What was the pain point that led to the creation of a quick home service platform?
I think that for any product or service you interact with on a high-frequency basis, you probably have at least two or three applications on your phone that can help you with it. Whether you need food, groceries or a ride somewhere, all of it is available.
As a bachelor living in Powai in 2023, the question I often asked myself was: in a world where a couple of clicks can help you buy a car, get married or do whatever you want, why is it still so difficult to find someone to clean your home or help you with laundry and dishes?
This personal pain point, combined with my understanding of the urban consumer from my previous organisation, revealed a large white space. Many categories had already moved wallet share from offline to online, transportation, food delivery, groceries, but high-frequency services had not.
So, the idea came from three things overlapping: a personal pain point, understanding of the urban consumer and a large white space in the consumer internet sector.
“Quick” was added as a feature because while quality is expected, speed is the differentiator. We wanted speed to be part of delivery from day one.
Why do you think no one thought of the home-services space yet?
There were many attempts over the last couple of decades. But for large-scale disruption, three things must align.
First, the right team. I had experience, and my early team came from companies like Dunzo and Amazon, with strong hyperlocal and commerce knowledge.
Second, access to capital. These journeys require multiple failures. Early backing from tier-one investors allowed us to experiment and persist.
Third, the right operating system or supply chain. For example, grocery saw massive growth only after the 10-minute delivery model unlocked the right supply chain.
In this category, earlier attempts focused on subscription or agency models. We were the first to build a 100% on-demand hyperlocal model, which allowed us to scale.
These three factors had not come together before, which is why disruption did not happen earlier.
Why an on-demand model instead of subscription or agency models?
We initially offered subscription, instant and scheduled services. We quickly realised subscriptions are not scalable, not because consumers do not want them, but because the supply is not fully committed.
Service providers may take sudden leave or be inconsistent. Subscriptions require reliability that a gig workforce cannot guarantee.
At that time, 95% of our jobs were subscription-based, but we still moved away from it. We focused on a simple entry point: when a household’s regular help is unavailable or takes usual 4-5 days off, they need an alternative. That became our wedge into households.
Over time, user behaviour showed that this could become a primary source of household help.
Think of how milk delivery operated earlier. Growing up, milk delivery was handled by milkmen.
Today, milk subscriptions are mainly relevant for households where there is consistent daily consumption, such as families with children.
For other types of consumption, such as milk used in tea, coffee, juices, or food, usage has shifted to quick commerce, which is on demand.
When a category becomes democratised on both the demand and supply side and access becomes convenient, usage patterns shift from fixed daily consumption to flexible, on-demand consumption.
That is the disruption that was needed and was not attempted earlier.
1 May 2026
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The focus is on going deeper into the micro-markets where we already operate rather than expanding aggressively into multiple new regions
What does Snabbit's success say about the next wave of consumer internet?
Every five years, a major offline category moves online in India: 2000 was travel and entertainment, 2005 was e-commerce, 2000 was Red Bus, Book My Show, Make My Trip, then came Flipkart, Amazon, then came Uber, ola, then came Swiggy, Zomato, and then came Zepto, Instamart and Blinkit.
Over 25 years, five large disruptions have happened. That means, five large wallet shares have moved from offline to online. Only one major category remains largely offline: services.
An average household spends around ₹60,000 annually on services and 98% of that is still offline. This is urban India’s last large offline habit. and we are completely reimagining it. And the reason why this is the moment to do it is because most of the transactions in services happen at a particular price point.
Most service transactions fall in the ₹200-500 range. No digital service offerings have effectively catered to this price point, where total addressable market and frequency expand significantly in India. For example, Rapido does around 7mn rides a day, but each ride has an average order value of about ₹100.
India is a market where “sachetised” products and services, high-frequency and low average order value offerings, scale both in terms of usage frequency and the number of users.
To explain this with home cleaning: there are two types, regular cleaning and deep cleaning.
Deep cleaning involves machine-grade equipment, takes three to four hours, and covers every part of the home thoroughly.
Most households get deep cleaning done twice a year, typically during festivals, spending about ₹3,000 each time, which totals ₹6,000 annually. Regular cleaning, which includes sweeping and mopping, happens daily at around ₹100 per day. This amounts to about ₹3,000 per month or ₹36,000 annually.
This means the wallet share of deep cleaning to regular cleaning is 1 to 6. We are targeting regular cleaning, which represents the larger and more frequent spend.
