Don't stop when you can't afford. Start Renting... An innovative business model whose time has come ,
The idea by Saurabh Jambure and Ravi Tanna from WeSchool's Business Design program takes market by storm
In hindsight every big idea seems very natural and obvious. The idea of Rent Pitara is no exception. It works on the principle,"the customer pays only for the time one wants to use the product/service." We as college students missed out on doing a number of things due to financial constraints and felt the need to find solutions to satisfy our needs to enjoy some basic goodies and luxuries. So way back in our engineering days, Saurabh put a motely team together consisting of batch mates with an entrepreneurial DNA and with the help of National Entrepreneurship Network & E-Cell, IIT-Bombay,all of us put our heads together to brainstorm about innovative business ideas. And we came up with the idea of renting household goods such as fridge, TV, washing machine for temporary use, which then the team discussed and modified to what would become Rent Pitara, our product for business idea competition at IIT Kanpur that went on to win the First prize.
The ideas is pretty simple still unique. Rent Pitara is a technology solution to organize the unorganized product rental market. It aims to fulfill people's rental needs by creating a trustworthy online platform for product renting/sharing and get product delivered at their doorstep in simple & secure way! This would enable individuals from every class of society to have an easy access to the products required for a short span of time, without being the actual owners.Our target customers are people who believe in getting temporary access to products/services to fulfill the purpose. These people primarily fall in the categories of the working professionals in early stage of their career, graduate & above level students.
The idea got converted into a brisk business after a pilot run.As we ran the business we started learning from the mistakes and growing as a Start-Up. But we also realized that we were a little early to enter the market with this idea and that meant either spending too much money or die. We choose to do the third, went on a stealth mode until the right time but we did not allow the flame of business idea to die, rather we kept it burning strong.
We restarted the operations about eight months ago,with Saurabh and Ravi working from WeSchool's hostel which eventually became Rent Pitara Mumbai office.
Since then we have been achieving milestones after milestones. From mere 150 inquiries per month to more than 150 completed orders per month. We have grown at 20% month over month and have touched a GMV of 2L last month. We have built management software and put other feed backs mechanisms in place to make our vendor's process easy and more efficient.
We've been pitching in various competitions, winning at a few colleges such as FMS-Delhi, Twice at IIT-Delhi, Thadomal Shahani College Of Engineering, Mumbai, generating leads, reaching out to investors, sometimes got offered investment deals, sometimes did not even get a green signal for a second meeting and at times were kept waiting for weeks to get a 10 minute call through . The journey has been like a roller coaster ride but we are encouraged more and more to be in this journey because this is resulting in giving happiness to people whom we are helping to save money and fulfill their desires as well.
This journey wasn't an easy one but for the mentors that we had with us. Prof. Dr. Kaustubh Dhargalkar, Head-In no We and Prof.Dr.Pradeep Pendse, Dean-IT/Business Design/Innovation ,WeSchool were our guiding force.While engineering education gave us a strong tech-edge , the focus on creativity, innovation and leadership at WeSchool boosted our entrepreneurial spirit.The words of our Group Director, Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe, "In the journey of innovation, failures are bound to be there but celebrate failures as learning from failures in infinite. Transform self, and become instruments of change in the organization and society," continued to inspire and motivate us through thick and thin. A special vote of thanks goes to him as he was always there to support us even at a very short notice in spite of his busy schedule.
Our aim is to make people's life luxurious irrespective of the size of their pockets. With the customers' mentality moving towards 'having temporary access' of products, now is the perfect time for organized renting & sharing of products. We are ready for the challenge and are not going to rest until everyone this world gets get the ability to live according to their wishes and not their income. Rent Pitara is here to stay...look out for our services on www.rentpitara.com
Contributed by Saurabh Jambure and Ravi Tanna PGDM-BD (2014-16)