The Lost Founder: Taskbob Story

Our next startup story is Taskbob story in ‘The Lost Founder Series’. We are back with a new startup to review the reason behind shutting down of the startup, the economic impact, overall impact on the industry and the mistakes they made which led the start-up toward Death Valley. As we have discussed the series earlier that The Lost Founders series is based on the Indian start-ups’ shutdown in 2017.

Taskbob.com:

Founder(s): Ajay Bhatt, Abhiroop Medhekar, Aseem Khare, Amit Chahalia

Headquarter: Mumbai

Launched: Dec 1, 2014

Category: Hyperlocal Services, Software

Closed in: Jan 19, 2017

Funding: In two rounds of funding the startup raised $5.7 million total amount. In Apr 2015 the startup had raised seed investment of $1.2 million from Orios Venture Partners and $4.5 million raised in Feb 2016 from IvyCap Ventures in Series A round.

Taskbob Works:

A Mumbai-based, hyperlocal startup, Taskbob was founded by the graduates of IIT Bombay and IIM Ahmedabad and the ex-employees of McKinsey and Nomura. The startup initiate with a vision of creating happy households. The startup assists instant, high-quality home services for customers while driving higher productivity for servicemen. The primary aim of the startup is to address three of the biggest customer pain points: delays, poor quality and lack of price transparency. In short, Taskbob is a complete range of solution for home & beauty services at your house to offer a hassle free & convenient urban lifestyle. In Nov 2015, Taskbob acquired the Bengaluru-based startup Zepper.in its rival startup.

Taskbob Impact:

Well, the major loss is to the employment sector, the job opportunities raised by the startups also demolished with that startup too. A pure loss for investors and the initial amount invested by the co-founders all got in vain. From the date of inception, they got the funds within six months which was a really great opportunity for them to sustain their business with a long-term goal. After that, they also raised funding again within 10 months raised of seed funding. They announced that due to lack of funds headed the startup toward the end, but from our view due to lack of business strategy and most of all they won’t be able to use their funding in a right track to sustain their business.

“Sometimes, things are not meant to be. Even though we could create a significant difference in customers’, service providers’ and teams’ lives, a solid business is created only by building scalability and profitability. And to achieve those in a low-margin business and in a tough external market proved unexpectedly daunting. More than what anyone could have expected,” said Aseem Khare.

Taskbob Reviews:

We are representing some reviews about the startups from their ex-employees and customers. Let’s know what their reviews are and experience with the startup. Below are some reviews:

…worked at Taskbob full-time…very open culture…can freely discuss anything with everyone…even the cofounders are open to discussion anytime…staff members are really helpful…values teamwork…decent salary…good management…pros about the company can’t think of any…not much as of now…future looks good… – an ex-employee

…Taskbob.com is a utility service…provides a list of services…had tried their deep home cleaning…their staff actually has proved their worth…workers were clean and co-operative…knew their job and also very punctual…cleaning was done very well…made my house look as it was when we renovated it…truly awesome service…customer support is also good..my friend had done his car cleaning…had an issue…his problem was quickly answered…he was compensated fairly for it…the service really easies the work required… – a customer

…very bad professionalism…take their customers for granted…called for their chauffeur service…generated me with an order…just 10 mins before arriving the chauffeur Taskbob team called…no chauffeur available we are cancelling your order…no chauffeur was available they shouldn’t have booked in the first place or they should have informed well in time so we can arrange for another chauffeur from somewhere else… – a customer

…worst service by TaskBob technician…deteriorated my AC circuit board and panel…TaskBob is not taking care of this…don’t fall in prey of this cheat company…can ruin your expensive instruments and don’t care at all…technician who try to earn more money by damaging your working appliance and then charge…even this company don’t have the control…no professional check for same…beware and stay away from them… – a customer

…I had a water spillage issue…the handymen are denying…so I looked out this site and enlisted…in following 2 hours…examined and they co-worked amiably…they gave me benefit within 48 hours…handyman sent by them took every necessary step well… – a customer

We can easily analyze the review about the company from the consumers and employees reviews. From the above review and from our research about the Taskbob we conclude that 70% of their customers were satisfied with the services and employees were totally satisfied with the company and its work environment. Well, there were some negative reviews too about the company but more than that there were satisfied customers too. So from reviews, we tried to define their experience with the startup Taskbob.

Lack of Proper Outlining:

Well if we saw an overall overview of the startup then there are lots of more question comes up to the mind. The founders informed its customers by email that the company has shut its operations. The shutting down step was taken after the startup failed in raising fresh funds from the market. It was rumoured that the company was desperately in need of the funds to run their business, so the company tried to be a part of the acquisition but they failed in this. The acquisition talks clearly state that the company had the potential to grow, but they were lacking in management somewhere, either the scarcity of the funds or lacking to manage their previous funds.

“The startup had reached out to bigger peers for an acquisition but decided to down shutters after talks failed,” according to the rumours.

They definitely showed their capability and pitched their idea in front of the investors that’s how they were able to raise the funding, but they lack in sustaining their business on a long-term basis. After that funding, they required to execute a proper strategy on the basis of their business demand where they lacked severely in proper planning of the business strategy. They failed to set a viable business in Mumbai area. Their strategy formation went wrong, lack of business strategy and most of all they weren’t able to use their funding in the right track to sustain their business.

Market research, competitor analysis, understanding of market challenges within the industry, customer demands and requirements, psychoanalysis of the customers and market trends some basic aspects of the business that are most important to be studied well before entering into any industry and run it properly.

For customised market research reports for any kind of startups and business in any industry, you can contact Craft Driven Market Research team here directly.