Business of Love.

With Valentine’s Day creating a big buzz among Indians and even surpassing Diwali sales, Let us check out how well-prepared entrepreneurs are.

START-UPS TAP A BIG POTENTIAL

IF BUSINESS is your first love, the coming time is yours to woo. The hesitant flirting the Indian entrepreneur started with February 14, St. Valentine’s Day, a few years ago has now turned into a fullfledged affair. Varied trades spruce up their offers in the run-up to the Festival of Love, which industry experts say has become the second-biggest business opportunity in the calendar, even surpassing Diwali and New Year. Businesses, so it seems, aren’t falling behind the changing festival mix of Indian youth.

For K Vaitheeswaran, who co-founded online retailer Indiaplaza, business around valentine’s Day has been growing by leaps since 2006. “Direct spending on Valentine’s day is nearly 30-40% more than Diwali, making it a rich opportunity for retail entrepreneurs to boost their topline,” he says. From gifts, candies to expensive gadgets, Indiaplaza helps lovers exchange articles through the internet, across boundaries and even away from their parents’ eyes. The first time Indiaplaza tried to cash in on Valentine’s Day was in 2002, but it was a washout then, with not much ‘awareness’ about the day.

In 2003, there were protests and agitations over Valentine’s Day celebrations across the country, Mr Vaitheeswaran recalls. But the tough beginning was soon followed by a surge in the day’s appeal and business started to boom. “(The protests) created more excitement about the day’s importance. And because the protests were offline, people switched to the ecommerce website to send their gifts across. Thereafter, the sales started showing a rising trend on this festive day,” he says.

According to US National Retail Federation, US consumers alone spent nearly $13.7 billion last year on Valentine’s Day shopping. This was a 22% rise from the past five years. As for the domestic market, an independent study on the consumer markets in India, presented at the 2007 International Marketing Conference, suggests that the Western fancy has started to take roots in Indian markets as well. The study noted that Valentine’s Day sales in 2007 were about 15% higher than that during Diwali at these retail outlets and this is expected to increase by 20-25% in 2008.

Only the Christmas season rings in bigger revenues. And it seems entrepreneurs in the country clearly aim to boost the day into first place as more and more start-ups start to capitalise on the opportunity.

Despite the pressure to buy gifts, most of the money spent on V-Day this year would keep up the trend set in the previous years. Spending would go to tokens of affection — cards, candies, flowers and nightouts. Floricultural start-up Ferns ‘N‘ Petals, for instance, is gearing up for the Cupid’s arrival in a manner unlike any other. Apart from selling flowers, Vikaas Gutgutia’s company is banking on service as a major differentiator for this year. The company has planned to offer midnight delivery service, in addition to selling cakes and chocolates with its flowers on Valentine’s Day. It is also offering its customer the choice of buying gold-plated flowers. Says Pawan Gadia, vice-president at Ferns ‘N’ Petals, who jumpstarted the company’s much-touted franchisee model, “Product innovation for such days is the key to success. You always have to think what different can you do this year which would excite the customer. A mundane run-of-the-mill product line each year does not help when you are working in such a business environment.” F’N’P is hoping to increase its Valentine’s Day sales by 40% this year, adds Mr Gadia.

What is a day of gifts without cards? According to Anil Moolchandani, founder & MD of Archies, Valentine’s Day sales account for nearly 12% of the company’s full-year sales, making it the single-biggest occasional sale period for his company. “The trick is to promote and market as much as you can when your business is linked to an occasional sale,” he says. “Essentially, occasional sales help you build a brand presence and to add to this with more and more companies joining the occasional bandwagon for this day, it is becoming easier for any start-up in this space to cash in on the Valentine’s Day sales,” he adds.

Archies, founded in 1979, introduced its first Valentine’s Day card in 1984 and it took sustained marketing efforts till 2000 for this occasion to “become critical mass for the company,” recalls Mr Moolchandani. Somebody once wondered cheekily why Valentine’s Day comes exactly nine months before the Children’s Day on November 14? The guys who make it all happen, the matrimonial websites, are also tapping into the business potential of Valentine’s Day.

Bharat Matrimony, one of India’s largest matrimony websites, sees the day as a raw material for its business. Says Murugavel Jankiraman, founder and CEO, “We are planning to ramp up the promotional activities around Valentine’s Day period considering that online activity for our website picks up around this period. Unlike other festival days, Valentine’s Day is connected directly to our core business, and it always helps to use such events, which directly relate to your core business as effective marketing tools.”

