How UrbanClap Survived The Hyperlocal Bubble In 2016

“Focus on the quality of experiences, both for our service professionals as well as our users, helped the company survive the hyperlocal bubble.” UrbanClap founder Abhiraj Bhal averred during Inc42’s Facebook Live AMA session when asked about how the consumer services startup survived the hyperlocal bubble during the 2015-16 period.“One area we deliberately did not focus on in 2015 was monetisation. As a company, we had our hands full and so, we decided to park monetisation for later. When we entered 2016, we knew that we had to make meaningful progress on revenue generation and growth, without spending incremental marketing dollars. This is easy to say but very hard to do.”As Abhiraj averred, the year 2016 was an eye opener for the UrbanClap team. The startup could have doomed, but didn’t. Here is why: “In Fact, our December 2016’s exit revenue run-rate was 12x more than December 15 run-rate, exceeding our paid marketing and other direct costs,” added Abhiraj.With his eyes set on bolstering the growth and expansion of the startup, Bhal is now “very keen to take UrbanClap public”.

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