I would say, Bootstrapping is the contemporary catchword. Yeah, right?! Bootstrapping or Bootstrapper is buzzing a lot these days. Slowly we can see the transition in the entrepreneurship and the brains behind the startups.
We have seen a few First Generation Entrepreneurs(FGE) or Startups who are successful in their way. But why most of them are not stealing the limelight?! It’s because of Money and investment. The major hiccup in the first generation entrepreneurship is investing a few percentages in the development of the company to avoid risk factors. And it is not that these FGEs are to be chucked off.
Unlike the first generation entrepreneurs, Bootstrapping startups have more freedom to voice their ideas and run the startup undauntedly without fear of losing money even at rough times. This freedom of thought leads to dare into any venture and never hang back to leap into any new strategies.
“Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permission to do them.”- Thomas Preston-Werner, Entrepreneur and Software developer
Absolute true. Bootstrapping is the one thing where there is no need of answering anyone or letting others to boss you. Nifty, yeah!
To bring a bit motivational change and kick the chains of a curb. Let’s swoop into the “ Top 10 Bootstrapped Startups in India and Their Founder”.
1. GrabOn
Hyderabad-based GrabOn is one of the most acclaimed startups that offers online coupons, offers, promo codes, and coupon codes site.
The company operates in various verticals like deals and coupons, price comparison (BestPriceOn) and gift cards. The startup is founded in 2013 by Ashok Reddy.
It has a total of $15M revenue and competes with CashKaro, Shop Pirate, Mydala.com and Coupon Dunia.
GrabOn, right off the bat became profitable and at present boasts with 4000 and more brand associations and over 60 strategic alliances. By 2020, the startup is tapping to win over 40% of the gift cards space.
2. FusionCharts
FusionCharts is a Kolkata-based leading industry for JavaScript charting library for web and mobile. It is founded in 2002 by Pallav Nadhani.
Its products have used by organizations to make data in their dashboards, internal reporting systems, and presentations to make it easily understandable to the clients. FusionCharts serves in over 120 countries with 25,000 customers and 500,000 developers that includes Fortune 500 companies and some of the famous sites.
The startup has a total of $2.8M in revenue and competes with Plotly and Reflect.
3. HappyFox
HappyFox is a help desk ticketing system that is hosted on the cloud, supporting multiple support channels- email, voice, etc. It is a global help desk that contributes to 35 languages. The startup is founded in 2011 by Shalini Jain based in California and Chennai.
HappyFox converts email, phone, web and chat requests into tickets. The company serves over 12000 companies across 70 countries with the brands including Lowe’s, LeapFrog, Whirlpool, etc.
The startup raised a total of $5M in revenue and competes with helpshift, HIPMOB, Kayako.
4. Quack Quack
QuackQuack.in is a Hyderabad-based online dating and matchmaking platform service for singles. Founded in 2010 by Ravi Mittal, the company claims to have 1.5 million users and has over 800k downloads with over 64 million message exchanges.
The startup has a total of $1M and competes with Hinge, TrulyMadly, iCrushiFlush.
5. Thinkpot
Mumbai-based Thinkpot is a design merchandising company caters products for SMEs and startups that are looking for affordable artwork. The company is founded 2014 by Sumit Ranka, Sneha Kakad, Ritesh Malik.
Thinkpot works with freelancers from different regions and launched around 10 new products. The company has a network of 100+ retailers across the country that includes Crosswords and Landmark, gifts stores, merchandise stores, and boutique stores.
It competes with FREEDA, Chumbak, PosterGuy.
6. Zoho
Zoho Corporation is one of the famous Indian software development companies that focuses on web-based business tools and information technology solutions.
The corporation is founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas based in Chennai and California. It offers a suite of business, collaboration, and productivity applications and over 30 online applications from CRM to mail, office suite, project management, invoicing, email marketing, social media management, and more.
7. Social Pilot
SocialPilot provides seamless management of publishing, analytics, and conversations for all social channels at one place. Founded in 2014 by Jimit Bagdiya, and Tejas Mehta based in Ahmedabad, Los Angeles, and Munich.
The startup launched a few capabilities to increase collaboration between teams and various analytical factors for major social networks that include Social Inbox, White Labeled Reports, Dropbox Integration to access stored media directly from Dropbox.
It raised a total of $100.9k in revenue. Social Pilot competes with HootSuite, Zoho, Buffer, Facebook Pages Manager, and Buffer.
8. 42Gears Mobility Systems
42Gears Mobility is an Indian based mobile device management and mobile productivity catering to organizations that have a sizeable mobile workforce or considerable mobile user base.
The Bengaluru-based startup is founded in 2009 by Onkar Singh and Prakash Gupta. It provided solutions to the major platforms like Window mobile, Android and iOS and has four popular suite products- SureMDM, SureLock, SureVideo, and SureFox.
At present, the company caters to more than 5000 companies across 60 countries in sectors like telecom, education, aviation, healthcare, and food & beverages.
9. Wingify
Wingify is a SaaS company that develops the world’s best tools for optimizing a website. Their products help you in enhancing your website sales, signups, conversions and also decrease the advertising budget.
Delhi-based Wingify startup is founded in 2009 by Paras Chopra. Its flagship product is called Visual Website Optimizer(VWO) which is a website testing platform. 4000+ customers use the product in more than 80 countries.
It has a total of $6.4M total revenue and competes with Optimizely, Monetate, and SiteSpect.
10. Antilog Vacations
Antilog Vacations is India’s leading online travel company that provides travel choices to the customers at affordable prices across the globe. It offers the best value based services 24*7 with customer support and cutting edge technology.
It is founded in 2009 by Abhishek Jaiswal and Mohit Singla based in Chandigarh. The startup offer services across 78+ countries. It claims to be the cheapest price provider and has grown its travelers base to more than 30,000.
Whizsky’s Standpoint
Most of the Indian startups jump into the unflinching ventures and likes, to be their own boss instead of curbing on the principles that are no need in their business. Bootstrapping needs an awful of guts to start a business, and these startups never step back in achieving.
I heard most of the Indian startups are labeled of chasing hype rather finding ways for deep pockets. Part of it is acceptable, owing to the fact that- with the Traction comes Dollars.
