Mr Prahallad Mittal: Co-Founder of Homvery

Interview times had a great time conversing with the Founder of Homvery Mr. Prahllad Mittal, the emerging star mark whose team is dedicated to serving various services that need to keep homes well maintained. While the pandemic has hit hard as a vocal to distance by the GDP numbers, Homvery has been surprisingly following a different growing uptrend with its services. Let’s find out the secret then!

Prahlad Mittal started this startup delivering household services in Sambalpur, Burla, and after two years, the idea got extended to Jharsuguda and Bhubaneswar in February 2020. Currently, it is operated in 4 cities with a customer base of 5000+ and 50+ technicians.

He started this project with two of his friends Rajat Kar and Ritesh Mittal (both of them are the company’s COO). A startup from Sambalpur in Odisha that started with an investment of Rs 2000 is doing a whopping turnover of 15 lakh.

Earlier the startup acquired services like plumbing, repairing electrical appliances, but during the pandemic, they decided to add 15 more home care services that include delivering groceries from departmental stores, medicines and home sanitization essentials.

Indescribably during this lockdown, they have started serving cakes and successfully initiated in delivering 50 cakes. The revenues showed a remarkable rise in six times since the lockdown was announced.

Mittal believes that the first 1000 days of any business startup are crucial to intensify and survive so that an entrepreneur could rectify and renovate their strategies as per the requirements.

Their major achievements include incubation from CM Naveen Pattanaik at STPI, Bhubaneswar during startup India Odisha Yatra.

Got selected for Jagriti Yatra(a 15 days long 8000km plus train journey which ends at Mumbai covering perimeter of India).

Expanded services to Bhubaneswar during lockdown where many other companies were shutting their shop.

Question 1: How did you get your Idea or Concept for the business?
Ans: Once I observed that whenever my father calls the electrician, he comes immediately, but when my mother calls the same electrician, he never shows up.
So I tried finding out the reason for the same and I got to know that my father never bargains with the technician and mother bargains with them.
Then this thought came in my mind to solve this.

Question 2: What service(s) do you offer now, and what is/are its expansion?
Ans: Currently we provide a wide range of services ranging from Electrician, Plumber, Appliances Repair to Home sanitization/Disinfection, sofa cleaning, home renovation etc.

Question 3: Who do you think is the biggest competitor for your service, and how do you plan to distinguish yourself from it?
Ans: The Technicians/Experts not joining us will be our biggest competitor, and making your competitor your partner is the best strategy ever.

Question 4: How has the covid impacted the profession that you are leading?
Ans: While the whole country came to a standstill everyone thought they have to shut their business now, while we were thinking how to get passes to continue our operations and then our Co-founder Rajat kar and Ritesh Mittal started visiting government offices and they have spent several days continuously in government officials to get the pass and then we were able to start the operation again and then we got massive growth during the lockdown.

Question 5: What is/are the key elements to step on the road that you have followed? And what keeps you motivated in moving ahead?
Ans: We never had plan B, so we are bound to go for Plan A only, and that is the only thing that keeps us going in the difficult times too.

Question 6: Where do you see company after 5-10 years? (What impact you would like to bring in the society?
Ans: When people will start saying “CALL HOMVERY” instead of saying “CALL ELECTRICIAN” whenever they need home maintenance services that kind of impact we want to create incoming 5 years.

Question 7: if you had one piece of advice to someone just started out, what it would be?
Ans: For a young entrepreneur, I would suggest them to start as soon as possible. Even I would suggest starting when they are in college itself because during that phase you are relaxed and you don’t have the responsibilities for your family and all. So you can concentrate better in your startup.

Interview By- Mousami Jena

Image Source- Prahallad’s picture wardrobe