Anahita Jawanpuria received her B.A.(Hons.) in English from the Symbiosis College of Arts & Commerce, Pune followed by an MBA in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations (HR&IR) from the International School of Business & Media (ISB&M), Pune
Prior to her foray into entrepreneurship, Anahita spent over 15 years in various HR&IR management roles in the manufacturing sector. In 2006, fresh out of management school, Anahita started her corporate career at leading roller bearing maker Timken India Limited and later in 2009 joined premier steelmaker Tata Steel where her last held position was Senior Manager, Human Resources.
Anahita cut her teeth in entrepreneurship in the cloud kitchen business. In 2021, she quit Tata Steel to found cloud kitchen venture Kefi & Co. which specialized in continental and European cuisine. Once she had set Kefi & Co on “autopilot” mode, she turned her attention to her other passion, traditional Indian handmade products.
The Spring Story® – An Artisan’s boutique
The idea, inspiration and concept
When Anahita set out to furnish her new apartment, she decided to give its interiors an earthy Indian theme. She says,” I absolutely love the raw elegance of earthy Indian handmade items and rural Indian crafts. There is a certain charm in the small imperfections of a handmade item which are ironically a pleasure to the senses. The opportunity of furnishing my home with handmade items had my head bursting with ideas and wanting a bit more than what the market had to offer. It occurred to me that there must be others like me of similar taste who would be yearning for a wider variety in the market. I felt there was room for new players who could cater to such people and in general, widen the variety on offer in the marketplace”. Having recced the market, spoken to friends, acquaintances and having surveyed opinions at the marketplace, she was convinced that there was indeed scope and room for one more player in the Indian handmade products market. The combined prospects of filling a vacuum in the market and playing in a larger e-commerce enabled business with huge potential to scale were very compelling for her to start the The Spring Story® in December 2021.
Her Learning Curve
Starting up on a shoestring, no employees and no prior e-commerce business experience, Anahita single-handedly embarked on launching her online store to be named The Spring Story®. She says, “I want my brand, products and store to exude an uplifting spirit of freshness and positivity. The spring season embodies this very spirit and therefore the name.”. Anahita spent the next few weeks reading on the administrative, regulatory, license and taxation requirements of setting up a business. She then took online courses to understand website hosting, e-commerce platforms, digital marketing, inventory management and more. She quips, “Phew! Looking back, I feel like I did a couple of MBA degrees in a few weeks!! I eventually hired professionals to build my online store, manage digital marketing, maintain accounts and handle taxation, but I have armed myself with enough knowledge to ask the right questions, articulate clear requirements and direct my team to give me optimal solutions”.
Making of The Spring Story®
Once the administrative aspects of The Spring Story® were in place, Anahita focused her energies on product design, packaging, logistics, online store design and what she calls, “The Spring Story® shopping experience”. She travelled across India to meet potential vendors and collaborate on designing the products. She says, “My focus is to ensure my products are maximally designed in-house as against being just a trader of stock products. For our block-printed product design, I’ve spent days working with the color-master ji to iterate on tens of color shades, evaluate multiple block art designs and hours of sampling to try different permutation and combinations in colour and design to narrow down on a handful. Some of the designs are instant hits with the customers and some, despite the careful curation, not as much.”. In the first year, Anahita had to work through multiple trial and error iterations to arrive at the right product mix. She has been experimenting with neutral and palette colors, feminine, abstract and universal prints and various fabrics to create winning products. For blue pottery products, her challenge has been to figure out the right mix of utilitarian and purely decorative pottery products.
Selecting the right packaging was a tight rope walk as some of the packaging solutions were comparable to the very price of some of her products. “I was ready to take a hit on my margins to not compromise on packaging quality or the buying experience at my store. I want to build The Spring Story® brand that is synonymous with premium shopping experience across all facets including packaging, customer service, on-time delivery, hassle-free returns and more.”, adds Anahita.
Product Range
Hand-block printed home décor linen and ornamental Rajasthani blue pottery were the first product categories launched when The Spring Story® ( www.thespringstory.com ) store went live in December 2021. Among the products are hand-block printed bedsheets, bedcovers, cushion covers, summer blankets (Dohars), quilts (Jaipuri Razai), baby bedding items and handblock printed quilted pouch(bags). Three months into her store launch, The Spring Story® launched 925-Silver Jewelry products. The jewelry products were instantly received in the market. The Spring Story® reacted quickly to the response and widened the design range. They also offer gift cards.
Milestones
For Anahita, every milestone has been fulfilling, be it registering her company, receiving the export license, registering the trademark, landing reliable vendors, hiring website developer and digital marketing professionals, launch of the online store, running the first ads on social media, the first sale, the first international bulk shipment, new product category launches. Anahita adds, “each of these milestones were like those shiny golden boxes of elixir in a video game that gave me the energy to tackle obstacles to the next milestone. Its early days still and there is a long way to go.”.
She says, “small businesses as The Spring Story® have to find the sweet-spot between minimum inventory and having a wide design range such that customers across a spectrum of tastes can find something of their choice. This is a continuous challenge, among others. It takes a lot of my time talking to potential customers, store visitors and people who fit my customer profile to understand their preference, likes and dislikes to arrive at the optimal middle ground. This is a work in progress.”
Vision and Mission
The Spring Story’s vision is to widen the design range of Indian handmade products available to customers in the market with a mix of in-house and stock designs, to evangelize adoption of Indian handmade products in our everyday lives and support our artisans who keep alive a unique cultural heritage of India.
New beginnings, vibrant colors, freshness, vitality and positivity – At The Spring Story® we capture the essence of the spring season by bringing to market the splendor of heritage Indian craftsmanship traditions through our products.
Be it the soothing hand block-prints and hues on fine textures of well spun yards of cotton, exquisite and intricate silver jewelry or the uplifting colors of our blue pottery, no matter where you are and what season, The Spring Story® endeavors to bring to you and to your homes an enduring vibe of the spring.
