India's Emerging Startups by Insights Success Media

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Editor’s Note INDIA, FUTURE’S LARGEST STARTUP ECOSYSTEM GLOBALLY

startup is a young enterprise oﬀering a unique solution to an existing or a new issue or problem. It is nurtured by a resilient entrepreneurial spirit and soon mushrooms into a successful business entity to join the top league. It happens when the emerging startup executes the precise idea, with a novel and practical approach, at the right time and in a positively progressive direction. These emerging startups have outstanding qualities that set them apart from the crowd. They have an exciting, feasible, and compelling idea that works for a long time and is ﬂexible enough to be upgraded to future needs. These startups are helmed by resourceful leaders who inspire their people to be at their best. These extraordinary leaders have the ability to anticipate future trends in advance while adapting quickly to the fast-changing industry and market environment. These leaders are guided by their passion and compassion and exceptional mentors.

Abhishek Joshi Deputy Editor

abhishek.joshi@insightssuccess.com

Since their approach is people-centric, the organizational experience gives a feeling of genuine sympathy, patience, honesty, affiliation, and care. Their core principles make these entrepreneurs leaders with integrity and a mindset that derives purpose in everything they do. Similarly, whatever the situation, these captains never quit, nor do they give up. They have the patience of the ages and persistence of the Eternals. No wonder a young and fast-developing economy like India will find these phenomena appealing to its young generation of scientific minds, compassionate hearts, and enterprising spirits. With over six thousand startups and Mr Prime Minister’s confidence in them, the rising number will soon make India the largest startup ecosystem globally, from its current secondlargest mark.

In other words, today’s young entrepreneurial Indians are daring to give up their day jobs to pursue their dreams, risking their everything to make those dreams a living reality. They are on the path to becoming the future’s real inﬂuential leaders. Insights Success’ latest edition of ‘India’s Emerging Startups’ is an accolade to such emerging leaders’ constant pursuit of perfection. Also included in this edition are two trendy articles written by our in-house editorial team. Read on through the following stories to acquaint yourself with this New India phenomenon!

Y C

CRM Dynamics

How CRM is Helping Start-ups to Gain Traction in this Ever-Evolving Market?

A Master Specialist in the Arena of Telecom

Selectra

Innovative Solutions Revolutionizing the Bulk Cargo Logistics

Rapidloops

Enabling a Robust Techstack to Empower Start-ups

GraffersID

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Deputy Editor Abhishek Joshi Managing Editor Gaurav PR Wankhade

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Management

Brief

AgriGator

Charu Chaturvedi, Founder

AgriGator digitally connects a wide set of agri-businesses across the grain supply chain including FPO, Traders, Merchants, Mills, Industries, Exporters and Distributors.

GraﬀersID

Sidharth Jain, Founder

Graﬀersid is an Award-Winning Website and Mobile App Development Company focused on Startups.

Medimny

Nisha Keshari, Founder

Medimny is a B2B E-Commerce platform for Pharmaceutical Products for Distributors, Stockists and Retail Drug Stores serving entire nation.

Mostly Hand Made

Narmada Deb, Co-founder and Chief Curator

Mostly Handmade is a Bangalore based Invitation designer and manufacturer that translates your wedding story into a tangible token of your gratitude.

Ottomate

Vishal Sehgal, Co-founder

Ottomate is a young start-up which provides a wide range of smart as well as 'upgradable-to smart' fans

RapidLoops

Rajesh Krishnan, Co-founder

RapidLoops is an AI-driven marketplace for trucking logistics. It oﬀers solutions for ﬂeet management, order management, payment management, real-time tracking, cost optimization, and more.

Selectra

Arvind Patil, Business Head

Selectra is the leader in energy and home communications prices comparison in France and Spain.

Company Name

C ver St ry

A Technology-Driven Pharma and Healthcare Solution Provider

MEDIMNY is one of the early entrants in the pharma B2B market, working on the principle of Availability, Connectivity, Sustainability, and Profitability. Using technology as an enabler, it seamlessly connects distributors and chemists/hospitals/nursing homes across the nation on a single e-platform. Pharmacies/hospitals can check availability of medicines, compare discounts offered by various stockists across the country and purchase the best deals available for thousands of medicines. This ensures the availability of medicines in every nook and corner of the country at competitive rates, enabling Medical Shops to compete with B2C e-pharmacies by providing better discounts to consumers while being profitable at the same time. Perseverance towards Healthcare Founded in October 2019, MEDIMNY (Corporate name: Felicitas Digitech Pvt Ltd) is a mobile/web-based B2B Emarketplace for chemists, pharmacies, and medicine distributors/stockists across the country. The business model is akin to that of amazon, albeit for the niche pharmaceutical B2B segment, serving pharmacies across

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We chose to ideate, create, and demonstrate an acceptable product that suits the need of the target market

“

harma and E-commerce are the two buzzwords in the current market scenario. Conventionally, the supply of medicines is largely a local/hyper local play, with little reliance on technology. Additionally, lack of Pan-India Integrated play in this segment has been a big roadblock to the eﬃciencies in the Pharma supply chain. MEDIMNY ﬁlls-in these lacunae.

