India's Quirkiest Startups (1)
They've breathed life into offbeat
ideas and claim their ventures are unique and face little if no competition.
But that's still no guarantee of success
It's ingenious but, er, does it make
money? Perhaps all the entrepreneurs who feature in this special package would
have been asked this question at some point in their startup journey.
Kalyani Khona, who has started up
Wanted Umbrella, which she claims is India's only matrimonial agency for
differently-abled people, may have had observers wondering where the money will
come from. Her quick answer: “I have married a social cause and business.“
It's ingenious but, er, why on earth
would people want it? That's a query Alpana Agarwal, co-founder of Con Affetto,
which makes edible bouquets -think cupcakes, cookies, truffle -may be used to
by now.
Ask her about who are the potential
customers and she just might tell you about the good lady who placed an order
in New Delhi for her grandson's first birthday and carried it to Jaipur.
It's ingenious, but will it fly?
That's what Mrinal Pai must be asking himself on the odd bad day. His start up
is a farsighted concept that offers custom drone products and services. Pai
sees a (near) future when drones will be used to transport organs between hospitals,
flying over gridlocked roads; and when you could use his service to drop a
quick personalised note of endearment to your beloved. Yes, but will
regulations -which have yet to be framed -allow his drones to keep flying?
These are just three of the 10 offbeat startups we've deep-dived into; just
three of the 800-odd startups added every year; and just three of the over
3,000 startups that are trying to make it big in India.
The 10 that we've picked are novel,
but being different or a first mover is no guarantee of being the best mover
-or moving at all a few years later. After all, success rates in the world of
entrepreneurship are notoriously low, as low as 10% in the tech world. And
funding is no guarantee of success. CB Insights, a US-based venture capital
database, reckons that companies typically die around 20 months after their
last round of funding and after having raised $1.3 million.
For the 10 featured over the next couple
of blogs, being unique is a good starting point. But as Sanjeev Krishnan,
partner and leader (private equity and transaction services) at
PricewaterhouseCoopers, explains, the markets for many such differentiated
offerings are not large enough. “So unless the market expands exponentially, a
shift in focus would be essential to create a new market segment,“ he points
out.
There's something else that may work
in favour of these newbie risk-takers: the proverbial fire in their bellies.
When you hear Nikunj Jain, co-founder of Frankly.me, talking about being
“Darwin's children“ and that “we run faster and kill harder“, you will get a
sense of the fire burning.
1. King
of Drones
You could call him `drone-acharya',
although Mrinal Pai is a guru in a field a bit different from military arts.
The 22-year-old lad from Kerala believes that one day Indians will be able to
outsource petty jobs to machines. “And if that happens, moms won't be heard
saying: `beta zara doodh leke aana' [son, please buy milk] as drones will get
it.“ Pai is the co-founder of Skylark Drones,
a Bengaluru-based startup that offers custom drone products and services
ranging from aerial views for real estate developers to 3D surface model data
for land surveys to wedding shoots and banner advertisements, and keeping a
close eye during sports and other events.
Started in July 2014 with a seed
capital of `4 lakh, Pai now wants to scale up the use of drones in areas such
as organ transportation between hospitals in a city to bypass crowded roads.
Aware that the market for drones is
still nascent, Pai believes that first-mover advantage will help his startup.
“The biggest challenge for us now is not money or technology. It's regulation,“
he contends. Not even a year old, Skylark, says Pai, has broken even. And he's
keen to break through potential barriers to the growth of his firm. “Brick
walls are there to stop people who don't want it badly enough,“ he says. Pai
for sure wants it bad, and wants it now -and he's got his drones to bypass the
walls!
2. Not
Quite Kid Stuff
Deepa Kumar
Last July, when violent protests
erupted across Bengaluru over the sexual abuse of a six-year-old student in her
school, Deepa Ku mar refused to hit the streets. Reason: she was getting ready
to fight back in her own unique way.
“The only way to curb such abuse is
by talking about the topic with our kids,“ says Kumar. “We have to get rid of
the devil in our heads.“ Kumar did that with HowToTellYourChild,
an online startup that offers videos, books and related products that parents
and educators can use to teach children about topics like sexual abuse and
puberty in a fun and easy manner. Started in November last year, HowTo
TellYourChild plans to tie up with schools, hold counselling sessions with
parents and make videos in regional languages to expand its reach.
