Bounce: Providing bike hiring and sharing solution

Bounce is a Bangalore based startup founded by Vivek and Anil. It is all about bike sharing and hiring solution.

Users pays only for the time and distance he rides. It costs 5 per km and 50 paise per minute. Two people can share a ride making it much more emission friendly, says Vivek.

We got an opportunity to talk with Vivek, the co-founder of Bounce. Read his full interview to know more about his journey as an entrepreneur and about his startup.

 

Give a brief info about your startup?

Bounce is a keyless and dockless scooter sharing solution which allows users to find the nearest bike on the app, access it through one time password, pick it anywhere and drop it any legal parking.

Users pays only for the time and distance he rides. It costs 5 per km and 50 paise per minute. Two people can share a ride making it much more emission friendly.

We are Indias largest scooter sharing company. In fact worlds largest when it comes to scooters ( not the standing scooters in US)

The technology is built completely built in India and company holds IP rights for the same. So it’s made in India and for India.

 

 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

India though is the largest two wheeler market, only 18 percent of people have access to personal mobility. Ease of commute means ease of livelihood.

Commute is such a big problem and we felt that there is a smarter way of solving this than waiting for some beautiful solution take shape on its own. We realised that only way to decongest the city is by encouraging public transport such as Metro Rail. But people don’t use it or find t tough to use it because first mile and last mile commute is broken.

We felt that by allowing users to ride a scooter themselves will solve this in the most natural way since scooters are very common in India. Indian is the largest two wheeler market in the world where we consume 20 million two wheelers every year.

Also we feel that personal scooters are used maximum for 2 hours in a day and used by only one person most of the times. If one scooter can be used by multiple people and they pay per use it reduces the number of scooters on the road. Also it brings in effective utilisation of asset and helps in achieving reduction in carbon foot print from manufacture to disposal.

Also two people sharing a ride af the same time ( since we don’t have driver) would be the most emission friendly way of commuting. Average car is occupied by 1.2 persons only.

Also we feel that by enabling people to move faster though multi modal solutions we help people save time to do things they actually love to do than being stuck in traffic.

 

 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

I am a Chartered accountant by qualification. My first job was with KPMG Bangalore as a Corporate tax Executive. I worked for an year and quit to start my own CA practise to offer what I had learnt to SME and MSMEs. I started my CA firm along with Suchindra who was Ex Deliotte and is an expert in Indirect tax. I quit firm when I started Wicked Ride.

I have always been doing something of the other. During college days I used to do part time jobs such as flyer distribution to all types of jobs. During my CA days I used to file income tax returns and make money. Post that I used to sell insurance and mutual funds to those who I knew had to make investments for tax saving. So life has always allowed me to sell something 🙂

 

 

Where is your startup based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

We are head quartered in Bangalore but have operations across 14 odd cities in India.

Bangalore has the best mix of population from across India and you can call it a cosmopolitan city. People are happy to try new things here. Also the city is small compared to other urban cities.

The best thing is the weather in Bangalore 🙂 + needless to say Bangalore has the best tech talent available which is a make or break for companies like us.

 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

I guess the game is changing all the time and it’s very important to keep our focus on why we are doing, what we are doing. If we loose the focus on the problem then we loose it to someone else who understands the problem better and can solve it better.

So it’s very important for us to constantly keep assessing why we do what we do.

Teams are the destiny choosers for an company. Any great company was not built by a single person and was built by motivated and focused team. So I am constantly working on making sure that we are all focused as a team to work on achieving the common goal. Aligning the team to the vision of the company is the most crucial task to be done and is a continuous process. I am paranoid about a team which is not aligned to Company’s vision.

 

 

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

We compete with inefficiencies such as Auto Rickshaw, personal vehicles of users. Though Auto rickshaws have been a key mode of commute across India we all know how tough it is to find one and get him to take us to the place we want to get to.

We are reliable, fast,flexible and most economical mode of commute.

Currently we are the only company in India which offers pick up anywhere and drop anywhere solution on scooters.

 

 

How hard is it to have a work life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

It’s very tough as you have to be there and you feel like to be there everywhere. What’s crucial which I have understood is that to have a great team to support you. Else we will never be able to scale.

I feel health and wellness is underestimated in India and particularly start ups. We have this bad habit of taking pride of skipping food and long working hours. Proper breaks and rest is required to refresh and work better. I used to be paranoid and wanted to work every other minute of my time to move fast than anyone else. I realised over time that health is important to be at the top of the game. Now I have set aside two hours every alternative day for Kung fu practise.

Healthy and refreshed mind can do better than a strained and abused body 🙂

 

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.

We have raised over 20 mil dollars till date in Equity and debt. We have raised from Accel, Sequoia, Omidyar, Innoven and few other VCs whose name will be made public soon.

 

 

 

What gets you excited about this company?

We have created a completely new way of moving people in the most affordable and flexible way. I never had a bike during college and was dependent on bus for everything. I could have done so much more during college if I had access to low cost flexible mobility.

Similarly lot of working professionals or self employed today waste time or have not been able to get to their full potential because of lack of access to commute.

We are democratising Commute by making it accessible to everyone at low cost 🙂 we feel that after invention of wheel, accessibility to low cost commute is the next best thing.

The fact that we can enable large set of population to move is what makes it exciting

 

 

Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

I get up and practise Kung fu for two hours every alternate day. I get up and see my what’s app messaged and email inbox first thing in the morning. I will go through previous day performance reports to begin with.

I see the calendar for the day and plan my work. I eat at home most of the times. Have stopped skipping breakfast now 🙂

I love coffee so that’s something I keep having throughout the day.

I catch up with my core team and teams which I feel can take up some initiatives. So I will do lot of meetings with teams to understand how their work helps achieve Company goals.

I continuously keep making notes and try to complete finish few things before I wrap up. I come back from work around 10.30 :11.30 and have dinner at times at home and at times try to watch something on Netflix or amazon for an  hour before hitting the bed.

 

 

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

I met Anil who is one of the founders in college. We did 11 and 12th together. Varun the other founder and I are from same home town and knew him from my cousin.

 

 

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