Nisha Keshari

length and breadth of the country and not just being another hyperlocal/regional player. MEDIMNY prides itself over 17,000+ users and 15,000+ product listings across branded, generic, insulin, vaccine, OTC, and surgical categories within a short span of operations. Its customised cloud based, tech platform allows flexibility and scalability, which is reflected in its 8-12% average month-on-month consistent growth in GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) since operations began. The company is well-positioned to achieve a GMV of INR 500 crores by 2024. The Brain Behind Disruption Over 15 years of experience in the banking and financial services industry, Founder - Nisha Keshari started her entrepreneurship journey in 2019 and founded MEDIMNY. Having exposure to the Asian markets for a long time, she realized the potential of digital ecommerce and the opportunities emerging from India’s everchanging business landscape. Tech-Savvy Services B2B pharma market is highly fragmented (with approx. 80,000 stockists and 8,75000 pharmacies) across India. Lack of information in terms of stock availability and pricing on a single canvas impedes transparency in the entire supply chain system, leaving pharmacies underserved. On one side, Stockists generally cater to the only hyper-local market and that too during their working hours only. Their stock remains idle during nonbusiness hours/days, increasing their cost of operations. On the other hand, pharmacies face challenges from

smartphone savvy end-customers who demand discounts parallel to that being offered by E-pharmacies (like 1mg, netmeds, pharmeasy, etc.). MEDIMNY’s cloud based, digital platform enables stockists to showcase their inventory and offer maximum possible discounts on these surplus inventories to ensure 24*7 liquidation. Pharmacies/hospitals, on the other hand, find a good bargain in comparison to the local supply chain on regular products. Additionally, they are also able to find various medicines that are not available in their local supply chain. All these lead to higher business for both stockists and retailers and, in turn, affordable medicine for end-customers. Inspiring to Aspire Not only MEDIMNY has crossed several milestones in a short span of operations, but it has also successfully survived two lockdowns. This has instilled the belief that its system and processes are robust enough to withstand market adversities. Serving the customers in over 600 cities across the length and breadth of the country, MEDIMNY has been accepted as a way of doing business among Pharmacies and Stockists, which was largely unheard of earlier. Considering digital e-commerce is a new concept in the B2B pharma segment, it was (and still is) extremely challenging to convince a pharmacist as to how MEDIMNY is able to provide medicine to them at such competitive rates, whereas their local stockists do not offer any discount. They, at times, assume that either medicine is spurious or there is some other catch. Of course, once they complete their first purchase, they

know the benefits and the way MEDIMNY operates. Similarly, since the pharmacies/nursing homes are so used to placing orders orally or verbally to stockists, at times, the company would get calls from the pharmacies to take a note of all the products they require. MEDIMNY team had to assist them in creating an account on the Website/App, select the products and place the order. “Given the fact that MEDIMNY caters to the ‘Bharat,’ which is not so wellversed with making online purchases, we had to create an email id first for many users before we could teach them how to use the website/app for placing orders. In the entire journey, these customer experiences have been a big learning for the team in understanding the customer base and strategizing accordingly”, says Nisha. Addressing the Challenges Being in B2B pharmaceutical space was not an easy task during the pandemic. The customer’s expectation was stratospherically high in terms of supply of critical medicines and equipment, which were out of stock in major parts of the country for Covid related products. While the company was able to persuade its sellers to bring in those SKUs on the platform, very often, the quantity was a challenge. Adding to that, with state-controlled lockdowns, it was even more challenging to serve the customers as even logistics partners were forced to shut their operations in tier II/tier III cities. Nonetheless, going digital has its benefit. All the employees were able to operate fully in work from house mode without affecting the customer service experience.

Inspiring Words “My recommendation to future entrepreneurs is to believe in themselves and their dreams. If it is not done earlier, it does not mean that it cannot be done now. There is no right or wrong way. Do not be afraid to take risks but do so rationally. Evaluate what you want to achieve and what you need to meet your goal. Plan for contingencies as a business is a dynamic environment with lots of variables, and each variable has the potential to change the outcome. The old 1,000 days thumb rule still holds good,” says Nisha. Towards a Glorious Path According to the CARE Rating Report (dated 26 August 2021), the Indian domestic pharma market grew at a CAGR of 4.5% over FY17-FY21 to USD 18b and has potential to reach USD 27b by FY23. With the government’s push to digitisation, the pharma industry is witnessing big changes in the way medicines are supplied in the market. This creates a huge opportunity to streamline the supply chain in pharma market. “We believe that in long run, all the existing pharma distribution footprints would converge to an integrated supply chain operating model to improve efficiencies in the pharma market. MEDIMNY targets to be one such operating model. Being bootstrapped until now with a small funding round from family and friends, we look to raise funds in 2022 to expand our footprints to improve delivery TAT while offer better pricing deriving out of economies of scale and efficiencies,” says Nisha.

