How I Got My STARTUP IDEA Indians were ready to drive, didn’t have wheels
THE IDEA: Create a
self-drive car rental service for India
EUREKA MOMENT: For
American Greg Moran, it was a project in India that got him familiar with the
market. “I realised that India was a great opportunity and somebody had to do
something very quickly about infrastructure. This was in 2010. The notion of
transport came up because it was not regulated and easier to break into,” says
the former investment banker. “We started thinking about what big models we
could adopt to help with urban infrastructure.” Zoom, a similar self-drive
service, was operating in the US. He decided to build the same in India.
INITIAL DAYS: “I got
lucky in the first week of December 2010,” he says. A meeting with Ford in
Delhi led him to a car dealer in Bengaluru, who connected Moran with Ramesh
Tours and Travels, a firm that could provide Zoomcar the much-coveted licence.
“On 22 December 2012, we inked the deal with Ramesh Tours and Travels,” Moran
says.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Most
investors Moran spoke to initially hated the idea. “They saw this as a
difficult business in terms of execution risk. They kept saying Indians hate
driving. But it seemed unlikely because I saw so many people driving their own
cars. Dealers and young people also gave me a different notion,” he says.
WHERE I AM NOW: Zoomcar
is profitable in most cities and has a fleet of 3,000 vehicles. It recently
introduced cycle-sharing.
GREG MORAN | Founder, Zoomcar
— SHALINA PILLAI
TNN29APR18
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