ST13 | Sneha Visaria On Building A New Brand In A Mature, Low-Margin Industry

What would you say if I suggested that you should build a new brand in a mature, highly fragmented, price-sensitive industry? And what if I also challenged you to grow it at the same speed as a tech startup? Well, you’d likely say that’s crazy talk. But it really isn’t. Today we are speaking with Sneha Visaria, Founder and Director of PDD Falcon, a leading Indian stainless steel home and kitchenware brand, that started just about a little over four years ago. And it’s been more than doubling revenue every year. A feat that I think is beyond many VC-funded startups as well. So we’re going to ask her about her journey, and also some of the tips and things that she’s learned to get so successful in such a difficult industry.

Discussion Topics: Sneha Visaria on Building a New Brand in a Mature, Low-Margin Industry

• Experience with India Shark Tank
• How did the business started
• Experience with exhibitions
• Building best practices and growing with network
• Differentiating with your competitors

Transcript: Sneha Visaria on Building a New Brand in a Mature, Low-Margin Industry

Amit: Before we begin a couple of quick reminders, please follow ShopTok to get the best small business insights from across Asia.

So with that said, thank you, Sneha, for joining us today. For a start, maybe before we begin, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business?

Sneha: Hi Amit, thank you for inviting me to your wonderful talk. It’s an amazing show. Hi myself, Sneha Visaria. I’m the Founder and Director of PDD Falcon, a manufacturer of stainless steel kitchen products. I am an IT Engineer and I’ve completed my master’s in marketing. Before I could complete my education, I was married to a lovely man named Chirag Visaria, and my father-in-law was very encouraging.

So he introduced me to his family business that is Precision Detroit, which is a 35-year-old manufacturing unit, which makes components for home appliances. It’s been a long journey since then, I’ve been associated with this business for 11 years. In 2016, my father-in-law passed away and to give a tribute to his last dream to have a brand of our own, on his first death anniversary, we incepted PDD Falcon. And the name also was given by him.

So PDD is Precision Detroit Private Limited, which is the parent company, and Falcon is the name of the brand, which deals with the manufacturing of stainless steel, home, and kitchen storage components and products.

Amit: You talked about your background and your business, but I think you didn’t touch upon a very interesting experience that you had recently. And I just happened to stumble on it while I was looking up your company on the internet. So would you like to share about that as well?

Sneha: Yeah, our dreams got wonderful wings when we first appeared on a very popular Indian television show Shark Tank India, which was aired on the 27th of Jan 2022. Shark Tank India gave us a platform to exhibit not only our products but the whole experience of how we built this brand. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get through the investments but it gave back a lot of learning and exposure and a big huge horizon of networking. So yes, of course, Shark Tank India was an amazing experience.

Amit: Yeah, that’s incredible. And you’re the only Shark Tank candidate that I’ve ever spoken to or frankly even met. So I’m curious. I went through that clip on YouTube. And I know that the investment didn’t work out, but there was some discussion about you did get an offer. And I saw that you and your husband, I think, left the floor for a bit to kind of discuss amongst yourselves and so on. So what was the maths that you did when making the decision not to take the offer?

Sneha: Firstly, we have closed this financial year with a turnover of 6 Crore in spite of the industry being closed for the initial three months of the second wave we could get through a turnover of 6 crore which we have done without any marketing expense. This financial year we are expecting to close the turnover of about 12 crores. And that was the reason we had asked for a valuation of 25 crore which was not too high, it was hardly 2x.

As you grow in this industry, which is actually more than 5000 crore industry, I have also mentioned in Shark Tank India that Indians uses more than 200 kgs of stainless steel in their home and kitchen for their personal utility. Stainless steel is the safest metal available in the whole ecosystem for sustainability as well as safe storage. So, a trend that has been accepted by large which has been lost in the last decade by maybe plastic ware or Tupperware is coming back. What the customer wants is a very eco-friendly product, which is user-friendly and has the advantages of plastic ware, say leakproof a little attractive.

