Range of wedding planning services | Story of Milaanj.com
In 2015, when Deepak Meena was looking for a photographer for his friend’s wedding, only to be disappointed by many being already booked and unavailable, he and his friend came up with an idea of starting a website that will cater to all the needs of a big fat Indian wedding. Thus, Milaanj.com was born in November 2015, offering a range of wedding planning services from a venue and catering to photography and make-up.
Indian wedding industry is an ever growing one, with an annual growth rate of 25 percent every year, Deepak and his team aim to make the best out of this. What makes this start-up different from the others in this arena is that they charge the vendors only for the advertisement and do not work on a commission per lead basis. “We are keen to deliver high quality leads to our vendors through our portal and charge them only for the advertisements,” says Deepak.
Having carved a competent business model, that stands apart from that of the competitors, their growth and survival plans are quite appealing as well “We have chosen 10 top cities where e-commerce is dense and going to be denser year by year. Wedding space is a multi-billion industry with 25% yearly growth rate. To ensure the growth of our startup we are serving online invitations, customized wedding websites and wedding vendors bookings for free,” he says.
Deepak and is team are working towards expanding this venture to the top 10 cities in India, “We have been talking to vendors in every city to enlist their product for free. As our client reach is expanding, we are inviting them to advertise themselves on our site,” he says when questioned about the progress of the expansion plans.
But as amazing as it sounds, Milaanj.com’s journey wasn’t easy and like every other start-up faced a lot of challenges “Event industry is a one-time thing. Hence, we are dealing with low customer retention and high volatile market,” Deepak says. But, the team already has a solution in place “We at Milaanj.com are keen to eradicate this through our service, high-end technology, and real-time adaptations,” he adds. Tackling competition with established market players and establishing the brand of a start-up is quite difficult but this young entrepreneur confidently says “We are a team of IIT-ians, hence we intend to combat with the giants through the technology and service. Our site is based on latest technology and we will make everything real-time through the same.”
What began with finding a solution for his best friend’s wedding has today become an established start-up catering to all wedding planning needs in a click and aims to grow into a synonym for online wedding planning. “In 5 years Milaanj.com sees itself to be the brand for Indian online wedding planning,” says Deepak. We at News Aur Chai wish Deepak and his team the best of luck in facilitating the materialization of dream weddings.
