As a part of our BloggersIdeas interview series, today we have young college entrepreneur Anshul Gupta from Fabence.com who is very young and talented and making his living out of his own businessAnshul will tell how he decided to be entrepreneur and not to do 9to5 job. I am sure you will learn lot from his entrepreneurship dedication and focus he is giving to grow his business.
First of all thanks a lot for accepting my interview proposal. My readers are glad to have you here. Please tell us about yourself and your educational background ?
Hi, Its great to be a part of this! I am a second-year student of Shri Ram College of Commerce pursuing B.Com (Hons). I am graduate from Kodaikanal international school and avid football player and like listening to House music.
Can you tell us something about your new venture fabence.com.
Fabence.com is a personalized fashion discover engine and shopping assistant that aims to solve the problem of fashion discovery. At the very basic level, Fabence allows users to discover millions of fashion products from various sites (Limeroad, Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong) on one platform.
What differentiates us from the market is our approach of solving this problem which is to bring together technology and fashion and provide a much more technological and design intensive platform. This approach has allowed us to differentiate ourselves in various aspects in terms of search ability, user interface and ease of discovery.
Fabence has implemented technologies that allow us to have most detailed set of filters in the entire market and a category based quick search that its competition such as violet street does not have. This allows users to do a free text search and get results of exactly what they are looking for without clicking anywhere; this not only eases the ability of a user to narrow down on a specific product but for those looking for window shopping it is a great experience too.
Fabence has introduced various firsts in the market with an aim to help users make a better buying decision such as an in-built fashion stylist, which is an intelligence-based algorithm that suggests products that would look good depending on a user's attributes and product that they are thinking of buying in real time or hunt with friends that allows users to discover fashion products online in real-time just like they do in a mall.
Bonus: 12 High Paying Best Google Adsense Alternatives for BloggersHow did idea of entrepreneurship came to your mind. Who support your idea in the beginning?
The entrepreneurship bug bit me very early on. Just the thought of creating something used by millions of people is an extremely overwhelming thought and I could never convince myself to work someone else at a 9 to 5 job. The thought of solving a problem for people through technology and design seemed extremely exciting and that's what kept me going.
I feel my family and friends were the biggest pillars of strength for me in the beginning and without them I don't think I would have been able to start up.
What type of team you have for your brand, how you manage relationship with your team?
We have a young and energetic team. In terms of managing the team I feel if the team as a whole believes in the idea and problem you are solving it becomes way easier as if the team does not have one aligned vision the success of a startup is extremely difficult. This not only helps create a good culture but also a good relationship
How is your office atmosphere, when employees feel pressure of work, how you tackle it?
The office atmosphere is very energetic. Everyone is working on something exciting so that keeps the energy levels high. In terms of tackling pressure we go out for dinners and take small breaks in the between. Lowering pressure to ensure high productivity is extremely important.
What type of entrepreneurs you would like to see in India. As in india entrepreneurship is still a worry situation for many parents ?
I feel entrepreneurship has really picked up in India. The s tartup ecosystem has seen a tremendous growth, in fact a recent study showed Bangalore was 4 th city to have highest VC funding. I feel the society is gradually accepting the importance of startups for the economy and parents too have become more supportive towards starting up. India is the place where the market is and this can be seen by the amount of investments pouring in. I think it's a very exciting time for s tartups in India rite now
How do you spend time in your weekends ?
I usually go play an hour or two of football and spend time with family. I also reflect on the progress made in the entire week and brainstorm targets for the next week.
Anshul Let My Blog Readers Know About Your Struggle ?
Well, the very first hurdle was convincing myself to take the plunge and start a company! Being a first time entrepreneur, I had no experience whatsoever! Second was, of course, putting together a team that shares the vision and competent enough to execute! Third, of course, as always, was cash!
Once we overcame these- execution was relatively easier (though not easy!). We had to overcome resistance from various online sites who were hesitant to commit to a new concept! Other challenges were more from technical perspective - as we were working on concepts which were new and difficult to implement - for example - constructing an intelligence based technology platform! There were also some legal roadblocks but we overcame them eventually.
Grab it: Top 10 Movies To Watch Out For An EntrepreneurWas Making a Team and getting Financial Investment was Easy for You?
Just like any other startup we too faced difficulties in creating a team and raising investment. We had to face a lot of struggles but eventually we overcame the hurdles and created a well balanced team. In terms of raising investment we initially faced some hurdles convincing people to join us in this journey and invest in us but with time we were able to gain their trust.
Provide Some Ideas for Those Who Want to Come with a StartUp of their Own?
I feel the healthcare market is a good market to be in. There have been some good investments in this market and starting up in this market can be quite interesting. Online grocery market is also an interesting space to be in, it has gained vc trust too as it can be seen from the huge investments in Bigbasket etc.
What are your plans in 2015? How you will grow fabence.com?
Our focus rite now is getting the word on fabence out and we are currently evaluating various strategies that would work for us in order to reach our target audience. We are also doing some major revamps with our design in order to improve user engagement and are also working on our app. We are also in talks with some big sites for integration.
What are the risks involved in entrepreneurship & how to overcome it. Please tell us ?
I feel the only risk in entrepreneurship is failing. But even when you fail you gain a lot of experience and an ability to understand what you did wrong so you ensure you do repeat it in your next startup. I feel the way you can overcame this is by constantly evaluating what you are doing wrong and understanding what your customers are actually doing.
Having an experienced mentor is also very helpful as they would advice you on how to move forward and what potential mistakes can you make.
How to take entrepreneurship to next level, what kind of brainstorm will work?
I feel understanding the problem you are solving and the market for this problem is extremely important. Keeping that in mind you devise your future strategies and targets.
I hope you enjoy this interview with Young magnetic Anshul . If you have any questions about this interview, please do ask in the comments below !
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