WOMEN

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Role of Women Entrepreneurship

Towards more Inclusive Economic Growth

19 Case Studies of
Women Entrepreneurs

By Mridula Velagapudi
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the author.

© Mridula Velagapudi

Published by
Mridula Velagapudi
v_mridula@yahoo.com

Powered by
Pothi.com
http://pothi.com

Disclaimer: The data information in this book was

current till 2010 and makes no representation of
accuracy and completeness. It is for reference only. It is
not intended to be relied upon or be a substitute for
professional advice. Accordingly author does not accept
any liability for any loss which may arise from any
reliance on the data in this book or its contents or
howsoever arising.
 Dedication
To
The Womanhood
And
The Spirit of Entrepreneurship
 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the Women Entrepreneurs who
have shared their experiences with me so candidly. This
book is the culmination of the cooperation which I
received from all these enterprising women.

I would also like to thank my little daughter Ishanvi, who

is two and a half years old, and has co-operated so well
by keeping herself occupied with coloring, painting and
play-dough while I wrote.
 Table of Contents

The Home-sprung Models

Preen The Passion................................................. 27
Jyoti Ramnath, CraftMy Gift
Capture The Household Services Pie.................. 33
Tiffanie Kinder, Nanny Connections
Manjiri Gokhale Joshi, Maya CARE

Address The Niche Segments

Outsourced CMO Model...................................... 57
Sudha Kumar, Prayag Consulting
The Outsourced CFO Model................................ 67
Anjana Vivek, VentureBean Consulting
Morph Your Skills Into A New „Avatar‟.............. 79
Anju Maudgal Kadam, Unitus India

The Emerging Segments & Trends -

Online Collaboration In Verticals
Niche E-commerce And Web 3.0......................... 91
Chandini Harlalka, Artflute.com
Tweak The Supply-Side In Your
Business Model................................................... 100
Pallavi Keshri, Eyaas.com
Present The Alternative...................................... 109
Maura Chari, Wellnessocean.com
Job Site For A Vertical –
Women With Career Break................................ 119
Kachina Chawla, Gharkamai.com
Maneesha Sarin, Gharkamai.com

The Emerging Segments & Trends -

The Start-up Revolution
Exploring New Definitions................................ 138
Nandini Hirianniah, The Morpheus
The Recession Proof Corner -
Education Industry
Integrate „The Change‟ Into
Traditional Format...............................................153
Dakshayini Kanna, Treamis World School
Tutoring the New Skills – Cashing On
the Niche Demographically............................... 161
Manju Rai, FACET

Embracing The Environment Level

Challenges
Waste Management............................................ 171
Poonam Bir Kasturi, Dailydump
Responsible Consumerism................................ 183
Aparna Bhatnagar, Green And Good Store

