Sriram and Dinesh - Steady Business Is Very Important To Be Successful (Entrepreneur)

 

Sriram

Dinesh

Initially, setting up a business will be very hard. No one will help you. We have to do our own research. We have to find our own contacts. It's a new field there was no one to guide us. with the money, we earn from IT somehow we were able to run the show. If you can run your Business for 2-3 years inspire of all these factors. You will be in a very good position very soon. Steady business is very important to be successful.

1. Tell us about your background and journey.

The Logo Man - It's me and my brother. We are from the so-called place 'North Madras'.

We live in Royapuram in our own house. Our family consists of myself, my younger brother, mom, and dad. We are from a middle-class family with a lot of dreams as everyone. Our inspiration to start something on our own started from my home, from my dad. 

My dad started his journey from being tailoring earning 6 rupees per day and after various business attempts, ups and downs, now, he is in a very good position. The inspiration to start something on our own started there. Then comes the place 'North Madras', apart from the things you see in the movies, here there are a lot of business. Actually businessmen/women. 

Most of them do business here for living here. Before IT and all came in salaried people were very less I believe or the people in my surrounding/the people we have seen during our childhood days did business. It is the core of Chennai for Business. The Business Hub. 

Me and My brother, at our young age, somehow convinced our dad and open a PlayStation Shop actually we had two branches during that time. One branch was at our home and the other place was at my dad's godown. I am not really sure how much we earned because we were very young but we got the fame in our area like the 'PlayStation boys'. 

The shop was named like 'Sriram(me) Dinesh(brother) PlayStation Centre' so friends use to tease with it and it became the fame actually. This is how the journey started and after few months we had to stop due to police compulsory because kids those days used to take money from their home to play PlayStation and for a few other reasons our PlayStation shops were closed.

2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?

I am from Media Background somehow due to so and so reasons ended up in IT and my brother who wished to be a Game Developer ended up in IT handling the back end data which he never ever thought of. Through our line of work and passion were different we had one thing in common. 

To create something on our own. To create a brand. To create a crowd for us. We don't want to just do business. We are creative minds. We wanted to create something which is in our mind and also we have to earn from it. By giving life to our idea, gives us excitement and happiness. 

When we were in the idea to start something, during one of our bike mod sessions. We thought of sticking something to the bike but it shouldn't be the ordinary just sticker. It should stand out. It should be only available to us. There we did our first design and my relative who was in interior designing help us to crave that design out in acrylic. 

Based on the response we got from the friends we made these logos for them too. Then we thought, Why not this? Why can't we sell it online? This thought started our business journey.

3. What was your opinion before starting your logo and how well did it turn up?

We started to give our logos to our friends and other circles. So our first move of selling the product online was through Facebook and Instagram page. After creating the page and posting the logos post we got nothing. After few weeks, we got a few inquiries but most of them didn't trust us. 

Since there were many fake pages around and people weren't ready to trust us. Our first online listing was in 'Shop101' through which customers can pay money. Even many didn't trust 'Shop101' too. But we started getting orders. We have to do a lot of manual works to get orders at our Shop101 site since it's self-promotional not like Amazon or Flipkart. 

Reviews from the customers were very good. They started asking for more and more designs and after posting the customer images we started getting many enquiries. From shop101 it went to Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and to our very own website the thelogoman.in. We started our creativity from Logos now we are into apparel started our own brand T-shirts and Shoes. Will lots of creative things in mind for future we are moving.

4. What are the challenges you face and how did you overcome it?

We both are in IT paralleling working on our brand. It will be very hectic at something where we have to go to the office at 6 AM in the morning and due to some issue have to stay back there and reach home by 9-10 PM at night then we have to pack our orders and do other stuff which will take another 3-4 hours.

Initially, setting up a business will be very hard. No one will help you. We have to do our own research. We have to find our own contacts. It's a new field there was no one to guide us. with the money, we earn from IT somehow we were able to run the show. 

The tough 2 years of setting up the business and running it. Something will happen and the cash flow stops. You will be only pouring the money when it is about to give you something happens and it goes here. Initial setup of Ecommerce, Packing solutions, managing returns, GST, IT, Stock management, Financial Management, Loans, Credits, etc, etc will throw you all ways. 

If you can run your Business for 2-3 years inspire of all these factors. You will be in a very good position very soon. Steady business is very important to be successful.

5. How do you plan to take your career forward?

The main thing we are concentrating on is to create a Brand. The Name. To create a crowd for the 'The Logo Man'.

We are yet to set up our own physical store. Our shop will be unique store where you get only the products made by The Logo Man. Currently, we are selling only through E-commerce. Short term goal is to set up a shop. Long term goal is to spread across Chennai/Tamil Nadu/India and overseas. The brand 'The Logo Man - Made in India' will be established worldwide very soon. We are in the process of it.  Let's see where it take us to.

Divyank

Gowri shankar

Binsan Oommen

Vibin

Vignesh Raj

Shyam

Akib

Nilay

It was not only us always. We got some extraordinary help from extraordinary people. without the above team members/friends help we won't be in the place where we are now. 

These are the people who believed in our dream and made it their dream and helped/traveling with us without any expectation even when they all have their own startup and running towards their own passion. Even we are doing whatever we can to help them.

Sriram and Dinesh

Instagram id : @sriram_entertainer

Interviewed by : Ananie Borgia