Professionals and tech people have access to all the facilities on their fingertips. But what about retired people and old couple living alone in the city. Which company is working for their needs. Cannot think of one? Zingobox is a startup focusing on the untapped section of the $14 billion elderly care market in India.
Problem prevailing in the society
- Alone in city: Due to rapid globalisation, education, employment and marriage, we have to live away from our parents, in other cities or countries, quite often. Hence, many times, we can not take care of them both emotionally and physically.
- Assistance needed: Old couples living alone struggle for occasional get-together, Puja ceremony, etc. and want some assistance. They often have to face problem in doing even simple tasks like household chores. Due to absence of their children nearby, they end up doing all work by themselves, which is tiring as well as inefficient sometimes.
- No specialised gifts for old people: When browsing gifting options online, we often struggle to find something suitable for elders. Most solutions lack customisation, usability and might not give satisfaction to customers.
About the Company
Zingobox is a gifting marketplace where people can buy a product, book a service or gift a box for their elders to spread happiness and show them the much needed care. Zingobox is the idea of a young women entrepreneur, Sakshi Gupta who is working tirelessly to establish her roots in startup world. This company was launched in June 2017 and already they have been making noise by getting paid customers so soon. Currently they are operational offline in Delhi-NCR and perfecting their offerings to be online really soon.
As of now, they are a proprietorship firm with a team of two, but are going to be a “pvt ltd” company soon with 2 more experienced members joining the team.
Daniela Godoy, head of internationalisation at e-Residency Estonia (European country) liked this start-up so much she mentioned them in her article. Read complete article here.
How this idea turn up?
Many of Sakshi’s cousins are either settled abroad or living far from home town. One day their parents start discussing with Sakshi’s parents “How fortunate you are that your children stay with you!! go for shopping with you, are there at times of emergency or in celebrations“.
On the other hand, her cousins felt constant guilty for not able to do the needful for their parents. They keep telling Sakshi that “Can you please visit our parents? spend some time with them or at least teach them how to use WhatsApp or Facebook, so they don’t feel neglected.“
This spring up an inspiration moment for Sakshi to lets fill this gap in the form of ‘ZingoBox’. A place where people could purchase all sort of gift products and assistance services at a single platform, and give elders the much needed feeling of care.
“With more knowledge, comes more empathy” – Sakshi mantra for elderly care.
Solution Provided
Solution provided by ZingoBox is to bring the joy back to elders which they miss due to children’s absence in their lives. Currently they have three offerings:
- Gift a moment: Many times we look for products which are suitable for 40+ age groups. But, most products available offline and online and within easy reach are unsuitable for ageing people. ZingoBox offers products which are special and carefully selected such that it feels like gifting a special moment to your elders.
- Gift a Service: Old people can be benefited from assistance in daily routine, hence ZingoBox offers a solution where one can gift a special service to his/her parents. From special occasion services like Birthday party decoration arrangements, Puja arrangements, to essential services like helper assistance on per hour basis, as well as parcel pick and drop service, all are covered by ZingoBox. In coming days, they are going to provide skill based training to elders to make them active in their lifestyle.
- Gift a box: For people requiring long term services or multiple products, various packages are available on subscription basis for up-to one year.
Where they are headed?
They are trying to become a one-stop platform for all the product and services available for elders, not only in India but globally. For that, WEE foundation has helped a lot by providing e-residency for Estonia with which they can easily operate their business in European Union remotely. In coming days, they are plan to give occupation to elders so that they can spend their time in an efficient way.
About Sakshi
Sakshi is a young entrepreneur, B.tech-MBA aged 26, has over 5 years of professional experience in startups like Haptik and Bionova.
She won fellowship at Founder Institute in 2015. Founder institute(FI) is a silicon valley based incubator with chapters PAN India. Only two women entrepreneurs were selected on ALL India basis and she was one of them. Unfortunately, Sakshi could not do fellowship, but she gained lots of insight and contacts there. Her team consists of people she met at FI.
After conceiving the idea of ZingoBox, Sakshi applied for IIT-Delhi WEE Foundation’s six month program and got selected among top 30 women entrepreneurs. With support of WEE foundation, Sakshi has got new confidence, gained momentum and execution to fly high with her dream company.
If you think, you can collaborate or want to help Sakshi in anyway, you are most welcome to “Say Hello“. She would be more than happy to connect.
