A STUDY ON YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

A Mini Project Report

Submitted to
PG Department Of Commerce
Submitted by
R. PAVITHRA E17CM065 V. PAVITHRA E17CM070
P. PADMASRI E17CM068 M. PAVITHRA E17CM066
S. PAVITHRA E17CM069 A. PREMA E17CM072
J. PRIYADHARSHINI E17CM073 S. NIVETHITHA E17CM063

PG DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
SRI SANKARA ARTS & SCIENCE COLLEGE
(AUTONOMOUS)
Enathur, kanchipuram 631 561
August 2019

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 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the Mini project report titled “A STUDY ON YOUNG
ENTREPRENEURS” submitted to PG Department of Commerce, Sri Sankara Arts &
Science College, for Viva voice examination of “Bachelor of Commerce” is original work
carried out by me during the month of August 2019.

Date:

Place:

Signature of the Candidate:

S. PAVITHRA

P.PADMASRI

R. PAVITHRA

V. PAVITHRA

M. PAVITHRA

A. PREMA

J. PRIYADHARSHINI

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SI.NO CONTENT PAGE NO

1 INTRODUCTION OF THE STUDY 4

2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 5

3 MEANING OF YOUNG 6
ENTREPRENEUR

4 SUCCESSFUL YOUNG 11
ENTREPRENEURS

5 CONCLUSION 56

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 ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which is
often initially a small business. The people who create these businesses are
called entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship has been described as the "capacity and willingness to develop, organize and
manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit." While
definitions of entrepreneurship typically focus on the launching and running of businesses, due
to the high risks involved in launching a start-up, a significant proportion of start-up businesses
have to close due to "lack of funding, bad business decisions, an economic crisis, lack of market
demand, or a combination of all of these."

A broader definition of the term is sometimes used, especially in the field of economics. In this
usage, an Entrepreneur is an entity which has the ability to find and act upon opportunities to
translate inventions or technologies into products and services: "The entrepreneur is able to
recognize the commercial potential of the invention and organize the capital, talent, and other
resources that turn an invention into a commercially viable innovation." In this sense, the term
"Entrepreneurship" also captures innovative activities on the part of established firms, in
addition to similar activities on the part of new businesses.

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OBJECTIVES:

1. This study has been conducted to know a lot about entrepreneur especially young
entrepreneurs.
2. To know how young entrepreneurs in our country are progressing and also to know
how they started their business.
3. To learn how they came up with the wonderful ideas and also to know which factor
supported them the most.
4. To know the hindrances of starting a business as a young entrepreneur in our country.
5. To learn motivation from those young entrepreneurs.

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 MEANING OF YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS:

A young entrepreneur is someone who fails. But doesn't give up ever. She/he
is stubborn, resilient and driven. Sure, there are many young entrepreneurs, maybe even
younger than you are now, that succeeded, but that shouldn't make you feel like a failure. It
should serve as motivation. Furthermore, we constantly hear about all these young
entrepreneurs that succeeded, but we don't hear about that much bigger number that failed
many times. Some of them eventually succeed, some of them never will. Those who have
succeeded have done so because they learned from their experiences, they learned from all
those failed attempts. Embrace failures because you learn from them. She/he is someone who
is passionate and ready to devote themselves fully to their idea. This means that you will
probably have to miss a number of parties and such, but hey, when you're counting your
millions, will it really matter? She/he is someone who is creative and innovative, someone
with a vision. It is someone who doesn't look to make a quick buck, but someone who sees a
long-term opportunity to solve a problem that society has and make the solution profitable.
Someone with a sustainable business model that can sustain itself and grow in the
future. Finally, s/he is someone who is prepared to take risks, take on challenges, battle
any obstacles that come up on the way. Maybe the most important characteristic of a young

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entrepreneur is that it is someone who has the drive and the passion to create something with
their own hands, to put their vision into action - and not necessarily someone who already has
their own business. Although, if you do, more power to you.

ADVANTAGES OF BEING OF A YOUNG ENTREPRENEURSHIP:

Risk taking

Entrepreneurs become more accustomed to taking calculated risks, which will ultimately pay-
off in the future. You will not be spoon-fed success; opportunities are created by taking risks.
Being a young entrepreneur teaches you how to take calculated risks, and helps develop
confidence while overcoming the crippling fear of failure.

Flexibility and freedom

By becoming an entrepreneur at a young age, you quickly learn to be independent and self-
reliant. Entrepreneurs have full control of their schedule and of their business they are their
own boss. There is an opportunity to expand your skill set by experiencing and performing the
varied roles in a start-up. Self-directed learning is another positive side-effect.

Making a difference

Entrepreneurs give back to society. Your start-up could provide the community with a product
or process solution to a specific, existing problem such as creating an environmentally-
conscious product like Andrew White has done. Entrepreneurs are able to see their product
impacting and improving society that would feel good!

Accessible and Available Support

There are many organizations that support entrepreneurs and their start-ups in Southern
Ontario. For example, the RIC Centre serves the Peel Region by providing free mentoring,
networking, funding, and entrepreneurial training. There are many opportunities to get funding
as well, such as the Ontario Centres of Excellence’s Smart Start Seed Fund, which is “designed
to assist young entrepreneurs from the age of 18 to 29 transition their start-ups from product
development to market entry and company building”.

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CHALLENGES FACED BY THE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS:

1. Hiring Staff

Most young entrepreneurs likely have never managed people before. And if they have, the
experience they have built up doing so is probably limited.

When they come to hire their first workers, therefore, their skills will be tested to the ultimate.
It is never easy being the boss and even harder when you are the owner of the company and
your profitability is at stake.

