Vaibhav Tewari and Sridhar Turaga are entrepreneurs who inspire comparison to great partnerships because of their offering. The Butch Cassidy and Sundance kid partnership springs to mind because these entrepreneurs are offering a “real steal” to their fellow Indians. After all getting a discount is always great and open2save promises greater discounts.

They explained their unique offering and venture saying “We are India’s largest multi-channel discount coupon service. Coupons and local deals are quite popular with consumers in all our channels (corporate, local, privilege and now online). We launched these online 2 months ago … prior to that for a year we have been managing coupons and privileges for over 500+ brands.”  Click here for rest of the story

- Vaibhav Tewari, open2save.com

That’s from an interesting interview with Vaibhav in webneetech … see here

Coupons for exclusive offers and deals in popular categories such as Pizza, Beauty, Clothes/Fashion, Grocery and Mobiles are now listed on the site. This will help consumers save money on their everyday spending – fulfilling the mission of the service Saving Simplified^TM in all ways !

Customers can register on the site for free membership and download the coupons either to their mobile or as a printable PDF e-coupon. The coupon can then be displayed at any of the participating locations to avail the offer. Select local deals and sales for TVs, Computers and other Electronics products are also listed on open2save.

The service has met with very positive customer response for the concept, presentation and the coupons. Initially the service will be available in Mumbai and Bangalore. NCR / Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad are being planned next.

“Our offline coupon service has been very popular with consumers and they have been using these coupons very regularly. With online coupons, we offer one more convenient channel to find, download and use their favorite coupons at their convenience.” added Vaibhav Tewari, CEO of open2save.

open2save has been a pioneer in paper (offline) coupons for corporates, privilege programs and select localities. The service has been very popular with consumers and effective for brands / retailers. Last quarter open2save distributed 5 Lakh coupons across 7 cities. Based on the success of “offline” coupons, the service has now been launched online.

About open2save

Started by Bangalore based entrepreneurs Vaibhav Tewari and Sridhar Turaga as their second venture, open2save is one of India’s first multi-channel discount coupons and consumer promotions service. With partnerships for exclusive offers from over 100 national brands, 200 regional chains and 1,000 + medium/small stores open2save offers every day savings for consumers in 7 cities across channels – corporate, privilege, local and now online.

open2save.com is an online coupon service where consumers can download the deals they like to their mobile or as a printable e-coupon.

For more information

Contact Chitra M., marketing@open2save.com

Call 09886226797 or visit open2save.com

Vaibhav’s Interview in Economic Times – Dec 15th, 2008

VAIBHAV TEWARI, CEO of AeNwis e-Systems and co-founder of iSeva, a leading BPO, has many entrepreneurial success sagas to his credit. He talks to Vanisha Joseph of ET about the opportunities for entrepreneurs in the IT/ITeS sector today.

How fertile is the market for entrepreneurs in the IT sector today?
The market has significant opportunities for entrepreneurs today. Problems in many verticals can be solved with strong IT solutions. Health care, retail services and some sectors where intelligent solutions can be helpful. The India 2.0 success story since 1990 can be attributed to the explosion of the entrepreneurship spirit. This is an irreversible trend. Whenever market has higher risk, value judgment becomes more realistic. New ideas get more scrutiny. But good, scalable ideas which have the potential to create value will have buyers and funding.

What are the challenges you face as an entrepreneur?
One challenge is the tightening of easy VC money, as valuations across IT, ITeS and internet or mobile space have fallen manifold. This means new businesses need to find creative ways of stretching the rupee that much longer and push for profitability more aggressively. Few ideas in India can survive solely as an online in the short or medium term — given the poor penetration of internet and low usage rates. So, blending online and offline models will be required for some time to come. Finally, Indians are brought up to minimise risks. An environment like this pushes talented people who want to venture out into a shell.

What skills would an IT professional need to take the entrepreneurial dip?
The most important skill in a high risk market is to optimise your resources so that you get maximum value. Continue to build on your vision to ensure that you tide over the downturn. Most start-ups close because of lack of funds and good teams and this becomes more pronounced in a downturn. Any professional looking to take an entrepreneurial dip at this time should plan for the right resources to last enough time and only then start. Building the right team is a critical skill.

Comment on the growth opportunities for IT professionals today.
With the availability of open-source, low-cost hosting and proliferation of web-based delivery model, it is much easier for a small team to build even a global product. The recent story of Scrabulous is an example of how much ‘flatter’ the cyber space is compared to the real world. Ability to keep it simple, create something that works for consumer rather than overload the application with features is an art. That’s what one needs to focus on to be successful.

What advice would you give IT professionals?
Technologies, languages, platforms and tools go in and out of fashion. But the ability to design and effectively deploy technology to solve real world problems never goes out of fashion. The latter requires a level of performance and understanding that goes beyond being a good programmer. If you want to be an entrepreneur, believe in your dreams, plan it well and then go for it.

RetailBiz a leading magazine in the retail industry interviewed our Founder & CEO Vaibhav. Here are some interesting snippets. Let us know if you are interested and we can give you a copy of the entire interview.

What was the motivation behind the concept?

…. The biggest motivation  behind this concept is to help consumers get all the information in one place, so that they make well informed purchases and save time and money consistently.

… for the retail industry in India there is a dearth of reliable and affordable direct marketing channels … Our long term vision is to create affordable, scalable, redeemable and targeted direct marketing channels for consumer businesses – so you can do ‘More with Less’.

Here are some … 

PluggdIn wrote … “from what I know, open2save guys are building a very aggressive field force (and are relying on offline deals, rather than writing a simple aggregator)”  Click4Details

Watblog wrote …. “A Retail Aggregation Model – The Amazon Anti-Thesis” Click4Details

Indianomics analysed in detail and wrote … “The deal aggregator works on a online and offline approach. This seems to be the right approach for India where people are still reluctant to buy something without seeing or touching. Though the idea is not new, the execution is” … Click4Details 

Did you find an article about us or deal aggregators that is interesting? Love the one’s that criticize … as it’s always interesting to learn how to do better.