Summary
- Appointy, a bootstrapped scheduling SaaS from Bhopal, went through two bankruptcies, per Inc42’s 2016 profile, and kept building.
- Charging for a free product, with plans from $10 a month, is what turned Appointy into a SaaS business.
- In January 2023 Appointy acquired AI fitness startup Zyoga, a deal Appointy called a milestone for Tier 2 city startups.
A client in Poland shut down, and the outsourcing income that kept a small Bhopal team afloat went with it. That was the first brush with bankruptcy in the Appointy founder story. The team had a free scheduling tool, almost no cash and one option left, which was to charge for it. Inc42 reported in 2016 that this forced choice turned a side project into a SaaS business.
Appointy sells online scheduling software to service businesses. Nemesh Singh is CEO and Sarang Verma is COO. Inc42 calls it bootstrapped, and its 2016 profile counted 44 people including interns.
In this story (reading time: about 10 minutes)
Table of Contents
The engineer who could not find a job
Nemesh Singh calls himself an engineer by chance and not by choice, Inc42 reported. He finished a mechanical engineering degree at the Oriental Institute of Science and Technology in Bhopal in 2001, just as the dot-com bubble burst and jobs dried up. For about three years he stayed with friends and built websites as a freelancer.
The work taught him a hard lesson. By Inc42’s account, clients in India were slow to pay, and the dues on seven or eight projects never arrived. He decided that web projects for Indian clients were not the market he wanted, and he turned to building products.
His own telling in 2012 is shorter and warmer. He told YourStory that missing out on a job turned out to be lucky, because it pushed him to start a company from his bedroom, on a computer his father had gifted him during his college days. He added that he had failed twice before starting the company he runs now.
“start this company from my bed-room”
Nemesh Singh, speaking to YourStory, January 2012
In 2004, YourStory reported, the group began offering software outsourcing to international clients. Gabriela Lechin, who was US head as of 2012, came on board around then.
Read More: Falguni Nayar Story: The Banker Who Left Kotak to Build Nykaa With No Retail Experience
A product nobody in India wanted to buy
Faceless silhouette walking between small office buildings with a pair of worn shoes in the foreground
The first product from the four-member team was Extreme Call Manager, which Inc42 likened to a customer-relationship system. Selling it in India was painful. Singh recalled pitching around 100 companies without a deal, and one client turned him away before he had even described the product, after noticing his footwear.
“My shoes were torn in the process.”
Nemesh Singh, speaking to Inc42, July 2016
In the end only one client bought, paying ₹19,000. For a team of four, that covered a couple of months. Inc42 names the early team: Khushal Patel as CTO and co-founder, Sarang Verma as COO and co-founder, and founding members Puneet Pathak and Rajesh.
The lesson they took was about geography. They began chasing outsourced work from the US, and the first project, a set of templates, came with full advance payment. That showed them they did not need to fly to the US to find clients. They started bidding for projects online and, for a while, declined upfront money, asking clients to pay only if they liked the result.
Those projects also supplied the idea. Salons and spas kept asking for scheduling pages, so the team began bundling a free appointment-scheduling plugin with its WordPress work. Singh told Inc42 the plugin existed because WordPress had no scheduling plugin at the time. The team solved a problem first and found the market afterwards. A free Facebook “Like” plugin they built also spread widely and doubled as advertising for Appointy, Inc42 added.
Free software, a vanished client and a $10 price tag
Inc42 dates Appointy’s founding to 2007. Through 2011 the product stayed free and collected about 19,000 downloads, while outsourced projects paid the bills.
Then the team’s biggest paying outsourcing customer, in Poland, shut down. With no savings and no plan B, the company moved toward its first bankruptcy. Singh decided to stop everything else and run Appointy as a paid SaaS product. Plans started at $10 a month, and in under six months the product earned $10,000, Inc42 reported.
The record is not fully consistent here. In his 2012 YourStory interview, Singh described a free basic product with paid plans from $9.99 to $99.99 a month, and said break-even came in April 2010, a year after premium plans launched. He also said the first version cost $18,000 to build. Inc42’s account puts the first paid customer in 2011. StartupIndiaX could not reconcile the two dates from public sources.
Outside money was not an option. Inc42 reported that a meeting with Sequoia did not work out, so the team kept pushing for customers without a sales or marketing team. Yet in the 2012 interview Singh said he planned to look for first venture funding that year. Our reading is that Appointy was not against funding. It simply never closed a round.
