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New ideas with better implementation! That is all, a startup needs. No matter how ridiculous or crazy it may sound, the startup might work as a shielddrain grenade when it comes to exploring the particular segment it belongs to. Divya Aggrawal, an Engineer and an IIM Alumina, worked in semiconductor zone for a decade before an idea of “Laundrywala” evoked her mind and changed her life.[/box]
“The idea of laundrywala is not to compete with other existing service providers, but to bring the service to the common man with ease of access,” says Divya. In short, her company has its legs firmly planted on the ground.
The Beginning
“Working for a big company, I had not been doing much to satisfy my career ambitions. This is when I discussed the idea of laundry on wheel with my cousin Chetan, one of the co-founders. The fruit of entrepreneur-spirit and passion to do it on my own led to LaundryWala about nine months back. From nurturing the concept to bringing LaundryWala to its current firm footing, we have come a long way — from technology experts to ambitious leaders.
To me, the venturous and learning experience associated with journey of LaundryWala superseded every risk involved and I have succeeded in making LaundryWala a brand across the households in Noida.
Why Laundry?
“According to a KPMG report, Laundry and Dry Cleaning services market is projected to be `200,000cr. The market is highly unorganized. We have narrowed down our focus on a very niche `9,000cr market in top five cities of India for the first two years. In the first leg of our strategy, we aim to establish a strong hold over NCR by the end of 2015 and in the second leg, expand to Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad by the end of 2016. To achieve this, we are pivoting our model to be a hybrid structure – a combination of marketplace and owned model where our units will serve as strategic investments and marketplace will help us expand at a rapid pace.
Challenges
“We have always looked at our journey in two phases. First is figuring out the right operating model and then raising funds to scale it up. So far, we have been in the first phase where we bootstrapped our way along with a small seed-stage investment. The focus was to uncover the customer pain points and establish a service model that solves them. As we enter the investment phase, the emerging challenges we face relate to demonstrating the scalability of the model and build a differentiated business. We have seen some success in early days with a few investors sharing our vision.
