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Anshul Dhamija, Forbes India\n<\/i><\/p>\n
Anshul Dhamija, Forbes India
\n<\/i><\/p>\n
Bengaluru, 12 July 2016<\/i><\/p>\n
“When Gaurav and I joined, the revenue of\nWildcraft was lesser than the salaries that the two of us earned,”\nrecalls Sood, who had quit his job at GE in Singapore in 2007, and\nDublish his at Standard Chartered in Dubai. However, their association\nwith Dinesh and Wildcraft began earlier, in 2000. Back then, besides\nmaking outdoor gear, Wildcraft India had a robust services business.\nThis included organising river rafting expeditions at Dandeli, located\nin the Western Ghats in Karnataka, and conducting outdoor learning\nprogrammes for children and corporates, as well as some consultancy\nservices. This constituted 75 percent of the company’s overall revenues\nat the time. In 2007, Dublish and Sood decided to come back to\nIndia and spearhead operations. It was around the time that Dinesh, who\noversees design and product development, was looking for more personal\ntime to explore mountain ranges in India and abroad. Also, “there were\nquestion marks on the survival of a design product-led company. At that\ntime, entrepreneurship was still not as fashionable as it is today,”\nrecollects Dublish. But nothing deterred their entrepreneurial spirit\nor their belief in Wildcraft. Competition for Wildcraft comes from all quarters:\nSportswear brands, international sporting goods retailers such as\nDecathlon, traditional luggage makers such as Samsonite and American\nTourister which now offer backpacks, lifestyle brands such as Fastrack\nfrom Titan, as well as other outdoor players like Woodland and\nTimberland.<\/p>\n \n“Their biggest external challenge comes from brands with\ndeeper pockets that can push ahead with market penetration more\naggressively, including the sportswear giants, as well as retailers\nidentifying the category as one where they can undercut brand margins\nthrough private labels,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief\nexecutive of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy firm.<\/span> Anshul Dhamija, Forbes India Bengaluru, 12 July 2016 Dinesh KS loves the wilderness. And, as an avid mountaineer (he is a certified instructor in climbing and mountaineering), he always found it easy to be close to it. But, in 1990, he suffered an ankle injury which hindered his treks. Dinesh was forced to find another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-quotes"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"..\/images\/wildcraft.jpg\")
Dinesh\nKS loves the wilderness. And, as an avid mountaineer (he is a certified\ninstructor in climbing and mountaineering), he always found it easy to\nbe close to it. But, in 1990, he suffered an ankle injury which\nhindered his treks. Dinesh was forced to find another way to stay in\ntouch with his passion. By 1993, he had figured out how: The then\n32-year-old Bengaluru resident started to design tents and backpacks,\nwhich were manufactured in the city’s industrial hub of Peenya. “I\nwould shop for buckles, zippers and other accessories, fill up my bags\nwith the raw materials, and then ride to Peenya [on my motorbike]. I\nwould spend the whole day there, teaching tailors how to stitch [these\nproducts],” recalls Dinesh.
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\nThis was at a time when access to such products in the country was\nlimited and, therefore, expensive. In fact, the better quality ones\nwere available across the border in Thamel, the commercial\nneighbourhood in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
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\nDinesh started small—it would take at least five years before this\nlittle venture would become Wildcraft India Pvt Ltd—in 1993 and\nproduced only five to 10 products a day. He would sell them from a\nfriend’s garage in Bengaluru’s southern residential suburb of\nJayanagar. Dinesh estimates that he sold between 2,000 to 3,000 units\nper annum. And he made next to nothing, he says. “It [the money] was\nlike change, so let’s not go there. But I did get a kick out of doing\nit,” says the 55-year-old. He then adds, laughing, “Kicks were coming\nfrom other places also. My parents were always ready with those because\nall my classmates were in the US and doing well.”
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\nThings were to change, though, especially after 2003, when the company\nwould get its focus right, and move to products from services (more on\nthat later). “Till then, we didn’t even think of it as a business. It\nwas a hobby,” says Gaurav Dublish, co-founder of the reinvented\nWildcraft, who joined full-time with his college friend Siddharth Sood,\nboth 40, in 2007.
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\nIt certainly isn’t a hobby anymore. The outdoor products brand reported\nretail sales of Rs 300 crore in FY16, having clocked a CAGR of over 60\npercent since 2007. (The company did not disclose profitability\nnumbers.) It sold over 2 million products in the year including\nbackpacks, rucksacks, sleeping bags and tents, cheaters and jackets,\nand footwear. From the garage it started selling from in 1993,\nWildcraft products are today available in 120-plus exclusive stores and\nover 2,500 multi-brand stores across 400-plus Indian cities.
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\nWhat has helped in achieving scale is an investment of about Rs 70\ncrore for an undisclosed minority stake by Silicon Valley-based venture\ncapital fund Sequoia Capital in 2013. There has been no follow-up\nequity investment since. “The company has grown 3x plus since the\ninvestment and has strongly positioned itself as a full-blown outdoor\nbrand across gear and apparel with footwear being added as well,” says\nGV Ravishankar, managing director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors.
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\nIt has been quite the journey, then, for Dinesh. Born and brought up in\na middle-class family in Ranchi, he had moved to Bengaluru in 1978 for\nhis Pre-University Course (PUC). After that, he obtained a degree in\nelectronics engineering from RV College in the city. The wilderness was\nnever supposed to have been part of the plans, but here he is, fuelling\nothers’ wild dreams.
