For Too Long Women Haven't Dreamt For Themselves; We Want To Empower Them: Falguni Nayar, Founder & CEO, Nykaa

At the recently concluded BW Disrupt Women Entrepreneur Summit and Awards, Falguni Nayar, Founder & CEO, Nykaa spoke about the success of the brand and what it takes to be a true entrepreneur in a fire side chat with Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld and exchange4media Group.

Speaking about the journey of Nykaa, Nayar said, “Nykaa is a young brand and it has been fun building it. The business is six years old and the brand is even younger and we go where the customer is. While we preferred e-commerce, we realised that our customers wanted us to be in physical retail as well. They wanted to come into our stores and experience our products once in a while.  So we started rolling out new stores and we are now seeing them embracing the m, so we really go where our customers want us to be.”

“In today's world  it is also possible to build digital only brands  given the amount of reach you are able to get and the cost effective way in which you can build a brand, so it is a new world for brand building,” she added.

When asked about her inspiration behind launching Nykaa, Nayar said that it was her love for risk taking that helped her start the entrepreneurial journey.

“Kotak (her previous employer) had a culture where they allowed us to take a lot of risk. One of the key qualities of an entrepreneur is that they are ready to take risks. I did choose beauty because I thought it was a business that was not working in India.  It was a small business and there were adversities that did not allow the business to scale. So, I consciously choose this business because there was unmet demand, and that is how I went about building it. I would say it just came to me by being part of an organisation that allowed risk taking.”

Speaking about brand name Nykaa and the story behind it, Nayar explained, “For too long the women have been the support system of the family and they haven't dreamt for themselves. I think women are afraid to dream because they feel that it will disrupt their life. So this name has a message to women that you must pursue your dreams, and our customers, especially millennials, like that.  They like the fact that we are empowering them in some ways.”

Nayar’s advice to budding entrepreneurs is to commit themselves to the dream and be consistent in the wake of challenges that come in their way.

“I would say choose an industry that you love because success in entrepreneurship doesn't come quickly.  You have to commit yourself to doing things for a very long time.”

“Second is that they don't have to be afraid of the roller coaster ride.  The highs in business should not make you arrogant and the lows should not make you demotivated that you lose your energy.  If you can take this roller coaster ride in your stride, then I think you are ready for entrepreneurship,” stated Nayar.

When asked about her vision for Nykaa for the next five years, she said, “I personally believe in three year planning rather than five year, so so we have a three year vision and beyond that we can extrapolate.”

“At the moment beauty means a lot to us and we are trying to do more in beauty, but at the same time we also see a big opportunity in fashion. We think there is problem to solve. Women want to buy a lot of fashion, but we know there are problems. We also believe that women are not just interested in discounting, they are interested in style, and so we call  our sale as big on style rather than big on price and that is the quality of business we want  to build,” said Nayar.

It must be mentioned that the BW Disrupt Women Entrepreneur Awards recognizes and celebrates exceptional women entrepreneurs who have moved us all with their innovation, ideas and inspiration.