Startup Street: Gurugram’s Condom SOS Answered
Send a Snapchat, get a box of condoms. This startup guarantees protection in a “jiffy”.
Indian startups are increasingly working on unique, daring and often quirky ideas in a bid to not be overlooked. In the process, some gain success while others trip over their feet.
Here’s a quick roundup of the new and the ‘in’ from the world of startups on our weekly column – Startup Street.
Send a Snapchat, Get a Condom
Good news for people in Gurugram!
SMS Contraceptive, founded by 18-year-old Sirhaan Seth, delivers condoms, contraceptive pills, pregnancy tests, and lubricants to residents of Gurugram.
The quirky part? Send a Snapchat as an SOS call and protection will be delivered to your doorstep in 30 minutes, the startup says on its website.
Gurugram-ers can also get in touch with SMS Contraceptive through Whatsapp, SMS and good old fashioned phone calls.
A shout-out on Twitter from the founder’s uncle – marketing guru and regaled columnist Suhel Seth – should also help the Gurugram-based startup grab a few more eyeballs.
Uber’s Driverless Wonder
Yes, it’s true. These cars drive themselves. No really, they do.
Uber launched a groundbreaking driverless car service on Wednesday, jumping ahead of U.S. auto giants and Silicon Valley rivals with technology that could revolutionise transportation.
The web-based ride service launched four self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and said that it was ready to deploy another dozen of these cars at any given time, according to a company statement.
As a safety precaution, Uber has assigned two technicians to each of the four cars for the time being. According to reporters at Wired.com, who have test ridden a driverless Uber, one of these technicians will sit behind the wheel, ready to take over at any moment.
BloombergQuint’s Aayush Aliawadi and Alex Mathew spent a few hours on Mumbai’s Marine Drive to find out if driverless Uber cabs will work in Mumbai, or for that matter in India, and found that there may be very few takers.
While we are on the subject of Uber, the company’s India arm has partnered with Maruti Suzuki to train 30,000 individuals as commercial drivers.
Snapdeal’s Shiny New Logo
Out with the blue and in with more red. Snapdeal has a new logo and brand campaign called ‘Unbox Zindagi’.
Unfortunately, some found the new logo somewhat ‘inspired’ as they were quick to point out on Twitter.
Why AskMe Employees Were Trending
#HelpAskMeEmloyees was a trending hashtag last week after media reports claimed 4,000 employees of troubled hyper-local e-commerce and grocery company AskMe were allegedly laid off without salaries over the last two months.
Employees expressed their plight on Twitter, asking everyone including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Subramanian Swamy, Arun Jaitley and even Salman Khan to intervene.
The company suspended operations at the end of August 2016, owing to a funding crunch.
BloombergQuint was not able to verify employee claims or obtain a comment from AskMe on the reported lay-offs.
States Align To Modi’s Startup Vision
‘Startup Chhattisgarh’ is the latest in the line of efforts by state governments to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Startup India.
Chief Minister Raman Singh launched the initiative on September 13, which includes setting up 14 different camps across the state to help young entrepreneurs kickstart their ideas, according to a PTI report.
At least 3,000 ideas would be collected through these camps and in the first phase, 36 startup units selected of these ideas will be developed in next four months. The first 36 startups established in the state would be reimbursed (with) all state govt taxes paid by them for first three years. Apart from this, assistance will be given in preparing the project report, quality certifications, technical patent costsRaman Singh, Chief Minister, Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh isn’t the only state, though. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gave the final nod to set up a Rs 5,000 crore startup fund which will be invested in ventures over the next five years, the news report said.
Other states which have a startup policy include Gujarat, Odisha, Telengana, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.
Paytm Ties Up With IRCTC
Mobile payment and commerce platform Paytm has tied up with the country’s largest rail ticketing platform IRCTC to enable digital payments for travellers.
The Paytm Wallet is already accepted on the IRCTC platform and is in addition to the native integration of Paytm’s payment gateway to the IRCTC application, a company statement said.
“At Paytm, we are on a mission is to make payments extremely simple. Our deeper integration with IRCTC platform will not only provide greater convenience to its users but would also increase the success rates of such transactions,” Kiran Vasireddy, Senior Vice President, Paytm said in the statement.