Thursday, March 28

Author: Sonia Motwani

Sonia is super inquisitive and fun loving person. Besides being a full time business analyst, she is hopelessly attracted to the start-up world. You can find her glued to her laptop either writing articles or watching the YouTube video of a stand up comedian. If she could, she would sink into her bed watching funny and nonsensical memes and videos. She is currently discovering startups and covering them on Pixr8. Drop her a mail on sonia.bits2110@gmail.com to share your story of starting up!
Rise of the Home Health Care Industry in India
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Rise of the Home Health Care Industry in India

The Home Healthcare industry in India was once an unorganized and scattered division with the lack of appropriate technology and a proper business model. However, the scenario has changed in the last few years with new entrepreneurs and investors focusing their interest towards the hugely potent sector whose worth was evaluated at a whopping $2.2 billion in 2013 by a reputed consulting firm. Further, the projected rate of growth is said to be 8 percent per annum till 2020 which is again quite promising, to say the least. With an aging population and an increase in the type of chronic illness, there is an increase in the need of quality health care. With the current hospitals and conventional health care system seeming too inconvenient to access, the home healthcare industry has a massiv...
From Failing in College to Generating Revenue Worth 1 Cr, The Story of Pratik Luther
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From Failing in College to Generating Revenue Worth 1 Cr, The Story of Pratik Luther

Pratik Luther was pursuing his MBA from Humber College Toronto, Canada when he failed his final semester project because his colleagues did not think he participated enough. As a result, he was forced to repeat a semester with the upcoming batch 3 months down the line. “I got 3 totally blank months with no work to do. It was the month of October and it was freezing in Toronto, so all I would do was watch TV series initially,” Says Pratik. He started to work as a part-time concierge in a building under construction. Pratik ended up having so much free time that he decided to learn web designing. And thus, an e-commerce company of merchandise was born! “Canada’s fast internet connection is one of the most important factors that contributes for the birth of my business. I started worki...
How NewsBytes got 1500 downloads in 4 days with their innovative campaign!
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How NewsBytes got 1500 downloads in 4 days with their innovative campaign!

Valentines week this year was filled with campaigns of e-commerce companies giving away discounts. In the middle of all the mess we came across an innovative campaign by a news technology company- NewsBytes, with a theme ‘Intelligence is the new sexy’. Pixr8 got in touch with the founders to understand how this worked out! NewsBytes is a Gurgaon based news technology company, started by Sumedh Chaudhry, Shikha Chaudhry, Romesh Khaddar, and Sripriya Yegneswaran. They call themselves a bunch of geeks who discuss start-ups when relatives talk about marriages, who get excited when they see a 3D printed iPhone case, who have strong opinions about random things they read on Quora and who think they are la-di-da entrepreneurs. “A lot of entrepreneurs say that you should be able to measure eve...
From Bootstrapping to Generating 100cr in Revenue, The Story of Mirraw
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From Bootstrapping to Generating 100cr in Revenue, The Story of Mirraw

Shailesh Jain was in the US for his first job when he wanted to buy a saree, but it was not available there. He bumped into his friend Anup Nair and started to discuss the concern with him. And at the end of the conversation, they found a problem to solve! “I and Anup always had the entrepreneurial bug, and after realizing the potential in the market, we decided to come to back to the country and start-up,” says the Computer Technology engineer from VJIT. Our culture is deeply rooted with our parents. And Mirraw is looking to bring all that to you. With over 3 lac listed products, 3 million and counting customers worldwide, their mission is to bring world's best ethnic designs to your doorstep. Based out of Fort, Mumbai, Mirraw brings handpicked designs in ethnic jewellery, apparels, and...
SimplyFest, Celebrating The Entrepreneur In You!
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SimplyFest, Celebrating The Entrepreneur In You!

It was a weekend with inspiring talks at Zorba Delhi. Talks led by successful entrepreneurs who’ve built their own companies from scratch. Students, to be entrepreneurs, investors; anyone in the business of learning about, or starting a new venture were present at the beautiful lawns on 20th Feb. The list of storytellers across these two days represents some of India’s most sought-after enterprises with collaborators across venture capitalists, incubators, knowledge institutions, social platforms, business groups, business dailies and technology companies. The event was organized by SimplyHR, India’s leading HR consultancies based out Delhi. “With SimplyFest, we want to help pass on their wisdom to the next wave of innovators who have the potential to start the hottest startups of tomorro...
Starting Up at 19 to Helping Companies Improve Customer Experience, The Story of Zeenath
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Starting Up at 19 to Helping Companies Improve Customer Experience, The Story of Zeenath

Zeenath Kuraisha was 19 when she started with a home-based administrative support model for professional in the FSI industry. Zeena is one of the pioneers in the Call Centre industry in Singapore. After acquiring skills in the call center industry in 1996, she set up her first professional consulting company to help organizations improve and implement CRM, Sales and Tele Marketing processes into their existing operations via Call Centre structures. She started Asia Pacific Sales and Marketing Academy (APAC SMA) in Singapore after close to 20 years of Industry experience in the areas of Customer Experience, Inside Sales and Customer Focused GTM practice with various global MNCs. “I always loved the freedom, the ability to display and work interesting ideas my way which a normal role strapp...
81 Crores Cash Transactions From 116,000 Gadgets in 3 Years is Just The Beginning For Reglobe
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81 Crores Cash Transactions From 116,000 Gadgets in 3 Years is Just The Beginning For Reglobe

