat, LendingKart, IndiaLends, Faircent, Lendbox, Progcap, EarlySalary and PaySense.
Qbera recently achieved a significant milestone by expanding its book size to over 100 crores. Qbera has its lending services across 180+ cities and serves 15,500 pin codes across the country. Qbera is the only fintech retail lender in India having such a vast presence.
With close to 100 crores of disbursal till date and less than 1% delinquency, we aim to soon be the largest digital lending platform in the country and further cement our leadership position in the alternate lending space.
Medical equipment industry in India is still in the developing stage. As per data, approximately 80% of the medical equipment used in India is imported. The selling and general distribution expenses in the medical equipment industry in India are very high. The industry suffers from huge information asymmetry, lack of transparency and trust between buyers and sellers. Hospitals, on the other hand, are constantly looking for affordable, reliable medical equipment and services. PrimedeQ, a Bangalore based startup is working to bring a positive difference in the medical equipment industry by making buying, selling and renting of medical equipment easily.
PrimedeQ is India’s first e-Marketplace for Medical Equipment, connecting Healthcare Providers, Medical Equipment Sellers & Service Providers all on one integrated platform. Hospitals can Buy, Sell or rent equipment, get medical equipment serviced and buy spares & accessories – New or Used.
PrimedeQ aims to provide access to multiple affordable, good quality medical equipment options to buyers. It aims to bring down selling costs considerably for sellers through its virtual platform.
We are a one-stop destination for all things related to medical equipment. Such a platform does not exist today in India. Our short-term vision is to create as large a network, with a comprehensive portfolio of products and services as possible in Southern India. In the long-term, we will be #1 expert-Marketplace for medical equipment in India.
About PrimedeQ
Medical Equipment Industry Details
Medical equipment and devices market in India is about $5.2Bn growing at a CAGR of 15%. Including after- sales market the total market is estimated to exceed $6.5Bn. The industry is not only expected to grow beyond US$10-12Bn in the next 5 years. But more importantly, it is expected that there will be an increase in participation and market share for Indian Manufacturers.
Medical Equipment Industry
Founders of PrimedeQ and Team
Shanthi Mathur and Achudhan Mani are the founders of PrimedeQ.
Shanthi Mathur is the CEO of PrimedeQ. She has two decades of experience as a management professional in the healthcare domain. She has worked with organizations like ICICI, Max Healthcare, Asian Heart Institute, IBM India, Vaatsalya Healthcare and others in Leadership positions, before becoming a consultant in the area of performance excellence and data analytics.
At PrimedeQ, Shanthi looks after the Sales, digital marketing, technology, finance, HR areas and also other areas if and when needed.
Achudhan Mani is the director of PrimedeQ. He is the MD of Avanttec Medical Systems, a serial entrepreneur with more than 33 years of experience in the medical equipment field. Achudhan and Shanthi met through common contacts. Achudhan was inspired by Shanthi’s idea and so he joined Shanthi in founding PrimedeQ.
As Achudhan puts it “There is not a corner of the TN state that I have not traveled to, for selling and servicing medical equipment and yet, in general, the conversion rate is hardly 2%. I am tired of chasing customers for business… for once I want the genuine ones to call us”. Achudhan strongly believes in the power of Social Media/Digital Marketing and that e-commerce technology is the future of the growing medical equipment market
The other core member of PrimedeQ team is Dr. Sakshi Khandelwal. She is the Chief Officer eMarketplace at PrimedeQ. Sakshi is a dentist and Master of Health Administration by qualifications. Before becoming a consultant in the performance management and data analytics areas, she worked in the hospital management area for more than 6 years.
Dr. Sakshi is in charge of all day-to-day operations in PrimedeQ, including customer care and vendor alliances.
PrimedeQ has a 10-member team largely consisting of eMarketplace operations, bio-medical servicing and field sales teams.
PrimedeQ Team
How was PrimedeQ Started
The problem PrimedeQ is solving one which the Indian healthcare sector has been facing for ages. Shanthi was working with a chain of hospitals in tier-2 and tier-3 towns in Karnataka in 2014. She noticed that there were many instances where equipment break-down and go un-serviced for weeks.
Hospitals in smaller towns prefer to buy used/refurbished equipment as they have budgetary constraints. However, they have very limited options when they want to buy used equipment. In most instances, they know just a few refurbishers or agents and have to pay much higher. Again, when hospitals want to sell equipment they get a bad deal because their access to potential buyers is extremely limited.
