Posts Tagged ‘oomph factor’

The Entrepreneur Spotlight for March 2012 is on Aanchal Suri, the young lady behind the brand, Myne by Aanchal™

 

Aanchal, 29 has a Bachelors Degree in fashion Design from NIFt, Hyderabad.  With 3 years of experience she is making waves with her Chikankari designs of a range of fabrics.  Here is a look at her story so far…

Myne by Aanchal™ launched in June 2009 is a sole proprietorship located at Daisy 74, L&T Serene County, Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500032.

 

Identification of Business Opportunity

 

How did you get the idea to begin this venture?  

As a youngster, I was always surrounded by Chikankari. I used to spend hours at my mother’s workshop talking and making friends with the girls who bring life into designs by putting in hours of work. The more time I spent there, the more I got drawn towards this art. Gradually, I started designing for my mother’s boutique. As my designs got appreciated by clients, I became confident that this is what I wanted to do always.

 

What were the supporting/motivating factors in setting up this business?

Family & Friends

 

What is your USP (unique selling proposition)?

Myne is not just a business for us. This was a dream that’s turned into reality. We love creating new designs and try to make them available at reasonable prices. Our USP is that we experiment with different fabrics contrary to what is already available in the market. We combine the art of Chikankari with fabrics like Mangalgiri cottons, Chanderi, Zari Kotas etc.

 

What is your vision for the venture?

We want Myne to be loved. Our current clients are our friends now because they love coming back to something unique every time. Of course, we would like to grow. Unlike most businesses, we do not want to open a chain of stores and start mass producing our creations. Our vision is to maintain exclusivity and create from the heart.

 

What sort of growth strategy did you follow?

Myne came into being in the summer of ’09. Being a design student, I started production with what I thought was in fashion. I learnt I wasn’t entirely correct. Myne’s launch exhibition was held at Taj Deccan in Sep ’09. Moving on, with every subsequent exhibition, we got a fair idea of what people wanted. Our next show at The Ashoka in New Delhi in Nov ’09 was a good one. Every bit of appreciation encouraged us. The first year was spent learning, especially how client preferences varied across cities and regions. Gradually, we made friends (we don’t like calling them contacts) and each and everyone we know today has helped Myne grow in their own special way.

 

Any steps that you are taking to help society in general & people in particular?­

Chikankari has always been done by women who are not allowed to step out to work in and around UP. Things are changing now. Women are comfortable working for a few hours everyday to earn as well as be independent. Myne has set up a small workshop in Lucknow, closer to where a majority of Chikankari karigar women reside. This makes it easier for them because they don’t have to travel and therefore do not spend time or money doing so. Our workshop comprises of 5 to 12 women at any given point of time, and a lady supervisor. We hope to employ more and more women as we grow.

 

What are the problems that you are facing?

As a startup, Myne did face challenges, but we believe that’s part of the package. Every day is a learning experience, and helps us grow. We are getting better at marketing our products and streamlining production. Overall, it has been a happy, slightly bumpy ride.

 

FUTURE PROSPECTS:

As we mentioned earlier, we didn’t start Myne with a great vision or a huge business plan. We started it because we loved doing what we do, and therefore we do not have any major expansion plans. Neither do we have any intention of taking the competition down in the next few years. In the coming 5, 10 or 20 years, we would like to connect with more people, earn more respect, appreciation and love. More than bulk orders, we like it when people come and share a cup of tea with us and browse through our collection. We are thrilled when people call up to tell us how stunning they looked wearing Myne. That’s what we need more of in the future.

 

Any Plans Of Expanding The Business?

YES.  Expansion plans for Myne are not very ambitions. Currently we retail out of my mother’s boutique in Lucknow, my home in Hyderabad, and very recently we have gone online with Shopo.in. Occasional exhibitions are also part of our work. Although we would love to go places, I personally do not wish to expand in a manner where I cannot personally pay attention either to my karigars or to my clients.

 

How much use of technology is used to promote business?

1. WEBSITE (PROVIDE URL) – http://www.myne.in
2. ONLINE STORE – http://www.shopo.in/shop/myne
3. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES LIKE FACEBOOK – http://www.facebook.com/mynebyaanchal

 

Anecdotes/Experiences (Good )

Our biggest boost came when my college professors appreciated Myne. We were invited to participate in the 25^th year celebration of NIFT Hyderabad and did a fashion show there. Some of our mentors wear Myne now.

 

A client from the US wore one of our silk kurtas for Christmas and was appreciated so much that she called us to say thanks. Some of our friends want our products too. We are working on that.

 

Anecdotes/Experiences (Bad)

Our launch exhibition was a letdown. I was disappointed, but determined to make things better. Since then, there has been no looking back.

 

Any advice for future entrepreneurs?

