Yes Madam: A Home-based Beauty Service

“Yes Madam” is a startup providing best quality beauty services at the doorstep to customers. It is based on the unique per minute price model and aiming at disrupting the whole beauty industry in minimum possible time. Mayank Arya founder of “Yes Madam” is an alumnus of Singapore Polytechnic has done diploma in nautical studies. He is also serving as Director in Liberia Plastic Inc. and having rich experience of 7 years in making a profitable business from scratch, he has even contributed his entrepreneurial skills in NICOM Distillery.

After that, Mayank Arya and his brother, Aditya Arya had launched a beauty home service startup – “Yes Madam” in 2017. Both the brothers have also served in merchant navy but later they entered the world of entrepreneurship.

In the following interview with Mayank Arya, let’s see his journey from an idea to a successful entrepreneur.

Que- How Yes Madam has started?

Mayank- Yes Madam was basically a brainchild of me and Aditya. One day we were sitting together and looking for business opportunities. Aditya went to the salon one morning and bought some services worth Rs 3000. He was not satisfied and came back home with a mind full of doubts and an idea of a startup. He told me everything about product duplicacy and price hike. After that, we thought, let’s start beauty home services where we will provide authentic products that customers will know the worth of the money they are spending. At that time other players were also there in the market but we tried to start something different. Then, the idea for Yes Madam came up.

Que- Why you have chosen the name “Yes Madam”?

Mayank- So the reason behind choosing “Yes Madam” as the name of our startup was that we wanted to become customer oriented so that it should be easy to remember. Also, the brand itself creates respect for women because if you say “Yes Madam”, it sounds more of respect for ladies.

Que- What is the X factor of Yes Madam? Why do you think Yes Madam is better than other salons in the market?

Mayank- There were two things which Aditya noticed that day in the salon. First, when he asked for facial, a lady came from behind with big boxes in hand containing products for facial but who knows original or duplicate because it is very easy to duplicate things in boxes and results in cost reduction for them. Also, they can refill it again and again with other non-branded products. The second problem was three thousand bucks for a facial. Aditya was unaware if the price was real or equal to value he would be getting after facial. It might be possible that he could get the same facial in fifteen hundred bucks only from another salon. So, we thought to deliver authenticity in the form of mono doses and when we launched Yes Madam. We tied up with big brands like O3 and presently providing customers authenticity and value. It has increased our costing as mono packages are bit highly priced but we are okay with it because our main concern was to manage the quality of the products. Also, we tried to create a difference in pricing system also. We made price split into two – service charge plus product cost. We charge six rupees per minute as a service charge for availing basic services. And it varies from service to service from six to twelve rupees.

As we can take the example of O3 facial costs three thousand bucks in other salons. But we charge only eight hundred and ten rupees. For O3 Facial, the product cost is four hundred and fifty rupees and the service charge is six rupees per minute. And a facial takes 60 minutes to complete and the total comes out: 450+6*60=810. So this is our point of difference that the customer who is availing and paying service should know that it is worth to pay.

Que- Who all are there in the core team of Yes Madam?

Mayank- Our core team consists of Aditya, me, Tech team of seven people, Trainers, and customer relationship management.

Que- Do you hire the beauticians or they all are freelancers? Is there any training system for them?

Mayank- They all are freelancers and we hire them to provide excellent training because our main motive is to provide a platform to earn well for them. Generally, beauticians manage to earn very less amount of money but due to gradual training provided by us, they become efficient in doing bridal make-ups and perfect hairdo which give them the extra edge to earn extra money upto 45k.

Que- Who is your ideal customer?

Mayank- Basically, our ideal customers are ladies as of now. We have started for men also but currently, we are focusing on female customers aged 40 or above.

Que- How you look at UrbanClap and similar apps as your competitor, as they are also providing trained beauticians at an affordable price?

Mayank- If you talk about Urban Clap, they have the same model as us. They hire freelancers and provide training to them but the transparency is not there. Apart from Urban Clap, I don’t think so there is any other player who is our competitor in the market. Moreover, they are not competitors they are facilitators. They make the market for us and we eat up that market slowly.

Also, when it comes to Urban Clap, they are doing well but they are giving heavy discounts. And to give discounts they incur heavy costs. In spite of that fact, we are getting a lot of customers and the best thing is we never give discounts to them. It is their loyalty that they are coming back to us. We are really thankful to God that we did so well that we have a very good repeat ratio where we will be profitable in the next few months and these companies are still looking into money.

Que- In how many cities Yes Madam is currently operating in? And any thought of spreading business to other locations?

Mayank- We are operating in 6 cities including Lucknow where we are launching on the franchise model and have already completed every formality. Besides Lucknow, we are operating in New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, and Ghaziabad, and planning to launch in Panipat and Chandigarh in the next few months.

Que- To how many customers Yes Madam is serving at present? And what are your revenues?

Mayank- We are serving to 10,000 customers as of now and our aggregate sale is around 1.02 crores per month.

Que- What is the exact procedure to avail service from Yes Madam?

Mayank- It is very simple. He or she needs to download the app from the Google Play store. It is very user-friendly and can be done in 2 simple steps by selecting service type and time slot. Also, if a customer is new, he or she can get 150 rupees in his or her app wallet.

Que- What are the major difficulties you are facing in growing your business?

Mayank- Our main problem since the beginning was the availability of beauticians because it was very difficult to locate a large number of customers and provide them with beauticians at their preferable time was difficult initially.

Que- Are you looking for any kind of funding or have already raised it?

Mayank- No, we have not raised any funding but obviously we are looking for it.

Que- Can you please tell us what is the procedure to take franchise of Yes Madam?

Mayank- People have to invest 13 lakhs to have our franchisee. And they will get a payback of their investment in 2 years. And also, the concept is new that is why we are not charging a royalty for the franchise. But as soon as, our franchisees will start earning profits we will charge royalty accordingly. Till that we are aiming to make franchisees to earn money.

Que- What is your strategy for upcoming years?

Mayank- In business, there are three things – customers, investors and you. Because of satisfied pricing structure and transparency, our customers are pretty much happy with us. Also, the beauticians are happy as they are making good money. Eventually, both the sides are happy. Also, we are the highest rated beauty home service at Google Play and all reviews are organic reviews about our company. Other companies force their customers for feedback and also create fake and paid reviews. So, we are not looking into profits right now. We are looking forward to providing our customers 10 times more than they are expecting from us. So that they will recommend us to others, our beauticians will earn more and eventually we will get our payout back.

Que- Would you like to give any message for budding entrepreneurs?

Mayank- All I want to say is if you have any idea in mind put it in practice. After all, it is not the size of the dog in fight matters, it is the size of the fight in a dog matters. Eventually, you will get your way out. Because when we started, we didn’t know the destination, it was just an idea.