According to a study by the ministry
of women and child development in 2007, every second child is a victim of some
form of sexual abuse. The problem is enormous but so is the opportunity.
“This is a serious subject and we
are the only ones doing it,“ says Kumar who insists that How To Tell Your Child
is a perfectly viable business model. As she readies to tell a story to kids,
there's another audience that would be keen to listen in too -investors.
3. Don't
Hold your Breath
Kaushal Sanghavi knew that his
business was unusual but little did he realise that customer acquisition can
happen in the strangest of cir cumstances. A few months back when a hearing at
the Bombay high court got delayed by three hours, it made a couple of women
professionals restless. They wanted to use the toilet but it wasn't quite,
well, swachh. So, they booked one of Sanghavi's `breathing rooms' to use the
loo and, whilst they were there, they also decided to work out of it for a
while.
BreathingRoom provides on-demand hourly workplaces to professionals and
business travellers for meetings and conferences. The rooms can be booked from
a mobile app even 15 minutes prior to a meeting.
The idea is indeed unique -offering
unutilised or underutilised commercial spaces in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and
Pune at an affordable cost. The startup soon plans to expand into other cities
such as Hyderabad and Chennai and is scouting for investors. Sanghavi is also
rolling out OpenSpaces -in bars, restaurants and cafes -from which users can
work for free when they're less busy.
Started in October last year by two
ex-Amazonians, Sanghavi and Jacky Chow, BreathingRoom is now used by a wide
range of clients such as startup founders, financial and tax consultants, and
marketing and sales professionals to name a few. The rate charged per hour
-`400 -is so reasonable that even work-fromhome entrepreneurs are opting for
it, claims Sanghavi. The startup makes money by pocketing a 30% commission, the
rest going to the property owner.
Whilst co-working hubs are
mushrooming, the BreathingRoom model of tying up with owners of under-utilised
spaces is still an untapped opportunity.And Sanghavi is not cramped for space
-not yet.
4. Filling
the Bill
When he was a PR executive at Lowe
Lintas, Bharat Ahirwar would find it impossible to take a break. A day away
from the office would be swallowed up by the time spent on bill payments
(electricity, mobile et al), fixing leaky taps, a trip to the municipality
office and bank-related chores. That's when it struck Ahirwar that there would
be many working professionals like him in a similar predicament. Result? A
Eureka moment that culminated in the setting up of errand-running startup GetMyPeon.
Started in July 2012, GetMyPeon is a
newage version of a courier and concierge service, offering services ranging
from the routine bill payments to the downright bizarre delivery of vada pavs
from a specific food stall to a client waiting at the airport; or handing over
just a button from a distant suburb that a stylist needed at her studio in
South Mumbai.
“Our service is niche. We provide
hyperlocal solutions and cater to urgent needs of customers,“ says Ahirwar, who
is busy beefing up his team, developing an app to improve user experience and
planning to roll into other cities.And, yes, funding is definitely on the
cards.
With startups like YourGuy
Concierge, Timesaverz and Grofers offering many services that overlap with
GetMyPeon, Ahirwar will have to constantly innovate to stand out.“Our stable
growth is proof that we will survive and thrive.“
5. On
the Scent of a Bounty
Why would anybody shun a tall, good
looking man who is always nicely dressed in jeans, tees and leather shoes in
college? This is what Karan Vij, who got enrolled in California University to
study international eco nomics, couldn't fathom.
He got the answer from an Indian
friend: “Stupid, it's your shoes. They're so formal and intimidating.“ The
learning helped Vij in setting up his business after coming back to India in
2012.From formal, he was keen to leap to the other extreme -he wanted to be
funky. So he started Scentra, a scented shoe
brand that uses organic cotton to make footwear, designed in California and
manufactured in Spain. And, yes, imported to India.
“It's India's first scented shoe
brand,“ claims Vij. The scent is not sprayed on the shoe but it's dyed in the
sole to make it last long.
And if you thought that only women
would rush to buy the prod uct, 43% of Scentra's customers are men, lets on
Vij. Having sold over 1,300 pairs over the past five months, he is now
targeting to sell 100 pairs every day, at an average of `2,000 a pop.
Possible? “Absolutely as the market
is huge and we are the only player,“ he says. There's another reason for his
confidence -the insight that he got from girls. “The first thing they look at
in a guy is the shoes.“ Now he's got to get more men to believe that.
|
Rajiv Singh
|
ET 25JAN15
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