Startup at Majuli opens door to Digital Nomads

21SepSeptember 23, 2019 By startupassam

Imagine a workspace somewhere on a river island! You working on the laptop while basking in the sub-tropical winter sun on a carpet of soft grass, against the faint flapping sound of waves hitting the bank! With the concept of digital nomads taking a grip of the millennials across the globe, Dipmoina Dowarah made a smart move to establish Okegiga Homes on the world’s largest river island, Majuli, particularly targeting this new age group of world travellers.

A wanderlust himself, Dipmoina gave up his well-settled corporate career to build a resort at Majuli in order to cater to the globe trotters, backpackers, wanderers, and digital nomads.

“I have been the crazy guy in the family. When I decided to quit my job to fuel my passion and do a startup, they thought I was putting an axe on my own foot,” says the founder.

Derived from an African word, meaning ‘mountain’, Okegiga Homes was founded by Dipmoina Dowarah and Madhumita Devi on 26 November 2017. The idea of this one-of-a-kind resort had hit him while travelling to Majuli during one of his backpack expeditions. While camping there, Dipmoina fathomed a huge potential for setting up a permanent campsite there. Initially, he had booked a piece of land and set up 11 local-style camping tents fixed on bamboo platforms with hay root ceiling. Encouraged by the demand for a place that can meet the needs of the backpackers and digital nomads at Majuli, Dipmoina Dowarah purchased a new land by the Lohit river and established the resort.

Okegiga Homes is spread across a lush area of 5 Bighas with the river on one side and wood on the other. The accommodation facilities consist of the traditional Bamboo Cottage, Swiss Tents and Camping Tents fixed on bamboo platforms. Apart from budget-friendly accommodation for indefinite stay durations, the resort also offers ample of space for car and caravan parking and self-cooking facilities. Like Dipmoina says, “A lot of these globe trotters prefer putting up in their own caravan and cook their own food. We make the necessary arrangements for the same.”

Not just accommodation, the resort also meets the experiential needs of the guests to see around the island and get a first-hand experience of the tribal lifestyle. Besides, in the wake of a demand, Dipmoina connects the guests with suitable parties conducting adventure activities across Northeast India. The idea is to offer at-home services fused with pleasurable holiday experiences at affordable prices to fit the bill for backpackers and working nomads.

It’s rather surprising that the challenges threatening the startup in the initial days were less financial in nature and more social. Coming from Moran in the Dibrugarh district of Assam, Dipmoina was faced with the arduous task of winning people’s trust at Majuli. He was looked upon with paranoia during the initial days, whereas, setting up a business there made it pivotal to build local support. Unbridled by resistance, the startup founder persisted patiently until the friction subsided.

“Sometimes, it’s better not to respond. I believe no problem can persist for a long time. Rather than trying to convince people with dialogues, I kept doing my work. And today, I am very much a part of the locality,” the founder elucidates. Perhaps, that’s a quintessential startup attitude to persist through the daunting times of inception and create a fertile ground for business through smart work.

The startup has had 2 operational seasons so far, drawing domestic tourists as well as foreign travellers from the US, UK, Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Netherlands, Israel, Japan and Australia, among others.

From an impact perspective, Okegiga Homes has managed to create job opportunities for the local residents, making room for permanent and seasonal employment for both the educated and skilled workforce. The engagement of the daily wage earners is almost constant at the resort. Besides, the startup is making major impact in terms of drawing global attention to the cultural seat of Assam, Majuli, thus creating a conspicuous buzz about the rich Assamese heritage and culture among the foreign as well as domestic tourists. Dipmoina summarises the experience of the travellers in one sentence: Once at Majuli, one can never forget it.

Having said that, the challenges aren’t over yet. Ironically, Okegiga Homes’ biggest USP, the location, also poses as a major constraint. Majuli is a traveller’s paradise from autumn through the winters. Demand is at its peak from October to March, thus generating decent monthly revenue (figures held back on request) during the operational season. But given that flood is a serious issue on the river island, tourist footfall in the summers and the rainy seasons is almost next to nil. Naturally, Okegiga Homes is restricted to seasonal operations. Although Dipmoina utilizes the 6-month off-season to travel extensively doing market research and spending time on R&D, pursuing the trend threatens to kill his business. He admits the need to chalk out a 12-month model.

