#23: Walk and Explore

Meet Shruti Dutt Gupta, Director, Walks 2 Remember, who is passionate about walking and exploring Delhi. “I belong to a service class family based in Dehradun and nobody in my family has gone into business. From childhood I knew two things, one, that I could never do a 9-5 job, and two, that I would do something either in the film industry or in the hospitality industry, because I grew up as an introvert, but transformed to become a people’s person. I went on to do my graduation in English Literature from Hindu College, Delhi University and then joined a film making course. After that course I set up my own film production company. I discovered the tourism industry as a part-time job when I was looking for some income to stabilize myself. Two years into my part-time job, my entrepreneurial mindset took over me completely and hence I came up with Walks 2 Remember,” shares Shruti.

“After having moved to Delhi in Grade 9, it became my home. It’s a city my father belonged to and a city that made me explore it and fall in love with it. It’s so rich in the history, culture, traditions and people that I wanted to tell people its story. In my experience of living in the city, I realized that even people who were born and bought up in Delhi hadn’t managed to explore it completely, let alone the people visiting it. Hence the idea of Walks 2 Remember came to life. The idea was not only to show people Delhi and tell them about it, but also help them know Delhi in its entirety. So we came up with the idea of not having an ordinary Heritage Walks, but also creating a tradition of coming up with an experience, that is not only rich in history, but also is culturally enhancing and awakening. The inspiration was my love and chanced discovery of Delhi, and I wanted to share that story with people in a unique way so that people don’t remain alien to Delhi,” she elaborates.

“Walks 2 Remember was officially found in November 2013, it’s just the beginning and the journey so far has been nothing less than thrilling. The joy of seeing our idea turn into reality, the happiness when people appreciate your work, and the long and daunting working hours to make our dream become a phenomena is just a sensational feeling. One of the happiest moments so far has been when a travel professional who is a veteran in this industry, after taking our Old Delhi Fusion Walk said that in his 21 years of experience he hadn’t seen Delhi like he did today. And those words meant a lot to us,” shares Shruti.

Asking about the venture’s future, Shruti beams with joy and says, “In the near future, I would like to see Walks 2 Remember cover the entire Delhi map and keep on creating tours that make people fall in love with Delhi all over again.”

#22: Shop and Earn Cashback.

You know what is every girl's dream?

Well there are two:

1. To never get fat.

2. To shop and earn money. YES. You heard it right. SHOP AND EARN!

Meet Swati Bhargava, the small town girl from Ambala, who, along with her husband Rohan Bhargava, has made your dream come true.

“I did my schooling till Grade 10 in Ambala and for my high school got a scholarship to study in Singapore. After my schooling I bagged a scholarship to London School of Economics (LSE) and studied Economics and Mathematics there. While I come from a small town, I have managed to learn a fair bit from the 3 different countries I have studied in. It has given me experience like no other. While studying in LSE, I did an internship with Goldman Sachs and soon after graduating I joined the firm in a full time position. I worked at Goldman Sachs for 5 years while my husband Rohan, who too attended LSE worked with a hedge-fund firm,” shares Swati.

“As students in LSE, we both aspired to be entrepreneurs, and after working for 5 years, I decided the time to incept my own business had come. Rohan and I started exploring the world of e-commerce and zeroed down on venturing into the domain of cashback and couponing. That is when we started our business in UK, by launching a website called Pouring Pounds. Later we went on to launch 6 other partner sites, again based in the UK, post which we decided to delve into the Indian market and that is when Cashkaro.com was born,” she adds.

On delving into details, we got to know that Cashkaro.com was actually Rohan’s idea. “When Groupon made it big in the UK, Rohan and I started digging deeper into the field and found e-commerce to have a lot of potential. We thought why not extend the model. Groupon works on to include deals not only on luxurious items and massage therapies, but also on daily purchases like clothes, mobile recharge, mobiles, home décor, electronics, etc. With this idea in the backdrop, we explored further and found the Cashback model to be very lucrative indeed,” she elaborates.

Cashkaro started in mid-April 2013 and since then they have seen a good growth. Cashkaro is now India’s No. 1 Cashback & Coupons website and is witnessing a decent amount of people joining every day. Initially their team was working out of Gurgaon and Chennai in India, while Rohan and Swati were managing UK operations from London itself. After seeing Cashkaro doing well over the few months, they decided to shift their base to India and work together with the team.

