Dec 2012 : Did an internship at an online fan merchandizing startup and learned how to make an online store, i already had a bug of entrepreneurship, I couldn’t stop myself more at the place, once i had an idea for “local shopping search engine” in mind.
Jan 2013 : I had a plan to raise money, i had convinced my best buddies to do the thing with me. The plan was to get incubated from our college’s Incubation centre.
Feb : After some efforts, managed to get incubation. Launched marketing campaign in various colleges and placed around 50+ people as campus ambassadors, and 10+ people in team, got the attention in city’s biggest cultural fest. Exams got less attention, and my savings were finished. Money was yet to be released from incubation centre.
March : Started with a coverage in newspaper, got more helping hands, My attendance in classes was decreasing. Managed to arrange some funds from friends and family, to get the thing going. Started approaching the retailers, conversion ratio was very low, even when we weren’t charging anything for making their inventory online. Rigorous catalog photo shoots, night long data entries. We finally launched on 15 march, with apparels, after 48 sleepless hours.
April : We got our first sale, we weren’t able to promote the service due to lack of funds, our incubation proposal was shifted to the next batch. I learned data scraping and scrapped some sites to reduce the data entry work. I started looking for alternate sources of funds, i learned professional wordpress development during nightss, to give the startup some blood(money) to keep walking, one more array of academic exams passed unnoticed .
May : This act of bootstraping didn’t worked well and we had sold only about 5 products by the date, the team started losing hope, the retailers who were on the board weren’t happy with our performance, we were very short on funds and couldn’t promote our service, the team size reduced, there was stress, and there were exams gone really bad. We tried teaching web development to students to raise money, but that failed as all colleges were having summer breaks. More deep into the sea.
June : The team shrink-ed, We were just three people now, it was summer vacation so other two were at home, I had to employ a person to do daily tasks with me. There were no orders as we didn’t have any updated catalog as we didn’t had a quality camera required for photography. I listed Wind coolers this time on the site, it was weird and we had no sales. As a cherry on the cake, my semester result was announced, I got a backlog in 3 subjects out of 6 (I was a school topper in my 10th and 12th, with a very good academic record).
July : I called home and asked for some more money, i also told about my result, i was “ORDERED” to get back to home, asap!. My family wasn’t happy with all this, they were sad, and wanted me to focus only on studies, i however managed to convince them about entrepreneurship and all the tech i have learned in the meanwhile, i got money for one more month!.
August : Got the acceptance letter from incubation centre, still no money. But surprisingly the idea of coolers worked and we sold 10 of them in just few days, it was a small amount but was enough to keep the spark in me.
September : By now we were two people working on this, that means one more wicket down, I again managed to get interviewed in a Hindi Daily, I also became the President of E-Cell at college. We started getting calls from some retailers, we photographed catalog by borrowing cameras from our college mates, we worked for 18+ hours each day in traveling to retailers place, making a small studio there, listing, photography etc. but we were enjoying it.
October : We had photographs and listing of all the inventory but we made a very foolish mistake, we have half-tshirts, shirts, shorts, etc. but winter has just arrived, inspite of all our work, we didn’t got much sales.
November : I met a guy, who appeared to be passionate about the ecommerce thing, we started working together, he assured me of funds, and we started the thing again, this time we started selling groceries, personal care and food from popular restaurant, he was handling logistics and sourcing and I was responsible for overall marketing, tech and logistics for food. I didn’t approached the incubation again for funding.
December : We started really well, and got about 10 orders on first day, it was highest ever, nextday it was 12, and next next day it was 30+, we were doing good, and you guessed it right, it was the exam time! In the end of december i along with some other friends tried to scale this to Jaipur as well, and we started Jaipur14.com as well.
January : When i returned to Gwalior, I got the worst shock of my life when i heard that the logistics partner had stopped the deliveries, I tried calling him but he didn’t picked, the site was on, we have orders and we have no sourcing, or delivery man! I recruited people in a hurry and resumed everything. After two days I found that guy has started own service by copying my design and tech, I was just speechless, but i had created some hacks in the process, may be for this day only, and approached all my suppliers and informed them about the case, the guy has to shut down his service as he couldn’t market it well, and suppliers stopped to deliver him, and his tech sucked the customers. After January 10, I launched a full-fledged online restaurant and milk delivery in college hostel.
