GetFriday, Bangalore
|
"Life Gets Better with getfriday" | |
| Private | |
| Industry | Outsourcing |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Headquarters | Bangalore, India |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
Sunder P (CEO), Parasuram Prabhu (Director) |
| Website |
www |
GetFriday is an Indian-based Company,[1] providing virtual assistant Services for both personal and business supports across the globe.[2] Founded in 2005, GetFriday is the first organized and the longest running personal virtual assistance company in the world. Based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India.[3] The company is a division of TTK Services of the TTK Group of Companies founded by T.T. Krishnamachari. The company has two other ventures YourManInIndia providing concierge services for Indian expats, HomeShikari for real estate services.
History
TTK Services’ foray into the services sector was in 2000. The company was formed with the objective of assisting and providing services for the Non Resident Indian (NRI) community. After providing a host of critical services, the business expanded and operated under a new brand name, ‘YourMainInIndia’, [4] in the year 2004. Today, YMII provides a wide spectrum of physical concierge services across India i.e. getting certificates, financial transactions for green card holders etc.
In the year 2005, eminent editor of ‘Esquire Magazine, AJ Jacobs, learnt about the newly formed company from a friend and decided to conduct a ‘life outsourcing’ experiment’ on YMII after being inspired by Thomas Freidman’s best-selling book on outsourcing, ‘The World Is Flat’. [5] He wanted to write a satirical piece on ‘life outsourcing’ [6] and was recommended YMII’s services. He outsourced his personal and administrative tasks to the company and was convinced that Virtual Assistance Services is a scalable business segment. The experiment lasted for a period of 2 months, following which, he spoke about and mentioned YMII in a number of his interviews. The fruition of the experiment led to the creation of ‘GetFriday’ in 2005 – the Virtual Assistance Services division of TTK Services. The name, ‘GetFriday’ was inspired by the character Man Friday from the novel by Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe.
TTK Services
The parent company, TTK Services Pvt. Ltd., was established in 2000, with the primary aim of providing a wide range of services to the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) community. The company got its first success through reinventing itself in 2004 and emerging as a concierge service for NRIs in India, under the name ‘YourManInIndia’.[7] The services extended to different parts of the country and YMII went on to offer a wide range of physical concierge services in India.[8]
In Popular Media
GetFriday was featured in the best-selling novel, ‘4 Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferriss.
References
- ↑ "What the last 10 years has taught me, from the CEO of Get Friday". trepmag.com.
- ↑ "TTK betting big on life outsourcing". economictimes.indiatimes.com.
- ↑ "Getfriday, Bangalore's solution to internet drudgery". reuters.com.
- ↑ "Mom in Delhi needs a hand? E-mail yourmaninindia.com". csmonitor.com.
- ↑ "Editor Outsources Everyday Life". abcnews.go.com.
- ↑ "Outsource of Life". npr.org.
- ↑ "Mom in Delhi needs a hand? E-mail yourmaninindia.com". csmonitor.com.
- ↑ "TTK betting big on life outsourcing". economictimes.indiatimes.com.