What makes Gaurav Munjal eager, hungry and push for more? The Flat.to Story
While studying in class XI at St. Xaviers School in Jaipur, Gaurav Munjal was eager to be part of his school magazine, XRays’, team, but he did not make it.He didn’t give up, though.
He went to his principal and convinced him to make the school magazine virtual. It took him seven days to persuade his principal, and eventually everyone around him, to believe in his intuition that acquiring online presence would help his school connect with its alumni, and foster more interactions. Soon, he formed an eight-member committee and created an online content presence, e-XRays, for his school.
Gaurav Munjal represents the new India; eager, hungry and pushing for more.
It didn’t come as a surprise to his friends when he started Flat.to in June of 2013 (before starting Flat.to, Gaurav had already started two other profitable online ventures during his colleges days; Unacademy and Fashionama). Flat.to started as an online product that helped students get accommodation near their colleges. “We initially started with three areas in Mumbai, around all the SVKM colleges, namely Juhu, Vile Parle and Andheri. One of the colleges being my alma mater, we became their official accommodation partners,” Gaurav tells us.
Flat.to product
From being a product that showed curated flats near colleges, Flat.to has evolved into a complete accommodation solution for students. Features like ‘paying guests’, ‘hostels’, ‘finding flat-mates’, ‘flats without brokers’ and ‘profiling brokers who look at student segment’, have constantly been added. Gaurav believes that he has been able to create something meaningful for students because he is constantly listening to them. “Our product is completely in sync with what students want. We follow the rapid application development methodology to generate new things constantly.”