NSRCEL Start-up: KhaaliJeb
KhaaliJeb is a payment and banking app for Students & Youth. We make payment and banking for them â simple, fast, and extra rewarding.
We are live as a full-fledged UPI PSP app for more than a year. Kotak Mahindra Bank is our sponsor bank. You can pay friends and merchants with UPI using KhaaliJeb.
Our Discount Program for Students & Youth is a major differentiating factor. It is live pan India with a few youth centric brands offering exclusive discounts to young Indians below 29. We are adding new brands every other day. We have on-boarded 350+ Restaurants & Salons in Bangalore, who are offering exclusive Discounts on KhaaliJeb.
Students and youth (below 29) first need to register for the Discount Program Membership by uploading their ID. The verification happens within minutes. Itâs a one-time process.
Currently weâre offering 1 month free membership on referring a friend to KhaaliJeb. We have tried designing an intuitive user experience.
We have launched a B2B product âVerify by KhaaliJebâ that helps brands in identifying their student customers & running discount campaigns for them. It is API/SDK based that can be integrated easily, within minutes in a brandâs app or website.
Website: https://khaalijeb.com/
App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.khaalijeb.inkdrops
STORY BEHIND STARTING UP:
Prakash Narrating:
The final year of my college at IIIT Allahabad had begun and the placement session was underway. I was battling depression. The thought of having a job didnât fascinate me. I wasnât able to engage my mind anywhere.
It was early 2015. During one of the holidays of the last semester, I was heading to my hometown. Ola Cabs was recently launched in Patna. I booked an Ola from Railway Station to my home. I reached home and the money got deducted from my Ola Money. The whole payment experience was so smooth and seamless, it made me question â why canât this be everywhere? It seemed more fascinating, perhaps because I was completely ignorant of the digital payment developments around the world during that time.
That whole night, I couldnât sleep. After a long time, something had intrigued me. Something evoked a sense of purpose in my life. I started researching about different payment systems all around the world. And I woke up with the decision to give the placements a miss and made up my mind to startup.
When I returned to college, I discussed the idea with Aman, Wilson, and Sudhanshu and they joined in as co-founders.
STORY BEHIND TARGETING ONLY STUDENTS & YOUTH
Prakash Narrating:
Targeting students wasnât something premeditated. The story goes back to October, 2016. We were in KFC, we saw a box with a message, âDrop your business card for exciting discountsâ. Out of my habit of asking for student discounts everywhere, I asked the cashier âYou give Corporate Discounts on business cards. Why donât you give Student Discounts on ID cards?â
He replied âYou should ask the companyâ. In his words, I sensed a mammoth business opportunity, the Student Discount Program. We started researching about different apps targeting student segment. After a lot of discussions, we thought of expanding our target segment also to Youths below the age 29. Itâs challenging for brand to engage Students & Youth. We decided to build a vast community of Students & youths and help brands market to them.
TEAM:
Founders: All founders are graduates from IIIT Allahabad. We started up right from our college.
Below are the Founders:
Prakash Kumar: Looks after Ideation, Product, Design etc.
Sudhanshu Gaur: Heads Technology
Aman Verma: Heads Android Development
Wilson Birua: Sales & Marketing
Founding Members: Sumit Kumar, Pratham Devang, Vishal Gupta, Rahul Kumar
TRACTION ACHIEVED TILL NOW
1. Current User Base: 37k
2. Restaurant & salon on-board: 350+
3. Brands on-boared for Discount Program: 20+
4. Transactions executed till now: 1.4 lakhs+
