"My first customer was a complete stranger" - SOLA Siddhi.K Entrepreneur

-Shruthi Das (Sub-Editor/Writer)

How Siddhi Kulkarni Converted Her Idea Into A Successful Business?

With the growing trend of India towards Economic Liberalization, people are coming up with many start-up ideas and to join this trend, we decided to share stories of some youngsters of our University who started their own businesses. By this, we are aiming to motivate others to just jump in with their ideas to start their own business.

Siddhi Kulkarni is a business owner of her company Sooper.

Sooper sells handmade, customizable, and affordable name tags and collars to people for their cute pets. She started her business on Instagram and recently she has launched her own shopping website - mydukaan.io/sooperin.

SOLA-How did you come up with the idea of starting up this business and what motivated you to start?

Siddhi. K- I started my business on 1st July 2021. As everyone around me was starting up small businesses on Instagram and as jewelry businesses are now becoming a trend, I wanted to do something very different. As I already have a pet, I got an idea to do something for pets. I noticed that pet products in shops online or offline were quite expensive so I thought let's start with selling fancy pet products at affordable prices. To start up with something simple and to check the market, I started with name tags and then moved on to making collars.

To start with a business you need to do some research, so I started learning some skills using DIY youtube videos. I invested my time to try making it with raisins but it kept messing up so I decided to make it with clays which were carefully molded and then baked. I tried on my dog first to check if he is comfortable with this tag on his neck. After trying, I convinced my parents of this business with proper explanation and yes, that’s how I started. I made many tags and came up with themes like couple tags (keychain for the owner and a name tag for his pets), Christmas theme, and many more.

SOLA- What were the challenges you faced in the initial stages and how did you overcome them?

Siddhi.K- My first customer was a complete stranger, a lady who wanted a name tag for her cat. In the first week of the launch I sold around 5 to 10 tags which was a pretty good start with great reviews and all but then after this, a dried period came where I wasn’t getting any orders. Maybe because my new college just started, I wasn’t able to engage much with the audience but I can’t think of any specific reason. Father was also worried as he also invested a lot in this business but we waited.

Then I got a message from my friend asking if I would like to participate in an exhibition. So I called that lady who was in charge of the exhibition to participate. It was my first exhibition held in Viman Nagar but like other business stalls there even I didn’t make any profit as it was a pub and as people were in a party mood not many were interested in it. I started making collars as people might get bored of the same product, I made more reels on Instagram, and recently I participated in one event where I made a lot of profit. These were my surviving days but patience was the important thing that helped me to overcome them.

SOLA- What has been your biggest aha moment? (most significant acheivement)

Siddhi. K- I would say the profit that I made on my recent event was the biggest aha moment. This event was held on the 11th and 12th of this month (Feb 2022). It was a family restaurant and many children were there so to attract them to my shop I came up with the idea to let kids paint some blank tags which were extras. So in a fun way, I was able to get the attention of the customers and as families were already interested in my product so I was able to cover the stall fees on my first day, and on the second day, I made profits.

SOLA- How did you expand your business and who do you toward advice?

Siddhi. K- Recently I launched a website as now I have many categories for tags and collars. A customer in an event asked me if I can stitch clothes for pets or not, I am considering it but for that, I have to learn how to stitch clothes but I will try for that. I listen to everyone’s advice but specifically speaking I take my Father’s advice and his recent advice that I implemented was making this business website on MyDukaan App.

SOLA- How do you define success as an entrepreneur?

Siddhi. K- Success is something you can achieve every time you sell your product and your new sales break your last record but it is also something that can easily slip from your hands once you achieve it. Referring to my experience, when I started I was very happy with my initial sales but then I saw a dry period with no sales. So I advise people to be consistent then only you’ll be successful but once it drops then it slips off.

SOLA- Which is the essential advice you’d like to share with a would-be entrepreneur?

Siddhi. K- When you want to start a business, research it and then implement it but don’t overthink about it because you once start overthinking you start disliking your idea. Just jump on with your idea and we’ll see what happens after as it's still on an initial stage where you are just thinking, start planning one by one.