This Bangalore-based Startup Builds An Online Marketplace and Rural Multi Brand Experience Centers For all New Vehicles To Empower Rural India

NayaGaadi.com is Rural India’s first Multi Utility Online Marketplace for all brand New Vehicles. It gives you the power of selecting Brand, Model, Variant, Dealer, Location, Insurance, Financing and Price at your finger tips. A Customer centric business, driven by their needs, convenience and purchase preference. It’s a step forward in providing hassle free service to the End customer who buys Brand new vehicles from this platform. Kaisetty Balaji is the founder and Game changer for NayaGaadi. Balaji comes with 20 + years of IT industry experience and worked with some of the world class blue chip IT companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Wipro Technologies, Microland and Aspect /i2 Technologies. His core expertise is in Infrastructure, Project management, consulting and Transformation and IT Services. He is very passionate about rural problems and using technology to the benefit of common man. He is Technology and innovation member for Govt of Karnataka from CII. Panel member of National committee on Ecommerce from CII. Balaji is an alumni of State University of New York, Buffalo, USA and pursuing Ph.D from Vignan University from Andhra Pradesh.

NayaGaadi founders Balaji K and Sangeetha Thulasi are from rural back ground with 30 + Yrs of IT experience. The IT couple are with engineering and management background. They worked with some of the top IT Companies like IBM, HP etc. In various roles. Their other team members are from marketing, operations and management background. We are publishing an interview of Mr. Kaisetty Balaji.

Q.: What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Ans: India’s rural and semi-rural consumers are deprived of access to information and services, but Automakers ignore this segment due to viability limitations and wide expanse of rural geography.

Hailing from a rural village from Andhra Pradesh called Thadukupeta, Nagari Mandal, Chittoor District ( which is famous for mango market in Andhra Pradesh ), Balaji Kaisetty admits that Rural and semi rural consumers are always deprived of getting best brands and services and majority of the companies have ignored them duo to feasibility and viability of their limited volumes.

Especially automobile sector where the brands have little presence in the rural and semi rural Indian market. “The rural Indian automobile consumer is grossly underserved,” opines he. There are no showrooms, dealers, Banks, service centers in many rural parts of the country as it is unviable to set up one. This left a lasting impression on him. And after spending 20 years in the IT industry in Global IT Companies like IBM, Hewlett Packard, Wipro Technologies in various roles, he decided to do something for the rural India. And hence, he along with Sangeetha Thulasi, who also has a similar background, setup NayaGaadi in 2015, rural India’s first multi utility marketplace for all new vehicles.

NayaGaadi is Rural India’s first Multi Utility Marketplace for all new vehicles set up with the aim of helping the underserved, under represented and under recognized rural auto consumer by offering personalized service and delivery options. NayaGaadi offers personalized service and delivery, be it multi brand test drives, vehicle financing needs, insurance assistance, registration, deals and discounts and takes care of last mile delivery.

Q.: Tell us about the Product / Solution. Explain how you went about the Product-Market Fit Process.
Ans: NayaGaadi.com is Rural India’s first Multi Utility Market place for all the Brand New Vehicles. NayaGaadi.com is on the road to revolutionize the NEW automobile buying experience by using the OMNI channel. It aims to:

• Bridge the gap between the Rural Indian automobile market with urban India.
• Establish Rural Multi Brand Experience centers to serve the unserved rural community.
• Be a single window for all services and products related to the new automobile buy.
• Be an avenue for dealerships to improve sales by create an online sales channel.
• Be a launch pad for introducing Electric Vehicles / Mobility solutions before reaching the offline mode.
• To attract a significant market of online customers looking for a best deals

What we offer? All Services at doorstep:

• Multi Brand Test Drives
• Vehicle Finance assistance
• Vehicle Insurance assistance
• Deals and Discounts and
• Documentation, Registration and Delivery at the Doorstep of the customer.
• Launch pad for Electric Vehicles and Mobility solutions before they reach the offline consumers.
• Additionally, offers Customization needs of the New Vehicles.