So, Falcon as a brand is trying to bridge this gap between the advantages of stainless steel with a user-friendly design. So we have not made a very high forecast turnover 12 crores are not even 1% of the 5000 crore industry, as and when we grow the range and grow, the network will definitely touch with God’s grace, hopefully, a turnover of 100 crores in the coming four to five years.

So, that is what we were expecting. And that is how we came to the number of 25 cores as a valuation. And we asked for 3% equity, and we were flexible to liquidate up to 6% equity, but what the ask was 10%, which was pretty high at that cost. So we had to reject the offer for that reason.

Amit: So how did you feel about that? I mean, you obviously went to get an investment and have a Shark.

Sneha: Of course, you feel a little bad. But when you hold by your passion, you know that there are more avenues bigger than this, better than this out there in the world.

Amit: And thanks for sharing that. I was very curious and really appreciate your transparency on that one. So, let’s start at the beginning of your business. How did you get started? And how did you feel at that time when you were taking your first steps?

Sneha: So as I’ve already shared the story of starting Falcon before, we were not very sure that we really make it large, we just started with the simple small product that was a double wall stainless steel container with an airtight lid. We made it color coated attractive, we shared it with our friends and family to see whether they like it, whether it was leakproof, and whether it was compact to be carried along. And that is how we made the beginning, we had some networks in the local dealers so we placed the products there.

We stood in exhibitions to sell them directly on the frontline counter. So when we were doing this direct selling, there was a lot of amazing feedback coming from the women who had come to these small exhibitions, to buy the products, they love the quality of steel. That is what we really vogue. And then they started giving us the feedback that why don’t you bring the steel lid in this with an airtight lock proof thing.

Then, as a mother myself, I used to give my son like he was in a transition phase from weaning and I did want him to take a sipper cup which he uses as a glass in the future, because that becomes very easy for a mother to carry. So that is how we came up with a stainless steel, sipper straw glass. And then the product started evolving. We never knew when the rain started from one product to 300 products.

So it’s more about customer feedback that gave us an expansion than we ourselves trying and strategically discussing in the boardroom that we want to start this product, we want to start that product. It was a very evolving process.

Amit: So I understand during an exhibition, maybe, you know, you might hear from a few people. But the fact that you’re in the steel business and you work through distributors, how do you get customer feedback through so many layers?

Sneha: So there are two models. One is the offline model where you have described the distributor. And second is the online model of course the brand really got a kick start when it first launched or was first on board on Firstcry.com, which in 2018 was as upcoming as we were, which is why FirstCry has made a very popular mark as of now, but in 2018 they were also in the initial mode of development.

So there was a good alignment of Firstcry with PDD Falcon because we had proper baby products that they were looking for the baby bottle, the sipper glass, the steel container, and the lunch boxes that cater to their audience too.

So we used to take reviews very seriously. As I mentioned, we personally everyday look at Amazon reviews, FirstCry reviews, and videos that people upload generically, we never have invested in paid reviews, or maybe paid influencers, whatever videos are available about PDD Falcon a purely organic. So talking to these people and listening to them, gave us a lot of ideas about what the customer wants.

I’ll give you a small instance about the sipper straw glass, which you can see I’ve kept here. So we just started with a glass, which is a normal stainless steel glass, I knew that I wanted it to be leakproof and easy for my child to suck. So I just started with the airtight lid and a straw. So a customer came to us and said, see the straw is pretty good. It’s a good-quality straw, but I’m unable to clean it.

So the first thing we started as we started giving the cleaning brush. Then somebody else gave us a suggestion that when we’re using the straw taking it away, it becomes difficult to carry and then there could be germs that can enter through the store. So we gave a stroke over.

Another customer gave us feedback that my child is very little, maybe he is two years or so he might hurt his jaw while sucking through the steel metal straw. So we gave a silicone cover. In that way each product evolved as per the customer’s feedback, which came sometimes from direct customers, sometimes from online reviews, and sometimes maybe the distributors also suggested a few products. And that is how we started developing the products or maybe enhancing the service that we provide in the existing ones.

