Helping couples ‘get a room’

‘Couples need a room, not a judgement’, says the tag line of a start-up that helps unmarried couples access just that. Co-founder Sanchit Sethi talks about why it’s time to create such spaces.

Sanchit Sethi had his phone buzzing non-stop the last two days. The 26-year old entrepreneur and co-founder of StayUncle, a start-up that facilitates room renting for unmarried couples, isn’t used to all the attention. He tries to hide his exasperation as he speaks to us on a metro ride from the Capital, while admitting that it has been crazy. Interestingly, Sanchit’s website/service has been functional for the past one year but the traction hit its peak this week.

What they do is facilitate room renting on an hourly basis in Mumbai and Delhi — an option that hotels don’t otherwise offer. Four months ago however, StayUncle threw open it’s doors to a special base of customers — unmarried couples — since they noticed that most requests came from them. Here, a couple needs to rent out the room for a minimum of 10 hours at a price of Rs 1,800.

“We never did much online marketing, most of our publicity was off line. But we met this one guy who put up our story on an online platform and it just took off from there,” he says explaining the sudden surge of requests he received over the last two days. So much so, that the website crashed, thanks to all the traffic it attracted. Sanchit explains, that is probably why we couldn’t successfully place our booking when we tried on Wednesday.

A common concern for most couples is about safety and privacy. Sanchit believes that it is eliminated by virtue of their selection of hotels. “We only approach reputed names where these concerns are minimal or non-existent. No law or rule in the country prohibits two consenting adults from sharing a room as long as they provide their identity proofs. We have no hold over what goes on inside the room of course, but that no one does. From our side, the process is transparent.”

A mechanical engineer from Bits Pilani, Sanchit turned entrepreneur last year when he tried to sell chai on the streets of Mumbai, just as an exercise to test the waters. He carried his own ingredients, rented out his equipment, set up a stall outside a random store, stood with a board that read, “The most amazing chai’ and ended up making a profit of Rs 650 on day one of his business. “I am a chai person and I have been told that I make good tea as well. The objective of selling tea on the street was to see if I can manage to create a product in a day and sell it to earn my bread for the night. In the coming times I might venture into it full time one day, who knows. But let’s talk about StayUncle for now,” he veers us back to the topic.

Sanchit admits that his parents aren’t particularly enthused about the business model of their son. “They’re not happy. They don’t understand why I do this but it has gotten better with time. I guess it’ll need more convincing on my part to make them understand. I come from a typical, traditional family in Jaunpur and it’ll take some time.”

Ask Sanchit if he has faced a problem ‘getting a room’ and he says, “Why does everyone ask me that Well let’s just say I managed. But that’s not why I started this,” he says quick to turn to the next question. Having said that, he hopes to branch out the business to an off line dating space as well. “There are enough Tinder-type sites, we want to look at a space where people can make real connections off line.”