“Though I have managed to recover the cost of building this property with the 6-month model, I do understand the threat on sustenance if I do not convert it into a scalable model,” he admits.

A proud Assamese taking delight in hosting such one-of-a-kind resort on the world’s largest river island, Dipmoina’s ultimate vision is global expansion and to establish similar resorts in major island nations like Sri Lanka and Indonesia. But as of now, he is contemplating establishing similar resorts in summer destinations like Meghalaya, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand in order to convert into a 12-month model. And that would require the bootstrapping startup to raise funds.

Assam Startup – The Nest is currently engaged in helping the startup work on the business model to make it more scalable that would consequently make it more investment-ready.

By: Satarupa Mishra

6 Must-Watch Hollywood Movies for an Entrepreneur

19AugAugust 19, 2019 By startupassam

Given the trending narratives about startups and entrepreneurship, many are drawn to carve their own paths and take up entrepreneurship. Yet, when one takes to the field, he realizes that being an entrepreneur isn’t as rosy as it looked like from the other side of the hill. Often than not, he/she throws in the towel the moment they are confronted with hardships. The mantra is to take the plunge only after doing a homework on the ground realities of entrepreneurship.

It’s hard; it’s daunting. It will witness a number of impasse. But a successful entrepreneur has the strength, the passion, the grit, and the smartness to take on the challenges and overturn the impediments. One might say, it’s easier said than done. But it’s never impossible. Here’s a list of 6 Hollywood movies every entrepreneur must watch that can pose as real time lessons and motivate them to take the plunge in the right spirit.

Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999): The movie is based on the two giants of the Silicon Valley, Apple and Microsoft. Who doesn’t feel the goosebumps hearing the story of struggle and the exemplary success of the two globe-changing entrepreneurs? The movie measuredly depicts the competitive rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to dominate the computer industry. The way it follows the journey of the two giants through their struggles during the college days, to founding their respective companies, the hardships they face, and the consequent emergence of the two most influential corporate empires, without trying to camouflage their negative shades, makes it a superhero narrative that’s convincing and human at the same time.

Boiler Room (2000): Perhaps, one aspect that every entrepreneur faces, and yet, is least discussed about, is the ethics or moral responsibility in entrepreneurship. Is everything fair in business and profit-making? The movie digs into this less-talked-about dilemma of an entrepreneur about making a choice between money and morality, right and wrong. Though not one of those conventionally inspiring movies, it surely bounds a person to soul-search and make the realization that business is driven by greater motives than just minting money by any means.

Pursuit of Happyness (2006): Inspired from the true story of an entrepreneur, Chris Gardner, the movie depicts the inspirational journey of a business person from rags to riches. The movie is a tribute to the never-say-die spirit of entrepreneurship on the face of every hurdle, rejection and humiliation. The spirit of the movie can be wrapped up in that one scene where the protagonist tells his son:

“Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they’re gonna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

The Founder (2016): Talking of perseverance, here’s another movie that inspires one to stand up and deliver against every fall of failure. “The Founder” follows the struggle and extraordinary rise of Ray Crock, the sales guru who turned the fortune of the McDonald brothers. When the McDonald brothers struggled to expand their impressive “speedy system” for fast food kitchens beyond a single joint, Crock re-invented the business strategy for a franchise model and transformed the hitherto small eatery into the McDonald’s Corporation of the present time, thus revolutionizing the fast food industry in America. And while the audience takes away Crock’s sharp business acumen from the movie, one finds a special motivation from the fact that Ray Crock tasted mega success when he was in his 50s. Indeed, entrepreneurship can never be restricted by gender or age.