Rules need to be set up involving such aspects as working hours, vacation time, overtime pay
and work output. Salaries need to be negotiated, complaints against workers lodged, and people
might even need to be fired or laid off. That’s not even to speak of staff fitting the company
culture or of employees working together as a team.

Young entrepreneurs should make this process a little less onerous by being careful to hire
people who will not only have the right skills for the job, but will also fit in well with the
company culture. Take your time and consider each employee carefully; check all references
and do not allow yourself to be blindsided by glib talk.

2. Lack of Capital

Almost all new ventures require seed capital money that is available to see them through those
first rocky months or even years before they turn a profit. Some types of businesses need more
money than others. Almost all need money for marketing.

Older people who start their own ventures usually need less financing to do so than younger
entrepreneurs. The reason is that their experience in the field, knowledge of how the business
world works, and connections within the business world, some built up over many years,
provide a great boost to their start-up businesses. As a result, they generally are able to turn a
profit sooner and need to rely on financing for a shorter time.

Most young entrepreneurs, however, do not have those benefits available to them. That means
that they need money to sustain them while they gather that experience. In addition, younger

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people have not had the time to accumulate savings in the way older people often have, and are
likely to owe more in loans and on credit cards than their senior counterparts.

The lack of capital means that they have to struggle to survive while waiting for the checks to
come in. This can be extremely stressful.

To avoid this situation, young entrepreneurs should write a detailed business plan that will give
them a good idea of how much money they will need to survive before becoming profitable.
Armed with that total, they should seek to find it. Friends and family and even a local bank or
credit union might be able to assist them.

3. Decisions

Whereas as an employee you generally did what you were told, now you are the one calling
the shots. Doing so involves making a lot of decisions. Even without employees, you are going
to be called upon to make decisions all day, from smaller ones to major judgments that could
change the direction and future of your company.

Among the most important decisions are those that involve creativity and ideas. If an aspect of
your company is not working as it should, you will need to make a decision to discontinue it
or amend it. You will need to decide whether the company should embark on a whole new path
in search of greater profits or, if it does not work, potentially great losses.

It’s stressful and will cause you to have self-doubt. Here’s where your entrepreneurial skills
come into play. You will need to believe in yourself, be confident that you do have the ability
to make the right decisions, and never doubt your good judgment.

4. Criticism and Self-Doubt

As a young entrepreneur, you will find that not everyone will take you seriously. They will tell
you that you are too young to build a successful business. They will be quick to tell you just
what they think you are doing wrong. At times, the criticism and the self-doubt it fosters might
get to you. As your business struggles to get off the ground, you could start to doubt yourself.

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You might wonder whether you should have started your business after all.
At times like these, tell yourself that determination and resolve are what distinguish the
successful entrepreneurs from the rest. Do not give up. Believe in yourself and you will
succeed.

5. Lack of Brand Image

As a young entrepreneur builds a business, creating the right image is vital. Customers must
come to trust your brand. They must recognize that you know what you are doing and you
know how to do it well. As you build your brand, ensure that you are putting the customers
first, providing them with the quality goods and services that differentiate you from the
competition. Take all complaints and comments, particularly from your customers, seriously
and do all you can to respond to them and change your operations if necessary. Remember that
if your main aim is to satisfy the customer you will make money. If your main aim is to make
money, you will fail to satisfy your customers and your business will ultimately fail.

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s

SUCCESSFUL YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

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 RITESH AGARWAL

The teenage boy – Ritesh Agarwal is the young Founder & CEO of OYO Rooms – fastest
growing Branded network of hotels offline & online.With a current valuation of nearly 360Cr,

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OYO rooms does nothing out of the box but provides travellers the coolest yet cheapest
efficient, young, standardized rooms with no add-ons attached to it!

How did his journey begin?

The journey of our hero began rather early than normal!

Ritesh was born to a business class family in Bissam Cuttack in Orissa and attended the Sacred
Heart School in Rayagada, Orissa.

During the growing up days in Rayagada, Odisha, it was all about fun and learning for him but
his ways were rather unconventional from those of other kids.
His fun elements including screwing around with the computer, and trying hard to find
opportunities to make mistakes, so that he could learn new stuff. And doing that he gained a
keen interest in software!
Some of the basic languages like Basic and Pascal were taught in school itself and the rest he
managed to learn from Google baba.Interestingly, he had started coding when he was just eight
years old.

Life as an Entrepreneur…!

I. Formation of Oravel

In 2011, Ritesh moved to Delhi with intentions of starting up something of his own and at the
same time to prepare for SAT to move to the US for further studies.Now, money back then was
not a problem for him because he had savings from Kota and the pocket money was good;
roughly Rs.15,000 for a month.But fortunately or unfortunately, SAT never happened. Hence,
he used to do nothing but meet and read about entrepreneurs, start-ups, businesses, and
especially Airbnb!

Now, Ritesh during his days had seen and always felt that budget hotels in India didn’t even
meet the very basic needs of a budget traveller. Hence, capitalizing on this opportunity, he
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started his first venture in 2012 – Oravel Stays! It was an aggregator of bed and breakfast stays
across India.In simpler terms, it was meant to be destination for short and midterm rentals for
bed and breakfast joints, private rooms and serviced apartments.

In a matter of no time, he also secured funding of Rs 30 lakhs from VentureNursery, an

accelerator firm which brought together a bunch of storied investors to nurture start-ups.With
sufficient money in his pockets, he started working on his new found interest and at the same
time, he also presented his idea at the Thiel Fellowship – a global contest intended for students
under the age of 20.

With the new found confidence, he started working even more rigorously but to his hard luck,
their business model didn’t seem to be picking up. And as much as he tried, things just weren’t
falling in place.Ritesh even got Manish Sinha of Gurgaon based Cinnamon Stays, as their co-
founder but unfortunately, it still didn’t help and Manish eventually had to quit the company.
As a matter of fact, they even tried replicating the AirBnB model but that also didn’t work and
the company was not able to pick up or get substantial transactions.

