A MINOR PROJECT REPORT

ON

“An analysis of business model of Magicpin”

Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirement of Bachelor of

Commerce (Hons)

B. Com(H)-II Semester (Shift - Evening)

Batch 2020-2023

Submitted to: Submitted by:

Ms. DIKSHITA KATHURIA AKSHIT ARORA
Assistant Professor 00824588820

JAGANNATH INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SCHOOL,

KALKAJI

1
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

My first and foremost gratitude is to my mentor, Ms. DIKSHITA KATHURIA for her
constant guidance, support and encouragement all along the duration of the study
without her support, supervision, motivation and inspiration it would not have been
possible for me to complete the minor project report.

I am grateful to the respectable Director, Head of Department and faculty of

JAGANNATH INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SCHOOL, KALKAJI for their
motivation, encouragement and participation that made it possible for this piece of
work to get it in present shape.

I would like to thank my family and friends for their time, cooperation, support and
motivation.

AKSHIT ARORA
BCOM (HONS)
SEMESTER II (EVENING)
2020-2023

2
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project titled “An analysis of business model of Magicpin” is
an academic work done by “AKSHIT ARORA” submitted in the partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) at
“JAGANNATH INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SCHOOL, KALKAJI” under my
guidance and direction.

(SIGNATURE)

Ms. DIKSHITA KATHURIA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

3
 DECLARATION

I, AKSHIT ARORA the undersigned, hereby declare that the Project Report
entitled “An analysis of business model of Magicpin” is written and submitted by
me to “JAGANNATH INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SCHOOL, KALKAJI” in
the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree of Bachelor of
Commerce (Hons), is my original work and the conclusions drawn therein are
based on the material collected by myself.

AKSHIT ARORA
BCOM (HONS)
SEMESTER II (EVENING)
2020-2023

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 CONTENT

S. NO. DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.

1. Acknowledgement 2

2. Certificate 3

3. Declaration 4

4. Content 5

5. List of Tables 6

6. Executive Summary 7

7. CHAPTER 1 – Introduction 8

8. CHAPTER 2 – Objectives of the Study 13

9. CHAPTER 3 – Review of Literature 15

10. CHAPTER 4 – Company Profile 18

11. CHAPTER 5 – Research Methodology 34

12. CHAPTER 6 – Limitations of the Study 44

13. CHAPTER 7 – Analysis & Interpretation 46

14. CHAPTER 8 – Conclusion & Recommendation 59

15. CHAPTER 9 – Bibliography 62

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 LIST OF TABLES

S. NO. TABLE DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.

1. 1.1 – Key Highlights 23

2. 1.2 – Life at Magicpin 25

3. 1.3 – Fundings 34

4. 1.4 – Contacts 35

5. 1.5 – Competitors 56

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Magicpin is the India’s #1 savings app that offers big discounts and online booking of
restaurants, cafe etc so easy.

They are on a mission to make hyperlocal magical. And with more than 1.5 lakh
merchant partners and 5 million+ users across a dozen cities, they know a thing or
two about scale.

Magicpin, a Gurugram-based start-up helping restaurants drive sales, is trying to

create a social network to succeed in the daily deals business that has claimed several
casualties over the past few years.

Their mission is to give best deals and vouchers or discounts and they also say
“spend” LESS and SAVE MORE with Magicpin.

FIG. 1

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CHAPTER – 1
INTRODUCTION

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 INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS BUSINESS MODEL?

The term business model refers to a company's plan for making a profit. It identifies
the products or services the business plans to sell, its identified target market, and any
anticipated expenses. Business models are important for both new and established
businesses. They help new, developing companies attract investment, recruit talent,
and motivate management and staff. Established businesses should regularly update
their business plans or they'll fail to anticipate trends and challenges ahead. Business
plans help investors evaluate companies that interest them.

UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS MODEL

A business model is a high-level plan for profitably operating a business in a specific

marketplace. A primary component of the business model is the value proposition.
This is a description of the goods or services that a company offers and why they are
desirable to customers or clients, ideally stated in a way that differentiates the product
or service from its competitors.

A new enterprise's business model should also cover projected startup costs and
financing sources, the target customer base for the business, marketing strategies, a
review of the competition, and projections of revenues and expenses. The plan may
also define opportunities in which the business can partner with other established
companies. For example, the business model for an advertising business may identify
benefits from an arrangement for referrals to and from a printing company.

Successful businesses have business models that allow them to fulfill client needs at
a competitive price and a sustainable cost. Over time, many businesses revise their
business models from time to time to reflect changing business environments and
market demands.

When evaluating a company as a possible investment, the investor should find out
exactly how it makes its money. This means looking through the company's business

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model. Admittedly, the business model may not tell you everything about a company's
prospects. But the investor who understands the business model can make better
sense of the financial data.

TYPES OF BUSINESS MODEL

There are as many types of business models as there are types of business. For
instance, direct sales, franchising, advertising-based, and brick-and-mortar stores are
all examples of traditional business models. There are hybrid models as well, such as
businesses that combine internet retail with brick-and-mortar stores or with sporting
organizations like the NBA.

Each business plan is unique within these broad categories. Consider the shaving
industry. Gillette is happy to sell its Mach3 razor handle at cost or for a lower price in
order to get steady customers for its more profitable razor blades. The business model
rests on giving away the handle to get blade sales. This type of business model is
actually called the razor-razorblade model, but it can apply to companies in any
business that sells a product at a deep discount in order to supply a dependent good
at a considerably higher price.

