7 simple start-up ideas that have earned lakhs &

crores
With job uncertainty increasing by the day, there has been a flurry of start-ups in the recent
years. While no start-up is ever guaranteed to succeed, innovative ideas have come to light
in the process.

Ever thought of leaving your job to start a venture of your own? From selling honey to
environment friendly detergents, ET takes a look at seven simple start-up ideas that helped
their founders earn lakhs and crores.

Under the Mango Tree: Rs 60 lakh turnover by

selling honey
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/biz-entrepreneurship/7-simple-start-
up-ideas-that-have-earned-lakhs-crores/under-the-mango-tree-rs-60-lakh-turnover-
by-selling-honey/slideshow/19105696.cms

For Vijaya Pastala, her dream enterprise, Under the Mango Tree (UTMT), took 14
years to shape up. After acquiring a post graduate degree in regional planning from
the MIT, US, in 1993, Pastala returned to India and stumbled upon the name for her
future venture.

When her son was born in 2003, she changed career tracks. It took Pastala about a
year to zero in on exactly what she wanted to do. According to her, the concept of
honey is generic in India, where the packaging seldom specifies the kind of honey
being sold.

The business model of the company is simple. The sourced honey is tested,
certified, packaged and labelled in a production plant on rented premises in an
industrial area, in Mumbai. The packaged products are sold online, delivered to over
100 shops in Mumbai and Bangalore, as well as to a lot of B2B partners like Taj
Hotels. In fact, this month, the company has tied up with Nature's Basket to supply in
the National Capital Region. Over the next few years, UTMT plans to have a pan-
India presence.
IndiBlogger: A Rs 1 crore venture
For most people, blogging serves as a good pastime, a forum to air or read views
and opinions. However, for four yuppies from Chennai, harnessing the power of
blogs has proved to be a money-minting venture—a Rs 1 crore business, to be
precise.

Launched in August 2007, IndiBlogger.in started as a free blogging platform for

Indians. However, the founders—Renie Ravin, Karthik DR, Vineet Rajan and Anoop
Johnson—had a bigger game plan: to mobilise the blogosphere, a nascent field at
the time, so that companies and brands could engage with their customers.

Luckily for the founders, they found an angel investor in their friend Nitin Bindal, who
chipped in with the seed capital of Rs 32 lakh. The money was spent on building
infrastructure and marketing.

Here's how IndiBlogger works: Registering one's blog is free of charge, but members
must publish at least five blog posts to continue to be a part of the community. The
company's eight-strong team handles support and moderation from Chennai and
Bangalore. The revenue comes from connecting brands and bloggers via unique
blogging contests and meets, which are organised periodically across the country.

Today, their clients include Lakme, Castrol, Apollo Hospitals, Mahindra & Mahindra,
Cleartrip, Vodafone, Dove, Samsung, Surf Excel and Fiat, to name a few.

IIM graduates' detergent Krya averages sales of Rs 1

lakh a month
Meet Chennai-based Preethi Sukumaran and Srinivas Krishnaswamy, spouses-
turned-business partners, both IIM graduates who opted out of the corporate rat race
on the same day, 31 January 2009, with one sure idea: to work on an environment-
related concept.

The couple, who got married in 2003, decided to see the world while waiting for
inspiration to strike. THey did not set up the venture in the traditional way, that is,
first launching and then promoting it. In fact, they did the reverse. "After registering
our company, while we were looking at sourcing our product, working on the website
design and other back-end issues, we started a Facebook page and a blog," says
Sukumaran.

By the time the product was launched in May 2011, Krya had built a potential
customer base without spending much—Rs 6 lakh for the entire process, from idea
inception and registering the company to renting a 250-sq-ft office space and
launching the product. Currently, the business is averaging sales of about Rs 1 lakh
a month.

'Work Better': Making executive training profitable

How often have you sat through employee training workshops only to emerge
disappointed and confused? 30-year-old Swapnil Kamat figured there had to be a
better way of conducting such programmes. His company, Work Better—Training &
Development, is an attempt to do just that.

Set up in October 2008, the executive training company focuses on teaching

behavioural and cognitive skills to corporate employees. The co-founders, Kamat
and his wife Ruchira Karnik, had research reports to prove they were on to a good
thing.

