The Startup Story

Minar before launch was 8 months in the making, and had gone through its own browsing phase. If that seems long, read on.

Minar was first supposed to be a personal assistant for everything on the web.

• Buy me tickets for a flight or a show or a concert? Done in seconds.
• Make me a reservation at this great restaurant for my family? Done.
• Book a massage for me which is under 2000 Rs? Yes.

Importantly, this was going to be beautiful, and great. Someone once termed the vision as "frightening", and this is why: having a tool that could do anything and everything on the internet that you asked it to do in plain and simple language meant that anyone could do it, and in any language.

Unfortunately, with more thought and digging and an okay proof of concept, we realised that the scope for something like this is too broad.

This broadness automatically translated to everything else at Minar too — the technology, the consumer experience, and the marketing and branding.

This meant more chaos and a higher barrier to entry. Meaning we had to be the right kind of stubborn, and change.

So Minar added something on top, and decided that is what we start with. As they say, great cakes aren't baked in a second.

First, we chose a domain: e-commerce (more on that later). Then, we reframed the problem:

• From: "the internet is a vast, complex, really distributed place with thousands of sites and resources and almost completely in english"
• To: "shopping on the internet is complex, with too many options distributed in such a way that it is often hard to find exactly what you want, simply".

And from this problem, Minar arose.


Most shopping apps spend millions and crores putting in features that make people want to use them more. We're gonna put all those apps on Minar.

So the next time you think of buying something, anything, come to Minar. We give you one tab. Find you exactly what you want, with high ratings, and put it right in front of you. From Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, and thousands of other vendors.

Let's say you are on Amazon, but you want to change and see items from Flipkart — on Minar that's 1 click.

Anyway, this is Minar. It is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. The first that dreams like this, and the first that gives like this.

And as someone recently pointed out, very importantly, it is made with a lot of love in India.

The original idea is still the crux of Minar. We will start with shopping, and go from there.

Down below is the founder's note from the original waitlist of Minar, with a tiny change. We are putting it here so that if we ever make it big, our small beginnings stay ever present.

Our Story: from the Founder's desk