Sarang Verma and the team behind the build
Public material on Sarang Verma is thin. Inc42’s 2016 profile lists him as COO and co-founder, and its 2023 report names him as co-founder alongside Singh. Inc42’s feature on the Madhya Pradesh startup ecosystem describes him as an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus with six years in investment banking.
StartupIndiaX did not find disclosed details on the equity split, how the two met, or how work divides between them. Founders weighing a similar split can test scenarios in the Co-founder Equity Split Calculator. A direct interview with Verma would answer all three questions.
The wider team was spread out. Inc42 described a 2016 setup with sales run from the US, technology from India and customer support outsourced to Ukraine, with 20 full-time employees and 44 including interns. Khushal Patel is named CTO in both the 2012 and 2016 accounts.
Read More: Zetwerk Founders Story: How Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan Built Zetwerk
Recognition in 2013, a second crisis in 2014
Outside recognition arrived in 2013, when NASSCOM named Appointy among its top 50 emerging companies. In 2014 the company joined the summer batch of Microsoft’s accelerator programme in India. Inc42 reported that Appointy was signing about 100 customers a day at that point.
Expansion followed: a second office in Bangalore and a bigger one under construction in Bhopal. Then a business dispute pushed the company toward its second bankruptcy. Singh kept the office build going so his team would not lose heart, Inc42 reported. By the end of 2014 Appointy was out of trouble, had won its customers back and moved into a 3,000-square-foot office after years in a 200-square-foot one.
Inc42 also wrote that the company had been profitable from day one. That claim sits awkwardly beside two bankruptcies and an April 2010 break-even date from the founder’s own account. We treat it as the company’s framing, not an established fact.
The Appointy timeline, year by year
The founding year is the main disagreement. Inc42’s 2016 profile and its 2023 report say 2007, another Inc42 page says May 2006, and one data site lists 2016. The founder’s 2012 account describes outsourcing from 2004 and the scheduling idea forming in 2006 and 2007.
How Appointy makes money
Abstract appointment calendar grid with red pins across a map and a domed city skyline at the base
Appointy sells scheduling software to service businesses such as salons, spas, doctors and dentists, a list Singh gave YourStory in 2012. Customers pay a subscription, and a free basic tier brought them in. In 2012 plans ran from $9.99 to $99.99 a month. By July 2016, Inc42 reported plans from $30 to $1,000 a month and more than 2,000 paying customers.
The scale numbers come from the same 2016 profile. About 20,000 appointments were booked through Appointy each day, with a typical ticket of $65 to $100. Inc42 turned that into more than $450 Mn of commerce a year (about ₹3,000 crore at roughly ₹67 per dollar, an approximate July 2016 rate). That is the value of bookings made through the software, not Appointy’s own revenue. Between 70 and 100 businesses registered daily.
Singh’s rule for picking markets, per Inc42, was to enter countries where people have a strong sense of traffic, because that is where scheduling matters. Fewer than 1% of Appointy’s customers were in India in 2016. Inc42 reported that the company had spent nothing on marketing.
Funding, backers and what bootstrapped means here
Inc42 consistently calls Appointy bootstrapped. The outside help it records is NASSCOM recognition in 2013, the Microsoft accelerator in 2014 (Crunchbase lists that as non-equity assistance) and a Sequoia meeting that went nowhere.
StartupIndiaX found no disclosed funding round and no named investor. One third-party site lists a funding figure that we could not trace to a primary source, so it is not repeated here.
How big is Appointy, really?
The last verified customer counts are old. YourStory reported 19,000 businesses in 78 countries in January 2012, and Inc42 reported more than 100K customers in over 110 countries in July 2016, both company-reported. A startup directory now lists 200,000 plus businesses, but it gives no source, so we leave it out of the quick facts.
Team size and revenue are murkier. Data sites disagree with each other, and none of their numbers come from filings.
The revenue estimates differ by a factor of ten. We do not use either as fact, and Appointy has not published its financials.
Zyoga and the move into AI fitness
In January 2023 Appointy acquired Zyoga, a fitness startup founded in 2020 that offers an AI-led virtual studio to coaches and businesses running online classes. The price was not disclosed. Zyoga’s founders, Amitesh Mishra and Vibhu Tripathi, joined Appointy, according to a Times of India report cited by Inc42.
Appointy told the Times of India the deal showed what a Tier 2 city could produce.