Enabling a Robust Techstack to Empower Start-ups

While in search for India’s Emerging Start-ups, we got to know about this amazing website and mobile app development company. In an exclusive interview with Insights Success, Sidharth Jain, the dynamic Founder of GraﬀersID shares his experience on software development industry. Following are the highlights of the interview. Please brief us about GraﬀersID in detail. We are an award-winning website and mobile app development company that commenced in 2017 with a mission to increase the success rate of start-ups. The current start-up success rate is between 10-20%, but 80 percent of the start-ups with whom we have worked are successful. We have raised funding within one month. Some of them are incubated by YCombinator, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Harvard’s Incubation, and other reputed Vcs.

We also oﬀer businesses to hire remote dedicated developers from India on a contractual basis according to their project requirements.

•

• We have worked with 25+ unicorns till date by being their development partner. We have received several awards for our services. Some of them are: • Global Business Awards 2021 –

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We are renowned for creating marketing-ﬁt customer-centric Websites and Mobile Apps

“

n the Digital Era, a company’s success is defined by its technological strength. With over 100 products developed in a variety of sectors, several companies have polished the abilities of domain expertise to define their competency. GraffersID is one such company that has created highly scalable and profitable solutions for clients across industries by utilising a unique blend of youthful and experienced engineers.

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• •

Best IT Company for start-ups Asia innovation Congress – Premium Product Development IT Company World HRD Conference US – Most Trusted Software Development Company Zoom TV Awards India – Impactful IT Company Design Conclave Australia – Premium UI/UX Experience

India's Emerging Startups • •

Clutch – Top Web Developers India 2020 Mobile App Daily – Fastest Growing App Development Companies in 2021

What inspired you to enter the industry you are catering to? Was your start-up bootstrapped or did you outsource funds for it? At the initial stage, when people started approaching me to get consultations for their businesses, I then realized that this is the thing that I want and love to do. I started to discuss it with people about their projects. I felt they are upset because their businesses are not getting the desired result. Problems faced by start-ups and entrepreneurs inspired me to start my own venture.

We are not funded and currently we are not planning for it. What kind of services do you provide to your clients? Basically, we are a software development company with a major focus on Website and Mobile Application Development. Also, oﬀering business to hire dedicated remote developer from India on contractual basis according to projects need. Additionally, we also provide SEO and maintenance services to our clients if they have requirement for it. We work in 4 steps: Step 1: Requirement Gathering Step 2: UI/UX Step 3: Development Step 4: Maintenance and SEO

What challenges have you faced while establishing your start-up and how did you transform the challenges into opportunities? In the beginning, a few of our start-up clients failed, but we did not give up. We analysed the mistakes and took it as learning process to avoid them next time. We understood that because of these mistakes the client, as well as GraffersID, is affected. The client lost his hope and GraffersID lost his client. If we deliver them valuable services, they are more interested in building long-term relations with GraffersID. With few changes now we are getting positive responses from our clients. Client reviews are the biggest strength of our business because we are getting most of the work from their references.

How was your start-up aﬀected by the COVID-19 pandemic and what measures did you take to shorten the damages, while helping your clients and maintaining the safety of your employees? Amid COVID-19 all people and business were impacted severely, and many founders were forced to shut their businesses. Every other day we were losing our loved ones. Seeing this I took two major steps: I along with other leading IT companies in MP launched a helpline number where patients could connect directly with the doctors for TeleConsultation. To curb the misinformation that was being circulated, we even created a chatbot to clear doubts and spread awareness. For businesses to survive I created multiple WhatsApp groups of business owners. On these groups people could freely seek advice, discuss, network, and share business requirements. We even did multiple live sessions with industry leaders who guided the

members with practice strategies and hacks. Almost 90% of the group’s members were able to survive the pandemic and continued to grow. What would you like to advice the young generation of entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who want to make a mark in the industry you are catering to? I always mention this quote in my interviews and discussions. If doing something is fun, then you would unconsciously keep getting better. Hence, you should always work towards what you are passionate about. And your learning should always be driven by your curiosity or the need. The tag of any degree or college will not help you to become successful, but your attitude, passion, and determination towards your work will do. So, focus on your goal always and do the things that give you fun. Where do you see your start-up in the future? Kindly tell us about your strategies for scaling your start-up. We started as a consultant from a co-

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working space with the mission to increase start-up success rate. Now we are a well-known IT company. Our futuristic approach is to become a successful incubator so that we can fund and uplift the start-up ideas ﬁnancially, as well as, with technological advancement. The only reason behind it is it increases the success rate of start-up and helps them achieve long-term goals. What is the current scenario of the software industry? With the advancement in technology, businesses and customers are shifting online. For businesses to connect with their online customers they need to have an online presence. Thus, to ﬁll up this gap, they are getting software developed for their business. According to the data, only 30-40 percent of the businesses have business software. So, we believe there are lots of opportunities in the future for the software industry.

