Entrepreneur of the Month: Deepika Bajaj
March 01, 2008
This month, we are thrilled to present IndiaOn’s first female entrepreneur. Read on to learn about Deepika’s inspiring start and her tips for success.
Name: Deepika Bajaj
Company Name: Invincibelle
Company Brief Description: Invincibelle is a premium site for women who live and work in a multicultural world. Invincibelle brings trusted and relevant content to accelerate personal and professional growth of women worldwide.
What was your primary motivation for starting a company?
As far as I remember, I always wanted to start my own company. Growing up, I was in awe of my grandfather who ran three successful businesses. His father (my great grandfather) died when he was six and his mother raised him along with his elder brother. Early in his life, responsibility of taking care of his family fell on his shoulders. With very little formal education, he built businesses and was able to raise his children, take care of his family and employees.
When I was little, my father was always busy running the business and so I got to spend a lot of time with my dada ji (my grandfather). He always kept me in conversations of how planning, autonomous employees and trust with customers were critical for the success of any business.
Secondly, I always wanted to make a difference in the world. A career on the fast track was very lucrative but I always had an inner calling to do something that solved a significant pain in people’s lives. The drive to do something bigger than myself and meaningful helped me take the plunge to start my own company.
Finally, I was always passionate about helping ambitious and aspiring women who lived in a multicultural world. When I came to US ten years ago, I realized how hard it was to find role models, trusted resources for information, experts on different domains who could help propel your career. There was a need for a platform to learn from crème de la crème, find trusted and relevant information, get training and showcase your talent to prosper in your career. In hindsight, all of this was motivation for me to start my company, Invincibelle.
What were the major steps you went through to start your company?
The two things that come to my mind are:
Firstly, way before I started my company, I started saving money to start one. I believe that one has to put money in one’s own venture. It brings in a different level of commitment.
Secondly, I invested heavily in my education and continue to do so even today. I was hungry for knowledge. I was fortunate to learn from the best teachers.
Of course, I started with a “draft” business plan and with limited resources with the help of family, friends and partners (locally and internationally). Over the last one year, the company has evolved and taken a different life.
How did you raise funding? At what point in your launch cycle?
Initially, I bootstrapped the company along with some strategic investments. I built the company by developing partnerships. This helped me keep the monthly burn rate low and brought in help from partners for the execution of the initial concept.
With the release of Invincibelle 2.0 on February 11th, 2008, we are now in a high growth mode and gearing for raising funds in the next three-six months.
In the dot-com era, fundraising was considered the normal route for building a company. An entrepreneur needed an in-house development team, servers and marketing campaigns to start a company.
Today, I believe that a first-time entrepreneur needs to prove a concept to a level before he can reach out to potential investors. The costs associated with starting an Internet company have significantly reduced. An entrepreneur needs to consider tools like skype for communication, google analytics for tracking web traffic and blogs, squidoos, wikis, email campaigns for marketing.
What, in your opinion, are the elements that are key to being a successful entrepreneur?
I believe there is no single recipe for being a successful entrepreneur. Each entrepreneur has unique characteristics that are difficult to emulate. It is core of that individual that serves him well in the realm of uncertainty and ambiguity.
I can share some elements that served me well in the last year.
Start and continue to build a powerful structure to execute: Ideas are plenty and everyone has one or more of them. Only a few can execute. Rarely can an entrepreneur do it alone. He or she needs help. So surround yourself with people who can help at various stages. These can be mentors, teachers, partners, strategic customers and so on.
Get the support of your family: Your family is your biggest asset. They extend help by offering encouragement, time and, sometimes, monetary help in the early stage.
Never be emotionally attached to the initial idea or business model: Understand flexibility is king. Some good ideas will come from the customers. Be prepared to change.
Get going: There is no alternative to taking action. Prepare yourself by thinking what you want to achieve and just start. There will be resistance on the way. Great ideas have historically faced resistance. If you are reading this interview, you are already thinking of ways to start your own company. The only way to find out is to just DO IT.
What was the most unexpected thing you experienced in the process of launching your company?
“ Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know that, so it goes on flying anyway.” – Mary Kay Ash.