II. Transformation to OYO Rooms

That is when Ritesh went into the thinking mode and realized that, the biggest pain on the face
of this earth while travelling was to find a good, affordable & most importantly “available”
hotel to stay in but like always, most of us ended up staying in a crappy place with equally
crappy staff, food, etc. which killed the whole trip.

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This also reminded of the time he used to face accommodation issues during his trips. There
were times when he was sold a crappy place for a huge amount and many-a-times he used find
a nice place in a little amount.

This got him motivated again, to create an online yet social community to bring information
about all good places together on one platform.And as a last resort Ritesh tweaked his present
business model and in 2013 re-launched Oravel as “OYO Rooms”.

OYO MEANS “ON YOUR OWN

OYO Rooms was nothing but an idea to create India’s largest chain of efficient, young,
standardized rooms with an intention to build the coolest chain of no add-on rooms which
might not have Spa, Gym etc like the star hotels but will live upto the basic standards & high
expectations for prices like never before.

And to make sure the hotels met their expectations; OYO Rooms reached out to prospective
hotels or a hotel owner could also reach out to them, and OYO’s team would visit the place,

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audit the hotel to understand the changes that would be required to standardize the property as
per OYO standards, and shares the same with the hotels.

After the launch, Ritesh even got on board Bhawna Agarwal, former CEO at e-commerce firm
SeventyMM for critical business advising.This time they decided to play it smart & safe, and
made sure to leave no stone unturned. They tied-up with a dozen numbers of hotels and with
their help offered rooms to its customers.

And it worked exactly as planned! Things started to get better for them and to meet the demands
they eventually had to increase their team of two to fifteen and then twenty-five.
In 2014; the company raised Rs. 4 Cr from Lightspeed Venture Partners (LSVP) and DSG
Consumer Partners, at a pre-money valuation (valuation of a company prior to investment or
financing) of Rs 14 Cr.What motivated Ritesh even more was that, by now the company was
clocking gross bookings of more than Rs.1 Cr. per month.

Since then; OYO Rooms has gone on to become India’s first technology driven network of
standardized branded budget hotels and has also widely expanded its presence to 350+ hotels
and more than 4000 rooms in 20 cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune,
Goa, Jaipur, Hyderabad, etc, and also aims to expand further to 1000 hotels in 25 cities by 2015
end.

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Additionally, their OYO Rooms mobile app has been downloaded more than 160,000 times
and more than 20,000 bookings have been made so far. The app ranks amongst the best-rated
apps on Google Play Store and has also been listed as one of the top three apps in the ‘Travel
& Local’ category.More recently, the company has also raised another $25 Million from
Lightspeed, Sequoia and others.

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 STRISHNEET ARORA

Trishneet Arora, a veritable wizard of technology who is an author, a cyber-security expert, an

ethical hacker, an entrepreneur and an avid speaker on security solutions. Just at the age of 21,
Trishneet has been able to accomplish a whole lot. With no family background in computers
or business, Trishneet’s journey from a middle class child to a successful young adult is very
extraordinary and inspirational.

He failed the 8th standard and now he is a renowned cyber security expert. He is a professional
ethical hacker. His name is Trishneet Arora.

A school dropout who is now a millionaire because he followed his passion – endless love for
computers. He failed in 8th standard and now he is a renowned cyber security expert! He is a
professional ethical hacker. His name is Trishneet Arora. He was just 19 when he started his
own company – TAC Security Solutions. He has 4 offices in India and 1 in Dubai. He has

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trained CBI officials too. Not only this, he has been an advisor to Punjab government and crime
branch officials.

Trishneet Arora is just 23 and even prestigious firms like Reliance are among his clients.
Trishneet’s dream is to build a billion dollar cyber security company. As a child, Trishneet
would enjoy opening up toys and gadgets to see how they work internally as opposed to playing
with them. And, when he got a computer at home, he became obsessed. Trishneet’s passion
grew from playing computer games like Vice City to understand the hardware of the system.
His father became worried when he saw him spending so much time on the computer. His
father even tried putting a password but Trishneet figured out how to crack it! His father was
so impressed that he bought him a new system.

His parents eventually allowed him to drop out of school but that doesn’t mean he stopped
learning. Tishneet says, “In fact, my learning grew three fold! I started with small projects —
fixing computers and cleaning up software and at the age of 19, I received my first big cheque
of 60,000 Rupees. I used everything I had saved to invest in my own company – TAC Security
Solutions.

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Starting off as a trainer, Trishneet built a strong network in the first year by conducting training
sessions at Indian Institute of Technology, GNAIMT, among others in Punjab, Gujarat, and
Maharashtra. Gradually, he was introduced and referred to companies and government
organisations that needed training for their employees in related departments on IT
infrastructure and data security issues.

And that was the Eureka moment for him, when he realised he wanted to give his work a
corporate approach. That desire took the form of TAC Security. Started in a small office in
Ludhiana, TAC Security has shifted the operational base to Chandigarh and is now establishing
it footprint in Dubai.

Trishneet tells, “The best way to describe my professional title would be to call me an ethical
hacker. I would hack people’s systems so that they could see the flaw in them and take over
their cyber security. I’m currently the IT advisor to the Punjab State and have held training

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sessions for the CBI, Punjab State and Crime Branch. Our clients vary from Reliance to
Government officials and we’ve recently expanded to have offices in 4 cities in India and 1 in
Dubai.”