Amit: I liked the fact that you actually sit and look through, I’m sure hundreds of reviews, trying to figure out what you can get. Also are you able to reach out to customers who write reviews? Or do you do focus group discussions or anything also?

Sneha: Honestly, not all of them. But yeah, the people who have really given a genuine review have put up positive suggestions to solve those problems. Say maybe like I’m talking about this cleaning brush. A person has written on Amazon that the straw is good, but we are unable to clean it. So we get back to them.

Just general reviews, we are unable to reach each and every customer that way. But we always prefer participating more in B2C exhibitions. Because when a customer comes to a dealer point, or when a woman comes to an exhibition counter, she has a lot of consumer buying behavior going on in her mind, maybe on the price point, the cleaning element, the hygiene element, the look and feel element, the appeal element.

So I try to rationalise myself as a woman and a mother that if I have been standing in such an exhibition and looking at this woman, and evaluating amongst the 100-200 options I have, how would I prefer a product? So that comes naturally in the development of the whole process. And having a manufacturing setup in-house helps to bring that ideology or design concept to execution.

Amit: So actually, let’s talk a little bit more about exhibitions because it sounds like there’s a lot of stuff going on over there. So could you tell me, first of all, how do you prepare a plan out your exhibition presence and then also, is this designed for actually selling or really more for distributors and getting orders? And also how do you then handle the feedback and bring it back to whoever needs to do something?

Sneha: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question. Because honestly, I think industry-related exhibitions give you a lot, lot more than just exhibiting your products. Personally, I feel we have grown because of the exhibition. So there are two types of exhibitions in the market, one is the direct-to-consumer market type of an exhibition where it will sell your products on that platform. And another one is B2B where you’re just finding maybe a dealer point or a Superstore, etc.

So initially in the initial days, we always preferred the D2C exhibition, maybe a small one in Blue Sea or Worli because I’m from Bombay. I’m telling you some deports where there are lots of Kids Expo, Summer Carnival Expo. So we first initially exhibited in those even though we have also exhibited once in a Shaadi Sakhi type of exhibition, which is not directly related to the product industry. But that is a lot of consumers, your end customer is having a footfall there.

So you generally get to know a lot of things from that. So initially, it started with those exhibitions, then we purely focused on the B2B ones, because networking was one thing, which is very important for the growth of the brand. So the first exhibition we participated in was a CBME exhibition, that is the Child Baby Maternity Expo.

Because we had a stainless steel baby bottle, and stainless steel sipper so baby nursing and feeding-related products were kind of the industry we were looking for. So there we found Firstcry. And then we onboarded on Firstcry, this I’m talking about 2018.

Post then we have been regularly participating in HGH, which is the Home and Kitchen Expo, which is the biggest exhibition for Home and Kitchen products. So in exhibitions first, you meet your industry peers, the most important part. Second, you may not directly meet a distributor, but you get a network.

There are people who are constantly in connection with the distributor, the dealer, and with the manufacturer. So these kinds of sales coordinators help you to build the network. And thirdly, we get a lot of OEM business, and a lot of B2B direct selling business to a superstore or hyperstore on an export market through these exhibitions.

So that is how we have been selecting the exhibitions about the presentation, you won’t believe we haven’t spent any money on the presentation for the initial four, five years. For the initial three, or four exhibitions, all that we used to do was make the racks ourselves, place the products ourselves, and stick those banners and stickers, because we had a very limited budget for marketing, as you’ve seen on Shark Tank too, the GP of the product is pretty low.

So you don’t have a lot of money to spend on these exhibitions, because the upper square foot rate of this exhibition ranges from around 9000 to 15,000 rupees. So our priority was to get the best spot. And then a lot of money used to go into those spots. So all the decoration thing has to be done by ourselves. And I and one of my team used to stand there, explaining each and every product to the consumer coming there.

