Indian Womenpreneurs towards building Unicorns
amita-adminWhen Falguni Nayar visited the U.S., she realized that the beauty brand, Sephora, had an edge because salespeople at its stores were helpful and customer-friendly. Nayar decided that an Indian version of this brand was a timely idea. She started Nykaa as an online retailer, adding high street stores once it had established its name.
As the Covid-19 pandemic stifled businesses from airlines to tourism, Nykaa was sitting pretty. Hordes of shoppers, stuck at home due to pandemic-imposed restrictions, flocked to its virtual shelves, buying up everything from skin creams to lipsticks.
Nearly 87% of Nykaa’s gross merchandise value in fiscal 2021 was generated by its mobile apps.
A pre-IPO private placement in June valued Nykaa at $2.3 billion, putting Nayar in the three comma club with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion.
Falguni Nayar is India’s, second-richest self-made woman.
“Think Big, but start small.” Falguni Nayar, CEO, Nykaa.
In a country like India, where most women are not encouraged to think big, some have soared higher than one would expect in a constrictive setup. These wonder women have motivated other women to venture on the entrepreneurial path through their success stories comprising personal struggles and challenges. As a result, India is steadily rising the ranks on providing a favourable environment coupled with some solid backing from the Indian government.
Recently, Hurun India’s debut ‘Hurun India Future Unicorn List’ revealed that 12 women-led startups are set to be ‘future unicorns’ or startups with $1 billion or more valuation. These are – Zilingo, Mamaearth, MobiKwik, Ecom Express, Acko General Insurance, WinZO, MyGlamm, Square Yards, BankBazaar.com, Pratilipi, SirionLabs, and Zivame.
The process to be a unicorn is not easy, Unicorn companies have a similar set of features that sets them apart.
- Innovation to make a simple solution to an existing problem.
- Make a strong and highly marketable value proposition.
- Make a plan to have a clear vision for the future of the company and the products and services they offer.
- High on technology, they usually have an easy-to-use User Experience that allows users to adapt and avail the product.
The women-led startups on the list are no different. Let us take a look at their progress.
Ankiti Bose: Zilingo
Bose was on holiday in Bangkok and noticed that many small and medium-sized shops had no online presence. The company started as a long-tail fashion marketplace leveraging Southeast Asia’s growing internet connectivity to bring small merchants from the street markets of Bangkok and Jakarta nationalities and works with close to 50,000 partners across the fashion supply chain now. These partners comprise manufacturers, retail merchants, distributors, independent and global brands.
“I have had my challenges, people took time to take me seriously. Many wondered if I would be able to run a business, but they quickly learned otherwise.”: Ankiti Bose.
Ghazal Singh: Mamaearth
When Ghazal Alagh was expecting a baby, she found out that baby products matching the safety standards were unavailable in India. This experience drove her and her life partner to create a brand using the best possible ingredients in 2016. In just four years Mamaearth became Asia’s first brand to get the MadeSafe certification for its products and is one of India’s fastest-growing brands crossing the Rs 100 crore turnover mark catering to over 1.5 million consumers in more than 500 cities across India.
” Innovation has given us the momentum that we achieved”: Ghazal Singh.
Upasana Taku: Mobikwik
Mobikwik is simple and need-based. Initially launched as a recharge platform, it soon became the face of mobile wallets in the country. Taku revolutionized the sector by bringing on the concept of an online wallet on the big stage by adding spaces for payment.
“There is still a lot that can be done in terms of women trying to break barriers and getting to the level of excellence in their fields”: Upasana Taku.
Manju Dhawan: Ecom Express
Starting its operations with just one customer, Ecom Express is currently servicing over 17,000 pin codes across 1,600 towns through a network of over 1,700 delivery centres. Ecom Express’ growth trajectory has been commendable, and they have been growing at over 100 per cent year-on-year for the last two years.
“A woman’s touch and her instincts bring new insights to the business. It is important to have a profound commitment to success”: Manju Dhawan
Ruchi Deepak: Acko General Insurance
Acko General Insurance is a private sector general insurance company in India. Buying insurance was a cumbersome and non-transparent process. She found an opportunity that a digitally empowered insurance company could unlock both in terms of customer experience and enterprise value. Acko uses technology to provide personalized products after measuring customer behaviour using data analytics and is as comfortable to use as a smartphone.