It was the year 2013 when Nakul Kumar was looking to sell his laptop but unable to find someone to buy it. That’s when the idea of ReGlobe, a re-commerce website for electronics was born. Nakul joined hands with Mandeep Manocha to startup in Gurgaon. A huge amount of waste is being dumped in an open area on the outskirts of Delhi and electronic waste can be reduced. “We realized that it was not the correct way of getting rid of any kind of waste ‘manually’ and it was certainly not helping the environment to get any better,” says co-founder Mandeep. ReGlobe offers an end to end service wherein the customer can sell old gadgets hassle-free. Privacy, instant cash, free home pickup & an instant price quotes are just some of the things that drive the users towards ReGlobe without havi...
With 80,000 Requests Per Day This Startup Becoming India’s Biggest Personal Assistant Platform
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With 80,000 Requests Per Day This Startup Becoming India’s Biggest Personal Assistant Platform

Ankur Singla, was working with a corporate law firm in London when he quit in 2009 to startup. When he came back to India he had a problem with his phone company overcharging him for the internet services, and he realized how difficult consumer complaint readdress in India really is. And he started up Akosha in 2010. What started as a complaint platform for companies soon changed to a personal assistant app when the team realized that the nature of queries from customers started to vary. “People were seeking all kinds of help which were not just limited to complaints,” says Ankur, the CEO and Founder. We live in a world complicated by information and choice, where every little task demands time and attention. Helpchat team wanted to add value to people’s life by providing them a help...
5nance Solving Money Problems of 98% Indians
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5nance Solving Money Problems of 98% Indians

Less than 2% of the Indians know where to invest, and the rest need guidance and advisory support to plan their financials. While Dinesh Rohira was working at Microsoft, he had conceptualized and delivered an online platform for distribution of all investment products. “This triggered the idea of financial planning to be provided via a technology platform that can address the masses (the 98%) who don’t know much about investments,” says the founder Dinesh. He started up 5nance.com with Ajay Arjit Singh to solve the problem of money management. All our personal experiences and financial decisions are taken basis an excel sheet. It becomes the most enabling factor towards all our personal finances. The same was experienced by the founders which made them start a Proactive Money Management ...
MIT and Harvard Graduates Helping Pakistani Farmers To Make Big Money!
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MIT and Harvard Graduates Helping Pakistani Farmers To Make Big Money!

Ricult is an endeavor by a US-based start-up founded by 4 MIT and 1 Harvard graduates. They help smallholder farmers (< 10 acres holding) reduce information asymmetry and work their way out of poverty to become more impactful economic actors.  At the heart of their concept is a virtual marketplace which allows farmers to procure  agriculture inputs (seed, fertilizers, pesticides etc.), access interest-free/low interest based loans transparently and sell their produce directly to buyers (processing plants, corporate organizations etc.) directly from the Ricult marketplace.   Founders Usman Javaid, (CEO) is an MIT alumnus with 15 years of experience in Telecom, Mobile Banking, Mobile Agriculture in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Jonathan Stoller, the CTO pursued his Masters in Compute...
We Started Procmart On Excel Sheet, Made The Website and Received Funding From Dinesh Agarwal (Indiamart)
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We Started Procmart On Excel Sheet, Made The Website and Received Funding From Dinesh Agarwal (Indiamart)

ProcMart which (made from PROCurement Market) was envisioned on the foundation of making B2B transactions or procurement smoother, reliable, and most importantly faster. It was started by Anish Popli, Pratik Potnis and Saheel Joshi in Pune to solve the problem of procurement and sourcing. Their team is a group of diverse people who have come together to address this  issue of procurement and sourcing. Anish is an NIT Trichy graduate, and an IIM Lucknow alumnus. He worked for a couple of years in BHEL and Energo Engineering before starting up. Pratik on the other hand, is a computer science graduate and a serial entrepreneur. “I was with Cisco before starting my own venture Quexa systems. The venture was sold to a US-based company before beginning on ProcMart,” says Potnis.  Saheel was a...
ISB and NIT Graduates Startup HopCar to Connect Car Buyers to Sellers
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ISB and NIT Graduates Startup HopCar to Connect Car Buyers to Sellers

The second-hand car market in India is huge. Close to 3.5 million used cars are bought and sold every year, and that number is just going to increase to more than 10 million in the next five years. That means over 20 million customers will be engaged in this market, and all with an average transaction value of Rs 3Lakhs. Anish Karan, Rahul Thakur, Rahul Anand and Arijit Biswas decided to tap into this market and start up in June 2015 to capture a sizeable chunk of the market. “The market of second hand cars is complicated and there is absolutely no solution available, particularly for Peer-to-Peer transactions,” says Arijit Biswas, an ISB graduate. The company connects Buyers directly to Sellers assuring quality at accurate prices to help you effortlessly hop cars. “We thought the name Ho...