FIG. 2

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EXAMPLE OF BUSINESS MODELS

Consider a comparison of two competing business plans where two companies rent
and sell movies. Both businesses made $5 million in revenues after spending $4
million on their inventories of movies. This means that each company makes a gross
profit calculated as $5 million minus $4 million, or $1 million. They also have the
same gross profit margin, calculated as 20% of gross profit divided by revenues.

But things change with the arrival of the internet. Company B decides to stream movies
online instead of renting or selling physical copies. This change disrupts the business
model in a positive way. The licencing fees don't change, but the cost of holding
inventory goes down considerably. In fact, the change reduces storage and distribution
costs by $2 million. The new gross profit for the company is $5 million minus $2 million,
or $3 million. The new gross profit margin is 60%. Meanwhile, Company A fails to
update its business plan and is stuck with a lower gross profit margin. As a result, its
sales begin to slide downwards. Company B isn't even making more in sales, but it
has revolutionized its business model, and that has greatly reduced its costs.

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 ABOUT MAGICPIN

Magicpin is the platform where users and merchants in a locality discover, interact,
and transact. For merchants, they are the go-to platform for spotlighting their
uniqueness while boosting their revenues and utilization through real-time promotions,
loyalty programs, and content updates. For users, they are the destination to find out
the buzz in their locality and discover interesting people to connect with and
events/merchants to go to.

FIG. 3

Magicpin, run by Samast Technologies Pvt. Ltd, aims to create a social platform to
help people connect and discover shops, restaurants or other services around them.
The app offers Instagram-like features where users can take pictures and selfies to
avail of offers and discounts at neighbourhood stores.
Magicpin is modelled around China’s Meituan-Dianping, which in January raised $3.3
billion at a valuation of $18 billion, according to a Techcrunch article.

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 CHAPTER – 2
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

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 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 The main objective of this project is to find out about the Business Model
and Revenue Model of Magicpin.

 To identify the marketing strategy and methods done by Magicpin to

Promote and grow the business.

 To know how Magicpin strikes a balance between demand and supply.

 To research how Magicpin achieved 7x growth in India.

 To know how Magicpin completes the discovery-conversion loop.

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 CHAPTER – 3
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

15
 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Bejul Somaia, MD of Lightspeed India, said “It is a big market. The platform and the
business model is working and scaling. Anshoo, Brij and the team are fantastic and
pioneering a new model to connect smartphone-wielding consumers with the offline
economy.“

Manish Kheterpal, Managing Partner at Waterbridge Ventures, added, “Impeccable

execution from A+ founders and team, organisation scalability and holistic tech
disruption. magicpin is a rare combination of a compelling B2B proposition for offline
local businesses and a highly engaging B2C social platform.”

Anshoo says the need to integrate technology in the offline retail market led to the
company’s growth.

“Nearly 95 percent of this trillion-dollar market is offline and everyone has a

smartphone. This gave us an idea to change the way discovery and transactions
happen in the offline world. We knew there were a few global models attempted in
this direction. Even in the Lightspeed portfolio, there were a few like Meituan in
China, who followed that model,” says Anshoo.

He says for this model to work in India, the discovery layer has to be a far more
engaging concept and leading with discounts wouldn’t help. The idea was to start
with one smartphone at the centre of everything.

With the aid of modern technology, the company helps offline retail stores in local
markets augment their customer reach and repeat purchases by taking a social
media-friendly approach.

“Even today, nearly 90% of commercial transactions take place in cash,” Founder
said, adding that the backend technology architecture of MagicPin was aimed at
gaining traction of this huge transactional value through data mining and artificial
intelligence (AI) tools.

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MagicPin processes close to 3 million retail transactions every month, which the
company analyses for understanding consumer behaviour and shopping
preferences. The meaningful data is later shared with big retailers and fast moving
consumer goods (FMCG) majors to help them cater to the markets even faster and
with products and services categories, which are in demand.

Local discovery, rewards and commerce platform magicpin has hit the right spot
between online and offline, and is seeing month-on-month downloads growing over
50 percent.

Magicpin is a local discovery, rewards and commerce platform, and was founded in
2015 by Anshoo Sharma, an ex-investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Brij
Bhushan, ex-investor at Nexus Ventures.

The duo was keen to build a company that would transform the offline retail sector
with technology.

Repeat customers and a consistent footfall are every retailer’s dream. Yet, offline
retail is under-penetrated by technologies that can help achieve this goal. “There
are many technology solutions for online players, but almost nothing for the offline
space,” says Anshoo, Co-founder and CEO of Magicpin.

In three years, Magicpin has garnered 800,000 merchants and claims to drive close
to two million transactions, and a Rs 200 crore GMV every month. The team says it
has witnessed a 5x year-on-year growth. According to a Crunchbase report, the
startup sees a monthly download growth of 53.97 percent.

17
 CHAPTER – 4
COMPANY PROFILE

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 COMPANY PROFILE OF MAGICPIN

FIG. 4 FIG. 5

ABOUT
Magicpin is India’s #1 savings app. No exaggerations.

Here’s how it works: Pin a location on the map to find the coolest people in the
neighbourhood and where they hang out – cafes, restaurants, trendy fashion
boutiques, luxurious spas, and health clubs. Find the buzz in your locality through our
user generated pictures, videos, and reviews to discover interesting people and places
and get cashback/rewards for visiting those places. Yes, including your local grocery
stores and pharmacies.

Magicpin drives discovery that leads to business for local retailers across categories
like restaurants, fashion, beauty, grocery, spa, gyms, and more. For their spending,
users get rewarded in magicPoints that can be used to buy more services and
experiences at magicpin partner merchants (or you can magicOrder from the comfort
of your home!) magicPoints can be earned at ALL stores in a city, and it doesn’t matter
whether you pay through cash, credit/debit card or e-wallet.