Building the brand

TAC Security today has acquired more than 50 clients through word-of-mouth and references.
Once Trishneet gave a corporate structure to the services, he started building a team, which
would introduce their expertise. The startup today has a team of 15 people.

The services are offered in two modes- when a company wants one-time assessments of their
infrastructure done on their vulnerability, tests are conducted to evaluate the security of an IT
infrastructure. Secondly, TAC Security gets associated with companies and conducts periodic
system checks, corporate training sessions, setting regular alerts on emerging threats and
consulting.

The service fees are charged on annual and sometime quarterly basis based on the agreements
and contracts. At present, TAC Security is maintaining a growth of 25-30 percent quarterly.

TAC Security is an industry leader and most trusted cyber security partner for their clients to
protect networks and information assets from malicious activities such as cyber- attacks with
the underlying motto of "Securing Cyberspace: Securing Future"

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From the last 5 years, TAC Security family has been building relationships and projects
everywhere throughout the world. They fabricate protected and advanced solutions for the
associations for which they work. In particular, they construct solid connections that enable
them to build anything, anywhere. No matter the job, they go beyond expectations.

TAC Security helps corporates recognise their infrastructure weaknesses before the fraudulent
elements can use them adversely and cause harm.

TAC Security introduced a new service called TAC-CERT (Cyber Emergency Response
Team), which will help in quick recovery whenever the breach happens.

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 FARRHAD ACIDWALLA

Farrhad Acidwalla is a 25 year old Indian entrepreneur, investor and TEDx speaker. He started
off as one of the world’s youngest entrepreneurs and is best known as the founder
of ROCKSTAH MEDIA and CYBERNATIVE DIGITAL.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step,” living by the quote, Farrhad
Acidwalla tells about his founding steps towards the path of entrepreneurship. It dates back to
when he was 13 years old, a usual Indian teenager infested by the continuous study pressure,
trying to outlive his parent’s expectations. But apart from all the pressure, passion found its
way when aero-modelling classes manage to come to Farrhad’s immediate interest.
“Fueling planes and flying that at distant spaces gave me a drive… a drive to fuel my aviation
ambition,” Farrhad said, speaking at the TEDTalk event in 2013.

The drive possessed him deep enough to hook him to the class every day, where he attended
every lecture, unbridled by any external circumstances.

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Returning from school one day, his mind was still bustling with the thoughts of the aviation
while he came across website creation on the internet. Suddenly the idea of creating an aviation
website struck him and rang undeterred for the next few weeks. Having no prior knowledge
about website creation and HTML, Farrhad didn’t let it shun his passion, rather he upheld his
pursuit.

From as small as $10 investment, Farrhad joined the entrepreneurial ranks at the age of 13,
building an online community around aviation and aero-modelling. He however, sold the
community later for $1,200.

Many similar ventures followed. Each took his achievement to another level and the
appreciations left him humble. This motivated him to offer his work under the name of his
company.

Since, Farrhad has launched Rockstah Media, a cutting-edge company devoted to web
development, marketing, advertisement, and branding. It is just over a year old but it has clients
and a fully fledged team of developers, designers and market strategists spread across the globe.

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As the CEO and founder, Farrhad is responsible for taking care of the clients and guiding the
creative team to success.At 16, Farrhad is planning to continue running Rockstah Media, while
studying finance at India’s prestigious H.R. College of Commerce & Economics.

Farrhad said, Rockstah Media was the first company I founded. We’re an award winning team
of designers, developers, consultants and market visionaries who work towards one goal –
Creating Awesomeness. Summing it all up, we are a one-stop style destination for all your
needs pertaining to your corporate presence, online or offline.

Rockstah Media is here to make your communications more effective. I never started out
thinking that I wanted to form a company. It all started with an aviation website which was
quite successful. Then I started venturing into more personal projects which eventually led to
the formation of Rockstah Media.

He isn’t just an early successful entrepreneur, but also a motivator who manifests his drive into
others and shares his lessons to cumulate community success. He is seen talking on various
reputed portals and every now and then he also takes to social media to share his ideas with the
viewers.

Acidwalla’s most recent brand-building venture took him to the Chenab valley in the Jammu
region of Jammu and Kashmir where he was invited by the Indian government to around
hundreds of youth. Farrhad said, “I reiterated that India is the largest youth population in the
world and never before have information, knowledge and technology been so accessible…My
goal was not to just tell them about my story, but to tell them how they can turn their passion
into their profession,”

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 INDRAJIT SINGH

Indrajeet Singh is a founder of iQuanta and is the youngest entrepreneur of India who hails
from Bihar. He has made it big in the Education Industry. He has inspired many from being a
small town guy to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Indrajeet Singh popularly known as the ‘Wizard of Quant’. Indrajeet Singh is a small town boy
from Bihar who has made it big in the Education industry. Having started from humble
beginnings to now being the CEO of an online CAT preparation behemoth, is a feat in itself.
Having been an aspirant himself, he understands the plight of students and hence came up with
the revolutionary idea of iQuanta 3 years ago, he began small by just answering queries and

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helping students. When demand trumped supply, he applied simple economics and founded
iQunata.

Indrajeet is a gifted mathematician, with the ability to solve complex Quant problems without
using a pen or a paper. He utilized this gift to educate the aspirants and equip them with
shortcuts, material and the right guidance to make it through the gates of esteemed B-Schools.
Indrajeet has made dreams of several aspirants come true owing to his idea and his team, and
he only plans on helping more each day.

