Wacky start-ups

19 August 2015

Content

Page 2

Introduction

Startup 1: Zomato

Startup 2: Airbnb

Startup 3: OnePlus

Startup 4: Tinder

Startup 5: Olacabs

Startup 6: Bandhan

Wacky start-ups

Introduction

Introduction
India,

surely but steadily, is gaining currency as the centre of startup

innovation globally outside of the Silicon Valley.
The flight of funds into start-ups just enforces this point. For instance last
year, when Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of Japans telecom giant
SoftBank came to India, he announced his intentions to invest $10 billion in
the Indian IT and communications market.
Similarly, Infosys announced it is allocating $250 million to be invested in
Indian Startups.
Even working in a startups is no longer considered a taboo, with many
youngsters chucking cushy big corporate jobs for the thrill of exploring the
startup space.
Our aim is to explore 6 startups that we think are wacky and are to be
watched out for in the near future.

Page 4

Wacky start-ups

Structures proposed for consideration

Start-up 1: Zomato
Start-up 2: Airbnb

Start-up 3: OnePlus
Start-up 4: Tinder

Start-up 5: Olacabs

Start-up 6: Bandhan

Page 5

Wacky start-ups

Zomato
Type

Private

Owner

Info Edge (India) Ltd. (50.1%)

Founded

July 2008

Employees

2000+

Headquarter
s

New Delhi, Delhi, India

Website

zomato.com (formerly foodiebay.com

until November 2010)

No. of
locations

22 countries

Alexa rank

722 (August 2015)

Type of site

Area served

India, Australia, United States of

America, Canada, Chile, Czech
Republic, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy,
Lebanon, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar,
Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka,
Brazil, Turkey, United Arab Emirates,
United Kingdom

Online restaurant search and discovery

service

Advertising

Yes

Registration

Optional on the website

Users

19 million visits monthly

Available in

English, Turkish, Portuguese,

Indonesian, Spanish, Czech, Slovak,
Polish, Italian
July 2008

Founder

Deepinder Goyal

CEO

Deepinder Goyal

Key people

Page 6

Pankaj Chaddah (Co-founder)

Surobhi Das(COO)Gunjan Patidar
(CTO)

Launched
Current
status

Online

Services

Restaurant Search & Discovery, Online

Ordering, Cashless Payments

Industry

Consumer Services

Wacky start-ups

Zomato
2011

2013

2012

2010

2008

The idea behind

Zomato (then,
Foodiebay) was
conceptualised
People would line up to
look at the menus to
order food during the
lunch hour. Realizing
this took up a large
amount of everyone's
time on a daily basis,
Deepinder and Pankaj
decided to scan
restaurant menus and
upload it on an intranet
website

Zomato
began by
listing
restaurants
in Delhi NCR
, and quickly
expanded to
Kolkata and
then Mumbai
Change of
name in the
month of
November

Zomato began by listing

restaurants in Delhi NCR, and
quickly expanded to Kolkata
and then Mumbai.
Page 7

The company
launched in
Auckland and
Wellington in
New Zealand in July
2013, and Hamilton
in December 2013.
[17]
It made its way to
Turkey, Brazil, and
Indonesia in
November 2013, with
its website and apps
available in Turkish,
Brazilian
Portuguese,
Indonesian, and
English.

Zomato
launched
coverage in
Bangalore,
Pune, Chennai,
Hyderabad and
Ahmedabad. In
the same year,
they launched
applications for
iOS, Android,
Windows
Phone and
BlackBerry
devices.

Zomato expanded to its first

overseas location, UAE, following
which, Zomato saw quick
expansion into Sri Lanka, Qatar,
the United Kingdom, the
Philippines, and South Africa.

Wacky start-ups

Zomato
2015
2014
Zomato started 2015 by acquiring Seattlebased food portal Urbanspoon for an
undisclosed sum (estimated to be around
$60 million).

2014 was a year full of expanding international reach and

acquisitions.
In April, Zomato launched its services in Portugal.
In July, Zomato made its first acquisition by buying New
Zealand's Menu-mania for an undisclosed sum.
In August the focus was on Europe. The company acquired
online restaurant guides Lunchtime.cz (from the Czech Republic)
and Obedovat.sk (from Slovakia) for a combined $3.25 million.
In September, Zomato acquired Poland-based restaurant search
service Gastronauci for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition marked Zomato's entry into

the United States, Canada and Australia,
and brought it into direct competition with
Yelp, Zagat and OpenTable.
In the same month, Zomato also acquired
Mekanist, one of Turkey's largest restaurant
search players, in an all-cash deal that
makes Zomato the most exhaustive
restaurant search service in the country.
The acquisition increased Zomato's
coverage from about 27,500 restaurants in
Istanbul and Ankara to more than 50,000
restaurants across Turkey.

In October, Zomato finally entered North America by launching its

services in Canada.
Shortly after, in November, it extended its reach to Lebanon and
Ireland as well.
In December, Zomato acquired leading Italian restaurant search
service Cibando.

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Wacky start-ups

 Airbnb

is a website for people to list, find and rent lodging.

It has over 15,00,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries.
Based in San Francisco, California.
Founded

Page 9

in August 2008 by:

Brian Chesky

Joe Gebbia

Nathan Blecharczyk

Wacky start-ups

Airbnb: Problem
Problem:

Price is an important concern

for
customers booking travel
online.

Page 10

Hotels leave you disconnected

from the city and its culture.