Our users can tap into our community, known as “magicians”, who have their finger
on the pulse of their city’s neighbourhoods. Their picture stories inspire other users to
have those experiences. For retailers and brands, magicpin is the go-to platform to
reach out to relevant local customers, highlight their uniqueness, reward loyal

19
customers through magicPoints and vouchers, run real-time promotions, augmented
reality games, micro-influencer campaigns and more.

Magicpin builds engagement and visibility for its partner retailers and brands to help
drive up their new and repeat business.

Magicpin is by far the leader in offline marketing for retailers in India. We are live
in Gurgaon, Noida, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa,
Chennai, Ahmedabad and is quickly spreading to more cities and countries.

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 MAGICPIN – KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Startup Name MAGICPIN

App Name Magicpin: best cashback/deals/coupons

on shopping
Founded 2015

CEO & Founders Anshoo Sharma, Brij Bhushan

Headquarter Gurugram, INDIA

Downloads 50,00,000+

Sector E-Commerce

Status Private

Co-Investors Lightspeed, Samsung Ventures

Partnered 2017 (series A+)

partner Manish Kheterpal

Total Funding $37.9 Million

Valuation $147.13 million (May 2020)

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GMV (Gross Merchandise ~ $1 Billion (2020)
Value)
Competitors Nearbuy, BlueBook, Little

Legal Name Samast Technologies

Ratings 4.2★

Website https://magicpin.in/

1.1

22
 LIFE AT MAGICPIN

We are a highly driven team with rich and varied background from IITs, IIMs and other
reputed colleges. Between us, we have built and scaled high performance teams from
scratch, built technology solutions that impact lives and advised leading corporates on
strategy and operations. We have also been an integral part of India’s startup journey
having worked in leading VCs and led investments in several early
stage startups in India like Delivery, Housing, TinyOwl, LimeRoad, Freshmenu,
CraftsVilla, OneAssist.

Innovation Courage Curiosity

Question status quo, Say what you think, take hard Listen, seek to
be creative, think out- decisions understand,
of-the-box insatiable appetite to
learn

Ownership Integrity
Take initiatives, own Do the right thing, be
your tasks, get stuff transparent
done

Empathy Team
Have respect for Collaborate, help,
customers, merchants have fun
and team

1.2

23
 FOUNDERS AND TEAM

Anshoo Sharma, CEO & Co-Founder, has 15 years of professional

experience in investing, consulting, and tech roles across India and the USA. Before
Magicpin, he was the second person on Lightspeed's India team where he spent close
to 6 years and led or was actively involved with nine investments.

Anshoo was at Bain & Co for four years before Lightspeed. He joined Bain in Boston
and was a part of Bain's early team in India where he was an advisor consultant.
Anshoo has graduated from IIM-Ahmedabad and before that he was working at
Motorola and Hughes Software (Aricent) in product and technology roles for 3 years.
Outside of work he enjoys spending time with family, driving, music, and movies.

FIG. 6

Brij Bhushan, CEO & Co-Founder, has spent a large part of his professional
life closely involved in the start-up ecosystem with Nexus as an investor and
leadership role at an early stage start-up before that. Even he spent 4 years at Bain &
Co's India and USA office after graduating from IIM Bangalore and had been in
technology-related roles before that. Brij is quite passionate about problem-solving
and building things from scratch. Outside of living his dream of building Magicpin, he
likes to spend time with his family followed by traveling and reading.

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 Nipun Bhatia - CTO
Nipun Bhatia is the CTO of magicpin where he
leads the product and engineering teams for the
company. Nipun has diverse experience as an
engineering leader at organizations of different
scale - WalmartLabs, Oracle, and startups - Kosmix
and BlueShift Labs and has built products in
different domains like search, ads and e-commerce.
Before magicpin, he worked at a

FIG. 7 number start-ups in Silicon Valley, Kosmix (acq. by

Wal-Mart) and Blueshift Labs (APAC Engineering Head). At Wal-Mart he was the first
engineer and lead the Algorithmic Pricing Initiative that developed techniques to price
product algorithmically. He graduated with MS in CS with a specialization in AI from
Stanford University.

Abhishek Awasthi - Head, Engineering

Abhishek brings 10 years of professional experience
across tech leadership, product designing, delivering
end to end tech solutions and team building. He
enjoys writing code, innovating scalable tech
solutions and exploring new technologies. Before
magicpin, Abhishek has been in the tech leadership
role with Tradus and Oneshield where he built teams
and owned tech platforms. Abhishek is computer
science graduate

FIG. 8 from IIT-BHU and started his career with Goldman

Sachs. Outside the work, he loves spending time with family, travelling to new places,
reading books and music.

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 Pranay Gupta - VP, Growth and Business
Development
Pranay Gupta is the Vice President of Growth and
Business Development, and is responsible for
building ecosystem partnerships for driving
magicpin’s growth. He was the co-founder of 91
Springboard and is extremely well networked in the
technology ecosystem. A graduate of IIM
Ahmedabad and IIT-Delhi, Pranay has decades of

FIG. 9 experience as an entrepreneur and investor, with start-

ups including Anthill Ventures, Inc42, Thrillophilia, Greenway Grameen, and Ridlr
among others.

Naman Mawandia - Head, Finance

Naman has 9 years of professional experience in
investment banking and consulting. Prior to joining
magicpin, he worked with Langham Capital, a
boutique advisory firm focused on M&A and private
equity for seven years closing transactions in
sectors including technology, consumer,
renewable energy and restaurants. He worked with
McKinsey & Company focused on consumer

FIG. 10 sector before securing his MBA from Faculty of

Management Studies (FMS), with a major in Finance. An alumnus of Shri Ram College
of Commerce (SRCC), he graduated amongst the top 1% of Delhi University. Naman
enjoys reading, investing in public markets and spending time with his son.

