EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof.

Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

Suresh Bagavathula: Hello everyone and welcome to this little interactive session that we
planned out for you all today. So, most of us when we have an idea, we really have no idea
how to take it forward. And the objective of week 4 which was lean canvas and hypothesis
testing was to take our idea and very systematically move towards a part of the venture which
will start to seem as if you are addressing a customer problem. So, in order to demonstrate
this, I've asked one of the groups that were part of my course 'woof'; they have currently won
the business plan competition here, they were also part of my course but what I really liked
is the way in which they systematically went from one idea to another. But
more importantly how did they take idea? talk to customers? most of the time they were out
of campus while they were talking to customers but systematically moved from an idea to a
minimum viable product (MVP). So, we have Gokul, Sidhu, and Dinesh as part of woof. We
also have Vikyath here. Vikyath handles incubation, launchpad & incubation in a way he is
kind of the community manager at NSRCEL. So, thanks, guys thanks for coming here and look
forward to hearing your story.

Sidhu: Thank you, professor, we are extremely elated to be coming here and presenting our
journey for our idea woof. Just to give a highlight about our idea, woof is aiming to be a one-
place curated platform for all pets and pet-related services. And now we will be explaining
our journey so that you will get an idea how we used the hypothesis-driven testing and lean
canvas to arrive at an MVP.

Like most of you all, even we started with a list of ideas and then we shortlisted them and
then we arrived at three ideas.

There is already a player, strong player in the sports discovery platform, but we'll be a first
mover in case we go to the pet service marketplace. Because of that and since it is totally
unorganized right now and there is so much value in this because people spend a lot of money
on their pets and because of the upwardly moment of the society and the economical status
of the people in the country it is always going to go up. So, we finalize on the idea of pet
services marketplace and named it 'woof'.

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

Gokul: Started off with a simple marketplace for all the pet-related services and we knew it
was an ambitious task because there are other players in other regions who were trying to do
the same thing, but they failed miserably. And also, a lot of things come under pet services,
so it was a wide net which we threw. So, what we did was we restarted interviewing and then
talking to a lot of customers for our market research. So, interviewed pet owners, service
providers, vets, breeders, a whole bunch of people who are involved in the value chain. And
that's why we started off with a market research. So, over a period of one and half months,
we spoke to more than 400 hundred people of which more than 100 plus were potential dog
owners. And we met them in all kinds of places, starting from dog parks, regular parks,
cafeterias, dog-friendly bars, etc. And based on our interaction we decided that the best place
to focus, one of the best vertical to start off with is to address people who are new dog owners
or potential new dog owners and the reason for that is we are catching them very early in
their life cycle and the LTV for such a customer was really huge. So, we could always add
ancillary services for the customers for whom we, you know, brought on a different services.
For whom we bought the dogs and what we did is we pivoted to a curated platform. So again,
catering to potential dog owners means there are a lot of breeders who were already knowing
it through platforms say OLX, Quikr, etc... So, where we wanted to differentiate ourselves was
by providing value by finding only ethically breed healthy pups. So that is one of the things
that they we again found in market research that most of these breeders were unethical
breeders, where they produced litters of pups in a very bad condition. So that was the
pivot that we took at that point in time. And to basically take the idea forward and to get a
lot of customers onboard, we launched a website which was primarily to drive education
value, talk a lot more our purpose, our vision, educate customers about what ethical breeding
is etc. And then we created a Facebook page which was primarily focused on building a dog
community, people who love dogs and who want to connect with other people. We also
developed a chat bot in the process.

Vikyath: So, there's a question. Did you use your network, or did you just walk on the road
and ask people, I mean, fill up your survey?

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

Gokul: So, the first thing we did is... we for our market... so again, I would like to break that
down into two stages. The first stage is the market research stage where we just went to the
street and we are lucky to make a early break in terms of going to Therpup, which is a dog
cafe. So that's a very focus group for us. People who come there are dog lovers. So, we were
able to identify our target market there. So that really help enrich our market research. In
terms of finding customers which is the second stage, there we used our network where we
got help from Professor Suresh, by... where he helped us reach out to more community within
IIM Bangalore. So, when we had our platform ready, he helped us send emails and stuff to
the people in IIM Bangalore.

Suresh Bagavathula: So, what you are basically saying is people who have ideas should look
for venues where people who are likely to have that problem are likely to converge. Like when
you're looking at pet owners you went to a pet cafe. So similarly, if you are looking at school
going children, so probably you would go talk to school or if you are looking at any specific
problem. What you're saying is go to a place where people with that problem are likely
to converge and that would be an easy place for you to start a conversation.

