Oye Happy! A startup that surprises you with happiness

Ever wonder how to give surprises to your near and dear, Oye Happy is a startup that aims to make you and your dear ones happy with surprises.

Talking about his startup Idea Varun Todi says

“Harsh and I have always been great at making special occasions extra special for our loved ones. A friend once requested us to surprise her boyfriend at the airport as he was flying in from the US. We actually held a mock swayamvar to welcome him! We had a blast getting it together and they couldn’t have been happier. That was when we decided we had to this for a living. In a 138 sqft room, this took the shape of Oye Happy. Clients would call and ask us to arrange for surprises for their loved ones. Our marketing was restricted to our Facebook page and word of mouth references. The viral nature of the concept often made people witnessing the surprise Google us and then approach us. It was in 2014 that we took the big plunge and went online. From phone call orders and a tiny kiosk at the Hyderabad airport, we were now a full fledged e-commerce portal for surprises.”

Before starting Oye Happy Varun was working in advertising industry as a copywriter and creative consultant Harsh was a strategy and operational efficiency consultant at KPMG. he handles  the creative aspects of the business here and Harsh is the numbers guy.

Answering a question on How different is it from existing gifting models? 

“There are currently very few companies in India in the experiential and customised gifting space and none offer the kind of products we do though the demand for it has been growing exponentially. And unlike our competitors, we create the majority of our products in-house and even our experiences are tailored to fit our clientele. That makes our offering truly unique.”

Oye Happy already delivered over 7000 surprises across 90 cities and towns in India.

Talking about Oye Happy vision for 2016 Varun Todi says

“We have already started launching experiences in Bangalore and Mumbai and are working towards having a physical presence in every city very soon. Apart from expanding our retail operations, we have also introduced “experience boxes” for businesses. This will allow companies to gift a memorable experience to their employees and clients instead of just conventional gifts. Employees can choose to do what interests them from a host of options like wine tasting, horse riding, zumba classes, etc available in the experience box.

We were seed funded by angel investors during our inception to help us launch the e-commerce portal and trigger the initial push. Currently, we’re looking to raise the next round of investment to expand our operations.In the last 2 years alone, spending in the experience segment has increased by 200%. Experiences have a high viral coefficient since this is the social media generation and it gives them talking points. Apart from experiences, gifts which help build an emotional connect are more in demand than regular flowers and cakes. We are in an industry which is evolving really fast and since people are getting more expressive especially with a time constraint, they look for newer and better ways of making the expression meaningful.

Oye Happy bridges that gap and delivers exactly what the new Indian customer is looking for.

We are probably the only company in India where when a customer cries, we take it as a compliment. What we believe makes us special is the sheer amount of creativity and newness you can find in our products. So the next time you want to make someone smile – think of us.”

Definitely personalized experiences are beyond gifting and we hope Oye Happy spreads smiles across miles.