“What if selling and buying hospitals could easily find each other in a large network? Both would get a more profitable deal. What if the same network could help find a service provider when the machine is down?” Such questions kept coming to Shanthi’s mind as she wanted to do something to solve this grim issue that the hospitals are facing.
A few years ago, a colleague of mine called up about a hospital who wanted to sell all its equipment just two-years after starting, since they couldn’t get enough business. They had very few offers, hardly recovering 40% of the cost. I could not help them at that time but eventually heard that they sold the whole lot for less than 1/3rd the cost after holding on for another two-years and incurring more losses. I thought if Flipkart, Amazon, OLX, Cars24, etc. could do similar things using e-commerce technology; why not create a platform dedicated to medical equipment.
Shanti started discussing a few ideas with a couple of ex-colleagues and discovered that 20-30% of the medical equipment market is for used/ refurbished equipment. This was huge but largely unorganized. Often when hospitals are unable to run and wish to close-down, they don’t have access to many potential buyers. It is all word-of-mouth still in this e-commerce era. This is what triggered-off the idea of launching an e-commerce platform dedicated to medical equipment and providing hospitals with multiple options when it comes to buying or selling. At the same time, everyone was clear that no equipment business could be successful without proper after-sales support and servicing. Hence the idea of a complete e-marketplace including service-support was formed.
PrimedeQ – Name and Logo
PrimedeQ is a shortened form of Primary Marketplace for Medical Equipment.
We designed the last letter ‘q’ to look like an MRI machine. Funny thing is contrary to our expectations however people pronounce the name as Primede – Q
PrimedeQ is an e-marketplace for medical equipment. It aggregates products and services and connects buyers to sellers in the most convenient and cost-effective manner at the same time offering unbiased information and expertise helping them make the right decision.
PrimedeQ deals in both new and used medical equipment. Besides PrimedeQ also has spares and accessories related to medical equipment. A user can rent medical equipment and also get repairing and maintenance services through PrimedeQ. The company plans to introduce an ‘Auction’ section on its website. PrimedeQ has teamed-up with Kennovation Software Services to develop the portal.
Some USPs of PrimedeQ are-
Bridges information asymmetry/gap
Aggregates and provides expertise
Authenticates buyers/sellers
Provides transparency in pricing/charges
Provides an end-to-end total solution
More than 90% of the hospitals in the country are small-and-medium sized, doctor-promoter lead, looking for affordable equipment and reliable third-party servicing options. As more and more hospital capacities are coming up in smaller towns’ access to quality products and reliable services are getting even more difficult. What is more, the medical equipment after-market is highly fragmented and un-organized in India. Sellers and competent service providers operate in their niche within limited geographic areas and do not have a strong digital presence. The younger generation of doctors is increasingly turning to the internet to look for solutions.
PrimedeQ – Launching Startup
PrimedeQ launched its startup in Bangalore. The first 18-months of its geographic presence was limited to Karnataka and slowly expanded to entire Southern India. Partnerships with equipment and spares suppliers are the key to PrimedeQ’s growth strategy. The company is also continuing to grow its portfolio of equipment through newer partnerships.
As e-Marketplace, PrimedeQ has a virtual presence and it matters less where we are physically based out of. Due to our virtual presence, we are already getting inquiries and servicing customers, not only from all over the country but also from overseas.
PrimedeQ – Business Model and Revenue Model
PrimedeQ has a well-planned revenue model. It earns revenue from the following sources
Equipment Sale
Repair & Maintenance Services
Spares & Accessories Sale
PrimedeQ offers all equipment required by a typical secondary care hospital such as OT, ICU/Critical Care, Emergency, OPD, IPD, Sterilization, Physiotherapy, etc., including products for home care. This includes anything from an ECG machine to MRI, NiBP cuff to CT Tube. Pricing ranges from a ₹1000/- for a spare part to a couple of Crores for a used MRI machine. It charges a commission for the sale of equipment and Spares.
PrimedeQ – Funding and Investors
Presently the founders have brought in Rs 10 million. PrimedeQ is planning to raise funds by the end of this financial year.
