Business Blasters: Students Develop 'Silai Mitr' App With Delhi Govt's Seed Money To Connect With Tailors Around

In episode 4 of the start-up show 'Business Blasters', the students of Sarvodaya Co-ed Senior Secondary School in Moti Bagh came up with unique ideas so that they receive good business investment.

Silai Mitr - The team which developed Tailor Service App | Business Blasters

New Delhi: It’s aptly said “age is just a number”. The ‘Business Blasters’ programme introduced by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government has in fact boosted the morale of the students in Delhi government schools.

The programme, launched under the ‘entrepreneurship mindset curriculum’, is aimed at grooming young entrepreneurs at the school level.

In tune with the same, around three lakh students of Class XI and XII studying in the Delhi government schools created nearly 51,000 teams and submitted as many business ideas.

In episode 4 of the start-up show 'Business Blasters', the students of Sarvodaya Co-ed Senior Secondary School in Moti Bagh came up with unique ideas so that they receive good business investment.

A 10-member team of this school developed the tailor service app “Silai Mitr” with the seed money provided by the Delhi government under this initiative.

This tailor service app gives the customers the benefit of connecting with the tailors in their respective areas and getting a wide variety of ladies' dresses stitched from the comfort of their homes.

The customers on opening this app will get to see a variety of dresses with the price range set on each dress. After placing the order through this app, the customers receive fitting services besides pick and drop by the ‘Silai Mitr’ team.

The students threw light on the idea of this app before Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Tod Fod Jod co-founder Neeraj Gulati and Suta co-founder Tanya.

Talking about the same, team leader Afifa said ‘Silai Mitr’ is a customised tailoring app providing quality stitching service at the customers’ doorstep.

Gulnaaz, the head of marketing, said the team has also thought of future expansion plans, adding they are presently connected with six tailors.

Dhruvee, who looks after the customer service department, said it is only for women as of now, but added that men and kids section will be added later.

“If the price of a suit is Rs 350 then we will talk to the tailor in this amount. They will take Rs 280 charge and leave 20 percent. We will add five percent charge i.e. total 25 percent will be our margin. We will take Rs 370 for the customers,” she added.  

When asked as to why the price was so minimal when the tailors nowadays do not stitch at such cheap rates, Afifa said the trained home makers are not available in the market.

“Our main focus is women …We have kept the prices low so that it is affordable for all and they avail this service at their doorstep,” added Gulnaaz.

This team, which receive Rs 20,000 seed money from the Delhi government for this business idea, also downplayed queries as to why the customers would stick with their brand.

“Our team has done market survey which was responded by 600 people. Out of 600 people, there were 38 percent people who were saying that they do not find a tailor even in one km of the distance,” said Gulnaaz.   

Talking about the investment received, Akserelan, who looks after finance, said around Rs 12,000 will be invested on app development.

“Rs 2,000 will be the registration fees on Google Play store. Rs 4,000 will be our marketing budget, we will get pamphlets published and take Google ad subscriptions for advertisement on social media,” he added.

The team came up with this app looking at the market gap.

“I attempted to reach out to established tailors during a festive season who could stitch the dress on time. I could not find any. So, I came across a home-maker who was skilled in stitching but was not in the market as she did not have resources and was not tech savvy. This idea then struck my mind as to how can I help her,” said Afifa.

The ‘Silai Mitr’ team, which aims to venture into school uniform in future, said that they have an investment demand of Rs one lakh to further scale up the business

“Our app as of now is at a basic stage. We will spend Rs 50,000 on app development. We will keep 20 percent for our marketing budget because extensive marketing will be required as our app is new in the market,” said Akserelan.

“We will keep Rs 20,000 in reserve money so that we can take help from it in case the customer is dissatisfied in future. We will hire regional coordinators from different localities in 10 percent,” he added.

The team received Rs 75,000 fund plus mentoring regarding app and testing from the Suta co-founder, while another Rs 25,000 was given by Gulati.