Tell us more about you and what you do.
First of all, thank you for a great opportunity, it would be my pleasure sharing my journey with SHEROES.
I'm a management graduate with Finance & Economics majors. Currently am associated as a Program Manager with ZoneStartups India, which is an international start-up accelerator program, set-up as a joint venture between the Ryerson Futures Inc. and BSE Institute. Prior to this I was enjoying my journey at TiE Mumbai for 3 years working with Startups and other stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. My work then and today largely comprises of working with startup founders as well as early stage investors and help Founders connect with Mentors, Experts, Investors and potential channels of enablement, depending on what they require at that time. I love working with entrepreneurs as I've been one myself in 2009 and continued that journey till the end of 2012. My passion for entrepreneurship and experience in this nascent but huge potential industry has kept me going.
You are a surprise architect, how did entrepreneurship happen?
My entrepreneurial journey began in April '09 with a Summer project during my post graduation course. I had applied for a Business Plan competition and was selected amongst the Top 20 Teams. This was when my college approached me and asked me to convert my BPlan into a venture and that's how Chocodesire came into existence. We were a campus company where my college provided me with office space which turned into a mini chocolate churning factory. Chocodesire was all about premium hand-made chocolates and chocolate bouquets with 20 varieties of chocolates in quirky and notable flavors. Our differentiator was one special flavor every month, stirring up uncommon concoctions. Later we came up with additional services of planning surprises & personalized gifts. The intent here was to help people come closer to their partners, families, friends and other relationships. What started as a Summer project became a runaway success in terms both volumes of revenues, which further motivated me to continue the venture in my 2nd year of my course.
I was able to garner huge success till April '10 & in the process won a couple of other B Plan competitions. This rewarding experience helped me to fund the venture and motivated me to take it ahead. I opted out of the placement process, took up Chocodesire as a full time venture continued to pursue this business till 2012 when I realized that my real passion is to work in the startup ecosystem. This was the place where I could work with passionate entrepreneurs, learn from their experiences, share my learning and thus I started this career with TiE Mumbai.
Any advice you will give to anyone starting up.
I would like to share my experience from working with startups for four years now, before you start working on your idea, please get the idea validated - Identify the Problem statement and get your product market fit. Once you achieve this seeking investors' attention becomes easy.
The bitter truth is that in India we do not have VCs writing cheques to an idea stage company and entrepreneurs tend to waste their time running behind investors even before getting their product market fit and required traction. Hence, most startups feel that investors don't fund easily, they take us for a ride etc..
What are you doing when not working?
Well, I hardly find such time (hehehehe). If am not working you will find me busy hunting for great Startups in the ecosystem or sitting at Starbucks having some chat over coffee with Startups around and exchanging thoughts.
Message to all SHEROES out there.
I belong to a conservative family where girls are not allowed to go out and pursue a job or start a venture, but in my case I slowly changed my family's thoughts towards the changing scenario and got agreed to it happily. Fortunately my father and mother were my biggest support. As a Woman you are the real architect of society, go out there find something you're passionate about and stay tremendously interested in it. Once you believe in what you want in life people will automatically follow you, my family later followed my passion and helped during my entrepreneurial journey, even today they stand with me in all my decisions. "Lady, go live your dreams".