PrimedeQ – User Acquisition
PrimedeQ started with a Hybrid model (i.e online portal as well as on-field marketing). It initially spread the word 100% through on-field marketing team, participation in events and also Google Adwords. In the past 2-years, PrimedeQ’s digital presence has strengthened and from less than 10% of its leads coming from online channels, it is now more than 50%.
The company was able to acquire the first 100 customers in 15 months, with nearly 1/3rd being repeat customers. The two features of PrimedeQ which has acquired much popularity among the customers are-
Ability to sell used equipment directly to another hospital/doctor, with minimal intermediary charges and total transparency in the pricing.
One-stop-destination nature of its model – encourages customers to seek us for anything related to medical equipment, which they don’t know whom to reach out to.
From the beginning, we have stayed focused on the used/ refurbished equipment market which constitutes nearly 20-30% of the market and is arguably the low-hanging fruit. As an eMarketplace, a strong digital presence is critical and for a strong digital presence, good content is crucial. We are a one-stop destination for all things related to medical equipment. This means PrimedeQ is a go-to point for any medical equipment, service or spares. We are augmenting online content and features for equipment valuations, comparison and purchase decision support.
In B2B, customers expect credit, and the biggest challenge that PrimedeQ has faced has been in payment collections, delays, constant follow-ups, dis-honored cheques, etc. To solve the issue, PrimedeQ is avoiding credit business with first-time customers.
PrimedeQ is also fighting a perception bias. Many people feel that PrimedeQ is a premature concept and the industry is yet not ready for online purchase of medical equipment, which is not true. The younger generation of doctors are very IT-savvy and comfortable searching for equipment online and PrimedeQ is getting more than 100+ relevant inquiries/ month online alone. Close to 50% of its customers (specifically doctors) search for equipment online through smart-phones and many specifically requested for an App.
For those who believe that online shopping of medical equipment cannot gain popularity in India, Shanthi says that “The same logic was advanced for Flipkart, MakeMyTrip or Cars24. So, every idea sounds crazy until we do it. The customer behavior is changing fast and I strongly believe, time is ripe for leveraging latest technologies including AI, Blockchain and 3D-printing in this field and bring about disruptive transformation”
PrimedeQ – Competitors
There is no platform exactly like PrimedeQ, which is focused only on medical equipment and positioned as a one-stop destination. However, there are existing medical equipment companies with a minimal digital presence or e-commerce players who among other things also sell medical equipment. Some portals selling medical equipment that poses competition for PrimedeQ are Amazon, eBay, Medikabazaar, Colmed, Industrybuying, MedicoMart, IndiaMart OLX, Quikr, etc.
None of these players actively offer medical equipment servicing like PrimedeQ. Worldwide there are organizations like Dotmed, Medwow, etc, focused only on medical equipment who are doing well.
We get several inquiries from customers who have purchased oxygen concentrators from say Portea but need to now sell their used ones. They put it up either in OLX or PrimedeQ. Or say they have purchased a Bi-PAP machine, which is not working – they approach us for repair.
PrimedeQ – Advisors and Mentors
PrimedeQ is being mentored by KN Moorthy, ex-Regional Service Manager, GE Healthcare and Mr. Mukul Mathur, Vice President – IBM Systems Channels and Distribution, Asia Pacific.
PrimedeQ – Growth
PrimedeQ has received tremendous response from the hospitals. Currently, it has over 2500 registered customers (approx. 20% of South India market) and done business with 100+ customers in 38 different towns across the 5 Southern States. More than 30% are repeat customers, while 7-8% of the inquiries it receives are from overseas.
“There have been hospitals whom we met in our early days who did not do any business with us then but are now approaching us with confidence. Response from hospitals has been extremely positive. Many of them went on to say this is the need of the hour. But the strongest validation is that they pay. There are no discounts and freebies. We get market rates” Shanthi says.
PrimedeQ’s Plan for the next 2 years is to improve penetration in the regions it operates and augment its range of equipment & spares. It will also offer equipment valuation and purchase decision support online in the medium term.
PrimedeQ’s future plan also includes using data for AI and 3D printing for spare parts.
We strongly believe that our start-up will help indigenous medical manufacturers significantly and support ‘Make in India’ initiative. Growing regulations regarding quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety through institutions such as National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) and Atomic Energy Regulations Board (AERB) and others both at State-level and at the Centre will give the much-needed fillip to medical equipment industry. Our objective is to become an expert market place. We are not limited by the idea of being an e-commerce platform.