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\nFriends In\nDeed<\/span>
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\nSood and Dublish had taken a trip to Dandeli in 2000 and, having\nenjoyed it, started helping Wildcraft run its services business in\ntheir spare time. Between 2000 and 2003, both Sood and Dublish moved\nfrom the periphery to getting invested—financially and operationally—in\nthe company’s product business. “We didn’t have any office. All the\nfights and arguments used to happen at one of our places,” remembers\nDublish, now seated in the third floor of the three-storey Wildcraft\nIndia headquarters in Bengaluru’s southern suburb of JP Nagar.
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\nIn 2003, even as Dublish and Sood were both embarking on international\nassignments in their respective jobs, they convinced Dinesh to give up\nhis job at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Wyoming,\nUS, and devote all his time to Wildcraft. (For at least six months in a\nyear, Dinesh worked as a climbing instructor at NOLS. In his absence,\nan accountant-cum-inventory manager oversaw operations.)
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\nAround this time, it was also decided that Wildcraft would let go of\nits services business and focus on products. “The three of us were\nconvinced that we need to take the product route. So the guys who were\nassociated [and invested in Wildcraft earlier] moved out and took the\nservices business with them,” says Sood. The company took up a 700-odd\nsquare feet office space opposite its earlier garage setup, and hired\ntailors. It opened four retail stores across the city in the key\nsuburbs of Jayanagar, Cambridge Layout, Malleswaram and Rajajinagar.
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\n“We had tied up with vendors who would tap into Korean and Taiwanese\nsuppliers. In 2006, we started sourcing directly,” says Dublish. The\nbusiness required significant working capital. For a turnover of Rs 50\nto Rs 60 lakh, Dublish says, “we used to pour in Rs 30-40 lakh of\ncapital to sustain it because the demand was not outstripping [supply].\nAnd that capital was coming from the three of us.” Annual sales for\nWildcraft averaged around 10,000 units then.
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\nThose were also the years of “armchair entrepreneurship” for Dublish\nand Sood. And even though Dinesh ran the show, for about three to four\nweeks in a year he would take off to the mountains. This setup needed\nto change.
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\nThe\nConfidence Game<\/span>
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\nThe trio put forth a clear vision for the company: To build the largest\noutdoor brand in India. While Dublish and Sood settled into their roles\nof leading marketing and sales, and finance, respectively, Wildcraft\nbegan hiring its first set of designers. “Consumption of backpacks as a\ncategory wasn’t there. But we believed that the category had a future\nin this country, and we clearly saw an opportunity,” says Sood. And\nthey were right: The backpack has come to be the company’s largest\nselling product, considered to have a multi-utility appeal in urban\nlandscapes such as workplaces and schools. An internal assessment by\nWildcraft shows that 80 percent of consumers use the backpack for daily\ncommute, while 20 percent carry it for the outdoors.
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\nAlso, the overall Indian outdoor gear market is estimated to be over $2\nbillion in size, and their confidence in being able to tap into that\nhas held the company in good stead. As Ravishankar of Sequoia Capital\nIndia Advisors says, “In the beginning, we were not convinced on\nwhether the Indian market had evolved enough to accept the outdoor\npositioning the company was building on. But every time we met them, we\ngot more and more convinced that this was a special team, who, with\ntheir unique insights about the Indian\/Asian consumer, had a strong,\nlong-term focus on building a leading outdoor brand out of India.”
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\nArvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak, a leading retail, textile and\napparel consulting firm, has a different perspective. He puts Wildcraft\nin the category of “being a niche player which has become successful,\nanother example being Fabindia”. Adds Singhal, “Over the years,\nWildcraft has built up very strong capabilities in product development,\nmanufacturing and sourcing. That has been their strength.” But he is\nnot convinced that such niche players have the ability to grow and\nbecome ten times the size and scale they currently are at.
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\nRavishankar, though, is confident that Wildcraft’s business can be\nscaled to Rs 1,000 crore “over the next few years”. “We aspire for\nWildcraft to be a truly global brand out of India. And they have taken\nbaby steps in that direction,” he says. In fact, the company has begun\nto distribute its products to international markets such as the UAE,\nSaudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan.
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\nClimb Every\nMountain<\/span>
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\nBut Dinesh isn’t fretting over potential rivalries. The best outcome he\nhad hoped for was “doing business which would give me time and money to\npursue activities.” And that is exactly how his story is playing out.
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\nOn the one hand, he has the bandwidth to follow his passion: In 2008\nand then again in 2011 he climbed some of the Himalayan mountains in\nLadakh that stood at 6,600 metres. Mount Everest, which is at 8,848\nmetres, has never excited Dinesh. “For some people, height matters, but\nnot for me. The challenge is in the kind of routes that you climb,” he\nsays. His next target is to explore the mountain ranges on the eastern\nside of the Karakoram.
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\nWhen he is not in the mountains, he helps the 20-odd member Wildcraft\ndesign team in product development. This is of no lesser joy to Dinesh.\nAs he points out, “When we started, the garage was our manufacturing\nunit, head office and retail outlet. And now we’re looking to be\ncounted among the best in the business globally. I’m confident that our\nbest years are ahead of us, and outdoor-lovers are at the heart of this\nconfidence.”
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\nEither way, Dinesh seems to have it all—wild dreams are made of this.
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\n<\/span>(Published\nin Forbes\nIndia<\/span><\/a>)<\/i>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"