We are still learning. Not sure if we can give any major advice. But one very important thing to keep in mind is what people want. Most design students get so busy creating that it is easy for them to forget what the market demands. As long as a nice balance can be achieved, you should do well.

 

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

STRENGTHS: Giving Chikankari a new dimension without making it too expensive. It is very encouraging how our experiments with hand embroidery on diverse fabrics is being accepted so generously. Of course, tremendous support from our loved ones is our backbone.

 

WEAKNESSES: Marketing is still a challenge. We hope we can work better on this and see more people in Myne in the near future.

 

OPPORTUNITIES: The market for hand crafted and Indian products is growing everyday. People in India and abroad are leaning towards handwork. Let’s just say we are in the right place at the right time.

 

THREATS: The other day, my neighbour was wearing a machine embroidered kurta that she had bought at a local market at an exorbitant price. Turns out she bought the kurta thinking it was Chikankari. I wanted to laugh at how she had been cheated. But I realized how this entire situation was more of a threat than a joke. Not everyone can distinguish hand embroidery from machine embroidery. Taking advantage of this, a lot of mass manufacturers are producing machine embroidered goods and selling them at high prices. Another lesson learnt here. Along with selling, I need to educate people too.

 

What are your views on Customer Relationship Management?  How do you approach it?

We believe connecting with customers as friends is very important. We built our customer network through our existing ones. Because we take our work so personally, our customers love to stay in touch. Some of them are so close, they visit us a week before our exhibitions and take their pick out of every lot of fresh stock. Relationships definitely help.

 

What makes you different from your competitors?

We do not have any competitors. We don’t believe anyone can treat work with as much love as we do. Passion yes; love no.

 Images: Courtesy Myne by Aanchal

CRM (customer Relationship Management) has become a buzz word of sorts and we see endeavors and instances of the concept wherever we go.  I just finished shopping at a mall and went to pay my bill when the guy at the cash counter asked me whether I had a membership card.  The card he said gives me discounts at the store and other partner stores across the city and country, free parking and the like.

That’s CRM for you.  But I believe customer engagement is the key to customer retention in a competitive market place.  Here are three CRM strategies you can use on your Facebook page…

Seeking Feedback

Got a new product idea?  Don’t quite know how people will respond?  Whether they will respond?  How to price it?  Then involve your customers or prospects in the process by seeking feedback.  Here’s how…

Make a sample or a few samples, take pictures and upload them on your Facebook page.  Post them to your wall and ask people to tell you what they think.  A friend of mine used this just last week to get people to respond to a necklace she created from scrunched silk fabric.  People responded by saying use brighter colors, incorporate bigger beads, I love it and the like.

Instead of just wondering about customer response…go ahead involve people in product development and design. 

Customer Involvement

Organizing a contest and giving away a small prize is one way of involving customers, it is also the most common method employed by many Facebook business page owners.  Posting trivia, facts and information about your products and services is another way of keeping people involved.

Under The Mango Tree, a social enterprise dealing in a number of organic products with single flora gourmet honey being its flagship product uses this strategy on its Facebook page.  Facts and trivia about bees, bee keeping and honey, pictures from training workshops with farmers and news stories all draw people in to venture. 

Customer Engagement

MORA by Ritika, a designer label dedicated to reviving traditional weaves and looms of North East India uses Facebook in a unique way.  They make limited edition saris, stoles and shawls and retail only through their Facebook page.

Ritika Mittal keeps customer’s engaged by creating an album called “The Mora family” to which she adds pictures of customers draped in MORA weaves.  A caption to each picture lets people know who features in the picture.  The photos by no means figure as professionally taken and that adds to the allure.

Real people, spontaneous pictures, laughter, mirth and a glimpse of the personality of the wearer…what better way to make people feel like they belong…make them your family!

I hope you find these ideas and tips useful and are able to build a great relationship with your customers on Facebook!  Do let me know how it worked for you…

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=721

The Entrepreneur Spotlight for November, 2011 is on Ritika Mittal, a spunky young lady who runs a unique venture, MORA by Ritika.  MORA is a designer label that brings to you lesser known weaves of the North Eastern parts of India in the form of elegant saris, skirts, dupattas and stoles. 

 

What sets MORA by Ritika apart from any other designer label is Ritika’s single minded determination to preserve India’s little known textile heritage tucked away in the North East, her no marketing strategy and her flair for design and color.

 

Here is a look at Ritika’s entrepreneurial journey so far…

 

 

Name of The Venture: MORA by Ritika

 

Founders: Mother-daughter duo of Madhu Mittal and Ritika Mittal are the ladies behind MORA by Ritika.  Madhu Mittal, her mother says Ritika is the star of MORA.  While Ritika travels to remote areas and works with the weavers to develop her designs, her mother Madhu looks after their workshop in Jalalabad, a little known place in Punjab near the Indo-Pak border. 

