A husband-wife entrepreneur team behind a clothing brand called Gulabo Jaipur made a nervous pitch on a recent episode of Shark Tank India, but drew only uncertainty from the panel of sharks. The entrepreneurs asked for Rs 90 lakh in funding, in exchange of 1% equity, which valued their company at Rs 90 crore. This was the first round of funding that the couple were raising, and they said that their goal is to take the brand global.
After sampling their clothes, Aman Gupta was the first person to back out of the deal, as he felt that the entrepreneurs lacked knowledge about their field of business, and were making excuses about why they were this disconnected about competition. Vineeta Singh felt that there was a ‘contradiction’ in what the entrepreneurs had envisioned for the brand and what the brand actually is. “Your brand and your execution aren’t matching, you’ll have to think long-term,” she said.
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Namita Thapar said that she couldn’t see anything in the products that sets them apart from what is available in the many marketplaces of Jaipur. “The biggest gap in your business is that there’s a lot of competition making clothes like this. Your USP isn’t standing out… Focus on processes, and only then you’ll be ready for investor funding. You’re not currently, and that’s why I’m out,” she said.
Anupam Mittal praised the entrepreneurs for creating a business that is yielding crores in profits already, but was unsure if it could be scaled to a Rs 500 crore brand. He asked, “Besides you two, the next highly paid person, how much do they earn and what is their role?” he asked, and was disappointed to learn that the third most-important person in the company was making less than Rs 50,000 per month. “Your business is not investable from my perspective,” he said, backing out as well. In the end, the entrepreneurs left empty handed, despite being certain that they’ll hit over Rs 20 crore in revenue next year.
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