Housing.com is moving on from the Rahul Yadav controversy. The real estate portal has named chief operating officer Rishabh Gupta as interim chief executive, a week after co-founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav was fired for bad behaviour.His appointment is effective immediately, Jonathan Bullock, SoftBank's representative on Housing's board, said in an internal email titled 'Moving forward & Looking up'. SoftBank is the largest stakeholder in the company. Economictimes.com reported that Bullock said in a email sent to Housing employees said: "We believe and expect that his principled leadership, tenacity, and determination will position us well."Gupta, a former Flipkart employee, had been effectively running Housing during the past few months of turmoil in the company because of Yadav's run-ins with investors and others. Gupta, Housing's first angel investor Haresh Chawla, and chief technical officer Abhishek Anand will also join an operating committee.The Housing board had fired Yadav as CEO last week, bringing to an end a tumultuous relationship at one of India's most-watched startups. Housing.com was in news again on Monday (6 July) and again for wrong reasons. The site was down for sometime after being hacked and the twitter world was aflame with rumours about who had done it. Many had pointed a finger at Rahul Yadav who had denied the allegation.Housing was founded in 2012 by a dozen college-mates from IIT-Mumbai. Four of them including Yadav now have left the company.The company is currently controlled by SoftBank, which has a 32 per cent stake in Housing. The Japanese firm has formed an executive committee that controls Housing's finances and operations, and is led by Bullock, who recently replaced SoftBank's president Nikesh Arora on the Housing board. Investor Nexus venture owns about 19 per cent stake in Housing, and Helion Ventures and Falcon Edge about 10 per cent each.There are rumours going on that Quikr’s investors have agreed to buy Housing.com for $170 million, much less than the $235 million valuation that the company garnered in 2014.
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Startups begin with a brilliant idea by highly motivated people, who hire a couple of extremely motivated people to turn it into a reality, says Aditya RajgarhiaLeft, right, straight ahead or trackback 10 steps - if you’re somebody looking for a challenging yet promising career, you’re probably stumbling across opportunities at fast-growing startups hunting for the brightest talent.Startups have a magnetic aura around them and working for one is nothing short of the perfect north pole-south pole attraction. Be it for the culture - fun and casual, or the room for rapid growth - professionally and financially, startups are surely in the limelight today for offering the ‘best’ job opportunities to freshers and experienced professionals.Looking at the fancy websites to videos boasting of a culture that balances work, life and enjoyment, there isn’t anyone out there who doesn’t imagine themselves sitting on a bean bag with a mac in hand, working with like minded people while applying for these positions.There is no doubt about the fact that working for a startup can be exciting and at the same time, teach you a lot about the field you want to build a career in (or not). Because once you’re out there, all the rules you have learnt at your corporate job no longer apply.So how do you know the startup you’re planning to join is the right career move? A hit and trial is fine, but what if the grass isn’t as green as you thought it would be?6 things you need to keep in mind before signing up with a startup1. You’ll have to be ready for changeUnlike corporate biggies who have set offices across different cities, allocated spaces for various departments, defined work for a group of people and job titles to go along with the work, startups are forever changing. Be it the office location, job title, job role or for that matter, your seat!At some startups, even picking out your favourite chair and labelling it doesn’t work.The constantly changing environment definitely breaks your workflow once in a while; but life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better with change. After all, startups aim at hiring highly motivated and enthusiastic, change embracing people!2. You’re either all in or simply outIf you’re accustomed to working alone, startups aren’t for you. You’re expected to be a team player, who rolls up his sleeves and dives right in at the hour of need - whether or not your job profile qualifies you for it.There is no such thing as, “This isn’t what I was hired for.”Your everyday activity could fluctuate from being exactly what your job description states to something that you had never even imagined yourself doing; including picking up donuts for your colleagues occasionally. The good part of it all? You learn how to do just about everything - tech, non-tech and so many other things!3. The flat hierarchy doesn’t stayStartups begin with a brilliant idea by highly motivated people, who hire a couple of extremely motivated people to turn it into a reality. Even though initially the pitch of a flat hierarchy sounds exactly what you are looking for, things are bound to change once the company tastes success.Don’t like someone standing on your head? Sad.The motivated early employees are often put under experienced