The husband-wife duo faced a tough one-and-a-half years due to the novelty of their
business idea and lack of experience in the field. The venture grew one customer at
a time but, luckily, they managed to break even in nine months, earning Rs 5.5 lakh.

In the course of the past four years, the couple has conducted programmes for over
40,000 executives in India through 30 certified contract-based trainers. The 10-
employee company's turnover in 2011-12 was Rs 4 crore and the current client list
includes Sony India, Trident Hotels, Tata CommunicationsB, HDFC Bank, Hindustan
Petroleum and Philips.

HelpingDoc.com: Allows patients to get online

appointment with doctors
The company was co-founded by Amit Bansal, Dr Hemant Singhal, Srinivas
Gattamneni and UK-based Julian Hall, in May 2012. It was conceptualised in August
the previous year, when all four were attending the Entrepreneurship Summer
School at the London Business School, their alma mater, till May 2011.
Their proposal was shortlisted as the top 30 ventures worth nurturing, so the four
decided to take the idea a step further by researching the Indian market as their
launch pad. In November 2011, the quartet pooled together a seed capital of Rs 85
lakh, drawn from their personal savings, and registered the company as Helping Doc
Private Limited.

Here's how the website works: search for a doctor based on a criterion such as
health problem. The portal displays a list of doctors and their location on map. You
can narrow down the list on the basis of experience, consultation fee, distance and
availability. Once you zero in on a doctor and convenient time, you can make an
appointment and get a confirmation free of charge. The team has already
collaborated with 800 doctors, the website is getting 1,500 hits daily, and the 20-
employee firm is confident of a turnover of Rs 70 lakh.

Zao Foods: Serving health food, earning profit

Samosas, kachoris, choley-bhaturey/ kulchey... No matter how much we relish our
traditional unhealthy savouries, there is the nagging need to eat nutritious food. To
cater to this growing awareness of eating healthy is MitaliKalra's year-old
Mediterranean cafe, Crostini, tucked away in a corner of the HauzKhas Village in
south Delhi.

The idea of starting her own cafe took root in 2010. After completing her MBA in
finance from INSEAD in France, in 2008, she spent a year working in Dubai and
Singapore, handling private equity investments in oil and gas, and shipping. About a
year on, her craving for healthy fare spawned a business idea: a chain of health food
cafes in India. So, in December 2011, she left her cushy investment banking job,
pumped in Rs 14 lakh from her personal savings, and registered her company name
as Zao Foods Private Limited.

A year into operations, her turnover is Rs 25-30 lakh. Till date, she has invested Rs
30 lakh, but expects to earn Rs 35-40 lakh by end of 2013.

Threesixtyone Degrees: Anirban Haldar and

Rajesh's Rs 60 lakh design company
When Anirban Haldar and Rajesh, teamed up to launch Threesixtyone Degrees in
2006, little did they know that they were heading for a bad recession. However, the
design company not only survived the downturn, but has emerged stronger—the
company's revenue for 2013-14 is Rs 60 lakh.

The duo, graduates from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (Anirban from
Kolkata, Rajesh from Delhi) wanted to be entrepreneurs despite their non-business
backgrounds, but since they wanted work experience, both started their careers as
assistants to reputed designers.

Before long, their paths crossed at Pantaloons—Rajesh had been working in the
men's wear department of the lifestyle retail behemoth since 2001, and Haldar joined
its ethnic design team in early 2004. Armed with Rs 5 lakh from their savings, and
backed by eight embroiderers and designers, the two set up shop at Oshiwara,
Mumbai. However, they continued with their day jobs.

By the end of 2007, the duo had managed to pull off a dream launch for their brand
'Ra'. They unveiled their collection at the Lakme India Fashion Week and it was
warmly received by the design fraternity and the press. Then came the recession
and the brand was in trouble. That's when the duo decided to focus on their other
vertical, which had been set up along with the fashion line.

8 Start-up ideas for Indian

entrepreneurs
http://ourownstartup.com/8-start-up-ideas-for-indian-entrepreneurs/
http://notes.fundersandfounders.com/

START-UPS
https://www.slideshare.net/damienbrz/startup-for-dummies