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<ul><li>In our latest interview series, we talk to brands to understand how they are coping with the new normal and their strategies towards navigating these difficult times.</li><li>In today's interview, <keyword id="8869254" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="arpan-biswas">Arpan Biswas</keyword>, VP – Marketing, <keyword id="6439410" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="housejoy">Housejoy</keyword> tells us how the startup adapted to this new way of functioning and all that it has been doing to keep all its stakeholders safe and connected with the brand.</li></ul> Since the government decided to impose a <keyword id="91743" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="lockdown">lockdown</keyword> on the country to curb the spread of Covid-19, businesses and organizations across the country, and the world, have been impacted. During this time, its organizations that have managed to stay agile and open to evolving how they function have been the ones that have been less impacted. Over the past few weeks we have read of a lot of organizations and brands that have diversified their businesses, in an attempt to stay relevant to the dynamic times. Among many other examples, we saw Housejoy, a tech-driven construction, renovation, interiors, and <keyword id="9385246" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="home-maintenance-company">home maintenance company</keyword>, launching a service for the delivery of essentials. The startup was able to pull this off right at the start of the lockdown, when people were stuck at home and were struggling to get essentials delivered as supply chain had been impacted too. This was a good example of how the startup (whose core offering in the construction and maintenance space came to a complete halt) innovated quickly to make itself relevant to the consumer’s evolving needs by expanding its offerings. We caught up with Arpan Biswas, VP – Marketing, Housejoy recently, to understand how challenging diversification under the lockdown was, and what kind of reception they have seen in the past few weeks. We also ask him what his learnings as a marketer from this whole experience has been and how Housejoy, as an organization, is gearing up to function efficiently in the post-Covid world. Excerpts: Q) How has the last 2 months been for Housejoy as an organization? Were you prepared as an organization to make the transition to WFH? Just like most other startups, the pandemic did have an impact on Housejoy and our operations given that our construction and maintenance services came to a complete halt. Now, we are back on track and all our businesses across all cities have resumed, except in containment zones. Our teams are back in office and our construction services have resumed. Though we were not completely ready for WFH initially, our tech and HR teams facilitated the transition and top management ensured the teams are well engaged with regular virtual catchups. Q) Your core offering is in the sphere of construction, renovation, interiors, and home maintenance. However, the lockdown has forced most work in the sphere to come to a complete standstill. How do you anticipate the next few months will pan out for you as an organization? Yes, construction and home maintenance do not fall under essentials. Hence, our businesses came to a standstill. During lockdown, we encouraged our construction and interiors customers to get their house designs finalized. We have also been working on building confidence among our existing customers and keeping them updated about our activities. As WFH will become a norm in the future, we foresee demand for home offices and an overhaul of how new spaces will be constructed. We anticipate a high demand for home maintenance, fumigation, and beauty services post the lockdown. Post easing of the stringent lockdowns, demand has picked up and our B2C business is getting more orders vis-a-vis pre-Covid period, partially due to the pent-up demand. We are also seeing considerable traction from construction and renovation. When our core businesses were halted, we took several initiatives like <keyword id="9385245" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="housejoy-mart">Housejoy mart</keyword> to ensure customers get super-fast grocery delivery and our idle service providers get a mode to earn. Additionally, we also collaborated with the Karnataka state government in their effort to combat the pandemic by offering free