Some might criticise the product and say this is available here and there, and this product of yours is too expensive. I mean, you always get to learn. And at the end of the day, you have a collection of a lot of information from a lot of people. Later, maybe one or two years from now we have started using third-party services for the presentation of the store. But till then we never spent a lot of money on these presentations.

Amit: Right. So the feedback that you mentioned, that this is too expensive, this is not fitting right, or whatever now that’s obviously being given to the person standing at the exhibit. And I know from long back experience when I used to work for other companies, and I’ve been to a few of these exhibitions, you say something to someone there but then it has to go through many steps before it reaches the designer or a decision maker. So how do you make that happen?

Sneha: So the advantage here for me is, I am listening, I am designing and I only have to convince maybe a set of four to five people. So being in a family business and a small startup, small startup in terms of the team that you have to work with. In terms of designing the hierarchy is less so the decision-making is fast.

The challenge comes when you’re manufacturing the product, getting it procured, and sourcing it from outside, when you have an in-house team, it’s like a canvas, you can paint whatever you want to have the colours with you. So it becomes very advantageous because you don’t have to cross a long hierarchy. You have thought of a design you think there is a market for this, you just go try it.

Amit: So let me ask a different question also around going to market. So on one side, you said you’re doing exhibitions and primarily now B2B, but at one point in time, it used to be B2C as well. But you also sell online and that’s Amazon, FirstCry and I’m sure a lot of other portals. So, what have you learned about working with all of these portals so many small suppliers struggle right because the bigger brands get the place placement, the sponsor there, they get the premium slots, and all of that. So, how do you operate in this setup?

Sneha: Honestly, it’s difficult, it’s not that easy, because now the market is so open that everybody knows everything. Yeah, we have to accept the fact that the consumer today is more aware than it was ever. So, until and unless you build that, what I say in a simple word in the brand is a consistency of supply.

When I am talking of PDD Falcon as a stainless steel brand, I have to be honest with myself that every stainless steel product that is going to be coming from PDD Falcon has to be of an optimum quality or a standard that we have promised our consumers to. Because stainless steel is something that has always been bought with the touch and feel. It is not something that you can just look at the photograph and assume will always be good.

So there are not many brands in this arena if you see especially in the small segments, and you can count on your fingers the number of brands you have. You have to build your own brand conviction on online portals. You can only survive online if you have a differentiated value and that is what we create in PDD Falcon. We’re not a generic stainless steel brand.

We create that differentiation, where the consumer comes to a Google page on an Amazon page searching that particular generic keyword maybe sipper straw glass. So if you go for a sipper straw glass, the first three options will always be PDD Falcon. So whichever product we are making, maybe an Eco-Nxt container, or maybe a Bakelite Mug, or maybe a vegetable chopper with a stainless steel body, it has got some differentiation because the consumer is coming up finding and sourcing, and there are not too many options for them.

Amit: So this is interesting, what you’re saying is, you do work on the keyword search and all of that kind of thing, but you’re trying to be quality lead, and that’s your differentiation, and all of these other factors are trying to support that quality focus. So, when a person comes online, then they naturally seek you out essentially. So, what is the quality differentiation that you’re able to achieve and how do you communicate that to the customer?

Sneha: So, primarily, the focus is on stainless steel, which is our forte and this is what we vouch on. Being a manufacturing company for 35 years, first, we have the knowledge of what is good stainless steel. There are three basic problems with stainless steel. One is the rusting problem, the second is the cracking problem and the third is the visual finish of the product.

So, rusting and cracking are taken care of by using a grade called 204 cu, which is an internationally certified food-grade stainless steel. Because it has 50% more copper than ordinary steel, the elements of rusting and cracking are reduced.

Then comes the process where we take a lot of care by manufacturing these products. And third, is the in-house polishing. So each and every product is hand polished, which otherwise is sulfur washed or electroplated when compared to the other imported products.

And second, in every product, we are trying to bring some user-friendliness, which was not available in the stainless steel options in the market, maybe an airtight lid, or a steel lid, etc. So each product has some differentiation factor.

