Carpe Diem: The Flipkart Story
Focus, plan, and get to work on making your dreams come true, says Sachin Bansal

Profile
Sachin spent his early years in Chandigarh. He graduated from IIT-Delhi with a degree in Computer Engineering and in 2006, joined Amazon.com in India. Later, he left to set-up Flipkart. As CEO, Sachin oversees all customer facing activities of the company - ranging from technology to marketing. He is also in charge of Flipkart's corporate divisions - including the finance and legal departments. An avid gaming enthusiast, Sachin likes to spend most of his free time with his family.

Flipkart
Having chalked up a registered user base of more than 2 million across the country in less than four years since its inception, Flipkart is considered a pioneer in the field of e-commerce. Started in 2007 by former classmates at IIT Delhi, and later, colleagues at Amazon.com, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the company is fast gaining dominance in several product categories like music, video, games, computers, electronics, mobile phones, healthcare, and personal products.

Flipkart is also the largest online book store in India, with over 11.5 million book titles available Currently, Flipkart has registered sales of nearly 2.5 million items across all categories, and sells more than 30,000 units per day, or 14 items per minute.

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Though we were both in secure jobs, we felt that our learning curves would be far greater if we could do something on our own - something that was tailor-made for the Indian consumer and could make a difference to their lives. Our initial plan was to start a comparison shopping site. However, our initial market research revealed that there were not too many sites to choose from in India. When we realised the potential that lay in this unmet demand-supply gap, Flipkart was born.

INITIAL DAYS
Being an entrepreneur is never easy. You need to take every single business decision extremely carefully as most of the time your personal finances are heavily invested in the venture. Moreover, all the steps involved in setting up the business need to be taken care of personally. We invested Rs 4 lakh of our personal money and decided to start off with a simple site that would sell books online. Books were easier to ship, were priced right for first-time shoppers to trust us with their money, and were not high on the touch-and-feel factor. In short, it had all the qualities that made it lucrative for first-time entrepreneurs like us to make it the first step of our venture.

However, it was not all smooth sailing. Setting up bank accounts, getting an online payment option, and convincing publishers to share their inventory with us - all of this was a challenge for an unknown company. It was difficult to generate supplier confidence, and the inability to keep a large inventory was an issue. Ensuring the timely delivery of products was another challenge. There was a time when we would even pick up, pack, and deliver the products on our own!

Initially we did not have any marketing budget. But, confident our model, we continued to focus on delivering a positive customer experience at all stages, and this translated into strong word-of-mouth promotion for us.

THE CUSTOMER IS KING
Indian companies still lack the culture of ‘customer delight’. Most of them make do with the bare minimum required, and do not stretch themselves to provide a truly world-class experience. Indian entrepreneurs who walk that extra mile in order to ensure they delight the customer with their product and service are the ones who will survive and succeed - in this hyper-competitive environment. We have tried to own the entire customer experience in the online shopping cycle. This obsession with customer delight is our USP, and our numbers prove that we are going in the right direction. Today, Flipkart has a registered user base of 2 million people, 12 categories, ships 30,000 items a day, and earns revenue to the tune of Rs2.5 crores a day. All this has been possible because we believed in our vision and worked towards making it a success.

THE FUTURE
We believe that India is at the cusp of an economic revolution today. We are at a place where, if the right choices are made, we can enter an upward growth spiral that will make us one of the largest economic powerhouses in the world. India has has a lot going for it - whether it is size of our growing middle class, high quality of talent, or the advantages of functioning within the largest democracy in the world.

We have already seen remarkable success stories across the retail, healthcare, and education domains, and many more sunrise industries will be seen coming into their own in the next few years. The Internet economy, where Flipkart operates, has been growing in leaps and bounds and this curve is expected to continue in the coming year. These growth trends are driving more and more professionals, and industry bodies are coming together to encourage entrepreneurship. Extensive investments are being made in various business ecosystems both by government and private players. This can only speak well for the Indian market.

Our message to all budding entrepreneurs - you need to grab that opportunity. Cut down on your decision-making process and always ensure your business makes the consumer your priority. By putting the needs of the customer first and listening to what they have to say, you can build a loyal customer base - the blueprint to any business success story.