How this startup app ensures that you don't miss the fun Helping urban people in creating their local outing

At regular occasions you surely would love to spend time with friends, but when you think of doing so, questions like "what to do?', "where to go out?' comes in your mind.

Now with StrollUp you don't need to worry about these questions. Abhishek Goel, Ankur Gupta and Siddharth Kumar introduce StrollUp to ease your outing plans. StrollUp helps its users in creating their local outing at a click of a button. What more, you can even book a place with their app.

If we look at the figures, total available market in top 8 tier1 cities is about 36 million, out of which 26 million are serviceable. A person spends about Rs. 2,300 per month on outings, which means a total of $11billion annual spending on local outings in India alone, and it is waiting to be captured. StrollUp founders are planning to tap this untouched market through their mobile app.

Entrepreneur India interacted with Abhishek Goel, Co-founder, StrollUp, to understand the app and how it benefits teens to plan out their day out.

How was the idea of StrollUp conceptualized?

My co-founder, Ankur and his friends were planning a birthday party. They searched on internet for about an hour but could not find anything interesting. They found two good places to have fun, but there were no great dinner places nearby. We, co-founders, are outgoing people and this was the problem we personally encountered on a regular basis. After doing extensive market research, we launched our website in September 2014 and our Android App in July, 2015.

What challenges did you encounterwhile taking your product to the market, convincing the customer etc?

The primary challenge was about the value proposition of the app. Initially people said, "I know my city, I don't need an app/website to tell me where to go." But once people start discovering new places and events on the app, they are hooked. And when they go on an outing using StrollUp, they just love it. We send personalized push notifications and mail to hand-hold our users till they go on their first outing.

What is the USP of your product?

Our recommendation engine which helps create local outings. It's easy to create a listing platform, anyone can do that and there are more than 50 now. I see some of them coming every week and shutting down in 3-4 months. Many a times people don't know what to do and listing doesn't help much. StrollUp helps them plan methodically for a perfect experience. It's as simple as calling your friend.

How does it work?

It's pretty simple. Open the app; enter details such as when or where you want to go. Then specify if you are in mood for DJ parties or movie or something new today, andsubmit. We would give you top 10 outing itineraries that you can enjoy such as "Fun at Mystery Rooms and DJ Party at Boombox Cafe in Rajouri Garden" or Watch Bajirao Mastani at PVR Saket, then Escape Games at Ctrl Shift Esc, and Dinner at Mia Bella in Hauz Khas.

How big is your team?

We are a team of 3 co-founders and 8 interns. We, co-founders, know each other for more than 7 years.

Who are you target audience?

StrollUp is a youth oriented app targeting the age group of 18-35 years living in tier 1 cities.

What is your current traction? How many people are currently using your app?

Right now, we have reached 5000 downloads, growing 50 percentevery month. Currently, 70 percent of our users plan weekly activities and over 20,000 people (all organic) read our blog every month.

What percentage of repetitive customers are there?

85 percent of our users have more than one session on our app, whereas 60 percent of our users have logged on our app on more than one day.

What is the feedback you received?

We are getting great feedback from people over mail and in play store reviews. Currently, we have a rating of 4.6 out of 266 votes.

Currently, where are you located? What are your plans to expand your reach?

Currently we are present in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru. We are not targeting new cities as of now and we are working to get a strong hold on our two target cities. We are targeting over 50,000 downloads in 6 months. On the product side, we would be developing capabilities to ease out the complete outing process.

How do you see growth scenario is this business? What is your future scale-up plans?

F&B and entertainment market are growing at 10 percent annually in India. In the next 2-3 years, we are focusing on capturing Indian market and then would scale up globally. There are 8 Indian cities and more than 110 global cities which we have identified as our potential market.

As you are a bootstrapped startup, are you looking for funds? If yes, how much you are expecting to raise?

Yes, we have been bootstrapping StrollUp. We are now looking to raise a seed round and should update you with good news soon.

So, next time whenever you plan an outing do StrollUp once.