26
 Praveen Srivastava - Senior VP -
Operations
He has more than 23 years of experience in the
field of sales and operations with companies like
Vodafone, Airtel, LAVA Mobiles and Micromax.
Praveen has been instrumental in a couple of
very successful launches in India which includes
LAVA Mobiles, M-pesa,

FIG. 11 Reliance Telecom. His area of expertise has been

around setting up and driving sales and distribution across India

27
 How Magicpin works

To put it simply, Magicpin is nothing but an online location intelligence platform that
allows the users to discover restaurants, fashion stores, spa, and fitness centers in the
nearby areas. Headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, Magicpin is a platform for
merchants and brands to engage and provide personalized offers to their customers.

FIG. 12

FIG. 13

Recognition: Magicpin as a platform also enables the users to get followers, likes, and
comments for their taste and interests in local activities.

Referral Chain: Brings out the uniqueness by getting the merchant’s customers to
spread the word in the locality and amongst their social circles.

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Discovery: Magicpin enables discovering of trending events, interesting people, and
relevant activities around the users' locality that makes it all the more interesting for
users.

Potential customer acquisition: Caters to both new and established merchants to

acquire potential consumers in the course of the business.

Increase in utilization: Build transactions in off-peak hours and liquidate excess

inventory.

Savings: Through merchants, rewards programs specially designed for Magicpin

users.

Enhancing customer engagement: MagicPin comes up with strategies and offers that
existing customers can come back more often.

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 Investors

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is a three decade old Silicon Valley based venture capital fund with over
USD 3B in assets under management across US, Israel, China and India. Consumer
investments include Snapchat, Oyo, Byjus, Freshmenu, etc.

Launchpad (2016)

Google Launchpad Accelerator provides successful early stage businesses with

technology and expertise necessary to scale. magicpin was the youngest startup
internationally selected for this program.

Waterbridge

Early stage VC firm: Catalyst for Tech Entrepreneurship in India. Investment

Partner/Board Observer/Board of Directors: magicpin, Unacademy, Dataweave,
Chalo, 99RetailStreet, ZipLoan, ZopHop.

30
 COMPETITORS

 Nearbuy is seen as one of Magicpin's top competitors. Nearbuy was founded

in 2010 and is headquartered in Gurgaon, Delhi. Nearbuy generates 175% of
Magicpin's revenue and competes in the Systems Software industry.
 The BlueBook is one of Magicpin's top rivals. The BlueBook was founded in
2012, and its headquarters is in Bangalore, Karnataka. Like Magicpin, The
BlueBook also works within the Application Software industry. BlueBook has
56 more employees than the company.
 Little is a Private company that was founded in 2015 in Bangalore,
Karnataka. Little also works within the Application Software field, just like
Magicpin. Little has 279 employees more as compared to Magicpin.

Top Competitors of Magicpin

 nearbuy (formerly Groupon Indi... 375. $75 Million.

 The Blue Book. $7 Million.
 CouponDunia Media Pvt. Ltd. 344. $68 Million. ...
 mydala.com. 375. $75 Million. ...
 CashKaro.com. -
 Niffler Labs Private Limited. $600,000.
 Netcore Solutions Inc. $6 Million.
 lafalafa.com.

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 FUNDINGS

Magicpin has raised a total of $37.9M in funding over 6 rounds.

Date Stage Amount Investors

February
Series A $3 million Lightspeed Venture Partners
2016

Non Equity
May 2016 $50K Google Launchpad Accelerator
Assistance

May 2017 Series B $7 million Lightspeed Venture Partners

Debt
March 2018 $1 million Trifecta Capital
Financing

November
Series C $20 million Lightspeed India Partners
2018

Lightspeed, Waterbridge Ventures, The

May 2020 Series C $3.8 million Bunting Family Private Fund and
Moonstone Investments

Samsung Venture Investment

July 2020 Series C $3 Million
Corporation

1.3

Magicpin is funded by investors WaterBridge Ventures, Lightspeed Venture

Partners, Srivatsan Rajan, Moonstone Investments, The Bunting Family Private
Fund, and Trifecta Capital Advisors.

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 WHERE TO CONTACT

Gurgaon Office Bangalore Office

Samast Technologies Pvt Ltd, 152,5th main,
Plot – 379 & 380, Sector – 29, sector-7, Near axis bank,
Near IFFCO Chowk Metro Station HSR Layout,
Gurgaon – 122001 Bangalore

Pune Office Mumbai Office

4 Lavendar, Runwal Srushti, Trade Square, 404,
Opp Mauli Petrol Pump, Behind A Wing, Next to Fab Hotels,
Manhatten Near Talwalkar Gym, Sakinaka, Andheri East,
Baner, Pune, Maharashtra 411045 Mumbai – 400072

1.4

33
 CHAPTER – 5

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

34
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

What is Research?
Research takes place with the purpose of acquiring knowledge to contribute to further
investigation or process to inform action, to prove a theory, or to reach a result. To
produce fruitful experience, the Research must be of high quality. And types of
Research Methodology support to get the best-suited outcome. We can understand
the significance of Research with some fundamental points:

 Research is a way to build knowledge.

 It is an essential requirement to start analyzing, writing, reading, and
distributing information.
 It nourishes and opens up the minds.
 With Research, different understanding issues seem easy.
 Research helps to build confidence and positivity to try on opportunities.

The importance of Research in any field can’t be ignored. But many skip researching
before starting anything. Lazy students and disinterested academics do not realize
the need for doing research, but it is an imperative procedure to ensure the safety
or positive result of their work.

