Entrepreneurship and start-up concepts aren’t new in India.

When a start-up founder or a

business owner initially starts their business, they are accountable for doing several activities
from long working hours to juggling between numerous tasks. They are typically considered
as a one-man army. However, as soon as you learn to get over these challenges in
entrepreneurship, you will certainly be able to enjoy the incentives.

While companies like Paytm and Flipkart are an example of what a startup can attain in a
couple of short years, there are certain common problems and challenges of
entrepreneurs that almost all entrepreneur encounter while starting a new endeavor.

Entrepreneurship is a challenging journey that requires hard work, dedication, and

persistence.

1.Financing

Getting funds for your business is one of the main issues that all businesses face and have to
tackle to survive. While you might have saved initial money to start a business, it won’t help
you survive for long. Steady cash flow is crucial for businesses to endure, and you always
need to have extra funds to take care of rainy days.

You need to ensure you have a well-prepared business strategy ahead of time, which consists
of funds set aside for the worst-case scenario. Remember, when you are new in business, you
will certainly have restricted accessibility of funds, and also hence you have much less room
for error.

2. Lack of Planning

It’s impressive the number of start-ups fails since they “failed to remember” to do the
planning. Or perhaps they did strategize, yet they did not cover all the bases. Key locations
like sales, development, and funding aren’t afterthoughts. They need to all belong to your
business plan right from the start. Not just that, however, you require to prepare for the
important things you cannot prepare for, also. That is, even if you cannot plan for every
possibility, you require to recognize what you’re most likely to do when (not if) events take
an unforeseen turn.

3. Effective Marketing within a Limited Budget

Some start-ups assume they can ignore marketing strategies entirely and hope that word of
mouth will be sufficient. Being a start-up, it’s essential to create visibility among your
consumers. Effective marketing techniques within a limited budget should be made to reach
your target audiences. Yet it’s an incorrect expectation to place your confidence in clients
finding you unless you make a collective initiative to grow them with a properly
structured strategy to promote your start-up.

4.Attractive Customers
Getting customers for your product or service can be the difference between success and
failure for a business. Many businesses have started with powerful ideas however could not
survive simply because they failed to reach the right customers. There are several ways of
reaching the right customers, however social media and SEO have proven to be useful tools
for most. The entrepreneur should invest time in understanding the customer expectations and
if needed leverage their network to reach the customers.

5. Making Decisions

Decision-making in a business situation can be daunting, especially when there are so many
things riding on each decision. Entrepreneurs can face a dilemma while making a decision,
especially when they have limited information. Entrepreneurs must also guard themselves
against getting overly involved in decision-making and causing a delay which may delay the
progress. They can delegate the smaller decisions to their team of experts and ask them to
come up with alternatives before evaluating options and finally deciding.

6. Time Management

Even the best entrepreneurs struggle to manage their time properly. As they take up roles out
of their expertise, they can find it challenging to get things done. The challenges often pop up
when the entrepreneurs have to deal with conflicting priorities and must let go of their
perfectionist streak to move the business process along. Plotting goals and making schedules
can be a lifesaver here. All that they need to do is ensure that their smaller goals tie up with
the larger goals and your business vision.

Successful Marketing Strategies For Early & Growth Stage Startups

The Beginning

Every robust marketing strategy is preceded by an even more robust groundwork. So, start
with a thorough understanding of your target market, customer profiling and competition
analysis. Next, decide the right channels of communication. Then, create your marketing
strategy framework consisting of well-defined goals, milestones, marketing tools and
resources to be utilized.

Create a powerpacked website

An SEO-powered website gives you a good start as optimized, crisp and constantly updated
content attracts prospects. Given that 75% of visitors never scroll beyond the first page of the
search results generated by a search engine, one cannot afford to undermine the power of
search-engine-optimized website content. It is highly recommended to keep the content and
navigation as neat and crisp as possible. A website with an overload of information can
discourage visitors to spend time on your website. More of a graphic presentation, less text,
more value, less marketing messages does not only make your website user-friendly and easy
to navigate, but it also establishes your credibility. Once your website is set, begin promoting
it on social channels.

