Launched in 2015, Little Internet Pvt Ltd. is a hyper-local deals discovery platform connecting customers and merchants across services like restaurants, spa, salons, activities, etc. It helps customers discover fantastic offers at their favourite outlets and also become a sales channel for offline merchants. It is Headquartered in Bangalore.
Little App was founded by Manish Chopra & Satish Mani, 2 seasoned entrepreneurs who have a myriad of experience in this field.
Little App- Founder
Manish Chopra is the CEO and co-founder of Little App. He is also the CEO of India’s leading online fashion brand Zovi. Manish was the former Chief Marketing and Operations Officer at Microsoft in Indonesia and CMO, APAC for ERP/CRM. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from The University of Punjab and later went on to complete his MBA from S.P Jain Institute of Management and Research.
Satish Mani is the CTO and Co-founder of the Little App. A die hard tech and fitness enthusiast, he has helped build top class portals and is a thought leader in his domain. He was also the Co-founder and CTO of Zovi.com. He did his MS in Mechanical & Aerospace Engg from ODU, VA. With 20 years of product and development experience in B2C environments, Satish helped build one of India’s most admired travel portals. Satish’s interests include System Architecture for Scalability, UI/UX, German Shepherds and product development.
Little App- The Idea
Around 2015, Manish saw a lot of traction moving towards the online marketplaces. They went after a huge opportunity at that time in mobile platform in India in the O2O space. They came to know that the O2O was about to explode and along with that smartphone growth was also exploding. So Manish and Satish built a team to build an app to connect thousands of merchants who have services to sell across verticals like health and wellness, food and beverage, entertainment, last minute hotel bookings.
“Little is the “Connector” between the customer who wants to have great experiences and awesome deals and the merchant who is ready to offer the same to the customer. We are an online to offline market place, absolutely one of its kinds where customer has all the empowerment to make intelligent choices using our App. The problem solved here is the lack of an organized national player to make this happen. Little does it with finesse using world class app great deals at the right time and NOW, merchant strength and user experience. The real differentiator is the scale and depth of the merchant ecosystem. Fantastic Deals around you – can only be realized by having the largest ecosystem.” explained the co-founder of Little App, Manish Chopra.
Little App- Major Challenges Faced
Hiring the right kind of people quickly was a significant challenge. They need senior leaders as well as young dynamic front-line business development people. Training and retaining them is already a major challenge.
Little App- Product and Services
Little App brings to you, the best deals near you. The no-fuss and friendly search option lets the customer access the best deals for restaurants, movies, salons and spas and things to do. The customer can browse through a vast number of deals across all platforms near them. The moment the app opens, one can simply pick up their city and browse through deals categorized under various headings such as “Fab Deals”, “Food and Drinks”, “Spas and Salons”, “Things to do”. One can buy the deal they like within the app and pay using Paytm, net banking, credit and debit card. No printouts are required to redeem the deal, one can simply show the online deal code / QR Code to the merchant before placing the order.
All the deals bought by the customer are saved in their “My Orders” section of the app ensuring easy access. Any grievances reported is promptly attended to by the customer service team. Little App offers a detailed rating and feedback system, which will allow users to give a rating to the merchant, and share their feedback about the service only after using the service. This maintains the authenticity of the reviews.
Little App- Growth
Little App’s growth coincides with the rapid development of India’s mobile Internet ecosystem. The unprecedented success of the category has been facilitated by innovative technology solutions aimed at benefiting customers and merchants alike. Moreover, company's thought process is in sync with the much-needed move by the Indian Government towards digitizing payments.
On May 2017, Little App announced the launch of its operations in three new cities – Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. After the launch, Manish said:
“After our successful launch in 11 cities, we are excited to roll out our service in Kochi, Bhubaneswar, and Nagpur. They seem to be one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Little App has received phenomenal response and acceptance across all its functional cities. We look forward to revolutionizing these markets as well. We will leverage our technology prowess, deep operational experience, and excellence towards our customer satisfaction.”
Little App covers restaurants, movies, hotels, salons, gyms, spas and other services. It currently claims to have over 25,000 merchants across 15 cities offering over 50,000 live deals across F&B, movies, last-minute hotels, and health & wellness.
Little App- Business Model
Little sells deals of outlets and charges a commission on every deal sold. Customers buy the deal from Little and pay them. Little in turn cuts their commission fee and returns the rest to the outlet. Outlets- sell their products/services on Little to attract more customers and fill their tables. Little- has a huge customer base and offers free marketing platform to outlets. In turn, charges commission for every deal sold. Customers- pay a much lesser price for their choice. So it's a win win for all!
Little App- Revenue Model
Little App is a services marketplace where it provide a platform for tens of thousands of merchant organization to reach millions of consumers on their smartphones. It charges the merchants a small fee between 6-8% for providing the platform including the payment facilitation.
Little App- Acquisition and Mergers
Little App acquired Chandigarh-based curated deals marketplace Trideal in October 2015. It also acquired beauty and wellness start-up Stylofie for an undisclosed amount. Little App aims to further penetrate the beauty and wellness segment with this acquisition. With this acquisition, Little got access to more than 50,000 registered visitors and over 1,000 merchants on the Stylofie platform.
Little App- Funding
In January 2016, Little App raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt Ltd. Little had raised $50 million (Rs. 318 crore) in July from One97Communications, which runs mobile payments venture Paytm, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management, among others, in July 2015.
Little App- Competitors
MagicPin, Nearbuy are considered as the two top competitors of Little App. CouponDunia is Little App’s ## competitor. CouponDunia is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and was founded in 2010. CouponDunia operates in the Discount Stores industry. Mydala is also considered to be one of the competitors.
Little App- Future Plans
Going forward, Little will focus on sectors like entertainment, health and wellness, food and last minute hotel booking. And it is also about bringing happiness to customers in a way that the deals are available to the consumer as and when he/she wants it.
Little App- Contact
20/1 20/2A 2nd Floor,Arakere Road Bangalore, Karnataka. Pin: 560076
Support Number: 91-8046-724-672