The research covers not only the education field, but it covers both professionals
and non-professionals. Even for non-professionals, it is meant to acquire knowledge
which helps them to sharpen their skills to survive around intelligence and improve
their confidence.

Definition

In Research, the world’s’ signifies frequency and intensity, while the ‘search’ syllable
is synonymous with discovery. This way, ‘research’ means – the repetitive and indepth
findings of the objects. In other words, searching for the core of the items, making
some conclusions, discovering new theories, and clarifying those contributions fall
under the process of “research”.

35
Research is a well-planned and scientific method of finding solutions to a wide variety
of problems. Under the meaning of Research, there is an attempt made to obtain a
solution to the problem by collecting various types of data and systematic analysis of
the multiple aspects of the issues related.

Research is a systematic method by which new facts are discovered, or ancient facts
are confirmed, and they study the sequences, interactions, causal interpretations, and
natural laws that determine the points obtained. Research, an attempt is made to solve
a theoretical or practical problem.

As per the American sociologist Earl Robert Babbie, “Research is a systematic inquiry
to describe, explain, predict, and control the observed phenomenon. Research
involves inductive and deductive methods.”

What is the research methodology?

The techniques or the specific procedure which helps the students to identify, choose,
process, and analyze information about a subject is called Research Methodology.

It allows the readers to evaluate the validity and reliability of the study in the research
paper. In simple words, it describes what you did and what made you reach this
obtained result.

It is practical to know ‘how’ the given Research or any specific piece of Research was
done. How a researcher designs a comprehensive study to get a reliable outcome
which justifies the objectives of the course can be figured out by research
methodology.

For instance: Research Methodology allows us to know:

 How did the Researcher reach to decide: What data should be collected or what data
should be avoided.

 How to collect it: The data collection methods of the Research.

 How to analyze it: The data analysis methods of the Research.

36
In any formal research or a piece of Research (dissertation, thesis, academic journal,
or article), there will be a research methodology section that describes what, by whom,
how to collect, and how to analyze the data are given. Specifically, in any dissertation,
the methodology chapter explains both what methodological choices were made and
why they were made.

The methodology section should confirm that the selected methods are the best
methods to get reliable and valid results to justify the aims and objectives of the
Research. It is of utmost importance to choose the right way so that the work of the
Research must be accurate.

Briefly, the systematic way to find out the solution to a problem is Research
Methodology. The procedure carried out by researchers to go about their work of
explaining and predicting occurrences. Providing the work plan to Research is the aim
of Research Methodology.

Classification of Types of Research

There are various types of research that are classified according to their objective,
depth of study, analysed data, time required to study the phenomenon and other
factors. It’s important to note that a research project will not be limited to one type of
research, but will likely use several.

According to its Purpose

Theoretical Research

Theoretical research, also referred to as pure or basic research, focuses on generating

knowledge, regardless of its practical application. Here, data collection is used to
generate new general concepts for a better understanding of a particular field or to
answer a theoretical research question.

Results of this kind are usually oriented towards the formulation of theories and are
usually based on documentary analysis, the development of mathematical formulas
and the reflection of high-level researchers.

37
For example, a philosophical dissertation, since the aim is to generate new
approaches from existing data without considering how its findings can be applied or
implemented in practice.

Applied Research

Here, the goal is to find strategies that can be used to address a specific research
problem. Applied research draws on theory to generate practical scientific knowledge,
and its use is very common in STEM fields such as engineering, computer science
and medicine.

This type of research is subdivided into two types:

1. Technological applied research: looks towards improving efficiency in a

particular productive sector through the improvement of processes or
machinery related to said productive processes.
2. Scientific applied research: has predictive purposes. Through this type of
research design, we can measure certain variables to predict behaviours useful
to the goods and services sector, such as consumption patterns and viability of
commercial projects.

For example, market research, because by examining consumption patterns,

strategies can be developed for the development of new products and marketing
campaigns, etc.

Note: Applied research is usually based on knowledge or results obtained through

theoretical research.

In fact, it is common for research projects to first establish the theoretical framework
both to define the field of study and to identify possible theories that could be tested
or applied to solve the specific problem posed in the project.

According to your Depth of Scope

Exploratory Research

38
Exploratory research is used for the preliminary investigation of a subject that is not
yet well understood or sufficiently researched. It serves to establish a frame of
reference and a hypothesis from which an in-depth study can be developed that will
enable conclusive results to be generated.

Because exploratory research is based on the study of little-studied phenomena, it

relies less on theory and more on the collection of data to identify patterns that explain
these phenomena.

For example, an investigation of the role social media in the perception of self-image.

Descriptive Research

The primary objective of descriptive research is to define the characteristics of a

particular phenomenon without necessarily investigating the causes that produce it.

In this type of research, the researcher must take particular care not to intervene in
the observed object or phenomenon, as its behaviour may change if an external factor
is involved.

For example, investigating how the public census of influential government officials
differs between urban and non-urban areas.

Explanatory Research

Explanatory research is the most common type of research method and is responsible
for establishing cause-and-effect relationships that allow generalisations to be
extended to similar realities. It is closely related to descriptive research, although it
provides additional information about the observed object and its interactions with the
environment.

For example, investigating the brittle behaviour of a specific material when under
compressive load.

Correlational Research

The purpose of this type of scientific research is to identify the relationship between
two or more variables. A correlational study aims to determine whether a variable
change, how much the other elements of the observed system change.

39
According to the Type of Data Used

Qualitative Research

Qualitative methods are often used in the social sciences to collect, compare and
interpret information, has a linguistic-semiotic basis and is used in techniques such as
discourse analysis, interviews, surveys, records and participant observations.