fumigation in public places. We recently joined hands with leading healthcare brands like Portea Medical, SRL Diagnostics, Biognosys and BAF to set up mobile COVID-19 testing camps across Bengaluru to arrest the spread of the virus. Q) How have you been communicating with your consumers during this time? As a marketer, what has your priority been, in terms of the marketing communications going out? Our external communication is focused on the essentials and customer’s needs like fumigation, grocery delivery, etc. We have stopped all spends on traditional mediums and primarily focusing on digital as a medium to generate demand and educate customers of our offerings. Within digital, the focus is on intent-based searches and quirky content to engage with our consumers. Additionally, we have reached out to all our existing construction customers on the delays and provided them assurance on their investments. A large chunk of our content is dedicated towards informing our customers about the measures our service providers have taken to keep themselves and our customer’s safe. Internally, we are trying to keep the team’s morale high by sharing all the media buzz we have received, the deals we have cracked. These are testing times for all employees and it’s important to assure them about the financial health of their organization. Q) What was your media mix pre-COVID and how did that change during the lockdown? Do you think you will tweak your media mix even after the lockdown is called off? Has digital seen most of your marketing investments? Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was a mix of traditional and digital. However, during the lockdown, digital marketing and PR have been our go-to medium. We are implementing and leaning toward strengthening our digital marketing strategies. Our strategy has been to engage customers with quirky and interesting themes and messaging, and we will continue to do this going forward. Q) Did content marketing play a big role for you during the lockdown? Content marketing is one of our focus areas and our single-minded objective on digital is to improve the shareability of our content. We wish to keep our construction and interiors customers updated with newest technologies, trendy designs, and latest ways to upgrade their lifestyles. For our on-demand customers, the focus is to educate them of the WHO-suggested safety measures we have implemented and keep them aligned to our new offerings like car sanitization and labor on hire. Q) You recently entered the grocery-delivery space. Was it a natural extension for the brand? What kind of uptake has this service seen during the lockdown? How have you been marketing this offering? Expansion to grocery-delivery was a natural extension as we have the necessary tech and supply for the same. Our primary focus through this initiative has been to ensure work continuity for our teams and helping our customers in this hour of crisis. We partnered with various Kirana stores and helped them in expanding their business. This is a very new field for us, and we are evaluating the business model currently. Once that is set, we plan to invest in marketing. Q) What have your key learnings from the COVID-19 experience been, both as a marketer and as an organization? As an organization, we have learnt that flexibility is one of the biggest virtues and we have exhibited the same. We entered two new categories – healthcare and delivery services – keeping in mind the growing demand. We have also realized that great companies are built when people stick together in such times of crisis. Our employees have exhibited immense character, took complete ownership and executed some tough projects. As marketers, we have learnt that marketing is not about big budgets. Focus should be on improving quality of content and adding value to our customer’s lives. The distribution is taken care of by customers. Q) While the lockdown might be lifted soon, things might still take a few more months to settle down. How are you going to cope with the post-COVID world? How are you preparing as an organization? Though the lockdown will be lifted, the fear of transmission will still loom large. There will be some permanent changes in customer’s behavior and way of consumption. We are trying to keep our eyes and ears open to understand and validate the changes and work on ways to connect with them better. There is no denying the fact that we must adapt to this new normal and we are doing everything possible to ensure things run smoothly.