Start Blogging

Content marketing, especially for B2B startups, can prove to be effective and long-lasting. It
can be effective mainly due to three reasons. One, it is an affordable means of marketing.
Two, great content establishes authority. Three, it aids in establishing relationships. Blogs can
talk about tips to use your products and services, informative articles about the industries
related to your potential customers, news about the latest technological developments in your
field, brief informative videos, etc. It can also serve as a platform to address customer queries
and concerns.

Future prospects of Cars 24 business in India

The automotive industry is a multi-dimensional, multi-billion dollar industry, one that is rife
with untapped potential. The used car industry, even more so. We at CARS24 are always on
the hunt for opportunities that can help us understand this dynamic industry better. To
achieve that, we are relentlessly learning and researching. In the words of Vikram Chopra,
Founder and CEO of CARS24, "we strongly believe that the experience of buying a pre-
owned vehicle should be as good and seamless as that of a new car, if not better."

Over the course of 6 years since our inception, we have revolutionized the way pre-owned
cars are sold and bought in India. We have identified customer struggles, figured out ways to
eliminate them, and addressed both buyer and seller side challenges. In our attempt to better
understand industry insights, we bring to you our "Future Of Mobility" report that tries to
unearth some consumer patterns from the CY 2020-2021. We conducted an in-depth study
for used car buyers in the year 2020-21 that highlights multiple intriguing key points. The
comprehensive report is a culmination of interesting insights presenting a macro view of
the pan-India used car buyer base, their purchasing behaviors, and the evolving trends.

This one-of-a-kind report is an earnest attempt to own our narrative as the leading customer-
centric brand in the pre-owned cars space. Through this report, we take you on a delightful
customer journey. As the journey progresses, we also bring you some fascinating consumer
insights, in post-Covid India from 2020 to 2021.
Financing is one of the major obstacles when it comes to purchasing a vehicle. Consumers
wish to avail financing while purchasing a pre-owned car, but since it is very difficult to get
loans for used cars through traditional methods like banks, most deals fall through and loan
penetration is lower. However, as CARS24 provides loans for potential buyers, we have
higher loan penetration, showing how this is a lucrative market.

In this report, we uncovered that over 76% of millennials who bought pre-owned cars
availed financing services. The pre-owned car buyers took out an average loan size of
INR3.5 lacs. Interestingly, with easy options like a 0% down payment on car financing, the
loan disbursements in 2022 are expected to increase three-fold.

While most of the used-car buyers are men, women buyers have seen exponential growth
over the year. Women buyers have grown over 80% in the CY21. Over 10% of the
millennials who availed financing for their pre-owned cars were women. Most of these
women are buyers are from metropolitan cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru,
Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Pune.

This is highly impressive, as it emphasizes that "the Indian pre-owned car buyer isn’t
restricted by gender, limited by finances or confined to the metros," according to Kunal
Mundra, CEO, India, CARS24.

While factors like trust, technology, website reliability, and honesty and transparency are the
key features in a car buying process, most customers have now zeroed in on a single one: the
quality of the car. The condition of the car has become the most important factor for
used car buyers.

Consumers are now seeking quality cars, without having to skimp and settle. With access to
refurbished cars, owing to our Mega Refurbishment Labs, most pre-owned car buyers now
prefer refurbished cars over pre-owned ones.

4. If our group is given opportunity…

Cars24 is one of India’s most popular car apps for buying and selling used cars. It makes buying
and selling a car simple, fair, and quick.
Cars24 has made it much easier to sell your used car on the internet. The Gurugram-based startup
has found a solution to a problem that most people have overlooked.
Cars24 is the largest automotive technology company in the world. Cars24’s CEO and co-founder
is Vikram Chopra. Mehul Agrawal, another co-founder of Cars24 and the platform’s COO, is also
a co-founder. Gajendra Jangid is yet another Cars24 cofounder. He is also the platform’s CMO.
Chief Financial officer Ruchit Agarwal is also Cars24’s co-founder.
Cars24 is a next-generation e-commerce platform for used automobiles (cars and bikes). It is a
used car marketplace that is based in Gurugram, Haryana, India.Cars24 can be thought of as a car-
related eBay. It is so simple, but it solves every problem that the customer encounters while
purchasing.

