COFFEE WITH AN ENTREPRENEUR

3/25/2019

PGDM |3rd TRIMESTER

 ISBR BUSINESS SCHOOL

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

AN INTERVIEW WITH Mr. SHASHANK SHEKHAR

CEO: STONED SANTA

GROUP-5
PGDM SEC-B

ALEN JOHN PINHEIRO PG18005 – alenjohnpinheiro@gmail.com

SHIVANI SINGH PG18082 - ssbhopal2405@gmail.com
AKSHAY MOHAN PG18004 – akshaymohank18@gmail.com
SAKSHI SINGH PG18073 - lovely.sakshi10@gmail.com

THIS ASSIGINMENT IS UNDER THE GUIDENCE OF

Mr. P.K. THOMAS

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INTRODUCTION

“Great ideas might fail but small ideas with great execution will definitely see the light of
success” Shashank, CEO of Stoned Santa, a company making personalized handmade
gifts for all special occasions believes in this thought. A twenty-four year old, computer
science graduate from SRM University, Chennai considers his first achievement as
winning the IIT Kanpur Techkriti,B-plan Competition, which also had a cash prize of
one lakh. Within just 90 days, generation of Three Lakh revenue could be called as
another achievement. In January 2018, Stoned Santa got incubated at IIM Bangalore, this
could be termed as third achievement.

THE JOURNEY

Shashank’s most of the schooling is from his hometown, Patna and belonging to non-
business family start-up that too in art was a difficult decision which he had taken in just
final year of his college. His father working as senior Manager in Punjab National Bank,
initially his start-up idea was taken as an excuse for not being able to get placed but
eventually they agreed and let him work towards his passion.

25Th December 2016, on Twenty-Fifth anniversary of Shashank’s Parents, while going in

a bus juggling and struggling what to gift them on their special day which will surprise
them. This gave him the idea how personalized handmade gifts are necessary on special
occasions. Hence Stoned Santa was born, and the name came from the fact that Santa
brings gifts to your doorstep and stoned because memories engraved on stone are forever.
He thought of gauging the idea on social media by putting a post on Facebook, and
within just 48 hours he got a response fifteen people who asked for their services and
ordered for personalized gifts. Hence officially 25ThJanuary 2017, just after one month of
idea striking his mind, Stoned Santa was born.

Guy being from an engineering background, had no knowledge about marketing and
sales, for which in spite of having his own company he started working as an intern in
The Climber, an IIM Bangalore incubated EdTech Startup. The Climber is among the top
50 youth led solutions in the world. There he not only learned how to target your market
segment but also got mentored under the guidance of other entrepreneurs. So starting his
schooling from Patna, then Chennai for engineering, Bangalore the Start-up hub gave him
a lot of exposure, and eventually family although could not support financially but always
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had a belief that he should work for his passion. Eventually internship in start-up not only
helped financially but also gave a lot of learning. Stoned Santa is a win-win for both artist
and customer as they mainly work with artists who aren’t recognized and customer gets
gifts handmade and very personalized and specific. Shashank handles most of his work
with just 9-10 employees working in his company right now.

He considers his role model as Jeff Bezos, and considers success mantra as an
entrepreneur is to just keep solving problems of customers, according to him you will be
in market till you keep solving the problems of customers. During his last year in
engineering, he was also helped by his seniors for his start-up idea. According to him, Art
is unique, art is subjective, and so its interpretation and everyone appreciates art in some
or the other form. The aesthetic joy of art being delivered to your doorstep, just as Santa
does. One major setback for the company was investing money which they won from IIT
Kanpur as one Lakh prize amount into cartoon Stall in Hyderabad which was a major
failure, but he learnt from his failures and after that they got incubated at IIM-Bangalore.

THE COMPANY

The company considers their biggest competitors as individual artists on Instagram and
various other social media. The biggest problem in this art business according to him is
that the client who could recognize the worth of handmade art are ready to give
reasonable price but some who could not aren’t willing to give money. He has his office
in NSRCEL, Bangalore with 9-10 employees helping him.

The major marketing campaign adopted by Stoned Santa was to advertise in 400 Ola cabs
on Bangalore Airport for which he spent around Thirty-four thousand Rupees, which was
big amount for 40 hours for them, but Shashank and his intern made the campaign
successful with a return on investment of around 322%, which means profit of around
one lakh thirty four thousand Rupees. In around 40 hours with minimal food and sleep
they convinced Ola cab drivers which also gave them belief that people do help you when
you are with a good cause, because some Ola Cab Drivers took the advertisement for free
in their cabs. Right now they have around 4000 clients and 50 artists on board. They
provide handmade portraits and string art which could be made as ordered by the
customer. Their artists are mainly college, school students and housewives who aren’t
recognized for their work, so they provide platform for them to get paid properly for their
work.

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SCALING UP

Their major strategy includes attracting customers, Shashank himself is quite active on
Twitter and Quora. Right now they are working from IIM-Bangalore where they get
guidance from best mentors and specialists in industry. Their main focus is increase the
customer base because they want to be market leader in the customized gift industry. This
large scale contact with the artists helps both the organization and artists to get
recognized and also satisfy Stoned Santa clients by providing unique and specialized gifts
to make memorable moments. This unique satisfaction from the clients makes the
organization responsible for the future of the customized gifting industry.

CONCLUSION

His only suggestion was to solve problems of the customers, till you keep solving them
you are in the market. He suggested to students that we should focus skill building and
not just theoretical knowledge. He gave his example that he is in art business, being a
Computer Science graduate and he is not even able to draw a straight line by himself.
Hence our knowledge shouldn’t be confined only our domain and we should always try
to work upon our skills. Not being an artist himself he heads a crafting business which
means if your idea execution is unique, you don’t need to excel in the core business, the
world will help your idea to be real. Only thing an entrepreneur to realize that is the idea
should be a problem solver. He also reminds that startups are the problem solvers if the
problems aren’t solve in the right way then it means that startup is a failure.

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