Ease of doing business - a big factor for emerging enterprises: Founder, Juststickers
Updated: Nov 04, 2015 05:02:56pm
New Delhi, Nov 4 (KNN) Juststickers - a marketplace for creatives, enabling focus on creating illustrations which connect with customers, is a platform for getting amazing designs converted into fine crafted stickers. KNN caught up with the founder of the venture, Sumeet Chawla, to learn more about the startup.
Presently, Juststickers is selling laptop stickers, decals and also provides bulk sticker solutions for companies and events.
The idea for Juststickers was conceived in August 2012 after the Yahoo Hackathon event held in Bangalore. The Yahoo Hack was a 24 hour non-stop coding competition where you convert an instant idea into a working prototype.
“Once we reached the venue, we all received a fascinating goody bag which contained stuff such as a t-shirt, Id card and a sticker. The sticker had the Yahoo Hack 2012 design and we happily stuck it on our laptops,” said Chawla.
“During the competition, we created a real time trend aggregator in the form of images and ended up winning the contest. After this my fondness for stickers grew and I kept adding to the one on my laptop, mostly images that represented my characteristics. Being a developer, I definitely wanted to showcase the technologies I loved.”
“That’s when I caught on to the idea,” smiled Chawla.
Thereafter, a thorough search revealed that there was no single company in India which sold the kind of stickers he wanted. He figured that more people would want the same things that he did, and the idea came into being. However, he could not execute the idea until the first quarter of 2014.
Chawla pointed out the challenges his unit as a startup had to face. Being a solution provider, coding the website from scratch and managing the user experience part were aspects he was comfortable with. However, finding the right manufacturers, setting up the logistics and operations was a different ball game altogether.
Further, being a single founder created all the more trouble for him. “My dad played an important role during this time and helped me in my search for the right partners. I was still working my day job at Langoor, a technology agency based out of Australia and Bangalore; hence it was really hard for me to invest my day time on this,” he elaborated.
Eventually, after a lot of hard work and a few stressful months, Juststickers was ready with the basic operations. At present, the venture manages its inventory from Kolkata and it has two production units, one in Bangalore and one in Kolkata.
As for logistics, the founder decided on using India Post’s SpeedPost. “This was a very challenging decision but it ended up being one of the best initially. SpeedPost provides amazing delivery speeds, detailed tracking of the packages and at the best market rates.” The only drawback as far as Chawla was concerned was customer support.
Being something of a perfectionist, the entrepreneur wanted the stickers to be the best out there. From packaging to presentation, every single detail was important. “After a lot of effort, time and prototypes, we managed to come up with a premium packaging and finish for our stickers,” he sighed.
However, there are still a lot of production related road blocks which the firm is encountering. Any E-commerce business is very capital intensive and so was Juststickers. A lot of investment goes into inventory creation, materials and other miscellaneous expenses.
“Initially, I invested a lot of my monthly salary into running expenses. Also, being bootstrapped, I tried to go as lean as possible and wherever possible. I started working full time on this from December last year. My mission was to provide quality products at good price and to be profitable so that most of the business expenses can take care of itself,” Chawla told KNN.
However, to scale up, the firm needs more funds and is required to use them in the right channels to grow. But Juststickers primarily is focusing on improving and optimizing their offerings further, as per the consumer needs. “Once we have achieved the correct product market fit, we can worry about getting larger funds,” he said.
The USP of the startup since the beginning has been to sell designs which a general consumer can connect with and it has worked really well for the firm in carving a niche.
“I initially started with targeting the tech crowd and it feels great to see at least one of our stickers in so many tech companies all over the country. It also feels great when people send happy mails, it gives us that extra boost,” said he.
Presently, a 5 member company, Juststickers, plans to add multiple verticals to it. The venture which started with laptop stickers is soon going to add customized stickers for almost everything, from mobile phones, cars, walls to bikes, although, the founder wants to keep the focus on the design part as well.
“Our country has tons of talented and creative people. I want to be moving in a direction where we give them a platform to unleash their creativity and in turn they would help us create really innovative products for the end consumers,” he said.
The founder holds the belief that the government is doing a lot to change the way small businesses are perceived in India. The startup craze is catching on and young people are more motivated to try new things and solve problems early on in their careers.