“a significant milestone for the startup community in Indian tier 2 cities”
Appointy, in a statement to the Times of India, as reported by Inc42, January 2023
Inc42 had noted in 2016 that Appointy planned to use AI in its products. The Zyoga deal bought an AI-led fitness product and its team. StartupIndiaX did not find what Zyoga’s technology now does inside Appointy.
Rivals, and a Bhopal peer group
In 2016 Inc42 named MindBodyOnline, Schedulicity and Genbook as rivals. Its 2023 report listed AppointmentPlus, Asana and Calendly among competitors. Singh’s view in 2016 was that the market was big enough for everyone. Inc42 said Appointy’s edge over MindBodyOnline was a lower price and free demos, while MindBodyOnline had a sales team that Appointy lacked.
Another Indian SaaS company built without outside funding offers a comparison. TechCrunch reported in January 2025, citing three sources, that Everstone was acquiring a majority stake in Wingify, started in 2010, for about $200 million (about ₹1,700 crore at roughly ₹86 per dollar, January 2025). Appointy has had no comparable disclosed event.
Closer to home, TiE’s central India SaaS feature names Appointy and We360.ai as Bhopal companies building strong products.
Net worth and valuation: what can and cannot be said
No credible published source gives a net worth for Nemesh Singh or Sarang Verma. Aggregator pages show ranges so wide, from nothing to over ₹1,000 crore, that they say nothing.
Appointy has disclosed no funding round or valuation, so there is no round valuation to cite, and the founders’ stakes are not public. A company recruitment blog claims a $500 million valuation reached in six years. StartupIndiaX found no independent confirmation, and the claim is undated, so it stays an unverified company claim. To see how valuations are built, the Startup Valuation Calculator walks through common methods.
What other founders can take from Appointy
Put a price on it early. The free product had about 19,000 downloads and no business. Paid plans from $10 a month brought in $10,000 in under six months, per Inc42.
Choose markets by need. Less than 1% of customers were in India in 2016. Singh picked countries where scheduling matters, not the market closest to home.
Do not let one client carry the company. Appointy’s first brush with bankruptcy followed the shutdown of its Polish outsourcing client.
Let repeated requests pick the product. Salons and spas kept asking for scheduling pages, and that pattern became Appointy.
Protect the team while cash wobbles. In 2014 Singh kept the new office build going so his team stayed confident through the second crisis.
Appointy’s story is not a neat climb. It is a company that lived on outsourcing, lost its biggest client and found its business only when it had to. For founders outside the big metros, the useful part is the detail: where the first price came from, which market took the product, and what the early years actually cost.
Have a bootstrapped or Tier 2 founder story of your own? Submit it to StartupIndiaX, or tell us in the comments which founder you want covered next.
FAQs
Who founded Appointy?
Appointy was founded by Nemesh Singh, who is CEO, with Sarang Verma as co-founder and COO. Inc42’s 2016 profile also names Khushal Patel as CTO and co-founder. The company is based in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
When was Appointy founded?
Sources disagree. Inc42’s 2016 profile and 2023 report say 2007, while another Inc42 page says May 2006. A data site lists 2016, which conflicts with every other source. The founder says an outsourcing business began in 2004.
Is Appointy bootstrapped?
Inc42 describes Appointy as bootstrapped, and StartupIndiaX found no disclosed funding round. It joined Microsoft’s accelerator in 2014. A meeting with Sequoia did not lead to funding, according to Inc42’s 2016 account of the founder’s story.
Did Appointy go bankrupt?
Inc42 reported in 2016 that Appointy went through two bankruptcies. The first followed the shutdown of a Polish outsourcing client, and the second came after a 2014 business dispute. The company recovered from both, per the founder’s account.
How does Appointy make money?
Appointy sells subscriptions for online scheduling software to service businesses such as salons and clinics. Inc42 reported plans from $30 to $1,000 a month and over 2,000 paying customers in July 2016. A free basic tier brought in sign-ups.
What is Nemesh Singh’s net worth?
No credible source gives a verified figure for Nemesh Singh’s net worth. Appointy has disclosed no funding round or valuation, and aggregator pages show unsourced ranges. StartupIndiaX does not publish an estimate without a named, dated source.
What did Appointy acquire in 2023?
In January 2023, Appointy acquired Zyoga, an AI-led virtual fitness studio startup founded in 2020. Zyoga’s founders, Amitesh Mishra and Vibhu Tripathi, joined Appointy. Inc42 reported that the financial terms were not disclosed.
