MobiGarage opens the gateway to an organised Multi-brand mobile repair and spare-part market in India

When and how did you start?

We started off as a seller of mobile spares on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart and gradually converted into a start-up called MobiGarage. Conceptualized in mid 2017, MobiGarage was formed to offer organized mobile repair services to retail customers and enterprises.

How did you come up with the idea? Your inspiration moment

Over our initial years in the business, we realized that there were huge gaps between a customer and a repair professional. People were stuck between a local mobile repair vendor who is unreliable and unprofessional and an authorized service centre which is time-consuming and expensive. So, after understanding all those gaps, we came up with this idea to create a platform through which we can offer genuine spare-parts and repair services in pan India. The repairs are done using genuine spare-part and offered with 6 months warranty.

The fact that so many people were getting hassled because of unavailability of such services inspired us to come up with this idea. Moreover, one of our friends encouraged us to get into Mobile repairs as he was prolonging for a genuine repair center owing to the bad service he got for his apple device from one of the local vendor.

Brief about organisation and founding members

MobiGarage, which is a brainchild of qualified professionals with rich background and industry experience, prides itself as one of the pioneers in the mobile repair and spare part market of India serving all major players in the refurbished and mobile repair industry. We provide end-to-end affordable, robust and quality one-stop mobile care solutions. From Apple to Samsung, Lenovo to Oppo, MobiGarage caters to more than 20 different brands and 500 different models. The services are offered through our portal mobigarage.com and offline stores at Delhi and Amritsar.

Brief about 4 founding members –

Vaibhav Kapoor – Engineer by profession, Vaibhav has rich experience working with Consulting Companies like Accenture Strategy and ZS Associates, handling accounts of various Forbes 500 companies in India and abroad. A large part of Vaibhav’s experience has been in US, working with Fortune 500 companies.

Pulkit Kapoor – Engineer by profession, Pulkit has past experience in working as a manager with Reliance Industries Limited.

Abhinav Mahajan – Engineer by profession, Abhinav started his career working with ZS Associates, moving forward to setting up his earlier start-up Helfis Technologies in Preventive Healthcare.

Ujjwal Sehgal – Engineer by profession, Ujjwal leads the procurement and supply chain team at MobiGarage

The detailed journey, like what all you want to share with readers

Our company is a service provider offering mobile repair, refurb and spare-part services to Retail customers and Enterprises through a much organized process flow. 

Through our streamlined process, we are trying to curtail the current challenges prevalent in the market like unregulated prices, poor quality spares, limited inventory and missing warranties. On the contrary, we are offering quality services in the shortest timespan with the help of genuine spares and wide range of inventory. In fact, our current set of operations allows us to offer services of more than 20 brands and over 200 models.  

About funding, plans for growth

MobiGarage is a bootstrapped organisation founded by qualified professionals with rich background and industry experience working with fortune 500 companies in India and abroad.

The journey has been tough but rewarding and from a year back in 2017, when we started, we are growing at a rate of >400% y-o-y growth.  We are in talks with couple of investors and look forward to close first round Q2.

Challenges and Opportunities/ Marketing Strategies

Every business come with its own set of Challenges as well as Opportunities and in our line of business, we have faced the following challenges –

Lack of awareness among people – The concept is new where people need to be made aware of. Customers are used to of visiting local vendors or service centres and informing them about such an option is what we are working hard for.  

Organising/maintaining wide stock inventory/ Supply chain management – Smartphone industry is wide. Endless brands and endless models. Keeping such a wide inventory is a task and requires lot of investment as well as hard work.

But under these challenges, there are a lot of hidden opportunities too –

Unorganised market – Repair and Spare Parts – The mobile repair and spare part market in India is highly unorganized and cluttered and an organized player who offers such door-to-door hassle free services can bring respite to people. 

New emerging innovative/ unexplored repair/ spare-part (esp. online) market – Growing smart-phone market – India is the second largest smartphone market in the world where expected no. of smartphone users is expected to reach 337 million by the year 2018. The growing smartphone user base is going to have an automatic trickle-down effect on the repair and spare-phone market.  With such a big market to cater to, the concept of bringing in an organized player esp.  with online service portal can be really innovative and assure sure-shot results.

Scarcity of genuine/ authentic spare parts and market ruled by duplicate parts – For all those who love their smartphones, getting a genuine repair service or a spare part that comes with a warranty could be a real game changer as the market is flooded with duplicate parts and services where there is no assurance on the quality of service. 

Lack of time with working professionals/ Good scope of activity in corporate sector – The working professionals in the urban markets have severe shortage of time because of their hectic work schedules. So, such door-to-door services could only bring a sigh of relief for them.

Market becoming more visible with new players entering – Couple of other established players entering into the market acts as a positive indicator and reconfirms a clear need for such services.

High returns per customer – With technology becoming complicated and upgrade of phones becoming a norm, the chances of a customer coming back are high if they have had a satisfactory first-hand experience. Easy penetration in the educated corporate/ professional sector – Such an easy-to-use online portal can really influence the educated and the working class with its high deliverables.

Growing economy, rise in incomes leading to increase in spending habits –India is a growing economy and has noticed a substantial increase in the spending capacities of people over the last few years. So, they wouldn’t mind paying a little extra for a hassle-free genuine door-to-door service.

Future plans and funding

From a seller on ecommerce companies to a startup serving individual retail customers, corporates and other refurbishing companies, MobiGarage has already established itself in the mobile repair and spare part market. 

Gradually, our plan is to enter the mobile Insurance and mobile phone accessory market like charging port cable, chargers, earphones and even much in demand products like sim ejector pins or wireless earphones. In fact, we are trying to create an ecosystem that would include repair, spares, Insurance, accessories etc.  We want customers to think of MobiGarage as a GO TO market place when it comes to anything to do with Mobile and device technology.

Subsequently, we are also targeting to open a chain of offline stores in Delhi, Pune, Mumbai , Bangalore by Q3 2019.

So far, MobiGarage is a bootstrapped organization, founded by entrepreneurs having rich consulting experience working with Fortune 500 companies in India and abroad.

A quote from the founder on the journey or dealing with the challenges or any inspiring moment

“In today’s scenario where everyone is on the go and a mobile phone is an unparalleled part of our living or an absolute necessity with more than 70% of our population using it, it is very surprising that the mobile repair and spare parts market still thrives (monopolized) on the unorganized local players available at every nook and corner of our societies.

As a result, it becomes a daunting task to find a genuine repair technician or a spare part and even if you find one, the cost of repairing something would depend more on the paying capacity of the customer and less on the actual cost involved. This is what motivated us to come up with something that could offer end-to-end solutions to every mobile user of the country and even to the corporate and other repair companies” – quips the founder Vaibhav Kapoor on the MobiGarage journey.

EXCLUSIVE: Founder’s advice to budding entrepreneurs –

Whatever line of business you choose, work passionately and remain focused. Most importantly, don’t lose heart and have patience. Patience always pays.

Provide some statistics like revenues or Client acquisitions etc.

We have already touched revenue of 1.2 Cr and revenue growth of about 5000% in current fiscal year. The expectation is to cross 2.5 Cr by end of the fiscal year.  MobiGarage caters to more than 200 smartphone models and is registering an average of 3,000 monthly orders. The orders are growing 100 percent month-on-month.

Your website / apps / and contact details

www.mobigarage.com, 9999123511