TOP STORIES: Beginning at age 22 with Rs 2.5 lakh, he has fabricated a Rs 30 crore turnover clothing brand in 10 years

Anubhav Gupta believes he is a lucky child. Soon after completing his graduation in computer engineering, he started an online apparel business in 2012 at age 22 with Rs 2.5 lakh funded by his father. Ten years later, Faridabad-based Rigo International is a Rs 30 crore turnover company and the Rigo brand of apparel for both men and women is sold on major e-commerce sites such as Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Snap deal.

My father worked in an apparel export company,” says Anubhav, giving us details about his family and how he got interested in entrepreneurship. His father climbed the corporate ladder and currently is the MD of an apparel export business house. However, it was not an easy path for Anubhav, who has had his fair share of highs and lows and challenges in the business.

“I remember, by the end of our first year, our order numbers were so low that it made me question my decision to start this business. Anubhav finished his schooling at Birla Vidhya Niketan in Delhi and completed his engineering in 2011 at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune. I remember picking up a few books on successful businesses such as Coca-Cola, Reliance, and others during my high school.

Anubhav started a group coupon aggregator business called 89Deal with his roommate during his college final year.
“Companies were selling coupons for group deals those days on websites. We built the website ourselves with our pocket money.” But it proved to be a short-lived venture, and they shut down the business in about six months.

After coming back to Delhi, Anubhav started researching various types of FMCG products to start his business and finally zeroed in on the apparel business. “I was planning to start the business in the brick-and-mortar model. Those were the early days of e-commerce in India, and Anubhav had a lot of doubts about the feasibility of the business model.

Eventually, Anubhav followed his heart and launched ‘Rigo International’ – a partnership firm in January 2012. He rented a 500 sq ft place in Badarpur area of Delhi and set up a manufacturing unit with four machines and two employees - a Master and a tailor. “We started with three categories of products, men’s T-shirts, shirts, and jeans,” says Anubhav. Products were shipped after a few days of receiving the order.

They reached the customer after some more days,” says Anubhav. “We followed the made-to-order formula. We waited the whole day long for orders to come. I still remember the day we got 10 orders in a single day. “After around six months, we started getting 50 to 60 odd orders every day, which seemed huge for us.” From day one, Anubhav started receiving 100-plus orders.

“From here on, we stopped being a made-to-order brand. We started keeping inventory of our products and more categories. Our products soon became available on all the platforms, including Flipkart and Myntra,” states Anubhav.
Anubhav too has big plans for his business. “We are now investing in brand building and directly connecting with our customers through social media and our own online store,” he says.

In the next five years, we would like to be a complete lifestyle brand. Anubhav makes sure to spend quality time with his son despite his busy schedule. Anubhav’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is, “Be sure of the industry you want to start up in and not just because it’s the trending thing. Just following an idea everybody else is chasing, without really caring about the particular customer problem and believing in the solution, will not bring business success.