After a long, frustrating and tedious week at work, you seek out a place where you can chill and hangout with your buddies. However, the Indian nightlife market being the way it is you are bound to end up having a few disastrous evenings. At moments like this, you wish to have the best of your city’s nightlife at your fingertips and that is where Brisky steps in.
Currently operating in Pune and Hyderabad, Brisky serves as your personal concierge that helps you discover, share as well as book local nightlife events of your interests at the best local pubs and bars. Customers going to an event can view the happy hours timing, invite friends to an event, book cabs to reach the pub and check entry as well as cover charges if applicable.
What triggered this initiative?
Rajesh Bhutada and Jatin Bhatia, two college friends from NIT Trichy decided to catch-up on a Saturday night and relieve themselves from their slog corporate lives. To relive their carefree college days, they kept up their old college tradition and chose a pub as their meet-up venue. Upon arrival, they found out that the pub had an entry fee and they were in no mood to pay for a DJ night. They ‘googled’ and checked Facebook to look for other options and find a place with a Live Band performance. They kept calling pubs for an hour or so. But, as fate would have it, all of this effort went into vain. Being a Saturday night, the pubs were way too busy to pick up a call. Frustrated and disappointed they found their silver lining.
Amidst this chaos, they sensed an opportunity to address a pain point that plagues most of us at some point of time. Hence, Brisky was born intending to ensure that you reach your perfect nightlife destination.
What motivates you?
Founded in September 2015, Brisky’s main aim has been to completely crack the nightlife destination problem which looks quite simple but, has not yet been solved completely.
“We believe that our approach of implementing the actual world behavior of the users on our digital platform will address this problem effectively. Our approach is being validated by the behavioral trends and data we are collecting from the users on our platform.” – says Jatin.
How has your journey been?
Since its commencement, Brisky has been working towards achieving their aim of being a one stop destination for people seeking nightlife events. They are presently focused on consolidating their position in Pune and Hyderabad.
Another major step taken by Brisky is providing a platform to the new talent. Recently, Brisky in association with Drunken Poet’s Cafe conducted Battle of the Bands which was an amazing opportunity for bands in Hyderabad to launch their professional careers. The event was a huge success and witnessed enormous participation from enthusiastic bands and individual performers.
They are trying to build up an ecosystem for the new talent like Live performing bands, DJs, solo performers, etc. With events like Battle of the Bands they are promoting new talent.
The biggest challenge that’s common to all early stage startups is building their team. According to Brisky building their team was the toughest part for them. “Apart from the co-founders, it is very difficult to find people who have the same zeal and vision for the company.” – says Rajesh. They were looking for people who shared the same passion for their startup as the co-founders themselves. They did face their share of disappointments. “At times people will associate with your startup just to add a few points in their CV or because you are funded.” – says Rajesh. However, they finally were fortunate enough to build up a team comprising of people who equally believe in their startup and breathe Brisky.
Progress
Since their launch they mainly focused on nightlife based in Pune. They have about 100 pubs and nightclubs as partners in Pune. Only recently, they launched themselves in Hyderabad and have about 30 premium pubs and nightclubs as their partners. They have already listed more than 4000 events on their platform and they already have above 4000 users. Bookings have also increased rapidly. They have crossed about 1000 bookings since January 2016 and are clocking about 100-120 bookings per week. They are funded by Spark10 accelerator and are currently undergoing a 13 week acceleration program in Hyderabad.
What can other startups learn from Brisky?
The basic premise of Brisky is that it’s a product for the end-customer, catering to their needs. Unlike several other platforms whose main motivation is to help businesses by selling more tickets, Brisky is dedicated to serve it’s customers by personalization. “The social component (friend’s recommendation) in our product gives us the competitive edge over others.” – says Jatin. Exclusive partnerships with the pubs, collaborating with artists who perform in local pubs allows Brisky to access the pub’s customer base. Also the local artists have a dedicated fan base which broadens Brisky’s user base and gives them tremendous brand visibility.
Brisky is available to serve it’s customers across all major platforms. One can download their app here and visit their website here.
So next time when you are in a mood to party, you exactly know how to! No more hassles. Just explore the best around you because trying out new things is the new trend!