Gokul: Yeah, so another example is Dinesh when he went back to hometown with this
process, he went to a mall and then, you know, try to meet a whole bunch of people. There
the response that we got was very sparse. So, it was not a enriched information that we could
gather. So, everyone said all kinds of stuff, so to really get something meaningful it's best to
reach out to your one place where you have more targeted audience. Going back, so the
chatbot was again a way to address questions of our already existing dog owners. So, these
were the various steps we took and all of this eventually lead to, you know, us getting about
8 deals within a period of one week.

Vikyath: So, did you have a time limit before building the MVP like or target or did you say I
need to meet 400 people and only then build.

Gokul: So actually, we did not know what to build until we met those 400. So, to give you an
example one of the things that happened is we build posters. So that's how we thought

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

it’s easy to reach out to people. So, we literally printed out hundreds of posters went to the
(what’s that park)

Dinesh: Therpup and there were Cubbon park where dog park (sic) that happens on Sunday
morning.

Gokul: So, we literally handed out posters etc. and only after that, so only after going through
all that process we knew that just creating a Facebook platform would be a lot easier to you
know like do targeted advertisement. And another interesting thing is we were met with an
opportunity which we did not know see coming which was some of our PGP 2's at that time,
our seniors had a digital marketing course. So, for that course, they needed a company or a
platform to whom you know like they want to collaborate and do advertisement with.

Dinesh: They also had money that they could dispose they had like 5000 rupees they
could dispose. The PGP 2 teams had... as part of their course had like 5000 rupees they could
just distribute for the marketing campaign they had and that we took that opportunity, 5000
bucks, okay let's use it for marketing all our post in Facebook. Which are whenever we
uploaded a dog that was up for sale we put in that money to boost the post in Facebook.

Suresh Bagavathula: So, what you are saying is you can’t plan all of this out. You have to look
for resources from your network in and around you, which you could leverage to quickly close
on customers, right? In your case, you had access to PGP students. But others could also have
resources in their neighbourhood that they could leverage, children, there could be others in
their apartment. So, people have to be alert to see what other resources they could bring in,
in order to quickly figure out how they could how they can have a better understanding of
their own problem.

Dinesh: Very true, for example, for us we knew we were you know marketing through
Facebook all of it. But at every point in time any friend we see who likes dogs whatever, you
immediately start asking do you want a dog? And we start, okay they will be like, 'yeah my
parents are thinking and all of it.' That's the chance we get, and we just start bugging them
over and over and again, like out of there is like no dignity, no nothing. Start asking them it

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

didn't all happen to get a convert but every opportunity to you get, you just kind of, you know
multiple things are happening, you don't know which might succeed so just hit at everything
you can.

Suresh Bagavathula: So that will help you all to understand the lay of the land, right! So, you
are trying to sell dogs, you basically are talking to a bunch of people who are interested dogs,
not everybody would be a convert but it's only by talking to a lot of people that they'll come
back to your website. They know next time they want to have a dog, they'll come back to you.
So, I think it's very important to... as you said, be shameless and go talk to everybody who is
interested in a product or service that you all are thinking of.

Dinesh: And also, when you're out in the streets and like speaking to people, initially I have
this kind of thing, should I go speak? So, I am in this mall in Coimbatore thinking should I go
speak? what will the family think about me? they are like so many families who would just
like look at me, 'could I speak to you for 2 minutes'? They like no, no and they just walk off.
And there are couple of people who are happy to speak and definitely you know that
someone who is interested or who is... what I am trying to say is you're trying to speak about
dogs and somebody who likes dogs will definitely get into a conversation with you. So, I spoke
with more than 100 families or individuals in the mall that day. So, the few people who like
dogs immediately came in for a very good conversation, but others shooed away. So, you
shouldn't like... there could be the very sad part and the happy part in being on the road.

Suresh Bagavathula: So sometimes it's said that you should have an opening
question. Opening question could be, do you like dogs? Do you love dogs? Are your pet
owner? So, there should be a opening question which qualifies whether the person is a
respondent for you or not. The other way is to say that, I am part of, I'm doing a project. So,
people are open to saying that I am doing a project as part of my course, are your pet owner?
So, you could say I am from this college in PSG in Coimbatore, a lot of people would know
PSG in Coimbatore. So, leverage that you are not a random stranger coming and...

Dinesh: We have this grand idea to become one-stop platform for all dog services. But to
have... the MVP is like the minimal content or platform whatever I could have to just prove

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

my concept. So, what is the first thing that I can target was a question in our mind, there was
service providers or the customers that was the first question we had. And at least from the
initial surveys we realized that...

Suresh Bagavathula: So, when you say service provider, who is the service provider?