That is why this is the true disruption moment for the category.
Is home services the next big category to be digitised?
I think it's not just the next one. It's also the last one. Tell me any other wallet share, which is still anything you interact with on a daily basis where you probably cannot get it solved through a mobile app? So, this is the last large offline habit of digitising.
What has made investors more willing to back this category at scale?
Earlier, there was skepticism about whether this category could be digitised due to other start-ups failing in the past. Now, strong traction, customer adoption and marketplace network effects have demonstrated its potential.
Despite rapid changes in areas like AI [artificial intelligence], this category continues to attract early-stage and growth capital. Investor sentiment has shifted from skepticism to recognising this as a large and viable opportunity.
What are some important metrics that you watch closely and frequently?
We look very deeply at availability and utilisation as two core metrics for us, and we analyse them at a nanomarket level.
For availability, we break it down into neighbourhoods that are roughly 500 metres in radius. We divide the entire city into regions, regions into micromarkets and micromarkets into nanomarkets. Then, at the nanomarket level, we look at what availability looks like.
Obviously, we try to solve it either by improving demand if availability is very high, or by adding supply if availability is low. Eventually, Uber became Uber because today, even if you have a flight, you can book a cab at the last moment and one will appear. That kind of reliability is very, very important for a consumer platform like us to scale.
And on the profitability side, the key metric is utilisation. Overall, the focus remains on reliability, quality, speed, punctuality and utilisation for profitability.
If this category grows the way quick commerce did, what new bottlenecks will matter most over the next three years?
I do not see a bottleneck. Demand exists and supply exists. The key factor is execution.
From a capital standpoint, with the recent fundraise, we are well capitalised for the next three years. It ultimately comes down to execution. The playbooks are already built, and there is strong consumer and expert adoption.
The focus now is on strengthening network effects, improving the marketplace on both demand and supply sides, and continuing to execute at a rapid pace.
What moat do you believe matters most in this space?
Operational density is very important because, without it, quick service either becomes slow or too expensive. Other factors such as supply and technology are necessary, but they are table stakes.
The key is operating at a nano-market level, with strong demand and supply planning, while focusing on depth over breadth. For example, an expert travels about 250 metres between two jobs, with a transit time of around five minutes on foot.
We focus on going deeper into the micro-markets where we already operate. This includes adding more supply, generating more demand and investing capital in acquiring and retaining users and experts, rather than expanding aggressively into new markets.
It is easy to acquire the first 100 consumers, harder to reach the next 1,000, and even harder to reach the next 10,000. Once a micro-market reaches scale, around 16,000 consumers, the density flywheel starts working. This allows us to deliver quick and reliable services while also building a sustainable and profitable model.
We have chosen to allocate capital toward strengthening existing markets instead of expanding rapidly across multiple new ones.
How do you standardise a category that has traditionally depended on trust relationships and informal reputation when you digitise it?
For a long time, households relied on vegetable vendors or milkmen they trusted. People believed their milkman would not dilute milk.
Today, people are comfortable using quick commerce. The shift happens because of convenience. At some point, users try the service, and if the experience is good, they continue using it.
Consumer expectations are changing. People understand the value of convenience and how platforms work.
We have strict training and verification processes. This ensures that the person entering your home is trusted, which is often not the case offline where background verification is rarely done.
We conduct court and criminal checks, complete KYC [know your customer] verification, and train workers in physical training centres before onboarding.
This increases the trust and safety level compared to offline alternatives, where entry is based only on informal recommendations.
And what have you learned about quality control?
It is similar to platforms like Uber or Urban Company. You create incentive structures where customer feedback impacts earnings.
Experts with better ratings earn more, which creates a self-reinforcing loop that improves quality across the platform.
Do you see Snabbit primarily as a convenience platform or a new category of formalised urban employment?
We see it as a platform that unlocks convenience and reliability for customers, and assured earnings and dignity for experts.
For consumers, it makes services instantly accessible, as simple as booking a cab.
For experts, it provides formal earning opportunities, predictable income, higher earnings enabled by technology, and benefits like insurance and loans.
It also creates flexibility. Many women, especially secondary earners, benefit from flexible work schedules. Unlike offline work that requires consistent attendance, this model allows flexibility while maintaining income.
We are creating dignified work opportunities and improving productivity for consumers, who would otherwise spend time arranging these services or doing them themselves.
Overall, it is a win-win, where value is created through technology.
