Showing posts with label life lessons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life lessons. Show all posts

27 September, 2023

Reminiscing the past

It’s been over 5 months since I wrote anything on this blog, especially. Not that I didn’t have anything to observe, even better to share my experiences in retail as I learn a thing or two new every passing day. Frankly, the last 4 months have been overwhelming to say the least.  In my new role as Executive Vice President that I am helming at the Daily Thanthi Group - the world’s oldest and in-continuous production Tamil language publication for over 80 years, we are building an incredible digital product that has the potential to touch millions of lives, especially the small and marginalised retailers. 

More on that, later.


Yesterday, 26 September was the 9th Founding Day of my first entrepreneurial (mis)adventure Smiling Baby. Conceived as a one-stop baby-shop focussing on young parents and their little ones, we opened the first store on this day in 2014. Located right opposite to the city’s famed Malar Hospital at Adyar, the concept had the potential to spread its wings across the 33+ districts (back then) of Tamil Nadu. What remains today, is several crores of money invested without returns, memories, good and bad and a lot of life lessons.



I didn’t fathom the courage to write this piece yesterday. One, It was a long and busy day at work. And these thoughts do not come when I am positively preoccupied with things I enjoy doing. Second, I didn’t want to strain my emotions further on such a day.


I was an accidental Entrepreneur. My father was a Foreman at ITC Ltd., a class-8 pass-out turned factory worker for 33 years. My mother was a school teacher and ensured she superannuated, even though my elder sister and I were already working. My parents taught me to stand on my own legs, never to borrow money and live within our own means. 


I never had a childhood / youth-hood aspiration to become an Entrepreneur ever. It was always a safe sail that was preferred, from my spouse to parents and my closely knit circle of friends. In fact, none of them pursue their own businesses. So, it was always a salaried job, slog till one can, save as much for a rainy day and die peacefully. I lived that life for 35 years.



In 2014, I was pushed to entrepreneurship – by none other than myself. Not that there was a void of job opportunities for me; in fact that was one of the best periods for me professionally. However, shopping every other weekend for my second child, I felt that there was an insatiable opportunity in the baby care, kids care and maternity space. Just like most other Entrepreneurs in India who started off with their wife’s hard earned savings, I too did the same. We invested almost One Crore rupees in the venture, to set-up a world class baby products store, backed with technology powered by GoFrugal technologies (now owned by Zoho) and a solid business plan that we went about sharing with potential investors. 


A very few close well wishers whom we approached, advised me not to pursue this venture, instead of encouraging me with their financial investments. They were worried about their risk-taking abilities on a retail concept which was 98% semi-organised in India back then. None of our friends were in a position to invest, as they were struggling to pay their own EMIs and maintain a certain lifestyle. Well noted.



We managed to pivot an omni-channel model with a 3-hour delivery, a franchise model, just-in-time inventory supply chain system (that actually worked well) and expanded up to 5 stores across three cities in Tamil Nadu. Our concept of setting-up a small unit at a leading maternity hospital in Coimbatore turned out to be a game-changer. Even though potential investors refused to wake up and smell the coffee, my suppliers kept encouraging me, especially for the straightforward and clean business activities that we undertook. For the record, I ensured a 100% cash-and-carry model with zero credit. Childhood habits and upbringing, perhaps. However, from a cash flow perspective, I was locking up all my money against stocks without any leverage but future sales, though I was making 2-3% extra margins.


After pitching to over 30+ leading pre-Series A investors across India, I decided to give up. Not on my dream of setting up India’s largest regional retail chain in the niche that is “baby care”, rather being fed-up of justifying why I had to quit my corporate career to pursue a business. 


Some where outright honest – they said my aspirations were not big enough since I was not expecting or working towards a huge valuation outcome and a handsome exit for myself over a 5-7 period. A lot of them said I should remain unprofitable for many years by focussing on topline (sales) and pay salaries and marketing through funds raised. A few said that I should borrow big, both equity as well as debt from Investors. 



I didn’t want to skip my dinner and a 7-hour sleep everyday like many other entrepreneurs who had done this “mistake” before, so I decided to let it go. After losing several crores of hard earned money, a fledgling career that could have turned out to be an even more prosperous work-life and several sleepless nights on my inability of staying afloat, I called it quits in August 2019. I still believe it was one of the best decisions of my life. “Stop losing more money” was not just my mind voice but a writing on the wall. Loud and clear. I quit.