In order to use statistical methods to validate their results, the observations collected
must be evaluated numerically. Qualitative research, however, tends to be subjective,
since not all data can be fully controlled. Therefore, this type of research design is
better suited to extracting meaning from an event or phenomenon (the ‘why’) than its
cause (the ‘how’).

For example, examining the effects of sleep deprivation on mood.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research study delves into a phenomena through quantitative data

collection and using mathematical, statistical and computer-aided tools to measure
them. This allows generalised conclusions to be projected over time.

For example, conducting a computer simulation on vehicle strike impacts to collect

quantitative data.

According to The Sources of Information

Primary Research and Secondary Research

Primary research and secondary research are two terms that are to be understood
differently due to the fact that they differ in their concepts and methods. One of the
major differences between primary and secondary research is that primary research
is conducted with the help of the primary sources available whereas secondary
research is conducted on the basis of some data collected from someone who had got
it from some source.

Let us take an example to point out the difference between primary research and
secondary research. Interviewing someone is primary data and it would lead to
conducting primary research because of the fact that you conduct the research from

40
the source itself. Imagine you have written 39 a book based on the interview that you
have conducted. If somebody uses the book to prepare or write a report then the data
available to that person should be considered secondary in purpose and the research
conducted by him based on the book can be called secondary research.

It is interesting to note that primary research is expensive to conduct since it involves

primary sources. On the other hand secondary research is not expensive to conduct
since it does not involve the primary sources.

Another important difference between primary and secondary research is that the time
taken to conduct primary research is usually long when compared to the time taken to
conduct a secondary research.

As a matter of fact the results found from the conduct of primary research are usually
known to have better quality than those found from the conduct of the secondary
research. This is probably one of the reasons why people would like to depend more
on the findings of a primary research rather than on the results of a secondary
research.

Primary research is also usually detailed and elaborate since it is supposed to be both
qualitative and quantitative in purpose. On the other hand the data pertaining to
secondary research is usually not very much detailed and elaborate since it involves
the indirect sources

Primary research consists in research to collect original primary data. It is often

undertaken after the researcher has gained some insight into the issue by collecting
secondary data. This can be through numerous forms, including questionnaires, direct
observation and telephone interviews amongst others. The term primary research is
widely used in academic research, market research and competitive intelligence.

Secondary research (also known as desk research) involves the summary, collation
and/or synthesis of existing research rather than primary research, where data is
collected from, for 40 example, research subjects or experiments. The term is widely
used in medical research and in market research. The principal methodology in
medical secondary research is the systematic review, commonly using meta-analytic
statistical techniques, although other methods of synthesis, like realist reviews and
meta-narrative reviews, have been developed in recent years.

41
Such secondary research uses the primary research of others typically in the form of
research publications and reports.

In a market research context, secondary research is taken to include the re-use by a

second party of any data collected by a first party or parties. In archaeology and
landscape history, desk research is contrasted with fieldwork. Sometimes secondary
research is required in the preliminary stages of research to determine what is known
already and what new data are required, or to inform research design. At other times,
it may be the only research technique used.

A key performance area in secondary research is the full citation of original sources,
usually in the form of a complete listing or annotated listing. Secondary sources could
include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, and
government and NGO statistics.

Finally it is true that secondary research is normally presented with varied data than
primary research. But the secondary data has been well tested and the research paper
has gone through the review process and its finding validated before appearing in
research journals and publications. Primary research is done with lot of hard work and
dedication. On the other hand secondary research is presented normally with a
number of data and sources. These sources that are available already include books,
periodicals published by governmental organizations, statistical data, annual reports,
case studies and the like.

42
HOW MAGICPIN ACHIEVED 7X GROWTH ?

According to the official website, at present, Magicpin has over 5 Mn users and is
operational in 12 cities including Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune,
Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa, Chennai, and Ahmedabad.

The company has grown 7x over the last year and generates an average of $3 million
in revenue. Over 1 million users have shared 5 million+ experiences and are active on
the app. Magicpin’s active users spend up to 70 minutes on the app every day. The
startup has more than 50K merchants across the Delhi NCR region, Bengaluru, and
Jaipur.

FIG. 14

The company works with larger retailers such as McDonald's, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC,
Beer Cafe, Keventers, and Subway contributing 25% of the total business while
remaining 75% comes from the long-tail of smaller merchants. F&B garners the largest
share of business for the company at 60%, followed by fashion and beauty.

During the pandemic, Magicpin announced essentials delivery by leveraging its

partnerships with local retailers and has tied up with last-mile delivery logistics firms
to deliver orders for essential products such as groceries, packaged food, and hygiene
products

43
 CHAPTER – 6
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

44
 LIMITATIONS

 This study is completely based on secondary data.

 This topic of this project was in so detail so I couldn’t cover all the aspect
in detail.
 Due to constraint of time the primary research could not be conducted
on this topic.
 Limited access to data in this project.

45
 CHAPTER – 7

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

46
 BUSINESS MODEL & REVENUE MODEL OF MAGICPIN

BUSINESS MODEL

“Our business model is funded primarily by merchant and the brands”, says
Anshoo.

Anshoo adds about the Business Model of Magicpin, that merchants and brands use
the platform to engage or provide personalized offers to their customers. They pay
a recurring platform fee and a per-transaction charge for the business that Magicpin
drives to them.

FIG. 15

“We are primarily a data and technology company, resulting in a very capital-
efficient cost structure that allows us to scale to a large customer and merchant
base without significantly increasing our costs”, says Anshoo Sharma, CEO and
co-founder of Magicpin.

