Neetu Yadav and Kirti Jangra hustled hard to make it to the IIT, and then the duo stunned all by selling cows and buffaloes online.
Back in Nawalpura, it was Yadav’s turn to stir a storm. “I want to sell buffaloes,” she told her father. The dairy farmer pretended as if he didn’t hear. Yadav reiterated. “Tu bhains bechegi (You want to sell buffalo)?” he looked bemused. Her father’s reaction was justified. The farmer went against everybody in his village and community to send his daughter to Kota to prepare for engineering. He even sold his cattle to arrange for her fees. Yadav, on her part, didn’t let her father down as she hustled her way to IIT-Delhi. Now, after working for close to four years, she wanted to sell cattle, and that too online.
The girls, who were roommates at IIT-Delhi and had developed a strong bonding, decided to live their dream. All they wanted was a fair chance and ample opportunity for dairy farmers. If one wants to buy earphones, Yadav explains, there are over a dozen brands to choose from. “But if you want to buy a cow or a buffalo, what options do you have?” she asks. Yadav roped in Jangra, and along with her two colleagues at Pratilipi, she rolled out Animal—an online marketplace for cattle—in November 2019. From a small rented room in Bengaluru, the gang started operations. Yadav picked up the gauntlet from Rajasthan.
Three months down the line, in December, it was Rampal’s turn to taunt his father. The 16-year-old school dropout in Nawalpura managed to do something incredible. He sold three cows in less than 24 hours. What made the task sweet, though, was his father, a farmer, struggled for over a month to find buyers for his cattle. “Ye app Nahin, aandolan hai (this is not an app, it’s a revolution,” he remarked, alluding to the Animal app which he used to sell the cows.
The animal managed to sell over 5 lakh cattle, amounting to Rs 2,500 crore of GTV (gross transaction value). Though the startup is in the pre-revenue stage, the investors are delighted with the scale of operations and execution of the team.
Though the young co-founders have taken a big gambit, they are quick to point out the ‘luck’ factor in their venture.