There is no other place like India in the world to pursue your dreams. This is the best time to be in this country.

-Vaibhav Tewari,Open2save.com.

Open2save.com was founded by Vaibhav Tewari and Sridhar Turaga, the website is a collection of exclusive deals and coupons for its community. One can find deals for restaurants, pizza, salon/spa and beauty services, mobiles, electronics etc

Open2save is India’s largest multi-channel discount coupon service. Coupons and local deals are quite popular with consumers in all the channels (corporate, local, privilege and now online). It was launched online few months ago, prior to that for a year the founders have been managing coupons and privileges for over 500+ brands.

Last quarter it distributed 5 Lakh coupons over 7 cities. Open2save have currently partnered with more than 500 companies, including big brands like Vodafone, Westside, Madura Garments, Kaya Skin Clinic, Enrich etc, and a range of medium/small retailers. They have executed various coupons campaigns in many cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

Webneetech got an opportunity to interview Vaibhav Tewari one of the founder and he shared with us the idea of Open2save.com and how it can make people save their money.

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Founder (s) detail:

Open2save is started by Vaibhav Tewari and Sridhar Turaga, their second entrepreneurial venture.

Prior to this they both were co-founders of iSeva – one the leading BPO services companies from Bangalore. iSeva was one of the top rated services companies in the BPO industry supporting leading clients like Symantec, Citigroup, TATA-AIG, Vodafone and AOL. iSeva was merged with e4e, its primary investor in 2007, after which both were part of e4e in transitional roles before starting this company.

Vaibhav Tewari, Chairman and CEO

Vaibhav is a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. At iSeva he was CEO of iSeva India and instrumental in growing the organization from zero to 1,500 employees. iSeva had many firsts to it’s credit including being the top rated employer in BPO three years in a row, strong performance based incentives compensation model, one of the lowest break even in the industry and ISO 9001-2000 certification. Prior to starting iSeva, Vaibhav worked for Citibank starting their unsecured personal loans business. Vaibhav grew up in Lucknow, now lives in Bangalore with his wife and a son.

Sridhar Turaga, President and Head of Products

Sridhar is a B.Tech from IIT Madras and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. At iSeva he was in charge of technology and solutions. Under his leadership the company delivered technology enabled value added services to clients like Symantec, creating a non-linear and highly profitable growth path for the company. iSeva launched unique services like product embedded remote assist for Symantec, online lead generating service for SMB clients in US, used knowledge management / BPM tools to drive expert level performance across the team and provided SaaS embeded BPO services for our clients. Prior to starting iSeva, Sridhar worked for Deloitte Consulting in NY and TELCO in Jamshedpur. Grew up in Hyderabad, lives in Bangalore with his wife / two sons and writes at sridharturaga.wordpress.com.

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Website Detail:

Website Name: www.open2save.com

The tag line or punch line of  the site: Saving Simplified

Business launch date: 2008

Target audience: Net Savvy Young Indian Population preferably aged between 21-35 years

Future/Expansion plans: Ability to personalize the coupons a member receives based on preferences and past downloads.

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Company Detail:

Company’s Name: AeNwis e-Systems

source of funding : Angel Funding

Company Blog : http://officialblog.open2save.in

Number of employees: 10

Number of branches: 2

Office Address:

Bangalore :-329, 2^nd Floor, 27^th Main Road,HSR  Layout, 2^nd Sector Bangalore-102

Mumbai :- No. 3, Ground Floor, Sylvestor Apartments,Dadabhai Cross Road 3,Vile Parle (W) Mumbai-56

Email ID: marketing@open2save.co

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Interview (Q & A Round)

Q: How did you start your business? What made you to think to enter into a business?

Retail businesses and consumer products companies in India are starting to look beyond branding / advertising in traditional media (TV, Radio, Newspaper) given the increasing media costs and the need to target consumers better. The marketing ROI in many situations will be substantially better, if there is a way consumers can be reached by location (say 5 KM around a new store that has opened) or by demographics (say reach college going women for a youth beauty service) or when they have a need (say new parents looking for diapers and other baby products every month).

Enabling such “Direct Marketing” and “Consumer Promotions Management” in India can make the large retail chains / consumer brands more efficient, and also give a powerful tool for SMBs to market themselves with smaller budgets and measurable marketing.

Coupons are one of the best ways to do that. It has been a proven business worldwide and has tremendous potential in India.

Q: Tell us in detail about your business, your idea and how it can benefit others?

Indian consumers are always looking for a good deal. open2save is a “discount coupon” service where members are given special discounts and deals, which they can redeem by displaying the “coupon” at the participating location.

Consumers love it as they can save easily. Businesses benefit because they get more walk-ins, ability to target market, track ROI for consumer promotions and use online channels to drive offline sales.

Our vision is to “Enable Indian Consumers to make the right choices … through the power of internet, information and interactivity … and always be the independent voice in the interest of the consumer”.

See http://officialblog.open2save.in/2009/06/25/great-response-to-new-open2save-com/ for some comments from our consumers!!

Q: What are the important things which differentiate your business from other? What is your USP?

Our business has very strong focus on providing our members what they are exactly looking for based on their preferences, locations, choice of channels etc. Building their preferences and ensuring we match that with the best coupons all the times is the biggest differentiator.

Our multi-channel approach, use of internet, mobile and print mediums to serve our members is another significant differentiation.

Q: What is your revenue or business model?

We help help consumers save time and money  and we help Enterprises reach their target segment in the most effective and efficient manner using  Promotions Marketing and Coupons.  Our revenue model is dependent on successful transactions in form of coupons redemptions and advertising.

Q: What are your expansion plans and where do you see your business 5 years down the line?

Our expansion plans are being built around having a large number of members and we aim to have a million active members on open2save.com who use our services and benefit regularly.

Q: What were the biggest challenge(s) you faced in your journey as entrepreneur till now?

The biggest challenges in our previous venture (iSeva) were around building a world class organization with right mix of people, client focus, processes and systems to serve Global clients the best way. We did that successfully serving some of the largest names while we built an organization with the most satisfied employees.

In open2save, the biggest challenge has been around establishing a new concept in the Indian Market. Coupons and target marketing is a concept we are pioneering in India and it takes enough efforts to educate our clients on potential benefits of using this channel – as well as waiting for the market to mature.

Q: What is the biggest mistake you made as an amateur entrepreneur?

Putting the cart before the horse has been the biggest mistake which happens especially in a new concept. We have ended up building services sometimes which were much ahead of time or building features that are not an immediate priority for clients in the medium term and we had to tweak those significantly.

Q: What you want to say to the new entrepreneurs or the one who wants to start his/her own business?

I believe that India is witnessing a revolution in terms of entrepreneurship. Large numbers of hungry, ambitious, capable individuals are looking at starting on their own. Situation has changed so much for better from the time we did our first venture to now.

My advice to new entrepreneurs is to pursue their dreams; there is no other place like India in the world to pursue your dreams. This is the best time to be in this country.

So assess your motives, prepare well, plan extensively and take a plunge. Every boat is carried in a high tide. These phases for India is a high tide of growth … rides it; don’t get stuck on the beach just watching it.

Q: Who is your business idol and why?

Bill Gates – For transition and navigation thru multiple stages required of a founder in one life time successfully (including his elegant transition out of Microsoft) and getting thru every major existential threat to their business model multiple times, having the last laugh.

Sunil Mittal – For building a truly world class customer centric organization that among the top Telecom companies … yet having the energy and possibilities of a startup at that size.

Q: What’s your ultimate business and life goal?

Business Goal is to build a globally successful product out of India.

Life goal is to empower 100,000 people in some way or other to reach their life goals.

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