Almost broke? Get thrifty or get aboard KhaaliJeb's youth-focused discount programme

Students, here’s a way to make your monthly allowance last a little longer. Get on board the discounts programme on desi payments and banking app KhaaliJeb.

Founded by a quad of just-out-of-college youngsters themselves, KhaaliJeb is like a Google Pay but focused on giving students and youth that extra incentive in the form discounts on food and dining and salon services.

Accepted at over 350 restaurants and salons, KhaaliJeb has tied up with 20 of those joints to get you discounts, and with its week-old B2B product ‘Verify by KhaaliJeb’ helping business identify young customers and tailor discounts for them, it hopes to expand the discounts to more outlets. With the coronavirus gobbling up traditional businesses, KhaaliJeb expanded its discounts programme to online businesses too.

To register for the ‘Discount Program Membership’, upload your ID and you get verified within minutes. Once you become a member, you can grab any deal. It’s a simple as getting an offer code and following the self explanatory steps to availing the benefits.

If you’re 29 or younger and eking out barely a living in these harsh coronavirus times, Khaalijeb’s got your back even if you’re not a student. The Kotak Mahindra Bank sponsored app helps you make payments with ease and also lets you grab a piece of the discounts pie.

For now, KhaaliJeb's restaurant and salon payment services are available only in Bangalore but 20 brands pan India also accept KhaaliJeb, including Gaana, Bounce and Utter ALTBalaji.

The bootstrapped operation has managed to hook as many as 40,000 users already. To sweeten the deal for those on the fence about adopting a newish payments app, KhaaliJeb is currently offering one month’s free membership if you refer a friend. You can also purchase a three-month membership of their discount programme at an offer price of Rs 49. 

So what’s the story behind the youth-focused banking app?

The young founders Prakash Kumar, Aman Verma, Sudhanshu Gaur and Wilson Birua, all graduates of IIIT Allahabad started the app without any work experience, pooling in friends-and-family funds, after Prakash had an epiphany at the end of an Ola ride in 2015.

The seamless experience of money being deducted off his Ola app got Prakash thinking. He began voraciously researching digital payments apps—which weren’t ubiquitous then as they are today—and decided to ‘start up’ instead of sitting for placements. Hearing his plan, friends Aman, Sudhanshu and Wilson got together as co-founders.

Three years and several iterations later, the Android app was launched in October 2018 on Google Play Store.

The app began picking up pace but faced a huge road block just a year later with the coronavirus lockdown shutting down restaurants and salons. It forced KhaaliJeb to halt the students discounts programme—the most attractive draw of the app. But, the team quickly pivoted to offering discounts on online purchases, and managed to rope in 15 online brands. At the same time, they worked on ‘Verify by KhaaliJeb’ to boost trust among businesses about the app’s genuine youth customer base, to get the momentum going again.

Focused on building features that can work under the current circumstances, the KhaaliJeb team is currently engaged in dovetailing its services with the ideas and hacks businesses are coming up with to beat the challenges brought by the pandemic.