“We have won the trust of over 65 mn unique customers and successfully issued over 1 Bn insurance policies to date.” : Ruchi Deepak.
Saumya Singh Rathore: WinZO
One of India’s leading Vernacular Social Gaming Platforms, WinZO partners with third-party game developers and gets their games on board. It offers all kinds of mobile games available in the exciting format as WinZO Baazi, Tournaments, Team Tournaments to win real cash. With more than 70 games in 10 Indian languages, WinZO currently has a 30 million user base across India and has grown tenfold in 2020.
“We at WinZO localized the content on the platform by offering 10 languages, resolving the language barriers for Bharat. Our app is adopted by 80% non-English speaking users”: Saumya Singh Rathore.
Priyanka Gill: MyGlamm
A platform that sells most of its products through its website, app, and retail touchpoints and offers more than 600 cruelty-free and vegan products across makeup, skincare, and personal care reaching out to more than 10,000 offline points of sales across 70 cities in India. In July 2020, MyGlamm was the largest content to the community to commerce platform in India, with 88 million annual female users, 1.5 billion annual video views, and 1.5 lakh influencers onboarded.
“We constantly need to educate ourselves to stay on track. Data is an important function for us- it tells us what is working”: Priyanka Gill.
Kanika Gupta Shori: Square Yards
India’s largest integrated platform for Real Estate & Mortgages is one of the fastest-growing Proptech platforms in the UAE, the Rest of the Middle East, Australia & Canada. Square Yards ranks in the top 20 consumer tech startups in India. It has achieved a significant scale in just 6 years and is one of the few Indian startups which has successfully expanded globally. It has a direct presence in 20+ cities globally and has more than 5000+ employees across 10 Countries.
“Finding the need-gap, being confident in my idea, multitasking, building a great team, and learning from my mistakes has been the secret of my success as an entrepreneur”: Kanika Gupta Shori.
Rati Shetty: BankBazaar.com
Conceptualized to find a quick solution to the home loan application process, BankBazaar.com simplifies the individual’s personal finance by providing content and services accessible online with the help of the internet. It aims to inculcate financial awareness among consumers by giving them instant customized rate quotes on different financial products. With multiple offers from multiple banks, you can compare offers and check your eligibility in minutes. It has zero paperwork, instant approval, and is online. The valuation of Bankbazaar in Financial Year 2020 is about Rs. 1982 crore ($280 million).
“BankBazaar has a focussed approach to enable customers to access the right financial product while using an enjoyable user experience”: Rati Shetty
Sahradayi Modi: Pratilipi
It is an Indian online self-publishing and audiobook portal featuring content in twelve regional languages, including Hindi. Launched in September 2014 by Sahradayi Modi and co-founders to promote Indian languages, the idea was to create a platform where quality literary work could be hosted and shared in Indian languages. The demand for original stories has surged in India in recent years. Many streaming services and publishing giants are engaging with Pratilipi that has over 3.5 lakh writers who have published over 4.5 million stories in ten Indian languages with 28.5 million monthly active readers.
“Customers are everything, literally everything”: Sahradayi Modi
Kanti Prabha: Sirion Labs
Sirion built an AI-based CLM platform that businesses use for managing the complete end-to-end contracting lifecycle on a single platform. Creating new contracts efficiently, ensuring granular monitoring of the deliverables and outcomes embedded in the contracts- Sirion acts as a central nervous system for both buyers and suppliers in enterprise engagements. This holistic approach delivers improved savings/revenue for enterprises while driving improved business outcomes and better collaboration in commercial pacts.
“My advice to women entrepreneurs is to get over the gender bias in their minds, plan systematically, and be conservative with money in the initial stages”: Kanti Prabha
Richa Kar: Zivame
Zivame is an online lingerie store featuring hundreds of styles tailored for the Indian population. It is a leader in this niche online shopping segment, offering more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. Zivame’s products come at affordable rates without any compromise in quality. It had 5 million visitors online every month and nearly 1 million unique visitors at one point in time. This number has grown multifold since then.
“As an entrepreneur, you have to hire right, and you have to retain talent”: Richa Kar
Success cannot be credited to a single reason. There can be a multitude of factors that are in constant play. A successful business venture requires an in-depth understanding of the field of operation, analyzing target markets, mentorship and guidance for skill polishing, maintaining financial survival, and a futuristic vision for predicting changing business variables.
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