“In my opinion, the government should also focus on educating the public more about the SMEs and entrepreneurship starting at a college level. Also, the ease of doing business is a big factor for emerging enterprises. I guess the government is already trying to improve this factor. But, we still have a long way to go.” (KNN Bureau)
Presently, Juststickers is selling laptop stickers, decals and also provides bulk sticker solutions for companies and events.
The idea for Juststickers was conceived in August 2012 after the Yahoo Hackathon event held in Bangalore. The Yahoo Hack was a 24 hour non-stop coding competition where you convert an instant idea into a working prototype.
“Once we reached the venue, we all received a fascinating goody bag which contained stuff such as a t-shirt, Id card and a sticker. The sticker had the Yahoo Hack 2012 design and we happily stuck it on our laptops,” said Chawla.
“During the competition, we created a real time trend aggregator in the form of images and ended up winning the contest. After this my fondness for stickers grew and I kept adding to the one on my laptop, mostly images that represented my characteristics. Being a developer, I definitely wanted to showcase the technologies I loved.”
“That’s when I caught on to the idea,” smiled Chawla.
Thereafter, a thorough search revealed that there was no single company in India which sold the kind of stickers he wanted. He figured that more people would want the same things that he did, and the idea came into being. However, he could not execute the idea until the first quarter of 2014.
Chawla pointed out the challenges his unit as a startup had to face. Being a solution provider, coding the website from scratch and managing the user experience part were aspects he was comfortable with. However, finding the right manufacturers, setting up the logistics and operations was a different ball game altogether.
Further, being a single founder created all the more trouble for him. “My dad played an important role during this time and helped me in my search for the right partners. I was still working my day job at Langoor, a technology agency based out of Australia and Bangalore; hence it was really hard for me to invest my day time on this,” he elaborated.
Eventually, after a lot of hard work and a few stressful months, Juststickers was ready with the basic operations. At present, the venture manages its inventory from Kolkata and it has two production units, one in Bangalore and one in Kolkata.
As for logistics, the founder decided on using India Post’s SpeedPost. “This was a very challenging decision but it ended up being one of the best initially. SpeedPost provides amazing delivery speeds, detailed tracking of the packages and at the best market rates.” The only drawback as far as Chawla was concerned was customer support.
Being something of a perfectionist, the entrepreneur wanted the stickers to be the best out there. From packaging to presentation, every single detail was important. “After a lot of effort, time and prototypes, we managed to come up with a premium packaging and finish for our stickers,” he sighed.
However, there are still a lot of production related road blocks which the firm is encountering. Any E-commerce business is very capital intensive and so was Juststickers. A lot of investment goes into inventory creation, materials and other miscellaneous expenses.
“Initially, I invested a lot of my monthly salary into running expenses. Also, being bootstrapped, I tried to go as lean as possible and wherever possible. I started working full time on this from December last year. My mission was to provide quality products at good price and to be profitable so that most of the business expenses can take care of itself,” Chawla told KNN.
However, to scale up, the firm needs more funds and is required to use them in the right channels to grow. But Juststickers primarily is focusing on improving and optimizing their offerings further, as per the consumer needs. “Once we have achieved the correct product market fit, we can worry about getting larger funds,” he said.
The USP of the startup since the beginning has been to sell designs which a general consumer can connect with and it has worked really well for the firm in carving a niche.
“I initially started with targeting the tech crowd and it feels great to see at least one of our stickers in so many tech companies all over the country. It also feels great when people send happy mails, it gives us that extra boost,” said he.
Presently, a 5 member company, Juststickers, plans to add multiple verticals to it. The venture which started with laptop stickers is soon going to add customized stickers for almost everything, from mobile phones, cars, walls to bikes, although, the founder wants to keep the focus on the design part as well.
“Our country has tons of talented and creative people. I want to be moving in a direction where we give them a platform to unleash their creativity and in turn they would help us create really innovative products for the end consumers,” he said.
The founder holds the belief that the government is doing a lot to change the way small businesses are perceived in India. The startup craze is catching on and young people are more motivated to try new things and solve problems early on in their careers.
“In my opinion, the government should also focus on educating the public more about the SMEs and entrepreneurship starting at a college level. Also, the ease of doing business is a big factor for emerging enterprises. I guess the government is already trying to improve this factor. But, we still have a long way to go.” (KNN Bureau)
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