Indrajeet Singh, the CEO of iQuanta gave a new direction to the world of online teaching where
the doubts gets cleared within seconds or minutes using the previously neglected medium,
Facebook as his platform. He started iQuanta three years ago, and it delivered splendid results
in its very first year with two 100%ilers, sixteen 99.6+ %ilers & around 30 final converts from
IIM. iQuanta is mostly about unconventional methods and concepts which aren’t taught in
conventional coaching centres and his free peer learning platform

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Associated with over 2.80 Lakh aspirants from all over the world, iQuanta – CAT Online
coaching is the single largest CAT Preparation group. It has brought about a revolution in the
Indian Education Industry by bringing all preparation resources at the click of a button for
aspirants all around. iQuanta has not just been able to enter an offline dominated industry, but
also change the rules of the game by introducing online pedagogy.
The founder, Indrajeet Singh began this group as a means to help fellow aspirants given his
gifted abilities, especially with Mathematics. Gradually, the word got out, and within 3 years
of operations, iQuanta has given out results that veterans in the field took 10 years to
accomplish.

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 SHIKHAR SINGH AND NIDHI

Nidhi and Shikhar met while studying biotechnology at Kurukshetra University. Nidhi, who
realised she loved marketing and sales better than biotech, took up a business development job
in the Delhi office of a US-based pharma company after graduating in 2007. Shikhar, who
loved biotech, went to Hyderabad to pursue his master’s at the School of Life Sciences. It was
here that Shikhar realised that there was no hygienic, fast food-like model available for Indian
snacks. All fast-food restaurants offered pizzas and burgers; for Indian snacks and savouries,
customers had to turn to street vendors.

He suggested starting a samosa kiosk to Nidhi. The seed of an idea was planted in their minds
then.

Shikhar joined Biocon as a scientist in 2009 and the two got married a year later. Work took
her across the globe, while he found contentment in the Biocon labs. But conversations at home
kept coming back to samosas, or rather the business of samosas. Slowly, the seed grew roots

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and sprung shoots. The business plan was refined—offering hygiene wasn’t good enough, the
product had to be innovative.

Shikar said, Every region in our country has its own specialities. But you will find samosas in
any part of India. Everyone in India will know what a samosais. You don’t need to explain,”

In October 2015, the two finally decided to draw up a business plan and decide what their roles
would be. On October 13, 2015, Shikhar got Nidhi to say yes once again – this time to starting
up. He quit his job the same day.

The fledgling plant

Nidhi got her company to agree to a work-from-home arrangement. The two rented out a tiny
kitchen, hired a few cooks and got down to R&D. For four months Shikhar innovated with
different fillings and crusts while the cooks turned out batches of samosas.

The couple had a few things clear: they would start with a bang, with multiple interesting and
unique flavours; their samosas had to be fried and not baked; and the samosas had to be non-
greasy and healthy. These were tough asks and required all of Shikhar’s biotech experience.

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The solution was two-fold: a crust with a unique dough composition that made it absorb less
oil and shaping the crust into a shape different from traditional samosas.

The shape, Shikhar says, ensures the oil does not get absorbed. The samosas I am munching
on leave no oil stains on my palms.

The fillings the team came up with range from chicken makhani (butter chicken) and kadai
paneer to chocolate.

In February, after doing a few rounds of market testing, Nidhi and Shikhar opened the small
QSR outlet in Electronic City. Nidhi manned the bill counter, while Shikhar fried
the samosas with a few helpers and did the home deliveries. Business was brisk from the start
and orders scaled up to 500 a day within two months. The brand has kept prices low. Rs 20 can
get you a plate of aloosamosas (two pieces) and a plate of chicken makhani samosas (two
pieces) will set you back by Rs 55.

Nidhi’s sales and marketing background kicked in and the two decided to reach out corporates.
A lot of cold calling later, they got a meeting with a large corporate. The company, a German
engineering giant, asked them if they could deliver 8,000 samosas a day. Nidhi and Shikhar
asked for some time. That’s when they sold their flat and set up a bigger kitchen.

Growing into a sturdy tree

Nidhi and Shikhar had decided that Samosa Singh would not take the QSR or own outlet route
for expansion. They chose clients like INOX, PVR, Café Coffee Day and TCS. At INOX and
PVR, Samosa Singh has its own branded kiosks. In total the company has seven outlets in
Bengaluru.

To get in with corporates, Nidhi, the Chief Operating Officer at Samosa Singh, conducted
week-long samosa fests.

“These generated a lot of revenue for us and we built loyalty among the corporate employees.
They told their HR to get us permanently. Many of our on-going conversations with big
companies are because of the good employee feedback during our samosa fests,” Nidhi says.

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Nidhi says “Shikhar had heard of Kanwaljit Singh as someone who backed small companies.
He told me to meet him,”

That was easier said than done as she did not know anyone who could introduce her to
Kanwaljit, a former Senior Managing Director at Helion Venture Partners who had started his
own venture capital fund Fireside in 2015. Nidhi found a number, which turned out to be
Kanwaljit’s home phone. She could not reach him by phone, so she stood outside his house for
hours two days in a row. But that failed to result in a meeting. One weekend, she finally got
Kanwaljit on the phone, leading to a meeting and then to the undisclosed funding in August.

Samosa Singh now operates out of a large highly automated kitchen that can easily meet the
current order size of 10,000 samosas a day.

Kanwaljit says the founders were the reason I invested in Samosa Singh. They are very high
on energy and very committed. Also, what was very attractive for me was the fact that they had
experimented and created an almost modern version of an Indian classic. They had also got
great traction even at an early stage. I also liked that we could come in at an early stage and
provide value, help build the brand and build the B2B connects,”

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The branches spread out

Samosa Singh is operationally profitable and is set to become profitable overall in a few
months, Shikhar claims. The company is at a revenue run rate of Rs 5 crore but with the order
pipeline it is sitting on, CEO Shikhar is confident of closing the financial year at Rs 8 crore
revenue. They are targeting to scale up to 50,000 samosas a day just in Bengaluru next year.

