About the Startup
We as a startup thrive towards the goal of transitioning mainstream offline businesses to the online ecosystem. Thus opening a bigger window for users & customers to connect from a single platform. With TheLister’s proprietary bidding tech, businesses bid their lowest quote to customers, which gives the user the best deal at the best price than anywhere else! By successfully fulfilling a customer’s varied requirements through verified businesses & vendors at the lowest possible price, TheLister emerges as a premier online portal for both service seekers & service providers.
How did you start? How was the journey
TheLister was handcrafted by Praveen & Pratik on February of 2018. From being a duo to a team of 11 today, TheLister had its humble beginnings with some euphoric moments & its fair share of setbacks as well. To quote one such event, when the complete platform was developed after 6 months of brainstorming, we set the launch date with our hopes set high. We carried out all our test runs and it was finally time to set it live for the digital world.
We took the first step of promoting TheLister on social media and the next thing we knew, Facebook blacklisted our website from further sharing. And thanks to Facebook’s line of products, we were ousted from WhatsApp, Instagram and all other! The setback was huge but we weren’t just ready to give all up. We chalked out a different strategy then & there to let people know about our upcoming platform (without using the link) and use Google Form to take email ids of those who were interested. We then could send out pre-invites with our website link to all of them through Gmail (thank you Google!) and the best part, we received over 300 registrations on our platform that day. That was the moment, we understood we are onto something.
How does TheLister help in solving real-life usecases?
The main principle we follow is to streamline the process of connecting customers with the right businesses suited for their job. When users post their requirements on our platform, businesses bid on it, which creates a competition and the customers are benefited with a lower quote. TheLister is one single platform where you can specify your budget, your delivery time & location of choice, and categorically share your requirement in detail. Once that’s done, sit back and relax while certified firms/vendors start bidding on your requirement to give you the service at a competitive price! This helps to generate a win-win for both users and firms as it provides a fair chance to all businesses to participate & customers to get their requirements fulfilled by the best in the industry.
Why should users choose you over others?
I would like to simplify that in 4 simple points.
i. Background-verified Firms:
We have a dedicated team that visits the firm’s office to verify their location, projects and official documents and only then the are brought onboard.
ii. Best Pricing:
Customers get benefited by the ongoing bidding process on their requirement and get to choose a sweet deal!
iii. No-Fraud System:
Every business goes through the stringent verification policy to ascertain a zero-fraud online platform.
iv. Equal Play:
Our indigenous algorithm sets impartial & fair opportunities to all businesses in order to connect with customers. Thus, there’s no favouritism, sponsorships or vested interests.
Who all are behind TheLister?
Pratik & Praveen have both been key players in their past successful ventures viz. HashMantra Pvt. Ltd., Rentures Co. & CryptoGuru Inc. TheLister which is a brand subsidiary of FutureOrion Inc. is their next entrant into the Indian B2B2C service industry where offline businesses are being streamlined by bringing vendors/enterprises to the rapidly growing online Indian market. Praveen has also been instrumental in developing services for Tricon globally while Pratik spearheaded growth strategies at GlowRoad, now a $25M funded Startup.
One advice to young Entrepreneurs
You need not always have to have a clear vision of what you’re going to do. Sometimes you just need to hit the first gear and step on the accelerator to let your idea move forward. And as you move forward, things start taking shape and you learn from them. Fail. Learn. Create History.
What’s in the future for TheLister?
We plan to double the number of businesses in the next quarter while expanding to new service categories which are left offline & untapped in the Indian market. The ultimate vision is to make TheLister the goto brand for customers.