Journey from Consumer Insight to Entrepreneurial Delight In the last 20 years, Markelytics has expanded its operational reach in 80+ countries. The firm offers its solutions to all industries, such as retail, fashion, FMCG, automobile, IT, media, real estate, education, e-commerce, telecom, financial services, and travel and hospitality

Having been fascinated with the theory of fact-based decisions and how they impact businesses, Jasal Shah and the co-founders established Markelytics Solutions in 2003, becoming a pioneer in the concept of online Market Research in India.

"In this digital world, clients' patience is shrinking, and the dire need to understand consumers like never before is dictating how companies operate & strategize. Moreover, we also wanted to give the power of research to most businesses, as research is conventionally considered a cost-intensive exercise," shares Jasal Shah, MD/CEO, Markelytics Solutions.

In the last 20 years, Markelytics has expanded its operational reach in 80+ countries. The firm offers its solutions to all industries, such as retail, fashion, FMCG, automobile, IT, media, real estate, education, e-commerce, telecom, financial services, and travel and hospitality. "All this time, the only feather missing from our cap was a product! We wanted to democratize the research concept & make it accessible to most of the businesses," shares Shah. Hence, it was in 2021-22 when they dived deep and began building a product that could give the power of research to a large number of businesses.

The answer they got was Me-Grow, a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) DIY (Do- It-Yourself) product offering all the major solutions of digital research. "From an allin- one research automation powerhouse for large enterprises to a stand-alone research offering for individual businesses, along with additional capabilities like marketing, database building & customer engagement for small businesses, you name it, and Me-Grow has the perfect research solution," he adds.

Me-Grow further has two offerings- Me-Grow Merchant and Me Grow Enterprise "Me-Grow Merchant caters to the needs of stand-alone stores from 30+ industries in their quest to understand consumers better by helping them seamlessly collect feedback, analyze crucial market insights, build a customer database, and send personalized offers and promotions to them. The other product, Me-Grow Enterprise, is developed considering the research needs of large enterprises."

Claiming to not have direct competition in the market, Me-Grow Merchant has a target audience of over 60 million Indian small businesses that lack tools for customer understanding, marketing, and building databases. On asking what was the biggest challenge faced by the team, Shah shared "Educating our customers about the purpose of our QR-based technology as a feedback collection tool."

So, what's next? Shah and the team aim to build a pan-India network of franchise partners and script numerous entrepreneurial success stories. "We are looking for people who understand the business and have the latitude to play the long game, as this product is a revolutionary one but in its nascent stage and requires proper information seeding," he concludes.