Journey : Startup to Business

Hurray..., we are happy to proudly announce that we are a BUSINESS in the ecosystem where 9/10 companies are Startups!

Before we talk about this, we will start with an overview of the startup ecosystem in India. The ecosystem started in India in the early 2010 and since then India has registered 100s of thousand of startups (Bangalore being the hub registered 10,000+). There has been mixed consensus about the entire phenomenon of a startup company. The term was initially coined to distinguish innovations from businesses and then later adopted to be an identity for any company in the world of technology.

We are at the financial year end of 2021-22 and Harlalka Services India Pvt. Ltd. (HSIPL) has turned 6 in Feb 2022. We at HSIPL started our journey with a product we thought was innovated by us. We went for our first customer, got our first customer, then got few other customers and then finally like any other startups in India, we reached out to every possible investors to raise funds for the company's operations.

Coming to raising funds, this is an interesting concept in India. For some, investors money is to expand the business while for some it is a prize for the achieved business (whatever little it may be). During this process of reaching out to the investors, many rejected us, many took us into consideration but one of them actually were ready to fund us. We reached a level where the financial negotiations were completed and the term sheet was generated. Now here are the few interesting observations we had by the time we reached the term sheet (3 months from when we started looking for funds):

1. Lost focus in business
2. Close to zero revenue
3. Huge expense incurred for investor meetings
4. Changing business model

We realised we are giving in a LOT for a very little amount but most importantly we realised we probably do not need investors money when we can get customers money to run the company.

That was the day we stopped looking at investors funds for our daily operations and decided that we will change the way we work. We took a decision to price our product at a premium (of-course with a premium service) and stopped pitching to customers as a startup.

Today we have a good team & paying clients and as a result of which we are positive to an extent that we have expanded to being a multi-floor office and a secured business.

"Customers' money is the best fund that can be raised."

At HSIPL, we look to grow further, ORGANICALLY and hope to give our customer the best of experience.