Interview an Entrepreneur
INTRODUCTION:
An entrepreneur is a person who creates a brand-new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The entrepreneur is often seen as an innovator, a source of the latest ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures. In this Project, we interview an entrepreneur named Falguni Nayar. She is the founder and CEO of Nykaa, an online platform for Beauty products.
Entrepreneurs play a vital role in any economy, using the talents and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and convey good new ideas to promote. Entrepreneurs who convince to achieve success in seizing the risks of a startup are rewarded with profits, fame, and continued growth opportunities. Those that failed to suffer losses and subsided prevalent within the markets.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:
This project aims to interview an entrepreneur.
There are essential objectives for this ProjectProject. They are given below.
Objectives:
- To understand what is an entrepreneur
- To know entrepreneurship
- To follow the journey of Falguni Nayar as an Entrepreneur
- To see the success story of Nykaa
- To ascertain any doubts regarding entrepreneurship
METHOD AND METHODOLOGY:
The method used to gather the required information on the ProjectProject is an internet survey that falls under the secondary data collection method. The Internet has extensive knowledge on this subject. It has a vast collection of data on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The survey for this project has unveiled information covered within major few points. They are listed below and explained in a detailed report of the Project.
- A Brief Interview with Falguni Nayar. A founder and CEO of Nykaa.
DETAILED REPORT OF THE PROJECT:
Who is Falguni Nayar?
Falguni Nayar is a former investment banker who studied at IIM. She has built an e-commerce marketplace for beauty and personal care-focused in India. She is the founder and CEO of Nykaa.com, which continues to surprise and appeal to large international brands to offer the Indian market an endeavour, and has been ready to prove that Indian customers from large and little towns are willing to spend money online on lavish and high priced cosmetics if they the retailer selling the products is trustworthy.
Why start with luxury first?
We wanted to be the one and only destination store Consumers would go to buy cosmetics after our e-commerce site. Consumers don’t want a neighbourhood store, and they want luxury. We don’t want to be like Health & Glow or Lakme. We wanted to be like HUDA or Sephora so then consumers would like luxury brands. Initially, luxury brands aren’t ready to sit next to brands that aren’t lavish. But now, we have convinced them of a replacement scheme where we will have a concoction like in our e-commerce marketplace.
How are you growing Nykaa, With both a private label and luxury brands?
Falguni said, “My whole place to begin was that you need to give consumers what they need. The customer is employing a lot of brands. I believe a lot of e-commerce companies have gone wrong. They need to become private labels from multi-brand because they think margins are high therein business. But pricing and being an honest retailer come first. We want to be an honest retailer; we would like to be a multi-brand retailer; we would like to be the simplest beauty destination. Now, if you check out the experience of comparable companies within the world like Sephora or Boots, all of them have private labels. When a consumer is willing to trust a retailer, she is additionally willing to trust the retailer’s brand. I want to patronise Sephora and that they never pushed their brand. Still, I ended up buying them. If I’m going to try to find a Laura Mercier foundation or a Tarte foundation, I might buy. But once I am less certain, I’ll buy Sephora also because I know Sephora as a brand.”
How influential has been influencer marketing for Nykaa?
Since the brand inception, the content has been very significant to us when it involves marketing. Nykaa Network, our community, is highly active in creating content. What we now measure is there could be as many as 200-300 marketing influencers for us to finally get 1 or 2 orders, which might come across in sometimes three days or maybe take every week. There’s a last-click conversion, and so there’s an influence. So, we allow tons of data sharing importance through various mediums and then hope that it gets converted.
Nykaa has been one of the pioneers in community building and the digital marketing space. How would you define the Nykaa Marketing Strategy here?
Falguni said, “We use Google, Facebook, Instagram quite extensively, then we also leverage our Nykaa app, which is hugely successful, raking in vast amounts of organic traffic. We also use CRM and SEO very significantly alongside outdoor and television periodically. We believe in total 360-degree marketing and use each of those.
The marketing message has got to have specific communication or emotions, showing insight into who we are instead of just clear communication. Also, since we are very active on YouTube, our connection is more geared towards video marketing. We’ve done a great deal to create a successful digital marketing business. Community building involving bloggers has been a prominent exercise. We are also focused on engaging micro-influencers alongside the celebrities to tap into their audience. All this can’t happen unless you’ve got a well placed on machinery thereunder. For example, we would like bloggers and micro-influencers to urge involved, but if we don’t send them the products, how will they know what’s getting launched. We almost have a 1500-member marketing team that takes care of it all. Initially, our marketing plan consisted of 100% digital, but in additional recent times, about 10% is non-digital. We are someone who started on digital then moved onto other platforms against others.”
Being an investment banker, what are the key learnings that you took forward in building Nykaa into the brand today?
