One of the industry leader in the health, beauty and wellness industry is CALIPSO, an Indore based startup founded by Gaurav Rana and Subha Srivastav in 2016.
The Startup provides beauty service and primarily focuses on saving time for every working professional who values time as money, it’s an enterprise dedicated towards providing customer satisfaction by creating an ecosystem and bridging the gap between customers and the best stylists, professionals in the town at affordable prices.
Calipso provides you wide range of beauty services at home including Facial, Clean Up, Bleach, Waxing, Pedicure, Manicure Massage, Threading, Make-up. Explore prices, reviews and ratings of beauticians, hair stylists and parlour professionals near you and book appointments online is their one stop solution for all the problems of consumers. They provide their services and hear the voices of their customers through three modes i.e. through their website, through calls and through their mobile application available on android playstore, where the mobile application has a downloads of more than thousand with an awesome rating of 4.2 (as seen on 11 June, 2019).
The idea of a successful startup Calipso was sparkled to him and he got the idea about its start by looking at his mother, who worked as a beautician. She was fairly well-known amongst all his family, friends and relatives and would be called on for house visits. She used to get contracts for marriages and the pre- marriage ceremonies or functions that occur, but her business and source of income was limited to only people who knew or had heard of her and her excellent service with high customer ratings and good reviews.
Calipso has tied up with some of the major salons of the city, available from minimum to premium range as per suitable for their clients and they also have there own experienced & well trained Beauty Professionals who are ready to provide hygienic, luxury and best services at the client’s doorstep and use only standardized branded products which would be feasible for the customer’s body and pocket.
‘Rejuvenate your self in the bloom of beauty & wellness world to know your personal style’ are some of the words which they use to promote their business amongst the customers. Their staff creates a friendly, rejuvenating and relaxing environment for enhancing customer experience. Some of the delight plus points or advantages which they proudly place in front of the customers to build their trust towards their ecosystem are convenience of booking & managing all their services in just one click, tie up with salons and beauticians for quality services at affordable price, relaxing ambience to clients, where they will be pampered with soft music, aroma, candles for salon & spa like feel at home and the founders are combination of Technical and Beauty industry background so they understand the customer’s demands and needs in a better way.
Along with daily essentials and kids zone in their service line, they have some awesome packages which would perfectly suit the customer’s wishes and also not burn his pocket. The customer has to just register his name, address and contact details and select his desired service to avail their services. They also have an option to invite a friend where they can also encourage their best friends to use their services and have a good day. Customers can also earn Calipso coins to experience better features of their business.
Recently, this startup has tied up with the Western Railways (which is headquartered at Church gate, Mumbai, Maharashtra and which extends from Church gate to Virar and which has six operating divisions and it is most busiest routes among all the 18 zones of Indian Railways). The startup will now provide head and foot massages to over 80 trains with direct access to 1,50,000 passengers. It also has a physical store at the Indore junction platform. Two months ago,Calipso has raised a funding of $2 million from an undisclosed investor.
“There will be marketing stickers at every coach with a contact number. The head and foot massage services will be provided between six in the morning and 10 in the night. Every service provider will be carrying their identity card for police verification and will also be in their Calipso uniforms,” says Gaurav Rana, the founder of Calipso who has an Automobile Engineering Diploma from Dayalbagh Education Institute in Agra and has scored 96 percent in 10th boards despite of growing in a family where there is doubt of assurance of food to eat.
Gaurav began his job as a Technical Apprentice Trainee in VE Commercial Vehicles in Preethampur near Indore, and within a year he was promoted to Junior Manager. He also went on to pursue his B.Tech through a correspondence course. After working at VE Commercial, Gaurav realised that he wanted to do something on his own. Gaurav says “I always wanted to learn something new and different. And have a good understanding of everything that was happening. That doesn’t happen when you work at large corporates; you are asked to restrict yourself to the boundaries of your work, and I wanted more”.
On 2012, Gaurav started his own event management company– Vocano Events. However, as it was important for Gaurav to get a monthly wage, he continued his job as a junior manager at night, and would work on his event management company during the daytime with strong efforts and determination. Starting with every small event he would get, Gaurav slowly learnt the tricks and strategies of the trade. Initially, he started making Rs 10,000 per event, and soon it touched the bar of Rs 1 lakh. By the time it was December 2015, Gaurav quit his job and started making a profit of near to Rs 2 lakh every month. But on December 2015 all his dreams were shattered when a heavy rain flopped the New Year eve and he had to bear huge losses subsequently and was forced to shut the company. Then came the idea of Calipso.
Calipso on his board has Vinod Sood, startup mentor and Managing Director at Hughes Systique, as a mentor who was a big boost for Gaurav. He knew that if he had to succeed, he needed good guidance and a mentor. It was coincidently during a stay at OYO Rooms that Gaurav thought of Vinod and decided to reach out to him through social media and he also agreed.
