“Success for some comes on platter but to me it is hard work and I would say madness with passion to create something and make it big.”, Veena Soni
Founder and owner Veena Soni envelopes lingerie close to her heart. She has been in the lingerie segment & other lifestyle products of e-commerce businesses for 13 years successfully and she introduced the lingerie section to e-commerce giants in the year 2001. Her office is situated in Delhi and she resides there herself. Today she works with less than 10 employees. Her main target audience is the middle and upper middle class with the age group of 18-45. She has shipped more than 600000 lakhs products to different buyers in India & overseas & this number is increasing day by day. Today she has a multi channel business and income from one channel which is funding her other channel. Till date it is self-funded. She has been planning for a business expansion and may opt for funding.
“I have been from a fine arts background and have worked in related fields for many years before I jumped into e-commerce business in year 2001. My day starts with my morning tea and watching the sunrise early morning and some exercise which keeps me fit. My average day is office work and some field work related to business. Evenings are spent with the people I like. I love to read so my rest of the time is spent reading some nice articles or books which makes me charged to give energy to my new business ideas. In my early business years I have spent 12-15 hours in a day but now things are in automated mode and I spend much lesser time in comparison to my early years in business. But being in business is no fixed time to work, anytime you can work. I came too early into the e-commerce industry when there were hardly 5-6 vendors in Delhi and I was one of them. I would say not much hurdles at that time as there was no competition. The only hurdle which I faced was that people were not able to understand what an online store is. When asked what I do? My answer having an online store would always put a grin on their face. Initially people were not ready to take this business or me seriously as they were not able to understand the concept of an online business. But I ignored all this and I just went after my passion making my dream come true. Every product is like my baby which is taken care of in a good manner.” says, Veena Soni.
She goes on to say, “There are some people who are born to do something different from the masses, I wouldn’t say they have special abilities but yes they have some kind of passion in them which does not let them sit with regular work. When this passion ,talent along with the hard work which they do makes them entrepreneur.
In my case I had something in me which was not letting me get the happiness form the work I was doing . Every now and then I was trying many things but I was not getting the right place which could give me satisfaction . I tried my hands on many e-commerce categories but found that lingerie is closest to my heart and that’s how this brand “LACEANDME” was created.
What advice would you give to women who want to start a business?
Veena Soni, “If they have some passion to create ideas then don’t look back just work with full devotion and give your 100% efforts. This era is very competitive and to succeed you need to be the best. So go for it. One word for readers who wants to start business is WILLPOWER.”
What motivates you? How do you generate new ideas
V.S: “It is within… I just have to bring it out by keeping myself mentally and physically fit. Most of the ideas come in mind when I start my day with morning tea.”
If you could turn the time, what would you love to do in regardsto your business?
V.S: “I would like to give more focus on some areas in my business which could have given me better results in shaping this brand. Although I did my best with the limited resources which I had that time and gave more focus on teleshopping business which at that time was giving me huge returns. Due to that commitment I could not give desired shape to this brand which had a great potential.”
What is your greatest achievement? what do you consider your biggest failure?
V.S: “Creating a brand “ LACEANDME” which is closest to my heart and yes I have played a marvellous inning in my tele shopping business. Little bit up and down as market trends keeps on changing but failure – NONE.”
Entering the intimate world what kind of support did you anticipate to gather? was there a definite plan or things clicked open?
V.S: “I would say I was lucky in my most experiments which I did with this brand. It was a planning with right mix of luck and hard work.”
What has your future in store?
V.S: “Future is business expansion in many ways. New product line is in process of coming out for buyers. E-commerce industry is growing very fast and definitely we are sure to get new customers too.”
