Hyderabad engineering students develop 'STOOZ' app to meet all delivery needs

Errabelly Rahul Rao, along with his four classmates from Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), Hyderabad, has  developed a mobile application called STOOZ.
Errabelly Rahul Rao (L) and screenshots of STOOZ app
Errabelly Rahul Rao (L) and screenshots of STOOZ app

HYDERABAD: Errabelly Rahul Rao, along with his four classmates from Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology (SNIST), Hyderabad, has  developed a mobile application called STOOZ. The five BTech Computer Science students started this hyperlocal delivery app in September last year. "Our mission is to provide a virtual assistant for every home," says Rahul, who is the CEO and developer of the app. 

Akin to apps like Dunzo, Pickkup and UrbanClap, the app provides services such as carpenters/plumbers, grocery delivery, package delivery, etc. STOOZ is currently available on Android devices with services in Tarnaka, Habsiguda and Nacharam. Rahul says they have paused operations for now due to COVID-19, but, "up till February we served over 500 customers".

 About his team members, Rahul says each has a role to play as they do not have the resources to hire staff. "K Karthik looks after designing and marketing, G Goutham Ganesh is the resource manager, B Vishal Gupta is the database manager and V Sanjay Gupta is in charge of marketing," explains Rahul.

While they have tied-up with 25 technicians for repair solutions, the delivery for orders is done by the team itself. "Our services were available from 6 am daily," he adds. 

On the idea of the app, Rahul shares, “It all started in November 2018, at the end of our BTech IInd year, we wanted to start our own company, rather than work for some MNC. We decided to start home services. We spent almost a year finding technicians and convincing them to join our services.” Their motto is to ‘Deliver anything from anywhere to anywhere’, but within a weight limit of  10 kg. 

How did they develop the app and start operations?

Rahul shares, "We did not know how to build a world-class application that can scale to millions. We learned all the technologies required to build the application. Building an application is only 50 per cent work done. We needed business knowledge as well. We did a customer survey about the problems usually faced. We tried to eliminate the traditional way of doing things and tried to automate the entire process."

He adds, "We don’t even have our own office space and cannot afford delivery boys so, we deliver groceries ourselves."

Rahul shares, "Generally, a satisfied customer will refer your product or service to others, this helped us as we were providing offers and the quickest solutions. We managed to deliver groceries on our own, we reached customer’s doorstep on time and pleased them with our generous attitude."

On the future of the STOOZ app and team, he says, "We are hoping to go back live by mid-July, based on the COVID-19 situation. Our plan is to spread our operations across the city soon."

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