Wacky start-ups

Airbnb: Solution
Solution:

A web platform where users can rent out their space to host travellers to:

SAVE
MONEY

WHILE TRAVELLING

Page 11

MAKE
MONEY

WHILE HOSTING

SHARE
CULTURE

LOCAL CONNECTION
TO THE CITY

Wacky start-ups

 OnePlus

is a Chinese cell phone manufacturing company with its origins in the

Shenzhen province in China.
With their motto of Never Settle, they are trying to shakeup the handheld
handsets industry by braking the norms and adopting unconventionalism in
every facet of their being.
Both the founders of the company , CEO Pete Lau and co-founder Carl Pei, are
ex-Oppo employees who left Oppo (another Chinese electronics company) to
start OnePlus.

Pete Lau

Page 12

Carl Pei
Wacky start-ups

OnePlus : Reception and Controversies

OnePlus

is a company that is both loved and hated by its consumers. They

have gotten their rights absolutely spot on but their misses have created a
havoc for them.
Having grown from 6 employees back in December, 2013 to about 900 in July,
2015, they have come a long way from being just a local Chinese player to a
global company.
Their products have pleased the masses with the demand for their phones
being so high that their manufacturing units have always been playing catchup. Their phones have been equipped with softwares that always delights an
Andriod consumer. The hardware features are equally good and its all topped
off by a price tag that brings tears of joy to an Andriod fans eyes.
But the company has been embroiled in controversies right since its inception.
Some of the banana peels that theyve encountered are:

Funding
Invite System
Smash your phone / ladies first
#HYPE
Cyanogen
Customer Relationship
Loud mouthing

Page 13

Wacky start-ups

OnePlus : Reception and Controversies

OnePlus

is a company that is both loved and hated by its consumers. They

have gotten their rights absolutely spot on but their misses have created a
havoc for them.
Having grown from 6 employees back in December, 2013 to about 900 in July,
2015, they have come a long way from being just a local Chinese player to a
global company.
Their products have pleased the masses with the demand for their phones
being so high that their manufacturing units have always been playing catchup. Their phones have been equipped with softwares that always delights an
Andriod consumer. The hardware features are equally good and its all topped
off by a price tag that brings tears of joy to an Andriod fans eyes.
But the company has been embroiled in controversies right since its inception.
Some of the banana peels that theyve encountered are:

Funding
Invite System
Smash your phone / ladies first
#HYPE
Cyanogen
Customer Relationship
Loud mouthing

Page 14

Wacky start-ups

Tinder

Tinder

is a location-based social discovery

application that facilitates communication
between mutually interested users.
The app allows users to chat with their matches.
The app was launched in 2012.
Tinder was seeded at numerous college
campuses in US, and expanded to other college
campuses.
The app won TechCrunch's Crunchie Award for
"Best New Startup of 2013".
Wacky start-ups

Page 15

Using

Facebook, Tinder is able to

build a user profile with photos
that have already been
uploaded.
Basic information is gathered
and the users' social graph is
analyzed.
Candidates who are most likely
to be compatible based on
geographical location, number of
mutual friends, and common
interests are then streamed into
a list of matches.
Based on the results of potential
candidates, the app allows the
user to anonymously like
Page 16
another user by swiping right or

Wacky start-ups

In

March 2014, IAC increased its majority stake in

Tinder, a move that cause speculation that the
valuation of Tinder was at several billion dollars.
In July 2015, Bank of American Merrill Lynch valued
Tinder at $1.35 billion.
For two years, Tinder has been able to stay afloat
without relying on any kind of revenue stream.
Tinder has proven it is does not require revenue to
be successful. Due to the apps investor backing, it
had the security to grow its business growth model
first and revenue model later.
Tinder is used widely throughout the world and is
available in about 30 languages. Wacky start-ups
Page 17
The app is used in about 196 countries.

Founders

of OLA CABS

Bhavish
Aggarwal
B. Tech,
IIT Bombay
How

Page 18

Ankit Bhati
M. Tech + B. Tech,
IIT Bombay

Ola Cabs Started

Wacky start-ups

Partnership

with Taxi drivers

Added touch of technology
40,00,000 Cabs across the country
Pay per performance model
Charging lesser than auto rickshaw
Offers :
Freecharge offers
Free first ride
Latest One Plus Two invite

Page 19

Wacky start-ups

Bandhan Bank
Bandhan

is currently India largest and the worlds second largest microfinance

institution.
It has 2000 branches and currently serves 67 lakh borrowers.
It recently won the banking license.
It is based in Kolkata, West Bengal.

Found

Page 20

in 2001 by the Chandra Shekhar Ghosh:

Wacky start-ups

Bandhan Bank: Problem

Problem:
Poor people lack access to banks
and thus are forced to borrow
from local moneylenders at high
interest rates.

Page 21

Since

poor people lack access to

investment options they are lured by
fraud schemes like recent Sarada scam
in Bengal.

Wacky start-ups

Bandhan Bank: Solution

Solution:

A microfinance institution as a bank to take banking to the less well off

GET LOANS
AT FAIR
RATES
NO MORE

FDS AND
RDS FOR
ALL

NO MORE SCAMS

MONEYLENDERS

INSURANCE FOR
THOSE WHO
ACTUALLY NEED
IT

NO MORE WORRIES ABOUT

ILLNESS AND OTHER LOSSES

DIRECT BENEFITS
TRANSFER
FINALLY A REALITY?

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Wacky start-ups