 

One of the key factors in the success of MORA is the unspoken understanding between mother and daughter as Madhu is able to produce and transform in to reality, Ritika’s ideas and vision.  The formula for success would read something like Madhu’s eye for detail plus Ritika’s design ability equals MORA’s gossamer weaves.

 

No mean feat for both ladies who are first generation entrepreneurs with no textile background!

 

Meet Ritika Mittal: Bubbly, effervescent, warm and someone who laughs a lot, Ritika, is an English Honors Graduate who was a media person for more than a decade.  Until she started MORA, Ritika’s life as a person who worked in the television industry was a choc a bloc of deadlines and her world was a make believe one. 

 

It is no surprise then that when she was bitten by the creative bug, Ritika walked away from make believe in to the real world and decided to empower women through her venture, more specifically empower women through textile. 

 

 

Business Profile:

1. TYPE OF ORGANISATION: SOLE PROPREITORSHIP 
2. DATE OF ESTABLISHMENT: December, 2008
3. PLACE OF ESTABLISHMENT: Business as usual at MORA means working out of the workshop in Jalalabad, Punjab, Ritika’s home in Mumbai where she stocks and photographs her designs and her website and Facebook page through which she retails. 
4. You can reach MORA at: mora.rang@gmail.com

Website: www.mora.co.in

and on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MORA-by-Ritika/162981860437564

 

MORA is a small personal unit, a venture which is not solely motivated by profit making and retail.  Ritika’s goal is not to “sell” her designs but her mission is to educate people about Indian weaves and help people appreciate and take informed decisions when they choose to buy.

 

Her priorities are…travel, revival of traditional weaves and bringing them to textile enthusiasts. 

 

 

 How did you get the idea to begin this venture?

 

I call it Karma…one day I thought of going to a tailor to get something stitched.  It turned out to be a nightmare.  I had no association with fabric though I knew what I was looking for.  Then when I was getting married I decided I would wear cotton for my wedding.  Needless to say everyone was shocked!  What Cotton? My mother wouldn’t hear of it.

 

Somehow my determination quieted all protests and I ended up designing a mulmul sari for myself.  It was an instant hit.  People saw how beautiful cotton looked, felt and how well it draped.  That’s how the idea for MORA was born.

 

 What were the supporting/motivating factors in setting up this business?

 

1. Family & Friends: Absolutely, my mother has been a driving force….my rock!

 

2. Entrepreneurship Development Program: None attended

 

3. Assistance from Bank/Financial Institution: No, all our savings have gone in to MORA.

 

4. Dissatisfaction with Job & Need for Personal Growth:  As a media person my existence was far removed from reality.  I was working 6-7 days at a stretch, meeting deadlines and “me” the person was disappearing.

 

I have always had a creative side and felt the compelling urge to bring that out, work with weavers, explore this real, beautiful world and travel.  My work with the weavers has put me in touch with people who are truly happy from within, laugh a lot and take pride in their work.  MORA is also an exemplification of the bond I share with my mother.  What more could I ask for?

 

What Is Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?

 MORA by Ritika is a label that deals only in organic fabrics like cotton and silk.  We revive traditional weaves and designs, are nurturing a resurrecting traditional weaves and looms and bringing textile in India back to what it was.

 

Our agenda is revival and preservation and we are not among those labels that say one thing and sell the other.  We deal in organic fabrics so we will never say this is organic and vend synthetics with digital prints. 

 

When our customers wear handloom they feed a family…that is our value proposition. 

 

What is your vision for the venture?

 

An absolute “NO” to big bucks!

 

 At some point of time I want to know everything there is to know about Indian textiles, weaves and patterns.  I want to have samples of everything and make MORA a stop resource for good textile. 

 

What sort of growth strategy did you follow?

 

Nothing deliberate really.  Whatever I designed and put out, people bought.  Whether it was 10 saris or 20, they just moved very quickly.

 

 

Any steps that you are taking to help society in general & people in particular?­

 

I always want to create awareness about textile, weaves and the Indian heritage in that arena.  I write my own blog about the weaves and my travels as I create my designs.  It has worked wonders as people at my recent showing in Bangalore came up asking for the Mishing tribe weave and the Dimasa tribe weave, it felt so validated to know people were reading and assimilating what I had written.

 

The weavers I work with are my family and I want to work for their upliftment. 

 

 

What are the problems that you are facing?

1. Finance: I live in a rented house and don’t own a car.  All my savings have gone in to MORA
2. Administration: I wish I could be more organized, unfortunately I travel so extensively and to such remote areas that it s hard for me to lead an organized life. 
3. Marketing:  We don’t need marketing.  I won’t count that as a problem.
4. Human resources: I personally go to Coimbatore, buy cotton there, get it woven and dyed in Kerala and then carry it on my back to the weavers in the North East. 
5. Any other: I travel 8-9 months in a year.  I am a vegetarian and the tribes I work with are predominantly non-vegetarian so very often I live on nothing but rice and salt.  All the travel does take its toll on me and I end up having a lot of health problems. 

