Business
Utkarsh Biradar and Ganesh Balakrishnan met at IIT Bombay. Almost two decades later, the duo decided to start their first company together, Momoe. Today, they are working on their second startup, Flatheads, which is set to launch an online collection of men’s footwear in November.Utkarsh Biradar and Ganesh Balakrishnan met each other for the first time at IIT Bombay, back in the ‘90s. Then, more than decade later, Ganesh found himself sitting across the table from Utkarsh while he was interviewing for a job at Honeywell. At Honeywell, the two became friends, and eventually decided that they wanted to co-found a company together. After quitting their jobs at Honeywell, Utkarsh and Ganesh decided to found a mobile payments startup, Momoe. while Momoe was technically their first entrepreneurial endeavor, the two had both been involved in intrapreneurship at their previous companies. That said, in the three years that they spent building Momoe, they learned a lot about marketing, hiring, and partnering with other companies. Eventually, Momoe was doing so well that ShopClues decided that they wanted to acquire the mobile payments startup, and in 2016, Utkarsh and Ganesh made the switch from entrepreneurship to becoming employees at ShopClues. This experience enabled the two of them to learn what e-commerce at scale looked like. After absorbing as much as they could from their roles at ShopClues, they decided to jump back into entrepreneurship.When they quit their jobs at ShopClues, Utkarsh and Ganesh didn’t know what they wanted to do. However, after about six months, they decided to enter into India’s $12 billion footwear industry. They identified a gap in the market, between functional, affordable footwear, and expensive, imported footwear from well-established brands like Nike, Puma, Adidas, etc.Utkarsh and Ganesh intend to bring their knowledge of tech and payments into their footwear startup. Flatheads will be creating smart inventories based on what is selling, and what isn’t. They also intend to release limited edition collections of shoes. What is more, they are focusing on comfort and style. They want their shoes to be wearable in both casual and professional contexts. Utkarsh and Ganesh are creating a personality for their brand. They are targeting the kinds of people who belong to unconventional tribes, like photographers, entrepreneurs, digital nomads, comedians, actors, musicians, and travellers. They hope to build a community of people around their shoes on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.Over the last year and a half, Utkarsh and Ganesh have raised an angel round of funding of $500,000, moved into an office, got a team of six employees together, designed a line of shoes, and those shoes are currently being manufactured and brought over to India. Pre-orders will start soon after after Diwali. If you enjoyed this video and want to know more about Flatheads or Utkarsh Biradar and Ganesh Balakrishnan, please make use of the links below:Utkarsh’s LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/utkarshbiradar/ Ganesh’s LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ganeshbalakrishnan/Ganesh’s Medium: https://medium.com/startupchronicles/Ganesh’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ganeshb78Flatheads’ website: https://flatheads.inFlatheads’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/flatheads_inFlatheads’ Facebook: https://facebook.com/flatheadsofficial/Flatheads’ Instagram: https://instagram.com/flatheadsofficial/