Miracles don’t happen over a fortnight. It requires a great plan with great hardship.
In this big online ocean, many have tried their fortune to catch a fish. Those, who have made it impeccable, have grabbed the giant fishes with a big net. And, those with just the fishing rod in hands, but have drawn the rope distinctively, are now sailing the ocean profoundly.
Are you curious to know about people behind some successful ecommerce startups and how they started?
Let’s take a quick look at 5 unique ecommerce startups stories from India.
Every Indian living in metropolitan cities has heard the name ‘Ola’. Or, probably have booked a cab from it. Initially started as an online cab aggregator, Ola is one of the fastest growing businesses in India that has expanded itself to numerous ranges i.e. Ola rentals, Ola auto, Ola café, and now even ‘Trip with Ola’. In a short span of time, Ola has become the answer to every ride.
Ola was the brainchild of a 29-year-old, IIT Bombay Graduate, Bhavish Aggarwal, who once happened to rent a car and deal with a bad experience, where the car driver stopped in the middle road to re-negotiate the deal. And, when Bhavish refused to agree, the driver proceeded to abandon him en route to his destination. Well! The entrepreneur-head, instead of whining about the situation, decided to solve it well, and at large! Currently, the company’s valuation is $3.5 Billion.
Make My trip or MMT is a child of the quintessential brain of Deep Kalra, an IIM graduate, who quit his corporate job to enhance a good travel experience. Being a part of an average Indian family, Deep was surely aware of the hassle that travel includes, in India. As once, while travelling with his wife, he had to stand a poor accommodation. At the same time, he was also observing the power of the internet expanding day-by-day & things changing around it. Deep understood the needs of India travellers and provided them with exactly ‘what they want’ by wearing the customer’s hat.
In 2000, with a backing of USD 2-Million from eVentures, MMT (earlier known as India Ahoy) the ecommerce startups was found. Since then, getting listed on the International Stock Exchange and with more than $900 million caps at NASDAQ, MMT has been a game changer in the travel segment.
Two words that come while shopping to almost every Indian mind are “Paytm karo.”
Launched in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, a graduate from Delhi College of Engineering Paytm has brought a paradigm shift in the retail industry by completely transforming the payment methodology electronically. It was a dream dreamt when Vijay was struggling to make ends meet with 10 rupees in the pocket. Always struggling with his hand in English, he quit his first job at an MNC, began a new business but was unfortunately conned off.
The ‘eureka’ moment came in 2011 when he first pitched the ecommerce startups idea of entering the payment ecosystem in front of his board of One97 (the parent company of Paytm). Initially started as an online mobile recharge and bill payment platform, it now enables to make every kind of transaction on a click of a button. In just a span of 8 years, Paytm has notched up 250 million registered users and 7 million transactions daily.
The birth of a tech-enabled company offering standard reliable rooms transformed the face of Indian hospitality sector. OYO room is the country’s largest budget hotel chain with about 50,000 rooms in 500 hotels all over India. The start-up story of Oyo is surely an icebreaker.
A young prodigy, Ritesh Agarwal, was a dropout from college. Passionate to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur, he became one of the top ten winners of Thiel Fellowship. Inspired and motivated, he started working rigorously on his ecommerce startups idea. However, in the era of ecommerce startups, he had to battle out to make his unconventional idea of channelizing budget hotels on a common e-platform at prices like never before. His hard work paid and OYO –On Your Own was launched in 2013. Ritesh has gained a lot of success by understanding business needs and building something that people wanted.
In an inspiring tale of e-commerce startups, finally ‘food’ came into the picture. As an IIT-Delhi graduate, Deepinder Goyal, a big foodie had an intuitive hobby of collecting or photographing a menu of the restaurants. It was this flair for pinning food menus at his office desk for ordering lunch, which lit the candle of Zomato. And, with the bundle of menus, it became so large that it took the form of a company in 2010. It was funded with $1 million by Info Edge India as Foodiebay and was re-branded as Zomato.
Zomato is a restaurant search app, providing in-depth information for over 1 million people in 23 countries. It is named as the most promising Internet Company in India.
These five tales of prodigious growth and success have been an inspiration for many other ecommerce startups that quickly line up to enter the business world. If you preserve any intuitive idea, plan for your venture or want to serve society to bring comfort, then e-commerce startup is surely your cup of tea.
To know more about Ecommerce: Why it is a good idea to sell online, visit primesellerhub.com.
Co-Founder of Prime Seller Hub.
Deepinder’s story seems quite interesting… Fetish for Photography changed into a mind blowing foodie idea!
Looks like it’s a biased story