Mompreneurship
Products................................................................202
Cause Haun, See Kai Run
Selma Avdicevic, Woolly Boo
E-learning............................................................ 214
Deepa Bhat, Mybeehive.in
“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity!
But I made it! Don‟t sit down and wait for the
opportunities to come. Get up and make them”
– Madam C.J. Walker
[December 23, 1867 – May 25, 1919]
An African-American Businesswoman,
Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
 Prologue
Recently I read the speech delivered by Steve Jobs [Steve
Jobs‟ Convocation Speech (Stanford); delivered 12 June
2005, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA]. Till date it
has been the most inspiring article from an entrepreneur‟s
point of view for me; especially the third story narrated
in that speech.
The first paragraph of that story goes like this:
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like:
“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday
you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on
me, and since then, for the past 33years, I’ve looked in
the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today
were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am
about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been
“No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to
change something.
The speech goes further to say, “Your time is
limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t
be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of
other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s
opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most
importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already know what you truly
want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Steve Jobs‟ speech has a strong message for
everybody. If you ask yourself the same question and you
honestly get „no‟ as answer for whatever you are doing
[whether being a homemaker or a working woman, or a
working woman balancing home and work], then you
need to rethink about what you want to do.
No one would deny that the flavor of freedom is
the best. There is nothing better than working for
yourself and making your life more meaningful beyond
the boundaries of home and family. There are numerous
books written on entrepreneurship. I have decided to
focus on the women entrepreneurial stories. The
objective is to compile the real-time experiences of the
women entrepreneurs, who have carved out a success
path for themselves. It is aimed at understanding the
basis behind their achievements and failures – how have
they overcome various obstacles and integrated the
pieces to chalk out their business strategies. I am
presenting the stories/entrepreneurial journeys as
interviews, so that you get a first-hand understanding of
the entirety of starting up a business.
I have focused the interviews on some of the
threads which run common in all types of entrepreneurial
ventures. They also carry significant weightage as
building blocks [some subjective in nature and some
objective in nature] for the entrepreneurial phenomenon.
These blocks are Ideating, Finding a Co-founder,
Funding and Striking a Balance between Family and the
New Venture.
Dealing with the subject of women
entrepreneurs is not meant to show any gender bias!
Neither it is about women‟s liberation. The urban India
has come a long way from that. Nonetheless, it cannot
be denied that when compared with men, women have to
overcome and embrace more obstacles and
responsibilities in order to fulfil their entrepreneurial
dreams. Therefore, I have chosen to write about their
entrepreneurial stories in order to boost the morale of
many aspiring entrepreneurs.
This book should inspire any aspiring
entrepreneur equally – man or woman. The term
Entrepreneurship itself has been extended into many
fields to include terms, such as Social Entrepreneurship,
Political Entrepreneurship and even Mompreneurship.
So, when I say Women Entrepreneurship [or Woman
Entrepreneurs], the focus is to present the different kinds
of ventures that they take-up as startups and also to show
the importance of their coexistence in the business world.
Generally, the women entrepreneurs take up the areas,
which may get ignored in the glamour of a perceived
„Corporate Culture‟; not that the entry to those areas is
limited to women only. Just like women, even men can
explore such opportunities. Hence, I say that this book
should be inspirational for both men and women –
equally.
Let us come out of a deadlock here – the
deadlock, which almost immediately shoots up the
question of whether a particular piece of work [a book,
an art work, or any publication], which highlights the
„woman‟ aspect in it, is actually sex agnostic or not. I
would encourage the readers to think broadly. I would
encourage you to ascend higher than the narrowly
debated topic and give importance to the fact that women
have very different organizational skills and have
different leadership and management styles. It is noted
that with more than 3 women in top management
positions, companies tend to have better ROI and ROA.
Gender Diverse Management is for business cases these
days. Women‟s leadership and management styles
accentuate on better decision-making: not only in board
meetings but also in identifying the entrepreneurial
opportunities. [This will become more vivid when you
read the sectors in which women have ventured with their
startups]. In pursuit of my own passion, I have included a
section on „Why Women Entrepreneurship?‟ It brings
forth the scientific approach to understand the importance
of women entrepreneurship.
Hence the objective of choosing Women
Entrepreneurship is two-pronged. The primary objective
is to inspire more women into taking up entrepreneurship
as their career and add wealth and value both for
themselves and for the society at large. What can be
better than presenting the entrepreneurial stories of the
women for inspiring the women?
The secondary objective of choosing Women
