•Business•
Shoestring Ventures Esha Vaish explores what goes behind running a successful venture on a shoe string budget
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hen one starts a shoestring venture, being frugal is only second to being street smart. A conventional business allows entrepreneurs to splurge on advertising and even buy expensive machinery, but with a shoestring budget venture, bootstrapping is the way to go. Add to that a pinch of innovation like employing word-of-mouth advertising or social media marketing and the business can be kick-started. The owner of Banjaras, a store that sells and moreover promotes use of natural Indian fabrics, pioneered a business that would create a market for the sustenance of traditional Indian weavers, hand block printers and even surface ornamentation artisans. On a candid note, the owner Mrs. Neeta Deshpande says that 20 years ago, when she started Banjaras, she only had Rs. 11,500. Although, Rs 11,500 would seem like substantial capital, while pushing it beyond the realms of a shoestring venture, it was not so. Travelling across India, to villages of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat to interact with the local artisans to obtain fabric was an expensive affair. She adds, “Everything from the thread that was needed for the weave often had to be funded as the local artisans often did not have the means to purchase them on their own.” With such large expenses, the venture did struggle in its initial days. By its creation itself, the business gave a platform for the propagation of other shoestring ventures from rural locales. Today, artisans from across 12 states are able to sustain their traditional art forms
12 | The Undergrad
and even make a substantial profit on their meagre budget weaving businesses due to the efforts of Banjara. Similar business and non-governmental organisation efforts to promote low budget ventures from poorer socio-economic backgrounds and rural areas are sprouting up across the nation. In urban Pune, another such organisation that supports shoestring ventures is Either Or. A tantalising display of books, jewellery, clothes, artifacts and decoratives sporting traditionally Indian techniques can be found in the shop. “Either Or has been an organic space that encourages and supports creativity. Our involvement with small scale businesses locally has emerged
as a result of young people, homemakers, designers, NGOs finding us and finding a resonance of their philosophies with our strengths and stories”, says owner, Ritika Narang Tickoo. Trusha Phulphagar, a second year student from Symbiosis Centre for Management
Studies Undergraduate (SCMS-UG), started designing her own range of hair bands in the summer following her 12th examination. With paltry finances, mostly out of her pocket money, she purchased the required raw materials. Using ribbon, cardboard, plain cheap plastic hair bands and a number of other decoratives, she along with a friend, began creating party wear hair bands. To promote the hairbands on her own accord would have been a herculean task, so instead Trusha approached Either Or to display her work. Inspiration for her shoestring venture for Trusha, came from her own venture making selling hair bands. “My business partner, Nikita gifted me one homemade hair band on my birthday and I loved it. I told her that we should make and sell hair bands. She was quite enthusiastic about the idea and that was the birth of our venture”, divulges Trusha. This coupled with her strong dislike for the hair bands being sold in shops, pushed Trusha to start making hair bands for sale. Competing with large scale Multi-national corporations with large cash infusion is never easy, but the shoestring model has its own benefits. “Although there is less money, there is more satisfaction than working with an MNC. I feel passionately about my business”, affirms Mrs. Deshpande. The hardships of staying in villages with less than adequate resources, travelling extensively to create a steady inflow of material and brainstorming endlessly to create innovative designs to cater to the urban market, may have exhausted others, but the passion that