Marketing in the times of Covid-19: Housejoy

<ul><li>While we all are watching, worrying about everything that’s happening outside from behind the closed doors, delivery personnels from Dunzo, Medlife and Housejoy are risking their lives everyday to make sure we get our daily essentials and stay safe.</li><li>We reached out to their marketing heads of these brands to understand the challenges these players have faced in the past 21 days, from delivering products to communicating with consumers and here is how they are functioning in the new normal. </li></ul>While we are all scared and anxious to step out even for a few minutes, brands like Dunzo, Medlife and Housejoy are making sure that we are all safely cooped at home. From catering to the ever-increasing demand to coming up with creative solutions like contact-less delivery that ensure the safety of their consumers, as well as their delivery partners, these brands have embraced the challenges—as and when they come—with open arms. To prepare for the long haul, they are welcoming new delivery personnel, introducing fresh HR policies, sanitising their storing facilities, and reminding their consumers to take good care of themselves by washing their hands and maintaining safe physical distance -- on social media every day. However, things haven’t been simple for these players on the ground. In the first few days of the lockdown, owing to confusion and lack of clarity around guidelines, it was difficult for a lot of these players to function smoothly. Telling us what kind of challenges Medlife faced during the first few days of the lockdown, Meera Iyer, CMO, Medlife, said, “The lockdown has been quite a difficult time for Medlife. In terms of business, our traffic and demand has more than doubled. Organically, a lot of people have been coming online and wanting to order medicines as well as use our e-consultation service. But unfortunately, on the other side, the lockdown has meant total disruption on the ground for our operations team. The supply chain particularly was severely impacted in the first 2 weeks. Things are better now and slowly coming back to normal but it was the case of 2X the number of orders and pretty much 50% capacity on the ground, thereby allowing us to service around 25% of our customers. So customer experience went for a toss during this period.” Despite the limitations that the lockdown brought, it also brought with it a lot of growth opportunities for brands like Dunzo. Elaborating, Sai Ganesh, Head Marketing &amp; Creative, Dunzo said, “Groceries used to be our main category earlier and demand in that category has gone through the roof. We have seen significant organic growth, especially in grocery, medicine, meat and fish. That’s been the biggest opportunity where we are seeing a lot of organic traffic and new users coming in. Housejoy, which is a tech-driven construction, renovation, interiors and Home Maintenance company, rose to the occasion and started delivering essentials. Telling us how they arrived at it, Arpan Biswas, Vice President - Marketing, Housejay, said, “We saw an opportunity as the big players, who deliver essential services, have seen a growth of 6X. However, a lot of their delivery personnel left for their hometowns. So we have internally we offer home services and some of them don’t fall in essentials, so we have supply and tech in place. We just had to add groceries to it. We took a couple of weeks to take a call -- we saw an opportunity and thought this might make sense for us! From there, it was quite easy for us. Also, we wanted to make sure our internal delivery guys get to earn a bit and keep their households running. We have seen good growth so far. If it continues, we will think of approaching this category seriously.” In sensitive times such as today, there's always a chance that if brands come out with marketing communications, their intent will be frowned upon. Telling us how Dunzo is treading that line between communicating what’s required and being opportunistic, Ganesh said, “Our marketing communications in the past 45 days is very rarely focusing on selling the value proposition of Dunzo. We have also tried to use what guidelines WHO released for brands to incorporate social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands regularly, etc, so we have tried to use that. After the first lockdown was announced for two weeks, there was a period when users did not care about what your brand had to say. We saw very little engagement in those two weeks. The first two weeks were spent on informing the audience about what's happening, right things to the users and what precautions we are taking. Right now, they are looking for lighter, humourous content. There is a lot of stress right now and social media is a comic relief for them. So, we have moved to lighter content and none of it sells our product.” To help maintain a positive environment on social media and reach out to a wider audience, Dunzo is also looking at exploring TikTok, which, as Ganesh said, is a great way to connect with their delivery partners. Biswas, on the other hand, reminded us that this situation might not end very soon even if the lockdown opens. Therefore, as a marketer, you need to remind your consumers about the do’s and don’ts they need to follow. He further said, “We should think of ourselves as customers, not marketers. When I think of what is my need v/s want, as a customer, it is the essentials. So I would rather stick to delivering essentials and making sure that consumers get the necessary information. You also need to be very patient and see how things turn out in the next two-three months. We should save cash, not burn it in the media. We should rather create content that adds value to our customer’s life.” Moreover, taking care of the health, wellness and hygiene of their delivery partners is also a priority for most of these brands. Talking about all that Medlife has been doing to take care of its partners, Iyer said, “All our fulfillment centres across 15 cities have a doctor. We have thermal scanning for allowing people to come in. Use of masks and periodic sanitizing is mandatory. And we are doing everything to ensure that their commute to the warehouses and back home is also made safe.”