The company is set to go multi-city in December through a deal with an entertainment outlet,
which will see them piloting in Hyderabad and Pune.

“We want to control the quality and experience as much as possible,” Nidhi says.

Next on the agenda is introducing a direct-to-consumer frozen samosa range in 2018.

The innovations continue. The aloo samosas are now embossed with the name of the brand.
Shikhar says theirs could be the first embossed fried food items in the world.

The company is also working on a triangular hot case (in sync with the triangular brand logo)
that can keep the samosas fresh - and more importantly crisp - for hours.

The startup is also relaunching the much-loved “Chocossa” range on Christmas.

India has a massive food market—it was pegged at $193 billion last year. But it is not an easy
business to be in with hundreds of businesses shutting shop each day.

Nidhi and Shikhar could learn a lesson or two from another F&B startup, Chai Point. Founder
Amuleek Singh took the everyday Indian beverage, chai, and turned it into a brand in seven
short years. Like Samosa Singh, Chai Point has also kept prices low. The latter started by
retailing at tech parks and today runs about 100 outlets. It home delivers tea in insulated packs
and recently launched IoT-enabled tea and coffee dispensers for corporates. A year ago, it had
a presence in 100 corporate and 250 SME offices. Chai Point is registering 50 percent year-on-
year growth and is the most recognised tea retail brand today.

By going behind the corporate market, Samosa Singh will be able to build predictability of
orders. Its presence at entertainment venues like PVR and INOX is giving it a direct consumer

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connect. The B2C frozen samosa brand will give it entry into the mass retail segment. If Nidhi
and Shikhar play their cards right, they could well build a multi-million food brand around the
humble samosa.

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 ANJANA REDDY

Today, a woman’s role in society has far transcended that of a homemaker; she is now a primary
decision maker, able and skilled worker.

In a country riddled with gender stereotypes, here is a look at women entrepreneurs who are
making a difference in the fashion retail sector and are crucial in building successful businesses.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Indiaretailing Bureau profiles these inspiring
women

Anjana Reddy, the young, enterprising Founder & Managing Director of USPL, is
revolutionizing the marketing and branding space in India with Celebrity fashion lines –Wrogn,
Imara, Ms.Taken & Collectabillia.

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Anjana was exposed to the potential of the world of celebrity based fashion lines during her
student days in Illinois at the Urbana Champaign College of Business. After completing her
Masters Degree in Finance, Anjana returned to India to pursue her entrepreneurial ambitions.

In October 2011, she formed USPL to bridge the existential gap between fans and celebrities
in India. The first offering of USPL was Collectabillia – which e-tailed fashion accessories of
sports, films and other celebrity icons. The immediate success and future potential of USPL
was recognised by renowned, global venture and growth equity firm – Accel Partners, with an
investment of over US $3.0 Million in 2012.

Collectabillia continued to enhance its offerings of impressive accessories which included the
launch of special limited edition of mobile phone cases, wallets and belts designed around
Sachin Tendulkar, coinciding with his retirement from international cricket. As a build up to
the FIFA World Cup 2014, Anjana spearheaded a unique tie-up with leading footballer – Lionel
Messi. As part of this tie-up, USPL designed and retailedmobile phone and laptop accessories

across 40 countries under the ‘Brand Messi’ tagline.

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Extending her vision for celebrity fashion lines industry, Anjana collaborated with the captain
of the Indian Cricket team Virat Kohli to launch – WROGN – an eclectic, high-street menswear
brand under the aegis of USPL in late 2014. WROGN was the first instance of a fashion line
being launched by any Indian cricketer. Since its launch on online portal at Myntra.com.

Wrogn is amongst the top 10 brands on the brand index of the portal, in terms of revenue and
is valued as one of the top 5 brands on the portal in the terms of gross margins. WROGN is one
of the highest selling fashion brands on fashion portal Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart and is available
in all Shoppers Stop locations and exclusive brands stores across the country.

In early 2015, Anjana seized the opportunity of launching a contemporary women’s ethnic
wear fashion line, that sells under the brand name Imara. It is aimed at the young Indian women
of today who seek to adopt a progressive outlook in their lives. Imara is presently retailed
through Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart and is available in all Shoppers Stop locations and exclusive
brands stores across the country.

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Ms. Taken, a signature western wear line was launched in 2016. Kriti Sanon, the talented film
actor is the face of this brand. The collection sports casual and semi-formal garments with
categories including Tops, Tunics, Dresses, Trousers, Jackets and Denims.

Ms. Taken epitomizes the young, confident and independent Indian woman who expresses her
individuality and walks her own path. Ms. Taken is currently retailed through Myntra, Jabong,
Flipkart and is available in prominent Shoppers Stop locations across the country.

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 PRAWEEN & SINDHUJA

Praween KR (from Bihar) and Sindhuja K (from Hyderabad) were students when the
entrepreneurial bug bit. In their seventh semester of the knitwear design bachelor’s course at
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai, the duo decided that they wanted to do
something of their own, on their own.

It was 2015, and e-commerce was making a lot of noise. The duo decided to go with the flow;
they started their own online clothing brand, Young Trendz, in September with an investment
of Rs 10 lakh. In two months, they had started selling on online marketplaces like Flipkart,
Amazon, Voonik and Paytm, and launched their own e-commerce website.

Their growth was fast. Before the semester ended, they were participating in college events
with freebies and providing customised T-shirts under the Young Trendz brand.

They started with 10 orders a day on their website. During the eight semester they were doing
customised T-shirts by collaborating with more than 100 colleges across the country, including
IITs and IIMs

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The startup has grown to around 1,000 orders a day, and has generated an impressive
GMV of Rs 20 crore with zero VC funding.

