Updated: 26 Nov 2020, 02:23 PM IST
The pandemic is still raging and has spelt doom for many small and medium businesses. Many entrepreneurs who were planning to launch their companies around this time have either postponed the idea or have let go of it. However, if the past is an indicator, there have been many who decided to take the plunge during an economic upheaval and emerge as success stories. Here’s a look at some of them. (Text: Garima Bora)
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Ashish Kumar launched his plug-and-play hyperlocal startup Near.store in February to help kirana stores go online. It was a business as usual scenario until the nationwide lockdown hit the country. As people could not step out of their houses, many found it convenient to order food, vegetables and necessary household items online. This helped in the growth of Near.store. Between February and March, the startup had onboarded 4 housing societies in Mumbai and 120 kirana stores. A month into lockdown, it had over 128 housing societies in its kitty and was helping with nearly 300-500 orders per week. (Text: Garima Bora)
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According to Tracxn’s database, 1,759 startups have so far been launched this year which range from edtech, agritech to stock market platforms and most of these, especially in healthtech, edtech and e-commerce, pivoted their business to cater to the Covid-19 market, fresh ideas were also created to suit similar needs. Supervue.ai’s social distance monitor and touchless attendance tracker were launched in April and are being used by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) and Mankind Pharma, among others. Global investment platform Winvesta and US-based physician marketing platform Doceree launched operations in India during the pandemic and flourished during this time. (Pic: Winvesta/Facebook) (Text: Garima Bora)
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Learning from the past
During the economic meltdown of 2008, when everything seemed bleak, some entrepreneurs took a risk and launched their companies, which are now, some of the most well known businesses of India and the world. These include Zomato, Policybazaar, Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack, Dropbox and more. Alok Bansal, one of the co-founders of Policybazaar believes that it’s only a perception that it is not a good time to start a business when the market is down. The company found it easier to hire people and get a marketing service at a very cheap price in 2008. (Text: Garima Bora)
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Zomato was launched in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah and is now one of the largest food aggregators in the world. They are present in 24 countries and more than 10000 cities globally. The company took a beating during the earlier months of lockdown in the country but now claims to have recovered to pre-Covid levels in various markets and in some cases grown beyond the pre-pandemic numbers. According to Zomato’s blogpost, while Delhi and Mumbai are nearing full recovery, metros such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai are still behind the curve. Eastern India has seen the best recovery, with Kolkata, Patna and Jamshedpur having recovered completely.
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Airbnb to take the IPO route
The co-founders of Airbnb Brian Chesky and Jeo Gebbia came up with a of a bed and breakfast idea when they were sharing an apartment and decided to convert their living room into a place where people could stay for a short while. They launched their company, which was earlier called AirBed & Breakfast in 2008. In India, Airbnb has done a brisk business and its economic impact in India last year stood at $320 million (around Rs 2,200 crore). This was driven by guest spending during their stay, hosts investment in their properties, among others. During the pandemic, Airbnb suffered a significant drop in bookings but despite that it announced that it had filed for an IPO and is now set to go public in December 2020.
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Challenging times for Uber
Uber began its journey in 2009. The founders, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick wanted to provide a cheaper option for travel to people. After doing well in the US the company spread its wings and came to India and other countries in 2014. They launched UberEats the same year. The company launched e-rickshaws in the capital earlier this month. The pandemic wasn’t kind to Uber and it reported a loss of $5.8 billion during this time.
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