Flash of Genius (2008): The movie follows the struggle of Robert Kearns, the inventor of intermittent windshield for cars, against the auto manufacturing giants, who, he claimed, had stolen his idea sans his consent or giving him the due credit. The movie, at the very onset, gives out the strong disposition and passion of an innovator who is willing to create something that would help enhance lives, but not at the cost of letting away the credit. “Flash of Genius” is especially a reality check for those who bask in the euphoria of making a breakthrough innovation, but forget the most crucial part about guarding that innovation.

Office Space (1999): The most humorous of the 6 in the list, “Office Space” is a satirical take on the drudging, monotonous, and soul-sabotaging plight of the new-age cubicle dwellers. When the protagonist decides to give voice to his silent suffering behind that mundane office desk, he manages to strike a chord with those who had been passively contemplating on giving up that corporate job and inspires them to dare take the ‘step’ to trudge up the path of entrepreneurship.

Satarupa Mishra

North East Startup curates Trips with a Cause

14AugAugust 19, 2019 By startupassam

If the core value of entrepreneurship is creating leaders who can engineer a social impact right from the grassroots, startup from North East India, ChaloHoppo is trying to do just that.

Founded in 2016 by 4 young men – John Raphael, Nishant Sinha, Chetan Jalan, and Devraj Barooah – ChaloHoppo isn’t just another travel company trying to woo tourists to visit the traditional locations in North East India. It spots offbeat places in the North East and curates activities that are quintessentially local, which the tourists can experience only in this part of the country. Apart from conducting trekking expeditions and holding campsites, ChaloHoppo organizes unique activities that allow tourists to get a first-hand experience of the North Eastern lifestyle.

From arranging football match between tourists and Khasi boys in Meghalaya and organizing storytelling sessions with the locals around the evening bonfire, to involving visitors in hand-fishing in Ziro, mask-making in Majuli, and pitha-baking in Balipara, the startup is always bustling with novel ideas to offer authentic, out-of-the-box experience to the travellers so that they go back carrying a chunk of North East India in their hearts.

As John says, “Our vision is to bridge the gap between North East India and the world. Travelling is the best medium to achieve the same through the creation of authentic local experiences.”

*ChaloHoppo campsite at Jakhama Village, Nagaland*

The most crucial aspect of ChaloHoppo is it’s community involvement model. The startup ties-up with local partners at every level of execution. For example, the startup’s permanent campsite at Jakhama Village in Nagaland that acts as the basepoint for the Dzukou trek, is entirely managed and maintained by the local land owner, while ChaloHoppo takes care of the sales and marketing, with an equal profit-sharing between both the parties. The campsite that also hosts tourists attending the Hornbill Festival in December has a team of around 25 locals running it. “They are the real heroes while we are just there, assisting them if they need any help,” John says. The same applies to the campsite at Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh as well.

Not just the campsites, the local involvement is conspicuous in every activity that the startup undertakes. Every trekking expedition that ChaloHoppo leads is accompanied by a local representative, thus offering constant revenue earning opportunities to the latter. The startup works with a vision to bridge the gap between North East India and the rest of the world. And they have got on board the people of the region in realizing their vision. In the process, the startup has also been impactfully addressing the problem of unemployment in the region.

Barring the initial challenge of building trust among the people, ChaloHoppo has had a fairly smooth journey. The fact that they have been able to dissolve the most common inhibitions among people travelling to North East India by ensuring safety, hospitality, and relatively smoother journeys while providing quintessential local experience has helped ChaloHoppo stay ahead in the race. Perhaps, that’s the reason that the startup has been able to gain formidable traction in the 3 years of its operation sans raising a fund. With the founders having a strong base in Mumbai, they have been able to draw a good number of tourists from the city, besides Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi and Ahmedabad. The startup is also initiating B2B tie-ups with companies in Asia and Europe to spur the flow of foreign tourists in the region.

ChaloHoppo had earned a revenue of Rs. 2.4 crore in 2018 and strive to close it at Rs. 3.9 crore in 2019. Their landmark achievement has been to become, probably, the first company to start fixed departures to Mizoram. “We have identified small villages in Mizoram that can offer wholesome experience to the travellers,” John reveals.

