Entrepreneur of the month: Karthik Swaminathan
Karthik took part in our QIncubator programme, and has since gone on to develop his business, Nostalgiera, an online market place for buying and selling vintage items. We asked him about how he got to where he is today, and how Careers and Enterprise helped along the way!
Could you give us an elevator pitch of your business?
Nostalgiera is an online marketplace platform where users can discover, shop and sell collectible and vintage items, antiques and memorabilia. We curate the sellers to ensure that the products listed on the website are verified and as described. This also eases the search and discovery experience for the user.
What inspired you to start Nostalgiera?
Many great businesses today have come up by focusing on a small problem faced by many in a marketplace, and creating a better solution for it. Uber did it for transport, Etsy did it for handmade goods, StockX did it for sneakers and Airbnb did it for home rentals. Most of these were initially transacted on bigger marketplaces but eventually found a home here because it was a better, more focused solution to the problem.
I noticed similar issues transacting when trying to buy collectible type of goods on other marketplaces, because they cater to a wider category of goods and so the discovery process wasn’t great. Plus, there are issues with accuracy of the product listing and its authenticity. So I figured it would be interesting to start a dedicated marketplace for collectors, building that community and addressing their particular needs and issues. Since the focus was on goods from the past that invoke a feeling of nostalgia – I decided to call the business Nostalgiera.
What is your biggest achievement?
It’s still very early on and we’re pre-launch, but I would say I’m really proud of the small team I’ve built. The company was founded a few days before the first lockdown began and so the early hires and working with them initially had to be done remotely. It’s tough as it is to build a founding team, and even more so when you’re not in the same environment. But I’m extremely lucky and the few people we’ve brought on have been amazing and extremely passionate about what we’re doing.
It was crucial to creating an environment where people are motivated to work on their tasks – remotely – from the get go. Many conversations took place for over a month before we began meeting in person and there are still some I haven’t had the chance of meeting personally. It’s all down to luck, but I’ll put it in here as my biggest achievement.
You participated in the Careers and Enterprise QIncubator programme. What skills did you learn from your time on the programme?
QIncubator was a great learning experience. Each session covered an important area of starting or scaling a business, and there were important takeaways from each. The mentors and guest lecturers who came in during sessions and gave advice in smaller groups was also constructive and we got to ask them questions.
It was also interesting to see the different kinds of businesses and ideas that people were working on. Many sounded extremely unique and offered great value. It also encouraged you to explain your idea in simple and clear terms which is very important.
What tips would you give to any students/ graduates who are thinking of starting a business?
If you have an idea that you’re passionate about and have done your research on it, your best bet is to give it a shot, especially if its online. It’s becoming increasingly easier and cheaper to set up a website for a product or service and market it, even organically, on social media.
If you are confident in your idea, you can bootstrap it, create a first version of your product or service and give it to your users to get their feedback. It doesn’t cost much to start. You’ll then have a better idea if its worth working on further and the changes you might have to make. Starting with just the first steps is better than thinking long about all the reasons it might not work
Do you have a business idol? If you had the chance to ask them one question what would it be?
I’m really inspired by the story of Airbnb and its founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gabbia. They started the company around the time of the 2008 crisis and didn’t get much traction early on because everyone thought the idea of letting strangers into their homes was stupid. But they carried on and did some unusual but effective things to bring on their first users and listers. They were advised to focus on making the product for only a small set of core users and make them extremely happy with the service – this proved extremely effective. They also focused a lot on the product’s design and user experience.
I would probably ask them how they would navigate starting and scaling Airbnb if they were launching it now as a new idea in the midst of a pandemic, where they couldn’t go and talk to their users (they would knock on doors and take free professional shoots of early listers’ homes, to incentivise them).
What are your top recommendations at the moment? (i.e. webinars, podcasts, books etc.)
If you plan on starting a business, it’s important to know about the past successes and failures in your line of business and business in general. The Everything Store about Jeff Bezos and Amazon and Steve Jobs (the book), for example, are great books to learn how ideas turn into business empires. Learning from their journey, you can pattern match or have a frame of reference when you potentially come across a similar situation. Fireside chats or interviews with founders of companies you admire are also great places to look.
More generally, I think all the information you’ll ever need is available for free on YouTube. It’s also presented in a really clear and practical manner so you can reference them as and when you need to. Y-Combinator has some great videos and resources on starting and scaling a business. The Lean Startup is a great book to learn how to bootstrap your idea.
What is next for you and for your business?
We plan to launch our website to a few users sometime in mid-December. In the meantime and for the near future, we’ll navigate the COVID-19 climate and grow our user base as well as start generating revenue. We’ll also focus on growing the team – especially on the product side. Our website today has all the core functionality that other major marketplace platforms offer but we want to build and provide a more personalised experience for our users and collectors, as well as an app.
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