By Naina Yadav

Copyright startuppedia

“When Zishan, from a small town called Dhanbad in Jharkhand, was going to school and studying…a shock awaited him. His parents could no longer afford to support his academics. Advertisment “I had no other option but to start working as a labourer. I would accompany AC technicians and help them fix AC units. I would earn a maximum of Rs 150 per day and bring it home to buy food for the family. It is during this phase that the idea for our startup came to me,” Zishan, co-founder of Proxigo, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview. Founded in 2024, Proxigo is a Dhanbad-based startup that offers home and electronic repair services to people and ensures that mechanics and workmen get paid more fairly than current market rates. To date, it has served more than 3,000 customers in Dhanbad and clocked a total revenue of more than Rs 7.5 lakh. THE BACKGROUND Zishan comes from a humble family in Dhanbad, Jharkhand. His father currently doesn”t work, and his mother is a homemaker. He has a younger brother and a sister as well. After financial constraints came into the picture, Zishan was forced to stop going to school. He became a helper for a repair technician and started earning a daily wage of Rs 100 to Rs 150. “I was worried about how little I was making. My friend, Md. Sahil was in the same boat. He was working as a helper along with me. We would do the majority of the repair and still get paid peanuts. We were worried about our families. I personally wanted to go to school again and send my siblings to school as well,” Zishan shares. The technician whom Zishan and Sahil would accompany for repair jobs would charge customers Rs 1,500 for an air conditioner repair and give them only Rs 50 to Rs 100. Feeling extremely exploited by this system, the friend duo, barely 16 years of age at the time, decided to dismantle the process and bring customers closer to the direct technicians and repairmen. Seemingly simple on the surface, this was something that was groundbreaking. To go against a “head technician” who controlled every aspect of home and electronics repair was difficult. But Zishan and Sahil? They had nothing to lose. Zishan – Co-founder of Proxigo Also Read: Meet 23-YO From Bihar Who Clocked Rs 10 Lakh Revenue By Selling Bihar”s Famous Thekua To Delhi, Mumbai, Assam, and UP THE STEP AND JOURNEY AHEAD In November 2024, Zishan and Sahil did something that immediately unleashed the start of Proxigo. With no website or application in hand, they decided to create a WhatsApp group of all technicians, helpers, and repairmen in Dhanbad. “We promised fair rates and decided to be extremely transparent in our dealings. With the hope of making an increased amount per job, technicians flocked to the WhatsApp group. We set up “technicians available” statuses on WhatsApp to bring in initial customers,” entrepreneur Zishan tells Startup Pedia. According to the startup founders, their main journey points were: Bringing in initial customers meant marketing Proxigo extensively. With very little money initially, they decided to obtain a phone database of people in Dhanbad, Jharkhand. “We would then manually send out SMS and WhatsApp messages to these thousands of numbers we had obtained. Obtaining this kind of database in a city like Dhanbad is not very expensive. We sent out messages to showcase the availability of technicians and repairmen for services like AC repair, washing machine repair, geyser repair, home tile installation, and also individual services of carpenters, plumbers, and bike repair,” entrepreneur Zishan tells Startup Pedia. “Till the time we were in the marketing stage of our business, we kept going to work as labourers. The daily Rs 150 was something that we couldn”t afford to lose. We would work on Proxigo during the night,” Sahil adds. Sahil – Co-founder of Proxigo Eventually, customers started contacting Proxigo for home and electronic repair services. All through November and December, Sahil and Zishan operated Proxigo via the WhatsApp group. During these months, they catered to approximately 400 customers. As the business started growing, the entrepreneurs knew that they would have to make a website as well as an application. But neither of them knew anything about website development or coding. They didn”t even have a computer. Zishan took it upon himself to understand coding language and began watching free learning tutorials on YouTube. Alongside, he also started getting acquainted with Meta ads. One of his friends was closing down his shop and was selling a very old computer at scrap prices. Zishan bought it from him for Rs 2,200. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Proxigo (@proxigo.in) “When you simply don”t have the resources to hire a website developer or a performance marketing expert, you do what it takes to learn everything from scratch. By February 2025, the Proxigo website was ready and launched. With a small budget of Rs 1,500 per day, we started running Meta ads as well. Received a good response from that channel as well,” startup founder Zishan says. “We also paid micro-influencers in our region and asked them to promote Proxigo on their Instagram handles. They were ready to do it for a budget of Rs 400 to Rs 500. Then, we printed out some pamphlets and pasted them on autorickshaws for a small fee of Rs 100 to Rs 200,” entrepreneur Sahil says. The idea for the name “Proxigo” and the logo came to Zishan after he thought very carefully about the future of their service startup. According to him, he didn”t want to limit the name to something as generic as “servicewala” or “servicelelo,” because he plans to add home cooks to the platform in the future and assist people in getting home-cooked meals on time. “The logo was also designed by me. It”s simple but effective,” Zishan says. Slowly but steadily, the young entrepreneurs started verifying the repairmen and checking if their skills aligned with the roles they had available for them. Currently, even though verification is a bit slow, Zishan ensures that the rating system helps customers decide whether the repairmen they”re booking are best suited to their needs. By July 2025, Proxigo”s app was launched. It made it supremely easy for Dhanbad”s households to book, rate, and pay repairmen and technicians. The app”s rating system made things easy for Zishan and Sahil as well. “Based on the rating and complaint system, we now know which technicians we need to train better or completely remove from the Proxigo network. So far, we”ve received great feedback,” Zishan tells Startup Pedia. Also Read: “Bengaluru VPN in Bihar,” say netizens after 14 YO Patna student goes viral for his startup that sells robotics and electronics kits THE SOCIAL MEDIA GAME Being shy and introverted as people, Sahil and Zishan never thought they would come in front of the camera and record reels. But in July 2025, they started documenting their startup journey online and regularly posted reels on Instagram. “That is when I got to know the power of social media. One kind person from Mumbai even sent his laptop for us to use. Others keep pitching in and help us with constructive feedback,” Zishan shares. Currently, Proxigo”s Instagram page has a follower count of more than 2,000, with some of their reels reaching a view count of up to 80,000. Through their reels, a fishing export business owner in Jharkhand has displayed interest in funding the startup with Rs 25 lakhs. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Proxigo (@proxigo.in) THE INVESTMENT AND UNIT ECONOMICS To date, Sahil and Zishan have only invested a small amount from their own pocket to run Meta ads in the beginning and purchase the old computer. This amount came close to Rs 5,000. Other than that, every other aspect of the business is funded by the revenue being reinvested. As far as the unit economics is concerned, very simply, Proxigo pays the majority of the service price obtained from the customer to the technician. “If an AC repair is charged at Rs 1,500, then the repairman gets Rs 1,000 and Proxigo gets Rs 500. Our payment gateway automatically splits the amount between the technician and the company,” Sahil mentions. Also Read: Meet 22-YO Delhi friends who started a kurti brand from Instagram, got 250+ orders in 1 month and clocked Rs 1,20,000 in revenue GROWTH While Proxigo catered to 300 to 400 customers in the months of November and December, the number kept increasing by 100 to 200 every month. As of September 2025, Proxigo has catered to more than 3,000 customers and households in Dhanbad. When asked about Urban Company and the startup”s thoughts on it, Zishan said, “Urban Company doesn”t operate in Dhanbad currently. But even if it did, I am not bogged down by competition. Becoming even 10% of what that company is would already be a huge achievement for people like us who”ve come from nothing and started from scratch.” In November and December, Proxigo clocked a humble revenue of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000. From January 2025 to March, the monthly revenue fluctuated between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000. In April, May, and June, the figure rose to Rs 70,000 to Rs 80,000 every month. In July and August, the monthly revenue reached Rs 2 lakh due to the addition of more services, such as home tile installation, to the catalogue. To date, Proxigo has clocked a total revenue of approximately Rs 7.5 lakh. The founders have made a direct profit of Rs 2.5 lakh. With both their families happy with the progress of their children, Zishan and Sahil aim to expand at a faster rate and improve factors like the credibility, skillset, and reliability of their technician network. Zishan and Sahil – Young Entrepreneurs Also Read: Young Entrepreneurs From Uttar Pradesh Got Scammed While Freelancing – So They Built A 0% Commission, Blockchain-based Freelancing Platform FAQ Q. Who is the founder of Proxigo? A. Md. Sahil and Zishan, hailing from Dhanbad, are founders of Proxigo. Q. When was Proxigo founded? A. Proxigo was founded in November 2024. Q. What does Proxigo do? A. Proxigo is a Dhanbad-based startup that offers home and electronic repair services to people and ensures that mechanics and workmen get paid more fairly than current market rates. Q. What is the revenue of Proxigo? A. To date, Proxigo has catered to more than 3,000 customers in Dhanbad. With a total revenue of approximately Rs 7.5 lakh, the founders have made a direct profit of Rs 2.5 lakh. “