Like Bharat Matrimony, luxury bags maker Baggit too plans to leverage on this opportunity, “More than anything else, it’s an occasion to gift and dress up and clearly a fashion brand would see synergies in that. In fact, we are timing our sale this year on February 12, very close to Valentine’s Day,” says Baggit founder Nina Lekhi. “In case you have a product targeted for the youth, Valentine’s Day would be the point to test response to a particular campaign, which you might want to roll out on a larger scale later,” she adds. In short, what has worked for these entrepreneurs is the packaging of their products. “On days like the Valentine’s Day, there may be little sale in terms of quantity for many business start-ups, but the trick is to fix yourself a niche area and make it high margin business for yourself, as events like Valentine’s Day do not tend to be mass market phenomenon,” says Mr Vaitheeswaran. “With Love’s Light Wings Did I O’erperch These Walls,” said Shakespeare’s Romeo to his sweetheart Juliet.

For a start-up with aspirations to make a big mark on the competitive business stage, Valentine’s Day can give wings and plant a kiss of success on the entrepreneur’s cheeks of desire.

Article Resource:
Author: Ritwik Donde is the Chief Editor in the The Economic Times, Mumbai and the article appeared in one of their successful columns on Entrepreneurship/Start-ups called "Starship Enterprise".

Ten Steps to keep Cool after a Big Hit.

Has your product become a hit and are orders pouring in? This 10-step survival guide will help you think fast and react quickly when you wake up one morning to find the world beating a path to your door.

Take a Deep Breath:

While it’s only natural to want to celebrate the good news, remember that a big contract or great press doesn’t mean dollars in your bank account — at least, not today. So hold off on that Ferrari or exotic vacation. Also, remember that the additional sales you ring up will probably require you to lay out more money for people, materials and overhead — and may require you to borrow additional capital as well.

Map out a Strategy:

Make a to-do list, crunch the numbers and marshal your human and production resources. It’s always easier to fight a battle on paper than to shoot first and ask questions later. No matter how much pressure you’re getting from your customers to deliver the goods right now, you need to take the time to sit down and map out a plan of attack.

Get the Money:

Before you go on a hiring binge or start placing orders overseas, it’s important to figure out how much working capital you’re going to need to meet the market demand. Because employees and manufacturers generally won’t wait until you’ve sold the products and collected the money before you pay them, you’ll need a source of capital that you can tap immediately.

Reach out for help: Call on suppliers, personal contacts and use the internet to find extra hands to help you. If you think you can do it alone, think again. No matter how hard you work, there are only 24 hours in a day and you’ve got to sleep during seven or eight of them. That’s why it’s important to reach out to people who can help you. If your company already has employees, ask them to put in extra hours to help you get over the hump. If you’re a one-person show, you can reach out to friends and family members to help you or hire freelancers. But don’t commit anything for the long term.

Forge production partnerships: While there’s no shortage of suppliers listed on the internet, a reliable manufacturer that delivers high-quality goods is not so easy to find. Your best bet may be to contact your industry’s trade association and its leading trade publications for consultants and referrals.

Create a Distribution Network: As news of your product or service spreads, you may start getting orders from consumers and retailers all over the country. If you’re like most businesses, you’re going to need help selling and servicing those accounts. Rather than hiring a national sales manager and opening offices in major cities, a more cost-effective option may be to sell your product through manufacturers’ representatives. These reps (or rep firms) act as independent sales agents for multiple product lines and work on a commission-only basis.

Communicate with your Customers: Communication is the life-blood of any business relationship, but it’s even more important when your product or service suddenly takes off. The biggest mistake a business owner can make is failing to warn customers of shipping or production delays until it’s too late. This is especially critical in the apparel and toy industries where seasonality is important. Manufacturers who fail to communicate with key retail and wholesale customers may find themselves not only with egg on their faces but with unsold inventory in their warehouses as well.

Leverage your success: The hardest thing about achieving over-night success is keeping it going. The last thing you want is to get stuck with a warehouse full of pet rocks. Creating line extensions like the Chicken Soup books or the ‘For Dummies’ series is one way to keep your brand alive. Another is to find new markets for your products and services or new ways to publicise them.

Invest for the future: While it may be tempting to reap the profits from your hit product right away, it’s important to reinvest some of those profits. Whether this means paying down debt, buying new equipment, hiring another employee or opening an-other location, don’t pass up this opportunity to make your money work for you. It’s always cheaper to put your own cash to work in your business than to borrow money from a bank or give up equity to an investor.

Learn from your mistakes: After the excitement of the initial sales rush has died down, take a few hours to sit down with your staff to figure out what went right, what went wrong and what you think you could do better in the future. This will help you put a strategy in place for the next time you come out with a hit product — which could be sooner than you think!