Amit: So on one side, there are the inherent characteristics, which I guess as you said, you make it obvious or extrinsic by putting those certifications. And then the second part is user-friendliness and that’s the innovation part which is visible to the customer. This is actually a really good example and I would say inspirational also to so many other entrepreneurs because you can be in a business, which is a little more traditional or mature or something like that.

But there is always a way to innovate. And you’ve done that through the core product, the design element, and also the distribution, because you’re selling online and on so many different channels. You’ve done so many things over four or five years, what were some of the challenges maybe that you faced, or perhaps some difficult decisions or choices that you had to make, to get the business to where it is now?

Sneha: As an entrepreneur, you’re always confident about your product, you believe in your product, your brand, and your service. But at times there are lows where the salability was low, because maybe a price point has taken over a gifting order, or maybe a customer has given a very bad review on you that is not related. So there are ups and lows every day.

And when you’re working with your husband, who is going to be taking care of production and finance, it gets altogether more personal. Because at times I would have to be telling him why don’t we compromise on the quality and try to bring the price low like other peers, there is this big order which we are missing out on just because of being may be a little costlier than the peers.

At that time, there was this pool where two founders had to fight. And when you have to fight with your husband, it’s really very tough. So these points really take you down and make you feel that really is it worth the effort, is really there a market which I feel is appreciating the quality. But then you come, and you bounce back.

There is one bad day and then there is another day where you get a wonderful order or a superb review, a lot of customers coming back to you. So the ups and downs in the process are one thing that is really difficult for an entrepreneur where you really ask the question, is it worth it what quality or what commitments I have made for the brand is it at the cost of what I’m working towards? That is one issue.

Second is the learning cycle, like the packaging, the selection of the channel, and the selection of the team member, you might make some wrong decisions at a point in time, which may cost you a high amount, maybe a default, or maybe a bad debt. When you are an entrepreneur, that working capital blockage of maybe exceeding the credit cycle really pulls you back.

Because you have a lot of missions to accomplish, you have a marketing budget, you have to invest in your working capital, you have to be giving schemes to the customer, you have to be paying to end suppliers, etc. And a bad mango in your selection can really pull you back, and can hold up your working capital, big time and all your ideas and execution plans can get stuck at that point in time.

And then again, you’re asking yourself, oh my God have I made the right decision to choose these hard steps? So as a friend to millions of entrepreneurs, who might be listening to me at that point that those low days really teach you the best entrepreneur lessons. It is not always the good, good, good things in entrepreneurship, it is tough, tougher, toughest, and it never gets better.

The moment you solve one problem, there’s always the second problem standing out for you. But these are like those jumping hurdles the moment you jump one, you know that you can take a bigger leap on the second one. So you become a better person, a better business person every time you solve a problem.

Amit: Yeah, that’s true. And I guess that’s similar to life as well. I mean, I think challenges are what make you stronger.

Sneha: Exactly. The biggest challenge comes when your funds are low. Because for every startup till they are bootstrapping, or even when there is an angel investor coming in, money is something that quantifies all your efforts, how much you can talk about quality or you can talk about marketing, money is something that judges how well you are doing.

So, all these decisions are related to your cost accounting, because I’m from a manufacturing background, I will be talking about cost accounting, which generally is not a term to be talked about, but yes, it is very related to your day-to-day things. So Chirag looks after the finances and he discusses with me that every small expenditure may be something small like giving a freebie is a cost to your end product.

If you are earning 100 rupees in your one product that 20 rupees has gone away, it is not going to be coming back to you. Have you relatedly got the result for that 20 rupees which may in future give you a 2000 or a 20,000 rupees is what you have to ask as a marketer, as a designer, as a person sitting on the other side of the finance every day?

So, for people like me who are looking after product development or marketing, I would really tell them to be equally associated with the financial decisions of the company, which helps a lot to analyse and quantify the result of your effort.

