How To Really
Make Your Startup Stand Out
It's important to be the first mover
but not always does a startup have that advantage. Most new ventures compete
with the top three contenders in any category.
Amid India's increasingly crowded
startup ecosystem, where two startups are founded every day on an average, how
does one truly stand out? Is it outlandish marketing tactics, killer discounts,
writing angry public blogs to investors or painting the whole town with your
ads?
The idea is to start from the very beginning when you pick the industry you want to enter, advise successful entrepreneurs. Take on-demand tea provider Chai Point which now sells 1.25 lakh cups of chai every day across four cities. “We had come to something that is very close to the heart of all Indian consumers, given it a contemporary sheen and credibility,“ said Amuleek Bijral, a Harvard Business School graduate who cofounded the company when online tea retail was an untested concept in India. Chai Point is currently partnering with other companies to create more products, including breakfast items and packaged teas.
The idea is to start from the very beginning when you pick the industry you want to enter, advise successful entrepreneurs. Take on-demand tea provider Chai Point which now sells 1.25 lakh cups of chai every day across four cities. “We had come to something that is very close to the heart of all Indian consumers, given it a contemporary sheen and credibility,“ said Amuleek Bijral, a Harvard Business School graduate who cofounded the company when online tea retail was an untested concept in India. Chai Point is currently partnering with other companies to create more products, including breakfast items and packaged teas.
Investors cite a few basics to
consider ahead of every investment opportunity -whether the market is large
enough, the business model is sustainable, the technological platform is
robust, the team has that all-elusive X factor, and importantly, whether the
startup stands out from its league.
Once a startup has its territory
marked out, the most important factor is to build a great product.“It's not
enough for it to work or be functionally complete. Does it delight in an
experiential way? Do you have an extraordinary product that people love to
interact with?“ said Shekhar Kirani, partner at Accel India, which has backed
Facebook, Flipkart, LetsVenture and TeaBox, among others. critical in India,
and equally crucial is scaling at the right moment.“
The common bottom line weaving
through all the elements is the differentiation a customer perceives.
“The power to decide who is going to
win in India has shifted from large companies to consumers. They have much
higher expectations now than they ever had,“ said Sid Talwar, partner at
Lightbox Ventures, which has invested in one-of-a-kind companies such as
InMobi, MapmyIndia, education tech startup Embibe and renewable energy company
Kotak Urja.
The online world has changed the
paradigm of distribution, which now varies differently across industries.“The
only way to start a brand today is to look at it in a holistic, omnichannel
way, rather than the binary approach of online versus offline,“ said Bijral of
Chai Point, whose consumer and corporate on-demand delivery services are
growing at double digits every month. Chai Point provides a flask of hot tea on
call, which can be booked online.
When ecommerce platform Zepo India
wanted to get a word out about their service last year, they made a website and
enrolled a few tea sellers, starting with Bandra in Mumbai. Now Mumbaikars can
order daily tea from ChotuChaiwala.com for a fee of Rs 70 weekly or Rs 280
monthly.
The last leg is to bring loyalty in
a differentiated way than being perceived as a pushy sale. Nothing sells more
than a good validation or a referral by a customer to his or her own peer
network.
To do this, “you have to build
stickiness into the product so that customers can be re-engaged,“ said Gaurav
Dahake, founder and CEO of price comparison site BuyHatke. The three-year-old
company came into prominence last year during Xiaomi's first phone sales in
India, when its embedded browser extension helped customers order Xiaomi phones
automatically whenever stock was available. “Decide what would help you retain
your users in a unique way so that they will recall your service whenever they
feel a need,“ Dahake said. consumer and corporate on-demand delivery services
are growing at double digits every month.Chai Point provides a flask of hot tea
on call, which can be booked online. When Zepo India wanted to get a word out
about their service last year, they made a website and enrolled a few tea sellers.
Now Mumbaikars can order daily tea from ChotuChaiwala.com for a fee of `70
weekly or `280 monthly.
The last leg is to bring loyalty in
a differentiated way than being perceived as a pushy sale. Nothing sells more
than a good validation or a referral by a customer to his or her own peer
network.
To do this, “you have to build
stickiness into the product so that customers can be re-engaged,“ said Gaurav
Dahake, founder and CEO of price comparison site BuyHatke.The company came into
prominence last year during Xiaomi's first phone sales in India, when its
embedded browser extension helped customers order Xiaomi phones automatically
whenever stock was available.
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Evelyn Fok
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ET23JUN15
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