"Ethniq Desi" and its journey so far

Sreerekha Madivala of Ethniq Desi opens up about her venture and thoughts on entrepreneurship with SHEROES today.

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I graduated from NIT surathkal, worked with Infosys for a decade before I started my entrepreneurial journey. I headed the engineering team and was a part of core founding team at Injoos and Kinetic Glue in enterprise 2.0 space. I have been very fortunate that I experienced ‘just hits and no misses’ in both my startups, worked with some of the best folks…learnt a lot about entrepreneurship and product thinking. This ignited a spark in me to start a venture of my own…hopefully I am moving on to another successful venture!!

(Also Read - How a Journey To The Mountains Brought Out The Entrepreneur In This Woman)

How it started...

Ethniq desi idea was originated when we were casually having a discussion at the lunch table on weight loss and how we have to alter our clothes every six months, the idea of wearing sarees charged us!! We started wearing sarees for all social gatherings and occasions ..and were surprised by the compliments we received on the choice of clothing and the elegance. We took this up a little more seriously and wanted to offer Indian ethnic fashion on a single platform, some thing that's trendy, fashionable and most importantly curated!! That's how ethniq desi came to life !!

We launched Ethniq Desi in August 2015 with just saris and now we have extended it to other kinds of ethnic clothing. We are just five months old now!! While we continue to cater to the India market, our primary interest is to take Ethniq Desi to Indians living abroad and give them a very desi shopping experience.

Rajini Jagadish Iyengar and I co-founded ethniq desi. We have worked in Infosys together in IT, coming from similar background and skill sets , the biggest challenge for us was to understand retail and fashion..and most importantly setting up e-commerce ecosystem. We have learnt a lot in four months and still learning. We have a good number of vendors selling their products on ethniq desi, our products are highly appreciated by our customers .we have over 30% repeat customers. Working with limited resources is what entrepreneurship teaches you..We are a small team doing a great job managing pretty much everything from product cataloguing, customer support, vendor management to logistics.

We manage with a small team who are very passionate about the platform. We operate out of our homes to cut down on infrastructure costs. Engaging freelancers for blogging and social media marketing on need basis brings our marketing costs down as well. We are looking at raising funds soon.

We do not believe in loading the platform with too many features, widgets and products. Our customers will have a very simple and pleasant shopping experience with beautifully designed interface, awe-inspiring products and realistic images taken in natural light. We are putting in a lot of effort in curating the products and the vendors to ensure the uniqueness and relevance of the products. We want to be the digital wardrobe for women where just a click on ‘Shop’ button will unlock the wardrobe and get you that perfect ethnic look!!"

Though entrepreneurial world is crowded by men, there’s no reason to attach gender to entrepreneurship as there is no difference in terms in traits, motivations and success rates between men and women entreprenuers.