Are you one of those who loves and lives to travel? If traveling is your passion and exploring new places is your hobby, than Taxidio is just for you. This Mumbai based DIY trip planner will find you the best-suited travel destinations based on your interest, budget and the duration of your trip. It will also provide you personalized itineraries and book tickets for you, so that you can enjoy your trip without caring about the nuisances.
About Taxidio
Taxidio is an automated travel planner which is continuously working towards inspiring travelers to find the right destination and ease the process of trip planning. Taxidio aims to be the one stop solution for all needs of travelers for trip planning and booking. Taxidio works with the mission to provide a convenient and personalized travel experience for the explorers.
Tourism Industry Details
The global tourism market itself is about 10% of the world’s GDP, close to 54% of which comprise of leisure travelers. Taxidio is currently focusing on the Indian market that itself is projected to grow at the rate of 11-11.5% to a $48 billion market by the year 2020 as per a report by Boston Consultancy Group.
According to IBEF, the online travel market alone is expected to account for around 40%-50% of the total transactions by 2020.
Vishal Kejariwal and Abhas Desai are the founders of Taxidio.
Vishal Kejariwal is the CEO of Taxidio. Vishal holds an MBA in Finance degree (majors in Capital Markets) from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, India. He also holds an Engineering degree in Computer Science from Mumbai University and has worked for a major Indian conglomerate for over 5 years. After his corporate stint, he moved on to take his passion for traveling and turn it into a full-time work role.
Abhas Desai is the CTO of Taxidio. Abhas holds an engineering degree in Computer Science and an Executive MBA degree in Information Technology. He has a prolific 10-year-long experience in the field of IT and firmly believes in integrating everyday human activities with technology.
Abhas and I have known each other for almost two decades now.
Convincing Abhas to join me was not a very tough one. Just like me, Abhas had an urge to do something outside the box and use his skills for doing more than he was doing. i.e. to his full potential. We were confident that my passion for traveling combined with the business skills I have learned along with his tech skills would surely create a product to look forward to.
Besides the co-founders, the team consists of 4 think tanks with an average age of 25 years from different backgrounds, such as IT, finance and media.
How was Taxidio Started
“The inspiration to start Taxidio came out of our travel experiences,” said Vishal.
Vishal and Abhas have always loved traveling. The more they traveled, they realized that no matter how easy it sounds to plan a trip, the actual process of planning is rather complicated and highly fragmented.
The process of researching and validating started by taking a sample of frequent travelers and taking a survey of their entire trip planning process. The idea was to find out if people really find the information available on the internet fragmented and whether they would be open to the idea of using a product that could do the entire process of trip planning. Vishal and Abhas also spoke to certainly experienced professionals from the hospitality business and took their inputs on the initial idea they had. They started working on the prototype and launched the beta website of Taxidio in May 2017.
Taxidio’s name and logo have an interesting story to it. Taxidio means to travel in greek.
The name ‘Taxidio’ itself develops a certain amount of inquisitiveness when its read or heard and people often ask us what is the meaning of this word. This increases brand recall. The idea was to keep a word close to travel but at the same time not make it long such that it may not get the necessary brand recall.
The idea behind Taxidio’s logo is also quite fascinating and reflects the company’s mission and vision. Taxidio’s vision and mission is to make travel planning as simplified and convenient as it can be for travelers. More importantly, it is to introduce them to the best of what the world has to offer. The same thought is translated into a clear and minimal design with the globe in the center, in order to establish an association with traveling.
The idea to hold the globe in a symbol that resembles ‘T’ in the Devanagari script is two-toned. The first stems from Taxidio’s core belief that even though we cater to an international audience, are roots are Indian. We want our brand to resonate with these values and our identity which is attached to them. The second denotes that Taxidio covers destinations all over the world for you to travel to.
Taxidio Logo
What is Taxidio
Taxidio is an automated travel planner available in web and iOS and Android app. The services provided by Taxidio are-
Destination Recommendation
Online Itinerary Planning
Accommodation Booking
Attraction Tickets
Readymade Itineraries
In-depth Travel Guides
Comprehensive Travel Information – top attractions, day-trips, places to stay and party in each city/country
B2B Solutions for Hotels
Plug and Play Solution for OTAs
Taxidio’s USP is that it is the only online DIY trip planner that recommends the right holiday destination based on the travel preferences of the user. The traveler has to input information such as budget, temperature preferences, duration of trip and interest. Taxidio reverse-engineers the information provided by the traveler and helps them create fully customizable itineraries, offers in-depth travel guides, and undertakes hotel and attraction bookings. Taxidio has curated content for 500+ cities across 90 countries.
