At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the startup ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited Passionate Entrepreneur – Chandan Sawera, for an exclusive interview with us. He is a Brand Strategist, Business Leader and Founder of Urban Tribe. He has over 20 years of experience in Brand Management & Strategy, Retail Operation, Sales & Marketing, Online Business and Planning. He worked with retail majors including Shopper’s Stop and Future Group and held pivotal roles before founding his own venture Urban Tribe. Let’s learn more about his exciting journey as an entrepreneur and his background!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Chandan:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
I am an engineer from NIT and management grad from MDI Gurgaon.
I’ve spent over 20 years in leadership roles in the Retail Sector, worked for brands like Shopper’s Stop, Portico New York and Future Group and most of them from the initial days of setting up the business. My last corporate outing was as Country Head for Converse, Umbro and Champion under Future Group.
I ventured into travel gear space with a brand of my own – Urban Tribe
We are aware of all the good work you are doing in your space; what keeps you going?
In the initial days, the idea of bringing about disruptive innovation in the travel and urban commute gear is what powered me and my founding team. From a starting team of five members operating out of a small office in the suburbs of Mumbai, we’ve grown into a national brand with a presence in over 12 cities and a thriving e-commerce platform.
Now the challenge of taking on the much bigger players head-on and building a world-class brand with considerable market share internationally is what keeps me charged up.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a corporate career?
I’ve learned all I could in my long span of 20 years and played critical roles in building brands of international repute. I’ve always been very passionate about not just being an entrepreneur but to become a social entrepreneur too, in the process. I wanted to build a team of passionate, uncompromising and entrepreneurial individuals who can soon bring their own ideas to the marketplace. Our country needs an explosion of innovators and entrepreneurs to power into the globalised world we are becoming a part of. I wish to play my small part in powering that change.
Please share with our audience some of the challenges you faced in your journey;
The last five years as an entrepreneur building a brand from scratch has been one of the most interesting periods in my life. The journey has had its fair share of heartaches and heartbreaks, market uncertainties, setting up sales pipelines, bringing our innovative ideas alive as a marketable product, exploring international waters and setting up trade pipelines in China, Europe, Middle East and the USA – all while facing turbulent economic times with demonetization and GST rollouts and rollbacks has certainly been challenging.
What is your Business Mantra: Money or Emotions?
Heart, Hard work and Honesty – I’ve worked hard in imbibing these values into every aspect of my business and brand.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I am privileged to have a great team, which takes off a lot of pressure from me. Imbalance in work and life can create a lot of stress and our endeavour as a team is to work hard but have fun too at the workplace. The whole company plays cricket matches every alternate week. Back home, my twelve-year-old son makes me forget all the worries in the world. I unwind by spending quality time with him.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I am not arrogant enough to consider myself worthy to impart any secret formula to success. We have a long road ahead and I intend to make many more mistakes and learn and grow further from them. Hope in ten years I’m wise enough to answer this concisely.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures Urban Tribe has undertaken to continue its business without disruption?
We have gone about handling the COVID-19 crisis through 3 steps.
1 – Managing cash flow
2 – Kickstarting the operations during the lockdown
3 – Being relevant by introducing hygiene and WFH(work from home) range
The entrepreneurial spirit of Tribers helped us to start our business in quick time.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
