Rajeev\u2019s dad was in the army and mom was a university professor. Rajeev did his MBA from Symbiosis and landed up with a job in Canada. Found that quite boring, so came back to India with the specific intention of becoming an entrepreneur. One thing he was sure of – the field would be off-beat. He looked at Agarbattis – after visiting the main markets, he was scared because it seemed so unorganised. One day, meditating as most of us do, on his potty seat, he realised that the answer lay below him. He would enter a different kind of IT industry – SH IT.. or sanitation – or the more euphemistically sounding – liquid waste management solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A German friend of his gifted him two portable toilets. The first contract was worth Rs. 80 K for an event at Pune University, which be bagged thanks to the good offices of his mom. He used these toilets to do road shows – eventually selling them off – to buy 10 Indian ones. And so started the toilet story. The business is a largely institutional one. One obvious customer is the government. The other not so obvious one is construction sites. What was interesting was the way the pitch is made to construction contractors. What sells is not hygiene and associated good health – but the time saving of having a portable toilet positioned 50 m away from the site, rather than a permanent tin shed one built at the corner of the plot, which was 500 m away. With 5 toilet breaks per day per person, what Rajeev sold was the manhours saved by the contractor!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today Rajeev\u2019s company, 3S Shramik, operates 10,000+ toilet blocks, each of which is RFID tagged for better asset utilisation. The portable toilets are cleaned out 3 times a week. He charges his customers 5 K per month for renting a toilet block. Other services that are offered are Septic tank cleaning. He is also trying his hand at micro-entrepreneurship, where he identifies rural folk and gives them basic moulds and critical components to build toilets in their own villages. A lot of well wishers have advised Rajeev to look at associated areas like garbage disposal – but Rajeev feels that focus is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two rounds of funding have happened. The company is now valued at 175 cr. And Rajeev is looking at spending more time indulging in the other passion in his life – sailing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"