100 X Growth in Covid-19 Time Period

Every Problem brings the Opportunity as well, Some People say Glass is Half Filled, Some People say Glass is Half Empty, But I say it is the double Opportunity, The First opportunity to Empty the Glass to remove your thrust for the time being and then Second opportunity to Fill it 100% for Future, The article is all about this, that what we did in last 130 days and secured 100X Growth on our app GoTo

It was 10th of Feb when I and Akhilesh were discussing the remodeling of the business and to move towards B2C since B2B was not stable as well Visibility was also a concern for External Mentors, many of them have already asked us that your product is B2C why you are keeping it on B2B. We were also concerned that in what direction we are moving, also we were looking to upgrade the technology and were looking to move on Flutter. There were multiple challenges ahead for us as well, Including getting the talent on flutter, since it is new & most advanced technology so it was a barrier as well, Our that time team was not looking capable to handle the same too. So we planned to hire since that time Core team was also broken Completely, we made a plan to reach 10K base in next 4 month which included Product development and testing time period as well and go commercial, as we had YC application ahead and our target was to change entire technology by 16th March 2020, so that we can provide the latest Product demo, we were interviewed earlier by YC in S19 so we were hopeful that we will be able to make this with YC, So our first target was to launch our product we started working on the same and As usual, the first hurdle came in front of us

The Talent: I being non-tech it was really critical to hire someone who is well versed with technology, so we defined the Some interview Criteria for the same, We Hired the first person as flutter developer It was our bad & person was able to spoof in the interview process and a Bad Hiring came, we got to know about the same in next couple week that We have bad hiring that needs replacement, We get to know that now initial 30 days which we thought to give on the product is wasted since hiring also takes time and our timelines were so stretched as well as budgets for the same, I tried reworking on Strategy to Reach consumer and meanwhile Akhilesh took the boldest step ahead he started learning Flutter by himself to code & also to guide the team, Mistakes makes you wiser, since we had limited budget and 1 bad hiring was going to impact badly in initial 30 days Time period of launch of First version on flutter as well, we thought to multiply team by 2X but again Budgest was an issue, Keeping all of these things in Mind I have opened the Position of GoTo Summer Intern of Code, Entire Idea was not look in to person resume and experience but to look in to the talent and knolwedge on flutter since Akhilesh was already learning fast so it was now difficult to spoof us. We went extensive in talent search this and Explored more than 1500 Resumes to find our New Employee, Meanwhile, when we were searching our new Resource Corona entered in India, and Media started talking about it, we were getting daily 50+ resumes on GoToSIOC thanks to LinkedIn it was costing lower than any other hiring tool, in fact, resume access of applicants was 20X lower than naukri.com Corona Started taking over as well, we were also in talks to raise angel funds this time but soon as Corona started hitting in India, Every Single Investor was talking about Lockdown and Public Transportation will not work than how you guys will manage operations and from where you will bring customers also. These all questions were pretty genuine and they had all reasons for not putting money Since we were clear again we will be bootstrapping and future of funds will not be clear, so we kept on working that time APK which was on PHP so that we keep get traction which will be our Fuel unless we get investment in the coming month as a couple of talks were on advance stage as well, Meanwhile, we were struggling with our Bad hiring badly and it became worst when even in 30 days we were not able to find the right fit for Employee. Things were painful by this time but we had our existing technology to handle the market. so slowly we were promoting the same on 18th March me and Akhilesh met had a discussion related to our angel round and planned that was about to Mature, we started doing related legal preparation for the same which took another 4 days and now it was the time of another Hurdle in front which was even Bigger...

Lock-Down: on 24th March our Hounarable Prime Minister addressed the nation and Declared Lockdown in India it was for initial 21 days, but everybody was talking about that it will continue for more than 2 months for sure since India was a very early stage of Covid-19, It was the biggest obstacle for entire Public transportation industry, While entire Transportation industry was on a pause, many of the people suggest us to give a break to GoTo and Focus on GoToSIOC for taking IT projects, This would have been the wiser decision for us if I and Akhilesh would have been practical but GoTo is something Emotional for us and we feel that it is the biggest need of nation right now no matter it is lockdown or normal days India need it. Meeting in person was not possible for both of us so we started to keep our self Connected on google meet for the whole. again as I said in the beginning that a half-filled glass is a double opportunity. We took this Lockdown as a positive impact for us and thought that it is the right time to move entire technology on Flutter and change our APK completely so as Akhilesh started working on it, However, till the mid of April we were struggling with our team a lot and actively looking for someone who can shoulder the responsibility along with Akhilesh since despite multiple negative we were putting all efforts to make it happen, in the 3rd week of April our first Search for awesome flutter developer comes to an end we got resources who were good enough to make execute the product along with Akhilesh, meanwhile, Akhilesh and team was working on tech, I was looking towards how we can pre-sell our services during lockdown since taking 100% advance from customers for undecided dates of travel was not at all an option so keeping all of this things in mind we I launched PMCare-51 program in our app, the entire idea was to take Initial request of travel from customers with INR 51 only and to donate the same amount in to PM care fund when passenger is willing to travel, I had almost 21 days time to research in deep for the same and make this plan, While everybody was negative for this Industry, we had a beleif that public road transportation is a need of everyone and people has to has to travel after lockdown and everybody can not afford car for the same, we had mix and match response from mentors regarding the same but we were pretty confident that we will make it happen, in Second week of may we launched our new verson of app in play store but it took more time than usual to get reviewed, after a wait of 1 week new apk went live in play store now it was the day when we have won win over to tech related issues Akhilesh and his team has proved them self, however if we will see from the time line prospect so we took almost 100 days for the to change our technology but if we will see from the prospect of issues and challenges we faced so it was nothing infront of it, now it was the time for marketing and sales to prove them self and I started initiating our marketing plans on the same, I took 3 days ahead to look towards marketing channels to use for the same and then on 20th May 2020 We started Promotion for the same on day 1 we got 65 users and 2 Bookings, we were pretty excited with out Initial 2 booking on B2C platform but we were looking for the Exceptional growth further so we started approaching customers on daily basis to make maximum communication regarding the same, our downloads and booking started jumping from day 4 and it Cost per install started coming down drastically, in a span of 20 days we started getting 400+ Downloads on the same budget we got only 65 downloads on day 1, on 17th June 4:45 PM we have completed our 10K Customers & had a good number of booking available with us which we are going to start serving from 1st July 2020, we would be looking to acquire 5K + daily users now from july onwards and will be looking to reach 100K + Customer & 5K+ Transaction mark in the month of March.

Now when I look back at Feb and check that what we planned vs what we achieved so we find that we were delayed by 10 days approx to reach on this number despite that there had been hell number of controllable and non Controllable issues, Now since it is a level up and challenges in front of us are even bigger, I and Akhilesh has decided that we will be at 1 Million users in next 120 days, this may look really aggressive for few and unachievable to many just like 130 days back 10K was for us when we were only a 100 Customers in B2C...

No matter what industry experts talk about as a team we may not be the Economists or Domain experts but we are Consumer behavior Experts, we know what our consumer need and we know how to market the same these are the only 2 factors which are driving our growth and we will keep focusing on the same forever, I am 100% sure that after 120 days I will write another article about how we took again 100X growth and I am sure it will also be filled with many challenges which 1 ending note that we overcame all, I am also very sure that when I will be writing again after 120 days we will be taking the even bigger challenge for next 120 days again...

Hope our story of lockdown and growth was not boring and it kept you this much engaged that you are reading these last line, if you want to be the part of us kindly do write me back so that we can see how we can multiply our growth with your presence as well. Thanks for reading Signing off now....