Stepper in Spotlight: Poornima Sathyanarayanan

“My motivation for becoming an entrepreneur stems from the idea of self-dependence,” says Poornima Sathyanarayanan, Stepper in Spotlight and the founder of Rhapso fashion tech, providing high-quality tailoring services at the doorsteps of Indian consumers.

Poornima’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Poornima comes from an engineering background and always wanted to be an entrepreneur. She started her career by co-founding an organization focused on building automation systems. Alongside her co-founder, they successfully developed an automatic parking system) for the first mall in Bangalore in 2001-02. The organization expanded, creating over 100 parking systems across 17-18 cities. Poornima later decided to exit from this venture to pursue her new entrepreneurial endeavor, FCOM Rhapso.

The Gap

Poornima Sathya Narayanan identified a gap in convenient tailoring services during a family function when her clothes were delivered just in the nick of time. 

She felt that, like other services, tailoring could be improved too. 

“The success of tech services like Ola and Urban Clap inspired me,” she says. To validate their proof of concept and assess the product-market fit, she offered alterations of garments within 3-4 days for women in a local community. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Following interviews with these women, Poornima became sure that a comprehensive tailoring solution platform would work. And Rhapso FCOM was born.

Rhapso: The Platform

Rhapso is a tech platform based in Bangalore that offers tailoring and related services at the comfort of the doorsteps of Indian consumers. Customers can book a visit, and a lady designer from Rhapso Fcom visits their place to take measurements, discuss designs, and pick fabric/garments. (The customer provides fabric, and Rhapsos Fcom offers services like alterations, stitching, embroidering, printing, etc. ) Fcom offers services like stitching, alterations, repurposing, embroidery, dyeing, darning etc.

The finalized garment is delivered within a week, and payment is conveniently processed through online gateways. 

The team includes young fashion designers, tailors, logistics experts, pattern cutters, dyers, embroiderers, etc.

 Rhapso follows a hybrid model with some team members working directly and others being partners. “We do a thorough check on the credibility and skill sets of the tailors, embroiderers, etc,” she adds.

Rhapso: The Name

Rhapso, named after the Greek goddess of stitching, signifies Poornima’s commitment and dedication to craftsmanship. The website’s brand name, www.Fcomindia.com, stands for “Fashion Commerce,” defining the platform’s focus on combining fashion and commerce.

Impact and Social Responsibility

Rhapso has catered to over 5000 customers and delivered more than 35000 garments. 

“Our mission is not to compete with small tailors but to enhance their businesses,” she adds.

 Rhapso also offers job opportunities and a place to grow professionally to young fashion designers from colleges. Poornima highlights that, based on data, 30-40% of women’s wardrobes go unused for various reasons. FCom addresses this by providing services for refitting, restyling, repairing, and repurposing, enabling women to make the most of their clothing. Furthermore, Poornima helps the use of unused but still good-condition items through charitable donations facilitated by collaborations with NGOs.

Future Plans

Currently, Rhapso operates as a tech platform. Poornima plans to convert it into an app. She aims to enhance the customer experience further, using AI where customers can visualize how garments will look on them after completion. Poornima plans to establish Rhapso successfully in Bangalore before expanding to other cities.

Journey as a Stepper

Poornima feels her journey as a Stepper has been transformative, providing a non-judgmental and safe space for her entrepreneurial passion to thrive.

 “I was looking at things from a macro level without getting into the depth of the numbers. I realized that my grasp of crucial aspects like customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost was lacking, and I made efforts to correct them. I learned that marketing needs to be creative,” she says.

Poornima’s mentor helped her explore areas like marketing investments, team dynamics, and psychology.

 “I received valuable guidance and mentoring from experienced professionals, especially STEP founder Ms. Reinu. It helped me reflect and learn,” she adds.

 Poornima shares that she enjoyed the diverse STEP cohort as it allowed for idea-sharing, and the supportive community made it easy to share vulnerabilities openly. “STEP helped me get to where I am today. It helped me understand my business, numbers, go-to-market strategy, my target audience, and get my business and revenue model in place,” she adds.

 Poornima secured seed funding of Rs. 20 lakhs from STEP through SISFS.

 “STEP supported us at every stage of securing funds from presenting data, pitching, and facilitating the entire process,” she says.

Poornima shares that allocating the funds to marketing has yielded positive outcomes, with their revenue seeing an impressive 80% increase in the past few months. 

Poornima-The Person 

According to Poornima, the key to entrepreneurial success is passion, perseverance, and patience. She describes herself as passionate, innovative, and a nurturer. She prefers mountains to beaches. Her work motivates her to get out of bed in the morning, and she draws inspiration from her mother. A quote that is the mantra of her life is,” Just do it.”