 

Brief description of nature of problem: What I find difficult to tackle is the perception people have, they are ready to pay thousands for a sequined sari embellished with sequins.  That is bling and style for them.  But they are unwilling to pay for a sari embellished with weaves which generates employment for so many people, keeps the weave and loom alive and feeds a family!

 

Where do you see yourself in future?

I am asked this a lot and my answer always is…I don’t know. i have chosen the harder route- no marketing, brand building strategies… difficult or rather unorganized sectors for textiles… almost no business acumen… but the heart is in the right place so i think we will sail through… future is going to be happy! That I am sure of… “BIGGER and BETTER”… can’t say! MORA would definitely like to learn more explore more and bring to the textile enthusiasts what they deserve to see unlike what is being fed!

 

All of us deserve good textiles and are traditional art and MORA wil in future as well, strive to do that very thing!

 

Any plans of expanding the business?

No, I am happy where I am.  I have no creative blocks.  I don’t give my weavers deadlines.  I relate to their problems and understand their limitations on account of floods, earthquakes and lack of infrastructure.  I am working and adapting to all of this!

 

 

How much use of technology is used to promote business?

 I photograph my designs myself and put them up on Facebook.  I retail online based on enquiries from customers; most of my selling is done online via email.  I ship across the globe. 

 

Anecdotes/Experiences (Good )

 

 Recently when I was travelling in Mizoram, I became very sick and was taken care of by a friend’s family.  Their monthly income is around 2,000-3,000 INR and the lady of the house cared for me like my mother would have.  I now call her “Oja” which means mother in their dialect.

 

My mother told me, “If you can find another mother so many miles away to take care of you when you are ill, you’ve earned much more than you could ever…You’ve earned a family.”

 

 

Anecdotes/Experiences (Bad)

 

I am not a business woman at heart and that’s why I end up getting ripped off by people.  There have been instances of partnerships gone wrong, people copying my designs and my mantra.  But I don’t care…they cannot copy my hard work and originality. 

1.            

Any advice for future entrepreneurs?

 

Be honest.  If you are selling synthetics with digital prints say so, inform your customers.  Don’t pass of synthetics for cotton.  I sell mulmul, now mulmul is a power loom product so I say it’s mulmul.  Be honest and upfront!

 

 

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

 

STRENGTHS:  I don’t get swayed by what other people think, no matter how crazy or bizarre an idea I may have.

 

WEAKNESSES: I am extremely unorganized, lack business acumen and trust too easily, I don’t like deadlines and I can’t work under pressure.   

 

OPPORTUNITIES: I want to create a line for men.

 

THREATS: Financially not so strong but I don’t want anyone else entering the scene and spoiling the set up we have now.  We are all happy now…me, mom and the weavers!  Don’t want to upset my art. 

My biggest problem is my products are costly.  The process involved makes it costly so I wish I could work on creating a base which makes it more cost effective.  Paying thousands for a cotton sari that requires maintenance is not on everyone’s wish list.

 

 

What innovative ways of doing business are you using?

 

None, I am very naive on that front!

 

What are your views on customer relationship management?  How do you approach it?

 

I’m not one for retailing at stores.  I want to know who is buying my designs, which homes is it going to, are people satisfied, what can I do to make it better?  That’s why I maintain personal contact with each buyer.  I have an album on my Facebook page that people contribute to…MORA buyers wearing MORA. 

 

What makes you different from your competitors?

 

My mission and love for weaves!

 

Mora Saris start at INR 7,000/-

Stoles and Dupattas start at INR 3,000/-

The NARO collection of saris starts at INR 40,000/- 

 

To grab a slice of Mora by Ritika log on to:

FB page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/MORA-by-Ritika/162981860437564

 

Some fabulous dupattas and stoles can be viewed at  https://picasaweb.google.com/mittal.ritika/MORAONLINESALE
 
Saris:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mittal.ritika/MORAGoesOnlineAgain#
 

A Special Collection NARO by MORA: 
http://picasaweb.google.com/mittal.ritika/NAROByMORA?authkey=Gv1sRgCMfBranS0dfq1wE&feat=directlink
 
To make a purchase simply send the codes of the ones you like and to mora.rang@gmail.com and Ritika will write back to you with their details. Once you confirm the order, she can ship the parcel to wherever you want her to send it.
 
You can also see what goes on behind MORA through Ritika’s blog, something she has just started which really is a medium for her to share her travels and the stories behind each weave and garment http://ritikamittal.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/eri-silk-north-east%C2%A0india/