Started an accommodation search site www.zoronto.com roughly a year ago straight out of college all alone without any money and prior business experience.
I stayed for 6 years in Kolkata in Paying Guest and rented apartments.
The painful and horrible experience of me and my friends lead me to think about such a solution. I was excited and realized that there was a huge need for this kind of service and I could earn revenue also as the host was already paying the brokers / agents and also spending on advertisements.
I want to provide frequently updated, relevant and trustworthy information along with all the details and ratings, comments and recommendations of the available accommodations to the guest and charge nothing at all to the guest and make it dead simple to access the information by integrating multiple access points.
It would be listing Paying Guest, Guest Houses and Agents / Brokers for rented residential properties. Also would provide roommate finder service. Have a detailed plan of action for it.
Revenue will stream from the host on a monthly basis as a subscription fee for the time being and I have other revenue streams that will be implemented in future as we scale.
The present site is simple and needs a lot of modifications.
I started the site with no money at all and after 4 – 5 months I earned enough to sustain myself on the revenue generated from the business.
I have a very small team and the work pressure is increasing tremendously with very little increase in revenue.
We two guys have to handle sales, meeting with the host guys for background checking and cash collection, advertising, customer support and IT too.
The fact that we are dependent on the revenue for our sustenance makes it very difficult to grow and manage business process in a consistence manner. If we get less revenue in a month then we face problems advertising and thus bear loss in the next month.
I do believe that given the right time and investment this project can be scaled and implemented in a better way. I do have plans for it that are based on my experience, findings and interactions with the host and guest for the last one year.
I have taken a risk and moved to Bangalore hoping to take it further.
Would like to know from you guys:
1. Your views on the idea and will it really work.
2. Any idea of the market size.
3. If a PG is not registered with the municipality/ corporation and they list on our site then will any legal issues be taken on us i.e. do we need to ensure that all PG’s are registered with the government.
4. Is there any hope of seed investing from angels / VC’s. This project requires good amount of money.
For any query / help / advice feel free to mail me at abhisheek@zoronto.com
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Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Abhisheek – I had given you some homework to do on this. Did u do it? what were the findings?
Abhishek Patra
Sir, mailed you regarding the status … did you receive it ?
abhinav madan
Dear Abhishek,
Read your post and went through website. I liked the concept very much and if worked upon, I can see you growing with this. Just wanted to share few things from my side.
As a user I would like the following things (in sight) on your landing (home) page without scrolling down.
As a user I don’t have any interest in the following things on your landing (home) page. These can be adjusted in the footer of the site.
Confusions:
How to grow?
Growing is proportional to the amount of data you have on your website. It directly gives user more options to search from.
Target more cities. Cities with colleges, IT sector, service industry, BPO etc where you feel a lot of people migrate from small towns should be your first target.
Collect data from PG and guest houses for free. Give them free listing. Start charging once they get a lead from you, or after a limited amount of time, say 6 months or one year.
Hire college students for summer internship to collect data.
Distribute add banners/pamphlets when college opens.
Bugs:
Running out of time. Would add more shortly. Do let me know your thoughts on this.
In the end
Let me Introduce you to myself. I am working as a Lead software tester at a Leading KPO in Gurgaon.
Puneet Nirogam Aggarwal
Abhishek, Would this site be similar to airbnb.com, wimdu.com, travelcorsa.com, myguesthouse.com etc, or would it offer more value over others ?
Regards, Puneet
Abhishek Patra
Thanks for appreciating my idea.
The suggestions are of great value and i am taking these on high priority ..
the only problem is that i am all alone on this , so scaling up and adding features is getting really difficult … Even if i had one good tech guy helping me with the technology part would be immensely useful. But as it’s a non-paying job and only for equity developers are not quite interested.
I have thought of making it much more user friendly and simple with perfect information.
I am looking to launch in Bangalore within a month or so.
Would love to connect with you for further discussions.. my email id is abhisheek@zoronto.com ..
Abhishek Patra
Thanks for going through the long post.
As of now it won’t be a booking site. It would be much more simpler, data intensive and easily accessible listing site.
It will be dead simple to access information for both host and guest and provide a trusted and genuine platform.
There are some features i want to roll out which will really make a difference for sure.
Sridhar V
I like your idea and the intention of solving a real problem or need. However, there is one issue – i.e. there are several property sites or portals which offer the service free of cost….both owners and tenants can connect free of cost. So the issue is ‘Why would someone pay for your site?’ Ofcourse I understand that you are different in terms of providing customized searches or options to tenants (by college or by locality).