From delivering essentials to communicating effectively with consumers, here is how these brands are helping us survive the lockdown

New Delhi, Jul 15 () Technology startup Housejoy plans to raise USD 35 million (around 260 crore) by end of this year for business growth, a top company official said. Bengaluru-based firm, which is engaged in construction, renovation, interiors and home maintenance, has so far raised USD 30.2 million from investors such as Amazon, Matrix Partners, Growth Story, Vertex Ventures and Qualcomm. "We are planning to raise USD 30-35 million as growth capital. We have bagged Rs 100 crore worth contract in the IRC (interiors, renovation and construction) business. We want to expand in new cities," Housejoy founder and CEO Sanchit Gaurav told . The fund is required for new technology and brand awareness, he said, adding that the company aims to complete fund raising exercise by December. Founded in 2014, Housejoy entered the construction business last year and has secured an order book of Rs 100 crore spread over 350 projects. This service is being currently provided in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai and the plan is to expand in seven-eight new cities including tier-II and tier-III towns, Gaurav said. In the IRC business, Housejoy provides services right from building plans approval to the possession. The per sq ft rate is freezed at the time of entering an agreement with the customer. "We plan to open multiple construction experience centres," he said. The IRC business is growing at the rate of 20 per cent month-on-month and the company targets to build 2,000 homes over the next two years, he added. "Our goal is to become the largest tech-enabled construction and home services platform in India," Gaurav said. Housejoy posted a revenue of Rs 136 crore last fiscal - nearly four-fold jump from the previous year. "We are almost profitable," Gaurav said, adding that the margins in both the IRC and home maintenance business were around 15-20 per cent. Meanwhile, the company recently appointed Neelima Ronanki as Associate Vice President - Design, Deepak Thakur as the Vice President (Product and Technology) and Gaurav Joshi as the senior vice-president of growth and strategy, as part of its expansion plan. MJH ANS ANS

Housejoy plans to raise USD 35 mn for expansion of construction, interiors biz

Personal grooming is a growing industry in India and is raising hairs of many start-ups in India since the past two years. Many companies have sprung up in this space notably <keyword id="2811049" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="urbanclap">Urbanclap</keyword>, <keyword id="6439410" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="housejoy">Housejoy</keyword>, StayGlad,Yes Madam, MyGlamm, <keyword id="3023137" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="vanitycube">VanityCube</keyword>, and many more, just to provide customers a better service at a great price. According to reports, the grooming market in India is valued at nearly Rs 50,000 crore and 85% of the business here comes from women, notably professionals with increasing disposable incomes in cities. While the industry quickly grew in investment in 2015, the next year saw many of them shutting down due to high losses. While VanityCube was acquired by VLCC, Vyomo got acquired by Naturals and Quikr acquired StayGlad players like Urbanclap, MyGlamm and Housejoy have reported increased revenue in the past year steering the roadblocks. The problem with the current model The beauty services industry is a complicated one and isn’t particularly eased by technology after the booking is made. The service offered needs to be of great quality every time so that the customer makes repeated purchases on a regular basis. Till a brand is created, growth will not come as start-ups focus on signups. As a platform, the management cannot make sure that every service is quality-checked. While most start-ups including Urbanclap, focus on providing the service to the customer at their homes, many consumers find that the beauty care ritual is a better experience in salons because of the hygienic and professional environment. As I have used Urbanclap and Housejoy in the past, I noticed that they are not particularly more affordable compared to neighbourhood salons. The solution to these two problems have been devised by two startups which is making waves in Delhi NCR for being different in the approach. <keyword id="4425546" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Be-U-Salons">Be U Salons</keyword> Be U operates in the B2B2C space and aims to fix the gap between the demand and supply in the salon industry through on-ground operations and advanced technology. Unlike the conventional models, the company signs up small salon owners and don’t levy any franchise fee or capital expenditure on the part of the salons. The company brands the salons completely and has created categories under which everything including the products used, services offered and the prices are replicated to ensure quality is delivered. Instead they charge a 15% commission on the overall salon revenue which varies on the salon category Red, Blue or Green which falls under different revenue slabs. Vikas Johari, CEO &amp; Founder, Be U Salons told Business Insider, “When I entered the salon industry with Monsoon salons, I noticed that the industry is suffering due to inefficiencies and running costs such as real estate rentals, promoter services etc. While Monsoon became a great salon brand in Delhi, I realized that a tech-enabled solution could help scale up the franchise model in place.” Enter asset-light tech-enabled Be U model which has low or no capital commitment, benefits of economies of scale, focus on core activities, automation and standardization due to strong tech support which helps existing small salons to achieve better productivity and profitability. How it works Be U Salons has an mobile app on android and <keyword id="75489" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="IOS">iOS</keyword> platforms that enables customers to make easy online appointments, mobile payments and check transaction history record. The app also has scope for feedback, reviews and ratings, loyalty programmes, no waiting time and real time services which ensures that all partner salons provide quality service. Not just that, the app offers its customers attractive ‘’freebies” like a free haircut or 100% cashback on digital payments which ensures that once someone uses the app, they come back for the great value for money. Currently, the company has 70 plus outlets operating across Delhi-NCR, and services about 900-1000 customers per day. <keyword id="795759" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yes-Madam">Yes Madam</keyword> Yes Madam is a nascent startup that has come up in some areas of Delhi NCR like Noida, Greater Noida and <keyword id="44991" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="ghaziabad">Ghaziabad</keyword>. While this startup also provides its personal grooming services at home, it has a unique billing system which makes it affordable to most working women. The company charges its customers on per minute basis for Rupees 6 on any beauty service they want with extra service charge for better brands. During peak hours or weekends, the company charges Rs. 8 per minute which makes it still more affordable compared to the competitors. 
	