Amit: That’s good advice. Essentially, even if you’re on the creative side, product side, and you’re only thinking about how to make a better product, you still need to tie it back to the numbers, because if you run out of money, it doesn’t matter if you have a great product.

Sneha: Yes. So a lot of startups today use this term called burning rate. Because I am from a very conventional business background our family businesses, fundamentally driven and conventionally driven we never understood this concept called burn rate. If you’re not getting a return on investment of maybe 12 or 13%. on your effort, if you’re not getting that returns, how would you judge whether what you’re doing is correct or not in the long run, because the decision may not immediately give you a result, it may give you a result maybe five years down the line.

But how will you judge that or quantify it today is the important question. So I’m proud to say that Falcon since its first year, where we made a very small turnover of maybe 10 lakh rupees, maybe in the first year we had a breakeven but post them have always been getting an ROI of about 13 to 14%, which is pretty satisfying, with a growth rate of 220%. year on year.

Amit: Yeah, that’s amazing. And that’s why I mean, at the start of this episode, I was talking about how that is, like revenue growth of 2x, 3x every year is something even tech startups would be quite happy to achieve. So, maybe let’s talk about that as well.

You mentioned that much of your initial growth and stuff, at least came through exhibitions, and you do D2C, online channels as well. So what are some of the tactics that you use to get your business partners, distributors, dealers, etc.? Why did they decide to work with you? How did you convince the first few people?

Sneha: Purely through the quality of steel. So we started with the South market, which traditionally, is the steel-loving market. So our first big distributor came from the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, which is 10 times bigger than the brand. So when you’re working with a distributor who’s 10 times bigger than you, you have a lot of quality commitment to give.

So, if you see a Tamil Nadu market, it is not steel buying, it is steel shopping. So the biggest store in Mumbai would be a small counter of some stainless steel store in South India. So they love buying stainless steel. And for them, the steel should shine like silver. So the moment you take a Falcon product, you see that shine, you see that weight, you know that this is not ordinary light steel, it’s a very good premium quality steel, which has been made with a very systematic process.

And second, the consistency that you get in Falcon products you don’t get generally in the non-branded stainless steels available otherwise. So the first distributor, we went through a reference from an exhibition, took the product, and saw the product. And he gave us the first biggest order. And he has been there with us to date. And maybe our kids will be working with him, I’m very sure about that. Because he’s a wonderful person.

They taught us a lot of things. And then we started building a sales coordinator network, where there’ll be one coordinator per state. This coordinator will be responsible for making distributors, and then dealing with the secondary dealers whether the distributor has been getting the right quantity of orders or not.

So that is how we started making clusters of states. And we appointed one sales coordinator per state, he’ll be dividing the territory and allocating one distributor. So the distributor, generally is from the industry and has been selling these kinds of products, the primary criteria is his credibility, how well he’s acquainted with his own dealer network, and does he have a sales team of his own.

So there are three things in priority. And then of course, because the product was good, there was a good range to offer, there is a positive ROI that the dealer or the distributor gets while selling the product, and the cycle time of the sales is less. So, fortunately, we were able to get many distributors in a very short time. So first 10 distributors selected us, and later the 30 distributors we selected then.

We are still very selective, in terms of the distributors, we appoint for the brand because they are your identity, they are your face. The dealer is going to be counting on the credibility of the distributor while keeping or placing the product on a rack. That’s how.

Amit: Yeah, and actually, I took away a very interesting insight over here. I mean, apart from the way that you set up your dealer network, the fact that you went to the hardest or rather the highest standard market is very interesting, because normally, one would try to go where there’s less competition, or you feel like it’s an easy market and you build a foothold there.

But because you went to the place which has the highest standards, your number one knew that you could compete in such a market and number two, they were able to teach you all the best practices which you won’t have got elsewhere.

