Girlfriend
Sowed the Seeds of Ferns N Petals
Five years ago, a college student in
Phagwara, Punjab, ordered for an entire shop full of flowers to be sent to his
fiancée. The cost: . 1 lakh. He didn’t have the money, but convinced the
shopkeeper to accept his payment in instalments.
It’s such often irrational demands – and acceding to them – that has helped Vikaas Gutgutia build Ferns N Petals (FNP) into a thriving . 104 crore business with profits of . 6.8 crore in fiscal 2012. “There was no flower shop in Phagwara then so we had to send the flowers from Delhi. It emptied one of our shops that day, but a customer is a customer,” says the 43-year-old founder of FNP.
Eighteen years after he began the business, FNP remains the pioneer and only national-level organised retailer selling flowers. Small wonder that investors including private equity firm Warbus Pincus and financial services house Motilal Oswal are in negotiations with FNP to pick up a stake in it.
FNP’s business model has expanded over the years to include combinations of flowers with cakes, cards, chocolates and other such gifts; within the gifting space it has diversified into nine verticals: events, ecommerce, gardens, weddings, retail, franchising, rentals, handicrafts and luxury stores branded FNP Tahiliani. An overseas venture and an FNP school of floral designing are this entrepreneur’s latest forays. Flowers, though, are the backbone of the business, perhaps because it is slowdown-proof. “Last month, we sold flowers worth . 1.1 lakh to one single customer in Udaipur,” says FNP CEO Pawan Gadia, who joined Gutgutia in 2001.
Born in a modest middle-class home in Vidya Sagar, a village in Bihar, Gutgutia, whose father was a government contractor, moved to Kolkata after school. After graduating in commerce, he began helping his uncle who had a small flower shop in Kolkata. “I got a basic idea of how the flower business worked, but I never considered it a career option because I thought it wouldn’t give me big returns,” he says. “I didn’t want to go back to Bihar, and I didn’t want to be in the flower business either,” he adds.
Two years of exploring business opportunities in Mumbai and Delhi – and a girlfriend—made him change his mind. In 1994, when he sent flowers to his girlfriend in Delhi on her birthday, the florist did a “pathetic job.” Surely I could do better, pondered Gutgutia.
That he did when he opened the first FNP shop on Delhi’s South Extension pavement. “There was no air-conditioned flower shop in Delhi … all flowers were sold roadside. I had just . 5,000 but was lucky to find a partner who invested . 2.5 lakh in the business and later cashed out,” he says. It took Gutgutia nine years --from 1994 to 2003 – to hit pay dirt. In that period he imported flowers and personally transported them to franchisees.
At the high end he joined hands with fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani to set up luxury floral boutiques branded FNP Tahiliani.
It’s such often irrational demands – and acceding to them – that has helped Vikaas Gutgutia build Ferns N Petals (FNP) into a thriving . 104 crore business with profits of . 6.8 crore in fiscal 2012. “There was no flower shop in Phagwara then so we had to send the flowers from Delhi. It emptied one of our shops that day, but a customer is a customer,” says the 43-year-old founder of FNP.
Eighteen years after he began the business, FNP remains the pioneer and only national-level organised retailer selling flowers. Small wonder that investors including private equity firm Warbus Pincus and financial services house Motilal Oswal are in negotiations with FNP to pick up a stake in it.
FNP’s business model has expanded over the years to include combinations of flowers with cakes, cards, chocolates and other such gifts; within the gifting space it has diversified into nine verticals: events, ecommerce, gardens, weddings, retail, franchising, rentals, handicrafts and luxury stores branded FNP Tahiliani. An overseas venture and an FNP school of floral designing are this entrepreneur’s latest forays. Flowers, though, are the backbone of the business, perhaps because it is slowdown-proof. “Last month, we sold flowers worth . 1.1 lakh to one single customer in Udaipur,” says FNP CEO Pawan Gadia, who joined Gutgutia in 2001.
Born in a modest middle-class home in Vidya Sagar, a village in Bihar, Gutgutia, whose father was a government contractor, moved to Kolkata after school. After graduating in commerce, he began helping his uncle who had a small flower shop in Kolkata. “I got a basic idea of how the flower business worked, but I never considered it a career option because I thought it wouldn’t give me big returns,” he says. “I didn’t want to go back to Bihar, and I didn’t want to be in the flower business either,” he adds.
Two years of exploring business opportunities in Mumbai and Delhi – and a girlfriend—made him change his mind. In 1994, when he sent flowers to his girlfriend in Delhi on her birthday, the florist did a “pathetic job.” Surely I could do better, pondered Gutgutia.
That he did when he opened the first FNP shop on Delhi’s South Extension pavement. “There was no air-conditioned flower shop in Delhi … all flowers were sold roadside. I had just . 5,000 but was lucky to find a partner who invested . 2.5 lakh in the business and later cashed out,” he says. It took Gutgutia nine years --from 1994 to 2003 – to hit pay dirt. In that period he imported flowers and personally transported them to franchisees.
At the high end he joined hands with fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani to set up luxury floral boutiques branded FNP Tahiliani.
VIKAAS GUTGUTIA, 43 Founder, Ferns N
Petals
BIZ: 126 stores (15 company-owned). 9 verticals including e-commerce and luxury stores
NOS: 104-cr topline and 6.8 cr profits in FY12
DELIVERY: Express, Super Fast, Intl, Midnight
GIFTS: Potted plants, soft toys, perfumes, deos, sweets, amongst many others
SETBACK:
Chatak Chaat chain serving north Indian street foods
LESSON: Stick to gifting
BIZ: 126 stores (15 company-owned). 9 verticals including e-commerce and luxury stores
NOS: 104-cr topline and 6.8 cr profits in FY12
DELIVERY: Express, Super Fast, Intl, Midnight
GIFTS: Potted plants, soft toys, perfumes, deos, sweets, amongst many others
SETBACK:
Chatak Chaat chain serving north Indian street foods
LESSON: Stick to gifting
RATNA
BHUSHAN ET120810
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