managers who decide what needs to be done when - of course, in the best way possible. Even though a manager is a manager who might bug you on a daily basis, he or she is the one person you can learn from. After all, they know how to keep a storm in control.4. It's hard work, rewarding workWhen you join a startup, you're not just performing your individual role - you're building a company. Long hours and pressure to work on multiple things are the norm in the early years of a startup. It can be mentally draining, but a great experience at the same time. Not to mention the enormous satisfaction of building something great from scratch.Be ready to deal with pressure!Although the work is hard, fast-growing startups who have raised large amounts of capital are usually able to compensate their employees very well, even better than most large companies. It's definitely a "work hard, play hard" environment.5. You work at your own riskEverything is hunky dory while investors are coming in, deadlines are being met and there isn’t already a similar concept so big that it is hard to compete with. But when you make the choice of working at a startup, the risk you take in your career path is entirely on your shoulders.Enter at your own risk!A lot of startups don’t survive beyond a year or two of crazy working. Even when they make all the news for getting acquired, the real story may not be quite as rosy. Often, startups get acquired for a price at which even the founders don’t make anything out of the sale.But the best part of it all?6. You’ll get to innovate and start your own One of the most rewarding things about working for startups is the environment you get to bring forward fresh ideas and innovate with the best of people in the field. Since each one in the team is a motivated individual, they are always open to new ideas.Age no bar, your ideas are always credited!Working in an entrepreneurial environment is a great way to learn how to innovate. A startup experience pays you back in opportunities and knowledge to help you get started with your own venture.Whether you’re applying for an internship or a full time position, remember one thing: there is no such thing as a constant in the startup world. For as long as you’re working in a setup, make sure you make the most out of it and learn as much as you can. Having a startup experience on your profile can work wonders.The author, Aditya Rajgarhia, is CEO and Founder of Instahyre.com
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A june afternoon in New Delhi can’t be anything but sizzling hot. Yet, Sashwati has a fleece jacket handy in her office drawer. Reason: It gets so chilly indoors that she gets goose bumps. At around six in the evening, when it’s time to go home, Sashwati quickly puts her desktop in sleep mode and leaves, as do the 125 employees in her office.This scenario is replicated in millions of offices every day, resulting in a massive wastage of electricity from air conditioners and computers. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), commercial buildings waste up to 30 per cent of the energy they consume.Now, there is help available for such companies from Zenatix, a Gurgaon-based startup that helps commercial buildings save on the their energy bills, by understanding their power consumption patterns and providing insights.“The main reason for this wastage is that people are not able to measure their energy consumption,” says Rahul Bhalla, co-founder and CEO of Zenatix. “Unlike the mobile bill that lists the cost incurred from calls, messages, and use of other services, the electricity bill just mentions the units of electricity consumed. It doesn’t brief how much energy is consumed by ACs, or UPS. If one knows how much energy is being consumed by which appliance in real time, one can take corrective measures,” he adds.Zenatix installs energy monitoring equipments, smart meters and controllers on different appliances such as ACs, lighting, UPS, etc. to monitor the energy consumed by them through their cloud-based software. Then it analyses the data and sends information on energy-saving measures to customers via SMS or email.ZENATIXYEAR OF FOUNDING: December 2013 WHAT IT DOES: Enable commercial buildings become energy-efficient USP: Provides actionable insights driven by energy analyticsFUNDING: $1,61,000COMPETITION: Boston-based EnerNOCREVENUE (BOOKED): Over Rs 1 crore NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 12PATENTS: NoneThis energy-efficiency model was a part of the research done by Amarjeet Singh, co-founder and CTO, who was a faculty member at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in New Delhi. During his research (2010 to 2013), he deployed energy sensors on campus to collect over five million data points every day. Insights developed from the data collected over the years helped in reducing energy consumption by 15-20 per cent at the institute.In December 2013, he took entrepreneurial leave from IIIT Delhi to start Zenatix with his IIT Delhi batchmates Rahul Bhalla and Vishal Bansal. He launched this model commercially for large consumers of energy like office spaces, hospitals, schools, manufacturing units.As they were doing their market research, the partners came to know of several companies that were engaged in gathering data and informing building managers about their energy usage using graphs and trend charts. But then, the