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The Most Successful Indian Startup
Bhavish had to go to Bandipur from Bangalore for his business so he hired a taxi so that he could travel faster. In the middle of the journey, the driver stopped the car and started bargaining about the previously fixed fare and dropped him off in the middle of the way. Bhavish thought that many others would have had a similar experience. People had to deal with many such rude drivers and needed a quality cab service. And this is how the popular Ola Cabs was born.
Bhavish who belongs to Punjab graduated in Computer Science from IIT Mumbai and then he joined a job in Microsoft. He worked there for about two years but he was not happy with the 9 to 5 job. He wanted to start his own start-up. Having a technological background, he decided to connect cab and technology, and founded Ola Cabs in 2010 with his friend Ankit.
Initially, like every Indian parent, Bhavish's parents were also not happy with his decision to become a 'travel agent'. The rest of the people were also making fun of Bhavish’s idea but soon Ola started getting funds and people became speechless. Instead of buying and renting his own cars, Ola partnered with a number of taxi drivers and gave the whole set-up a touch of modern technology where people could book a car using their call center or app at very short notice.
Ola received funding from a number of investors including Softbank Corporation. The company launched Ola-Auto in partnership with rickshaw drivers with the tagline 'Fares less than normal auto-rickshaw'. Today, Ola has more than 5,00,000 cabs across the country. These cabs can be booked in various categories like Mini, Prime, and Luxury.
In 2013, a global giant-Uber entered the Indian cab market. Ola was a very small company at the time and was providing its services in only two cities. But Bhavish was confident in the strength of his company and had more knowledge of the local Indian market than Uber. Ola gave a very good fight and as a result today it has expanded from top 6 cities to 200 cities in India while Uber has not succeeded to gain dominant market share till date.
Talking about Ola's work culture, Bhavish said, "We spend a lot of time hiring the right people. We continue our search until we find the right person because it is more important to have a culture match than a skill match. Ola is an aggressive company and working here is not easy for everyone. We spend much time judging employees and if we are not satisfied, then we fall apart too because after all, it is the best option for both parties. "
Bhavish, the founder of India's popular brand Ola, still works about 16 hours a day. His day starts at 7 A.M. and ends around 1 A.M. According to him, working day and night like this is the best way for any start-up to succeed.
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