Samtana sources cotton from organic farming co-operatives in South India. This not only helps support the move to a more sustainable and lucrative form of farming for the farmers but also provides chemical free body wear.

Founded by two serial T-shirt wearers who are always searching the planet for designers with the most unique and awe-inspiring art and then print those on their own super soft, fair trade produced organic T-shirts.

Startoholics reached Samtana and interviewed Ben Heinkel (Co-founder of Samtana) who admires entrepreneurs like John Bissell of Fabindia and Elon Musk of Tesla Motors.

Let’s see what he has to share with us about his entrepreneurial journey and of course Samtana…

Ben Heinkel, Co-founder of Samtana

What are you most excited about at the moment?

Our next collection as well as the collaborations we’ve been doing with artists and charities across the globe. There are a lot of plans for expanding Samtana’s offerings and how we can enable our customers to buy wearable art and do more good with every purchase.

What is the biggest hurdle you have faced or are still facing?

In the past we’ve had problems with very slow production times due to having to compete for factory space with bigger brands, however we have hopefully addressed this now and our customers can expect us to release a lot more collections per year than we have done in the past. Other problems include the lack of support for startups from essential services such as shipping and payment merchants. With the startup industry in India growing at the rate it is, it would be very beneficial for these companies to start making it easier for a new company to get set up.

Has Samtana got the feedback and growth you expected since launch?

Absolutely and in fact it has far exceeded it. We’re extremely happy about the feedback we’ve received since we opened our virtual doors last year, both negative and positive. The negative has helped us improve our product tremendously, and the positive has given us the support we need to know that what we do is appreciated.

Who do you see as your target audience?

Anyone who wears T-shirts, of any age. People who love art, care about the environment, or just want a limited edition, great quality T-shirts at an affordable price. We get all kinds of people shopping with us.

What makes Samtana different from those in the market?

I would say almost everything we do is different from other T-shirt brands in the market. We search the globe for awe-inspiring art, instead of using slogans and tired graphics that have been used on T-shirts for decades. The entire focus of our company is constantly trying to make our product better, more ecological and more sustainable in the way we produce it – our T-shirts are now not only organically certified (both material and dye) but also produced in fair trade factories, with our packaging being made from recycled material. We care about our tees, our artists and what we give our customers.

Bharath Madhiraju, Co-founder of Samtana

Where do you think is the future of Internet Startups?

While a majority of Internet startups will fail, those that have a great product or service and a good team behind it, will be making big changes to the way we live our lives. Payment is being re-invented, there’s talk of connecting the entire planet to the Internet with balloons, and there’s an ever increasing number of startups that are making it easier to support solutions for social and environmental issues. There’s going to be a lot more change initiated by Internet startups in the near future.

How important is the role of Social Media for success of any startup?

It definitely depends on the industry the startup is in, but for most consumer products and services, social media is vital. Consumers want to connect with the brands they support, whether it is for quick customer service or to be involved with the direction of the company – and social media enables this.

What are your plans for promoting Samtana?

We’re spending a lot of time researching ways in which we can provide content to the community that will provide informational value above and beyond only spreading awareness of our brand. This I think is the key to virility, and to reach the right customers.

What one piece of advice would you give to soon to be startup founders?

Stop chasing the hype around VCs. Build a product that people want by listening to what it is they need. Build a company and not a startup.

Samtana has been recently in the news as well:

Time Out Bengaluru – ” The new indie label offers up 100 per cent organic cotton tees in trippy designs”

Sustainable Cottons – “Offering Wearable and Sustainable Art”

The Alternative– “Are we what we wear?”

Yourstory.in– “Organic Wearable Art”

Ethical Fashion Forum -” A taste for sustainable fashion in India.”

Do visit Samtana and let us know what you think about the concept of Organic Wearable Art.

The post Samtana: The Organic Wearable Art Maker! appeared first on .

Eshack.in aims at bringing every party to life with its funky bunch of accessories and products that would not only catch your eye but make you want to throw an insane party. Founded by Arman Sood and Ashwajeet Singh, eshack.in is a website that has a collection of party and drinking accessories. The idea is certainly new in India as no other company has entered this out-of-the box market in the country. “The whole funda of eShack is to drink and let drink. We pride ourselves in insane delivery time and quality accessories and T-Shirts of a niche such as bar and party accessories which was previously unexplored in the e-commerce circuit.” added Arman.

