RentoMojo is an online rental company started by IIT-M alumni in 2014 with a vision to revolutionize the way people meet their lifestyle needs. The startup offers online rental services for everything you need from furniture, appliances, trekking equipment to bikes. It believe in making lifestyles affordable & easily accessible to everyone. The company enables people to furnish their homes at minimal costs and help them reduce the commitment of spending heavily on furniture and appliances that they may not need a few months down the line.
Maaz Mohammad Interacts With Geetansh Bamania, CEO & Co-founder, RentoMojo and Spoke To HimHow did the entrepreneurial bug bite you?
Not entirely sure if there was a single moment of realisation. Just like any other other kid who loves math - I was also fixated with solving a problem - more importantly getting a closure on things. I believe the same approach helps as an entrepreneur these days; finding solutions to real world problems.
I ran a couple of ventures, a community learning portal called Click2skill and a philanthropic crowdfunding portal called HopeMonkey - the seed for which was born because of no other reason than solving a real world problem that I was facing at that moment.
RentoMojo was a story that was no different. Like many other young working professionals I stayed in a rented apartment, worked long hours & faced a lot of trouble each time I'd to equip the house when I moved. To top that I used to maintain an extravagant lifestyle like most of the young urban professionals which didn’t allow me a huge disposable income to buy everything for my house. That got me thinking, since ages we've been fixated on the idea of owning stuff and after a while when it's out of fashion or doesn’t suit our lifestyle we simply sell it for peanuts. That’s when I developed RentoMojo; providing an easy and flexible solution for people living away from their homes for short durations (of upto 5 years) where blocking their savings on depreciating white goods isn't sensible.
No more burning holes in your pockets. No more tears over bad deals. Just access a world of possibilities with RentoMojo.
How does RentoMojo work?RentoMojo is an online rental company that aims to disrupt shopping and bring access economy at the forefront. In its current form we are the quickest and the most convenient furnishing solution that a consumer can access with affordable monthly rentals. We offer online rental services for everything you need from furniture, appliances, bikes etc. We believe in making lifestyles affordable & easily accessible to everyone. By empowering individuals & companies access their lifestyle needs, we provide more than online rental services, we help people design the lives they want to live. We let you explore a world of possibilities and access a better lifestyle with RentoMojo.
RentoMojo brings ease, affordability and flexibility for all things related to furnishing one’s house. Why tie your savings in furniture and appliances that may not be of use to you when you decide to move out of the house in a couple of years or so? These savings can be used for better life experiences by simply renting out these temporary essentials.
Challenges FacedAlthough renting furniture, appliances, wheels and adventure gear is a great concept since it provides ease, efficiency and is cost effective, it still is a fairly new concept for our target audience. Effectively reaching out to educate and influence our target audience with the appropriate marketing mix at optimum investment is the challenge that we try to mitigate through marketing efforts.
Unique Key PointsWhat’s so unique are the rock bottom affordable rentals that we charge to our consumers for good quality products. We are able to achieve that cause we eliminate the intermediary margins and pass that on in terms of lower rentals to our users.
We follow an asset light model and do not own most of our inventory. This lowers our operating cost and risk. As an asset-light company we have the flexibility to expand to a new location at the click of a button, increase our number of partners and expand our capacity. Through outsourcing or asset sharing, we can focus on scaling by investing in R&D. RentoMojo is a convenient furnishing solution providing a peerless 48 hour turnaround time on all orders.
Clients & Expansion Plans We are primarily targeting working professionals with decent disposable incomes and mostly living out of their home city. We all are moving into an era where owning depreciating products has become a thing of the past. Today's millennial wants to have access to lifestyle products rather than own them. Thus RentoMojo, being the provider of this access to a better lifestyle will positively impact the lives of our target audiences.
Our expansion plans and efforts with be primarily driven by two factors:
1) India is predominantly a income constrained market.
By 2020 we would see a steep rise of around a 80% in the 3-35 lacs income bracket cause of the high migration from tier 2 cities for filling up the pent up demand of jobs being created in the urban cities.
2) The real estate market is dominated by semi furnished and un furnished apartments ( approx. 70% )
Summing up the two above points: The ability to own a better lifestyle (critically limited to the urban migrants) is the need of the hour which evokes a need for an access solution for the lifestyle we offer rather than owning. We plan to venture into a couple of more cities and categories for the next phase of our growth.
Traction DetailsWe are currently at a 7000+ active subscriber base and are steadily growing at 30-40% month on month.
Funding RaisedRentoMojo had raised a funding of $2 million cumulatively from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures.
The best and worst memories while setting up …The worst memories stick to you and keep you grounded. My first venture (Click2Skill) took a few months to grow from a 2 member team to a 10 member team. Not having a stern focus on fundamental business principles- the venture failed after struggling for a year and half. The closure was undoubtedly one of the most difficult phases where I’d to shut shop and shift back to the very dorm room from where I began. The accumulated debt just added to the situation.
The pleasant memories were in plenty at RentoMojo. Right from getting our very first customer to delivering the first product to raising funds for the first time to bringing together some highly admirable folks to join in the same vision. Ultimately the entire RentoMojo journey, good or bad would be the best memory for me, by far.
Marketing StrategiesOur growth marketing team is a data driven function. Our core focus is to reach out to the digital savvy audience in the age group of 22-35 years. Our current focus is to improve conversions by improving the quality of traffic to the site. Our next step would be to use digital channels creatively to expand and bring about increased awareness in the TG. No matter what we do we are closely tied to two fundamental principles:
· Experiment. Learn. Repeat
· If we can’t measure we can’t do
Currently our entire marketing budget is 100% digital
Market Size As per our estimation; Rental market size in India is currently about $10-15 billion.
