How Delhivery Started Story of 5 COLLEAGUES Pursuing Their Passion?

There was a time when the majority of the folks often resorted to the conventional career paths. Some of them being professions like a teacher, doctor, lawyer, or a safe and secure government job. However, given the fact that we are now living in the 21st century, the number of options available to a child has increased manifold. And today we will narrate a story on How Delhivery Started.

Contrary to the times, when a student had to wait for going to B-School to gain the intricacies of the business world, the same student can now avail all the information with just one click. He can learn the functionalities of the world in real terms, that too from an early age itself. All these factors collectively have given rise to what we call “Startups”.

Here, one does not have to depend on the extrinsic entities for their income source. This mere fact has turned out to be a boon for the young age generation. It all starts with being observant to one’s own environment and recognizing the gap in the market. Furthermore, taking that one step forward and bridging that gap in the form of tailor-made solutions. Thereby resolving the dilemma confronted by the people worldwide.

EARLY DAYS OF DELHIVERY’S CEO: SAHIL BARUA

Likewise, Sahil Barua, an IIM Bangalore graduate recognized one such problem relating to shipment services, back in May 2011. Sahil completed his schooling from the St. Xavier’s High School. He then went on to pursue his Mechanical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka. While he was pursuing his Mechanical Engineering, he worked as a Research Intern at the University Of Maryland.

Later on, he went to Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) for his post-graduation in finance. During this period, he again took up an internship as a “Summer Associate” at Bain & Company in London for a period of 3 months. These small stints helped Sahil to get hands-on experience in terms of Workfront which further paved his way for becoming full-time Associate Consultant at Bain and Company after completing his post-graduation.

Related Story:- Startup vs MNC – What should you join after your graduation?

Sahil soon got promoted to Senior Associate Consultant after a couple of years. While working at Bain And Company, Sahil met Suraj Saharan and Mohit Tandon. Their friendship grew on the grounds that they all wanted to build their own ventures. However, none of them knew what to start and from where to start.

ADVENT OF DELHIVERY

In order to figure that out, they decided to take a six months sabbatical leave from their job. What gave them an edge, was their friendship with the founders of Zomato, Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal. This is when they realized a loophole in the market. Even though there is n number of eateries but most of them are finding it inconvenient to render their services at the doorstep of the end customers.

This simple observation was the outset of their much-awaited venture, “Delhivery”. This is how Delhivery started.

They started building the blueprint of their idea and in no time they were ready for its execution. However, they were still lagging behind in terms of human resources, i.e. delivery boys. But as they say, “ When you truly want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve that”, and in a way, the universe was helping these men to turn their dream venture into reality.

Fortunately, they happened to have a brief conversation with a restaurant owner who was shutting his outlet while they were looking out for delivery boys,. He was looking for something where his staff could be relocated. The men immediately hired all the staff. That’s how “Delhivery” came into the picture with an initial investment by Abhishek Goyal, CEO of Urbantouch.

INITIAL BEGINNINGS

Their first corporate office was set up in Gurgaon. For a considerable amount of time, Delhivery was serving only Brick And Morter retailers. Soon after, Abhishek (their first investor) approached them to deliver packages for him as well. That’s how Delhivery got its first E-commerce client called Urbantouch. It was an online fashion and beauty retailer. Ina brief time, they got their second e-commerce client Prashant, director of Healthkart.

Over time, they realized the enormous potential that lurked in E-Commerce businesses. Hence they decided to switch their focus completely towards the businesses that were functioning online.

JOURNEY OF DELHIVERY

At the initial phase, Delhivery adopted price penetration strategy, rendering their services at low and affordable prices. They themselves reached out to the customers and asked them to try their services. By taking these baby steps, their dream turned reality venture was delivering around 500 shipments per day. The size of the team was expanding as they were serving to more number of people and soon Delhivery was operating in three centres within the Union Territory.

At the outset of 2012, they received an investment from Times Internet Limited. Post that, fulfillment zone was inaugurated in Delhi and Chennai. Being a customer-oriented firm, they took feedback and suggestions from the general public and implemented those by making major amendments in their IT and physical structure.

They made sure that the end customers got a pleasant experience every time they came across Delhivery. The technical team ensured to make the interface user friendly and one which is simple to understand by a common man.

EXPANSION PHASE

As Delhivery was growing exponentially, it received its yet another investment of $5 Million from Nexus Venture Partners.

Since then, this Gurgaon-based company has grown into a logistics empire with three major arms—fulfilment i.e. warehousing and packaging, technology services to online retailers, and data services i.e. real-time shipment tracking. Today, this company does numerous transactions for e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, eBay, Amazon, and Jabong.

Venture capital has played a pivotal role to help Delhivery flourish rapidly. Now, this company has more than 1000 clients in 200+ cities. The USP of this company is that it provides delivery of shipments at the cheapest rate to their clients.

Related Story:- Artha India Ventures By Ashok Kumar Damini

CONCLUSION

At last, if we look back to the inception of delivery, we will find that even the co-founders were not familiar with the operations. They had no background of the work in which they once stepped into. All they had was a “vision”. A vision to start their own venture, a vision through which they can solve the problem of millions, a vision to be consistent, and get going after their dreams. And that’s all that you need to posses throughout your entrepreneurial journey. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/6″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Team Colitco