building managers did not have the know-how to interpret this data and take corrective action. “So, instead of providing the information on energy consumption, we decided to interpret the data and give recommendations to customers by email alerts and messages to trigger action in real time”, says Singh.This, according to Singh, is Zenatix’s biggest differentiating factor. “We have not seen any company in India that analyses the data and delivers solutions to customers to reduce their energy consumption and link all this to cost savings.”Globally, Boston-based EnerNOC is helping commercial buildings automate energy operations.The partners launched their first product in May 2014. But they are still working on building different algorithms and use case studies, so that this system can be deployed across a variety of customers with varying infrastructural support systems in various circumstances, such as factories, for instance, where the Internet connection might not be stable.The biggest challenge for them initially, says Singh, was sales. The customers wanted to know how much they would save in costs. This meant installing their system and getting the data. But clients were unwilling to pay a huge amount upfront for this product. It was a chicken and egg situation, says Singh. So, they refined the business model and transformed it into a SaaS model, where companies pay a monthly subscription fee proportional to the area over which the sensors are installed. And, there is also a guarantee: if the client doesn’t make cost savings, Zenatix would remove the software without any charge. This proved to be a game changer for them. Within one year, they had 32 clients with sensor installations at over 100 sites. Some of their large clients include Google, Mother Diary, NIIT, United Health Group, and IIT Delhi. In fact, they recently raised $1,61,000 from Google’s India chief Rajan Anandan, Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal and Trifecta Capital’s Rahul Khanna, along with a bunch of other individuals.Gaurav Bhatnagar, National Head of Infrastructure & Facilities at NIIT says, “We commissioned the project in April 2015 and in just two months we have been able to make energy savings of 5 per cent with just the low hanging fruits. For instance, Zenatix suggested starting the chiller at 7 am instead of 6 am, so the building reaches the optimal temperature just before people arrive. The best thing is they don’t suggest any retrofits but give deep insights about performance of electrical equipments and how the building reacts to them.”The company is now focusing on getting more customers and also making its technology seamless and plug-and-play. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 27-07-2015)
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Hopping Chef provides fine dining service to those who are looking for good food at their convenience and in the comfort of their homesMove over restaurants delivering food to homes. Mirah Hospitality has acquired 30 per cent stake in Hopping Chef, a brand by Gritty Foods LLP, that supplies chefs to people's homes. Hopping Chef was launched in December 2014 as a platform to provide fine dining service to those who are looking for good food at their convenience and in the comfort of their homes.Mirah Hospitality has existing investments in Impresario Handmade restaurants (Smoke House Deli, Tasting Room, Socials), Himesh Foods Pvt. Ltd. (Mad Over Donuts) and Massive Restaurants (Masala Library, Made in Punjab, Farzi Cafe and Mithai).Gaurav Goenka, Managing Director, Mirah Hospitality, said that, “This association marks a new beginning. It will enhance the strength of Mirah as a brand, which is looking for growth both organically and inorganically. Until now Mirah has always been in the brick and mortar space. However keeping in mind the latest trend and flourishing prospects in the online space, Mirah decided to diversify its portfolio to the online food space as well. Hopping chef will help Mirah to enhance its current portfolio. I am happy to share that, in the past few years, we have grown without compromising on quality. With this new alliance, I am hoping to provide quality chefs for those who are looking for a global food experience.”Hopping Chef, founded by Shaival Chandra, Dhaval Udeshi and Sid Ugrankar, is currently valued at Rs.10 crore. With the investment from Mirah Group, the Brand will be expanding its network to Bangalore within 2 months followed by 4 other metros in the next 6 months. Currently, the brand has 15 chefs on board, which will be increased to around 75 to 100 to keep up with the geographical diversifications planned. Over the last few months of existence, Hopping Chef has proven to be an ideal place for chefs to showcase their talent and innovation as there is no set recipe or costing which they need to follow.“An investment from a well established hospitality group like Mirah will boost Hopping Chef and will open newer avenues. Mirah Hospitality is known for their unconventional approach to business and I am hopeful that Hopping Chef with this arrangement with Mirah Hospitality will establish footprints in new geographies," said Shaival Chandra, Founder & CEO, Hopping Chef.The hospitality industry in India is poised to register higher growth rate over the next 5 years. By the year 2020, the Indian food market is expected to touch the 40 trillion mark.
