Happitoo is India’s first night out planning and recommendation app, recently launched on Android that curates the best of nightlife experiences and real-time deals in your part of town .
You have planned an all-girls night out and you want to make it very special as you have been working so hard over the month and really deserve a break. Googling is not working out and that’s when you come across this cool app – Happitoo.
It is a location based app that enables users to explore, discover and socialize over food, drinks, dance, music, theme nights, buffets and real time offers at restaurants, pubs, clubs and lounges; all in a single swipe. Quick to earn a reputation, Happitoo launched on 21 August 2015, garnered over 15000 installs in the first 50 days itself.
About Happitoo:
A hyper- local mobile app, Happitoo aims to become the #1 on-demand night out solutions by the end of 2017. It is India’s first ever real time app displaying happy hours, special offers, theme nights, quarter joints and buffets and helps people plan epic nights in just six steps. Happitoo is the largest network covering 8000+ nightspots, 700+ locations and 15 cities. Happitoo has arranged a very unique Hyperlocal Night out experience platform that connects restaurants and consumers in real-time. It is currently present in 15 cities in India, which include Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Faridabad, Chandigarh, Indore and Chennai. And is looking forward to build the largest community of foodies, drink enthusiasts, party lovers and artists in India.
The Happy Start:
The dynamic duo, Hemant and Ravi Raj Meena are the brains behind Happitoo. Hemant has more than 20 years of experience in digital media & mobile entertainment and Ravi is an IIT Mumbai
graduate. They had conducted extensive research to understand the needs and wants of the customers and claim that their app is the perfect reflection of what the customers are looking forward to. Both Hemant and Ravi love partying, music and live entertainment; they decided to create the largest curated experience around everything that defines nightlife. They decided to name the app Happitoo as they thought it should reflect the happiness it brings into people’s evenings.
A talk with Hemant will convince one of the passions and love the duo has about the digital media and technology. “I had the opportunity to get on the Internet bandwagon at a very early stage in 1997. Over a period of time, I have worked in the consumer internet, broadband applications, retail, mobile entertainment and digital distribution space,” he talks excitedly about his career path.
The Business and its products:
Initially in 2013, the FNB City Media Pvt. Ltd. was launched with a vision to create the largest mobile platform for aggregating real-time Happy Hours offer and deals at restaurants and pubs. As
they were doing that, the duo realised that the restaurants and the nightclubs had much more to offer and the patrons had much more to look forward to.
After a little research, they realized that there was no app dedicated to recommending nightlife experiences to users based on their choice, mood and location.“We saw a huge opportunity in that and grabbed it. That’s how Happitoo was launched on 21st August last year,” Hemant smiles.
USP of Happitoo:
Happitoo gives customers a unique experience that no other app does. Happitoo enables customers to explore, discover and socialize, taking benefits of real time offers at restaurants, pubs, clubs and lounges all in a single swipe. It has India’s first nightlife recommendation tool, Make My Night, which helps plan epic nights in 6 easy steps. Innovation in design and colors of the app are picked to brighten up the app experience during the night. The app has also integrated with Uber, to make the user experience more comfortable and complete.
Marketing and Finance Activities:
Hemant is smiling wryly when asked about the marketing activities of the app. “Very early to comment on strategies which we can term as successful. We will continue to experiment and continuously look at data to arrive at conclusions with regards to what works.” The duo has always believed in technology as an enabler, and at Happitoo,their endevaour is to challenge themselves with the most complex technology solutions to deliver the most awesome consumer experience. They expect this to generate good word of mouth publicity, which is of course the greatest marketing tool ever. “We were bootstrapping till June 2015 end. We then did a small round of Rs.50Lacs and are currently looking at raising $0.5Mn to fund our expansion plans.” The creators have it all planned out.
Milestones and challenges:
Hemant is very modest when it comes to ticking out the milestones achieved. He says they are still young in the industry and have a long way to go before anything can be said. However, he does give a thumbs up to his team “I must compliment the team for setting up a very efficient system for collecting real-time offers at restaurants and pubs. We realized at an early stage that the success of our proposition is a function of the metadata and we invested in getting this right. “ Hemant is a very positive person and sees every challenge as an opportunity. According to him, the ability of a start-up to embrace challenges and convert into an opportunity determines success. “We have a long term strategic plan which is broken down into quarterly plans. The expansion roadmap along with the corresponding KPI’s are built into these plans. The overall idea is to build a business, which over a time self sustains. “ he says
The current market scenario:
India is one of the fastest growing consumer marketplace in the world, when we talk about the appetite to consume and ability to spend. Food and services sector is currently $48 billion. Market, contributing to over 2.3% of India’s GDP, is expected to grow at 11% CAGR and touch $78 billion. byFY’18. According to Hemant, India is one of the youngest nations in the world, fastest growing
smartphone economies, with the largest base of middle class families with high disposable income levels. “There has been a significant jump in the ‘Eating Out & Drinking Out (EODO)’ consumer base in India, willing to go out and spend more frequently” he says.
However, when compared to some of the countries in South East Asia, India is still a very nascent EODO market with regards to the overall base and the frequency of going out. The pace at which the adoption of smartphones in India is going on, Hemant believes technology will definitely become the biggest enabler in driving this further up.
Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs:
“The best part of being an entrepreneur is that you can’t blame anybody else for your failures. Managing complex situations and working on solutions is the most satisfying part of being an entrepreneur.” Hemant is excited when he talks about it.
According to Hemant, firstly, the genesis of any business should be based on solving a genuine customer problem. Secondly, the entrepreneur should have a long term vision of scaling up and acquiring genuine customers aroundthe products and services. Thirdly, clarity of thought about the core revenue line is essential. Hemant has a very wise advice to the budding entrepreneurs. “My advice to budding entrepreneurs is to never give up. Chase your dream no matter what. Don’t build for valuation, build for consumers”.
Text: Nima Rahul Photos: Happitoo.com