2020 Was Not A Year To Survive, But A Year To Thrive

Nobody will deny that 2020 was a black swan event in our history. It caused global economies to come to a standstill, with the IMF declaring a recession as bad as, or worse than in 2009. Shops closed, people off the street and job cuts, the economy went downhill. Who do we sell a product to, when we have no buyers? But, the year is about to come to an end and we cannot be happier. With very few hope in our hearts, the whole world will be venturing into 2021.

Yet, we must look back at what we achieved this year. It is not much, but it gives up hope. What better than to look at startups that had something good to tell? 11 Indian Startups turned Unicorns this year. More than 50 startups were able to benefit from the Covid tailwinds. They secured investments and some even diversified. Some took the opportunity to clean up the backend and start afresh, while others changed the way they operated. Many turned digital this year and sectors like healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, education, entertainment, etc found more and more users. CiOL has some wonderful stories from startups who believed that "2020 was not just a year to survive, but a year to thrive."

Grow and let grow

In the first quarter of 2020, startups weren't even sure how to cope up. But they evolved and adapted. From consumer preferences to other startups adopting digital, many startups saw growth this year. Monish Darda, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Icertis says, “Adversity has always provided fundamentally strong companies with the opportunities to become better at what they do. As Taleb so succinctly puts it – Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness.”

He further adds, “Organizations looked to speed up digital transformation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it created an industry-wide demand for contract intelligence. It helped model complex organizations, global business relationships, and contracting processes to adapt to ever-changing business dynamics. As a result, Icertis saw increasing demand from several sectors. As much as the pandemic was a challenge, it provided us with the opportunity to deliver value to our customers – including speeding up contracting processes around the COVID-19 vaccine for one of our pharma customers, and managing the supply chain contracts for others as they reacted to disruptions in supply."

On the same note, Kazim Rizvi, Founding Director of The Dialogue says, “2020 has been a tumultuous year for everyone, but we at The Dialogue have embraced the changes it has brought and managed to thrive. One major knock-on effect of the pandemic has been the shift to virtual spaces and greater reliance on technology. This has come at a time when India has herself been going through the process of digital integration and has only helped speed it up. Being one of the most recognised names in the tech policy space within the country, our hard-working and innovative team was able to thrive under pressure and help create change and guide progressive policy discourse which will hold India in good stead moving into the future.”

A Changing Future

Padmaja Ruparel, Co-Founder & President of India's largest Angel Network, IAN once told Forbes, “Indian startups sailing through the 2020 crisis are a result of persistence. In the coming years, startups will bring disruptive solutions to change the way we live, consume and communicate.” Her words hold very true.

Before the pandemic, very few people were familiar with Virtual Try-On (VTO) and Lenskart was the limit. But more people, especially fashion outlets adopted VTO this pandemic. Ms Meghna Saraogi, Co-Founder & CEO, StyleDotMe says, “StyleDotMe has experienced about a 300% rise in monthly Try-On from 2019. We also witnessed a 50% growth in the client base in 2020. Overall, the revenue clocked over 150% from last year as 250+ jewellers across 44 cities globally use our product.”

In another instance, “Covid-19 suddenly pushed every SMB to become comfortable digitally,” states Rishi Kulkarni, CEO and Co-founder, Revv. “We targeted global markets and offered an easy-to-use no-code document builder. We won during this time with our two-fold method to the entire approach. First, we had a very clear product vision and we knew our target market. Second, we enabled our people with a culture of innovation and teamwork despite the work from home challenges.” Having a document builder is definitely a new marketable product.

Similarly, commercial properties clock the charts all the time. With as less as 25 lakhs, a startup helps you to invest in high commercial properties. That's what hBits does. Shiv Parekh, Founder, hBits, states, “In 2020, we have expanded our portfolio and assets. We are already in negotiations with the developers for additional assets. Our current investors are very happy with us as all our tenants have paid rentals during the lockdown. We also increased our network and have registered 500 channel partners and over 10,000 investors on our platform.”

Developing Fintech sector

“It is all about perspective,” says Anand Bhatia, CMO, Fino Payments Bank. “For us, COVID meant - Creating Opportunities in Virus-Infected Days.” (That is definitely a good motto)

He further adds, “With such a mindset we were able to overcome any challenge. What helped was that we were prepared as more and more consumers adopted formal banking. We were prepared as more youth wanted to start offering banking services in their local markets and signed up as Fino Merchant Points. And being prepared meant focusing on core consumer needs wrt a bank ( always available, easy to access).”

Similarly, the pandemic forced many to digitise payments. On that note, Nitya Sharma, Co-founder & CEO Simpl states that Simpl was the Winner of the Fintech Startup of the Year award by IFTA 2020. “We onboarded 1500 new merchants via Razorpay recently. We’re one of the leading players in the ‘pay later’ space with a network of 2500+ category-leading merchants. Also, we have witnessed a 45% increase in transactions.” Times are changing and people are adopting online transactions.

Again, people needed to know that doing online transactions was safe. “COVID has bought a seismic shift in consumer behaviour and the movement of consumers to digital,” states Mr Amit Nigam, COO & Executive Director of BANKIT. “FinTech businesses adapting have utilised these changes to thrive in these difficult times. Many local entrepreneurs in tier 2 and tier 3 areas have used this opportunity to expand their businesses with BANKIT by reaching the consumers with what they needed. This has also instilled a level of trust and loyalty that can help the business to stand out in the mind of the consumers too.”

Made the pandemic easy to bear

The pandemic was tough, on relationships as well. So, we can't deny that dating apps helped. But did the pandemic help them? Talking about Aisle, Able Joseph, Founder & CEO states, “Aisle has been focused on enabling meaningful relationships from day 1. But over the last few years, casual dating apps were the main talk in town. They are fun to use and their marketing campaigns are even more fun to watch. However, 2020 reminded desis about the significance of having deep meaningful relationships. We now see a lot more users switching over from being casual daters to becoming high-intent daters.”

Online games made our lockdown easier as well. Talking to CiOL, Varun Mahna, CEO & Founder, PokerDangal says, “2020 was indeed a year to thrive, but survival was an integral yet unignorable part of it. Some businesses struggled to persist in the market, but those who glimpsed the opportunity to thrive met fierce competition.”

He further adds, “PokerDangal got to serve a huge and enticing user base of players in 2020. It was an insane competition. We also recently launched our second product – RummyDangal to give the users the best online Rummy experience. However, PokerDangal has achieved a sudden surge in user-engagement by 70%, along with progress by 50% in the acquisition. Besides this, the entire team we have in our startup managed their best to serve their responsibilities despite coronavirus & lockdown around them.”

Scrolling through content helped us overcome our FOMO. Pulkit Agrawal, Co-Founder, Trell states, “The Chinese App ban made Trell the primary choice for people who wanted to share their interests with a large community. With this, our creator community grew to over 18 million! We became a trusted source for COVID-related information as doctors shared real-time information on Trell. This helped us reduce misinformation to a large extent across the country. We launched the Trell Shop, our social commerce vertical that is thriving and growing incredibly today.”

More stories coming up

Let the year 2020 end on some positivity and good stories. Follow this space to read more success stories of startups during 2020 in the coming few days.