An Exceptional Entrepreneur Sidharth Jain is a proud founder of GraffersID a Website and Mobile App Development Company. He started GraffersID with the mission to the success rate of the start-ups by developing user-centric products. He is from Barwaha, 60 km away from Indore Madhya Pradesh. Sidharth did his schooling in Indore, and for further studies, he got admission in Mumbai’s top college. From his college days, he loved coding and was eager to learn about new technologies. Only because of his determination he got an opportunity to work with India’s biggest IT Company at that time. By seeing his knowledge and passion for his work he got a very big opportunity to work on companies’ most valuable project. He also got a chance to get sifted in a foreign country and work from the client-side. After few years of his job, he decided to quit and start with his own venture. With some reserved money, he hired a co-working space for him and started as an IT consultant. To get more clients he started to write blogs on Quora, Medium, and LinkedIn to resolve queries of people. In few days, he became the most popular writer in the start-up category. People started approaching him for consulting for their business and development help. For marketing skills, Sidharth Jain has received an award as a “Most Influential 50 Youth Marketing leader” in 2018 by World HRD Congress.

Sidharth Jain

Founder

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How CRM is Helping

Startups

to Gain Traction in this Ever-Evolving

Market?

s a start-up, the first thing to be considered is what is its business goal? Is it short-term or long term? If the answer is long-term, then, in order to grow, expand, and develop into a well-established brand, what it needs is a full-fledged business strategy. And any such strategy is incomplete without CRM or Customer Relationship Management. Most of the start-ups’ mindset is that let us first have a substantial customer base, then we will think about managing them or managing relations with them. Or they think that CRM is for big or medium-size businesses with an already established customer base. How wrong they are will be proven by just a fictional case study. Mr Amit, and his partner, Mr Vikas, both Android App makers, had just started their Mobile App creating and selling firm. In the first month, they could get 20 small, ten medium and four big customers and generate about 30 positive leads through personal references. Since they did not have CRM or any related software or even simple know-how about the concept itself, they lost three of the big, four of

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the medium, and ﬁve of the small customers in their second month. When they found out later that the reason they lost the customers was that they knew only about Mobile App Making. They did not know anything about the Customer Lifecycle and the CRM process.

By Customer Acquisition and Retention: Since Business means customers and customers mean business, thus, a unique experience for each of them is the winning strategy of acquiring new customers while retaining existing ones.

Customer Life Cycle: 1.Contact/Reach: It starts with lead generation using essential marketing through word of mouth, personal/professional contacts, cold calling, messaging, email, social, and digital networking.

Streamlining the access and extraction of relevant data for the respective department in real-time enables all departments to service each customer without any hassle. Combining CRM with social media will bring you new customers and retain existing ones. You will be able to treat each customer, be it new or existing, with a memorable, unique, enriching experience.

2.Convincing/Acquisition: Once convinced, it is easy to make a sale. Now, early-bird discounts, fast delivery promises, and better service can make the actual sale happen. 3.Conversion/Trust building: The more fulfilling promises, the more trust is established, and the less or breaking promises lessens or break the trust. As seen in the above case study, it can happen with a small number of customers. 4. Retention/Relationship: After the first sale, all businesses must do is strengthen the relationship by obtaining customers’ goodwill and spreading word-of-mouth through post-sell customer service. A happy customer will bring in more leads than an unhappy customer who will spread negativity about the business in the market. Nowadays, with the help of social media, it can spread faster than wildfire. 5.Bonding/Loyalty: Once the relationship is strong, the customer becomes a family member of the firm he likes, loves, or is affiliated with and feels proud about being associated with the brand. Thus, CRM is the key to getting an early grip on things before they run out of control. Let’s see how. By Organizing and Strategizing: With CRM, startups manage to get a visual overview and extract relevant data and info from their constant inflow. By organising it, they can better communicate and interact with their customers. Efficient marketing management and optimised sales are the two outcomes of an effective CRM implementation.

A streamlined and efficiently functioning start-up will never lose a customer to competition for any reason, including better customer service, as CRM aids them in achieving that competitive edge. By Process Integration and Budget Optimization: CRM helps in integrating different processes and brings everything one a single platform. This can be budgetary allocation of funds to each process along the product/service life cycle, optimising finances, cash inflows and outflows, credit and creditors, debts and debtors, and investors and multichannel fundraisers. In addition to integration and optimisation, CRM can bring in and include the best accounting platforms into the system. It also automates social and digital marketing. By Collaborating: A cloud CRM eliminates geographical boundaries making the entire data and info sharing mechanism mobile, realtime and all-inclusive. This helps in collaborating without start-ups bothering about the time and space of the collaborator. The Future CRM The market is an ever-changing, continuously evolving place. The start-ups who don’t think through everything end up outside that place sooner than later. CRM will certainly straighten their overall strategy, as they get the point of reference to look at where they are, where they can be, and where they want to be in the future on a timescale. And they can look at their own business from the customers’ point of view.

