Three IITians become Fresh Vegetable Vendors

When Sachin Bansal decided to venture into some online business in 2007, he chose to sell books, as he believed that selling books online favors chances of success in more than one ways. First there is not much trust and loyalty issue attached with selling books online. Because a book being a low price product; a buyer will not be too much concerned about losing money even while buying a title from a relatively new site. That apart, books taking less space, makes for smaller consignment packages; and last but not the least, books don’t break in transportation. And with these primary thoughts in mind, once Bansal sorted out the secure way of paying for books online; plus increased the number of titles he is selling; His book-selling website flipKart.com, became India’s largest book selling website in less than three years. Recently he received another round of funding from his VCs; the money he plans to invest in expansion to categories apart from books, cutting on delivering time and becoming one of the biggest e-commerce company in India by 2015.

The bottom line is, when entrepreneurs get into a business – they have a couple of core thoughts in mind about the business they are heading to; which they believe will help them succeed.

Take these three IIT-Bombay boys for instance. Rohit Goyal, a 21-year-old, studying civil engineering at the country’s top engineering school, met Siddharth Kataria (24) who passed electrical engineering last year and Anshul Singhal (27) who was teaching at a coaching class after graduation. is no more interested in structure and aesthetics of buildings. The three decided to start some business online.

Initially the trio considered clothing and books, but realised that people will drop in just once or perhaps a couple of times in a month. Interestingly, thinking on different lines, they didn’t give much weightage to the advantages books (or clothes) offer; something on which Sachin Bansal, the founder of Flipkart.com was quite clear about.

The trio instead wanted more “footsteps on their site” and hence they chose to sell Vegetables.

The three IITians soon launched Sabjiwaala.com, a website which delivers fresh and clean vegetables to Powai residents. Sabjiwaala.com which is just six months old, currently caters to over 1,000 customers on a daily basis; and is a big hit amongst residents of Powai. About 500 loyal customers, interact with these techie Sabziwallas or place their orders online.

Within a short period of six months, the new company has managed to gain customer trust with not only their on-time delivery, but also for fresh vegetables.

The website, which gets over a 1,000 hits a day, has all veggies listed. A customer only needs to click on his/her vegetable, quantity and place of delivery. The boys claim to deliver the items (From a mere 250 gm to quintal) within 24 hours.

Upbeat with the response, the Trio plans to reach out to a larger market and cover the whole of mumbai city, hoping to redefine the way vegetables are sold.

It has been seen that rather than the category itself; it’s the individual initiative of an entrepreneur; which decides the future of the enterprise undertaken. As no two people think alike; two entrepreneurs seldom think on the same lines. But, the conviction in one’s core thoughts regarding the strengths a particular enterprise holds; helps an entrepreneur succeed. --------

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