While most of us utilize our time, money and skills for our own personal benefits, it gives us a sense of immense contentment even if we do a little for the society and for those in need. We are talking about volunteering. Though we think that we volunteer for the benefit of others, there are actually many physical and mental benefits that come to us when we volunteer. A few years back Carnegie Mellon University, undertook a study, to see the correlation between volunteering and physical/ mental health of the volunteers and the results were amazing. It showed that regular volunteering can lead to lower chances of developing hypertension and promotes psychological well being. So are you too thinking to start volunteering? if yes, than CHEZUBA is the perfect platform for you to visit. Chezuba lets you offer voluntary services to NGOs from around the world so that you can make a positive difference in the lives of people in different parts of the world from the comfort of your home.
StartupTalky interviewed Chezuba co-founder Sukhendra Reddy Rompally to know more about this unique startup.

About Chezuba
The Voluntary Sector
Chezuba Founders and Team
How was Chezuba Started
Chezuba - Name and Logo
What is Chezuba
Chezuba - Launching Startup
Chezuba - Revenue Model
Chezuba - Funding and Investors
Chezuba - User Acquisition and Retention
Chezuba - Startup Challenges
Chezuba - Competitors
Chezuba - Growth
Chezuba - Awards & Recognitions

About Chezuba

Based in Hyderabad, Chezuba is a global online volunteering platform facilitating skilled professionals worldwide in assisting Non-Profits through skill-based online volunteering. It makes volunteering incredibly easy, accessible and fun. Chezuba envisions a world in which anyone and everyone can make an impact, without having to leave the comfort of their homes.

The Voluntary Sector

Volunteering, and philanthropy as a whole is an unorganized market. More than one-fourth of the world’s population volunteers every year and hundreds of billions of dollars are given as charity. A recent Forbes report suggests that 72% of skilled professionals seek impact in their work and more than two-thirds do not find it.

“We aim to organize this market by channelizing the 10 million registered NGOs and bringing them together with corporates, skilled professionals and the governments. As the newer generations march towards reaching higher in the Maslow’s pyramid, we foresee the whole world engaging in community development activities” Sukhendra explained.

Chezuba and Founders & Team

Sukhendra Reddy Rompally, JaganKothacharla and Adela Strakova founded Chezuba in the year 2017.

Sukhendra Reddy Rompally is the CEO of Chezuba. He is an IIT graduate. He founded AIESEC IIT Dhanbad and led a team of 50+. Worked as Product Manager, International BD and HR in Russia, Taiwan and India and volunteered in 4 countries.

Jagan is the COO of Chezuba. He too is a graduate from IIT Dhanbad and co-founded AIESEC IIT Dhanbad. Worked as pan-India BD manager established sales and operations processes for a startup. He is also an active volunteer who volunteered in 3 countries.

Adela is the CXO of Chezuba. She Worked with multinational teams in China, Taiwan and Slovakia. Adela has master’s degrees in Sinology and Arts Management and 6+ years of public service experience in foreign missions. Adela volunteered in Taiwan and India.

Jagan and Sukhendra went together to IIT. They co-founded the AIESEC chapter back in university and have also represented the same state for National Squash Championships. They have been friends for close to 9 years now and Jagan was the first person Sukhendra approached when he wanted to start Chezuba. Adela and Sukhendra were flatmates during their work stints in Taiwan. At the time when Sukhendra contemplated about his startup idea, Adela was actively looking for volunteering opportunities abroad. The idea was a perfect match and instead of working for a non-profit, Adela joined the founding team to aim for a bigger impact. The three have attracted great talents from various backgrounds that over a year and a half has grown into an 18-member dedicated and passionate team.

How was Chezuba Started

After Sukhendra’s first volunteering experience in Malaysia, he cofounded AIESEC ( Nonprofit Organization Management Company) in his alma mater IIT Dhanbad with Jagan. Those 3 years at AIESEC provided him with impactful volunteering experiences in India, Malaysia, Russia and Taiwan. However, once he entered the corporate life, he understood the time, location and opportunity constraints people face to be able to volunteer. The idea was further validated during backpacking in Myanmar where he met several other young professionals from worldwide, most of who faced the same challenge. That was the Eureka moment.

The first word Sukhendra heard was Chezuba, meaning “Thank You” in Burmese was the starting point. After he came back to India, he discussed the idea with a few friends who loved it and joined hands either as cofounders or investors, and the product was born!

Chezuba - Name and Logo

The business plan of Chezuba was laid out towards the end of Sukhendra’s backpacking in Myanmar. The first word he heard after was “Chezuba” which means “Thank You” in Burmese. He found it to be relevant and catchy, checked for the domain availability and voila! The company got its name!

The logo was designed by Adela. It represents a hot-air balloon in front of a blue globe. Hot air balloons over Bagan is the most famous landmark of Myanmar, it is embodied in a heart-shape, which is a symbol of love – or doing good.
“We hope that our minds, skills and hearts can travel to the other part of the world via “air” (online) as the balloon” Sukhendra narrates the deep philosophy behind the logo.