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 With Yes Madam app, the customers have the freedom to use their own product and the beautician. Another way to book can be through the call centre and Whatsapp which makes this startup more inclusive to people that might not have a smartphone or omnipresent internet connection. These new startups are engaging more people while using the resources differently but it will be interesting to see who leaves a last impression behind.

These personal grooming startups are leveraging technology differently compared to Urbanclap

<keyword id="6481662" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Jasper-Infotech">Jasper Infotech</keyword>, the company behind online marketplace <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>, is soon going to in invest in <keyword id="2892247" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Zimmber">Zimmber</keyword>, the on-demand home services platform. 
 
As per reports, The New Delhi based company is expected to invest somewhere between Rs 40 to 50 crore in Rejuvenate Solutions, the Mumbai-based company that runs Zimmber. This figure is for 10% of Zimmber’s stake. 
 
After leading a $36 million (about Rs 240 crore) funding round in hyper-local delivery service PepperTap in September last year, this is Jasper's second investment in the on-demand services space. This again proves that Jasper is increasingly focusing on this fast-growing segment. 
 
However, this move can also be taken as an inspiration from rival firm Amazon, as it’s just been two months that Amazon led a Rs 150-crore funding round in home services startup Housejoy. 
 
"Zimmber is an attractive investment opportunity and we are in active discussion with multiple investors," Anubhab Goel, cofounder and chief executive officer of Zimmber, told ET while declining to comment further. 
 
Snapdeal is presently valued at about $5 billion, after raising $500 million from Foxconn, Alibaba Group and SoftBank in August last year and buying digital payments platform FreeCharge for $400-450 million in April last year. This was the largest buyout done in the Indian consumer internet sector. 
 
<a href="http://www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Snapdeal1.jpg">Image source</a>

Snapdeal’s promoter Jasper Infotech eyes on-demand home services platform

<keyword id="2556778" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="home-services">Home services</keyword> are indeed a blessing; after all, who won’t like not having to run after plumbers and carpenters for their services? However, there is a lot of work that has to be done in the background, which makes sure that such services are promptly delivered. 
 
A major task is to convince these servicemen that they would be benefited by working with these digital entities. 
 
