Oye, party hard and get home safe this New Year's Eve
This season of good cheer, you don't have to fret about getting back home safe after a party. Oyeparty.com, an online community platform covering nightlife options, parties and clubbing events in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune, has launched a campaign called 'Responsible Nightlife'. The idea is to let you book cabs along with event tickets for New Year's Eve. The campaign is already on in Bangalore.
The idea for the campaign came up when Oyeparty team tried to find out why there were so many accidents on New Year's Eve despite the precautions police take. “We went to our customers to know why they don’t book a cab for the evening. It was ridiculous to know that the cab supply meets less than half of the demand on New Year's Eve in Bangalore. It was clearly a lack of planning. Someone has to estimate the demand and ensure the supply. That's it!” Ranjan Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Oyeparty says. This led his team to bundle tickets to any party or concerts in Bangalore with to-and-fro cab services. They will kick this off during the holiday season, then continue the service all through the year and take it to other cities as well.
Connecting the dots
To Ranjan and Burhanuddin Pithawala, Co-Founder and CTO of OyeParty, after four years in IIT Kharagpur, “being in Bangalore was like being in heaven”. They were both keen food and party enthusiasts and loved exploring nightlife options in the city. “But we encountered disastrous experiences many times at clubs and events. The irony was that while clubs struggle to reach out to clubbers, clubbers find it difficult to discover events that suit them most. We saw the opportunity and came up with Oyeparty.com,” Ranjan says. In less than two years, OyeParty evolved from being an information provider to a clubbing community platform, he says. So far, they have had 102,000 subscribers with varied event offerings in Bangalore.While most of the established players in this space are ticketing sites, we aspire to be a platform for clubbers to engage with, offering information and convenience to get to the finest parties, events, artists, clubs etc.,” Ranjan says.
Business on the dance floor
Ranjan says that Oyeparty has established its business model and process flow. “Also, we have been able to monetize to a sustained level in Bangalore. However, finding the resources to scale it up is the primary challenge we face.”
He says that while bootstrapping is fun, it is also challenging. “There is a fine balance in terms of how much cash we can burn. The story of profitability vs growth is old and has been faced by most of start-ups. So, whenever it’s a volume game, we struggle.”
To overcome this, they focus on giving good service, so that customers, event organizers and clubs stakeholders become their marketing team.
And the best part of their work? “Most people earn to party and we party to earn! For us, weekend meetings and business development happens on the dance floor. Can a company culture get cooler than that?” Ranjan asks.