Magicpin operates via a back-end platform that reads bill invoices that are uploaded
by the customer. It logs the amount spent and the items consumed which help the
system track the shopping pattern of the user. The bills work as validation for the user
who can post content across categories such as food & beverages, fashion, grocery,
etc.

47
REVENUE MODEL

The customers share their local experiences through picture stories and the users get
rewarded with ‘Magicpin points’. These points can then be used to buy many more
services and experiences at Magicpin partnered merchants. The user experiences are
diversified across varied interesting categories like restaurants, nightlife, beauty, and
fashion through pictures.

FIG. 16

For revenue generation, Magicpin charges a commission from the merchant for each
transaction. Sharma pegged the rate of commission between 10-12%. Advertising and
marketing is another source of revenue as the company can leverage its consumer
data and provide advertising and promotion to merchants that help the latter reach out
to customers better.

48
 Hyper-local discovery app Magicpin raises $3 million

Investor-turned-entrepreneurs Brij Bhushan and Anshoo Sharma have raised $3

million in Series A round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners for Magicpin, a
hyper-local discovery app.
Magicpin was founded in August by Bhushan and Sharma, who left their jobs at
venture capital firms Nexus Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
“While looking at the market from an investing lens, it was quite clear that India is
entering a phase where everyone would be connected through their smartphones. A
trip to China in late 2014 was an eye opener for the kind of businesses and value such
an environment would create. There is an opportunity window today in India for
creating a massively valuable business that leverages data, technology and people
networks around offline transactions, and we did not want to miss out on that,"said
Sharma, co-founder and chief executive at Magicpin.
Magicpin, run by Samast Technologies Pvt. Ltd, aims to create a social platform to
help people connect and discover shops, restaurants or other services around them.
The app offers Instagram-like features where users can take pictures and selfies to
avail of offers and discounts at neighbourhood stores.
Magicpin is modelled around China’s Meituan-Dianping, which in January raised $3.3
billion at a valuation of $18 billion, according to a Techcrunch article.
Gurgaon-based Magicpin is currently available in National Capital Region, Jaipur and
Bengaluru. It has over 30,000 merchants listed on its platform and has over 150,000
users. Magicpin, which sees 5,000 transactions a day, is aiming to triple its
transactions within the next six months. It also plans to expand to four new cities
including Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad by June-July.
The company claims to drive close to $1 million worth of transactions for its merchants.
Magicpin targets the age group of 16-32 years and sees 40% of its users come back
on the mobile app every fortnight.
It currently has over 100,000 downloads and is largely dominated by women users,
according to Bhushan.
“Offline retail in India would add up to a trillion dollars of annual turnover by 2020. This
is a market that is 100x the size of e-commerce in India and constitutes of millions of
merchants providing services like restaurants, fashion, spa, beauty, yoga, sports, gym,

49
etc. This market is ripe to get disrupted as internet users in India move towards 600
million by 2018," said Sharma.
Magicpin, which largely makes money by charging a commission from its merchants
and a recurring listing fee, also plans to use data analytics as a tool to make money in
the future.
Similar businesses in the US and China – Nextdoor, Foursquare and Meituan-
Dianping, count on consumer data as an important source of revenues.
“Our business model is funded primarily by merchants and the brands. Merchants
and brands use the platform to engage or provide personalized offers to their
customers. They pay a recurring platform fees and a per transaction charge for the
business that magicpin drives to them," said Bhushan.
Magicpin was incubated by Lightspeed, a $3 billion fund that has investments in
consumer internet firms such as Oyo Rooms, Limeroad and Craftsvilla in India and
global investments such as Snapchat, Nest, Grubhub, Living Social and Playdom.
“The two key drivers of the investment are the quality of the founders and the large
opportunity in the hyper-local space. The firm has extensive learnings and insights
from its early investments in LivingSocial (US) and DianPing (China) that inform our
view of the correct strategy in India," said Bejul Somaia, managing director at
Lightspeed Ventures.

50
 MAGICPIN STRIKES A BALANCE BETWEEN DEMAND AND
SUPPLY

In today’s digital world, the chances for a business to be discovered by consumers is

much higher if it is listed online. This is a serious problem for offline businesses,
especially the smaller ones in any neighbourhood. For platforms which provide
discovery, the usual route is to incentivise the retailers to be on their platforms and
offer high continuous discounts to consumers, which in most cases end in cash burn
or wafer-thin margins. In order to avoid this, Delhi-based magicpin, founded by Anshoo
Sharma and Brij Bhushan, uses crowdsourced data of all kinds and makes discovery
more efficient.

“The name ‘magicpin’ comes from the fact that we only ask users to pin a location on
the map and we will show the magic around that location; magic in terms of people,
places, rewards and much more,” explains Sharma, talking about how the magicpin
app works. “What differentiates us from the rest of the platforms is that we are a
performance marketing platform for offline retailers. We don’t stop at discovery, we
make sure we deliver the revenue to the merchants,” they adds.

