Failure did not deter this small-town boy from starting-up again

With three start-up ventures behind him, Anup Mohan decided to launch another enterprise, Styl, an app for stylists and barbers, reports Tech in Asia

Anup Mohan from Thrissur, a computer science engineering dropout from the University of Calicut, has been a witness to most of the start-up action in Kerala. His start-up, Flamingo Media, was the first Start-up Village incubatee to get an exit. It got acquired by Facebook’s preferred marketing developer Kreata Global based in the UAE.
 

Anup Mohan, founder, Styl. Image via Tech in Asia

But this wasn’t his first start-up. Anup had dropped out of college to develop Cazpo, an app to connect students of all college campuses in Kerala. Though it became popular in Kerala, he couldn’t figure out the business viability of the app. Also, at that point, there was no funding ecosystem to tap.
 

After Kreata Global, Anup joined Lookup as one of the early employees and went on to lead marketing. Lookup, a messaging app connecting shoppers with local businesses, raised funding from high profile angel investors, including Twitter founder Biz Stone.
 

With Cazpo, Flamingo, and Lookup behind him, Anup desired to start-up again. This time, the problem that caught his eye was the annoyance most Indian boys face while going for a haircut: wait time. Anup always tried to dodge the problem by calling the barber before landing up at the salon. Despite the “booking,” he still had to wait, almost always. On pressing them for professionalism, his barber complained that the customers fix an appointment and never turn up on time. Obviously, it was time for some technology intervention.
 

Anup grabbed the opportunity by launching Styl, an app for people to book an appointment and barbers to manage those bookings.
 

The two-month-old start-up secured $100,000 in angel funding from businessmen from Kerala. With this, the start-up aims to reach out to 200 salons in Bengaluru and serve 10,000 users in two months. It also plans to add home beauty and wellness services onto the app.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.