Entrepreneurship is to encourage any aspiring
entrepreneur both man and woman equally. There is now
enough evidence, which proves that entrepreneurship is
the sure way to economic development. It doesn‟t matter
how big or small an entrepreneurial venture is, or which
field of entrepreneurship does a venture addresses to. The
crux of the matter is that it is the collective phenomena of
entrepreneurship, which contributes to the GDP growth,
job creation and ultimately wealth creation for the
economy and the society as a whole.
At the same time the irony of the fact is that the
smaller scale entrepreneurs and many classified fields of
entrepreneurship do not get as much emphasis as their
bigger scale, traditionally defined entrepreneur
counterparts do. The role of media in making all kinds of
entrepreneurial stories, as visible as possible, is
important. This is crucial from the point of view of
encouraging more entrepreneurial and innovative
thinking, to bolster competitiveness.
Once again, what can be better than presenting
the entrepreneurial stories of that section of our society
[women] who, in general would have had to make more
trade-offs, face and embrace more obstacles and
responsibilities than men?
Most of the women entrepreneurs featured in
this book are first generation entrepreneurs. Nearly all of
them are within the five-year of starting up their
businesses. On reading this book you shall be able
comprehend the outlook, which has helped in incubating
these start-up ventures. This book applauds the spirit of
women entrepreneurship without necessarily judging
success as the outcome.
You may have come up with ideas many times,
but due to lack of insight about different aspects of
running a start-up, you actually never take-off. This
chronicle should give inspiration and direction to you.
You should be able to draw the inferences, understand
various start-up scenarios and should be able to weave
and knit business models and strategies for your own
entrepreneurial stints. This book should be able to show
you how to nail down an entrepreneurial opportunity.
Every interview is preceded by a short opportunity
analysis. I believe these analyses will morph your
analytical ability to spot opportunities as you live your
life.
I emphasis here on - weave and knit business
models and strategies for your own entrepreneurial
stints. Why? Let me explain more by defining
entrepreneurship.1
Entrepreneurship is the act of being an
entrepreneur, which is a French word meaning “one who
undertakes innovations, finance and business acumen in
an effort to transform innovations into economic goods”.
This may result in new organizations or may be part of
revitalizing mature organizations in response to a
perceived opportunity. The most obvious form of
entrepreneurship is that of starting new businesses
[referred as Startup Company];
The very fact that you innovate, identify gaps
and then take the leap forward into making your own
business, it should be clear that you will not have set or
defined rules, as you will be getting into a new and
unexplored territory. The risk will be huge. But also be
aware that risk and return have a direct correlation;
higher the risk, higher the return. It is foolhardy to plunge
into anything which has high risk. On the contrary if you
educate yourself about high risk endeavours, you should
be able to judge various parameters and put them in right
places to a great extent. Such an endeavour then becomes
a calculated risk and draws the odds closer in your favor.
When you are starting your own venture, a
„quality‟ pre-launch groundwork will help get a better
grip of the whole venture. This in itself is a complete
process, what I call as Step 2 of your entrepreneurial
journey, which is a 3-Step process. Step 1 is the „idea
conceptualization‟ stage. Step 2 is „validation of the idea
and preparation of a fool proof [as far as possible]
business plan‟ stage and Step 3 is the „execution‟ stage. I
believe that all 3 steps are equally important, step 3 being
the key for your entrepreneurial journey. I am presenting
the Step1 here; Step 2 and Step 3 are beyond the scope of
this book.
 Some people are born entrepreneurs. They are
the opportunity sniffers. It all comes very naturally to
them – identifying an opportunity and taking risks. But it
is not so with everyone and just because of this you
should not let a potential discipline of Entrepreneurship
get ignored by you. I believe if Art, as a discipline, can
be taught, so can the Entrepreneurship also. You know
that “Ignorance is bliss”. You may have the right frame
of mind to adopt Entrepreneurship as a field for the rest
of your career, but you need to understand the techniques
and art of nailing down an opportunity to be able to
conceptualize a potentially lucrative business idea. The
entrepreneurial stories presented in this book, will draw
your attention to the Step 1 of the entire journey.
I will also emphasize here that you should know
yourself if you want to be an entrepreneur. Remember,
you need to like the nature of your venture to be able to
sustain through the rollercoaster ride of an
entrepreneurial journey. You should be passionate
enough to keep the fire burning in you, especially when
you go through the lows in nurturing your business, till it
reaches a basic sustainability level. So, it‟s important to
know yourself - your interests and skills, and then take up
the task of entrepreneurship.
I have tried to cover diverse sectors: some
existing and some completely new emerging as a result
of evolution in technology and growth-fuelled changes in
our socio-economic setup. These cases should guide you
right from how to be innovative in thinking – how to use
innovation as a tool to understand and identify an
opportunity, include differentiation, excel in execution
and hence live through your dreams. As Thomas Edison
has said:
“I never perfected an invention that I did not
think about in terms of the service it might give others...I
find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I
have enjoyed writing it.