When hard work pays off

Pranav Mehta and Venkatesan Seshadri were on a business trip to Malaysia when the idea of having a marketplace for high-end services suddenly struck them.

Once back in the city, in 2013, they quit their jobs in Microsoft to start their own company, Flatpebbles.com. Their decision has paid off as the start-up recently received a funding for $600,000 by the Indian Angel Network.

The excited duo say that this funding is “a validation for all their hard work over the years”.

Flatpebbles is like a bazaar for high-end luxury services in the lifestyle and events category. From photographers to fashion stylists to even yoga trainers, one can get in touch with them through the website.

The philosophy behind Flatpebbles is pretty simple. “We were thinking about the problems and also the opportunities in the service industry. How so many people don’t really know the cost of a service. We decided to bring in transparency in the entire system.”

So, the duo converted a service into a product. When someone visits their website, they can check the entire work history of the service provider and their cost. “When service providers register with us, they also put up their portfolio. That way customers can check out the exact kind of service they want. Roughly 60 per cent of our bookings are for wedding photographers,” says Pranav.

And their USP is what they call “payment protection”. “Most of the photographers face a problem wherein people back out in the last minute. So, when a person books a photographer through us, they have to pay the money immediately. But the money stays with us until the photographer completes the job,” says Pranav.

In Hyderabad, there are a few photographers who have got about 50 bookings just through the site. But when they started, they had a few inhibitions.

“We were not sure if people would be okay with doing large value transactions online. Some of the photography assignments could cost up to Rs 5 lakh and we didn’t know if people would be open to give such a huge amount to a website. But, everyone was open to the idea,” says Pranav.

And about the funding, Pranav says the process had been going on for a few months but when the news about the funding finally came through, the duo was excited. “It was a validation for all the hard work we had been doing,” he says.