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- Gaurav PR Wankhade

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Innovative Solutions Revolutionizing the Bulk Cargo Logistics

The logistics companies operated on a business model akin to a counter, where shippers would pick and choose the services as per their requirements. Shippers were looking for a company that would help them move their loads. However, as technology exploded, shippers increasingly wanted a complete picture of their logistics. They were concerned about the cargo at a given point, whether there was a more efficient way of shipping it, and how changes in the overall supply chain can impact their business. The developments and advancements of technology-enabled innovations within the logistics industry and changed this situation. On the other hand, companies started to recognize the potential and commenced offering convenient services, including integrated solutions to fulfil the demands, and needs of the shippers.

This is where Rapidloops came into the picture. Rapidloops is a logistics platform service business where they match heavy vehicles by aggregating them from their Trucker partners, who own the ﬂeet with the loads from the shippers and transport bulk cargo from one location to another. The company primarily operates with vehicles that could carry weight over 25 Metric tonnes from ports, factories, and warehouses. It is not just a company that is techsavvy, but also one that understands

“

Rapidloops don't want to be just another logistics services company, it wants to be a company that makes the lives of their customers and truckers better

“

oday's logistics companies feature a full range of services for their clients to help them develop advanced logistical solutions. However, this was not always the case. A few years before, most companies in the logistics industry were heavily sporadic. There was a non-existence of full-service solutions.

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the significance of reliability, sustainability, reducing carbon emissions, and most importantly, Rapidloops wishes to improve the lives of each and every trucker that partners with the company. RapidLoops provides truckers with ontime and upfront payments. By doing so, they achieve higher efficiency and greater customer satisfaction. The platform allows interactions to happen in a purposeful and directed way, to efficiently address even the most complex challenges of the industry. Truckers can choose which shipments they wish to undertake without the hassle of making endless phone calls. The Commencement Arun Anbazhagan and Rajesh Krishnan are Co-founders of Rapidloops. They have studied together in the same institute for their bachelor's degree. Arun has lived his life inside out as a fleet owner for more than a decade and has faced every single challenge that they are solving in RapidLoops, firsthand. Rajesh has been managing software product development, especially machine learning and artificial

India's Emerging Startups

intelligence-based data analytics products, and products using the Internet of Things. The inspiration comes truly from experiencing the true suffering that the fleet owners who own one, two, or few trucks are facing challenges for decades while operating them to keep the utilization high and payment on time. Rapidloops bootstrapped its business to start and prove the concept to a degree of acceptance both for self-belief and for the market. The vision of Rapidloops involves transcending traditional logistics business boundaries through technology and is creating the best economic opportunity for truckers, shippers, and all stakeholders. Enabling Reliability and Convenience The logistics industry has been traditionally lopsided for some unknown and some unexplainable reasons. RapidLoops (name derived from the accelerator that helped to find 'the God Particle'), strongly believe that it can raise the level and provide the market players with a unique chance to catapult their business from "manual, expensive, and stiff" to "automated, efficient, and agile."

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Rapidloops was not satisﬁed with this scenario and wished to raise the bar by revolutionizing this system through their innovative solutions. Rapidloops doesn't want to be just another logistics service company, it wants to be a company that makes the lives of their customers and truckers better, by providing an eco-friendly and sustainable environment to make the earth greener. The mission of Rapidloops is to unite truckers and shippers through a cutting-edge, digital platform by solving complex business problems truckers face such as asset utilization and working capital challenges. The company is empowering shippers with the most advanced, seamless, and transparent solutions to help them succeed in an evolving data-driven economy. Rapidloops clients are shippers who have bulk cargo to be shipped from one place to the other. The company oﬀers them with end to end fully traceable transportation and manages their logistics end to end from posting of the load availability, charges, and the contact details until getting the proof of delivery of goods to destination digitally and physically.

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Rapidloops is empowering shippers with the most advanced, seamless, and transparent solutions to help them succeed in an evolving data-driven economy

“

Issues such as unavailability of working capital, poor mileage tracking, late payments, legal issues, incompetent drivers, too many empty miles, and no transparent pricing led to both shippers and truckers facing losses.

Surmounting the Adversities The key challenge team Rapidloops faced initially, was the adoption of technology into the ﬂeet owner and driver users' section which is essential for their business. Last, but not least, was the tracking of cargo where the device market was so fragmented. Rapidloops were working closely with big players and telecom service providers to make the tracing brilliant. Rapidloops started its operations on the ﬁeld in August 2020, post-pandemic. Rapidloops' platform that was trying to digitize the sector ultimately was considered a good initiative in the market where they tried to reduce human contact in a lot of touchpoints. So, team Rapidloops say "Our clients liked our conscious approach in this tough time.”

