Teesort, founded by two brothers- Alok Agarwal and Atul Agarwal in Feb 2010, is India's leading bootstrapped fashion brand. Alok is an IMT Graduate and has an extensive experience in the operations sector of the Indian Telecom industry. Atul is a graduate from BITS Pilani, Dubai with a B. Tech in Computer Science. Teesort offers fashionable quality clothing at highly affordable prices. The product's fit is designed according to available customer data analysis. At the same time, the brand provides multiple designs in the same pattern. In 2015, it catered to over 39,000 pincodes across India.
In an interaction with BWdisrupt team, both the founders talked about their fashion startup in detail.GenesisComing from an entrepreneurial family background, I think entrepreneurship was always in our DNA. We wanted to make something which could address the need of the mass market. Most of our extended family members are based in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities and they often complained about the lack of options in fashion clothing available in their cities. They either looked forward to vacations in Delhi so that they can shop for fashionable clothes or waited for us to visit them with trendy clothes as gifts.
That is when we realized that there is a huge demand and supply gap when it comes to fashion clothing in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. We have been keen on solving this problem since then.
Atul was employed with TCS in France in 2010. At that time, every second TV ad was of an eCommerce company & fashion category. This made us think of how India too could have a disruption in fashion via a digital medium. That is when we decided to start Teesort.
About TeesortConsidering the wide range of designs and sizes, the demand for our products is very high. We ship almost 4,000 to 5,000 orders daily and have delivered more than 2 million orders till date.
Challenges Faced The biggest challenge we faced while setting up the business was various regulatory hurdles created by the Govt. authorities. It was a task to register your company, get a PAN card, tin number, etc.
The second challenge was to build the trust of our customer base in e-commerce services. Five years back, customers were very averse to the idea of paying online via debit/credit cards before getting the product in hand. Moreover, a very small percentage of the population in India had access to plastic money or was aware of net banking services.
I think the fact that we were very clear about the vision we had about our business and had complete faith in our idea and abilities, we never got discouraged and kept moving ahead.
CompetitorsTeesort is Indian online fashion brand and we consider all the mass fashion brands as our competition. We also believe that the fashion market in India is a 100 billion dollar market that provides ample opportunity for multiple brands to coexist & grow simultaneously.
Differentiation FactorsTeesort is one of the very few profitable bootstrapped eCommerce fashion brands in the industry. We started off as a men’s only fashion brand and our prime focus was on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India. We are the only fashion brand that takes less than 21 days from conceptualization and designing to manufacturing and selling. This keeps us agile and helps us to achieve higher unit economics. Also, unlike other fashion brands, we do not believe in spreading ourselves too thin without ensuring profitability.
Clients & ExpansionOur clients are the millennial of India especially from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India, who are looking for superior quality clothes at affordable prices. Recently, we forayed into men’s accessories and within the coming quarter we are looking to expand into women and kids segment as well. We are also planning to take our brand global in the current quarter.
Traction DetailsTeesort recently hit the Rs. 100 crore revenue mark in 2015-2016 financial year making our growth at a rate of 300% year on year from 2013 to 2016. We cater to over 39,000 pin codes in India. We have also delivered more than 2 million orders till date.
Funding & Monetization
We are bootstrapped. Our initial investment was Rs. 40-50 lakh which was raised from our personal savings. When we hit the Rs. 1 crore mark in 2013, there was no turning back. Teesort recently hit the Rs. 100 crore revenue mark in financial year 2015-2016. As for raising funds, we are not averse to venture funding. We will look at investors who fit into our business model.
The Best and Worst Memories While Setting UpWe have only good memories associated with Teesort. We feel ecstatic when the faith that people have in our brand, is reflected through Teesort's consistent growth figures. We also love connecting with our customers and getting their feedback personally to ensure that Teesort is up to their expectations.
Marketing Plans We signed Rannvijay Singh of the Roadies fame as Teesort's brand face for our maiden advertising campaign as he is one of the most sought-after youth icons in India. He has a tremendous fan following and helps us connect with our audience. This campaign helped immensely in shooting up our revenues from 30 cr in 2014-15 to 100 cr in 2015-16. We have year marked our marketing of INR 10cr to take the brand on the next level.
Market Size and Opportunity2016 is going to be a big year for the e-commerce industry. The industry will expand from being a $3 billion to $35 billion market in 2020. 2016 will see a 100% increase in the online fashion. We expect Teesort to grow at 100% and aim for a revenue generation of Rs. 200 crore in the financial year ending 2016-17.
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This is Meghna Shukla. She lives in Delhi. She is an engineering graduate and currently pursuing MBA from Jaypee Business School. She has a work experience of 2 years in content development. She loves to read and write.
