Modular Eco-friendly Roofs

A billion people in the world live under poor roofing. This results in illnesses, injuries, unliveable houses with heat and water leakage and lack of space for economic and social activities.

We are changing this with high quality, modular and eco-friendly roofing.

With 400 roofs already sold and installed in India and with customer testimonials showing comfortable living spaces, improved health, reduced stresses and increased productivity, we are confident of replicating and multiplying the same in Bangladesh. 

We are solving the global and serious problem of poor roofing. More than 15 million people in Bangladesh live under metal and cement sheet roofing. These roofs crack and corrode causing injuries and deaths and contain toxic substances. They leak in monsoons, cause extreme heat in summer and are unusable. All this results in unimaginably poor living conditions.

The only other alternate of concrete roof is unreliable in quality, difficult to instal and 7 to 10 times expensive.

There has been no innovation in building materials and housing products as well as no focus towards improving housing for families in slums and villages. We are changing this.

Our target segment is families living in slums and villages. Our first target is families with multiple earning members living in and around cities. After that we will expand to rural areas.

We partner with non-profits and micro-finance companies that have a deep network in these communities. We also hire our own sales team and deploy marketing methods to spread awareness about our innovation. We have been proving this in India and seek to expand to Bangladesh to expand our impact.

Our strength is the product, customer service and partnerships with micro-finance companies. Our product helps families get usable space on top and bottom, have comfortable and hassle free summer and monsoon and engage in social and economic activities. This has been proven with 400 installations already in India. We are also the only company in developing world that provides customer service for 20 years / till the end of life for a roofing product. Customers love this.

Finally, because of high quality and guaranteed product as well as modular nature, we are most suitable for micro-finance partnerships. Families can pay as little as $25 a month and get a high quality shelter.

Our product is a Roofing solution that is superior to metal and cement sheet roofing that is widely used in Bangladesh. 

We also provide after-sales service for 20 years (minimum life of the product).

We design high quality modular roofs at our 25,000 square feet research centre in India. Each component is tested for thermal stability, ultra violet exposure, various types of strengths, moisture and several other tests as required by standards and usage.

Our product design is such that we can ship a roof anywhere, get it installed over WhatsApp and repair an individual component if needed remotely.

Our roofing is made from several materials:

a. Two types of Custom developed panels from waste cardboard and waste plastic (to be patented)

b. Custom profiles, connectors made from metal and plastic and custom developed waterproofing.

Our roofing product is 8 times lighter than reinforced concrete roof (but still same or more strength) - which means we use a lot less material through structural engineering.

Our product is 6 to 10 times faster to install which means we can scale across Bangladesh with a high quality shelter in fastest available manner.

And finally, our product uses zero water in installation. In fact, at 100,000 square feet of installed roofs, we have saved 400 tonnes of CO2 and 600,000 liters of water as compared to conventional methods.

We think of our roof as a piece of technology. It allows us, our customer and our available natural resources to do more.

By using waste materials, less CO2, zero water, we are reducing the damage done to environment. In fact, currently 91% of our roofing is recyclable at the end of life. We are aiming to increase it to 96%.

Secondly, through extreme structural and mechanical designs, we have been able to:

Lower the weight of the roof (improve strength to weight ratio) by 8 times as compared to conventional concrete roof and hence use less material and lower cost

and

Increase installation speed by 6 to 10 times.

Finally, we have been laser focused on families in slums and villages. We understand the segment well and love the constraints posed by working for them. This is the real trigger for all our innovations.

Success of our venture will show that innovation, impact and profits can go together. We hope to see a thousand more startups solving problems for poor, supported by enthusiastic investors. A lot of the evidence is based in the book by Dr. C.K. Prahalad: Fortune at the bottom of pyramid (his family is an early angel investor).

Secondly, a reliable shelter allows for marked improvement in social and economic activities. Around 30% of our customers have started or expanded an economic activity after getting our roof. A family has told us that our roof is worth every penny because they can celebrate kite festival on top with all their relatives. Yet another told us that their mother is free from heat stroke and suffocation and they are relieved now.

Thirdly, we provide excellent installation service (through a thorough process) and after sales service. In fact 40% of our customers have told us that they recommend our roofs further because of the service. This treatment of poor at par with any other customer is revolutionary and brings them a lot of dignity. At scale, this will bring a change in mindset of several other companies and will result in better service deliveries to poor.

So far we have provided high quality shelter to 400 families or approximately 2000 people.

In the next one year, we are aiming to reach additional 1500 families.

In the next five years, we are aiming to reach a total of 50,000 families spread across several countries including India and Bangladesh.

We want to expand as fast as possible to achieve our mission of putting a roof over every head.

However, the biggest goals in next one year centre around standardisation. 

We are already working on the marketing methods needed to create awareness and leads for our product. We are partnering with organisations like micro-finance companies and non-profits and networks of masons and fabricators to make our product accessible to the target segment.

We are standardising the shipping, installation and after-sales process through rigorous check-points, quality control and training programs. 

Once we complete this work in less than a year, we will be able to expand to several geographies.

In next 5 years, we want to serve more than a total of 50,000 plus families in India and Bangladesh. This will not just be through roofing product, but also walls and hence a full house and an energy product like solar embedded in the house. Most importantly, selling these products would be meaningless if they are not combined with excellent customer service. And finally, we want to reduce our environmental impact. Our goal is to achieve 96% recyclability of the product at the end of life. 