Reference:

Entrepreneur.com

15 Steps to Fulfilling Your Wildest Dreams

According to Bill Gates there are 3 keys to success in any new venture.

1. Being in the right place at the right time. (You could well be already there ).
2. Have a vision of where the industry / business you’re working in is going.
3. Taking Massive and Immediate Action. (It is time to act).

“The future belongs to those who believe in the quality of their dreams” Was it Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the famous German poet and philosopher who said those words?

Here are my 15 steps to fulfilling my wildest dreams.

1. Know Yourself :

Know and accept your weaknesses and faults (we all have them), but even more so your strengths, abilities and gifts. Build on your strengths and try to minimize or improve on your weaknesses. An honest, objective analysis of yourself is the first step in preparing you for success and realizing your dreams. Celebrate you for just being you, a unique creation.

Aim for mental clarity about what you most want out of life. Think about it and write it down. If it’s happiness, what do you mean by happiness a sense of belonging recognition, independence, love, money or security? If you don’t know where you are and where you want to go with your life, how will you ever get there? Aim at nothing and your sure to hit it.

2. Get Passionate :

Don’t apologize for getting passionate. What excites you the most? If you are not enthusiastic and excited about what you’re doing, your path in life, you’ll never get others to share your dreams. Once you find your passion, you will have found your POWER, MEANING and PURPOSE in life.

3. Surround Yourself With Positive Passion :

Always be aware. Negative people will poison your dream faster than anything else. Motto “If you can’t be positive, shut up” Try and stay positive … even in the face of negativity.

4. Accept From The Start That You Won’t Please Everyone :

You’re going to be misunderstood, misquoted, hurt some feelings, perhaps even lose some friends (for the first time being) Motto “What other people think of me is none of my business” Repeat this statement to yourself, especially when you doubt or feel discouraged.

5. Always Be Yourself :

To thine own self be true.(Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” act 1.3) This is supremely important, no matter what the world may think of you. The masses are conditioned to mediocrity and other people’s success can make them not feel inferior for their own insignificant little lives. Accept yourself. Learn from others – but don’t be intimidated by them, or pretend to be someone you’re not, because…“We are most effective when we’re being ourselves”

6. Don’t Be Scared Of Making Mistakes :

The only real mistake is one from which you learn nothing. Motto “For better to try Something and fail, than try nothing and succeed”.

7.Accept That It Will Never Be Easy :

Realizing your dream, may be the hardest, most uphill thing you’ll ever do A truth "You can’t coast uphill”. The key ingredient in success is never giving up. Keep on keeping on with your quest. It has been said that “success is 99%, made top of failures.”

8. Stay Humble (no matter how successful you may be :

Don’t ever think you’ve made it and arrived – there’s always a lot ahead, more to do, higher mountains to climb. Motto “The greatest way to do our thing has yet to be discovered.”

9. Don’t Underestimate Yourself :

There is incredible power in yourself ( in the form of the unique human mind), but far more so in the forces of the Universe. Make them work for you by living your life in harmony with these natural forces. Like positive energy attracts like.

Enough “spiritual” thoughts” Back to the “real world” and you. Avoid developing an inferiority complex. (Who am I, a nothing?). Don’t be filled with feelings of self-pity (nobody likes me), or think “I can’t do it). These thoughts will steal your dreams.

10. Have Fun :

Nothing is ever as bad as it seems --- don’t get too solemn, or serious or too downcast when things go wrong (as they surely will from time to time). Take a leaf from Thomas Edison’s book. “I never did a day’s work in my entire life, it was all FUN” Laugh at life’s funny moments…. And there are plenty of them.”The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

J.M. Barrie

11. Develop The Will To Live :

There will be plenty of times when you’ll face the death of your dream. When failures, disappointments and criticisms come you need the will and faith to keep going. Remember, We learn far more from our failures than our successes, because failures show us what doesn’t work. So, failure is just one step closer to ultimate success. Often the difference between failure and success, is trying just one more time, picking yourself up off the canvas after being knocked down time and again.

12. Develop The Will To Help And Serve Others :

Success on its own (i.e. for its own sake) will pollute and corrupt you --- it’s a dead end street unless you have meaning in your life. The years of struggle breed fortitude and character. The gold may be an inch away from the scam, where your fellow miners have given up. You need to succeed for a reason, a purpose, a cause that’s bigger than you and IF (a very big if) you’ve fulfilled all the above requirements.

By the time you finish reading this you will realise its just 12 steps and not 15…