Aviate (mobile app)

How to make mobile phones adapt to their user’s needs, rather than the other way around.

Entrepreneur Mark Daiss, his cousin Paul Montoy-Wilson and his friend William Choi, both of whom worked at Google, wanted something more from their phones. Rather than have to search for what they wanted, they wanted the phone to offer them that information, when they needed it and based on what they were doing at the time. The three got together in 2011 to set up Thumbs up Labs and, earlier this year, launched their first product that does just that- called Aviate. It’s an android-based mobile interface that intelligently organizes your phone, taking contextual cues from the time of day, where you are and your app usage patterns.

Here’s how it works. Once you install the app, Aviate automatically categorizes your apps into collections such as music, news, productivity; a restaurant etc. and recommends new apps based on your download and usage patterns. This is the home screen that changes automatically through the day, depending on the time and location. So, when you reach for the phone on waking up, tap the orange house icon at the top of your screen for the weather, a calendar and to-do apps. As you head for work, Aviate can detect you are on the move and show traffic conditions and give directions to the office, and the work space gives you email, Google Calendar and Drive, among others. If you are shopping or out for a meal with your friends, you can pull down information from the red space on what’s nearby, restaurant reviews and so on.

Daiss says the app saw over 100,000 installations in the first week itself and several users are signing up every minute, which makes him confident that by next year. Aviate will have over 1 million users. Still, he does have some ideas- people are willing to pay between 50 cent and $5 to get their apps installed, Daiss points out, and Aviate generates app installations through its recommendations. Another revenue source could be through directing people to different search services, for which Aviate would earn a free each time. 

Broomberg (cleaning service)

When Samrat Goyal’s brother’s house caught fire, they found very few options for emergency cleaning services. Those available were either expensive or incapable of handling client requirements. A Boston Consulting Group employee, Goyal then decided to team up with childhood friend Ishan Baisoya to start Broomberg as a position solution. “We want to provide quality on-call cleaning services. People treat cleaning as a chore. We train our professionals before sending them out and treat cleaning as a science” says Goyal. Broomberg functions in Delhi and NCR with cleaning services for offices, restaurants, showrooms, and small medical clinics. Of all its customers collected by flyers, door-to-door marketing and social media- 80% are residential and 20% commercial.

Broomberg has four cleaning teams with four trained members each. Services start from Rs 4500 for a 1-BHK flat, with three services: deep cleaning (cleaning the entire house), super clean (cleaning plus steam cleaning of washrooms) and ultra clean (all of the above plus cleaning the upholstery). A 3-BHK flat can take up to seven hours to clean. It also offers annual packages with a 15% monthly discount. Broomberg aims to set up 25 cleaning teams, grow to other metros, earn Rs 12-15 lakh per month by the end of FY15. We are currently not making profits but we expect to earn well once the business scale up,” says Goyal. Here’s hoping they don’t get swept away by the competition.  

BOOKMYSHOW

Bookmyshow is now the cynosure of PE funds, but can the online ticketing major live up to the hype of its Rs1100-crore valuation.

In 1999, Ashish Hemrajani was on a backpacking trip in South Africa, taking a break from his two year old job at ad agency J Walter Thompson. Travelling around storms river valley, he was sitting under a tree, listening to the radio, when it played a jingle promoting tickets for a rugby match. Hemrajani was struck by the idea of a virtual ticketing business and, returning to India soon after, the 24 year old quit his job, persuaded his friends Rajesh Balpande and Parikshit Dar to quit their jobs as well and started a movie ticket selling business through telephone and the internet. The name of their company- Bigtree entertainment- pays tribute to the site of Hemrajani’s epiphany. Indeed, Hemrajani is decidedly an outdoors man, and likes to sail and swim in his spare time. A member of the Colaba sailing club and Royal Bombay Yacht club, he is currently planning to buy a 35 seats sloop cruiser, his first boat, to make his weekend sailing trips even more meaningful. Growing up in a middle- class household in Mumbai, he observed how people around him struggled to fulfil even their basic needs, standing in queues for hours to buy staples, movie or train tickets.