Rapidloops offer this complete offering as a fully managed service as well as their clients can manage it themselves effectively. The business model of Rapidloops is so intriguing for the fleet owner and driver-partners which made them excited to try and adapt to this platform. 26 | October | www.insightssuccess.in

Word to the Wise "Brave it and Don't wait for someone else to show you the path." says team Rapidloops. Team Rapidloops advises to "Have a sincere belief in your problem-solving ideas and skills and proceed with it." "There is a lot more to do in our sector and we would be more than happy to work with smart entrepreneurs who would love to contribute to this overlooked society." adds team Rapidloops. Enabling Innovations in Logistics As Rapidloops' vision statement explains, they are transcending the boundaries of this traditional business sector and they will keep raising the level as we can read in their tagline 'Raise the Level'. Rapidloops plan to make sure their presence spreads pan India. They have identiﬁed the opportunities and are working on these favourable circumstances in southeast Asia. Rapidloops is already moving ahead well beyond the core transportation services to provide a lot more additional ancillary services to their ﬂeet owner partners and is becoming a one-stop-shop for them to run, manage and expand their business.

Helping Become the

of their Dreams

raditionally, women have always been type-casted into typical roles. They are daughters and sisters, helpless creatures who cannot fend for themselves when they are girls. As they get married, they become housewives (legal properties of their husbands) for their entire lifetime. A man can retire, but a wife, a mother, can never quit. She is bound to the man and his house. She is conﬁned within those walls. If Globalization and Modernization tried to give some of them some freedom, the worldwide pandemic and ensuing lockdowns stole it back. Digitalisation is breaking that typecast, giving them back their freedom and shattering those shackles and how? Let us get the stories out. How Digitalization is helping Women Entrepreneurs: Mrs Savita Dishe, a Satara (a District in Maharashtra) based weekly haat broom seller, went out of business as the threemonth lockdown from March 24, 2020, forced the markets to

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Entrepreneurship from Home

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shut. But it also brought an opportunity in the form of high reverse migrators from big cities like Pune and Mumbai, which gave her the idea of opening a daily snack serving business.

but also on future of the society. One woman, Swarnima Bhattacharya, thought, why not use AR (Augmented Reality) to change these girls’ and women’s attitudes toward their own bodies and health.

And to counter the restricted movements because of a series of lockdowns, she took the help of technology. She formed a WhatsApp group of her family, friends, and acquaintances from all over the vicinity, including the village and the adjoining villages. And she began advertising that she could serve and home deliver them Mumbai styled Vada-Pav, a famous snack.

And she created AR-based uterus toys and mobile app modules through her own setup; TheaCare The app, with its own panel of experts, helps change not only girls, and women’s attitudes toward their health but general people’s overall outlook towards it.

Soon her business took off. She took orders online and started billing, payment receiving, and sourcing ingredients online. In a month, she became her village’s first FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) licence holding, tech-savvy micro-entrepreneur. Similarly, during COVID-19’s first wave, fishers from Telangana and Chhattisgarh have been helped by Ms Snehal Verma (a WEE, Women Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Awardee) to improve their fish harvest water quality. She provided them with a machine based on IoT (Internet of Things), which helped them increase their daily fish yield. Another WEE Awardee entrepreneur, Ms Priyanka Prabhakar, designed STEM, board games and toys to help children and youngsters in recreational activity engagement during the pandemic. She did a whopping business of Rs. 4 million. In the same way, during the pandemic, Vadodara’s underprivileged women found a friend in Ms Meghna Gandhi (again a WEE Awardee). She worked with them in creating an Rs. 25 Lakh business out of COVID-19 related accessories and natural clothing-based textiles. Sholapur’s (a district in Maharashtra) donkey raising community suffered because of the seasonality of the construction business. With her keen eyes Pooja Kaul, a 24year-old, observed that this can be helped with Donkey Milk, an Rs.2000/litre commodity. By mobilising such communities near Sholapur, she offered them fair prices and increased their income from Rs.8000/month to almost 25000 a month. She did this by setting up Organiko, India’s first Donkey Milk Commercial Plant making these Donkeys their owners’ favourite pets.

