In today's fast-moving digital world, searching for technicians and helpers to do one's day-to-day chores is itself a tedious task. Running to the market, searching for a plumber to quickly fix a broken water tap, an electrician to restore the broken wires, searching for a good beautician- where to find the best and most importantly a trustworthy person?
Gaurav Medhi, a History graduate from Gauhati University, was only helping his mother find a plumber when he felt it necessary to build a mobile application-based service to address these daily issues. Medhi, along with his sister Drishti Medhi, an Electrical engineer from Assam Engineering College devised the application QuickGhy. When it started service in 2019, the App was widely appreciated in social media circles for its timely appearance.
Dhistri Medhi narrating the journey of their Startup said to Business Northeast, "It was in 2017 that my brother thought of digitalizing the home services system for Guwahatians when he saw my mother being unable to find a plumber on time. We started off by understanding the service-providing sector of Guwahati. Talking to some neighbours and friends we felt that if we could bring these blue-collared workers (plumber, electrician, beautician, etc.) under one platform it would be a handy solution to many day-to-day problems."
"Ideating in 2017, QuickGhy was launched in 2019. For promotion, we turned to family members, and friends to start with, and sought the help of social media platforms for promoting my App. We still prefer to get promoted through word of mouth from our satisfied customers through our quality service”.
Currently, QuickGhy is engaging 30 direct service partners and over 100 indirect partners.
Presently with a monthly turnover of Rs. 3, 00,000 to Rs. 5, 00,000 the business has started with an investment of Rs. 3,00.000 from the two siblings' pocket money.
"We cater to both offices and homes. The price of the services is according to need starting from Rs. 350. Our first customer was a friend who wanted to repair an Air Conditioner. Till now we have catered to over 5000 customers generating over Rs. 12 lakh year-on-year (YOY) since mid-2020, Medhi added.
The pandemic, soon after the launch was a major challenge for the Start-up, but Gaurav opined that their good communication with customers kept them floating. "We related to the customers who made bookings about our shortage of staff due to the crisis and people had been understanding to wait for 2 to three days. They had been supportive and appreciated our response."
QuickGhy aspires to upgrade the associated workers with better skills, promoting them from blue-collar to grey-collar workers with licenses, associate degrees, or diplomas.
Partnering with Assam Skill Development Mission (ASDM) in 2020, the brother-sister duo managed to upgrade the skills of their service partners.
After expanding an arm to Tezpur in April 2022, QuickGhy is planning to spread to five more places in Assam and the northeast region, and also to include additional sectors to their range of services.
Speaking on the role of the government to improve the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Assam, Dhristi Medhi said that the government should give opportunities to tap the rural entrepreneurship potential. “Government should start more incubation facilities for the remote areas. There is enough resilience and creativity around which can be utilized,” said Dhristi Medhi.
The brother-sister duo added, "There are a lot of talents and opportunities as well. It is important to link the two. One needs to put in immense hard work to achieve what is desired."
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