New Delhi, March 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Founders of Gurugram-based startup Toesmith are willing to wait for its first investment round, but say that they will try to raise a large sum of fund whenever they go for a funding round.
So far, Aayush Jindal and Ashish Prakash, the founders of Toesmith, have not raised any external funds and have together invested around Rs 14 lakh. Prakash said that they can take their total investment to up to Rs 20 lakh.
Toesmith is a tech-driven online footwear brand that offers customisation of shoes. It was founded by Jindal and Prakash, two IIT-Delhi graduates, who shunned their corporate jobs to start their own venture.
Speaking to IANS, Jindal said that they would look for funds which would last at least for a year.
"Whatever we do, we would do it with a mindset that the amount we raise should last for a year. It should not be such a small amount that you go for fund raising in another six months," Jindal said.
Both the founders have invested around Rs 14 lakh and Prakash said that they can take their total investment to up to Rs 20 lakh.
Jindal said that currently the company's priority is to increase the daily number of orders which averages around 40 per day.
"We are targeting to increase orders every day and add more marketing channels of acquisition. Apart from that, we are keeping a close watch on customer feedbacks and looking to turn our customers into promoters, who can get us more clients," he said.
He added that reaching out to angel investors is also on their agenda.
On the product side, Prakash said that the startup may look into diversifying its product base and it would keep on adding new patterns.
"We offer two products, one is slip-on shoes and the second is with laces. We are going to launch a 'highneck' variant in a month's time," Prakash said.
Talking about the revenue target of the company, the young entrepreneurs said that they want it to increase to about Rs 50 lakh per month from April 2020 from the current average of Rs 18-20 lakh.
Jindal noted that in order to earn a revenue of Rs 50 lakh a month, the company would have to receive 80-90 orders a day. He is of the view that 100 orders a day is "doable".
Regarding the key thoughts behind the startup of customised shoes, Prakash said that there were very few players in the segment and either the processes were not customer or user friendly, with high waiting time for delivery, or there were large brands which provided expensive products.
"We had in our mind that we have to deliver in four to six days... Within a week. We also started exploring companies which were doing customisation, not in India, maybe abroad. We got to know that several big brands were also doing customisation but the cost was like about Rs 10,000. So the second thing was to make it affordable for people," he said.
The price of products on Toesmith is about Rs 1,999 per pair.
"Initially we started with slip-ons, which were priced at Rs 1,999, and we were giving some first order discounts of Rs 200 and Rs 1,800 was the price. That's how we launched," he said.
Source: IANS
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