In the 20th century, science fiction writer H. G. Wells envisioned that machines would create machines in the near future. In a somewhat similar vein, some Indian home service aggregating start-up entrepreneurs are now promoting their service partners to help these professionals evolve into ‘baby entrepreneurs’ in their own right.
Who knows this better than Mahendra Shedge, 32, a Mumbai-based carpenter? Until he joined hands with Timesaverz about two-and-a-half-years ago, he was earning just under Rs 8,000 per month. “Now my monthly income is about Rs 1 lakh,” he told
Shedge has not stopped there, however. He has turned ‘entrepreneur’ with his own staff of skilled workers. “I have an 11-member team in Mumbai and a four-member group in Pune. I pay the furniture assemblers Rs 12,000 and the carpenters Rs 15,000 per month,” said Shedge, who learnt the skills at his family profession.
Another carpenter, Abdul Khalid, who migrated 10 years ago from Basti (Uttar Pradesh) to Mumbai couldn’t agree more. He was earning around Rs 500 per day before tying up with EASYfix.com early this year. “Now I take home about Rs 1,000 per day and am planning to call my brother from Basti to join me.” He has had no formal training as a carpenter and learnt the skill on the job.
Arpit Gulati, a photographer, has also seen his monthly income double to Rs 60,000-70,000 in the last one year after joining UrbanClap. “I now have a six-member team myself, whom I pay salaries.”
In an expansion mode, some e-commerce companies providing varied services are driving social inclusion and upliftment of these budding entrepreneurs by virtually handholding and aggregating them. These ‘service partners’ not only include home maintainers such as carpenters, plumbers, and electricians, but also photographers, yoga instructors, and others. The e-commerce firms provide them a platform to enhance their skills, training and income, and turn into entrepreneurs themselves.
Pooja Singh, a matriculate female salon therapist, who worked at a salon earning Rs 20,000 per month, got a capital line from UrbanClap which also trained her, branded her work and helped her launch her own business with cosmetics and equipment, also sending customers. Now she makes around Rs 70,000 per month, and has her own assistants.
Similarly, Shashank Gupta, a yoga graduate instructor from Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Institute, was earning Rs 12,000 per month in Delhi before joining UrbanClap. Now he makes Rs 50,000 per month from his tie-up with UrbanClap alone and also has his own clientele.
Debadutta Upadhyaya, Co-Founder of TimeSaverz, says her start-up now boasts of nearly 1,500 service partners across seven cities. It plans to expand this model across all the metros by March 2016. “We don’t have them on our payrolls as we function on the marketplace model. They do individual work also. One of them now has his own team in Pune and is himself an entrepreneur.”
For its aggregating service, TimeSaverz gets 20 per cent as ‘commission’, while the service partner shares 80 per cent of the proceeds. TimeSaverz, she said, is basically an enabler, rather than just being a facilitator, and also takes the onus of the job done. “We provide the service partners with uniforms, apps, phones, vouchers and help them earn through volumes of work. Now, we also plan to provide them insurance cover.”
Shaifali Agarwal Holani, CEO and Founder, EasyFix, a maintenance and repair service firm, said about 65 per cent of her firm’s 2,500 service partners are ITI-trained workers. The company selects skilled workers, trains and enables them; it also goes to ITIs for campus selection. Their association with EasyFix has enhanced their income by up to 80 per cent in most cases, and they also continue to freelance as individual entrepreneurs for additional income.
Her company shares the revenues in a ratio of 20:80 in a partnership fee-based business model. “If required, we also provide them advance payments and some funding.” EasyFix itself got venture funding in September 2015 and is now set to expand from 10 cities at present to 15 by March 2016, mainly in tier-II and III cities.
The backing and trust of investors, including S.D. Shibulal, has encouraged her to consider launching EasyFix in five more countries beyond India.
Varun Khaitan, Co-Founder, UrbanClap, said almost 9,000 out of 10,000 service partners, across 65 categories, with his firm are also independent entrepreneurs in their own right. “We are empowering them in a way to enable them get customers through us so that they can focus on their own profession for betterment of skills.”
UrbanClap is currently active in four cities — Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi-NCR — and plans to add Hyderabad and Pune to its map by December 2015.