51
 How Magicpin completes the discovery-conversion loop is based
on three elements –

Rewarding users ubiquitously, leading with engagements with the user before and
after a purchase and finally, making the whole programme merchant-centric, which
does away with disgruntled retailers who would pull out of the platform with time.
Being digital enables marketing to be hyperlocal, targeting even the smallest of the
retailers in any given locality.
With over $30 million investment since its inception in 2015, magicpin has grown
from covering retailers in Sector 29, Gurugram to 3000 other localities in India,
making its business in every region profitable. “If we are giving a Rs 100 business to
a partner, we get 8-10% of that. With 3-5% going in managing the operations and
our network, the rest is our net contributing margin. We scaled this unit economics
positive model across the country,” explains Sharma. Currently, there are 200,000
partner retailers and over a million retailers listed on the platforms by users as they
keep visiting places.
The app which looks more or less like a social media platform, is heavily populated
with user generated content coming from nearly 5 million users with an average of 8
transactions and 30 sessions a month. The content consists of photos and videos of
the place, people, the bills of purchases, restaurant menus and much more. The
average size of each transaction is Rs 1,000 and the user spending via the platform
has a run rate of $0.5 billion today. Sharma says that this will be $2 billion in the next
12 months and the business on the whole is growing at the rate of 8x as of this year.
With this rich collection of data and strong machine learning and artificial intelligence
algorithms at the backend, Sharma and team know exactly when to connect whom,
when to upsell, cross-sell and most importantly, make the shopping experience
hyper-personal. “We even use Wi-Fi signal patterns to know where our users are
standing. We then target them with relevant retailer and product details that are
available nearby,” says Sharma.

52
 Magicpin Funding History

FIG. 17
INTERPRETATION – In this above data analysis, we come across that the maximum
fund was increased/invested in the year 2018. And in 2020 the total fund increased to
$39.5M.

MAGICPIN EMPLOYEE RATING

FIG. 18
INTERPRETATION – According to the above survey, the total average employee
rating is 3.2 out of 5. And highest rating is given to the career opportunity by the
employees of Magicpin.

53
 MAGICPIN COMPETITORS

Coupons.com 1998, Mountain View,

$277M

CouponCabin 2003, Whiting, $54M

Bumped 2017, Portland, $37.6M

CrownIt 2014, Gurgaon, $27.2M

1.5

54
 MAGICPIN CAPITAL RAISED

FIG. 19

FIG. 20
INTERPRETATION – The highest capital raised is in the year 2018 (series-C) by the
investor Lightesspeed which is $22M.
Magicpin's latest funding round in May 2020 was reported to be $3.9 m. In total,
Magicpin has raised $33.9 m.

55
ABOUT TWITTER ACCOUNT

FIG. 21

56
 CYBERSECURITY SCORE

FIG.22
INTERPRETATION – According to the database, cybersecurity score of Magicpin is
C (71/100).

TIMELINE

FIG. 23
INTERPRETATION – According to this, variation in finance did not affects the
estimated employee growth and captured employee count. They both remained
constant throughout.

57
 WEBSITE TRAFFIC

FIG. 24
INTERPRETATION – According to the above graph, it is showing that in one month
the website traffic is decreased by 1k, though the graph represents upward sloping.

MAGICPIN SCREEN TIME

FIG. 25
INTERPRETATION – According to the above 6 months data report, there is a
tremendous increase seen in Magicpin's online and social media presence. It has
increased from 2.75k to 3.74k. It shows that there is massive increase in between the
month of April and May and then the graph is increasing slowly.
58
 CHAPTER – 8
CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

59
 CONCLUSION

The Magic Pin App provides its users with the best offers on online shopping,
electronics, fashion, restaurant food, beauty, entertainment, travel, technology &
more. Users can redeem vouchers & discount coupons for online shopping, grocery
stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants, fashion stores & brands, e-commerce
platforms, petrol pumps, spas, salons, beauty parlors, electronics. Even on food
delivery, grocery delivery, and home-delivery of medicines.
The users earn their cashback through Magic Points, which is one of the reward
systems of the application. They just need to scan a photo of the bill and they can get
up to 100% cashback through these Magic Points. The users can then redeem these
Magic Points for various purchases and services. Check out what the Magic Points
allows the users to do in the Magic Pin app below:

 Save on home delivery from brands like Domino's, Barbeque Nation, Pizza Hut,
McDonald's, and more
 Get daily discounts and coupons for restaurant food, groceries, pharmacy, and
fashion
 Recharge or pay phone bills (Airtel, Vodafone, Jio, etc)
 Save up to 90% on gift vouchers and coupon codes from Flipkart, Amazon,
Myntra, AJIO, Nykaa, Big Bazaar, & thousands of brands, & online & offline
local stores in your city
 Get discounts & incredible offers on fashion, beauty, & lifestyle brands &
restaurant chains such as Starbucks, CCD, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Domino's,
Titan, Fastrack, Shoppers Stop, Pantaloons, Lifestyle, ITC, P&G, etc
 Save on mobile phones, chargers, earphones, and more accessories from
brands like Boat, GoNoise, Leaf, Play, and many more.

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 RECOMMENDATION

As discussed in the CHAPTER – 7 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA,

the overall consumers who are using MAGICPIN for online booking of cafes,
restaurants etc. are satisfied and are recommending it to others too. Besides this
some improvements or modifications are needed in Magicpin App or it’s service as
some of the customers are suggesting it. Also, the people who aren’t satisfied or are
giving less rating should also be looked upon as this will help the company to gain a
name that it respects and looks upon the customers satisfaction.

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CHAPTER – 9
BIBLIOGRAPHY

62
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. https://magicpin.in/
2. https://magicpin.in/about-us/
3. https://craft.co/magicpin
4. https://craft.co/magicpin/competitors
5. https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/151561-00#overview
6. https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/strategy-and-
management/how-magicpin-cto-uses-data-for-offering-hyper-personalised-
experience-to-customers/72728483
7. https://tracxn.com/d/companies/magicpin.in
8. https://craft.co/magicpin/metrics
9. https://www.owler.com/company/magicpin
10. https://en.everybodywiki.com/Magicpin
11. https://www.livemint.com/Companies/BAsuGlzD0lciJ3D2qOzKUO/Hyperlocal-
discovery-app-Magicpin-raises-3-million.html

63