Dinesh: So, in this case, service providers could be the person who... a breeder who gives you
a dog. A vet who kind of takes care of your dogs for medical requirements, a walker or a
trainer or a person who can sit dogs... sits your dog when you are out of town. So, these are
the various part of service providers and so we wanted to make it also... So, we wanted to
prove that if some part is onboard with us, then other part we can start
focusing at (sic) service providers on board then I can start focusing on the customers. So, we
started, with that context we started trying to prove the first hypothesis which was at least
50% of service providers will be onboard of the platform and this had to be with a hard
commitment. You will sign out term sheet with us. Otherwise, everybody would say yeah, I
will sign up but later they wouldn't. So, it happened that way that we spoke with 20 people
which were a mix of the service providers that I just mentioned, except for trainers and
walkers. And 70% of them, 14 were willing to come onboard and even from that, the moment
we start speaking we had certain ideas that was coming from the conversation itself, for
example, the super bred kennels didn't want to come onboard to the platform, but others
who are like mediocre doctors, mediocre breeders wanted to come onboard.

So now that I know that the service line is streamlined. The service provider is streamlined, if
I start getting the customers I can start servicing them. So whatever might may be my MVP,
I'll have one service provider will just, who can prove for me.

The next part was now to understand this is not as a hypothesis testing but a kind of a group
interviews with customers to understand what are the biggest pain points? So that I just
target for that and if I can prove that if I am successful in that region most probably I'll... once
I have people on board I will be able to cater the other requirement also. So, during this point
we spoke with more than about 30 customers randomly, so we were in Therpup, we were in
dog park and people were quite willing to open when we were speaking about the idea and

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

we realised that getting the dogs was the biggest pain, getting the pup initially was a
biggest pain, followed by meeting for the dog and then dog walking, veterinary... training
exercises and all of it and the last was the vet services. And this was specific to Bangalore
because there is one hospital called Cessna in Bangalore that provides all dog, all vet services
which is really good for. So, might be different in a different city.

So now that we have a base setup of service providers and the pain point. Now we wanted to
prove or at least know that if we get customers or dog owner versus a potential dog owner.
We could make a lot more revenue from a potential dog owner. So how do we get to a
potential dog owner is if he does not know about dogs or he does not know where to source
a dog from. So, we wanted to test that hypothesis to go forward. So that apart the way, at
least 50% of potential dog owners don't have enough knowledge about, how to grow a dog?
So, if we weigh here, and people were able to see online videos and our platform about how
to grow a dog and they would probably come back to us to purchase a dog. That was the idea
and we wanted to prove this. And it did happen to be the case that almost 80% of the people
we spoke to, which was about from a pool of 50 people, 50 families or they did want to know
more about the dogs they were planning to raise.

And there were a lot of unawareness in the market in terms of unawareness about female
dog’s, people always thought female dogs are very difficult to maintain. They didn't know a
smaller dog had a lot more benefits like lesser food to take, lesser you know it had
lesser excreta, so lesser maintenance, lesser hair fall, all of it. So, there is definitely a potential
there. So now I know that vis-a-vis targeting dog owner, I could target a potential dog owner.
I have service providers onboard. So, you get the idea of a MVP shaping up. I could get people
who are providing dogs into my platform, so my MVP is two, three customers coming to get
my dog in my platform and two, three service providers providing that platform of a dog.
During our market research when we were down in the ground and trying to convert a lead
we realized a lot about the dog breeding is happening here which is very unethical.

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

For example, two dogs are kept in a small cage only kept for... they are more like a breeding
machine than actually a dog and there is a lot of inbreeding that is happening. So, the puppies
that come out from the... litters over here are not really healthy.

So, we wanted to prove this, so we went on to most like the all the places that were all
listed on OLX and Quikr and we just check what the growing condition of the mother dog was.
And we were able to say that at least 60% of the dogs were not really bred in a
open environment, very constrained environment and not with a lot of love as a dog parent
would look after. So, we prove that and now if this were to get translated to customers then
they would come on to our platform to buy the pups. So, we had to now prove that more
than 70% of the people who are going to get to the dogs didn't know about unethical breeding
practices happening in the market. So, we went on to test this hypothesis that at least 70% of
the prospective dog owners are unaware of unethical breeding practices in the market. And
we spoke with a lot of people what’s happening either it said earlier they didn't have a lot of
knowledge about the different dog types female dogs, even they didn't have no idea about
the unethical practices happening, the inbreeding and all these show up only after 10 years
of dog's birth. So, people never knew about all this. So, from the idea of being a service
provider who is going to sell dogs and get customers to buy them. Now we move on to the
place where we are selling ethically bred dogs to people who are looking for healthy puppies.
So, we are more narrowing down to the core area where we will be starting with and this how
our MVP came up and this what we have been doing for the last few months.

Vikyath: So, my question is most of the time when we meet entrepreneurs, they guard
their idea. Okay, and they don't want to go and talk outside saying that someone might take
this away or things like that. So, when you get started talking to people around in your
network or outside, were you afraid that someone might go and just build it up and you know,
you guys will be left behind. That's the question.