I feel that you can focus on other segments such as service apartments, lodging, etc, where you can charge a nominal fee for these commercial organizations to list their ads.
Although I like your initiative and idea, I still feel this space is too crowded and saturated already. Unless you are sure about offering something different or have a solid revenue model, I’m not sure if the demand will be good enough to sustain. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I saw your comment below and like your idea of launching in Bangalore. However, I’m still not sure about the revenue model part, though I like your idea and your capabilities. If 99acres, magicbricks, indiaproperty, free ads, local paper, etc offer free ads to both owners and tenants, why would they pay and list on your website (even if payment is based on successful lead). Generally the Indian mindset is to get most things free or cheap, and many like to avoid broker or middleman…so you can think about these challenges.
I dont want to sound pessimistic, but I feel if you get the revenue side of the equation right, then your business will pick up and gather positive momentum.
Shobhit Bakliwal
If you want to target students, launch in Rajasthan. Places like Kota and Jaipur attract around 2-3 lacs of students from all over the country to study for competitive exams and later on for colleges.
Abhishek Patra
Hi Sridhar V,
Thanks for the reply. Yes there are a lots of classified stuff and some property sites also. If you visit property site then you will hardly find good number of pg’s in them. They mostly cater to apartments for sale / rent / buy.
In classified sites the quality of information is not good. They don’t specifically cater to the pg segment and thus miss out collecting the relevant data from the host. You can post an ad in quikr saying you have a PG in Bangalore too. Classifieds are more of a spam.
The biggest problem is that if you take 10 contacts of PG owners from a classified site then 6 will be of no use. This is a problem for both guest and host. The host definitely doesn’t want to get useless calls and the guest is wasting their time on calling the wrong contacts.
The host will pay me if they see that they are getting guest from my site. So, i need to make the information clean, updated and relevant to the guest. Once the guest gets easy access to right kind of information with ratings, comments from other guest and recommendations of the PG then they will use our site and thus the host will pay us because they are already investing in other sources.
Sites like sulekha charge anything between Rs.600 – 1500 to each host(there around a 1000 pg owners from bangalore only listing their place) and there is no free subscription. And other property sites also offer free for only one month and they they charge money.
The PG owners are paying the broker around Rs.300 – 1000 per client that the broker brings in.
I am grateful to you for your feedback. Hope it does answer your queries.
Regards,
Abhishek Patra
Sridhar V
Hi Abhishek,
I request you to check property portals such as 99acres, magic bricks, etc. They too have PG section. I’m not sure about OLX, Quikr, etc but some sites like Sulekha are also in to this. Further, the Classifieds/Freeads that I was referring to are Free Ads, City Mag, etc…who offer free advertisement with no frills and you can advertise continuously free of cost. These papers are more popular among people who are not net savy or dont have the time to check online postings. I’ve personally used Freeads to find accommodation in Bangalore so its equally useful.
Yes I agree some ads are not relevant, but you get enough number of good ads and your job is done in a few days. So thats not an issue. Probably in some cities like Kolkata or North Eastern parts there no free classifieds or online options, where your model may work. (This is my guess….I havent been there so I cant say for sure)
You mentioned that other property sites offer free listing for one month. In my experience in this one month there are plenty of inquiries and the deal gets done in max 2-3 weeks. If this doesn’t work owners also list in other places and get it done. Quality PG owners are very smart and shrewd enough to get their job done by using classifieds, local ads, references, etc.
In a city like Bangalore I dont think PG owners have a problem in finding tenants, and even if some have issues the numbers are less. So the potential market or revenue from this small number is not enough, thats why you are not seeing steady flow of revenues. Moreover, its a one-off activity…..someone lists their property for a fee and get their job done and its over. Getting a steady stream of revenue is a challenge.
I’m sure any investor would comment on the same points above as I did. If this business was not so crowded I would consider, but I frankly feel its a space which has already matured leaving very less potential for new entrants unless you are giving free services and relying on advertising revenue. So think about it.
Abhishek Patra
Hi Sridhar,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, the property sites have PG sections and they charge after a month. I have personally seen it before i jumped into this business.
And papers like “Free Ads” are not free to advertise – please call their customer care and try placing an ad of PG for free. Yes many people like to go to a stall, buy a paper, open the advertisement page and go through each and every detail to find some relevant info. But many like to save time and want better access and cleaner information.
Any pg that has around 30 seats will have atleast 2 – 3 seats vacant every month. I am staying at a PG in Bangalore,its very good at a small price. It has place for 30 and has 6 seats vacant each and every month.
