BENGALURU: On-demand
scooter sharing startups
Vogo,
Bounce,
Yulu and
Drivezy — are competing to hire from one another, as they struggle with a limited talent pool chasing niche skills.
The startups, fast emerging as alternatives to last-mile mobility, require people with experience around Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based supply chain, design and manufacturing. These are specialised skills as the technology itself is relatively new. “We have an 80-member IoT team, but we are now facing a challenge in expanding this team since we have hired only — through referrals — people who have worked on such projects earlier,” said Anand Ayyadurai, co-founder of Vogo, which has raised over $100 million. These startups are working with freelancers and consultants globally, especially from countries such as the United States, China and Japan.
“We have made an advisory board of such international members who have worked in these fields for 15-20 years and know how to scale up such businesses,” said Ayyadurai. Job portals solve the problem of entry-level hires, but the challenge is for senior positions.
Since these startups build new capabilities, they prefer engineers who are flexible and can build things from scratch, said Vivek Hallekere, co-founder and CEO of Bounce. There are more than 12,000 such scooters on Bengaluru’s roads. Vogo and Bounce together plan to roll out between 60,000 and 100,000 bikes in the city over the next 12 months, ET reported earlier.