Doormint, on-demand professional consumer service platform, raises angel funding from Powai Lake Ventures

Friday April 17, 2015 , 5 min Read

Launched in January 2015, Doormint has a vision to become a one-stop solution for hyper local consumer services. Inspired by real life experiences, it was started by three ex IITians, Naman Lahoty (IITB), Abhinav Agarwal (IITB) and Piyush Ranjan (IITK) to add value to the consumer service space which is currently disorganised. Doormint has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Powai Lake Ventures and is in talks with VCs to raise the next round very soon.

Based in Chandivali, Mumbai, Doormint provides hassle-free, punctual and transparent utility consumer services at your doorstep. Its current services include on-demand electrician, plumber, carpenter, electronics appliance repair and pest control. By integrating latest technology with operations, Doormint minimises customer effort and delivers a delightful and safe customer experience.

This funded startup has a current team size of 13 across domains of business intelligence, marketing, product development and business fulfillment. Doormint services are currently available in the areas of Powai, Chandivali, Andheri, Ghatkopar, Vikhroli, Bhandup, and Mulund in Mumbai. Receiving accolades from their customers already, Doormint plans to expand rapidly in terms of service area, categories and workforce.

How it all began?

Abhinav recalls an incident which led him to think of finding a solution, which is now Doormint. He recollects, “One fine day, the geyser in my bathroom was not working. After a few unsuccessful attempts by me to repair it, I approached the society in-charge for help who told me to call the owner who was not reachable. Then I called a local electrician who arrived three hours late. After multiple visits, he got it repaired and overcharged me heavily. With no benchmark pricing and limited knowledge about the working of the geyser, I felt that I was cheated for the repairing work done. It was a frustrating experience.”

This incident made the founders think about a solution and a better way out in terms of value addition in the consumer services system. Hence the idea of Doormint was born. Initially, the founders spent over a month on in-depth research and road hunting of the suppliers and service providers. They interacted with the blue collar workers and understood their side of the story.

Onboarding of skilled service personnel

Doormint currently has a pool of 250 skilled service personnel across the range of services which it offers. To attain a benchmark service quality and happy customers, Doormint does not compromise on the quality of service personnel who are employed to do the job. A strict on-boarding process is kept in place to make sure the customer is completely satisfied with the Doormint service. This includes various background checks and steps. Firstly, the service person to be on-boarded is interviewed thoroughly by the Doormint team to gauge his behaviour, communication skills, education background and the skill license check. Secondly, a personal background verification step follows which includes personal ID, address, criminal records and police verification. Once this is cleared, Doormint keeps a strict vigil for the first two jobs of the person on-boarded and customer feedback is taken. Once the customer and Doormint are satisfied, the service person is on-boarded.

Once employed, a Doormint uniform, ID and a cap gives the service person an identity and a recognition of the Doormint value which he stands for while he is on the job. Naman Lahoty adds, “Training is the key to instill professionalism in the servicemen and we regularly conduct training sessions. They are given instructions on how to present themselves apart from being courteous even to a hard customer.”

On competition in this space

Local technicians and service centres, listing portals such as JustDial, Sulekha, YellowPages, Near.in; and service providers such as Jack on Block, Hammer and Mop are in the same segment indirectly. While aggregators like UrbanClap, TimeSaverz, Taskbob, Mr. Right and Zepper are in the same segment directly. On the global front Amazon, Thumbtack, Handy, TaskRabbit, and Alfred are in the same segment too.

Doormint-Screen-Shot — The Doormint founders feel that the key to stand out is to understand this space thoroughly and focus on efficient execution. They believe that a same approach for all the services, blue collar and professional collar services, would not work. While some value service delivery, others value time. Hence, Doormint believes that customisation is the key. Doormint offers fair upfront pricing to the customer, skilled and well behaved service personnel, efficient operations through technology and automation and most importantly, a dedicated and visionary team to make it all happen.

Future plans

Currently, with 50 to 60 bookings per day and 30% repeat customers within three months of its launch, Doormint has seen a tremendous positive response among the people. Naman says, “It is immensely satisfying to see one particular customer booking our service seven times in three months. It shows that our value addition has gained the trust of the people.” Doormint has plans to include more service categories such as laundry services etc. in their repertoire. Abhinav pitches in, “We do not want people to download different apps for different services. Doormint will be a single app for all the consumer services.” Area wise, Doormint plans to go pan Mumbai soon. With ambitious and aggressive future plans, Doormint team aims to achieve 1000 transactions per day within six months. To reach this, they are increasing their team size to about 40 in three months.

Get to know more about them. Visit their website http://www.doormint.in/ and download their Android and iOS app.

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