The lights shined bright one second,
dimmed the next and then pffttt. Cable, internet and all the hooked up
electrical appliances in my apartment had stopped working. There had been a surge in electricity and
we could see some smoke billowing around the electricity board downstairs. The time
was 7:47 a.m.
The residents in this wing about
6 in number called the handymen from
the Power company, Cable company, Internet Service Provider, general electric
store. By 11 a.m., all 6 residents had been attended to by these handymen working non-stop just in time for the
maids to come and start their work in our apartments. We also did not have to pay
through our nose to get everything working in 3 hours.
This is possible in Mumbai where
in every area, you can find people to do all sorts of odd-jobs. I was used to
all this before I started for U.S. in 2003; which was almost every person’
dream back then.
I was staying with another Indian girl, also from Mumbai and we found
it a little difficult to setup everything because we were used to everything being
handled by these handymen who are part and parcel of every middle-class to the
super-rich Mumbaikar’ life. We learnt the hard way and it was not really something that was worthwhile but you haaaddd to do it and so we did.
Here in Mumbai, you want to repair some part of your house, or paint or repair an item
or the bad plumbing or maybe do the household work, even take the trash out;
there is always someone available to do everything that you don’t want to do.
I remember in U.S. when one of our friends bought a new house, all of us went to help out with the moving and painting of her house. My Dad and
grandfather had been aghast to hear that I was doing the painting and moving stuff;
they had kept their forever-little girl away from all this till then.
When I was staying in the UK, we had to hunt for people who would do things
within our budget and getting things
done within few hours was simply out
of question unless you did it yourself.
So, last year when my brother
decided to start KEEPE which connects the handymen and the property owners or
managers, I was ecstatic. Here was the guy who truly understood how a person
can make better use of their time while delegating to the expert handymen and
not burning a hole in your pocket.
He has his head and heart in the right place as is evident in his talk
with Elliot Volkman the award-winning journalist who is deeply ingrained in the
startup world. KEEPE was one of the semi-finalists at CELEBRATE Conference in
October 2015 for crowning the Startup of the Year.
Now, KEEPE is one of the startups to get a chance to hone their
solution under the mentoring of Techstars Seattle accelerator so as to pitch
to prominent investors in May 2016.
Kudos to Rishi Mathew (CEO) of
KEEPE! I am sure every person in northern US who is used to expert handymen taking away
all that work from your naïve and ignorant hands while allowing you to make
better use of your time… like me for example, thanks you from the bottom of our
hearts. I wish that it was available way back in 2003.
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