Bistip to Create Mobile App and Seek New Revenue Stream

It's been a while since the last time we covered peer-to-peer courier service Bistip. Once a promising startup, Bistip hasn't given an update for quite some time. Now it kickstarts the service and aims for something bigger. After getting new seed funding, Bistip is ready to re-focus its business by embracing mobile development and soon to launch new service.

We discussed Bistip's current situation and future plans with its new CEO Rohit Kanwar. Before we're getting into Bistip's business, he shared his reason on joining the almost-fallen startup. A veteran in telecom industry, Kanwar said, "I always love startups and during corporate tenure have created business from scratch to multi-million dollar and I have been approached by telcos in Indonesia but my passion to create something big and disruptive put me to join Bistip. Recently shared economy business like Uber, Airbnb has achieved billion dollar valuation. I think similar aspects will happen in courier industry as well."

Further he told the company's current condition isn't that bad. Bistip now has more than 30,000 customers and close to $300,000 transaction value. It receives approx. 55,000 active visitors and avg page view time of 6 min based on the web analytics public database. He said:

"Unfortunately Bistip was lacking funds to perform aggressive marketing but currently that problem is solved and we will post regular updates to tech media on our achievements."

Mobile development focus

Kanwar acknowledged 90% of Bistip customers are using mobile devices to access web. Therefore, he added, "Catching the smartphone wave, Bistip is building a mobile application with improve features in user interface, payment gateway implementation, global delivery points, premium services for high value goods and reducing the time for delivery. These features and services are developed based on the suggestion from our regular customers."

Beside mobile app development, Kanwar also confirmed the funding will be spent to increase customer acquisition, build partnerships, and launch new services (which is not yet revealed). He added, "Our target customer base is approx. 20 million overseas Indonesian community who frequently traveled to Indonesia and also due to rise in tourist in Indonesia gives us a strategic advantage to increase our customer base."

When asked abut Bistip's business model, Kanwar answered, "Current business model includes item seeker deposit the money to us and find a traveler who can bring the stuff from them. Bistip takes a 3% to 5% from the deposit made by the item seeker."

For potential new revenue stream, he revealed, "We have been approached by Singapore retailers and online travel portal to allocate space on our portal for advertisement. Once our API will be ready we can start sharing our selected ad space to the selected retailers. We will be soon adding multiple revenue stream to increase our profitability."