I opted out of regular job for my love for pets
Rana Atheya is CEO of DogSpot.in— a one stop platform for all the dogs’ needs…
Q Your idea of an online pet shop for pet lovers in India is quite unique. How did you come across it?
I am a dog lover happen to have love for dog right from my childhood. I always wanted to do something related to dogs and that was the idea of how idea for this venture came across. It started while I was working in corporate. It started like a hobby and then I decided to take it full time and quit from my job. After 2009, I have been out of my regular job. We started out like a community website in 2007 later transformed into a portal offering content and networking platform for dog owners and lovers, which eventually became an e-commerce portal in 2011.
Q: What were the challenges you faced and conquered?
The main challenge was in developing vendors, making customer educated, developing valuable content, and hiring right candidate. E-commerce market is still evolving & growing as more and more people go online to buy products. It was an unorganized segment then. It was a challenge working with unorganized players. We had to organize it; we had to develop lot of content. Some players have major setbacks and they are not open for learning or evolving. In such cases, we try & build those capabilities within our systems. Another challenge which we faced was finding the right talent. People who believed in our work & are passionate to pets & petcare are always a priority for us. Pet products are generally bulky and it is important for us to keep a close eye on the shipping cost & overall transportation cost. We had to educate customers for the new products available in market. It took lot of time & efforts. We had to develop vendors for the products. Content was not available when we started. Firstly, we used to use the products and then we had to write content for these products. Those were initial challenges. Now, we have very good & supportive team who take care of all these things. Especially, take care of supply side, managing and developing new vendors and new products. Supply side is more challenging now and we have mastered it.
Q: What are some of the most common issues you see your clients facing & how do you help them?
Clients are not much educated in this segment; we have to help them with expert helpline. For e.g. if you have a pet (dog), you don’t know about what to feed, what should you buy, what types of vaccination is necessary, what is good or bad for your pet. What we do, we help you from point to point. These couple of things our clients face and we help them with pet expert helpline.
Q: Is there any advice for new entrepreneurs?
For emerging entrepreneurs, firstly, I would like to say it is a passion which takes you forward as an entrepreneur. People should be clear about what passion is & what interest is inside them. Every time people get confused between passion & interest. Secondly, do your research before you start and keep your focus on your core values.
Leave a comment