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.
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