What is Chezuba

Chezuba connects NGOs and volunteers from around the world. Non-Profits who need skilled volunteers sign up on our platform and complete their profile. Chezuba conducts a first level screening of such Non-Profits. Chezuba team then understands the Non-Profit’s case and recommends what volunteers they might need and assists them in creating online volunteering projects on Chezuba. The company uses digital marketing and partnerships to find them the right volunteer.

A volunteer sign up creates a profile and explores the existing projects. Once he/she finds the project of their interest, they go through an application process, which tests their intent, skill and understanding of the project. These data points are shared with the NGO responsible for the project so as for them to make the right choice in choosing the volunteer.

In the process of providing impactful experiences, Chezuba has also partnered with several organizations which let the volunteers make an impact in other ways as well like raising money for the partner NGOs through crowdfunding, running, corporate volunteering, etc.

Chezuba - Launching Startup

Once a founding team was formed, Chezuba team raised a small fund from past colleagues, employers and friends; and launched the initial product in March – 2018.
“We received a lot of support from millennials worldwide as we had users from 50+ countries in the first 10 days of our launch. A friend got us featured in the French press and a user who came across us offered to engage with us and wrote articles and blogs about us in Nicaragua. By the end of the first quarter, we had users from 100+ countries, most of who came to us organically” Sukhendra recounts.

Chezuba - Revenue Model

Chezuba earns revenue from three sources-
Those NGOs which pass the initial screening of Chezuba become eligible to list their needs on the platform. Such NGOs pay an annual subscription fee of US$ 100 which lets them post any number of projects online, related to any skill.

The company has a crowdfunding partner which lets volunteers raise money for the partner NGOs through social media and affiliate channels. Chezuba charges a commission of 2% on the money raised.

Chezuba also engages corporates and find customized online volunteering opportunities for senior management and leadership positions in those companies. The company charges 50$ per employee in such cases.

Chezuba - Funding and Investors

Chezuba has raised three rounds of investments so far.

The investors are a great support to the Chezuba team not only in terms of finance, but also in terms of mentorship and guidance. As Sukhendra puts in “We were very lucky with our investors not being only very supportive, but with some of them also providing extra value in terms of mentorship in their field of expertise. As we are on a lookout for a Pre-Series A investors, it is our strong thesis to choose investors that can add more value beyond money”

Chezuba - User Acquisition and Retention

Chezuba has come up with some excellent strategies for building customer relations.
The company believes in building an ecosystem where the customers become their business promoters. Chezuba engages customers in several innovative ways.
Speaking about the various ways in which Chezuba engages the customers.

Sukhendra says, “Our customers engaged with us as Regional Ambassadors, taking up short term research projects for us and even joining us full-time as employee(s). Listening to the customer is the key and we have made it a point to interact personally with as many customers as possible which eventually made them promoters of our brands. One of the biggest reasons for Chezuba’s exponential growth has been the network effects of our happy customers”

Chezuba - Startup Challenges

Technology has been the biggest challenge for Chezuba since inception.
Be it choosing Tech stack or hiring tech team with limited budgets – Tech has always been a challenge, add to the fact that none of the founders are technical. However, the company has plans to solve this issue by incorporating an in-house tech team soon.

“The product has been built from scratch by childhood friend Murali, who we got on board as our Chief Technical Advisor. A college junior of mine joined then as a developer and we hired a senior developer later. We heavily rely on our CTA and other mentors/advisors to temporarily solve tech, the permanent solution will be hiring a full-fledged in-house tech team, which is our first plan of action upon closing our Pre-Series A” Sukhendra says.

Chezuba - Competitors

Catchafire in the US functions very similar to Chezuba. They are a 9-year-old organization focused on US NGOs and US corporates. On the other side, there is Vollie from Australia who is 2 years older than Chezuba and has a similar business model(s), but again the focus being the Australian market.

However, Chezuba being a global platform available for one and all have a wider scope than its competitors.  Besides, Working out of India, Chezuba’s pricing is an advantage for the company.

Chezuba caters to the needs of NGOs, primarily in Asia and Africa, where volunteering is largely an unorganized sector.

Chezuba - Growth

Chezuba is currently growing month on month on user acquisition at 32% and at about 52% on revenue. With it venturing out into corporate sales with bigger ticket sizes, the cash flow seems a lot more stable and the company is glaring at profitability in 3-6 months from now.

The company is currently in the middle of its first institutional fund-raise, which will enable it to focus on further productization and market expansion to Latin America and Africa. By the end of the year, Chezuba is expecting to have over 4,000 Non-Profits and close to 50,000 volunteers completing about 1,000 online volunteering projects.

Chezuba - Awards & Recognitions

Chezuba is selected as the top 100 startups globally at Startup Istanbul -2018. It was also selected as the top 5 social impact startups at TiE Global Summit – 2018 and as one of the Top 50 Impact startups in India by Bombay Stock Exchange.

Website: Chezuba