Scaling Thriwe in the Wellness and Lifestyle Sector of India
An XLRI alumni, a passionate start-up enthusiast, Dhruv Verma revolutionized the consumer benefits ecosystem by pioneering the art of allegiance. His contagious pro-active and growth-focused approach towards consumer engagement has made him diversify his golfing business into a platform that offers holistic benefits to a larger set of audiences. The diversified entity is known as “Thriwe – A consumer benefits marketplace”. It thrives to venture into segments ranging from golf and sports to lifestyle and wellness to travel and bespoke solutions.
Prior to his entrepreneurial stint, he has been associated with premium brands like Aircel, Standard Chartered, and CPP at various senior managerial positions. His journey is an inspiring tale for individuals who are dearth scared to take risks yet want to follow their dreams and run a long way in the start-up ecosystem. DRV is a powerhouse of Ideas’, blessed with a gift of oratory that bewitches and beholds anyone who converses with him. He carries a rich experience within the space of customer acquisition, strategic partnerships, and associations.
The Co-founder and COO of Thriwe, Swati Sharma is a logophile thriving to create a multimillion dollars impactful ecosystem. A distinguished alumnus of London Business School and driven by an entrepreneurial mindset, Swati has been carving out a niche for herself in the technologically driven consumer allegiance segment. She co-founded “Thriwe- Consumer Benefits Marketplace” with an ambition to create an organization that reinvents the rules of consumer/stakeholder engagement. She is a chief architect of business performance who interknits sustainability & scalability into the fabric of the company.
At Thriwe, Swati leads the operational and strategic scale-up of the company from a start-up to a multimillion-dollar global organisation. Her vision is create an impactful organisation that brings large-scale value to the entire ecosystem of employees, customers, partners, suppliers, investors, and the society at large. Swati is a brisk individual with hands-on experience in demonstrating strategic partnerships, technology setups, corporate planning across her previous stints at KPMG and InspireOne Consultants. With over a decade of entrepreneurial and strategic experience, Swati's journey holds many nuggets of wisdom for budding and established entrepreneurs.
Launch of Thriwe and the idea behind the launch of Thriwe
Thriwe is a brainchild of Founder & CEO “Mr. Dhruv Verma” who, right from his childhood days, had been fascinated by the idea of having a business of his own. Back in those days, he was keen on doing something of his own, his baby entrepreneurial stints would include an architectural consultancy, retail personalised stationery business, so on and so forth.
While he was in UK and trying to play a game, he was flabbergasted to see that he could book a golf game online viz a viz no platform like this was actually available in India. Hence, his fascination with booking a game online got him triggered and paved a way for his technology-driven start-up “Thriwe” (erstwhile GolfLan).
He thought of giving Indian Golfing space a leap by pioneering the technology aspect and getting it implemented at Indian Golf Courses. His whole idea was to connect the India Golfer with the Golf courses around the world. It was the innovation that totally revolutionized the golfing scenario and hence, his venture took a wheel of fortune spin.
Today, Thriwe has diversified and evolved itself to become India’s leading b2b consumer benefits marketplace catering to national and international markets in 130 countries worldwide with a 30000+ stakeholder network.
Impact of Covid-19 crisis on Thriwe’s business performance and growth
In the aftermath of the pandemic, Thriwe, as an organization ventured into the digital segment of aggregation and launched the exclusive digital platform “WeLive” which is their flagship subscription-based unique program that offers a host of lifestyle benefits and is now being used by major card network companies to facilitate customer engagement.
Business Model of Thriwe and the USP
"Discover new engagement offerings that did not exist yesterday, everyday!", is a biblical line which runs through the organisation at Thriwe. Their b2b offerings start from a minimum of 30% and enter a free zone of 100%. Their USP has been our exclusive approach towards data analytics which includes the study of HNI usage patterns, understanding of consumer demographics coupled with curating cost-effective offerings.
At present, Thriwe has over 30,000 partners across 130+ countries worldwide and these partners are across service categories such as sports, travel, digital offers, life style, dinning, and wellness. Basis their customer requirements, budgets, consumer demography, objectives, they have create a unique standout and benefits strategy. Their customer-centricity has been the heart of success.
Their business model involves aggregating a large network of partners and high value tangible offers on one side, customising and personalising them using our business intelligence for our clients on the other side, and finally delivering them through white-labelled and off the shell technology platforms.
Competitors in the Market
Ten Group, Aspire Lifestyles, Alliances Galore, Reward 360, Collinson Group, DreamFolks Services, Poshvine, Quintessential, Lounge Me, Times Prime and The Entertainer.
Funding History
In its initial years, Thriwe was supported by its friends and family, who chose to invest in the goodwill of the team. Thereafter, they received funding from Gurgaon based Angel Fund- YourNest and Africa's Ison Network in 2017.
Way Ahead
In 2021, the company aims to embarks on its 20 million dollars revenue. Further, travel is a new entrant in their portfolio, therefore dedicated teams are working on the expansion of their service, automation of backend services and higher profitability of the company.