Arman Sood and Ashwajeet Singh, founders of eshack.in

According to Arman, the idea of eshack struck their minds after a drunken night in Bangkok. “Ashwajeet and I joined law school in 2010 and in our 2^nd Year we took a holiday to Bangkok for my father’s 50^th Birthday where we used accessories like beer pong tables, beer towers and partied. We noticed that this is missing in India and so after coming back to law school skipped our summer law internships and started our company.”

They didn’t have much knowledge about the path they were about to embark upon but they plunged themselves into their entrepreneurial dream. Arman and Ashwajeet took a funding of 12 Lakh from their parents and did everything from sourcing to setting up to run the business. From company registration, tax numbers to import and customs, from licences and warehouse management to e-commerce store development and logistics they learnt it all after days and nights of research and passion and after four months of hard work, it all fell into place.

Eshack.in offers Beer, Whiskey, Tequila and Vodka accessories. Their Beer Bongs, Beer Head Gear and Beer Pong Tables cater to the Beer aficionados whereas Drinking Roulette and Ice Shot Glasses are for those who love their shots. They have just launched a line of Beer and Alcohol T-Shirts to supplement the accessories.

Initially, they targeted college going students and graduates but now some of the products also cater to an older audience. They believed eshack.in would be a B2C startup but in no time they got good B2B traction. So now they are catering to a larger audience where bars, event managers, corporates and even large e-commerce players have joined their list of customers. They are regular vendors with Fashion and You, Baggittoday and other e-commerce players. The traction has been good so far which has helped them to sustain their business.

To increase the exposure of eshack.in, the team has engaged in quite a bit of social media marketing and Google Marketing. According to Arman, their USP is the uniqueness and delivery of the products which makes it easier for them because word of mouth spreads the fastest and is the best way of marketing. They are planning to increase and adopt different marketing strategies and develop other verticals as well.

However their journey has its own share of topsy-turveyness, something that most of the founders of student start-ups have to face. As they have just entered their 4^th Year at Law School, entrepreneurship is a part time work as of now. Their warehouse and office are in Jalandhar whereas they have to spend most of their time at Jindal Law School, Sonipat. But both of them are trying their best to give their full time dedication and are managing the business quite well. It is rightly said that a burning desire can triumph over all hurdles.

When asked if entrepreneurs are born or made, Arman said- “It’s like asking if criminals are born or made. It can be either way or a good mix of both. I think a lot of conditioning is required in any profession where one learns the tricks of the trade but at the same time there is always a natural instinct, vision that exists.”

Arman believes that eShack is the right place for anyone who’s throwing a party or looking to gift someone something. “Visit, explore, live, laugh, love and share us with the world. Engage with us on Facebook and chat with us through our website. Happy Drinking!”

It’s always a good idea to enter an untapped market and eshack. in does look like a stimulating startup. After all who would resist a hardcore party with some quirky accessories on a Saturday night? All our wishes to the duo for their first venture.

What about you? What are your views on this startup?

The post Two Law School Students try to Vivify Traditional Partying with eshack.in appeared first on .

School years were all spent spoon -feeding with notes but college and university are spent struggling to find books and notes. One has to run from pillar to post, to find the right book and buy it.

The Thought, Story and Inspiration

Experiencing the exact same situations for quite long, two Delhi students, Aditya and Tejasv teamed together and came to the relief of students by introducing bookelivery.in. “Almost 10 months before, me and my partner were like normal students of Delhi University, who used to sweat out for buying books. Every year, at the beginning of college we used to run to the bookwallahs for purchasing textbooks, but availability and prices were always distressing. So it struck our mind to start a platform where students can actually buy or even rent their books without even sweating it out. They just order and we care for delivery. It was a platform for students of Delhi University, so that they should not face the problem what they had to face till now.” added Aditya.

Aditya and Tejasv, founders of bookelivery.in

The First Steps

Having gone through the same tedious tasks, the two founders started working on their plans as soon as the idea struck their minds. A business plan was formulated and the website was launched with the start of the academic year on 23rd July, 2013.

The Task of Promotion!

A college is a place where gossip travels faster than light. Using this to their benefit, bookelivery is focusing on word of mouth publicity and social media to connect with the youth. They believe word of mouth works as a catalyst for every start-up and it is their prime focus to improve services and satisfy customers. However, reaching students from Delhi University via posters and leaflets are common way s of marketing. They are also in talks with various college societies and College festivals to promote.

