Jugnoo Aims to be the Largest Auto Rickshaw Aggregator in the Country - Says Isha Singla, CPO & Co-founder, Jugnoo
Looking for a ride? Quick, cool and affordable… Call Jugnoo! An all-time auto rickshaw aggregation service. Your new savior in disguise, providing on-demand transportation and logistics services across 35 cities in India.
Currently head-quartered in Chandigarh, it runs through a mobile application and helps the user connect with the auto drivers in their vicinity. Started by Samar Singla along with Chinmay Agarwal (alumni of IIT-Delhi, in October, 2014) is now one of the best in business.
In an exclusive interview with BWDisrupt we got Isha Singla to talk about how Jugnoo came into existence, the various services they provide and how they are further planning disrupt the hyperlocal commerce market.
Soumya Gupta in conversation with ISHA SINGLA, CPO and Co-founder of ‘JUGNOO’
Q. You have been the brain behind startups like Jugnoo, Bistro. What turned a Chemical engineer to a corporate manager?
A. I did my graduation from IIT (Delhi), which encourages its students to not only focus on academics but also to explore other aspects of their personality. I got interested in management consulting and to understand nuances of business, joined McKinsey & Company and went on to work with InMobi later. These experiences inspired me to contribute in startup in a greater capacity.
Q. You are known for your skills in managing operations and investor relations. How did these become your forte?
A. Consulting teaches you to pick up any skill that you want, basically making you a jack of all trades. In Jugnoo, I started doing whatever was required as per the need of the hour and with the help of mentors and team support, I was able to do it quite well. Although, I made few mistakes but it is important to learn from them and keep honing your skills.
Q. What do you consider as your biggest success till date?
A. The biggest success, I guess is yet to come. But the mentors and friends I earned in my colleagues while working at various organizations has to be one of the biggest successes. I have been lucky enough to be always surrounded by people better than me who kept me motivated to continue learning and becoming better. More specific success would be, being a part of the roller coaster journey that Jugnoo has been, witnessing and being an integral part of what it was when it started to achieving where it is now.
Q. How would you rate the investment scenario for startups in India? Are adequate funds flowing in?
A. India being a hub of innovation and technology, is witnessing a lot of interest by VC firms and investors. I don’t see a slowdown happening anytime soon. It is just that the money is not as easily available as it was earlier. Investors are now focusing more on fundamentals, sustainability and unit economics rather than having crazy growth by burning money blindly. What has happened in last year, is actually good for the startup ecosystem as it has encouraged startups to build the businesses with fundamentals rather than just burning money and creating a false picture of growth.
Q. In the sector of Hyper- local commerce, who do you consider to be your biggest competitors?
A. Our business model and the space that we operate in are very different. There is no other player in the industry who is doing things in similar manner. Hence, our market is much different and there is no competitor as such. But there are few hyper- local players who are providing part of our services viz. Runnr and Shadowfax (for Dodo Deliveries) and Grofers and Bigbasket (for Fatafat).
Q. Tell us about your experience about cracking deals with PayTm and Snow Leapord and several rounds of funding.
A.We have been quite lucky in fund raising. Interestingly, our angel round actually required us to request the investors to decrease the ticket size so that we can fit them all in. It was a different feeling altogether. Both PayTm and Snow Leopard came in through a reference, and were very
confident about the team and our execution, which was a great confidence booster for the whole team. We are fortunate to have them as our investors who have been amazing mentors, guide and support system for us.
Q. What are Jugnoo’s recent traction details?
A. Jugnoo has over 3.5 million registered users and handles about 40,000 transactions each day. Currently, we are rendering our services in 35 cities of India and have about 12,000 auto drivers enrolled with the brand. Our recently launched services, Fatafat and Dodo Deliveries are currently delivering 150 and 300 orders per day respectively.
Q. Any highlights about the milestones achieved by Jugnoo till date?
A. Jugnoo is just 20 months old and within this short span of time, the company is already operational in 35 cities of India. Jugnoo has around 3.5 million registered users and is trending at 40,000 daily transactions. Over 12,000 auto rickshaw drivers are working for Jugnoo at the moment and we are witnessing a month on month growth of 20%. Our customer retention has doubled in last 6 months and burn has reduced to one-sixth on per transaction basis from last 6 months, with few mature cities that are gross margin positive. Apart from this, we have received $16 million in two rounds of funding till now from investors like PayTm and Snow Leopard.
Our recently launched services, Dodo Deliveries and Fatafat are unit economics profitable from day one and are enabling us to achieve even higher utilization of auto-rickshaw space via our platform. These services are helping us become a hyper-local player providing multiple services to our users.
Q. What are your plans for the future, where do you see yourself in the next five years?
A. Jugnoo aims to be the largest auto rickshaw aggregator in the country and intends to be the first mobile commerce company to do one million transactions a day along with having a strong International presence. Apart from this, we intend to expand our services across different verticals of hyperlocal space and be a leading player in this segment. Using our already established logistics network, we intend to be the aggregator of aggregators.
Q. Words of advice for young aspiring entrepreneurs, especially from engineering fraternity?
A. Avoid the rat race, never settle for what the crowd is doing and always strive to keep learning. Appreciate failures more than success, since that’s what makes your learn more.
