I’m starting a new series – “In Their Own Words“, in which, I intend to interview entrepreneurs and hope that it inspires others to seek out the entrepreneurial path and challenge the status quo. I’m gonna try my best to make it a regular feature on the blog.
I start this series with an interview with Anurag Kedia, co-founder of The Four Fountains Spa, a spa and wellness chain in India.
PS: Readers from Pune – there’s a special treat for you at the end of the interview.
Q: Who all are involved with The Four Fountains Spa?
A: There are three of us involved as promoters. Sunil Rao, Saurabh Garg and myself. All three of us are management graduates from the batch of 2004. Sunil is from SPJIMR while Saurabh and myself have studied at IIM Ahmedabad. Saurabh and Sunil both were earlier working with HUL and i was working with KPMG.
Q: How did you got into spas?
A: We all loved to get massages but always found it very expensive. We started studying this market and realised that the industry has a huge growth potential in the country if the consumers are offered value. The opportunity to create a new category and own it, is what excited us and we decided to get into this field.
Q: What are some of the interesting trends you observe in this industry?
A: We observe that more than 50% of our clientele is male, which is not a very common perception. Also, gifting of spa therapies has really taken off for us. And people who are now not in India but have friends and family in Pune, have been a big source of revenues for us. Spa therapies form a perfect gift option because it not only pampers a person but also improves the health & wellbeing of a person
Q: How did the venture start out ? Did you bootstrap the initial venture ?
A: We had quite our jobs and were doing market research for around 4-5 months. After this we started speaking to prospective VCs. We were fortunate to find a VC soon enough and hence, we were funded from Day 1 of operations.
Q: Did you face any legal / government issues related to starting up ?
A: Not really. We had an experienced CA who was working with us. Our VCs were also very supportive and gave us all the necessary legal know how.
Q: Are there any aspects of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in India that you think need to be improved ? For example – registering your company could be expedited or anything like that ?
A: There are several requirements which are common to most entrepreneurs – CA, Lawyer, Ad Agency etc etc. Now most entreprenuers would not be able to pay a high fee but will still require an expert to work with them. If the ecosystem in some way can provide such basic information it will prove to be very helpful.
Q: Why did you guys become entrepreneurs ? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you enjoy the most ?
A: The opportunity to grow really big and create something which did not exist before is what excites us the most.
Q: What are the challenges you have faced?
A:Finding the right people for our team has been one challenge, right from therapists to managers. The second challenge has been that the category needs a lot of customer education, we din’t realise this when we started off.
Q: Any advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs ?
A: Take the plunge and start swimming, the water is not as cold as it looks from outside!
PS: The following has been excerpted from Rashmi’s interview with Anurag. I liked these questions way too much that I had to include them here:
Q: Then how did you end up starting a company?
A: The job was doing ok – not so good, not so bad. I was a management consultant, with projects across companies. One day I got a call from Saurabh and he said ‘kuch karte hain’. I said sounds interesting…
Q: So who all did u meet for funding?
A: We met anybody and everybody we thought could give us money including marwari seths, VCs, pvt equity funds, corporates – almost everybody. We thought we had firm commitment from 2-3 of them but then it did not materialise.
Q: No regrets??
A: At times you do miss the comforts, like we can’t go to 5 stars etc.
Q: So when people really really want to do something they find a way, right?
A: It’s not that big and bad world out there.Nahin karne ke liye bahut excuses hote hain. Sabse pehle naukri chhodo, to phir sab kuch ho jaata hai…!.
I wish Anurag and his team good luck — their story is pretty amazing indeed.
Now for the bonus for readers from Pune – Four Fountains is giving away 2 vouchers for free massages worth Rs 549 each. The first two commentors from Pune will get the voucher.
This is a brilliant idea. I have been visiting some of the SE Asian countries and always wondered why cant i go to a shop in Pune for a similar massage that is relaxing.
Brilliant initiative. all the best.
It’s been a PROMOTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INDIA ,by the way for India,to acquire the status of a “developed” nation…
Hats off to the entrepreneurs and the ways they are paving,this turns to a bliss in enriching economy…
Hope to get you soon.
Gowtham
Hi i am from pune. I want to go there once. After that lets see what my mind suggest.
Hi. I am from Pune. I had read about Four Fountains almost a year ago on Rashmi Bansal’s blog. Good to know they are progressing. Now how about my complimentary coupon?
Hi Pranav, this new series seems to be exciting. I hope you do it regularly and we get to read a lot of interviews from entrepreneurs ‘in their own words’.
Four Fountain Spa seems to have everything – IIM brand, VCs…
Nice to see entrepreneurs go beyond dot com and IT – for a while it seemed that is all there is to entrepreneurship
Hi, I am from Pune .
.
Well I liked the sentence about the cold water in pool. Liked it as I swim when tempearure goes down to 5 C.
Inspired me a lot.
This is really a good effort and the last sentences that leave you job and everything happens is really inspirational. Hope they succeed in their venture.
hey
nice post….i dint know 50 % of clients were male….i thought only women go for such stuff..
im also from pune and im a month late :- )
……do i get a voucher ?????
shitij