Gokul: So basically, we don't need to be worried about others stealing idea because at the
end of the day the idea with which we started off and the idea with which we actually
executed work quite different. And what we saw unfolding in front of us is that it's all about

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

what you execute or how you execute rather than the idea with which you start. And one of
the other things that inspired us also to you know like go and meet more people is, we meet
the owner of the dog cafe which is Therpup and he was willing to share his entire idea, his
business plan, his you know what he plans to do going forward how he, you know, went
starting this the whole thing. So, it was very evident that anybody could have done that idea
but not everyone who could have done it as successfully as him and that showed us that it's
all about how you go on to execute it. So that's my opinion.

Dinesh: Adding on to Gokul, professor had put us in touch with a lady who was looking into
dog boarding. Looking at that she is our competitor right. If eventually, we will be getting
there if we executive this idea but still we had like a great chat with her. She was telling what
she was telling what she was doing we were telling her what everything what we were doing.
So, we were never competing and getting there like you now going and hitting a startup that
there was so difficult task. At least if you get so much of idea there is a chance of you getting
there. If you don't discuss with others you're not getting. When we had open discussing with
our competitors. Because getting there is a big goal forget it, for now, get something in the
ground now.

Gokul: So, one of the other things we did is we also shared some of the content we created
even the dog listings which we opened up in the Facebook platform in other dog related
groups on Facebook. So, the more you are willing to you know like show up and then open I
think, lead gives you more leads or gives you more benefits than you know like a worry of
someone might steal your idea.

Dinesh: And the more we kind of go open and discus right. The other person also opens up a
lot more and discusses. For example, we didn't know a lot about unethical practices are
happening and the extent that it could get. So, if one breeder, we just told him exactly what
we are going to do, and he became so you know excited about it because he was facing the
problem he was a ethical breeder but he couldn't sell his pup. And he was so happy to bring
us, get on board he was telling what's happening in the market and at only that point in time,
we got an idea that we could actually charge him premium because he wants to come

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

onboard. All that I wouldn't have known if I didn't speak to him. So, it is definitely a lot
of benefit speaking.

Sidhu: In fact, most of the hypothesis came up while we're talking to someone while testing
some other hypothesis. And we'll get to know somethings about the industry which will have
a huge value proposition if you use it in a right way. So those cases we want to take it forward,
we want to come up with the hypothesis to test that whether it is actually true, that how
mostly we went forward.

Gokul: And one of the thing is there are 5 of us who are co-founders. So, a lot of times each
one of us have different priorities. So, I'm personally more technical oriented. So, I would say
building a chatbot would definitely solve and he would want to do something else. He would
want to make more sales before we get our head into the other verticals. So, in those cases
even amongst ourselves, we have to kind of prioritize what needs to be done. So, the only
way we could resolve the conflicts among ourselves was actually by going and talking to
people and proving which one brings more value to the customer rather than you know like
which one we want to do as a part of our startup. So that's how even we expanded all the
other things that we did besides, which was selling the dogs.

Dinesh: So, adding on definitely we were doing testing multiple hypothesis at one point in
time. So, if you're looking at the screen now you will just say there are 4 hypothesis that
was pivotal for saying primarily with this. No there are like 50 more hypothesis we tried, and
it didn't even... it did at that point in time it made sense but now it doesn't make sense. So, a
lot of it could go here and there, but there might you will also figure out at some point in time
along the way there are three hypothesis that were pivotal for me. Others which I thought
was really important didn't turn out to be important that's all that is all fine. Because
without those hypotheses I would haven't come here and it’s just a journey that keeps hitting
one more next, next, next. So, progress, I think doing a lot more progress and lot more field
work helps you get very targeted more inside full hypothesis to be built. That could be one
take away.

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 EP101x – Do Your Venture | Prof. Suresh Bhagavatula
Week 4

Suresh Bagavathula: Thanks a lot, guys I think compared to you all five of you all being inside
campus having friends helping you a lot, many women or many participants of this MOOC
would not have the same kind of resources that you all had. But the important thing is how
do you move forward? And it is in the journey. And the journey is to go from opinions as you
all said and keep going into insights, right. The more insights we start to generate about our
own idea the more hypothesis that we feel we need to test. And I am sure if you all continued
right now, you all would have had lot more issues that you will have to think of, right. So, I
quite like the fact that the way you all went through, and I hope the women who are on the
platform will also have similar journeys that you all have experienced in terms of moving away
from opinions inside-a-room to insights about a problem or a service that they would like to
target. So, thanks a lot, everyone thanks, Vikyath.

Dinesh, Gokul, Sidhu: Thank you, Professor.

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