My next attempt... Beveragewala!

This was my most recent attempt to start up. I am a big tea enthusiast and love having my 3-4 cups of tea in a day. When I went to the supermarket to buy tea (for the first time I think), I saw so many brands of tea and was confused which one to buy. There I felt the need to set up an online store for selling teas and coffees where a user can not only discover which teas and coffees are better and popular, but also buy them from there itself. This is how Beveragewala came about.

Beveragewala.com was officially launched in August 2014 and started off selling only premium teas and coffees initially. We wanted to make users aware of the various brands and varieties available and also wanted them to make their purchases through us. We started off with 35 odd brands and over 250 SKUs. Our teas and coffees had origins from different regions of India, like Assam, Darjeeling, Nilgiris etc, and some parts of the World as well. We experienced constant growth in terms of number of SKUs and brands and also users visiting and purchasing from our portal. By July 2015, we had over 7,000 lifetime users serving around 100 orders per day. Also we had more than 1,600 SKUs and around 100 brands of teas and coffees.

Although we saw constant growth month on month with very minimal a marketing budget, we finally decided to close down the venture in August 2015 primarily due to the following reasons:

- When we analysed Beveragewala, we realized that the startup was, despite seeing growth, not panning out to be a sustainable venture. With the big players like Amazon showing some traction in the tea/coffee categories, Beveragewala was competing directly with them in these categories. We did not have any competitive advantage in terms of customer experience, logistics etc. and we felt sustainability would be a concern in the long term.

- The burn in ecommerce is a concern especially for smaller companies looking to scale up. We were burning more than INR 2 lacs a month in July (when we did 3,000 orders in the month). Our savings and budget was exhausted and we could not raise money to carry on further.

On looking back now, Beveragewala was probably the startup which has given the maximum to me. The experience and learning from this has been amazing. I realized that a startup must have or aim to have a competitive advantage to enable it to compete with other competitors in the segment it operates in. Not having any advantage makes it difficult for a startup to sustain and compete with the biggies due to the difference in the resources they possess.

Along with that, a startup must have a solid business plan in place and in that, a financial plan is also key. Great ideas, a lot of times, do end up dying because of a lack of financial planning to sustain the venture. Also the lack of solid business plan makes it hazy for the founders to assess whetere their journey is headed in the right direction. 

An entrepreneur must know when to quit...

We all feel that entrepreneurship is all about starting a business. I think that it is also very important for an entrepreneur when to close down the business.

There are a lot of reasons why entrepreneurs continue operating a business even if they feel that the business is not operating as per their expectations or initial thought. This might be due to reasons like:
- the fear to fail: Failure is such a stigma, in our society especially, that most feel that failures are the end of their journeys and the end of their self-confidence.
- the entrepreneur's bias: We all feel that our business is the best and at times we tend to have unreasonable confidence in the same. In the daily running of the business, we fail to assess how we are performing and whether the business is performing as per expectations and is becoming into a sustainable business.

A good entrepreneur must avoid falling prey to the above and at all times, must analyse and assess the venture in an unbiased and logical manner. If the business is not looking steady and sustainable going forward due to reasons like a lack of differentiation, a lack of a robust business model, continuous under-performance on internal estimates, a lack of a pivoting option etc, the entrepreneur should definitely keep persisting but should know when the right is to close down the business as well.

So in the end, the moral is that the entrepreneur should be at all times in total control of his/her venture and should understand the nitty gritties of the same.

5 Things Entrepreneurs Need To Know About Themselves

Strengths – Spend some time to find your strength, improve on it and find ways to maximise it. Feel confident in these abilities to an extent that you don’t question them. Find out if your core competency is finance, marketing, negotiating, leading. Once you know, you can instil faith in your stakeholders and employees.

Weaknesses - Knowing and accepting your weakness allows you to work on improving them. More importantly, you can seek help in this regard to sail through business smoothly.

Know your passion – Know if you are doing it for kicks or are serious about creating a large company out of your start up. Knowing what drives you and what will help you meet your business goals will keep you motivated.

Limits – Know when you shouldn’t proceed with a task or project. Understand your boundaries and that of your business to maintain balance.

Fears – Business is risky. Know what your fears are so you can overcome them if they occur. At the very least, you should be able to face them or make peace with them.

(nice pointers taken from eazyhire.in)

Hello!

Hey guys, welcome to this blog.

I am Manish Hada. I have done a B.Sc, MBA & M.S and have founded 2 startups till date. I have also worked on a host of ideas which never saw the light of the day.

I have been trying to start and sustain a business for the last 10 odd years now. I've started a few, scaled up in some and have had to exit all :( I may not have the bank balance to show what I've done, but through this blog, I want to share what I actually have gained in this journey and also in the times ahead.

Hope this helps :)))))))))))))