NOGOZO

Before corporate life, in the middle of college, I was trying to build something from scratch — and it taught me more than any degree ever could have.

10K+ · Users₹5L · Govt GrantShark Tank · Season 1PAN India · Deliveries

The video call that started it all — April 2020

It was April 2020. The country was in lockdown, college was shut, and I was at home on a video call with my school friends — Anuj, Dushyant, Samyak, and Vikas. We were talking about COVID, as everyone was those days. But something specific kept nagging at us: the government had restricted shop timings to reduce crowding. It was doing the exact opposite. Same narrow window. More people. More spread.

We looked at each other through our screens and asked: could we actually fix this?The social intention was genuine — but the startup itch was there too, if we’re being honest. We named ourselves VADSY, the first letters of our names combined. Cliché? Absolutely. Ours? Without question.

May – October 2020

NOGOZO 1.0 — on the ground with our merchants, 2020

By May, VADSY had a name that actually meant something: NOGOZO — “No need to Go when you have Zo.” We built an app for ordering daily necessities with scheduled pickups and deliveries, so no one had to crowd into a shop. Website. WhatsApp API. On-ground merchant research with local shops. Social media campaigns. A team of interns doing fieldwork across the city.

Featured in Dainik Jagran, Agra — our first press coverage

By June, life happened — three of the original five had stepped back. Only Anuj and I remained. But those interns? They became our core team, and they were brilliant. By October 2020 we had connected 25+merchants with over 1,000users. And then something remarkable happened — Dainik Jagran wrote about us. We were just two college guys trying to solve a problem — and suddenly, people were writing about it.

“We were just two college guys trying to solve a problem — and suddenly, people were writing about it.”

November 2020 — The First Goodbye

By November, we shut NOGOZO 1.0 down. The financial runway was gone — we’d started as a social initiative and never optimised for revenue. The timing made it harder to process: both Anuj’s and my families were fighting COVID. Health came first, always. But beyond the circumstances, we’d also gained enough clarity to know that while this was a good project, it wasn’t the right startup for us to pursue long-term.

— The shutdown stung. The lessons didn’t. —

February – March 2021

NOGOZO 2.0 — the All-in-One Bookstore app

Anuj called in late February. He’d been sharpening his web dev skills during an internship and felt ready for round two. “Remember your idea about renting books?” he asked. “Would you be interested in pursuing that?” This time we did things properly — consumer research, student surveys, bookshop visits, pricing analysis. By March 2021 we launched NOGOZO All-in-One Doorstep Bookstore: buy, rent, or sell new and used books from home.

Summer – August 2021

Shark Tank India pre-final auditions — August 2021

We spotted a Shark Tank India application link and submitted it without much thought, treating it like any other startup competition. Then we actually watched a few episodes. The scale of the show hit us. The calibre of the investors hit us. We were absolutely convinced we didn’t stand a chance.

We were wrong. We moved through multiple rounds and reached the pre-final auditions in August 2021. We didn’t make the televised rounds — but we walked away with something more valuable than a camera moment: the belief that what we were building was genuinely worth pitching to anyone, in any room. Worth noting: this was also the first pitch deck we’d ever made.

“We were convinced we didn’t stand a chance. We were wrong.”

The Grind — 2021 to 2022

While Anuj continued his internship, I had burned through ₹25,000 in trading savingsfrom the previous year. We had an unspoken rule from the beginning: no money from family. Not because family funding is wrong — it isn’t. But it was our personal line in the sand, our test. So I found an intern gig within a month of looking, and the pay covered operations.

We did everything: deliveries, customer support, inventory, accounts. We wore every hat and somehow thrived in the chaos. When the Android app launched in late October 2021, it gained traction fast — users loved the simplicity, orders grew steadily, reviews were kind. By December we’d crossed 1,000 users and celebrated by opening a physical outlet, which we had to shutter within two months. Some experiments just don’t work. That’s the game.

We also got a chance to present NOGOZO to the Hon. Manoj Sinha (Lieutenant Governor of J&K) as part of the IIT BHU Alumni Association showcase. Standing in front of a governor, pitching a startup built on ₹25,000 in savings — it felt almost absurd. We loved every second of it.

Spring – Winter 2022 — The Grant

Spring 2022: incubated at Sparkle, Mathura— one of UP Government’s official incubation centres. We pitched for the StartinUP initiative, which was backing socially impactful startups across Uttar Pradesh. Winter 2022: we were among the select few startups across the entire state to receive the ₹5 Lakh government grant.

Two college kids. Just a problem we refused to stop solving.

Summer 2023 — The Wrap

NOGOZO wrapped — NOGOZO — wrapped. Summer 2023.

Operations wound down by spring. By the time we officially closed: 10,000+users. Orders fulfilled from Kashmir to Kerala, Rajasthan to Assam. Corporate clients too. A growth deck that captured numbers we hadn’t dared imagine in April 2020.

But the numbers aren’t what stayed with me. People did. More than 10 customers are now in my personal WhatsApp as genuine friends — people I talk to regularly, not about books, just about life. I don’t fully understand how it happened, except that we never treated them as customers. We treated them as family. Maybe they could feel that.

In our own words

“In the end, we learned a lot and now are better than before. Be it Highs or Lows — NOGOZO has all my heart.”

— Yugal Agarwal, Co-Founder, NOGOZO Pvt. Ltd.

What it actually taught me

01.
Execution over ideation, always.
Everyone has ideas. The only thing that separates founders is who actually ships. We shipped twice.
02.
Resource constraints are a feature, not a bug.
₹25,000 in savings forced us to be creative, scrappy, and brutally prioritised. No investor could have taught us that.
03.
Your customers are your best investors.
Not financially — emotionally. Those 10 friends in my WhatsApp funded our belief more than any grant ever did.
04.
Knowing when to stop is a skill too.
Shutting NOGOZO 1.0 down was the smartest decision we made. It freed us to build something better.

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