Apart from curating trips and organizing local flavoured activities, ChaloHoppo also plans to aggregate homestays in the region. They have already identified a few homestays, whom they try to promote on a pan India scale and get bookings in exchange for a cost. As John quotes, “We are trying to get people to book those homestays against a cost deposited by the homestay owners. The owners get to earn revenue while we keep a fee for promoting and connecting them with the tourists. It’s a win-win situation for both of us.”

However, the startup is yet to go all out with the homestay project. “Converting homes into homestays is a lengthy process, requiring thorough training of the locals to ensure hygienic and sound stay for the tourists. It would also demand an infallible back end infrastructure, R&D, and a strong marketing team on our part. We intend to go about it assertively, which would require a hefty fund,” the founder explains.

In fact, fund has been one of the reasons for ChaloHoppo to have applied for incubation at Assam Startup – The Nest. The startup has had fruitful networking opportunities and interaction with the mentors at The Nest, which could help them realize their homestay project in the days ahead. The founders are upbeat about the emerging startup culture which the Assam Startup initiative is trying to build in the region. Like John says, “Getting a platform like this really helps to build an atmosphere where everyone is trying to help each other grow, which we had lacked earlier.”

By: Satarupa Mishra

10 free tools and resources for start-ups to up the marketing game

11JulJuly 11, 2019 By startupassam

‘A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned’. This Philosophy helps you to lean through your bootstrapping phase. But marketing efforts come at a price if you seek for a professional help. However, there are certain free tools and resources available that could curtail your marketing budget. Here’s a list of the best available free tools that will help in the better functioning of your start-up business.

Canva

Canva comes in loaded enough, easy-to-use features and functionality that anyone can use in order to create a variety of engaging content. Even if you are a non-designer, you can create awesome social media flyers, digital banners, print designs, and graphics.

Adobe Spark

According to a recent statistics, 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support. Tell your story by creating awesome video content online with the help of Adobe Spark. Add video clips, images, text, or icons to the slides and let Spark Video’s cinematic themes bring it to life.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp helps you create and send emails, initiate automations, manage contacts, and stay on top of your E-mail marketing campaign. Mailchimp’s Free Plan gives you access to most Mailchimp features, but limits your total subscribers, as well as your daily and weekly sends. You can keep up to 2,000 subscribers across all audiences in your account and send up to 12,000 emails per month. In a 24-hour period, you can send up to 2,000 emails.

Proposify

In the corporate world, first impressions last out. A well-designed business proposal helps in capturing the attention of a potential client and the only way to do this is to give them something that stands out from the sea of proposals submitted to them. Proposify can help you create a winning proposal by giving unlimited access to a gallery of beautiful templates with pre-written copy for a variety of services. All templates are customizable to fit your business and brand voice.

Flaticons

Graphical icons find its usage everywhere! From website to company logo to PowerPoint Presentations, icons help add value to the texts and boost the overall content. Flaticon is the largest search engine of free icons in the world. It offers users high quality graphic designs: totally editable vectors that could be used in both commercial and personal projects.

Pexels

The potential of visual communication has reached an all-time high with the rise of digital and social media marketing. As a result, photography is becoming more crucial to the promotion of a product or service. Pexels stocks beautiful images and videos shared by talented creators which you can use for free for both personal and commercial projects.

Hatchful Shopify

Have you realized that you’re able to instantly identify a business by looking at its logo even if their name isn’t inscribed in it? Take the example of Nike. We immediately identify the ‘Swoosh’ symbol with Nike. A logo is an important part of your company’s brand and makes a significant impact on the public perception about the company. Hatchful Shopify is a free logo maker that helps you generate custom logo designs in minutes. You can create great logos for your brand without any design experience.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services, commonly known as AWS, is a web hosting service offered by the e-commerce Amazon. You can try some AWS services free of charge within certain usage limits. AWS calls this the AWS Free Tier. The free tier is designed to give you hands-on experience with a range of AWS services at no extra charge.