From Chennai to Tirupur

As Young Trendz grew, their priority was to have a seamless product development channel,
which was only possible in Tirupur, the knitwear and manufacturing hub of India.The founding
duo was confident about the shift as they knew they could source and manufacture quality
products, having visited Tirupur for college projects.

But both Praween and Sindhuja were not Tamil speakers, which caused them a few problems
in the initial days. However, the Tirupur shift proved beneficial in terms of product
development and sourcing raw materials. Young Trendz targets mostly college goers.

In Tirupur, they got the right people with the best skills in garment industry for product
development; they got talented IT professionals from Coimbatore for online web operations.

Catering to a large audience

As the name suggests, Young Trendz is about young people and trending designs. Hence the
tagline: Stay Young, Live Trendy. The brand targets youth in the age group 18-28 years; their
products feature quirky graphics that resonate with the youth.

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They monitor trending things on social media and day-to-day life for their inspiration (for
graphics). The competition is very tough; their products compete with almost 1.5 lakh
products to be on the first page (on online marketplaces), which mostly includes international
and homegrown brands.

With a team of 30 people, Young Trendz now has warehouses in Telangana,

Karnataka, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu, and will soon open one in West Bengal.

Sindhuja says these warehouses help cater to their customers pan-India. They get highest
demand from Delhi, followed by north-eastern states and West Bengal, and 90 percent
shipments are delivered to the customer before the promised date.

Young Trendz was the first to introduce the concept of couple clothing, a popular trend
in the Chinese and Korean markets, to India.

Around Valentines’ Day in 2016, they did a trial by selling limited stocks. The great response
and requests from customers led to further additions and couple clothing comprises 20 percent
of sales today.

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Sindhuja says graphics, implementation of international trends, and quick delivery work as
their USP. Young Trendz now has three designers, and outsources photoshoot and ad campaign
shoots.

Growing younger

Sindhuja claims that Young Trendz’ quality is unmatched and the range – priced between Rs
250 and Rs 600 – is affordable to the college-goer. As they appeal to a large audience, they
have more than 3,500 products uploaded across all e-commerce marketplaces, which generate
70 percent of their revenue. Collections are refreshed twice a month and the team keeps social
media followers updated with exciting offers and discounts.

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In Flipkart, they were recently awarded as one of the top brands in terms of performance during
this year’s Big Billion Days. The response during this festive season sale was so good that they
sold around 25,000 units in just 5 days.

Sindhuja says,“There’s actually more responsibility involved in starting a business versus

having a regular job. You must relentlessly chase perfection. You have to be able to adapt to
crazy, unexpected things,”

With both partners coming from a non-business background, they had to learn a lot of new
tricks for the trade - reading Class 12 accounts books, learning a new language (Tamil), and
understanding taxes.

Their hard work seems to have paid off - this year, they are reaching a turnover of Rs 20 Crore,
which Praween says is four times that of last year.

With fashion and apparel comprising a large chunk of the e-commerce pie, Young Trendz
seems set for a bright future.

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 SHIVANI PODDER & TANVI MALIK (FabAlley)

Gurgaon-based faballey.com founded by Tanvi Malik and Shivani Poddar. FabAlley was
started in 2012 by Tanvi Malik and Shivani Poddar. Armed with degrees in business, a
passion for product and endless ambition, the two 25-years olds quit their corporate jobs and
poured all their personal savings into starting FabAlley six years ago. Fast-forward to present
day, they run one of the largest Indian online-led fashion brands and are continuously striving
to become better in every aspect.

FabAlley is an online fashion destination for taste-makers and trend-breakers all over the
country. In 2012, Shivani Poddar and Tanvi Malik started an online accessories store selling a
highly curated collection of quirky jewelry, bags and shoes. In just two years, the shop has
grown to become a legit style source for fashion-forward apparel and accessories. The name
was inspired by all the rebellious, fashion-forward girls in India who shy away from the
mainstream and shop at offbeat alleys, indie-chic nooks and quirky boutiques.

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Shivani Podder completed her graduation from Hindu College where she consistently topped
her batch for all 3 years and did an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi where
she was among the top 5 per cent of her class and represented the college and won many
National level competitions.
After graduating from FMS, she was a part of the leadership program at Hindustan Unilever
and specialized in the Commercial and Supply Chain function.

She has also worked with Avendus Capital as a part of the Investment Banking team.

At FabAlley, she has been responsible for setting up sourcing and manufacturing processes,
financial systems, and fully integrated supply chain techniques, thereby, spearheading the
company’s growth to become a world class fashion brand.

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FabAlley seek to empower young women all over the country to find their confidence and
embrace who they are unrequitedly. FabAlley is a bold, inclusive and fashion-forward brand
aimed at arming women with fashion that is an extension of themselves. Every piece FabAlley
make is an amalgamation of what customer wants peppered with global influences such as the
runways, street style, pop culture and social media – all merging together to create a one-stop-
shop that delivers inimitable style for millennials.

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 TRISHLA SURANA (COLOR ME MAD)

Founder, Trishla Surana who is a commercial artist wanted to lend creativity and colours to
footwear and conceptualised Colour Me Mad in 2014.

She took on the challenge to make footwear which not only looks good but is also extremely
comfortable to use which is Proudly Made in India and launched Comfee, cork based footwear
with patented printing technology in August 2016 for probably the first time in the world with
printed straps and bottoms.

Cork is a natural material extracted from tree and has healing properties for the feet whereby it
improves body posture, reduces knee and ankle pain and takes shape of ones feet which has
been incorporated with quirky prints thus combining fashion with comfort.

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CMM as it is popularly known also represented India at International Innovation Fair in
Istanbul in March 2016 as also participated in a trade fair in Milan, Italy as part of India
Pavilion in Dec 2016.