Women: The Home Entrepreneurs These are but a few examples of Rural-Urban Women Entrepreneurs from nearly 16 million total women-owned businesses. A report published jointly by Google and Boston-based consultancy firm Bain & Company predicts that by 2030, there is a potential to create 150-170 million jobs in India through Women-owned enterprises. At a time when India’s FLFPR (Female Labour Force Participation Rate) is at 20% or the lowest in the world (only Arabic countries are behind India in this regard), Women’s Entrepreneurship is the most critical and vital aspect which can become a catalyst in increasing women’s labour force participation. And digitalisation is the key in this regard. As with digital technology like smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers etc., women can also work and enterprise from home. And they are already doing that, as we already had a few glimpses of that from the earlier examples. Today, Indian Women Entrepreneurs can be found in sectors ranging from agriculture to augmented reality, with increased digital awareness and improved tech-savvy attitude. Digitalisation is not an additional skill anymore. Now, it is the most basic necessary skill every woman should possess. The digitalisation skillset includes digital and financial literacy, mobile/smartphone-based social media networking and digital marketing, online safety and security and opportunities, data and information management, skillbased blended learning, civil and financial services jobs etc. If women acquire at least half of the skills out of this set, they can truly take our country from the bottom (in FLFPR rate) to the top in the future. Let us hope it will happen soon.

The majority of the Girls and Women in India neglect their health. This can have a harmful impact on not only them 30 | October | www.insightssuccess.in

- Gaurav PR Wankhade

Arvind Patil Business Head

Selectra A Master Specialist in the Arena of Telecom 32 | October | www.insightssuccess.in

he telecom industry of India has seen a signiﬁcant growth over thirteen years. India has world's second-largest telecom market, and this market is still expected to grow exponentially in the current digital era. The involvement of technology in the telecom industry has paved a way towards digitalising the entire industry. The companies in the telecom industry are working to meet the expectations of the clients by providing broadband, internet, OTT, DTH, and other solutions and incorporating digitalisation in their businesses. There was no company in the entire industry, which provided all these solutions under one roof. To overcome this challenge, Selectra, a one stop solution provider in the telecom industry was established. The company's focus is to develop the digital India and satisfy its clients by building a trustworthy relationship with them. In the following interview with Insights Success, the team of Selectra will share with us about the company's journey and future goals. The team will also brief us about how they overcame the challenges encountered during the establishment of the company and how the pandemic has aﬀected their operations. Following are the highlights of the interview: Describe about your start-up in detail. Selectra is fast becoming the best telecom comparison as well as a subscription service provider in India. Our aim is to help our clients make

smart telecom decisions in an industry that has a plethora of mobile and internet service providers. We help them save their utility bills by guiding them through all the available plans and sharing the best deals on various telecom contracts such as business solutions, prepaid, post-paid, and broadband. We also offer them solid advice on all they need to know about OTT and DTH platforms. Coupled with reliable guidance, our clients also get a fair idea of the entertainment world, which takes off the stress from their daily lives. We cater to the requirements of both residential as well as SME clients looking for cost savings and optimum deals in telecom contracts. Within a quarter of a significant start in the country, Selectra has gained 40-50 thousand visitors on a monthly basis, coming up to a total of more than 100 million clients visiting the website. Our main focus is exceeding client expectations and maintaining a reliable, trustworthy long-term relationship with the Indian telecom market while doing our best to provide solid information and remaining committed to them. Brief us about the featured person and shed some light on his/her professional tenure. Arvind Patil is a thorough professional and SEO Entrepreneur, who is currently the Business Head of Selectra. He is a person of extraordinary vision and long-term strategic planning and makes a remarkable difference in all his undertakings. A unique thinker, he is up for any challenges on the way to success.

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After doing his master's in international business in the UK, he entered a new phase in his digital marketing career and gained adequate experience by working with several digital agencies. This enabled him to grasp the intricacies of the field and acquire proficiency in technical skill development and operations of the business. His success mantra of constant learning has helped him overcome several obstacles and co-found TechCognate, a digital agency serving many reputed clients. Later on, in 2020, he went on to nurture a new venture called TheOrtus, aimed at providing quality services to clients well within their affordable budgets. It was during the period that he met Aurian de Maupeou and Xavier Pinon, the Founders of Global Selectra. Together they discussed the wide possibilities of upgrading the life of clients by helping them save bills and still get awesome deals. From that time, Arvind has worked to bring the concept of digital India alive through Selectra and has attained tremendous progress. Aurian and Xavier have paved a great foundation to the start of Selectra and now the group has emerged as a global leader. They are visionaries, who have enlightened the path for many upcoming business leaders across the Selectra Family. With their leadership capabilities and critical thinking skills, Selectra has been able to make the right decisions and make the best of strategic opportunities. What inspired you to enter the industry you are catering to? Was your start-up bootstrapped or did you outsource funds for it?

Aurian and Xavier are truly dedicated towards their work and have been Arvind's back support for all financial requirements. Without their motivational presence and financial backup, Selectra would not have reached the promising level it enjoys today. What kind of services do you provide to your clients? Selectra provides customers with a comprehensive guide on all the mobile, internet plans available in the market. We offer reliable comparisons to help customers decide on the best deal that suits their requirements. We also give them several options to consider and our suggestions, which would cater to their needs most appropriately. Along with mobile and internet providers, we also offer complete information on OTT platforms and DTH providers. The clients can count on us for being their committed partners in all their telecom decisions. We provide the solutions to their queries and offer cost-saving recommendations, which give them a winning edge of knowing the best when they make their final call.

