Delhivery, which received the Startup of the Year Award, was applauded for covering remote parts of the country, comprising more than 17,000 pin codes and creating an impact by being a full-fledged logistics platform.
The startup won votes for transforming from a last-minute delivery services to complete logistics and supply chain services firm.
On behalf of the over 50,000 people who are part of the extended Delhivery team, we are very grateful to the jury and The Economic Times for selecting us as the Startup of the Year. It is a tremendous honour to be recognised by a jury of one’s betters,” said Sahil Barua, its chief executive.
Delhivery started as a food delivery startup, delivering food to its customers. Most of these customers were ecommerce entrepreneurs. Impressed by the quick service, they asked if it could deliver their company products too. The company looked at this as an opportunity and tapped the potential market. But slowly, they started facing saturation.
This is when Delhivery started to expand. It covered all pieces of the supply chain.
The firm branched out into cross-border, business-to-business logistics and integrated distribution solutions to enterprises.
“We believe that the next global integrator must emerge out of India, and for India to reach its aspiration of becoming a $5 trillion economy a sea change in logistics is inevitable. We will continue to invest in building our logistics infrastructure and technology platforms and growing our team as we have done since 2011.” Barua said.
Today, Delhivery undertakes more than five lakh parcels a day and is valued at over $1.5 billion. It got its funding from SoftBank Vision fund in February. This got the company to enter into the unicorn league.
7 startups have already reached unicorn valuation this year in India.
There are 33 soonicorns in India which include Pine Labs, Paytm money and Zerodha.
Icertis is the latest unicorn in India with $115 Mn funding.
2018 was an exceptional year for startups in India. They saw the creation of 10 unicorns. It’s the first time the ecosystem saw the double-digit mark in a calendar year.
It is a proud moment for the country as it beat the previous best year (2014) which had 4 unicorns.
Things have been going great for the last two months, with three unicorns being announced in the Indian market.
2019 seems to be on a good track. Since the beginning of 2019, seven startups have reached unicorn status already. But, not all of these were expected.
The three surprise entry unicorn startups include Druva, Ola Electric, and Icertis.
The entry of these 3 companies have surprised everyone in some way. Especially, with their rise coming before some of the established startups like Zerodha, BigBasket, Paytm Money and others.
Let us understand what these unicorn startups do and take a look at their journey.
1. ICERTIS:
Icertis was founded in 2009 by Monish Darda and Samir Bodas.
It is a Seattle and Pune based contract management software maker.
It helps its clients improve management processes, increase their compliance metrics and overall productivity.
Icertis became a unicorn this month when it raised $115 Mn funded by US based venture capital firm Greycroft and PremjiInvest.
Google, Microsoft, Airbus, Johnson and Johnson, Infosys and Wipro are some of Icertis’s big clients. It also has five out of the top seven players in the pharmaceuticals as its clients.
Icertis looks forward to continue its three-digit growth rate for revenue in the near future.
2. DRUVA:
It was founded in 2008 by Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, and Ramani Kothandarman.
Druva is a Pune based company.
The services Druva offers are information management software solutions and cloud data protection.
While Druva’s entry to the unicorn club has been a surprise, It was chosen as one of the soonicorns.
NASA, Pfizer, Hotel chain Mariott are some of Druva’s big clients.
3. Ola Electric:
Its parent company is OLA.
It was incorporated this march
Its investors include Ratan Tata, Tiger Global, and Matrix partners.
Ola Electric is presently running pilots involving two, three and four wheelers. It is also working on battery swapping stations and charging solutions.
Since this market is still new in India, Ola Electric has a great potential in making it big in this market. India’s EV market was valued at $71.1 Mn in 2017 and is projected to reach $707.4 Mn by 2025.
Ideas are the lifeblood of a business. Most successful startups always become big because of a good idea and not because of surplus funds.
1
Value Proposition
2
Customer Segmentation
3
Distribution Channel
4
Relation with Customers
5
Cost Structure
6
Key Activities
7
Important Resources
8
Your Partners
9
Revenue Streams
10
Scalability and Potential for Automation
Table of Content
1. Value Proposition:
A value proposition is a promise of a value a company guarantees to deliver to its customers. It is basically a product, service or feature that makes the company attractive to the customers and investors. It summarizes why a customer should buy your product or use your services. A value proposition should be directly communicated to the customers via the company’s web site or other advertising mediums.
2. Customer Segmentation:
Customer segmentation is dividing the customers into different segments like age, gender, geography, interests and salary.
Customer segmentation can help you:
Develop effective strategies.
Provide better customer experience.
Better Ad targeting.
3. Distribution channel:
Distribution channel is the path through which goods and services travel from the vendor to the consumer level.
The distribution channel should be minimal as far a possible because it helps in getting the goods faster and at a lesser cost as there will not be many middlemen involved.
This will help in increasing the company’s profits and customer satisfaction.
4. Relation with Customers:
Cash is king but the customer is God. A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. Building good relationships with your customers is very important as it helps in understanding your customers’ needs.
Providing what your customer needs will increase the profits of your business. This will help you gain more returning customers, referrals and more profit in the process.
5. Cost Structure:
Cost structure is the fixed costs and variable costs that are required to operate your business.
To maximize profits, businesses should find every possible way to minimize costs. While some fixed costs are vital for keeping the business running, a financial analyst should always review the financial statements to identify expenses that do not provide any additional value to the core business activities.
6. Key Activities:
Key activities are basically the activities that a company must perform to succeed.
For example, if your business focuses on the production of a product, you should focus more about the customer needs and produce accordingly to satisfy the customer needs. This will also help in increasing the net income of your business.
7. Important Resources:
Key resources are basically describing the important assets of a company. They are required to make a business work. Every company needs them and it is only through them that companies generate income and value proposition. Key resources can be financial, human, physical or intellectual.
8. Your partners:
Team work makes the dream work. It’s not all about the money that a partner brings in. Potential partners must be trust worthy. Good friends who share common values and responsibilities make good partners.
Look out for partners who have the abilities that you don’t have. This will help in making better decisions as the knowledge base is more diverse. Remember that the beautiful rainbow is made out of different colors and same colors.
9. Revenue Streams:
A revenue stream is basically the income of a business. Your net revenue is calculated as the gross revenue minus discounts or returns you had during that year.
In business, a revenue stream is generally made up of either recurring revenue, transactional based revenue, project revenue, or service revenue.
10. Scalability and Potential for Automation:
It is important to keep up with the times and work towards what is best for the business. Automation helps in higher production at lower costs, more efficiency, better quality, more safety, and it helps in reducing the unnecessary expenditure of the business.