With seed capital of Rs25000 from Hemrajani and his friends, Bigtree Entertainment came to life in 1999- and very shortly after, Chase Capital Partners JP Morgan bought a stake. Armed with capital, the founders went about not just building the business, but creating the entire ecosystem of online ticketing. Bigtree tied up with New Zealand based Vista Entertainment Solutions for the ticketing software and customized it to suit local conditions. After tie-ups with 200 cinema houses, Bigtree launched its service in 2000 as Indyatickets.com. But the dot com bust in 2001-2002 put the business model under tremendous pressure, even as chase capital exited by selling its stake to newsCorp. Mobile telephony had exploded across India and internet banking was gaining ground. Accordingly Bigtree changed its business model. Rechristened Bookmyshow, now the service involved entering into a convenience fee arrangement with multiplexes and standalone cinema houses, buying bulk inventory and COD came to an end and all customer transactions moved online. 

Last year, the company launched Bookmyshow mobile apps, which has been very successful- already, 40% of tickets are booked through the app. As a pilot, Bigtree has set up automated ticket collecting machines at select cinema houses. Customers simply place their debit or credit cards on the machine, which scans the card and prints the ticket, similar to self-check-in kiosks at airports. As on date, around 80% of bookmyshow’s business comes from movie tickets, while the rest comes from events such as music festivals, formula one race, concerts and IPL, among others. Bookmyshow sells software to around 50% of its 3000 screens clients; it hopes to add 5000-6000 screen clients over the next two years.

Ghar Ka Swadistya Khana in Rs.20.

Jesse Van De Zand started ‘Janta Meals’ in 2013 located in Gurgaon with the investment of Rs.40 lakhs. He is a migrant and 32 year old Dutchman. He had been managing start-ups in the Netherlands since 2007 at Enviu Foundation. He had never handled a food start-up before coming to India in 2013. The idea of serving meals for less to migrant workers was first pitched to Van De Zand by Prabhat Agarwal when they met early last year in Gurgaon. Agarwal later became the financier of Janta Meals. The motivation to start Janta Meals came from the fact that cooking one’s own food remains an inefficient proposition for a migrant worker- he doesn't have cooking gas, refrigerator, running water, time or a large house.

Janta Meals supplies nutritious food for migrant workers at economical prices. The meal, which included four to five rotis, dal, sabzi, chutney and salad, was offered for measly Rs.20. Janta’s first two outlets in sikandarpur market and sheetla colony were set up to test the demand for its product. Both outlets could serve about 250 meals in one shift, had 12 women cooks each and a manger to oversee operations. Once the demand was proven and it decided to scale, Janta established a larger kitchen in Gurgaon. Janta Meals runs six outlets, all in Gurgaon. The company aims to have at least 30 outlets in Gurgaon by early 2015. As on date, Janta’s franchisees contribute 50% to its turnover, the rest comes from sales to institutions such as factories and schools. It has also set up a canteen in an apparel company in Gurgaon with 1,200 workers.

Van De Zand was surprised that even at Rs.20; customers were very picky and expected free refills. To deal with this, the company started charging an extra Rs.5 for a dal or sabzi refill. Currently, of the Rs.20, 50% is the cost of raw materials and fuel, 30% is kept by the franchisee and the remaining 20% is the company’s profit.

Janta’s vegetable supplies come in every day from Azadpur mandi in Delhi. Pulses come in about five times a month from a wholesale supplier while spices and rice are bought in bulk from a local shop. The kitchen is equipped with cold storage for vegetables and dairy products and a storeroom for dry raw ingredients. Janta has been using signage and flyers to promote itself, but most customers are drawn by word of mouth. On the face of it, Janta competes with almost every restaurant and stall on the street.

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