Visakhapatnam :
Necessity is the mother of invention may be cliched statement, but it was necessity that prompted Vizagite Nilesh Korada to set up an online marketplace to cater to home-based services in the Port City.
Incubated at the Sunrise Startups in January this year, Nilesh Korada along with seven other Vizagites, started QuickPebbles, an online marketplace providing high quality electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and computer repair services that can be booked via phone call, website or their Android app.
As of now, QuickPebbles is offering its services in more than 20 areas across the city and has around 400 skilled workforce are offering their services.
“The idea to begin a startup came up actually because I was facing a problem in finding an electrician in my neighbourhood. It is a common problem that people across the city face. Even if you manage to find someone, the service is at times quite questionable. That is when I thought of a startup that can provide skilled workers across different areas of the city,” said QuickPebbles founder Nilesh Korada.
“The idea came up last year and subsequently I met other people at Sunrise Startups with a similar concept. It’s then that we decided to go ahead with this service,” he added.
Explaining the business model, he said, “We focus on quality and providing a swift service to our customers. The startup runs on a commission basis in which we take a little cut for managing the operations.”
Pointing out that the startup had invested around Rs 2 lakh till now, he said, “Once we start delivering around 300 services per month in the city, we will start actively looking for investors for a funding of around Rs 10-15 lakh for our expansion. This will mainly be for marketing and turning the service into a more professionalized set-up. We also want to tap the market potential in other cities as well – especially other tier-2 cities.”
To ensure that the skilled workforce on their lists offers quality services, operations manager Peela Raju said, “One member of our team accompanies the technician to the residence of the customer to oversee the work being done and also to get feedback from the customer on how to improve our services.”
With the development of the website as well as consolidating the database of the skilled workforce taking nearly six months, QuickPebbles launched its service on June 1 this year. “In a span of 20 days, we have done around 50-odd service calls, mainly in areas such as Seethammadhara and MVP Colony. We haven’t done much of a marketing campaign as yet and are getting calls based on word of mouth publicity” he added.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Visakhapatnam / by Manish, TNN / June 24th, 2015