Q.: What is your USP?
Ans: NayaGaadi focuses on the core needs of rural population of India with simplicity as a key focus. Our technology has connected to Dealers, Automobile Manufacturers, Banks, and Financing and Insurance companies with the consumers. This way consumer gets integrated personalized service. Our solution is new vehicle marketplace focusing on rural Indian consumer’s needs:

• a model to serve sentiments of rural Indian automobile consumers, and changing digital landscape
• create Trustworthy Rural Agents for conveying information and maintain transaction transparency
• be an avenue for dealerships to improve sales by creating an online sales channel

Q.: Please tell us about the investors (if any)
Ans: Govt. of Karnataka; as we are Elevate 100 winners. We are self funded with our savings and looking to raise capital from Angels, HNI’s and other investors.

Q.: What were your assumptions when you entered the market, learnings that you have? Who in your mind is your ideal customer? Do you have at least one of them signed up?
Ans: We realized the automobile market is one of the toughest market to crack and took more time than we anticipated to build credibility and value of the solution we are offering. Gradually market and industry partners realized and started recognizing us for the business transformation that we are trying to build and scale. We are the only startup in this space focused on Rural markets and only focused on India specific problem.

Q.: What has been your biggest failure as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it??
Ans: We realized networking and relationship building with the Industry and specially investors network took lot of time and we learnt how to build relationships and networks that helps the startups’ in their early stage.

Q.: How are you pricing the Product? What is the logic behind it? What is the model you are following – Free / Freemium / Premium etc. ? Explain your thought process.
Ans: Ours is a end to end transaction based model. Our marketplace model generates revenues comes from every vehicle sold:

• Commission from the Dealer
• Commission from the Banks for every loan processed
• Commission from the Vehicle Insurance processed and also
• Franchise fee for Every Rural Multi Brand Experience center setup
• Subscription based Experience Membership card sold ( NayaGaadi Silver, Gold and Platinum for Bikes and Cars)
• Advertisement revenue in the future.

Q.: How did you get your first customer?
Ans: Getting a first customer is always tough it took 3 months for us to crack the first customer. We are able to convince how NayaGaadi can make the buying a new vehicle a convenient and hassle free experience. And the word of mouth feedback and marketing helped us to gain the market recognition and visibility in the consumer base, dealer network and also in the Automobile industry.

Q.: Is there any interesting success story? If yes, please write about it. ?
Ans:
• IIM Bangalore – NSR Cell launch pad startup.
• Govt of India DIPP Startup India recognised Startup, Govt of Karnataka Recognized Startup and Govt of Andhra Pradesh Recognized startup.
• Selected in Incubated by the Govt of Karnataka (GOK) IAMAI’s Mobile 10 X Bangalore Incubation and Nasscom 10000 warehouse startup.
• Operating from Software Technology Parks of India STPI Incubation center, Bangalore.
• Govt of Karnataka ELEVATE 100 Winner.

Ans:
• IIM Bangalore – NSR Cell launch pad startup.
• Govt of India DIPP Startup India recognised Startup, Govt of Karnataka Recognized Startup and Govt of Andhra Pradesh Recognized startup.
• Selected in Incubated by the Govt of Karnataka (GOK) IAMAI’s Mobile 10 X Bangalore Incubation and Nasscom 10000 warehouse startup.
• Operating from Software Technology Parks of India STPI Incubation center, Bangalore.
• Govt of Karnataka ELEVATE 100 Winner.

Q.: What is the big picture of your startup? Is this Product leading to something bigger? If so, how?
Ans: NayaGaadi is currently serving customers in and around Bengaluru-Karnataka, Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Telangana and Tamilnadu. The company aims to enter 30 Tier 1 cities to support 1000 Multi Brand Experience centers at least covering 100,000 villages in the rural areas in the next 5 years and is looking at raising Seed round / Series –A to accelerate faster expansion plans. NayaGaadi is Govt of Karnataka Elevate 100 winner.