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Realty portal Housing.Com's board has sacked its CEO and co-founder Rahul Yadav with immediate effect, saying that his behaviour towards investors and media was not "befitting" of a CEO. Yadav will not be an employee or part of the SoftBank backed portal in any manner, the company said. "Housing.Com has released its CEO Rahul Yadav, with immediate effect, after a regular board meeting, held earlier today," it said in a statement. "Yadav who is also the co-founder of the company, will no longer be an employee of Housing and be associated with the company in any manner, going forward," it added. The board, unanimously agreed to bring Yadav's tenure to a close, with reference to "his behaviour towards investors, ecosystem and the media". "The Board believed that his behaviour is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company, known for its innovative approach to product development, market expansion and brand building," the statement said. Yadav has been in the thick of a controversy after he put in his papers questioning the intellectual capability of his company's board. Later, he apologised to the members. Last month, he hogged the limelight again when he gave away all his holding, worth about Rs 200 crore, in the company to the employees. In December, Housing.Com had raised USD 90 million through private equity infusion from SoftBank Group along with Falcon Edge and other existing investors. While the search for an interim CEO is underway, Housing.Com said, a transition plan has been put in place. "The current senior executives of Housing will continue to run the operations on a daily basis, and ensure its continued smooth functioning. The Board and the Operating Committee will remain closely involved with all key decisions," it said. The board, investors, management team and employees are keen to see Housing maximise its huge potential in India and beyond, as well as run in professional and world class manner, the company said. The Board thanked Yadav for his contributions and wished him well, for his future endeavours. Within two years of its founding, the company expanded from its original rent and resale proposition to include PGs and hostels, serviced apartments, land, plot projects, and new projects. Housing.Com has more than 2,551 employees in over 100 cities across India. (PTI)
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CyberChef offers middle eastern, continental, south east Asian and even regional cuisine from all over India, cooked by home chefs Raghav who lives alone in Gurgaon has asked his cook to not come on evenings from Friday to Sundays. For, these are the times when he craves for that special ghar ka khana. It is not that his parents have started parcelling him the food from his hometown in Himachal but it is the new startup in Gurgaon, CyberChef that delivers homemade continental or Lebanese to his house. Neha Puri, co-founder of CyberChef, got the idea of starting this virtual marketplace for home cooked meals when she was doing her Masters in Marketing and Strategy from Warwick Business School, UK. There she saw how a lot of women of Indian origin would cook and sell Indian food to the students in the university. As a student, she absolutely loved it and it made her life so much easier. When she returned and saw the increasing cosmopolitan crowd in the metros, she put the two together to tap on the business opportunity and started the company along with her brother Anuj Puri in February 2015. From the very beginning she was sure she doesn’t want to hire professional chefs. “Home chefs offer the novelty of changing the menu every day which lets us offer more variety to our customers on a daily basis.” Another thing, she adds, is these women keep trying new recipes, and some are their family recipes passed on from generation to generation. “We would never get a chance to try such heirloom recipes if it wasn’t for these home cooks.” This is essentially why their business shouldn’t be compared with the Indian dabbawallas. For, they don’t offer dal, roti and sabzi but middle eastern, continental, south east Asian and even regional cuisine from all over India. She started with 25 home chefs, all housewives, in Gurgaon. In two months they have got 30 more chefs and expanded their base to Mumbai. They do more than 1,000 orders on a monthly basis, wherein the price range for a meal is between ₹150-275. The advantage of this business model is it doesn’t only offer affordable and home cooked food to the customers but also gives an opportunity to the housewives to become entrepreneurs, with whom they work on a revenue sharing agreement. Anjali Adya, a Gurgaon-based home chef, who has been with CyberChef since its beginning says, “This has been a great opportunity because they encourage me to try different recipes and master my skill. This has also helped me get market access and my kids are proud that their mother has now become a ‘professional’.” The responsibility of the home chefs is to cook the best meals and try innovative recipes, packaging, delivery, marketing and logistics is taken care by CyberChef. It is these women who act as brand ambassadors for CyberChef and spread the word in their social circles. “If they grow, we grow with them,” says Adya. One of the main concerns of being in this business, shares Puri, is the problem of time. People don’t want to wait for too long for their food. They should get it within 30-40 minutes of ordering. So, getting the right logistics can make or break this business. Moving on, Puri wants to focus on expanding their base to Pune, Bangalore and South Delhi and get 150-200 chefs at each location by end of this year.