The Indian home services industry can boast off a good number of companies, and now that they have their teams in place, this year would be spent solidifying their business structures and staying alive. 
 "The sector was a small baby in 2015, now maturity will come in," Aditya Rao, founder and CEO of <keyword id="3398330" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LocalOye">LocalOye</keyword> told ET. LocalOye is backed by New York based Tiger Global Management. 
 
This 'maturity' involves ensuring a consistent service quality, which is tougher than it looks, as it involves managing thousands of blue-collar workers, most of them who have no experience of dealing with technology. Another problem comes in the form of convincing customers that this convenience doesn’t involve any risk and that they can safely let these servicemen into their homes. 
 
"We are also planning to have customised training modules for our service providers. Much of quality is also on reaffirmation of processes. We need to keep stressing on how to do a particular job. We would feel extremely satisfied if we ensure that 100 percent of our servicemen reach the homes of the customers at the exact said time," Saran Chatterjee, CEO of Housejoy, told ET. Housejoy has recently raised 150 crore funding led by Amazon India. 
 
Indian home services industry stands close to $100 billion (6.6 lakh crore), and with new companies being formed everyday, it has become highly contested. It means that only the very best of these would be surviving the tough competition. 
 
<a href="http://d152j5tfobgaot.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/service-industry.jpg">Image source</a>

It’s an important year for the Indian home services industry

We live in this hyperconnected world where we’re used to having everything on demand. To make things readily available to us, there’s a whole lot of technology which enables us to shop, call a cab and get anything delivered with the drop of a hat. 

 <div type="embedgroup"> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="59048930" title="Lay&amp;#39;s has a new concept and it was released at the Milan Design Week" rank="1.0" kind="RELATED" publishDate="Jun 08, 2017, 2:00 PM" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div></div> One such Indian startup is making sure that every business gets the opportunity to get the fastest way to build live location features. The startup called <keyword id="3449148" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="HyperTrack">HyperTrack</keyword> helps developers build better location-based services in their apps, just as Twilio does for communication and Stripe does for payments. HyperTrack has been testing for a year with Asia’s leading companies and clocks over 1 million hours tracked per month. Forward thinking companies use HyperTrack to build and operate live location features in delivery (Zomato), service (HouseJoy), travel (MakeMyTrip), transport (Redbus), logistics (Delhivery), sales (Toppr) and more. 

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Some of the use cases developers are currently using HyperTrack for: • Order Tracking: Build order tracking views in your product experience and business dashboards. • Workforce Monitoring: Build workforce monitoring of your fleet to power operational efficiencies. • Mileage Tracking: Build automatic mileage tracking for expense management of sales and service teams. • Location-based Assignments: Build location-based assignments for your on-demand business. • Live Location Sharing: Build secure and private live location sharing for your app users. • Profiling Users and Places: Build anonymous location profiling of your user base and places they visit.

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 Business Insider caught up with <keyword id="3436016" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="kashyap-deorah">Kashyap Deorah</keyword>, CEO and <keyword id="4645119" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="founder-of-hypertrack">Founder of HyperTrack</keyword> who is preparing to launch the company in the U.S. with version 3 of their product that lets any app developer see where their users are on a map with a few minutes of effort,”We have been quietly building our product which meets international standards since the beginning. The strategy behind the US launch is to showcase this product to the world and attain international customers,” said <keyword id="4645120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="deorah">Deorah</keyword>, who is a serial entrepreneur.

This Indian startup is now launching in the US. Here's why

With Rs 250 crores waiting to be invested, <keyword id="6381424" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Quikr">Quikr</keyword> is surely taking the stakes higher in India's home services market. The Bengaluru-based mobile and online classifieds company has plans in place, to become the largest player in the space which has competitors like against Amazon-backed Housejoy, UrbanClap and Sulekha. 
 
The money would be spent on product development, including technology and building in-house supply. Not to forget, marketing campaigns and strategic investments in start-ups are also in the pipeline. 
 
