Lean Start Up Management

Digital Assignment -4

Submitted by-

Prakarsh Mittal

17BME0461

Report from the interview with the founder of Sigma

Tenant.

About the Founder:

Mr. Rutanshu Jhaveri is the proprietor of Sigma Tenant. He is an alumni of VIT
Vellore where he did his B.Tech. in Computer Science. He received the Student
Merit Award Achiever for standing first in CSE branch in International students
category, 2017-18. He is the developer of website and currently overlooking at
the development of Mobile Application. He is also overlooking the Machine
Learning aspect of the company where we are focused on Computer Vision
and Recommendation Systems. He is heading the technical department of the
company.

About the Startup:

Sigma Tenant is an online renting application where people can put up their
places for renting out and people can take up places from them. It has mainly
three branches around which the whole idea revolves. The first is the
management branch which deals with contacting the different tenants and
people to provide places for renting out. It is a micro renting concept where a
same place can be used for multiple purposes such as a room can be converted
into a house party, or a place to stay at for a day or two. Even a gym when not
being used can be used for a fitness class by another group of people letting
the gym owner to earn during the non-operational hours of gym. So basically
the micro renting basically focus on allowing the user to utilise a space on a
smaller term or a multiple purpose event term. This can be done on hourly,
daily or monthly system. This can let two small companies work in a single co
working space thus letting a maximum utilization of space which is their
companies’ main motto.

The second and third branches are in the technical domain. In the first one the
cameras are planned in the room which is to be rented out. There is an
algorithm through computer vision using which all the amenities in the room
are described. So basically using a camera and the algorithm the whole room
can be described virtually. Thus helping the tenant to list out all the amenities
using the technology and not manually entering them. This whole process is
done using computer vision and machine learning. For this there is a
functioning prototype ready for them and is currently in the testing phase. The
team is working on to get this algorithm patented.

The second one is the AR VR in which they have a working model in which a 2D
model of any house is converted in a 3D model. So basically the viewer can
view the 3D model of the house thus helping the viewer to have a visual of the
place. This is in the prototype phase which will be then an application available
for the market. The 3D model is an interactive model where the user will be
able to rotate and have a 360 degree view of the place.

Current Market targeted and future expansion:

Currently they have been working in Vellore and Kota where they have
contacted tenants and started working. They have been working in these
places for giving accommodation to students as hostels or places for hosting
parties. They further plan to expand the idea in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi.
They have also been planning to put this idea in old age homes and also
expand on an international stage once successful in India.
Idea Generation:
Mainly there were two processes involved in this. The first is getting the initial
idea and the second is the refining of the initial idea. His initial idea was to
create a universal platform for spaces for students. The idea came up from the
problems faced by the students in finding houses outside for staying.

Problems faced:
Being from northern India, one of the major problems to work in Vellore is
language barrier. And since it is a job that requires public interaction language
became a major problem.

Secondly since VIT is anti-day-scholars, therefore starting this kind of venture

in Vellore is a bit difficult as there is no support from the VIT administration.
They are always a barrier towards the company’s progress. This reduced the
customers that could help to grow up the company and also let them test the
application.

Another problem was convincing and providing knowledge about the micro
renting concept to the people. People didn’t used to rent their places for house
party or renting on hourly basis. So convincing them and making them
understand the concept was a big problem.

The government does not let a single place to be used for various things. For
example a commercial place cannot be used for private party according to
government laws. The idea is letting the owner use their place for multiple
events is then being restricted due to these laws. So the places have to be
designated for specific things only.

Capital Investments:
Being in the initial stage, so there is no paid co-workers currently with them.
Currently they are just the founders who have been contributing to build it. So
the cost that comes in building the concept and also the advertisements is
completely self-funded by them. They are looking out for investors for
expanding the idea to other cities. But currently he has been doing free lancing
works to cover up most of the financial issues.

Selling point / Uniqueness:

The idea is a bit like Airbnb. But the main difference is that Airbnb is only for
accommodation while they have been for accommodation and commercial.
They are open for all the domains and are not restricted to a single one. They
also provide places on hourly basis thus is cost saving for people. Also their AR
VR is also a unique concept which helps the customers to see the place without
actually visiting the place.