As we go into part four of “Just Like us”, I hope that you guys have been enjoying the series so far. In this part, I have the pleasure of chatting with Ravi Kumar, Co-Founder and Director of Dilsebol. Com, a pioneer online customized merchandise portal.
Arun: I am sure once you decide to be an entrepreneur, lots of business ideas would have crossed your mind. How did you evaluate which one to pursue?
Ravi:I have no clue how to answer this! Once we started DilSeBol with the basic customization theme, I think the evolution as a port of call for unique gifting options is just a natural process. As we look to expand and grow, we keep evaluating new concepts which fit our overall customization theme and that’s how we ‘ve ended up with such a lot of gifting options!
Arun: After venturing into retail customized apparels and gifts, you have diversified into providing mass gifting options for corporates. Is it a natural progression?
Arun: You have displayed great persistence and stuck to your conviction for more than five years now. Sure, you would have seen lull periods as well, but you have not looked for alternative pastures. What is the mantra that keeps you charged? What motivates you each morning during those periods?
Ravi: This is too generic a question – I would imagine that each company and each team that runs it is different and depending on these factors, the level of involvement must vary. However, it is a bit unfair to expect someone to put money in a business and then not worry about it – it goes with the territory that whoever invests will want to be involved to make sure that good returns are delivered and I quite understand this sentiment!
Ravikumar and I got introduced through his wife and my school friend Jayasri. This was when I was thinking of getting started on my own venture heartisans, back in 2009. We have been Business associates since, and not restricted interactions to mere buying and selling. An extremely affable person, I find him to be an ideal sounding board for some of my business propositions.
Over to the conversation.Arun: Ravi, for starters, could you please let us know when were the first seeds on entrepreneurship sown in your mind? Is business a familiar career choice in your family?
Ravi: Truth be told, entrepreneurship through DilSeBol just happened. Like all of us, till I actually started DilSeBol, I had only sporadic thoughts of doing some business and making it big! Business is not really a family career choice – having said that, I am lucky to have great support and understanding from my family. Without that support, I can’t imagine trying to make a success of this business!I seriously started considering starting up when I was here in Chennai on a project around 2006 (was working with Accenture then) – I have always been a keen follower of the retail business as an industry and was pretty excited about the online retailing space in general, right from my MBA days. I thought that space had / has a lot of potential. I had actually made a business plan for an online apparel retail company in my college days, around 2000-01 but didn’t really follow up on it. Come 2006, a chance meeting with a friend Kapil with whom I had discussed the online plan back in 2001 led to me meeting Suresh and this set things in motion. Within a couple of months after that, I had quit, Suresh and Kapil and I joined hands and with some of our own funds, we started www.DilSeBol.com.
Arun: You did your MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. You also worked with extremely reputed brands like Coca Cola and Accenture in both on –the-field and management consulting profiles before you started DilSeBol. What are the conflicts that you face internally apart from just the typical money aspect when you decide to pursue entrepreneurship? And what tilted your ambition in favour of entrepreneurship?Ravi:I am not sure there are that many conflicts to talk about – once the entrepreneurship bug bites, things just flow from there! Still, if I were to point out one thing, it is the fact that in the initial days, entrepreneurship is all about doing most things on your own, being self motivated as there is no organizational support structure such as that available in a big company like Coca-Cola or Accenture.
I like the idea of bringing a business to life (motivated by the hopes of achieving high returns on investment!) with my own efforts – I want to try new things and I am a big believer that whatever I do, I must learn at least one new thing everyday – I suppose such an outlook made me lean towards entrepreneurship.Arun: I am sure once you decide to be an entrepreneur, lots of business ideas would have crossed your mind. How did you evaluate which one to pursue?
Ravi: Like I briefly mentioned, I had pretty much decided that my calling was online retail with an emphasis on apparel – DilSeBol is just a variant of this idea brought about by the fact that we felt there was a big gap in the market for on-demand customized merchandise in India.
Arun: Gifting is a universal concept, but gifting options are not. How does Dilsebol stand testimony to it?Ravi:I have no clue how to answer this! Once we started DilSeBol with the basic customization theme, I think the evolution as a port of call for unique gifting options is just a natural process. As we look to expand and grow, we keep evaluating new concepts which fit our overall customization theme and that’s how we ‘ve ended up with such a lot of gifting options!
Arun: After venturing into retail customized apparels and gifts, you have diversified into providing mass gifting options for corporates. Is it a natural progression?
Ravi: Our initial plan was more an exclusive B to C online website – however, as time went by, we started getting a lot of corporate enquiries and orders due to word of mouth publicity and some favourable feedback about our quality and reliability in terms of delivery schedules. Corp orate business soon become a big volume and revenue generator and now, it is something we have to concentrate on as that has become our main revenue contributor! However, our differentiation is still the fact that we will only do customized items – at the very least, we at least have to print a logo to make it a customized product for a company.
As we look to the future, we see the B to B space as growing even further – our challenge is make this part of the business work online as we still see it is driven a lot by face-to-face interaction, even for standard items like t-shirts.Arun: You have displayed great persistence and stuck to your conviction for more than five years now. Sure, you would have seen lull periods as well, but you have not looked for alternative pastures. What is the mantra that keeps you charged? What motivates you each morning during those periods?
Ravi: I have a strong desire to make this a really successful business – that’s what keeps me going! The added incentives are the freedom that comes with running your own business and the fact that I am still learning at least one new thing a day, even after 5 years on this job!
Arun: You co-founded DilSeBol with Suresh Subbian, a serial entrepreneur. How do you think partners should complement each other in the journey of a venture as it rides through each phase of the maturity cycle?Ravi: Ideally, it would be good to have partners who cover each of the main operational areas like Marketing, IT, Production / Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Accounts etc – this rarely happens. I feel that at least the essential areas to the success of a business (in our case, manufacturing and Sales & Marketing) must be areas where the partners have complementary skills. Other than that, trust, especially in matters concerning finance, is very important. Another thing that I feel has helped us in DilSeBol is that we don’t interfere in something the other person does – sometimes having space to operate is a very good thing!
Arun: Your team members always have a smile on their face. What are the soft skills that you adopt to keep them cheerful?Ravi: Haha, again I have no clue! We try to be flexible in our handling of our staff – we try to be open and honest with them, regarding where the company is headed, about their work, pay etc, what they can expect going forward – we also have the occasional movie sessions and eat outs with the team. Whether this is what keeps them happy and smiling, I do not know but it has helped so far in building a close knit team.
Arun: When it comes to startups, With great funding comes great responsibilities. How hands on or off do you think Private Equity and Venture Capitalists players should be to nurture a business and raise it to its full potential? Ravi: This is too generic a question – I would imagine that each company and each team that runs it is different and depending on these factors, the level of involvement must vary. However, it is a bit unfair to expect someone to put money in a business and then not worry about it – it goes with the territory that whoever invests will want to be involved to make sure that good returns are delivered and I quite understand this sentiment!
Arun: Entrepreneurs are viewed upon as people who are always looking for the next opportunity and do not get a typical off time. How do you de-stress yourselves from targets, proposals and the likes?
Ravi: True – I think when we are looking to grow aggressively, we can’t really be thinking about taking time off etc! In DilSeBol, since there are 2 of us, it helps. We do take off on a holiday once in a while to get away from it all and when one person requires a break, the other person covers! Arun: Ravi, as usual, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks for the wonderful insights!
