Revathy Roy - transforming survival sufferers to self-content superwomen
Posted on: 12/Dec/2017 10:03:09 AM
With 3 young children, Roy was a 45-year aged housewife. In the year 2004, her husband fell in coma. With mounting medical bills and 2 years of anxiety, he fell sick. Roy says she never had enough money to meet her daily needs for bread! Rather than choosing self-pity, Roy decided to gather all the bits and pieces of her scattered life and reconstructed it with determination.
She discovered her rally driving interest and took part in the Lavasa Women’s Drive in 2010. Later on, she switched her passion into her business. As she used to drop her friends back home at night, she thought of turning it into a business.
To start with, she decided to borrow a tourist taxi from one of her friends. She got in talks with a conglomerate that runs the Mumbai Airport. It is called the GVK. She pleaded for allotting a slot in the Mumbai airport. Accepting her plea, GVK allotted an official slot for her from where Roy started ferrying passengers from different places to the airport and the vice-versa.
She took this forward with an ad in a local journal calling out for other women drivers to which she received 2 responses. She then set up her own company in the name Forsche. It means either ways – a trick added to the name Porshe, or the combination of For+she. With this, Forshe became the pioneering women’s taxi service in Asia.
Roy remembers the days when it all was just a play of three girls! The media threw spotlight on them with immense coverage, and it did help in growing their firm further when ORIX, a Japanese financial services firm came up with funding and whopped up their business to 30 taxis. This unfortunately turned sour as she had to withdraw herself in 2009.
What is she up to now?
Now, aging 57, Roy is the proud CEO of Hey Deedee – the very first all-female hyperlocal delivery start up in India. It was initially set up as Zaffiro Learning. Women hailing from poor income category are trained for driving 2-wheelers. They are then made to take up last-mile delivery for firms such as Subway, Pizza Hut, Amazon, etc.
Pitching in the ecommerce sector
The primary target of Hey Deedee is to meet the logistics needs of the ecommerce sector that is growing in leaps and bounds to day. Importantly, women empowerment is the ultimate goal they have. Women who hail from families that suffer every day survival are their ultimate target. Empowering them and upskilling them to make them stand on their own with financial independence and respect is the primary focus I have, she claims. If I can be independent, any woman can too!
Hey Deedee business model
Hey Deedee has got a very simple business model. Women are subjected to a 45-day training period involving classroom and on-road training, English coaching and personality development. These women will be made to deliver parcels for companies like Amazon for which Hey Deedee charges an approximate of Rs 30 per delivery. Per day, about 10 to 12 deliveries are easily possible. At present, they service in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
There are 2-wheelers used for training apart from which there is not even a single vehicle that Hey Deedee owns!
