I grew up in the historical center of India, Delhi, among my parents, my brother, and my awe-inspiring grandfather. My grandfather, an ex-bureaucrat in the Defense Ministry, had been a man of strength and grit. The stories of his struggles during the partition and the ordeal that followed have always inspired me.
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I studied at DPS R.K. Puram. Not particularly an industrious student, I managed to fetch decent grades. In fact, school books were my last preference. It was boring and involved no excitement. I loved everything besides studying. I loved making doorbells, fixing irons and TVs, reading, and especially watching TV. I remember, every day I quietly waited for my mother to step out, and the moment she did, I scooted to her room and sat myself down in front of the TV set. And with the faintest sound of the clickety-clack of her heels, I would return to my books like I had never abandoned them.
It was difficult to make me sit steady with my books. My mother’s very enticing bait of a pizza at Nirula’s and a movie cassette for the one who scored full marks in the unit test failed to lull me into the static exercise of studying. As undeserving as I was, I still got to savor the cheesy pizzas as my brother never missed the mark. I always piggybacked on his academic prowess. It worked so perfectly!
Anyway, after school I decided to take a year off. I sincerely needed some time off studying and the mechanical schedule I had been following since I was five. To occupy myself with something of interest, I took up a job at a plastics manufacturing company where I joined as a shop floor employee. Appointed for a salary of Rs 6550 per month, I was responsible for conducting quality inspection 12 hours a day.
To this day, I don’t remember a more fulfilling experience than this one – the feeling of independence and fulfillment is completely unmatched.
After working for sometime, I joined the University of Pennsylvania, from where I completed engineering. Next, I enrolled myself in The Wharton School for a business degree. I also took up an executive marketing program at Kellogg School of Management. Post completion of which, I bagged a job, much to the delight of my mother, who had always stressed on the security provided by a steady job.
Many years back when my father decided to quit his job with some large family-owned enterprise and take the risk of becoming an entrepreneur, he fell prey to the miseries of uncertainty and instability that come with entrepreneurship. He struggled for years before he could stabilize his business or his income. As a partner who had shared the affliction imposed by the circumstances, my mother naturally grew biased towards good jobs for the security and the social standing that they offered.
I guess she always wanted to tell her friends and relatives that her son(s) worked at McKinsey. However, my father was approving of both career options— job and business.
Incidentally, both my brother and I chose to toe the enterprising line of business. My brother, after collecting his degrees from the best institutes in India, IIT Delhi and IIM Kolkata, joined the family business. And I, on the other hand, started an enterprise of my own.
I cofounded Jasper, a marketing company that uses multichannel direct marketing solutions, with my friend Rohit Bansal in June of 2008. Our first angel investment was of Rs. 40 lakh, and Rohit and I put in an equal amount from
our savings.
In 2006-07 when we saw lot of investment happening in retail in India, we knew that the same problems that surfaced in developed retail markets were likely to arise here as well; i.e., excess capacity, post which merchants will seek tools to drive customer acquisitions. To capitalize on the opportunity, we decided to build a couponing business in India.
I had some experience in couponing from my college days. In the US, I had cofounded a detergent company. Being a bootstrapped venture, it had no marketing budget. And in absence of funds, we used couponing and sampling to drive consumer traction for the business.
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However, after about 20 months of building out the couponing business (primarily offline), and a large retailer network of over 50,000 merchants across 30 cities, we realized that we had to keep innovating and start leveraging technology in a better manner for our business.
On January 26, 2010, over a cup of coffee at Costa Coffee near our office, Rohit and I decided to launch Snapdeal after some retailers told us that they had seen some customers come in through some internet portals doing group buying. In eight days, by February 4, 2010, the site was live with deals across Delhi.
Going online, however, led to certain challenges. Having attained the new status of a tech company from a hard-core marketing business, attracting quality technical talent was a major challenge. However, we overcame that with time.
Additionally, having a partner like Rohit played a key role in maintaining sanity in any situation, and keeping things in perspective. We are very supportive of each other’s ideas and concerns.
I remember the time around November 2008 when we were scouting for funds and the economy had just tanked, no venture capitalist was interested in making an early-stage investment. A VC had, in fact, reneged on their term sheet stating the changed market condition. But we didn’t let our confidence go down and eventually, we caught the attention of one of the best VCs in India, IndoUS Ventures. They agreed to invest in our business despite the choppy market condition as they believed in our capability.
With their trust and support, we soon met our first biggest milestone. We hit a consistent number of 100 deals per day, a significant milestone as the figure in some way validated that there were at least a few hundred people out there who liked the service. Eventually, of course, we have moved to numbers in a different paradigm, running into thousands of deals per day being sold on the site.
Started with two people in a dingy, rented basement office in a residential community, today, two and a half years later, we are a strong team of 300 personnel with presence across 50 cities and five countries, and with a good portfolio of products and services. Jasper has overcome various challenges to be where it stands today. And we will continue to scale our business efficiently and aggressively, and innovate with new marketing platforms, with the eventual goal of building a marketing powerhouse company in India.
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