THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
VIKANT SAHAY
While COVID-19 has adversely hit the economy of India and Goa, it also opened new vistas and windows for those who were willing to make a quick and smart move and claim an advantage in this rather gloomy scenario.
Margao-based Ashwini Franco whose husband is a seafarer and into F&B, was into fitness and had a dance studio called ‘Dance Planet’ taking up classes of Zumba fitness, dance, martial arts etc.
“When COVID-19 started, we were told to keep the classes on hold and I assumed it would be for 15-30 days and my rentals continued as I received no rebate or mercy. I was helpless and forced to give up the studio. However, I always loved cooking, but never wanted to take that up as I was doing fine with my studio. One day during dinner we thought why can’t we start up with homemade pizzas and that’s when ‘The Home Oven’ was born. We kept introducing new pizzas to the menu, and got great feedbacks and a lot many bulk and repeat orders,” said Ashwini Franco the proprietor.
She added that she ran the studio for three years, and it was a crazy journey. “It’s been just a month that we have started The Home Oven, and this has given us the best. We keep busy, we enjoy baking pizzas, the most important and best part is that we are at home,” said Ashwini Franco.
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, Navin Prajapati co-founder and CEO of Decimi Technologies Pvt Ltd who came to Goa about a year ago was also hit by COVID-19 outbreak.
“We at SabkaMandi (new venture) believe in the saying that every challenge is a new opportunity. In our journey of 12 months or so we have gravitated towards every challenge as a new opportunity to work with the market and our customers. SabkaMandi started its journey as a B2B platform connecting retailers and distributors through a digital platform and provide more flexible and digital operational model for the entire trade community.”
Navin Prajapati went on to narrate that even though they were affected during the first three weeks of April, ie lockdown phase, they were soon able to jump back and double their growth rate and not surprisingly they have ventured out on several other verticals.
“Like every business today we were hit by COVID-19 on multiple sides but we turned it around and instead of being a downward force for us, we were able to think quickly and reshape the business. We did a few things which we would like to share which has helped us to achieve double the growth which we were seeing during the pre-COVID-19 days,” he added.
Partners in Blue Breeze Events, Sharmad Kamat and Saiesh Prabhu were running a successful event company before the lockdown. “Hospitality is one of the major industries hit by this pandemic. We had tough times with loans and vendor payments. Usually there is always a payment credit of two months for any event we execute but the sudden closure of company had a very severe impact on us. We had made lot of investments to build the inventory which is just lying in the warehouse now,” said Sharmad Kamat.
He went on to add that, “We have now started with an online essentials and grocery store called ‘Posro’. We four friends have started this venture as we can deliver the essential items to people’s homes. The response is really good as it was a need in Margao. People are slowly getting used to such services and will eventually start using them more frequently. Considering both the businesses, both are challenging and fun types. We are happy and always motivated to expand the company,” added Sharmad Kamat.
Managing partners in CopperCodes, Rohan Naik and Chinmay Kamat say that the current pandemic is not allowing the restaurants to pay a huge sum as commission to the big players in the food delivery App industry. Hence the restaurants wish to have a food delivery App under their brand name which would be a one-time cost for them. “Keeping in mind the pandemic situation and taking COVID-19 as an opportunity for CopperCodes we developed a food delivery App solution which could just be launched under the brand name of that particular restaurant in record time, thereby helping restaurants save on the recurring costs which they would have usually incurred. Similarly we would recommend everyone to see the pandemic as an opportunity to rediscover yourself,” said the Chinmay Kamat.
Maxwell Rodrigues had floated Creative Makerz in 2016 to cater for teaching STEAM related subjects to school students such as Robotics, 3D printing, IoT, astronomy etc, and floated Mattzus learning Technologies Pvt LTD which ventured into setting up STEAM Labs/ATL Labs in schools and was able to set up four such laboratories in various schools of Goa.
“Our business was booming just when Corona struck and all school had changes or delays in plans. Mattzus did not wait for things to recover but started thinking how to help out people in such testing times. We came up with our specially designed foam-based face shields were designed keeping the WHO guidelines in mind which initially we donated to Goa police, North and South Goa collectorates, DHS, Dept of Health Services, Revenue Department, Commercial Tax Department, Department of customs duty,” said Maxwell Rodrigues.
He added that so far they have sold around 7000 plus face shields with around 4000 plus to government institutions alone and rest local companies, doctors and laymen. “With revenue of more than Rs 7 lakh in just 3 months, we have now moved into supplying other healthcare and protective medical solutions to fight COVID-19. We were even selected under FICCI national challenge as top 60 start-ups ideas to fight Covid19 throughout India,” said Maxwell Rodrigues.
