Entrepreneur Story: Discovering the Inner Entrepreneur

Its a great feeling to talk about my life and career graph mainly because it gives me a chance to look at it cohesively once again, an exercise I recommend to everyone! Starting out, It was a very memorable spell at Delhi University studying Economics, followed by IMT, and then at Cadburys in Mumbai and around the country, where I grew my legs as far as remote survival was concerned! There were several iconic moments during my years with Cadburys; one memorable point was being a part of the setting up team for the highly successful ice-cream brand Dollops. Those were exciting 3 years with such a major player in the field, and I learnt many lessons that stay with me even today. As it transpired, the journey though interesting, made me feel like I wanted more interesting pastures to cut my teeth on, more demanding challenges, and the inner entrepreneur had awoken!

Teaming up with a dear friend from Citibank, Tina Sapra, we started what was to become one of the frontrunners in the BPO industry, Orion Dialog. Orion took over all my time and mindspace and grew over 11 years to become one of the Indias leading domestic call center companies. This was at a point where we were doubling our topline y-o-y and seeing a healthy bottom line. On the basis of our reputation and growth, several opportunities came our way to sell. We eventually sold to Essar Group, which was entering the BPO space through the acquisition route and merged with Aegis, which went on to become one of the worlds top BPOs.

But continuing my gravitation towards new challenges, once Essar bought Orion in 2006, and I completed my commitment with them of heading the company for the next year, I took a very necessary sabbatical during which period, I helped set up a social enterpriseSakha Consulting Wings. Sakha is a unique social enterprise, launched to provide safe transport solutions for women, by women in urban India, and I spent many fruitful months in business planning, providing inputs for raising funds, and mentoring the project that continues to grow.

Work-wise, what caught my imagination completely was an enterprise initiated by a friend, Anchal Jain, which was in complete rhythm with my thought process and my vision99labels. The project interested me for several reasons, the primary one being that it was a dive into the internet space, which is still so new and unexplored. I enjoy the buzz, chaos, and excitement of the emerging sectors, areas where I can experiment, create, and contribute to the sector, and the 99labels opportunity spoke to this aspect of my personality. Also, it just was so exciting to get involved with an idea that had its essence in offering fashion and lifestyle brands at amazing discounts, a very tempting promise and one that would be hard for people to resist!

In India, 80% of the internet population is men. There was no one catering to the growing minority of women in the space. The very idea of our customer base, mainly women, being able to shop at any time, anywhere was instantly successful, and we were the first to offer this internationally proven model in India, with no route map to follow. Also Indians are extremely brand conscious as well as deal-conscious, and have a talent for hunting out the best deals! This worked well for us, as we offered only the deepest discounts and a bouquet of big brands.

The journey was new, uncharted tough and yet rewarding. Two years ago we started as an 8-member team and launched 2 sales per day. Today we have offices across 5 locations throughout the globe including New York and Paris. Over a period of two years, we have grown by leaps and bounds; we have partnered with more than 250 brand partners and consequently held over 5,000 sales. At the moment, we are at an exciting point where we are a growing team of 120 employees and are proud to say that we take over 2,000 orders daily. Having said that you should know that despite our current success we are only aiming higher!

While a year back we faced the challenges of getting women to buy fashion online or getting brands to agree to go online on our platform, we face a different set of challenges today. The biggest task has been to scale up successfully while managing inventory issues with the brands, consistently delivering on time and managing returns, and continuing to be responsive and customized to our customers, irrespective of the growth. Staying a step ahead in an industry that has new players joining every day is another challenge.

Looking at 99labels today, its great to see the numbers jumping and industry majors showing so much interest; to me it says we must be doing something right! InfoEdge has come aboard with an investment of $3.5 mn, and were geared to step into a higher-performance phase. Were growing at a monthly rate of 20-30%, the brands are bigger and more international names are teaming up to use us as a launch platform, this was a high-up on our initial wish list!

Today 99labels has over 7 lakh members. A large part of this growth has been word-of-mouth testimonials, both in the case of customers as well as employees, which makes for an organic and energized upscaling.

Being a part of a new industry, we have made some mistakes, but I know we have learned and gained from them. As far as lessons go, I would love to share a few favorites that have worked for us, as well as for me personally. Firstly, offer perceptible benefits and promises that come true, each time. It doesnt matter how long ago you made the promise, the customer always remembers it, and will value you for coming through with it. Resist the temptation to cash in quick, ensure that everyone in the company prospers, think long term and not about immediate gratification! Adapt and rewrite new rules according to the climate of your business. Insist on candor, meritocracy, and informality in the workplace, and very importantly, keep personal goals as a clear objective right up there with your professional goals, only then will you get that feeling of
all-round satisfaction. Basically what Im saying is, once youve reached cloud 9, dont stop till you get to cloud 99!