As migrants to the city, we face lot of issues while trying to find a place on rent. In fact, when I landed in Bangalore (in 2004), there were language barriers that I regularly faced when boarding bus, speaking to local people (though now things are far-better and Bengaluru is truly a cosmopolitan city) to name a few.
Similar issues were faced by Sudarshan Purohit, Ankur Agarwal and Kailash Rathi when they were trying to find a place on rent. This motivated them to startup Zenify, complete rental solution for tenants and owners
Today, we have a chat with Sudarshan Purohit, Co-founder & CEO of the startup where we dig deep into their entrepreneurial journey, Zenify, views on startup ecosystem etc.
Can you give a small background about you, your start-up and it’s founders ?
While there are enough and more property listing portals, Zenify is India’s only complete rental solution for tenants and owners. A Bangalore-based technology start-up, Zenify has simplified rentals to such an extent that tenant’s just needs to book the home of their choice online and move in, with Zenify handling the rest.
For owners again, Zenify is the only player to promise end-to-end property management. A quick look at Zenify will show how analytics and design can come together to create a fair, hassle-free experience in what used to be a chaotic business.
Prior to starting up Zenify:
Sudarshan Purohit [Co- founder & CEO of Zenify]
- Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras
- Prior to starting up, Sudarshan was working with Insilica Semiconductors as a Design Engineers on the project ‘Digital picture Frame’
Ankur Agarwal [Co Founder & Head of data analytics at Zenify]
- Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras
- Was working as a Business Analyst with Global Analytics in Chennai. He worked on SEO project and analytical model on credit worthiness for short term loans
Kailash Rathi [Co Founder & Director- Finance & Strategy at Zenify]
- Aerospace Engineering from IIT Madras
- Worked as a Strategic marketing Analyst [Go-to-Market strategy, studied the trends for marketing NetApp products] with Net-App in Chennai.
Every idea is born out of a problem, what was the trigger for starting Zenify ?
As migrants to the city, we faced a multitude of issues while trying to find a place on rent. The language barrier and an unpleasant broker experience motivated use to come up with a solution to address the problems that migrants face in a new city. Having had a history of family business back in our home-towns, we had a strong urge to start our own business.
We had ideas, we were willing to take risks and had an undying entrepreneurial spirit. After a thorough market research, Zenify was started in the year 2012 with an aim to help young migrants adjust easily in the city. Our intention was to create a niche model for house rentals which is beneficial for both tenants and owners.
What are the core differentiating factors of Zenify from other real-estate startups ?
There are fewer players in the market who have tried to solve the property discovery problem, apartment finding problem, finding a Shared apartment, but nobody provides an end to end comprehensive rental solutions for the owner and the tenants which is only done by Zenify.
Zenify solves five basic problems in the realty industry which have been the biggest hassles so far for the owners and the tenants. Zenify stepped into the problem and simplifies the entire process of online residential property management.
Zenify helps to do away with the property visit for the owners and the tenants. Tenants can view the property online without making a property visit and book their property with a market rent.
- Zenify does the tenants screening and reports will be shared with the owner before allowing the tenants to occupy the property.
- Zenify drafts a standard rental agreement between owner and tenants.
- Zenify manages the end to end property management-From repair, painting etc.
- Zenify collects the monthly rent and hands it over to the owner.
What is the TAM of the ‘Renting/Leasing commercial property’ ?
Current market size is about $15 Billion based on 2011 statistics and increasing 15% YOY in India from urban cities. We expected to grow 35 % on quarter.
What is your revenue model of Zenify ?
Once an owner registers with Zenify, we review the property and if it is suitable Zenify becomes the tenants and are given the sublet rights. For a property owner, Zenify becomes the tenant and to a new tenant Zenify becomes the owner.
Zenify charges a month’s rent for every year as a service fee from the owners. For tenants, it’s completely free without any brokerage. If the tenant discontinues the agreement, Zenify continues to pay the rent to the owner even when the flat is vacant. A tenant registered on Zenify gets a broker free experience with standardized pricing and agreement terms.
Which are the cities where Zenify is currently operational ?
We are exclusively present in Banglore alone and managing 1800 properties. We are planning to extend our services to India’s top nine cities in near future.
One of the major concerns about Buying/Renting is that property is not as shown in the listing website. How does Zenify fix this problem ?
The owners whoever wants to rent out their property can share their property details to Zenify and one of our employees does the physical verification on the property, collecting property photos and will be uploaded in our website with all the property specifications along with fixed rent.
The tenant can view the property details on our website which provides the tenant 360 degree view of the property.If the tenant were to find his desired home from the list, the tenant can book the property by paying a token in advance and then, he can directly move to the property on his desired day
Can your throw some light on funding, whether Zenify is bootstrapped or seed-funded or angel-funded ?
