ENTREPRENUER SPECIAL..... Be Your Own Boss

 Be Your Own Boss

Tired of your job? Or your boss? Or do you want to start your own business? Shailesh Menon has a few success stories

The answer to all the above questions is: Try freelancing. But if you want to hit big league with freelancing, you better be real-skilled, hardworking and a great believer in luck.

India is the second largest “freelancing hub” of the world after the US. Going by PayPal estimates, India has close to 1.5 crore freelancers — many of them working on home-generated projects with others dealing with clients (work providers) from the US, Europe and Australia.

A high-quality Indian freelancer earns roughly $20 per hour. Top jobs include web & mobile development, web designing, data entry & Internet research, accounting and consultancy services. Writing resumes, wedding vows & cooking recipes, online Bharatanatyam courses, online tutoring, online patient consulting (allopathic, ayurvedic & homoeopathic), data analytics et al are other upcoming areas of interest. (See table) “When day job turns monotonous or there’s a need for more family income, people start freelancing … The trend is catching on big time in India,” says Narsi Subramanian, director (consumer & sole prop exports), PayPal India.

“The growing startup ecosystem is also churning out more freelancing projects … Startups contract out a lot of one-time jobs to experts in relevant fields. Some big corporations have also started contracting out their non-core jobs,” Subramanian adds.

Many successful freelancers in India have quit their day jobs to focus on their freelancing assignments. Many have turned full-blown entrepreneurs, taking up domestic and crossborder job assignments. ET scans through PayPal user scrolls to pick out a few success stories.

Sheetal Kapoor 50

JOINT MD AT SHREE – THE INDIAN AVATAR

Education Graduation (Punjab University) Previous job Housewifeturned-freelancer-turnedentrepreneur Started freelancing in 2010 Products offered Sells Indian ethnic, fusion ‘n’ fashion women’s wear online & offline Monthly Sales Over 2.5 lakh pieces Golden Quote “I’ve 40 stores now … I only set up shops in places where women like fashion and have money to buy” Investor May raise funds in future Profile: Sheetal Kapoor started her business after being a homemaker for over 20 years. She started selling clothes on eBay in 2009. To attract more online buyers, she customised cuts and fittings as desired by her buyers. When the ecommerce boom started post 2012, Kapoor managed to get shelf-space on all major platforms including Flipkart Myntra & Jabong. Today she runs a mix of online and offline channels — selling almost everything for women from stoles to dupattas, kurtas and gowns. “We’re doing well… We’re striving hard to meet our orders,” she says.

Nandita Pal 31

NANDITA PAL DESIGNS

Education BA (Economics), GNIIT, Advanced Multimedia Programme Previous job In a private company as website developer Started freelancing in 2012 Services offered Designing communication manuals, website designing, packaging & label designs Revenue Cost per job (print) – Ranges between₹8,000 and₹4 lakh Golden Quote “Do not submit your whole project without getting fully paid” Profile : Nandita drew her first landscape when she was two years old. Love for colours made Nandita take up art as a profession 23 years later. Today Nandita is a much sought-after illustrator, website developer and packaging & label designer. She works with several Indian companies and MNCs and charges anywhere between ₹8,000 and ₹4 lakh per project.

Rishabh Pugalia 34 & Rishabh Bhandari 32 FOUNDERS, YODA LEARNING

Education Pugalia is a chartered accountant and Bhandari, an MBA grad from NMIMS Previous job Pugalia worked with KPMG and JP Morgan while Bhandari worked with Kaizen PE Started freelancing in 2011 Freelancing type Education sector services Services offered Corporate training, office productivity improvement, computer skill courses Golden Quote “We’re a profitable venture; turned profitable from our third month of operation” Profile: Pugalia and Bhandari quit their well-paying jobs to train corporates. The duo started off by holding workshops at various bluechip companies (PwC, Rio Tinto, Amazon, KPMG, Deloitte and the likes), teaching employees “ways to improve their work productivity”. They helped employees sharpen their computer skills – mainly MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and some data analytics packages.

“But the classroom model alone was not scalable … so we went online a few years later,” says Bhandari.

Since going online, the company has coached over 35,000 people from all over the world. Besides tie-ups with more than 50 large companies for direct classroom programmes, Yoda Learning has course participants from the US, Canada, Europe and SE Asia. Yoda would launch beginner-level tutorials in Excel, SAP and Tally for Indians residing in small towns and cities. These would mostly be in Hindi and English.

Taushif Ansari 29

FOUNDER, SKINOUTFIT

Education High school. Previous job Apprenticed with various leather manufacturers in Mumbai & Goa Started freelancing in 2012 on eBay Products offered Leather jackets & bags Number Significant Ships out over 200 leather jackets to USA every month Golden Quote “I’ve eight workmen now, but I don’t play ‘boss’ on them… I work with them” Works from His leather factory at Dharavi slums, Mumbai Profile: Taushif Ansari was jobless for a few months after the leather factory he worked in closed down in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. In fact, many Mumbai-based leather factories had to shut shop as orders for leather goods, from Europe and the US, dried out post the Lehman collapse.

Things started looking up only after 2011 for the leather goods manufacturing sector. This was when Taushif started in own factory. Soon after, he was selling leather jackets on eBay. In six months’ time, Taushif sold close to 90 jackets — mostly to American buyers.

“I’ve a set clientele now and my brand is wellrecognised online. Quality is important for me … no compromises there,” he says.

Taushif’s SkinOutfit has now also started making leather bags for Indian markets.

Nishant Agarwal29

PARTNER AT SHUBHAM JEWELS

Education Software engineering graduate Products offered Online gemstones & beaded jewellery Number significant Ships 15,000 to 18,000 packages every month Customer base 80% from the US, 10% from the UK and rest from other parts of the world Golden Quote “Our products represent India. So quality is very important for us.” Works from Handcrafted jewellery, gemstones sourced from Jaipur, Rajasthan. Profile: After securing his engineering degree and working for an online marketplace briefly, Nishant decided to join his family business: Shubham Jewels. After gaining some experience, he decided to move his entire store online. “For the first 3-4 years, our sales plummeted … but slowly shoppers started trying us out. Now we have a lot of customers, many of them repeat customers. Every happy buyer is our repeat customer,” Agarwal says.

By going online, Nishant managed to bring operational cost down, increase product reach and widen customer-base.

TOP JOBS

(Products & services)

Web / mobile development 

Web designing 

Data entry /

 internet research 

Accounting 

Project management 

Consultancy work 

Graphic designing 

Photographer / videographer 

Web marketing & sales 

Customer service Translation services 

Virtual assistant

RARE JOBS

(Products & services)

Selling ayurvedic products online 

Teaching Indian dance forms online 

Writing wedding vows 

Selling gems & jewellery online 

Online patient consulting 

Maths and physics online coaching

ET 25AUG18