(Image courtesy: getinstartup.com)
Ashish Hemrajani, CEO of Bigtree entertainment Pvt. Ltd, he owns Bookmyshow.com website which offers the online ticketing for events, festivals, plays and movies. BookMyShow is a customer obsessed brand made that touches and connected to millions of lives. Think about the days when you have to go and stand in the queue outside the theatre for tickets.
BookMyShow has changed the scenario and standing in line outside the theatre is gone.
The Founder: Ashish Hemrajani was born in Mumbai and studied in Mithibai College. He did his MBA from Sydenham Institute of Management, Mumbai. He has taken many challenges in his journey as an entrepreneur and each time he knocked down, he gets up and moves ahead to achieve the goals. What inspires him and what makes him going is his attitude to deliver values and pursuit of loftier goals.
The Idea: The idea marinated in his head when he listen a radio programme promoting tickets for rugby in South Africa in 1999. At that time he was working in an advertising agency, shortly he quit his job and also persuaded his friends Rajesh Balpande and Parikshit Dar to leave their respective jobs and ask them to start selling the movie tickets through internet and telephone. But his 16 years of journey was not an easy one. At that time Rajesh Balpande looked over finance and Parikshit Dar took over technology, they approached investors but at that time it was very difficult because the internet and technology was not that prevalent and it was even more difficult to present the proposal.
The Team: The three friends started the company but now the team of 800 was once 150. In harsh time it also came down to six people when company was running out of money. It was the toughest aspect to downsize who had believed in the dream and let it go of. The values of the company are evident through the staff’s retention.
The Product: The team got their first investor JP Morgan-Chase Capital Partner with initial fund of 2.5 crores in Indian currency. They worked under the brand name “GoForTicketing” which later called as “IndiaTicketing” and finally “BookMyShow”. At that time it was difficult to penetrate the market because there were no debit cards, credit cards and internet banking. Initially they faced losses due to non-scalable business mock-up. Later the unthinkable happened, their capital partner sold off their stake. In 2002 the Dot com market gone down and their downfall started. It was the worse time for the new ones. All the investors pull their back and situation was hand-to-mouth. Their employees shrunk from 150 to 6 and they only focused on major cities operations. The time made them realize lot of things. He was left with only two options either shut down the business and focuses on the job being offered by the headhunters or invests all his savings and keep hope in business.
The Growth: The confidence was not completely broken and that’s why he starts the business all over again and fixes every broken piece. Now the situation was in favor, as the market in India was completely changed after the meltdown in terms of better infrastructure & broadband connectivity. In 2007 Network 18 invested and the environment was ready to comeback. It was the perfect time to launch the never ending online ticket system BookMyShow, was the name given by an intern. After that BookMyShow never look back and in 2011 reported revenue was INR 16 crores with a growth of 32%. In 2012 it made the record of selling tickets in a month which managed to earn another new well wisher in 2014, SAIF partners in their bucket.
BookMyShow reach is beyond the limits and it expanded globally in every genre and is now collaborated with over 1200 cinema screens across India. It is also planning to launch the IPO. It is a complete package at one destination.
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