We have received angel funding from Manthan Systems, Gana Yantrika Systems and K12 Techno service. Atul Jalan is the CEO and Founder of Manthan systems, Anant Pandit director of Gana Yantrika Systems Pvt Ltd, which is a privately held company which invests in companies with unique business models and use technology to advance market access and MSC Srikanth & M Bharath are the directors of K12 Technology Hyderabad.
We have set a few ambitious goals for our organization for which we will require more funds. We are currently in talks with a few investors who can bring in financial support as well as technology expertise to the table.
Does Zenify plan to provide End-To-End services (right from Estimating Valuation, Listing Property, Getting Buyers, Getting Legal Work done etc.) since that would be a great USP for Zenify ?
The below listed are our core USP and we are focusing this.
- Fair price to owners and tenants
- Tenant verification
- End to end paperwork management
- Assured occupancy
- A to Z flat maintenance and repairs
- Regular inspection
- A dedicated team of maintenance personnel
- Assured rent for the owners
What are the major changes that you experienced when you became an entrepreneur?
However, we had zeal to be unorthodox from the existing systems and to be visionary in order to be a change maker in the society; we also had faced the trepidations during our venture. Because being just 22 old ,the society demanded a regular job to have a proper sustainable life than going for a risk which could be a paradox. Nevertheless, we decided to quit the job and started our venture. Initial days, the market did not accept our concept since it was very much unique and gradually people were able to adopt the concept and began to endorse the concept as well.
First, I had to adopt a strong mind set since Entrepreneurship is not going to be a cake walk rather lot of bucks will stop at me, therefore I had to prepare mentally to encounter the challenges whatever is going to hit me.
I did not have a normal office hours 9 AM – 6 PM, instead the entire day was my office hours. The startup became our life. The startup taught me about leadership How to run the entire show being a leader, moreover the situations created a thirst in me to read and understand the concept of leadership in depth which led me to read many books on leadership.
In brief startup made me to master in every aspect of business.
What are your key advice(s) to people who want to start-up ?
Those who want to start their own venture, they must do a proper market research whether the idea can bring a change in the market or will it be a scalable business idea. If they receive the positive result, they can confidently launch their venture. The focus should be on customer satisfaction and always try to learn from customer experience which will teach us where are we after its launch. The customers are the best advisers for any business.
After a certain period of time, the founders should look for funding at the early stages itself. Another difficult task to identify the right investors who would really understand your business model and willing to stay with you in any circumstances of the company, which will give more confidence to run the business in a better way.
Can you give some pointers on Scaling Up & Customer Acquisition [some take-away for entrepreneurs]
Primarily, you need to understand the biggest problem in the market and analyze whether it is possible to tap through technology? Secondly, one needs to understand the customer’s problem. Thirdly, you need to communicate the solutions that you have for the customer’s problems. If this has been set ,then the customer acquisitions will be possible through various social media platforms, PR & marketing campaigns.
Bootstrapping or external Funding, what are your views on the same ?
Once the product or services has been launched, entrepreneurs should look for seed funding which will provide them an adequate knowledge about the market behavior and will give enough space to create a better investment strategy. Such initiative also will give them how their product behaves in the market and helps to understand the demand of the market as well. Every initial launch will be a trial and error method, during the course of the journey everybody understands the real need of the market and spin their ideas.
Your views on the current start-up eco-system & valuation bubble in India ?
There are startups that have a substantial growth in the market and could capture a good amount of the market share. They could achieve this far because they had a strong vision and better strategy.
Partially, the industry has faced a few setbacks because of few of the better performed startups happened to get shut down, because of the unforced errors of burning the investments quickly. The investments should have been handled better.
Funding for early stage & growth stage startups has dried up in 2016, what are your tips for entrepreneurs who are pitching in this tough period ?
In fact, the funds are flowing, but slightly in a slow pace because of the unexpected shut-downs of a few good startups which forced the investor to take back seat in terms of investments.
Entrepreneur needs to create a scalable business model and present a realistic business forecasting which will indeed attract the investors and create the confidence so that they can invest in the product.
Some hiring tips for entrepreneurs [especially the core team] ?
Few basic elements need to be taken into account while hiring a core a team in any organizations .
- Expertise
- Attitude
- Chemistry between Employee and Employer
- Confident level
- Team player
These are the core elements we need to keep in the consideration while hiring the core team in the startup.
Hope you liked the Q&A and there were many take-aways from it for aspiring entrepreneurs!! If you have any questions for the Zenify team, please leave them in the comments section.
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