Business Model of Cars24

A business model is a company’s primary strategy for conducting profitable business. Models
typically include data like the products or services that the corporate intends to sell, target markets,
and any anticipated expenses. A business model’s two levers are product and services. Let’s get to
know in detail.
Products
Cars24 is, at its core, an online marketplace for buying and selling used cars. Cars24’s business
model and the people who are propelling it to new heights.
Every year, the company sells over 150,000 cars. The company is regarded as one of India’s four
major organized players in the used car segment. The products offered by the company are having
a huge amount of responses from its audience. Let’s take a look at who the target market is.
Target Market
Cars24’s primary target audiences are car owners between the ages of 30 and 50 who live in
metros and other major cities and have at least 3-4 years of car ownership experience and their
own e-commerce platform.
Customer Service
Cars 24 offers the best experience for car buyers by offering a large selection of certified cars that
can be delivered to your home with the click of a button, while sellers can get the best price for
their vehicles in less than an hour. The one-of-a-kind auction system of Cars24.
The auction seems almost impossible to imagine, but four people had the audacity to pull it off and
walk away with a fortune.

C2B (Customer to Business) Model

The platform is designed with a customer-to-business (C2B) model in mind. It purchases
automobiles from customers and resells them to dealers.
Cars24 is primarily a used car resale company. The platform’s business model is based on the
criteria of purchasing a car from its owner at the most appropriate and competent price in
comparison to other alternative car resale services in the neighborhood.
The platform primarily operates in automotive, e-commerce, retail, and used car trade, and has
progressed at a rapid rate since its inception based on this leading model.

Customer-to-Client (C2C) Business Model

The company has recently expanded to include the C2C business model as well.
In this model, to purchase a car, the user must first select the vehicle of their choice from the
platform’s website or visit the platform’s nearest branch to assess and test the vehicle.
The business model is based on having an online auction system set up that allows anyone in the
country to participate and place a bid within a set time frame

5.
Business Model Of Cars24: How Cars24 earns
Cars24 follows asset-heavy customers to business (C2B) model, where it buys used cars from
individuals and dealers and sells them to other dealerships and individuals as well.
There’s no public information about it’s charges but according to Economic Times, unlike a
listings-based classifieds platform, Cars24 enables the end-to-end transaction itself, charging
a commission of about 4-5% for each transaction and also a small fee from the buyers as an
registration free only. The firm has sold under 1,00,000 cars since inception in 2015.

Mission of cars 24 is to revolutionise the way used cars are bought and sold across the world.
With this in mind, we set up in 2015, and we’ve come a long way since then–from one single
office, to 205 branches across 182 major cities in India.

Over 6 Lakh happy customers have used our platform since. And with continuous innovation,
more partnerships, and valuable relationships with people, we want to keep solving problems
for consumers and add ease and value to their lives.

Their Intent: Transformation through technology

Our commitment to innovation is the driving force behind our success and our tech-first
mindset is ingrained in our DNA. Whether it’s evaluation, customer protection policies,
warranties, or just customer support, every bit of the buying and selling journey is seamlessly
managed by the cutting-edge technology that we use.

Their motto

Invest in employees and partners

A culture of trust and cooperation means that every employee and partner is a crucial part of
our ecosystem. We invest in every one of them, and we measure success not only in terms of
profits and balance sheets but in the success each employee and partner sees in their
professional and personal lives.
They are a meritocracy

We never let exceptional performance go unrewarded. We encourage healthy competition,

but never at the expense of others. Everyone has a chance to succeed, and a chance to reap
the benefits. After all, the more talented people we have on board, the more there is to
accomplish and reward.

They are in it for the long haul

CARS24 is on a long journey, and we’re not taking any shortcuts. The milestones we pass,
like quarterly results and yearly targets are but smaller rewards in our longer and
uncompromising drive to the very top, and the success we see in the long term is what keeps
us going.