There was a good civilization before we were born. Newton and other great scientist did their research and calculation without the help of computers. So, definitely computers were not necessary. Normal householders didn’t need computers but apple built and sold them.
I am not seeing steady flow of revenues because it’s not possible to handle so many things. We need more people and need atleast some money to survive for a year.
People love simple things and we are making it simpler. Content is the king and we are trying to be good in that.
According to the your logic – the sites such as zomato.com , naukri.com, justdial.com are not necessary at all. Before there came in people used to go to restro, look and join companies and we used to find addresses.
And not a single investor has raised the above points. The main thing is that they are really want to know the market size, see me reach some position in terms of team and revenue.
Sorry if i sounded bad but we must really see how many businesses are solving a really great pain point. We can provide simpler and better solutions to the already existing solutions. There are solutions to everything. I am sure people used to share and grow even when there was no facebook.
Hope it helps. Any more issues then please revert back.
Sridhar V
Hi Abhisheek,
I’m not against your business model or concept, but only felt it can be improvised. You didnt sound bad or harsh…and we just had different points of view which is okay. Please dont misunderstand – I definitely like your concept and respect your ideas, though I may not be 100% in agreement.
I understand you are providing a solution that people really need. Frankly, I dont mind keeping my views aside and understanding what you do because you have actually been in the business and know it better than me.
If time permits probably we can meet offline. You can reach me at sridharcw@gmail.com. In case you are in Bangalore we can meet up sometime. I’m based on Koramangala. I’m not sure if I can be of help but lets meet up at a convenient time.
Abhishek Patra
Thanks for the wonderful advice.
It will be surely of great help to us.
We will try to reach to these cities asap.
Jayanth Sugavasi
@Abhishek patra : Zoronto is funded company or self ?
Abhishek Patra
self funded as of now
Abhishek Srivastava
1. I would agree with Abhinav. You need to target more cities. Having a mechanism where users can simply add their own cities and sub-localties(or at least suggest them, if you want to have more control), would help a lot.
2. Regards Market size. This will frankly be hard to compute but what you can do instead is get the figures for the city growths and make projections based on same. Reduce this figure to the % of people that may actually be using internet in India(1 out of 10 as per latest surveys). That is your potential overall market size. This is a very very broad market size. Some of these may actually just be kids for example, and might not count. But at least you have a gross figure in hand. New people in the city means they will need accommodations.
3. For any business venture you need some resources. If you are lacking in terms of skilled people(or cash to hire them), you may have to learn the required programming skills yourself.
4. Your site needs content. Chicken and egg problem. There is no rule saying late-comers to the party cannot succeed(they have to work harder albeit, as per Al Ries and Jack Trout). I tried posting a test advt though. Apparently I had to go through a registration process first. I might be interested if you were an established site with huge userbase, but I might just not bother. You need to let them create their posting first and *then* have them register at the end, when they are already invested. This approach works for Craigslist, but I would deem it your call.
5. Your business model needs work. You do not have much of a user base or market presence, so why on earth would someone want to use your site? And if no one is interested, you will not have any content, and since you have no content, you will not have a user base. You need to let folks use your site for free for several months, generate some content and then leverage that by offering premium placement in searches. Paid advts so as to speak. Works for Google (and Sulekha).
6. Promote! The beauty of internet is that it is actually possible to promote your site just by yourself. Go and search in college forums etc. for people looking for accommodation in Calcutta for example. Join the conversation and put in the link and suggest that the they can go and make a posting. Go and collect content from Real estate folks and brokers. Hell, folks simply go and copy from newspaper classifieds if they are lacking in content. I mean who is going to complain?(and you can always remove/expire the content if someone does). I started an online community via word of mouth and using social networking sites and ended up with 6000 actual users, who were all pretty active in the community. 6000 users is a lot if you consider that the community was moderated and all of them matched a specific criterion. Worst case, buy off a database of real estate agents etc. and mail them regards using your website. Considering the amount of reality spam I get, I would find personal satisfaction in recommending this approach 😀
6. You have to make it super easy for users to add content, yet provide them with full flexibility by providing useful features. For example, for rented accommodations, I will be interested in the amenities I am getting(24 hours water, power backup, elevator, parking space) so you need to provide checkbox options so it is easier for me to specify these quickly. You may need to have options in terms of positive USPs that can be selected(Dogs ok!, Non-veg ok!) … any negatives, the poster can specify by typing in anyways…. or he/she can just leave those unspecified. I recommend adding these in, so that I as an accommodation seeker, can get options.
Best of luck!