Social media plays a very important role in increasing the popularity of bookelivery.in. Since their target comprises of students and youth, social media works pretty well for them. More importantly, interactions and feedbacks are quick with the help of social media.

The Difficult Journey

As said, No journey is a journey if it is easy. There were many roadblocks that were faced by them. During the initial stage of implementation, they realized that execution came with its fair share of problems along with the task of building an interactive website. Roadblocks after roadblocks, there was a time when they were almost ready to ditch the idea. But, coming above all they decided to take the risk and start-up.

And when sweat pays off!

Two weeks later, here they stand helping students out of their annual agony for book-hunting. Bookelivery. in has seen 1500 visitors and has a good following on various Social Media platforms. Some of the feedback that Startoholics came across was

“It was great. The books are in a great condition and at affordable prices “- Disha (History (H), Gargi college)

“Bookelivery.in has done a great job in helping me to get my textbooks delivered in a day without a single scratch and books are economical and under useful service of renting “- Dinesh ( SRCC, BCom (H))

Failure – the stepping stone to success

“Bookelivery.in has taught us to get up from the failures that we face in life. We almost dropped this idea 3 or 4 times. But we stood up again and now we are up and live. The same case is with our lives. We face many things but standing up against them is our greatest achievement.” said Aditya.

It’s a boon for Delhi students that these two young lads decided to buck up and confront failure rather than enrolling for an MBA in a B-school or a Diploma in Management.

The Next Big Steps!

Bookelivery.in is currently university specific dealing with problems of only Delhi university students but somewhere down the line they wish to focus on other universities as well as novels all being handled by a dedicated team of bookbuddies.

“Don’t think, just start up what you dream of” is their little piece of advice to our budding entrepreneurs.

A very distinct and innovative start-up idea to come up with. All our wishes with the team, we hope to see them soon in our city, helping the nerve-wracked students.

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The site was launched as a basic price comparison engine but later evolved by adding various features like scoring the gadgets and FindYogi index and the team is also planning to add more categories such as cameras, laptops and consumer durables to the site. Apart from a catchy layout, it also has a great UI and works flawlessly on tablets and Smartphones without any lags. The startup recently announced that it has raised funding of Rs.55 Lakhs from Raju Vanapala, the founder-CEO of Way2SMS. Let’s dig more into Findyogi and explore what it offers!

About the Founders

Findyogi was founded by Naman Sarawagi and Anil Bhat who have worked with esteemed web and technology organizations before embarking on their entrepreneurial journey.

Naman has worked as product manager at 500 Startups funded ZipDial and Sequoia funded Freecharge. He was also the first employee at both these startups. He has been active in the Indian startup ecosystem for over 4 years now and is a regular contributor at various startup blogs.

Whereas Anil graduated from NIT K in the year 2006. He has worked with Novell as a software engineer for 2 years and then with Yahoo for over 4 years. Before taking the entrepreneurial jump, he was a part of the anti-spam team at Yahoo.

The founders realized that with the rise of eCommerce in India a lot people were coming online but there was no good platform that really helped them decide which product to buy. That is where they saw the gap and decided to fill it with a startup. The site not only tells the users ‘Where to buy’ but also ‘What to buy’ as it suggests that best product as per the user’s needs.

Team FindYogi

What Makes it Different?

FindYogi differentiates from its competitors by taking a first hand approach towards data. Furthermore the way they present the data to a consumer is what makes them stand out.

The Key Features that set them apart are:

–  It publishes a complete set of features and prices from different sellers. This is a completely manual process.

–  It quantifies every product based on different features. They provide a Feature Score, a score out of 100, to every product which is calculated after taking into account all the specifications of the product as compared to maximum of that available in market.

–  They have introduced a FindYogi Index, a rating out of 5, that tells users if a product is worth buying at its current market price. This is a completely automated feature that takes into account all the products, and their prices, of that particular category. This does not account for brand perception and the novelty of the product.

FindYogi’s Advice for Budding Entrepreneurs

Findyogi team has faced various hurdles and learned from their mistakes to come up with a price comparison website with a simple yet effective difference. The team advises soon to be startup founders to build products for the users and not for Google! They believe it is important to talk to people about your innovation and spend your next Rupee on it if you think it’s worth it.

More and more users are opting for an online research in price comparison websites, including the ones that prefer buying from local stores than buying online. In such a scenario, such ecommerce websites provide a plethora of options that a user can choose from and solve shopping decision problems.

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