There is myriad of things you will encounter. Like anything done for the first time, this will present situations you have no familiarity with.
Among many unexpected things, the most significant experience for me was to acknowledge entrepreneurship as a way of being. It is a journey not a destination. It is a discourse that changes your perspective dramatically. You become autonomous and self-accountable. It challenges you to test your limits and reinvents you as a human being.
Many people read about entrepreneurship and think they know what it is on the other side. That was how I thought too. Only when I crossed over to the other side, did I realize what it was to be an entrepreneur.
Second thing that I learnt was to become more comfortable with uncertainty. Plans don’t work out the way they are outlined on paper. People change their minds and not all the forces (economics, demographics, politics etc.) that have a major influence in the way world is moving are in your control. Just being comfortable with uncertainty was a big thing. I am not saying I am totally there but there is a difference between how I was before and how I am now in that department.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before you started?
That it would take way longer than it seems and costs way more than you planned for it ☺
What was your most valuable asset in the process?
Organizations are built with people first. I am grateful for all the people who have supported me in this. When I say people, I want to include the team members, strategic partners, advisors, board members, potential customers who spent time with us discussing the applications, friends and of course, family members.
I also will like to include our ‘Distinguished Invincibelles’. On our side, we have to say that we got lucky and attracted some extremely bright women who interviewed with us, shared insights and who believed in what we were doing early on.
There were days that were very stressful. But we had fun. The journey is not over. I am looking forward to the next phase and plan to enjoy building the company further.
If I have to sum it up in one world, the biggest asset is the “relationships” that have been built over the last eighteen months.
They say starting a company is a life-consuming event – how did you manage to retain some balance in your life? (or did you?)
This is true. It is a life-consuming event. I am guilty of unanswered family phone calls, missed family occasions and delay in responding to friends. I did not say this was easy. There are sacrifices you have to make. To be able to spend time with my family, I try to cook dinner on most evenings and go out with my husband occasionally on short vacations.
Last year, when I lost my father, building a company served as a boon in disguise. I found healing in focusing my energy on building Invincibelle. I was able to steer my grief to building something positive.
Personally, I love the process of creation. I remember that while in school I used to love building toy planes and buildings using games with building blocks. This activity was more challenging and interesting to me than any other indoor activity. I got great satisfaction when I created something and when that actually took shape.
What are some of the big opportunities you are seeing currently (India and US)?
Last September, I was in India and I was amazed at some big opportunities there. India is embarking on a new era in the field of social entrepreneurship. From a $2,500 Tata Nano to $20 people’s phone from Spice, they are setting examples for the world to make technology available to masses. Last year, in Houston, I attended a presentation of Prof. C.K. Prahalad, who presented the opportunity of ‘Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’ to entrepreneurs. He urged them to think about energy for cooking and schools for rural India. The boom of cellular communication and now transportation (TATA Nano) has set the stage for next generation of innovative products to be rolled out by entrepreneurs for masses.
In US, I am amazed with Thought Leadership in the domain of innovation. Cool and revolutionary innovations continue to disrupt the marketplace continuously. Facebook and iPhone are changing how we communicate and connect. We will always be surrounded with such innovations that will continue to create new markets and change our behaviors as to how we use technology.
Resources/advice for our readers out there?
“A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.” – Admiral Grace Hooper
I will encourage readers to become serious students of learning and growth. Meet and learn about stellar professionals. Talk with them about their journey to mastery. So, contact, cultivate, and nurture like-minded souls who are higher up the food chain than you are. This will require care and giving, but it’s worth the effort. I believe to do cool things we need wisdom of trusted elders.
On stress and failure, it is a part of life. A healthy dose of stress, in fact, could be very good for health and growth. “ Failure is stepping stone of success,” they say. Everyone says it, but very few can deal with it when failure really strikes. I believe life is a game of endurance. In it, it is impossible NOT to fall down. Are you saying to yourself that you are a failure, or do you laugh, and decide to get up and start again every time you fall down?
Check out Invincibelle
deven
about 1 month ago
8 comments
CONGRATULATIONS Deepika & Kaamna. Happy to be associated with you. - Deven Alimchandani