At Your Service
UrbanClap wants to
provide what virtually every Indian looks for reliable services
Three times a week, the
founders of Ur banClap, a Delhi-based local services provider, say they receive
requests from stricken rivals who want to be acquired.Backed by some $37
million in funding from the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, SAIF and Accel,
the company founded just two years ago has become the category's proverbial
800-pound gorilla. UrbanClap works with some 25,000 service providers in eight
cities and its founders say it processes 4,0005,000 customer requests daily.
Rather than focus on just providing low-value, low-repeat services (think of
the odd plumbing job), the startup has sought to fatten its business by
providing a wider assortment of offerings. So, among its services providers are
wedding photographers, interior designers and birthday party-planners. “We are
trying to address a basic problem that millions of Indians face,“ says
cofounder Abhiraj Bhal. “The access to high-quality, reliable service providers
remains an unmet challenge.“ Along with groceries and budget hotels, Bhal
believes services will form the next logical growth driver for India's thriv
ing ecommerce market.
According to Bhal, the
addressa ble market for their services is around 100 million Indian middle
class folk across the top 25 cities. “We are six or seven times as large as our
nearest competitor,“ he adds. “We will work with 2,00,000 service providers by
the end of 2016 and we will handle 1,00,000 customer requests a day.“
In some ways, UrbanClap is
following the trends in the broader ecommerce market, where large players such
as Flipkart are dominant (in apparel, for example, it does more business than
its category-focused rivals), and the same holds true in the services market.
“The vertical services providers are stuck with lowfrequency, low-value
offerings...in a difficult market, they will struggle,“ Bhal argues.
Bhal and the other
cofounders are acutely aware of the challenges of starting up. Prior to
UrbanClap, Bhal cofounded a company that aimed at providing video-on-demand
services to long-range public transport.While the idea sounded promising and
initial interest strong, the business struggled to gain enough customers and
backers and ran aground. Another cofounder Raghav Chandra, who worked with
Twitter in its infancy, too tried his hand at starting up an autorickshaw
aggregation service, which folded. Fingers burnt, the cofounders have reset
their ambitions. “We don't want to build a cute, lifestyle business...we want
to construct a large impactful business in the next seven to 10 years,“ Bhal
claims. “The challenge for us is to grow from say 2,50,000 service providers to
say two million of them...we are already investing in skilling programmes ahead
of our growth curve to ensure availability,“ he adds.
ETM3JAN16
No comments:
Post a Comment