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Our aim is to help our clients make smart telecom decisions in an industry that has a plethora of mobile and internet service providers

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The concept of serving society to the best ability while meeting customer requirements sounded quite appealing. When Aurian described the kind of services, Selectra was oﬀering in other countries in the gas and electricity industry, it matched Arvind's aspirations and desire to contribute to the betterment of society. The possibility of opening up various options to clients in the telecom industry was an inspiring thought that we have, by hard work and consistency, turned it into a reality.

What challenges have you faced while establishing your start-up and how did you transform the challenges into opportunities? Challenges were many during our initial stages as we were unsure about whether a service of this kind would be accepted by the consumer market in India. We made it a point not to have unrealistic expectations and decided to put in eﬀorts to win the trust of Indian subscribers. Not being sure if the concept would work out was also due to the fact that there were no past records of such a service provider to fall back on. Selectra is the ﬁrst kind of its own and

34 | October | www.insightssuccess.in

there is absolutely no previous data, which we could rely on or improvise on. Being the sole player in the telecom industry, who provides comparison and information on telecom contracts was not the original idea. Initially, the plan was to follow our parent company and establish a name in the energy market in India. However, the scenario was quite different here. In India, the energy market is a nationalized public sector, where privatization is yet to catch up. Not to turn back on a challenge, we decided to venture out into the telecom industry. Proper, indepth research and trial-based experimentation were our key tools during the implementation stages. How was your start-up affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and what measures did you take to shorten the damages, while helping your clients and maintaining the safety of your employees? Selectra saw its beginnings amidst the pandemic. Prior to the lockdowns, though we had the concept in mind, discussions were ongoing, and the decision was made to begin functioning online. The main issue we faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic was the absence of a physical location to set our office. Without the physical environment to work, the query that if the remote working would meet our business criteria and help achieve our set targets was predominant. Another major setback caused due to the restrictions in movement was the inability to conduct business travels, which is the most effective way to

establish a strong business connection with stakeholders. Not getting a chance to interact directly with partners to discuss business outcomes and strategies hindered our progress to a small degree. Hiring employees proved to be one of our major challenges as this was fully a virtual experience. There was no chance of direct interviews and we had to rely on virtual meetings. This was solved to a large extent with frequent meetings to understand the abilities of our team members and align their talents to meet the company profile. Yet one more hold up that hampered our business plans to quite some extent, was the global time synchronisation. Our headquarters being in Spain and the team in India, the entire office was spread out in different time zones. It was initially difficult to organise team meetings and get the entire team together for strategic decision making. This again has been resolved with constant efforts and proper planning including the time differences in each zone. What would you like to advise the young generation of entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who want to make a mark in the industry you are catering to? Every day there is something new in the digital world. To expand your horizons, move out of your comfort zones, learn, and keep learning. Have the courage to make mistakes. That's how you learn. Understand what went wrong and keep those lessons in mind. But always move forward, however, slow the progress.

Set your mind on the target goal and study all the possible ways you can travel to reach your destination. Take guidance from people who have proven their track. Have a mentor. Expand your research, know your competitors. Beware of shortcuts to success because there is no such thing. Hard work, perseverance, and consistent efforts will get you to your goal. Where do you see your start-up in the future? Kindly tell us about your strategies for scaling your start-up. Selectra is determined to move ahead with its planned growth strategy. With the pandemic and lockdowns in place, we are functioning online currently. However, we have plans in the pipeline to set up a physical office with worldclass infrastructure. Our main priority is to introduce an approachable and friendly customer service department where we can have a real-life interaction with our audience. Our intention is to encourage our customers to approach us directly with their queries. This enhances customer empowerment, and we can resolve their problems while providing personalized options regarding telecom contracts. Another initiative in our future plan is to partner up with the top service operators in India. With their partnership, we can effectively move into providing solutions, including cloud- based to small businesses and other industrial enterprises. We plan on continually evolving and innovative business strategies with the help of our talented employees who are

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well aware of the company's mission and value propositions. What is the current scenario of the industry you are catering to? The current scenario of the Indian telecom industry looks favourable and highly challenging at the same time. While the pandemic has created a conducive atmosphere for telecom service providers, the presence of so many service providers has impacted the quality of service. Competition is tough and innovative ideas are the need of the hour. Selectra has made the right choice of entering into this field as there is an exponential growth in the telecom market. India enjoys second place globally with 1.17 billion loyal customers. The number of active internet users is expected to cross 900 million in the next five years, with more than 410 million smartphone subscribers contributing to a large digital economy of 1 trillion. Exciting times lie ahead and Selectra is all geared up to play a significant role in developing digital India.