The specialties of Amit Grover include entrepreneurship training, helping startups, funding for startups, business networking, sales and marketing. He has a passion for Investment in early stage companies, sales and marketing across India, financial planning for startups, making business plans and mentoring startups. This appetite of startups had made him launch his first startup Nurture talent academy- India’s 1st institute for entrepreneurs. However, his true entrepreneurial skill came when he founded his second startup called AHAtaxis. It offers one-way fares for outstation travel, saving cost for travelers and increasing business for drivers. It is an innovative venture set to disrupt ground transportation sector in India, which has this unique problem of double fares for one-way trips.
He has until date conducted over 425+ workshops, across 125+ cities attended by 30000+ students, professionals and startups. He aims to make AHAtaxis a household name when it comes to outstation travel. They are currently adding a good number of new clients daily, which is evident of the dedication of Amit towards the growth of the company.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
AHA Taxis is online demand based outstation taxi booking solution. We offer one-way outstation taxi service in 100+ cities in India. A regular user is able to save 40% on one-way taxi booking with us. We have received a very good response so far and that has helped us grow 100% month on month on all metrics. And expand our base to 100+ cities in India in less than a year time.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
The concept was born last year when Amit, Co-founder of AHA Taxis had made a family trip to Bhopal, and the waitlisted train ticket to Delhi got canceled. The flight was expensive, buses not available and taxi guys asked for a return fare, which means he had to pay double if he wanted to book a taxi. Charges of Bhopal to Delhi as well as Delhi to Bhopal will be for him to bear. Well, this is the way it has been happening all across India, ever since we have been traveling between cities by road. This was the trigger for AHA Taxis to start.
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We have recently announced our angel round of funding with Ah!
Ventures, a club of eminent investors.
How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?
We started working on www.ahataxis.com since begging of the year 2015 and till now it’s a lean team of founders and core members. So far we have not faced this problem.
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
People First: – Everything else is secondary, your customer and your team is most important part of your business and they always deserve VIP treatment
It’s Now or Never: – Do it now because there is no right time for trying something new.
Speed Leads to Success: - Try, Test & Fail quickly. This would contribute a lot to your learning and shorten the time of struggle.
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
Google – Explore the whole suite of products (Search, Advertising, Blog, Mail, Apps etc.)
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
Start your day early: – it’s always better than starting your day early than working late night. It helps you do more work and be more productive.
Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.
Wish, I knew that
Answer in less than 50 words
• One tip to success:
Try, Test & Fail Until you get success
• One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Assuming motion for an action
• One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:
Build a team to last they will build the product and business.
What are your plans for next 3 years?
We aim to expand our operation in 100 more cities by mid-2016 with a focus on tier 2/3 cities in the country. It might be little early to talk about plans of next 3 years.
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
I would start AHA Taxis again going backwards 15years
What are your top three getaway destinations?
France, Goa and Shimla
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
“Try, try and once again try until you succeed.”