The other guy working with me helped a lot and we were able to get the things back again, we now had 100+ orders daily from one college only, and the revenue of 4000+ daily, though we aren’t profitable as we have two paid employees, and operating expenses. Also i got my result for last semester and didn’t got any back this time :D.
February:I had successfully tested and implemented the same model in a student populated area of Jaipur, I am looking for covering more parts in India, and need enthusiastic people for it. We are building a chain of localized shopping portals, and are looking for people who can implement this in their city.
Being a student entrepreneur is full of challenges and adventures, your subject of tensions are entirely different from your peers, you handle a dual responsibility. But if you are goal driven you can manage to handle them all and walk firmly on your road to success.
If you are interested in launching this concept to your city, or want to help me with fund or guidance , Please email me at ankit@gwalior7.com
Update : I had shifted to delhi, and now making this things PAN-INDIA, with a unified domain name.
As a gist of my one year journey I would just remark as
“You don’t do a startup, you live a startup”
Ankit Shukla : Spot boy & Founder Gwalior7 / Jaipur14
Awarded the
“Rodinstar” Post
of the week!!
Rishi
Awesome! Congrats and best wishes 🙂
Smit Ganatra
wow! too many pivots! amazing though,all the best with it
Nistha Tripathi
Love your story, I think you have what it takes and success will come sooner or later. Good luck!
asha chaudhry
ankit,
didn’t feel like messing with the top of your post – so messed with the bottom of it 🙂
keep rocking – awesome awesome debut post – so many learnings from you youngsters!!
will definitely check you out if i visit gwalior again!
Ankit Shukla
Thanks a lot Rishi for the best wishes. 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Pivots were the need, and they made the journey more wonderful and helped me find a better me, every time. Thanks a lot for your wishes 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Thanks a lot Nishita, I am pleased that you loved my story. Wish you the same 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Sure Asha mam, thanks a lot again for taking my post so well, I would love to meet you 🙂
Nishant Pal
I have not seen anyone as hardworking as Ankit, Passionate will be a small word to describe his dedication for work. Every time he shed his sweat he ensures success is near, Wish you good luck.
Vikas Raturi
Awesome work dude…!
Keep going and inspiring others ( including me 😛 )
best wishes !
Priyesh Choudhary
Great post.Loved it from top to bottom.I could relate to it a lot because I am also a student entrepreneur.Your post has inspired me to share my story too which i will do it shortly.Good Luck..Great Work 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Thanks a lot sir, directly or indirectly I have learnt many things from your discipline.
Ankit Shukla
Thanks a lot dude, I am glad to know that you liked my journey 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Thanks Priyesh for reading my post and loving it 🙂 I would love to read your story too 🙂
Yo Gesh Gupta
keep rocking !!!!!!!!!
Nitish Mehta
superb..!! best of luck ..!!
RACHANA BAGDE
Ankit sir, people like you inspire us more. May you achieve great heights ahead.
Abdul Wahid Khan
Awesome Ankit! You persisted and tried different things online to get success with your orders finally and that too with lack of funds. You have set a very good example!
Roshan Anand
Hey Ankit, your story is really inspiring.
Just wanted to check your website, but none of gwalior7.com and jaipur14.com is working.
asha chaudhry
hey ankit,
all well at your end? both websites seem to be down…?
you might want to check this post – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/think-do-wear-rodinhood-tee-winners-for-jan-feb-march-2014
Ankit Shukla
Hi Roshan, Apologies for late reply,
you should check them now, we are onto something much bigger and serving more people beyond the boundaries of particular cities.
Would notify you as I get it done 🙂
I am very happy that you found my story worthy 🙂
Ankit Shukla
Hi Asha,
I am good and more happening.. I couldn’t find time since very long to visit this amazing forum and i can see that i have lost some really amazing discussions. I am completely engaged in some cooler and bigger stuff, whose foundation definitely lies in this post.
I would love to share the next one year story of myself being a “less-inexperienced entrepreneur” very soon 🙂
Thanks for the support 🙂
asha chaudhry
hey happy b’day ankit!!
i know you are working on something big – really waiting for you to update us soon!!!