Hootsuite

If your start-up has a presence on multiple social media platforms, you need to spend a lot of time in coordinating, publishing, and scheduling your posts. Hootsuite is a free digital marketing tool that integrates with most of the social media platforms so that you can do all of these things in one place. It helps you keep track and manage your many social network channels. It enables you to monitor what people are saying about your brand and help you respond instantly.

Shopify

Shopify is one of the biggest and most popular E-commerce platforms for creating your own e-commerce website or online store and selling products online. The best feature of Shopify is that with just a minimum knowledge of computer, anyone can create an efficient, advanced, and appealing store with the help of its hundreds of pre-existing templates.

Author: Wasim Akram

Startup from Assam eyes on becoming India’s largest brick manufacturer in the next 10 years

24JunJuly 16, 2019 By startupassam

Three young engineering graduates from Guwahati, David Gogoi, Rupam Choudhury, and Mousam Talukdar, are creating ripples in the construction market in Assam with their innovative and low-cost brick manufacturing startup. Unlike the usual red clay bricks, Zerund bricks are made of cement, fly ash, organic chemicals, and plastic waste and are available at prices 15-20% lower than that of the regular bricks available in the market.

“Our main cost of production is cement. 60-70% of the raw-materials are waste products alone. The NTPC is offering us fly ash for free as a gesture to support our innovation,” says David Gogoi, one of the founders of Zerund Bricks.

They have designed a 3-process machine that shreds waste plastics into microbeads which are used in the brick making mixture. Use of plastic augments the tensile strength of the bricks and also shores up resistance to water absorption, thereby dismantling any possibility of dampness in the constructions.

Tiny honeycombs are shaped inside these lightweight plastic embedded bricks that act as air bubble insulation sheets against extreme heat and cold penetration.

Incorporated in September 2018, Zerund has been certified by the National Test House, the Public Works Department, and the Assam Engineering College. In fact, the founders had started working on the prototype in college as their 7^th-semester project.

At present, Zerund is operating from a single manufacturing plant at Azara, Guwahati. Interestingly, it was a fully equipped plant at the time they took it on lease.

“We didn’t have to incur an extra expense to set up the plant. We only needed people to man the machines, which cost us lesser than a lakh. The operations costs were sourced from the operations itself,” David says.

Encouraged by the cost-efficiency of working on an existing plant, the startup has decided to follow the same model of integrating and accelerating working plants in the future as well. They are currently in talks with a few parties across the state over plant procurement.

As David elucidates, “The parties will get a chunk of the profit from the plant. But we will have complete control over sales and operations. That way we will be able to protect our technology as well.”

David believes that their startup is blessed by a divine intervention which has been able to steamroll the rough patches in their journey. At a time when they were showed the door at financial institutions during their embryonic days, a couple of senior alumni (businessmen) from the Assam Engineering College showed up with a keen interest in their startup and agreed to invest.

Within a span of seven months from the day of inception, Zerund has sold bricks worth Rs. 32 lakhs. Currently, the demand for their bricks exceeds production. As David says, “For the next two years, we shall have no sales crunch.”

Although the startup primarily has a B2B model, the founders aren’t giving up on B2C either on ground that the latter assures a better cash flow.

With clients spread across the states of Northeast India, the Zerund founders’ goal is to grow into India’s largest brick manufacturer in the next 10 years.

Asked about the current constraints in the business, David is quick to state that the constraints are opportunities to flourish. However, being in a capital intensive industry, they would need formidable funds to expand. David reveals about their aim to acquire 10 more plants over the next 3-4 quarters, which would require funds of around Rs. 15 crores.

An incubatee at Assam Startup – The Nest, Zerund hopes to gain in terms of deeper business acumen and productive connections from the state-owned startup incubation initiative of Assam.

It seems that the startup founders have learnt the ropes well when they say that they are here to focus on business and earn money instead of devoting time in becoming social media heroes. To summarise in David’s words, “We don’t need thousands of people to know about our business. We don’t aspire to be social media heroes either. We only need a few good and resourceful people who are genuinely interested in our products and can contribute to the growth of our business.”

By: Satarupa Mishra