What should be the first thing an Agripreneur should look at? Is it marketing because if we look at your marketing strategy, the foundation is absolutely strong?

Yes, Sapna you got it right. I wanted to emphasize the importance of marketing today. We had not done much research initially, when I started the farm. The idea was to put together a small business model in excel sheet. We thought we would be able to sell milk at Rs 40 a litre and make money. The business model was great, it had 100% return on investment. We went ahead and bought some cows from Coimbatore, and hired a few people to help us with milking the cows and a person to look after the farm. We then started selling the milk – Rs 13 is what we got, we were shocked, as Rs. 30 is what our cost was. It took 6 months for us to stabilize all aspects of production and we made sure we produced at least 50 litres of milk in a day. Once we had that 50 litres, we decided to sell it directly to the consumer, and that is what laid the foundation. For us, not having surplus funds acted as a boon. Or else we would be happy selling milk in bulk and maybe we would never explore the option of selling our produce directly. We got a few flyers printed saying that we do pure milk and went to houses, apartments, complexes, and we were scouting the city. On weekends we would be a part of apartment community talks and spoke about our milk, and ask customers to taste our milk.

My advice to the entrepreneurs who aspire to make it in Agritech is, it does not matter if you are in Tier I or Tier II, you have to first understand where your market is and how you will sell. For those specifically interested in dairy farming, even before you buy your first set of calves, figure out – is there a market?

I’m sure India has that market today and I am pretty confident that you can sell your milk anywhere, but it has to have some extra value. For us it was purity, our first core principle has always been – we will be an honest business and will never compromise on our value of purity. We’ll have to do whatever it takes, however pick your core principle and be honest to it. You have to let your customers know about what your core principle is. You have to speak with your customer’s and let them know what is in your mind, if you need help from them right at the start you have to let them know. For us, we told them our price point and why we needed to keep that price as of then, they understood and always supported us.

In the last one year I have come across several people who want to start a farm business. I tell them first figure out if you can work with one farmer first. If you know 10 farmers, speak with them and see if a partnership or association works. Then you can bring the standards of the milk as to the desired plan and then see if you can market the produce.

If you could tell us more about your experience as to how you created talking points with your customers and initiated direct selling?

Great question. Connecting with our customer base gives you a complete pulse of the customer and the market. You know, what price the customer can afford. There are different price points that you can look at. For example, buffalo milk in most towns in India is set at Rs. 70 per litre however cow milk has a price point in each town. See what the price point is in the area or location you intend to sell. Once you have decided the price point you have to start building customers. Start by directly speaking and interacting with them, it could be in the bank manager, school, talk to parents. Overall whatever it takes, you can speak with anyone who you know can be your customer and will agree to your price point.

You can pitch sampling of your milk, and also customise and create dairy baskets – it may have milk, eggs, cheese, vegetables cleaned up and sliced. A Tier II or Tier III market may want this for sure. What extra value can you give which will make people try your product. However, before you explore your ideas you have to figure out the market.

Founders always have the pressure of many responsibilities on their shoulders of conceiving a world-changing vision for their new product, impressing potential investors, rallying employees and exhibiting the business acumen to navigate through various stages of growth of their business among others. The challenge emerges when you have to be dynamic in your approach and thoughts to pivot in volatile and changing situations like recession, pandemic. That is when the urgency of the need for help by way of advice arises.

There is a natural inclination for founders to retreat and turn inward in face of crisis. They feel insecure and demeaning to look out for advice from outside and even within the company whether the situation, for example, is of unprecedented spike in demand or slowdown in demand.

Founders shouldn’t feel that they have to go it alone. An abundance of support and high-quality advice can make all the difference in difficult times, which means the importance of getting the most out of your existing network of advisors and investors need not to be overemphasized. Research shows that most founders do not know how to ask, can’t ask, or do not want to ask.

Founders are aware that there are no tried-and-true play books available on demand for the difficult situations founders are facing during the course of their path. Advice is by no means a silver bullet. The truth is that no one person — founder, investor, advisor or otherwise — has all the answers to every problem. An ability to effectively seek and hear out different perspectives from various sources can make a meaningful difference as founders try to fix the things for their startup. In other words, the mere act of listening, collecting and evaluating advice, even if it’s ultimately discarded, can be a useful guide for founders when all are not good. .