Q.: Since inception, give us a sense of the value of business done by your venture? What is the current turnover? (From Launching till date total no. of visitors on website/persons registered/enquiries and enrollment). Please explain in details:
Ans: Business Traction: 1000 + Test Drives, Close to 170 customers, Tie up / Arrangements with 300 + Dealers, 20 EV startups, 10+ Banks and Insurance companies.
Vehicles Sales -GMV : Rs 6 Crore
Operational in Bangalore(Karnataka), Behrampur(Odisha), Nellore(AP), Hyderabad (Telangana)

Rural Multi Brand Experience Centers Opened : We have launched Rural India’s first Multi Brand Experience center for New Vehicles in Nellore , Andhra Pradesh.

Q.: What is the insight that you have about this market, which no one else has? Uniqueness about your Startup.
Ans: Unique Platform for India specific Automobile Industry: NayaGaadi’s solution addresses the automobile needs of a rural consumer by connecting them to all brands, all categories of new vehicles under one platform. Its technology driven marketplace connects dealers, automobile manufacturers, banks, financing companies and insurance companies and consumers. The platform facilitates test drives, vehicle loans, and insurance assistance and aids last mile delivery of the vehicle.

NayaGaadi’s unique platform consists of Online Marketplace, Rural Multi Brand Experience Centers and Rural Network Agent App. NayaGaadi’s Technology driven new retail business model separates from the general e-commerce models which are driven and supported by Investors cash discount model, where as NayaGaadi model is both online and offline E commerce combined with value driven personalised service and delivery model.

For the buyer, NayaGaadi offers a platform that allows them to buy a new vehicle –autos, bikes, mopeds, cycles, cars, buses, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and more –with home delivery facility.

On the seller side, this platform provide additional avenue to increase their customer base and sales volume. Also, it acts as a platform for launching new vehicles, apart from generic existing automobile brands, it supports new players for example – new age EV startups and mobility solutions. This way the New Age Ev startups reach their target audience within a short span of time.

Special Purpose Vehicles / Customization: Additionally, this platform also connects body builders, fabricators, custom design specialists in the automobile sector with the new vehicle customization consumers for their needs. “This will help consumers get standardized service, cost and quality deliverables with simplicity as a key focus,” says Balaji.

To make all this happen, the company has established partnerships with dealers and OEM manufacturers, EV Startups across categories. It gets its revenue from every new vehicle sold through its platform in the form of commission from dealers, OEMs, banks, insurance companies and value added product vendors.

Q.: List all the names of the core Team Members, along with their Designated Roles – How you see them evolving over time. What would be each of their Skillsets? – Elaborate also if any of the team members has a specific domain expertise.
Ans: K BALAJI – FOUNDER, CEO AND GAME CHANGER – 20 + YRS of IT Experience with world class IT companies like HP, IBM, WIPRO TECHNOLOGIES, ASPECT/i2 Technologies etc.
BS SANGEETHA THULASI : CO FOUNDER – BE CS, 12 + YRS OF IT Experience and worked with Top IT companies like HP/IBM.
KARTHIK P – NELLORE – RURAL MULTI BRAND EXPERIENCE CENTER – FRANCHISE HEAD. MBA with 3 + years of Industry experience
Arif and Ali : Sales and Operation team members – Nellore

Q.: Who do You Perceive as Your Competition? How do you differentiate yourself with them?
Ans: There are many players like cardekho, carwale, carTrade, bikedekho, zigwheels, OLX who are all classified players, while paytm who is into all payments and consumer goods play, droom is into second hand vehicles and also new vehicles. While none of them are focused on ALL NEW VEHICLES and Rural focused NayaGaadi is bridging the gap between the urban dealerships and rural automobile consumers. Additionally NayaGaadi is end to end transaction provider offering personalizes service and delivery at the doorstep of the customer.

Q.: What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months?
Ans: Aiming to Set up 100+ Rural Multi Brand Experience Centers, Enroll 10,000 Rural Automobile Agents via our App. Spread across south India.

Q.: What message do you want to convey to fellow entrepreneurs?
Ans: Its too early to give a message…however focus and persistence pays. Build business and customer base. Investors will follow surely.

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Thanks Balaji. Best wishes.

Useful Links:
https://nayagaadi.in
https://facebook.com/nayagaadi
https://twitter.com/nayagaadi
https://pinterest.com/nayagaadi
http://instagram.com/nayagaadi
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHCrLu5DinIDbg8ZOiHeQuQ