Falguni explained, “In terms of investment banking, what I understood is that for a brand or a corporation to be future sustainable – there’s no point being the rising star and not having the ability to sustain. We’ve been cautious about building a sustainable business. Knowing the economics of how the industry functions and getting it right, keeping that because of the benchmark and letting it function towards that benchmark. I understood that well and that I think that’s one among the keys to Nykaa’s success.”
How was the brief shared for the campaigns and advertisements?
Falguni explained, “We are always trying to find people that can communicate a message. It doesn’t add up just fancy sets with fancy dance and a couple of lipstick range. There has got to be a robust message. Even our Janhavi film didn’t have a robust message but still communicated the thought of a carefree girl having a gala time together with her friends. We always anticipate arising with communication led films. From the first days of Nykaa, we were very clear that we don’t want to be a beauty brand that ladies wear to please men or maybe other women. We wanted to be a brand that ladies wear for themselves. We’ll not make a lady appear as if a playboy model or a Victoria’s secret. we cannot do videos like that.”
Is Nykaa a horizontal marketplace now, with the recent raid fashion?
Falguni answered, “No. We’ll choose the proper verticals to expand in. If we were believers in a horizontal marketplace, we might not have launched a separate app and website Nykaafashion.com. An equivalent is valid for the men’s grooming products platform, Nykaaman.com. Yes, the customer could also be frequent and we could obtain synergies between our sites, but we would like to be a demand-led retailer, not a ‘push’ retailer. We are a multi-brand vendor, with almost 150 and above brands listed with us. We believe private labels in fashion will have a far higher percentage share than beauty and will contribute up to 40% because the business grows. We don’t want to be a discount-led fashion website; we might preferably be a curated, style-led one.”
What is the one piece of advice you would give to a budding entrepreneur?
Falguni said, “Have a Believable idea. Always be smart with the finances while taking into account good quality and excellent service. Have a good customer base to target. Always plan ten steps ahead of any launch. Always believe in your startup, no matter what.
ANALYSIS OF DATA:
After analysing the gathered data,
Bootstrap may be a term commonly related to start-ups in their initial years, except for Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar. It’s a pillar of a company culture that she strives to keep up even today. “Most people believe it’s better to take a position before time, and therefore the business will come. But I think that one needs to be more careful if you would like to sustain,” said Falguni Nayar recently during an entrepreneurial discussion.
According to Nayar, her 18-year career as an investment banker taught her to be more financially prudent. “Being prudent about the quantity of capital you set to figure is usually an honest idea,” she explained. “Even today, we’ve got that culture. We are reluctant to invest an excessive amount. We believe in making it work with the economics you’ve got and doing it at a pace that you can afford.”
CONCLUSION:
To successfully conclude my findings,
Nykaa started in 2012 and today sells over 850 brands on its website and has 17 stores. Within the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, the corporation quite doubled its turnover to Rs570 crore from Rs214 crore within the previous fiscal. With the web beauty market predicted to touch $2 billion by 2020 and double by 2022, the corporate is looking to extend the brands and categories it offers and open another 30 stores, said the founder and CEO Falguni Nayar.
DISCUSSION:
In the discussion with my guidance counsellor on this ProjectProject, it is revealed:
Nykaa’s year-long research suggested a category of girls who aren’t interested in the beauty app and instead like better to shop online for fashion only. However, the big question for the corporation wasn’t whether or not it should get into this space or not, but whether it needed to hold on to the coattails of a successful beauty business to realise subsequent leg of growth. Nykaa has stabilised, with projected revenues of Rs 1,200 crore for FY19 and a replacement investor, TPG Growth, coming in at a Rs 5,000 crore valuation.
SUGGESTION:
After discussing this ProjectProject with friends and peers, they have individual opinions and recommendations. They are given below:
There are a few fake products, according to many customers. It should be verified if it is true or not.
The customer service is slow. We need to Improve delivery and customer service.
They should include as many small towns as possible for the delivery
They should keep alive and try on the option for lipsticks and other beauty products.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
My profound gratitude to all the faculty members of the Department for their timely assistance and encouragement throughout my research work.
I duly acknowledge the encouragement and support from the research scholars in the department and all my colleagues and friends.
It gives me immense pleasure to take the opportunity to all the people who are directly or indirectly involved in the completion of my Project based on interviewing an entrepreneur.
With deep reverence, I offer my deepest gratitude to _____, without whom this ProjectProject could not have been fulfilled.
Lastly, I thank the Almighty, my parents, family members, friends, and teachers for their constant encouragement and support, without which this ProjectProject would not be possible.
Name of School/College
BIBLIOGRAPHY / REFERENCE:
- https://www.quora.com/search?q=nykaa
- https://hbrascend.org/topics/lessons-in-managing-your-career-from-nykaas-ceo-falguni-nayar/
- https://qz.com/india/1278257/nykaa-ceo-falguni-nayar-talks-profitability-and-taking-online-beauty-brand-offline/
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/entrepreneur.asp
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