Sneha: Yes. I think going the harder way helps you in the long run. We should always prefer the best 10 in the industry, maybe in any industry you’re looking for you should aim for the best customer, make it like a conviction that I have to tap him, whatever he wants I will get it done. Because if he agrees to me, and he’s there on board, it becomes a testimonial for me that this fellow is there, and the others follow him.

Amit: Yeah, that’s amazing. This is very interesting.

Sneha: Yeah, this is relative to I think all the industries possible and because this podcast is also being aired in China, I would just like to appreciate a few of our Chinese friends that this is what they taught us because they are extremely hardworking.

They will never say no to anything, say if I want to make an airplane, my Chinese friend will always say okay, it will be done. So, this is what I learned from them: why should we have reasons if your customer is wanting it, you have to do it come what may because that is what you call a market because there is a demand and a supply.

So if there is a demand and you give reasons to that demand, then you should not stand in that market, you are not fit to stand in that market.

Amit: Interesting. So maybe a couple of ending questions or a final question. So one is, what is it that keeps you motivated and keeps you going in your business, we talked about how there are so many challenges, and you feel bad from time to time. But what keeps you going?

Sneha: First, the most important thing is your customer feedback. You feel so personal, when somebody appreciates the product, you feel as if somebody is appreciating you or complimenting you. So when a customer appreciates a product or writes on an Amazon, or comes to us and says, Oh, Wow, this was a product we were really looking for, is something that drives you to do much better than what you have done till now.

And secondly is your team, because the people who are associated with you are completely dependent on your decision-making for their own life. So it is not just uplifting your life, it is uplifting all the people associated with you, or the product or the brand, maybe your supplier or your stakeholder or your job worker, or even a small helper who might be just cleaning the product, you are responsible for them.

One wrong decision and their life is Jupiterise, you have backups they don’t. So, these are the two things that drive us to do better every day with the help of the brand.

Amit: Right. Okay, so one last question. So, based on your lessons from the last four or five years, or even, frankly, from your time before, because you’ve been associated with the business in a different way, what might you have done differently or maybe what is some advice you’d like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Sneha: Tough question. I’m not yet eligible for that. We haven’t achieved a big benchmark yet. There is a lot more to do. But I think staying there and sticking to your conviction is the most important thing. Not to lose hope and keep on working towards your goal really helps you. Be passionate about what you’re doing, and keep on doing that consistently every passing day with the same conviction, as you started doing the first day, that helps a lot.

Consistency and conviction is the only thing that will sail you through the intrapreneurial journey. And the second point of staying in the game is to have a wonderful team. If you have the right people on board, pushing the cart in the right direction, nothing is impossible.

Amit: Right. Thanks a lot, Sneha, I think this has been a fantastic conversation. I mean, especially for me, I have pretty much zero knowledge about steel and steel products. So it was really fun and quite insightful for me. And I think for folks listening to this also, there are a lot of interesting tips that you shared, which they can use in their own journeys. So let me just summarise a few points. One is around, I think, using networks to grow.

So you start with something that you know, and then you work with that as a basis.

The second one, which is a point I liked very much, which is to pick the toughest market. Because if you do that, then you get the most learnings, you build the best practice and you have a reference that anybody else would recognize and want to follow.

Third, I think around customer feedback, the fact that you use feedback in so many forms like directly to your face, essentially in exhibitions, but also the online reviews and any other sources, your dealers, distributors, etc.

On the competition front, I think you mentioned beating them on quality and differentiated design versus price. You also shared a lot of very interesting points about going to market.

So one around exhibitions, second around how you got your first distributors, and then how you built up this whole state-by-state network. And also, on the portals, the fact that you’re not really trying to be the cheapest or something like that on the portal, you’re trying to stand out for quality and the portal is just a place where people can find you.

Then I think towards the end, you talked about staying in the game and keeping at it consistently. So thank you so much Sneha for joining us today. And for those listening if you liked this episode, and I’m sure you did, please rate it five stars. You can get the full transcript online and also link to PDD Falcon. So, thank you once again, Sneha. So we were Sneha and Amit with ShopTok. Thank you for listening. See you next time.