That is our goal at the end of 5 years: continue on our mission of putting a roof over every head with excellent customer service and lowest environmental impact.

We face business challenges like any other startup. A physical product that has high impact and high value for the end users and that comes from a new company, is challenging. Well entrenched concrete roofs and masons that build it, however unreliably, are still the preferred choice. In marketing parlance, we are in the early acceptance stages and we have to graduate to being the preferred choice.

We are also focused on low income families who have more constraints but are also more aspirational. It is a unique challenge and an opportunity.

Thirdly, we need rigorous implementation of process and standardisation across the company. Else we cannot grow.

Finally, we need to build a strong customer centric mindset else expansion will be pointless and we will have dissatisfied customers.

All this requires a strong team and mentorship in all the areas of the company.

We have learned that hiring is the key. We are developing rigorous process to be better at hiring every time.

We also need advisors in all departments. We are always searching for technical experts in the areas of materials, structures and design. We are working with a marketing expert who has worked with low income target segment in past. We have advisors who have started and ran companies and hired several managers in their careers. 

We are also partnering with micro-finance companies and non-profits who have deep grass roots network to create awareness about our product and to secure financing 

We conduct rigorous trainings and feedback sessions to ensure processes are followed and improved upon and everyone is aligned to the mission of the company.

The most important way to overcome barriers for us is to be very disciplined and focused. 

We can serve more than 15 million people in Bangladesh with high quality shelter. This potential to sell to 3 million families is a USD 2.5 billion opportunity.

Apart from that, we want to contribute to infrastructure in Bangladesh by building schools and clinics across the country with modern technologies and environmental friendly products.

Our plan is to approach partners in Bangladesh like micro-finance companies, non-profits and entrepreneurial companies. We will also hire our team of local marketing experts, project managers, engineers and accountants. They will execute our sales, installation, hiring and training plans in Bangladesh.

Full-time: 85

Contractors: 12

The founder, Hasit Ganatra, is an engineering graduate from the US and has worked in solar lighting startup in rural India. The experience involved extensive product testing, sales and distribution and setting up micro-finance partnerships. Most importantly, it made him passionate about solving problems faced by poor in a scalable way.

At ModRoof, he has successfully raised $3M, hired engineering and sales team and laid the foundation for future.

Abhinav Singh leads engineering. He is a graduate of Indian Institute of Technology and leads product development. He has successfully made our product the easiest to install in the entire market, still providing best performance. This has involved working with experts, setting up our testing lab and creative brainstorming and prototyping. He is connected to ModRoof because of its mission of providing high quality shelter to poor.

Raja Marut leads sales with a field team of 15. He is completely mission oriented, has over 18 years of sales experience and has expanded our sales operations across the state of Gujarat.

Praveen Sharma leads manufacturing and installation operations with 20 years of experience. And Tushar Mahajan is the lead chemist responsible for developing new materials like the ones made from waste paper and plastic as well as evaluating off-the-shelf materials.

We have teams in the areas of Engineering, Sales, Manufacturing and Installation. The team is motivated by our mission as well as challenge of doing something that is not done currently in the market.

1. We have partnered with two universities: Nirma University, Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar for testing and technical help from professors.

2. We have partnered with micro-finance organisations like SEWA Bank, Mahila Housing Trust, IDFC Bank. These organizations provide loans to end users for our product.

3. We have partnered with a training company to train our field sales team and our installers.

Key customers and beneficiaries:

Families in slums and villages, typically with multiple earning members, with a total family income of at least $250 per month. Our product benefits the entire family but especially kids and old people. Kids are able to get better environment in their house to study and older people get comfort because of our roofs. A reliable roof over their head has promoted expansion of economic activities inside the house right from tailoring to kite making to bread making to selling groceries. Finally, entire family and their relatives are able to celebrate festivals on top of ModRoof and that is when we hear quotes like "your roof is worth every penny we have paid because the festival celebration has brought our families together"

Product and service: We sell roofing product to our target customers. We have partnered with micro-finance companies. Half of our customers avail a loan to buy our product. 

Once the order is confirmed by our sales team, we prepare the material at our warehouse and factory and dispatch it to site. The installation team then installs the roof (a key service we provide). This is an important touch point for us with our customers and a lot of customer satisfaction is defined here.

We also provide after-sales service to our customers and are the only roofing company to do that. Currently the service is free but we do plan to charge for it in future.

We are absolutely committed to the combination of impact, innovation and profits. We are committed to being a profitable company by selling Roofs to low income families and infrastructure facilities like schools, clinics and community spaces. Our unit economics are close to being positive. And we expect to completely break even when we sell 500 to 600 roofs a month. This will take less than 2 years after which the business will be self sustainable. We may still require debt for working capital or equity for new product development or marketing.

Currently we are funded by angel investors and grants.

Apart from monetary benefit of a grant or an investment, Tiger IT Foundation can help with business building in Bangladesh in a much faster way than if we were to do it alone.

Our key barriers or requirements are: 

hiring a team, getting advisors on board, our training needs, partnering with local micro-finance organisations and local marketing agencies, local government registrations and even partnership agreements with local companies for distribution.

Tiger IT Foundation can help with each of these.

At the end, we are applying for impact. We want to expand to Bangladesh so that every person in Bangladesh can have a reliable shelter over their head. It is part of our mission. This is just a perfect opportunity for us.

1. Micro-finance companies

2. Multiple recruitment companies

3. Marketing experts

4. Training company

5. Law and accounting firm