He might not have all the answers yet, but Tarun Bangari, co-founder of JantaKhoj, is happy that several question marks in his mind are well on their way out. Since he started his people search firm nine months ago, much of his time has been spent in creating a database of 500 million people, and understanding the market.

“Last year was a big question mark. You can’t really forecast how things will go,” he says, from Hyderabad, where his company is based. The database, especially, has been no mean achievement. JantaKhoj claims it is the largest integrated database on Indians yet. Moreover, the firm now has nearly 25 corporate customers, who use its services to vet employee credentials before hiring. These include Indian School of Business, Bambino, and a clutch of fast-growing pharma and technology companies in Hyderabad. “It’s been exciting. Each time you get market success, your business model feels vindicated,” says Bangari, earnestly.

Getting these clients on board required both push and pull strategies, including e-mail campaigns, pay-per-click ads and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques. In fact, enter “people search” as keywords on Google, and JantaKhoj will come up among the top five results. The experiment with SEO has been so successful that the firm intends to add more members to its digital marketing team in the coming months.

All these clicks, however, haven’t yielded big bucks yet. Revenues from B2B clients, in fact, dipped in the past two months since corporates aren’t hiring as many people in the last quarter of the fiscal. However, Bangari feels this is a seasonal slowdown, and would rather concentrate on the positive aspects of his current journey. “Revenues are growing. Recovery on investment has begun. Of course, we want all of this to accelerate. Every business owner wants faster paybacks,” says Bangari, who left a lucrative career in technology to start out on his own.

He’s not willing to disclose actual numbers yet. Although it has achieved “operational break even”, JantaKhoj is yet to become self-sustaining. “This is a make or break year that way,” adds Bangari, firmly laying out the goal for himself and his 13-member team for this year. “This June, it will be two years since I first started working on the idea of JantaKhoj. To get to break even in this duration isn’t bad at all,” he adds, excitedly. Chasing this goal is the top priority at the moment.

“Each one of us in this company monitors the bottom line very closely,” he says. Being nimble and frugal has been critical. Initially positioned as an individual people search platform, the start-up soon found out that training the focus on institutional sales made better business math. “When we deal with a company’s HR, even if takes longer, we come away with people verification services for 1,500 people,” explains the IIT BHU and IIM Kolkata alumnus. Converting as many individual clients in as much time still seems a fairly distant possibility.

“Yes, B2C conversions have not happened. We have put investment and effort on that track in maintenance mode,” says Bangari. Educating the consumer is the main roadblock here, especially when a fully-loaded verification for a driver or a domestic help can cost up to 1,500 at JantaKhoj. Also, people still rely on word-of-mouth to hire personal staff.

JantaKhoj is trying a variety of tricks to show people why formal verifications are worth the money. It produced a six-episode illustrated story featuring Raunaq and Lajjo Singh, a couple in Mumbai who get conned by a driver they hire, and eventually come to JantaKhoj to employ somebody they can trust.

It has also tied up with BabaJob, a Bengaluru-based company that uses mobile and the internet to connect employers with informal sector workers, such as cooks and guards. The association is in the pilot stage, but the synergy is quite clear. JantaKhoj gets access to BabaJob’s captive client base, who in turn get a valuable service.

In centres like Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with fast-growing migrant, professional population, Bangari wants to tie up with large apartment communities directly. “These people understand the value of verification. They don’t have local references to check with,” he says. Which is why, he is confident the individual verification vertical will eventually pick up.

We are bullish. Our brand is there. We will take off when the time is right.” — Bangari, co-founder of JantaKhoj

That gives them time to put a robust infrastructure of agencies in place. Over the last three months, since we first introduced JantaKhoj, there has been a churn in the vendors used for verification. Those who weren’t meeting turnaround time were dropped. “These are ecosystem issues. The biggest multinationals have to deal with the same field agencies.” So, they are consciously collecting and trying out more vendors.

Few start-ups have national-level priorities impact them directly. But, JantaKhoj is looking forward to big projects like the UID Authority of India and integration of police records to make its job easier, and drive down costs. “The HRD ministry has begun work on a central database, where all universities will put up degrees. Running those queries will become easier,” says Bangari. If police does the same, integrating all criminal records, as has been planned, verification of criminal pasts will become a breeze as well.

Till all that happens though, Bangari has simpler mission statements at hand for the next few months—shore up B2B clients, keep an eye on every rupee spent, and thoroughly enjoy the entrepreneurial hunt he has gotten himself into.