Confident leaders are those who are prepared to admit they don’t have all the answers and are willing to ask for help. Acknowledging your fear to ask for help but moving forward in spite of it makes a leader who knows when to ask for help, learns how to accept it with grace and is willing to offer help in return.

Building a successful business all alone simply is not possible, yet many entrepreneurs shy away from asking for help are support even within the company. The main reason for this is fear of rejection. You may consider the following points to remove your fear of rejection and increase the chances of getting what you need.

People want to help.

Researchers, academicians, theologians, founders, investors, and leaders all agree that helping others gives them a greater purpose and makes them feel good about themselves. The want to help others is a natural instinct that some studies show is present at birth. Give others an opportunity to help you, it makes everyone feel satisfied and happy.

In the midst of uncertainty and shifting priorities, your advisors will be more than interested to give you a helping hand by involving in the decisions you’re making as a founder. But without the right structure in place for asking and receiving advice, even a well-intentioned advice can only create more noise that complicates your decision-making process.

Patrick Ewers, an early LinkedIn director and relationship-building expert, agrees that the concept may sound remarkably simple, but he rarely sees people taking advantage of it. Ewers introduced the idea of ‘value payloads’. “I love the term value payload because it sounds so tangible,” says Ewers. “Value payloads are anything you provide to people that could help them. They could be introductions to people they want to meet, articles about a problem they are trying to solve, a note saying you saw their work and sent it to someone else. Most of the time it requires sending one email, which is easy to make a habit.”

The Small Town Boy

Born in 1978, Vijay hails from a small village named Harduaganj near Aligarh. His father, the sole breadwinner for a family of six, was a principled school teacher who refused to take tuitions for he felt that true education cannot be the privilege of those who have money. Vijay studied in a Hindi medium school of Harduaganj. A topper and an exceptional student in school, he passed secondary school at an early age of 14. However, this would only be the start of a long journey to success for the young boy.

Having completed all his schooling in Hindi medium, Vijay was not proficient in English. Owning to his poor English proficiency, Vijay couldn’t sit for the IIT and other competitive exams. He finished Class XII and got admission to engineering college when he was just 15-years-old. When he came to Delhi, Vijay found it difficult to cope with English. Having come from a lower middle class family, Vijay’s only goal while joining engineering college was to finish the course and take up a job that offered Rs 10,000 as salary. That was a big enough dream for a boy like Vijay from Aligarh then.

Frontbench Student to Backbench Poet

When Vijay started attending classes in engineering during the initial days, he used to sit on the front bench as he did in school. However, that changed one day when the teacher shot him a question in English. Not being very comfortable in the language, he fumbled for the right answer. Inhibited by the incident, he shifted his seat to the back bench. He would be often bullied by classmates who ridiculed his English.

Vijay would simultaneously read two books – one in Hindi, the other in English to understand the course material. His English handicap meant he could not immediately follow what was taught in the class. This led him to spend a lot of time in the computer room, browsing the internet and dreaming about being in the Silicon Valley, the mecca of worldwide innovation. The 1990s heralded the age of the Internet. Vijay used to read newspapers and magazines to learn English. In a magazine he read about Silicon Valley. He was intrigued. He realised that instead of taking up a job, it would be better to create something in India.

College Start-up

Vijay decided he could build a company with the help of the Internet. During his third year, while most of the young and bright engineering graduates were excited about the prospect of getting placement on the campus, Vijay with one of his batch mates built a company called Xs! Corporation, a web portal that offered web-guided services, including web directories, and was also a search engine.

By then, he had learnt to code all by himself. They got seed money worth ₹20,000 from an individual angel investor, a New Mexico-based venture capital fund. They roped in two more of their batch mates into the venture. Vijay finished college in 1998. Between February-May 1999, their turnover was ₹50 lakh. He sold the company in 1999 to Living Media India, better known as the India Today Group, for half a million dollars and split the money between the four of them. The first thing Vijay did with that money was to buy a colour TV for his family. And surprised his mother by buying her saris. His father had taken loan to marry off his sisters. He was able to repay that as well. He also saved some of the money. His parents did not understand the work he was doing but they were glad he was doing well.