Create Your Own Label With Ungoor #CrowdFashion

Ungoor, an online fashion retail company, claims to be the pioneers of the term Crowd Fashion - a platform where the world is the designer. We sat down with Shubhangi Kapoor for a candid chat. Shubhangi is a fashion enthusiast, stylist, fashion designer, co-founder and Product Innovator at Ungoor. She shares with us her sweetest memories as a kid and, the challenges posed in her entrepreneurial journey till now. Over to this fashion enabler. 


“Even as a child, I loved being fashionable. I used to mix and match the clothes in my wardrobe to make unique combinations and pairings. My mother, who bought those clothes, used to wonder when exactly did she buy them :D My favorite game as a kid was to hang my clothes in unique ways around my room and ask my friends and family to visit my room which was named as the “Clothing Gallery” and place orders for the items they liked. It was only in my high school that I realised that I wanted to be a fashion entrepreneur. So, since the very start, I had a dream of becoming one, and the best the world has ever seen. Working with clothes, designs, craftsmen and artisans gave me immense satisfaction and it was something I wanted as my career, without an iota of doubt. But I lacked the most quintessential aspect of the industry, which is sketching. However, that could never stop me from playing with my imagination and making unique clothes. Now my only obstacle was to reach out to the right market and create brand awareness among the society. This led me to learn more about the industry and as a result I observed that, on the one hand, designers spend a lot of money, time and effort to reach the target market and on the other hand there are consumers waiting for new and unique designs to come their way at affordable prices. But both these parties are not able to connect with each other effectively. This motivated me to start my venture Ungoor, which is essentially an online fashion retail platform. Are you someone who loves to create unique designs? Ungoor is essentially a platform that provides an opportunity to individuals with raw and creative talent in the field of fashion to commercialize their skills and create a brand for themselves.

Here at Ungoor, we are solving two major problems that exist in the market currently: First, providing the consumers with the most unique and trendy designs. Second, unleashing the creative talent of thousands of artists/designers and channelizing it to the appropriate market.

Our platform invites all the people who have an aptitude for fashion but lack the knowledge and resources to reach the market. They send in their creations or their ideas to us and we build upon them, create their collection and launch their very own label. Leaving the creative minds to focus on what they do best.

The most successful people out there have one thing in common - they have passion and perseverance. Starting your venture is a tough thing to do and it is a path full of obstacles, in many different forms. You will always be on your toes to do hundreds of things and yet would be left with many undone. It's a difficult journey where you feel like giving up every now and then but then there's one thing that keeps you going - the Goal, the Dream.

 

Once I had this extremely unique idea for a dress and I just couldn’t stop myself from actually getting it made. I spoke to a master and got it stitched. That dress was hung at a retail store for a few days and I received quite a few orders for it. This is when I realized that my craze for making clothes was not only my passion but could be taken to a level where I could actually commercialize it.

I completed my high school in commerce stream from Convent of Jesus and Mary School. I further went onto pursue my under graduation in B.com(H) from Jesus and Mary College  where I became the Vice President of the Jesus and Mary College year 2014-15 and led a student council of 62 members and a core team of 35 members which went onto organize the college's one of the most successful Cultural Festivals. In addition to this, i worked as the Vice President Business Development at AISEC DELHI IIT where i handled partnerships with cooperates. 


As I started my business within 2 months of graduating, my peers were really apprehensive as to whether I will be able to handle the pressure and, succeed at what I was trying to do. However, I felt I was ready and I couldn’t wait to follow my passion. 


Cash is the lifeline of every business. Managing our limited resources efficiently has been a big challenge from the very beginning. We are currently self funded and our expenses in the initial stages were pretty high because of marketing campaigns, inventory and logistics. Since the launch included several videos around telling a story, it was hard to allocate the resources. Another major challenge we faced initially was getting customers. We got a lot of traction for all the designs and people liked most of them but the market doesn't trust a start-up initially. They're apprehensive about buying from a new company. This combined with our limited resources posed great challenges at the very onset. We decided to go lean from the very start and cut unnecessary expenses. We prepared extremely detailed budgets that outlined where we could spend and how much. Entrepreneurship is no easy task, even though it looks really attractive from the outside, it brings with its own set of challenges and problems that are extremely tough to handle. 


In 10 years I aim to see Ungoor become the biggest ever platform of its kind, with operations on a Global Level. I want to take it to a level where the word Ungoor becomes synonymous with the term Crowd Fashion and is one of the biggest and trendiest marketplaces for fashion, around the world. 


Fun is an integral part of Ungoor's operations and is one of the three pillars that we function upon:  Dream Big, Get things Done and Have Fun. An atmosphere that is solely based on work, results in low efficiency and, in low level of productivity. It is extremely important for any business to have a source of enjoyment so that fatigue never hits its operations. Our team never feels the need to go out and spend time outside the company, for we make sure that at least once a week we either watch a movie together, go out to eat or play some sport together.