As I went to sleep last night, all I could remember was the learnings, the hardships, the insults, the helplessness of staying in the business to keep my aspirations live and most importantly, the time I lost trying to build an incredible business model in a niche, that continues to remain even more narrowed till date. There is not a single, regional, offline retail chain in India which has a standardised baby products offering. 


Will I start ever again from the ashes – perhaps a BIG no. While I continue to remain a risk-taker in other streams of life, raising money and selling lies to investors is not something I am capable of. Interestingly, and I have seen a hundred such instances in the last 9 years, that is exactly what Investors want – a sugar coated approach where they pass on their risks!



Scars remain, memories scare sometimes, but Life moves on. And so is the case with me. 

15 January, 2021

Uttarayan and my Professional Life


On 13 Jan. 2021, I was driving back yet again to Chennai from Bangalore on my XUV500. Even as my playlist kept jumping from 90s Tamil film songs to the latest tunes, spiritual discourses to FM Radio, my thoughts kept wandering from one to another to another. I was driving back in a spacious SUV, all alone and reasonably well placed in life than what I had imagined for myself 24 years back when I first joined the Retail Industry scooping Ice-Cream at Baskin Robbins as a part time salesman during the day, learning computer languages in the morning at NIIT and studying B. Com in the Evening College. I am ever thankful for my Stars, the Creator’s benevolence, blessings of Elders and good wishes of my close friends for where I am today in life. Professionally, Socially, personally and of course, most recently on the spiritual lane. 


It was a Makara Sankrathi / Pongal day that I landed up at Bangalore in 2004 to be part of a revolution in the making, little which I knew when I was interviewed in Oct. 2003. Even on the inaugural day of Bangalore Central in May 2004, none of us back then knew how big the Indian Retail Consumption story would grow to and that some of us would be a strategic part of it with our own tales of success, failure and most importantly, that of abundant learning.



As the playlist kept changing every few hours during my recent drive, I couldn’t help but realise how my life has been such a roller-coaster drive and that I have enjoyed, messed up and have overcome many such moments all along. The morning chills of my bike rides from my temporary stay at a cousin’s house in RT Nagar, Bangalore back in 2004 all the way to MG Road (where the Mall was located) and getting lost every now and then on my way to Jayanagar 4th block where the Regional Office of the erstwhile Pantaloon Retail was once located gives me the chills in the spine till date. Honestly, I never thought I will come this far in my professional life, that I would write about the last 20 years every now and then and fondly recollect the moments that has made me an eternal Student of Retailing for the rest of my life.



Last Sunday, I had met a former colleague for Lunch at a posh Restobar which was once upon a time a suburban hamlet that was Sahakar Nagar. I was sharing how I could never feel “belonged” at “Bengaluru” although the city has given me so much. My retail resurrection has happened multiple times and Bangalore has lifted me up multiple times. A few other cities hold as much or more importance to me – of course Madras being my hometown is always the dearest. Every time, I enter or exit Bangalore city - the iconic arch at Attibele, the retail library that is Brigade Road / MG Road, the eponymous UB City, the wet markets of Malleswaram or Basavangudi, the Windsor Manor underpass, Mekhri Circle, the new Airport Road towards KGIA and so on – each one of them have a deep meaning and a related anecdote in my life. But the attachment is always temporary. Just that this temporary attachment turns 17 this Uttarayan season and remains an undetachable part of me forever. 


Yet again, I moved to Bangalore during Uttarayan 2020, bag and baggage for my current role at Levista. What was once supposedly a guest accommodation at my current abode in the Western suburb of Bangalore, Peenya and “the so-called home” at Chennai has now been reversed, with me spending more time at my own Bangalore Headquarters even as we march against an insurmountable business target of achieving Rs. 100 Crores of turnover for the 4 year young brand in the next 12-18 months. Am I dreaming, yes. Are dreams good, yes. Do they get achieved, sometimes yes. And how about this one, I am working harder than ever for it. 


I am once again grateful to this once-upon-a-time quaint town which has given me so much yet remains detached from my life and expects nothing from me, other than gratitude and thankfulness in my thoughts. But I vow to make this city proud of an outsider like me, in one way or another and give her the due recognition as I share a great part of my professionally somewhat-successful career to this place. 

I won’t get attached to her ever. But would always ensure that this city is always a part of me and My Retail Journey in the making. Forever.

A short flight that I enjoyed…

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