Vineeta Singh is the Co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, A woman who took the firm to the pinnacle of success.
At what moment in life would one be deemed to be successful? Getting into a very prolific institute? Getting a package worth Crores? Well for Vineeta Singh, the struggle started after that. Vineeta Singh who graduated from IIM Ahmedabad and turned down the offer of an investment banker worth Rs. 1 Crore wanted more from life.
Vineeta Singh Is Born For Entrepreneurship
At the age of 17 that Vineeta Singh was first told to be an entrepreneur. Never did she know that the journey would be this hard. Moving to Bombay at the age of 23 and staying in a tiny house that flooded easily, wasn’t the best start for vineeta Singh. Well, life had ‘Sugar’ planted for vineeta at the end of hardships.
There were days that she couldn’t go out due to financial constraints. Just like everybody else vineeta Singh would also dwell on her struggles and go on a self-doubt spree about the job she refused to accept.
But she would keep on walking her paths of hardships, so much so that she started to run and not just metaphorically. Running would help her clear her mind, so she started running in marathons. Every finish line would give vineeta Singh a sense of clarity. That’s how she entrepreured her life out of struggles.
Failure Brings Success
It’s not like the co-founders started a business and blossomed overnight. In 2012, they introduced a start-up named Fabbag on a beauty-based subscription that finished off within three years. However, the startup that failed also was targeting the 18-30 age group, the experience helped Vineeta Singh.
She founded that there are hardly any beauty products in INR 450-INR 500 range. That’s where they got the biggest opportunity.
Based on this finding, they started SUGAR with just two products, and today the D2C type is focused on expanding offline.
“Offline for us has become one of the best decisions as 94% of India still shop offline. And when you rate an online business, at some point you can rely on Facebook or Google, or you just know, paid media campaigns to become so high that your profits are affected. And as a brand, it has become very clear from day one, that we will never get a customer at a loss. Your online sales actually benefit the offline businesses because there is trust. Also, product availability happens online, but consumption is still where it used to be, which is offline, ” said Vineeta Singh while disclosing one of her many business mantras.
‘Male-Dominated Society’
At times, Vineeta Singh would be pumping breast milk, handling office calls, and hoping to not wake my son up. If this wasn’t enough, an investor once refused to meet her stating that he wanted to meet a ‘man’ to talk business!
Today, SUGAR’s journey has flown drastically high with a valuation of 300 crores, and the offline launch and the presence of omnichannel have been a boon to the product ever since.
To know more about Vineeta Singh, follow her on Instagram
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