Craftsvilla , a marketplace for ethnic products was founded by Manoj Gupta and his wife Monica Gupta in the year 2011. The idea to start craftsvilla first struck them when they visited Kutch and saw a huge supply of ethnic products without any segregated demand.
Early Days
When Manoj presented his idea to his friends and family, he received a lot of unenthusiastic feedbacks about it. Most stated that there is no real market for ethnic and there hasn’t been a successful replica of it in any market across the globe. Despite negative response, Manoj still believed in his idea and saw an untapped market filled with opportunities. Later that year, He went ahead with his impulsive decision to start Craftsvilla!
The Journey : From Being Written Off..To Making It Big.
In 2011, Craftsvilla launched with 80 employees and 5 offices across India. By 2012, they had downsized the team to 8 and had only a one room office.
Generally, most founders would give up at this point but not Manoj! It just made his will to succeed stronger. He still believed in himself, his idea and his passionate team of 8. In a span of 5 years, Craftsvilla went from an allegedly failed startup to a company which is now valued at $250 million and have more than 4 million products in its inventory.
According to Manoj, some of the key lessons he learnt during his startup journey are as follows:
- Don’t trust anyone more than yourself. If you believe in the opportunity and know you can crack it then Go for It!
- Don’t build business for investors – it’s a recipe for disaster!
- Focus on the basics of business and being capital efficient i.e generating revenue and not simply burn cash.
- Last but not the least, Focus and persistence is undoubtedly the key to success.
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