"We have grown this business organically till now as we already have a lot of transacting users, so we don't need to spend as much on customer acquisition," PD Sundar, who leads QuikrServices, told ET. A benefit that Quikr has over its competitors comes in the form of other verticals that it owns. For example, a house rented through QuikrHomes could get synced services from QuikrServices on the same platform. 
 
Over the past two years, Quikr has raised $300 million and has Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Warburg Pincus and Kinnevik as major shareholders. 
 
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/QuikrFans/photos/a.153939511302069.35970.124493907579963/1107388265957184/?type=3&amp;theater">Image source</a>

It’s Quikr vs everyone else in home services market!

Krishnan <keyword id="6356252" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ganesh">Ganesh</keyword>, has played a lot of roles in his life; from an engineer, to an entrepreneur, to now a venture builder, and his life has been nothing short of an trial. While his shoes have been too big to fill and as they keep changing, he is currently pioneering a unique model with Growth Story in India, which is probably only made popular by Rocket Internet in the country. GrowthStory is the venture-builder platform that Ganesh and his wife, Meena set up in 2011 which has promoted some of India's most disruptive start-ups including Portea Medical, Big Basket, Fresh Menu, Home Lane, AcadGild, HouseJoy, Social Frontier and many more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This model is unique due to the fact that while Ganesh and Meena come up with entrepreneurial ideas, they hire executives to pull it off. It is not primarily "investment" only, but where GrowthStory is the "promoter," but where the Partners are often the originators of the idea, work to get a founding team in place, drive fund raising early in the game, work closely with founders to scale the venture, guide strategic direction et al. This ‘express’ entrepreneurship that the power couple pull through is extraordinary and the back- story to it is a roller coaster that, you can’t forget. Early life and career Ganesh’s father died in an accident when he was just nine years old and as the eldest of three siblings, he felt the need to set an example. His mother was a hard-working government servant and bought them up to the best of her capabilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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So Krishnan, became a mechanical engineer passed out from Delhi College of Engineering, and even got a post graduate degree from IIM before realizing that he didn’t want to be an engineer or just an MBA graduate. Ganesh credits his entrepreneurial trials to <keyword id="44903" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shiv-Nadar">Shiv Nadar</keyword>, under whose guidance he experienced different business function, “I worked for five years in various functions and also as executive assistant to Shiv Nadar. My first venture started in 1990, a company called IT&amp;T where me and my friends pooled in money to get it started,” he told Business Insider. He ran the company till 1998 and remained the largest shareholder and director of the company till 2003 when it was sold to iGate. He went back to the corporate life but after two-years stint went back to entrepreneurship with his second business venture called CustomerAsset with Meena and another partner. It was later acquired by ICICI Bank in 2002 and Ganesh made $ 20 million for his stake in the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In 2003 he stumbled upon an innovative new company called Marketics which was started by IIT and IIM graduates. Ganesh was approached for investment, mentoring and guidance. This company was also sold off to WNS, for $65 million where only half a million dollars were invested in this business without venture capital funding. Then Ganesh again started his own business with TutorVista in 2006 which was bought out completely by Pearson for Rs. 1000 crore. His multiple hits have led him to be where he is, but that isn’t without the missus by his side. When the the last acquisition happened, Ganesh and Meena decided to take the hard road and continue their entrepreneurship journey albeit this time, differently. "Only 5 per cent of start ups succeed and Ninety-five per cent end up failing. I see still young entrepreneurs after starting a company against all the odds. I'm addicted to fueling that until I can," says Krishnan when asked about why his family still makes risky businesses instead of just ‘settling down’. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Perfect Pairing When it comes to Meena and Krishnan Ganesh, their complementary skill sets have given fuel to the train that is Growth Story. Professionally, Meena is more lauded as the CEO of <keyword id="6398216" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tesco">Tesco</keyword>,No.2 at <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> and now CEO at Portea, but Ganesh is the visonary that knows they can achieve so much together. As co-founders and life partners, they know that team work is the key to making a venture start and keep it running.

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