The portal also offers pre-planned itineraries which are created by experts to give you a starting point to plan your trip.
Furthermore, Taxidio also has a B2B vertical that aims at maximizing the concierge experience across hotels and provides tech-based solutions to independent travel agents and OTAs.
No other player in the online travel space provides such a huge spectrum of services. We pivoted and we believe it’s a very important stage in the life of the start-up. We changed our model from being just a B2C company to also include the B2B segment which provides healthier cash flow. We also re-looked at our branding and came up with a new website, logo and brand colors which were more relatable to the users globally and also helped us in creating a better interface.
Taxidio operates in both B2B and B2C model. On the B2C front, Taxidio earns revenues through the sale of travel guides and commission earned from the booking of accommodation and attractions.
Taxidio is also in the final stage of commercializing its B2B revenues which run on a subscription basis from hotels and offline travel agents.
Taxidio – User Acquisition
Taxidio extensively uses digital media to market its services. It uses social media marketing channels such as Facebook and Instagram to reach out to the right audience set. Along with this, Taxidio also has a huge content bank (over 5million words of proprietary content) which has been used aggressively for SEO efforts. Besides, word of mouth publicity has also worked quite well for Taxidio, in attracting the initial users.
Taxidio – Funding and Investors
Taxidio has raised funding close to US$ 275,000 including promoters equity.
Funding Date
Funding Stage
Funding Amount
Investors
2018
Seed
$200,000
Undisclosed
Taxidio – Startup Challenges
The creation and curation of content have been the biggest challenge for Taxidio team, as said by Vishal.
In an industry where content is easy to find and also gets outdated very soon, we wanted to create a niche by our own travel content which is always updated and is free from any plagiarism and is also extremely useful and relatable to all types of travelers. We can relentlessly have worked on this since day one.
Another issue faced was due to the company’s website. The initial design of the website did not work for the company. The colors were dark and the ability of users to understand the website functionality on their own was minimal. To solve this issue Taxidio soon came up with a new and user-friendly website.
Travelibro, Triptomatic, Travefy, TripHobo,Utrip, Pebblar, Roadtrippers, YourTour and Tripit are some of the competitors of Taxidio, which are operating in the trip planning domain. However, every platform has its own unique features.
It would be unfair to pick one company and say that this is the direct competition of Taxidio. Having said that, though there is a certain overlap with few Indian and global players in the planning space, what really differentiates with us the kind of revenue and volume we are drawing to our website and app with minimal funding we have at our disposal. This has been possible only because we have been exceptionally cautious about spending every penny and channelized it in a manner that all our marketing efforts to date have been successful.
The kind of content provided by Taxidio takes it a step ahead of the competition. Other players in the market offer online itinerary planning, hotel and attraction bookings, pre-planned itineraries, etc. But there is no single platform that covers it all. Taxidio is also the only online trip planner that also provides comprehensive Travel Guides and B2B services.
Taxidio – Recognition and Achievements
Taxidio is the only Indian startup (and eventually) the only Asian startup to attend a 2-month startup mentoring program in Madeira, Portugal. It was amongst the 9 travel startups to be selected from across the globe for this program. In the program, Taxidio had a chance to learn from various experienced professionals in various aspects of building and scaling and start-up. This was a huge learning opportunity for co-founders. Taxidio has also been awarded as the winner in Seed stage for consumer internet category by Aeonian and have are also a recognized start-up as per the guidelines laid by the Government of India.
Taxidio – Growth
Taxidio, company has been routing revenues right from the day it went live. Currently, the company has-
70000 + visitors on its site
Taxidio has routed booking worth more than US$ 150,000.
It has over 2000 registered users
It has more than 4000 itineraries created.
Our plans in coming years are to include newer functionalities to further enhance our existing value chain.
There were times, when the women of the house used to do all the household jobs like cleaning cooking etc single-handedly and manually. However, now the scenario has changed. Now the women are going out to work and earn. Also, household chores are not considered to be just a women’s job. In this changing scenario, home and kitchen appliances are here to make lives easier. Krutan, a Bangalore based startup, is offering affordable, time and energy saving appliances to make life faster and comfortable.
