Skip to main content

Indian Grassroute Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is the new buzzword amongst Indian literati.

However, the truth is that Indian Entrepreneurship has had a very long history and has always been flourishing. The only difference now is that this is turning into corporatisation and scaling up with external financing.

There was a great 3 hour conversation I had with a 30 something entrepreneur who is into his 3rd business model. His acumen in keeping it low cost as well as taking risks has been phenomenal. As I have said earlier, Indians are one of the greatest value seekers and therefore, entrepreneurs also need to deliver extra value.

This gentleman told me

- he was 21 when he started
- Gold interested him so he got in jewellery retailing in a large (1m+ city)
- got fed up with customers spending a lot of time before buying and that even with aconversion rate of about 1.5% (mind you he rattled these statistics)
- he started a new business after disposing off his assets in the shop being a supplier to shops in the same town
- he created a USP with timely deliveries and "buy back" from trade within a week if not satisfied
- chose his model for servicing small village retailers spread across a neighbouring state (and he has not read Bottom of Pyramid)
- he covers 100 villages with more than 300 clients
- the car he drives delivers running economy and is a low cost one. He is quick to add that this also helps in his customers trusting him even more as he is seen as "not prifiteering" at their cost
- he drives about 5,000 Kms per month (all by himself)
- his car is loaded with goodies (low cost) from one of the villages he visits to be distributed amongst other villagers. This time he was carrying 20 boxes of a local made sweet speciality
- he keeps two mobile phones, one for personal use and other for business contacts and maintains a water tight difference
- has built business on purely "no credit" basis though it led to a slow start
- he has developed a vendor base across the country for their local specialities of jewellery. I gained my knowledge towards what kind of jewellery is best made and at lowest cost in which city of the country. He was quick to rattle of specialities from Rajkot, Surat, Mumbai, Kolkata, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur and Patna. Some places were a complete surprise to me.
- he recently moved to a new city as with the new highways coming up he found that he could serve better if he relocated to this new place.

And the result - his business has doubled in the last 6 months after shifting as customers passing by his city on highway pick up stuff from his place even when he is travelling.

So, he has made his wife of 4 years into another entrepreneur.

So much learning.

Kudos to Sunil.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How reality loses to momentum?

Truth prevails is an old adage that seems to be losing its relevance in the current sentiments. Still I am confident that "Truth shall prevail". Hopefully, sooner than later. The case in point is the investor confidence in the stock market. Indian markets are aping the performance of the stock markets of developed world. In fact, the possible loss in indices is reasonably predictable in the last few weeks based on what happened on the previous day in Europe and US. Are the situations similar? Are Indian businesses facing the same situation as companies in western world? Are Indian corporate giants going bust like crackers in Diwali? Have companies of great repute and history in India have filed for bankruptcy? Has any company in India reported loss of sales (top line) in double digits and evaporation of profits? Slowdown yes. How bad is India? Is it comparable to West? It has baffled me as to how convenient has it been to be infected with "western sentiments" virus ...

Food court in a mall on Sunday

I had visitors from hills over the last few days and my better half has been coaxing me to take them out for a lunch and show the marvels of Gurgaon, The MALLS. I have been avoiding it like plague as going on a sight seeing trip to a mall is not my cup of (green) tea. She warned me, "tomorrow is the last day that guests are here and under no circumstances I am gonna cook sunday lunch. Enough is enough, move your heavy body and take them to the largest mall in India with 1 km of shopping on each floor". I am still not sure whether the objective was to avoid cooking, being a guide to guests at home or a clear signal to exercise to be in shape. Like a student preparing for the competitive exams, I had no choice but to listen to Ma'am. After the customary drive, wait at the security at The Mall for about 10 minutes, queue of 14 cars before me to the B2 parking, I landed at the prized mall grinning like a kid who has found a box of sweets. One went through explaining Lladro, N...

17,000 weddings over the weekend in Delhi

Marriages are made in heaven and celebrated on earth. The timings appear to be rather odd. It has been reported that Delhi celebrated 17,000 weddings over the 4th weekend of Nov, 2008. I had the (mis)fortune of having 7 invites. All mandatory to attend. So it was a game of musical chairs and hours spent on the chaotic jammed roads of Delhi. Delhi farm houses with more than 100 food stalls at one end and 20 food stalls with at least three cuisines at the other end were decorated to meet the stringent demands of discerning friends and relatives for whom food is a yardstick of how good the marriage celebration is. Look at the recession time: The minimum guest arrangements were for 400 people and max for 2,000 people. On a little more probing, the food cost per head ranged from Rs 700 to Rs 2000 per person. Averages can be misleading but for the simplicity sake doing some basic maths Marriages 17,000 Guests@ 800 Food @ 1,000 Decoration@ 5,00,000 Jewellery@ 1,00,0...