“Coming to work every day is very exciting now and us being here motivates the team more and we all learn from each other. While our temporary move from London has marked many changes, I feel the move is something that is going to translate into something big. I feel it’s been a journey worth undertaking,” she says.

“While the best part about my job is the fact that I enjoy doing what I do, what feels even better is when Cashkaro receives appreciation from its members. That’s when you know that your venture is helpful for the general public and there could be no better feeling than that for an entrepreneur like me. While my role is quite wide, I focus a lot on getting PR for Cashkaro and establishing the brand. I also look over Social Media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the like. Within 7 months of inception, Cashkaro has garnered over 4.8 lakh Facebook fans and is attracting almost 40% of its traffic from this channel,” Swati shares.

On asking about her future plans, she adds, “Speaking of Cashkaro, there are a lot of things that I believe we could experiment with, like we are yet to venture into the offline student world marketing. Having received lots of proposals and propositions for the same, we have narrowed down on a few opportunities, and this year, are planning to roll out some of our offline promotion plans. As for me, all I can say is that I wish my day had more than 24 hours. The day gets over so fast one doesn’t even realize it. As for my venture, I see great potential in Cashkaro. Seeing Quidco making great success in the UK, we plan to make Cashkaro, the Quidco of India.  Given that, the Indian population at large is always on the lookout for discounts and great deals of sorts, and I think a website like Cashkaro is the next best thing for avid shoppers.”

Ask her about her the high point in her journey up till now, and she immediately responds, “It has to be when we got funding worth $750,000 from UK based angel investors. The funding was mainly for the growth of our company, and over the last few months we have grown from a team of 14 odd people to a team of 25 plus. The growth has been great too, our user-base is increasing by the day and overall Cashkaro is on the right track to be India’s best money saving website!”

If you wish to know more about Cashkaro, their social media case studies can be seen at:

http://socialmediatrics.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/case-study-cashkaros-social-media-strategy/

http://www.anandanpillai.com/should-cxos-participate-actively-in-social-media-a-case-study-of-cashkaro-com/

http://www.socialsamosa.com/2013/10/social-media-case-study-cashkaro-com-facebook/

#21: God's blessings in various colours

Renu Dhawan(2nd from right) and her team at Akshdha

Meet Renu Dhawan, a dedicated social worker from Ambala, who always wanted to work for the upliftment of underprivileged women by making them financially independent. “Initially, I tried to help these women avail the benefits of Government welfare programs. These programs were intended to provide basic training and pay them to attend and learn. After much application filling and rounds to govt offices, I realized that these programs were more of a sham. The trainer had no expertise and the participants didn't get full stipend as well,” she says. On complaining, she was told to back off by the officials. To counter the disappointment, she began teaching the interested women at her home. She would teach them to create small patches of embroidery or a necklace and pay them for their effort. That is how the foundation of her organization Akshdha (God’s blessings) was laid 3 years ago. Akshdha now employs 5 permanent women who are now the breadwinners of their families. It also has 3-4 temporary workers who work on ad-hoc contractual basis. Now Akshdha has clientele not only in India but also in Dubai, USA and Europe.

Renu’s work, significantly features serendipity and faith. She believes that God is looking after Akshdha. So she always prays to never let her forget her mission. “A year ago,  Akshdha got an order to make 1000 pouches from a leading luxury Italian brand when I did not have enough work to give to my workers. Akshdha, has now graduated to manufacturing a fine range of designer necklaces, bead strings, artificial jewellery, elegant pouches and a host of other wedding accessories,” she shares.

“Not being professionally trained in fashion, it feels good to be able to come up with lovely designs that are appreciated by people around the world, at the same time making the employees of Akshdha independent and successful gives me a high,” she adds.

Akshdha is coming up with new products every month. “In the near future, I see Akshdha making more classy and high-end yet affordable products for women in the time to come,” she ends.

(Apart from Akshdha, Renu is also the founding member of Aastha, an active NGO that is dedicated towards child upliftment. She is also a member of the Marriage Disputes Cell, where she has worked hard to raise awareness for issues like domestic violence and racial in-discrimination. Being a qualified yoga teacher, she has taught also yoga to over 10,000 people by organizing free camps in colleges, villages, hospitals, deaf and blind schools, and even in leper’s colonies.)