KRUTAN is a Bangalore based home appliance brand that aims at providing kitchen essentials for every home. Founded in 2013, Krutan believes in identifying useful products globally and making it available at affordable prices to the people. The mission of the company is to make affordable kitchen appliances available in Tier 2 cities as well as go global and introduce products in third world countries and make life faster and easier for people. Krutan’s aim is to make smart living affordable and accessible to everybody.
According to the report titled “India Kitchen Appliances Market Analysis: Forecast & Opportunities, 2016-2022”, Kitchen Appliances market recorded strong growth, with a CAGR of over 13% during the review period of 2011-16. The market is forecasted to advance with a double-digit CAGR of 15.41% during an estimated period of 2017-22.
Krutan’s target market consists of the working class of India that consists of the lower and upper middle class.
Founders of Krutan and Team
BG Krupa is the founder of Krutan. The other members of the team are
Mr. Ashwin B G– Director
Mr. Shashidhar Rao B N – Head of distribution and retail.
Mr. Giridhar RaoB N – Mentor.
How was Krutan Started
Spending 6.5 years in the corporate industry, Krupa deeply understood the need to save time in today’s fast moving life. She also believed the fact that technology would be the soul of this generation. It was seen that the working class did not have the time in today’s world to use conventional methods of living at home. So, with Krutan, Krupa wanted to bring in quality and useful appliances at a price-point which could be afforded by all. Thus Krutan was born.
Krupa’s family received an electric kettle as a gift from a friend in London. She noticed how this one appliance made their lives easy in terms of making their morning tea, cooking, etc. Krupa wanted to make this convenience available to the people around her at an affordable price. As such, the first product launched by Krutan was an electric kettle and they later diversified the portfolio to other electrical appliances.
Krutan – Name, Tagline and Logo
Team Krutan wanted the name to be out of the box and different from the existing players in the market.
We decided to call it Krutan which stands for patience, meticulous and attention to detail.
Krutan’s tagline is “Home solutions for a healthy living”. The tagline was designed keeping in mind health and smart living, which are the major concerns of the people.
Krutan Logo
What is Krutan
Krutan is a Bangalore based home appliance brand launched in the year 2013.
Currently, Krutan deals in electric kettle, induction cooktop, rice cooker, sandwich maker, pop-up toaster, air fryer and hand blender. Krutan’s best-selling products are electric kettle, rice cooker and induction cooktop.
Krutna’s parent organization is Sureseal Pvt Ltd, a metal packaging company. Sureseal manufactures pilfer proof caps for various Pharmaceutical, Liquor and Food Industries. Currently producing 300 million caps per annum, the annual business revenue is about US$ 3.5 million. In the year 2013, Sureseal diversified its activities and broadened the spectrum into the home & kitchen appliances industry with the brand “Krutan”.
Krutan Products
Krutan – Revenue Model
A major part of Krutan’s revenue comes from wholesalers, retailers and hypermarkets. The company keeps a minimum margin of 10% on every product.
Krutan – User Acquisition
Krutan launched its products with Metro- Cash and Carry, which is a leading B2B wholesaler platform. Through this, the company was able to reach out to retailers directly. Besides, the company marketed its products through Facebook. The products are also listed on e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Indiamart, etc.
Not much was spent on advertising for Krutan. However, around Rs 50,000 per month was spent initially to grow awareness about the product.
Krutan – Startup Challenges
According to Krupa, establishing a new brand when there are many big players in the kitchen appliance market is a big challenge.
It wasn’t easy to change the mindset of the people. But making the products affordable and giving the best quality has helped us come a long way.
Krutan – Competitors
The major competitors of Krutan are Prestige, Pigeon, Preethi, Fabiano, Philips and Morphy Richards to name a few.
However, Krutan has been able to carve its own niche in terms of price, service and quality of products.
Krutan’s air fryers have been priced at 1/4th of the price of the other existing players in the market. This, in turn, made the competitors reduce their prices too.
Krutan – Funding and Investors
Krutan is a debt-funded company.
Krutan – Future Plans
Krutan has been able to make a mark for itself in the kitchen appliances market. The company has sold close to 20,000 Kettles in the first 1.5 years of inception.
In future Krutan wants its products to reach all the tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India. Besides, Krutan is also planning to expand its operations to South American and African countries.
Niku Mandal