CMM intends to disrupt the footwear market globally by providing changeable straps and
bottom giving choice to users to change the look of their footwear and will be launching a
crowd funding campaign soon for folding slippers which can be neatly tucked in a bag for
travel & outdoors needs.

Later towards end of 2018, CMM will also be getting in natural foot care products to take care
of tired foot and other foot related issues.

Colour Me Mad believes in pampering customer’s feet by providing them with correct footwear
and natural foot care products.

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 DIVYA RAHEJA & HARSHA CHORDIA (MINK)

Divya and Harsha , both B.Com graduates from MOP Vaishnav, Chennai, made the best use
of their curriculum that was dedicated to running a business where they hatched an idea of
designing footwear.

They found a cobbler who helped them and then their mutual interest in making and designing
footwear led them to starting MINK, soon after college. While in college they custom-designed
their friends’ old sandals , crocs and even jazzed up medical shoes for people they know. This
started in 2010.

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They both fond of footwear. Divya is more style oriented and Harsha is more comfort oriented.
So the idea of doing something creative with footwear sounded interesting and exciting to
them.

When Harsha and Divya were bored they used to pull their hair clips out, bows and even scarfs
and pin them up to their slippers. They liked how that looked on their slippers. That’s when
they started putting their creativity to use. They wanted a random name that sounds funky, and
Mink was what they could think of!

The Entrepreneurial Journey -From Accidental to Successful

Divya and Harsha claim to be accidental entrepreneurs; They did what they enjoyed doing and
are now fairly well to do. Divya says “We experimented with our ideas and wanted to see how
the market reacted to new products. Not wanting to let the response die out, we went on giving
our clients the best”.

For the twosome, it wasn't difficult to get clients, as they were quite popular in college because
what they do at Mink now. Their primary mode of marketing is via social media.

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Challenges of being a Young Entrepreneur

Having been an entrepreneur for 2 years now, Divya is well aware of the fact that
entrepreneurship isn’t a ball game. “A lot of people, especially the bigger clients and
manufacturers don’t take you seriously. Even when you are ready to invest money the
manufacturers are not ready to try anything new, at least with young entrepreneurs. We want
to get into manufacturing our own footwear other than just custom-designing them. The
conventional manufacturers do not like too much of change”, says Divya, who urges for people
to take young entrepreneurs more seriously.

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Since then, MINK has grown into a beautiful mansion. Their products, priced affordably
between Rs.300 and Rs.500, is now available at boutiques across the country — Yellow Button
in Bengaluru, India Kitsch in Kolkata, The Wardrobe in Hyderabad, apart from catering to their
regular clientele comprising mostly youth. Divya says, “We do have older people coming to
us. However, they mostly turn to us when they want to spice up their boring, single coloured,
health-friendly footwear.”

ANAYA BIRLA

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A rockstar – who is always humming a tune and is matching her feet to it, or the lady boss
- managing her microfinance business with utmost clear head and great focus.

The fifth generation member of the Birla family, one of the heirs of Aditya Birla Group and
the eldest daughter of Kumar Mangalam Birla – she is a powerhouse in herself.

In an conversation with Entrepreneur India, Birla says understanding herself is a deep quest
and she is the process of figuring out herself.“If you just strip me down I am honestly just a
normal girl with the same emotion that anyone else has. I want to follow my dream and make
a difference in this world,” she quipped.

From Freedom to Empowering

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For the next generation entrepreneur, who founded her first venture - Svatantra Microfin at
the age of 17, entrepreneurship is like the game of lego – where you have vision but the
blocks are very small and you have to put everything together and mould it, while the impact
that a business can have in this world is absolutely humongous.

Talking about what prompted her to start Svtantra, she shares the idea was to develop a
vehicle to address the massive income gap in India. “The goal was to bank the unbanked, to
provide financial solutions to women in deep rural areas so that they could fund their
businesses, and become an active part of the economy.”

But managing Svatantra was not an easy task for the shepreneur. She was running the show
here in India while studying at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Between being a one-call away boss to getting good grades at the University or from playing
as many gigs as possible to maintaining a social life like any other 20-something old, Birla
silently started battling against anxiety and panic attacks.And eventually, things turned sour
as she struggled to reach out for help with a fear that people would undermine her abilities.

“It was not until I got back to India that I got the help that I needed. But in that process, I
realised how difficult it was for other young people who were suffering,” Birla added.

VANDHANA RAMANATHAN AND JINAL PATEL

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Chennai based marketing professionals, Vandhana and Jinal had started working out of
coffee shops, when they launched their digital marketing agency. Later, they realised the need
for an office which meant a spending a lot of time and resources on administrative work,
distracting them from focussing solely on their business.

Through this personal experience, the duo came up with the solution and launched
Wsquare, a women-only co-working space in Chennai that helps entrepreneurs and
professionals focus on their work without having to worry too much about office-related or
domestic chores.

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The co-working space is designed for women from all walks of life, with special focus on
pregnant woman and new mothers, who are unable to work from home or want to network.
The duo felt that a lot of woman quit jobs during maternity or post baby. Through Wsquare,
they want to help woman get back to work, network and build their careers. Their incubation
initiative now also helps women entrepreneurs in Chennai access mentoring and potential
funding.

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CONCLUSION:

From this study we have learned a lot about young entrepreneurs and also about young
entrepreneurship. This study proved us that age doesn’t limit ones growth. It sure will be
provided as an excellent example to everyone. It also provided us with a huge pack of
motivation. This motivation will help everyone in our country to convert into a great
entrepreneurs. It has filled our brain with the hindrances faced by the young entrepreneurs
and also the support given by the society to balance their decisions in the business.

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