CHENNAI: The best ideas are arrived at by accident. This Hyderabad-based web startup, GlamEgo too found its footing by accident. Now one of the leading beauty boxes in the cosmetic industry, GlamEgo shot to the top in just six months. Lavanya Sunkari, an MBA grad who lived the corporate life for a decade finally sought her calling in start-up. “I wanted to become an entrepreneur and was thinking about it for a long time,” she says.
A painter by heart, Lavanya was already publishing her work on artselling domains and had thought that she would come up with a start-up plan through her paintings. She realised that art aggregators were already ruling the market. “I then decided to create my own cosmetics to sell online. The only ones I found that I could sell on were Etsy and Birchbox, international sellers, which weren’t popular in India yet. That’s when it clicked that selling subscription- based cosmetics was a market that could be tapped,” she says. GlamEgo was pitched to THub in June 2016. It provides a customised subscription service to those looking for cosmetics at affordable prices. Subscribers would receive a set of cosmetics and skin care products each month as chosen by the company, based on their preferences.
Lavanya says, “The beauty industry is massive in India with bloggers and professionals willing to try new products. We ensure that we don’t just send samples but full size or at least travel-size products so that they can actually use it to its full effect.” After pitching the idea to THub, Lavanya realised that she was in need of a co-founder with technical background who would guide her through the logistics. “I looked through my contacts and that’s when Prabhakar too was available. We make the perfect team with varying inputs to the company,” explains Lavanya.
The company was started with an initial investment of `60 lakh which they raised on their own. Lavanya however, is unfazed. She says, “But our burn rate is miniscule. So although the investment was huge, our subscriber base and our growth rate keep us going.” Despite the big investment and a lot of investors showing interest in their company, Lavanya has her own rules.
“Even in THub, where our working space is, we have a lot of people offering to be angel investors. But it is a conscious decision to look for venture capitalists instead. We hope that it comes through soon,” she says. GlamEgo provides its subscriptions to over 38,000 pincodes all over the country including metros and small towns and Lavanya only sees this number growing. “With the kind of potential that the beauty industry has in our country, 50,000 subscriptions is barely scratching the surface. We are still tapping the market and we are hoping to increase that number over time,” says Lavanya.
In a nutshell
Initial investment was `60 lakh They provide their subscriptions to over 38,000 pincodes across the country They are looking for venture capitalists They have been under THub’s wing since June 2016 Currently at 50,000 subscriptions they expect to double soon