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InstaShop believes in direct connect between seller and buyer, writes Mayank GargBrick and mortar shops in the locality markets are still the backbone of the retail industry of India, accounting for more than 90% of the total retail market of more than $ 600 billion. India has the highest density of these local stores, and these stores backed by a very thick network of distributors, are best suited to serve the customers in the most sustainable way.The e-commerce models copied from the western countries have seen a significant growth in the last few years in the India, but their sustainability is still to be tested. InstaShop, a Noida-based startup founded by three IIT Delhi alumni, wants to become the technology enabler for the existing supply chain to provide a better and sustainable alternative to the current e commerce model. The company believes that the existing supply chain fronted by the brick and mortar stores is the most sustainable retail commerce model in India, and will remain as relevant in future as it is today, provided that it is supported by technology to meet the changing buying behavior of customers.InstaShop is creating a hyper local mobile marketplace, where buyers and sellers in a locality can connect directly and transact effortlessly, assisted by InstaChat. The possibility of connecting directly with the seller and chat with them for any clarification, customisation and bargains is quite unique. “The local commerce in India works exhaustively on a trust coupled by the personal touch extended by the retailers. In all existing local commerce marketplace this element is missing, InstaShop helps to retain the very same shopping experience as shopping by physically visiting the store .Another unique feature of InstaShop is that the customer can request quotes from multiple shops in one go, which is replication of the same behavior of customer for best price discovery when shopping from the local market.Buyer can search for any product, category or their favourite store. They can browse through the catalogue and place order, through the catalogue itself or by just taking picture of the buying list, prescription, or the product of their interest. Buyer can also add any of the store as their favorite store from which they want to shop on regular basis, and remain updated on the deals and offers from these stores. Also the customer loyalty programmes offered by sellers can easily be managed through InstaShop.There is always a possibility of finding the product of your interest in your locality at a better price in comparison to the major e-commerce platform, which can be delivered instantly. But because this information about local stores and their prices is not readily available to customer, the local merchants are losing out business. With InstaShop we want to organize this information and make it available to customer on his smartphone.Merchant registration process on InstaShop is very simple. Merchants can get mobile presence of their business in just few minutes, and start organising and expanding their business with the merchant application, InstaSell. InstaShop does not charge any subscription fees from merchants to register with InstaShop, nor does any commission is charged on the sale of any good or service.InstaShop believes in direct connect between seller and buyer, and allowing seller to sell good at their own price directly to the buyer, this provides a very strong feeling of ownership for InstaShop by the merchants, and they help in promoting InstaShop even with their existing customers to provide them hassle free shopping experience.The seller directly processes any order placed on InstaShop, InstaShop is not into the operations of fulfillment of order directly, but manages it with tight service level agreement with the sellers, rating and ranking of seller and the incentives on number and timely delivery of orders. “While most of the startups focus on creating delivery networks for hyper local needs, we believe that in India, the distributed existing infrastructure by the local merchants is the most cost effective and manageable solution to make the delivery of the hyper local needs. Creating own delivery workforce to make short time and distance deliveries will face challenge in scaling and covering a wider reach.The company has opend its shops in Ghaizabad and Noida, and aims to cover entire NCR by end of July. As the company do not need any operations setup in the new localities where they are expanding, and further they do not charge anything from the merchants, InstaShop is aiming a very aggressive growth and plans to have hundred cities under their coverage within one year.(Mayank Garg, founder of InstaShop has extensive experience in strategy, business development and corporate planning, and has previously served as group head, Strategy and Corporate Planning at Tata Power. Gaurav and Rachit, co-founders have more than a decade of experience in founding technology companies and scaling them.)
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Housing.com co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav's resignation news on Thursday (25 June) sparked a buzz on the social media platforms. Economictimes.com quoting two people directly aware of the development said this time his resignation will be accepted by the board of the real estate portal, .However, both Housing.com and economictimes.com later denied that Yadav has resigned. Yadav, 26, who has been involved in a string of controversies, will be asked to stay on at the company and oversee product development. In May this year, Yadav resigned as the CEO of Housing.com, capping several weeks of drama at one of India's most watched startups. Yadav wrote a scornful resignation letter on April 30 to board members and investors denigrating their "intellectual capability" and giving them a one-week deadline to "help in the transition". The portal shot to fame as one of India's startup success stories after Japan's SoftBank led an investment of $90 million ( Rs 550 crore) in December, valuing it at Rs 1,500 crore. Since then, Yadav has been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons — he became embroiled in a social media dust-up with Sequoia Capital Managing Director Shailendra Singh. Housing was founded in 2012 by a dozen college-mates from IIT-Mumbai, of whom three have left the company.
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