A toy story with a twist!

A lot of us keep toying with multiple business ideas from time to time. In the second part of our series “Just Like Us’, we chat with someone for whom the business idea itself was toys. Meet Santhosh Kumar Subramaniam, co-founder of Bambaram Toy Library and Founder of MooreMarket, a facebook based ‘flea market’.
Santhosh and I got introduced to each other at my wife’s cousin’s wedding. I already a little  knew about his Bambaram before we met, and you will know a lot more about it as you read trough this interview. Over to the Toy Story:

Arun:  Santhosh, could you please take us through your educational qualifications. Your graduation as well as your post graduation.

Santhosh: Have done my graduation in mechanical engineering from SASTRA and my post graduation in management from IIT Kharagpur .

Arun:  Have you been an entrepreneur only ever since your post graduation from IIT, Kharagpur? Did you work elsewhere before you started this venture?

Santhosh: After my post-graduation, I worked with one of the leading food specialty retail chain in Mumbai as marketing manager for around 2 years. Before my post graduation, I worked with an IT enabled services company as a developer. Most of my corporate work experience helped me in teaching what all fields one should not venture into. But I had my fair share of learning from the corporate world and it helped me when I decided to bootstrap.

Arun: You founded webvastra when you were doing your post graduation at IIT Kharagpur. That must have been taxing!!

Santhosh: Not really. When I joined my MBA, I was more or less decided not to repeat the same mistake I did in my UG – Just study the subjects and leave your institution. So I ended up getting involved with whatever I can. So when webvastra idea was proposed by my friends, I was more than happy to find time for it. It was taxing. But I really enjoyed those two years at Kharagpur.

Arun: An interesting aspect of your stubbornness to remain an entrepreneur is that you have still not collected your MBA certificate from IIT. Sounds extreme. Sure you would have ruffled a few feathers at home.

Santhosh: J Yes. Initially, the prime reason for not collecting the certificate was of course laziness. But when I decided to take a plunge, I decided to get the certificate whenever its absolutely necessary. The moment is yet to come and I hope it will never come! There was quite a bit of criticism from my parents. But what’s the fun if the whole world accepts whatever you do. Now they are more or less convinced that I am crazy beyond their expectations. In hindsight, that’s the acid test for every entrepreneur. If you can’t convince and sell your ‘vision’ to your own folks, why should the world listen to you?

Arun: A Toy library sounds like a novel concept, since kids don’t attach themselves to a top for more than a specific period of time. How did you hit upon this idea? Did you launch Bambaram alone, or is it a partnership

Santhosh: I borrowed this idea from Children’s Toy Foundation and Vidyarambam who runs a toy vans which goes around in government schools. The initial idea we had in mind was to provide quality structured arts & crafts education in schools. But when I travelled along with Vidyarambam vans, we shifted gears to toy library to start with.

It is indeed a novel idea for India. The concept exists in western world and there are quite a number of toy libraries which are run by government where parents can just walk-in and take the products. I am sure that will happen here too once we start realizing how important ‘play’ is in the overall development of a child.

Arun: Do you connect with parents at an individual level, or do you get the subscriptions by tying up with corporate or playschools?

Santhosh: Now it’s a mix of both! Initially considering the zilch marketing budget we had, we went and tied up with corporates and served the employees working with the organizations alone. Later we tied up with schools to include the various educational kits to be part of their curriculum. Now we serve individual parents too.

Arun:  How do you wish to differentiate Bambaram from any other venture of a similar nature that may spring up in future?

Santhosh: Right from the start, our focus reminds on learning aspect of the toy. That’s why we adopted theory of multiple intelligences to classify the products and whichever products were not fitting the learning goals were not included in the library. Yes we did lose few members because of that. But in the long run, parents started appreciating it.

Arun: This concept may have been viewed with some skepticism by parents as they would have felt this to have been a downgrade, or may have feared that the hygiene could be compromised. How did you tackle the initial mental inertia in the minds of parents?

Santhosh: It was an uphill task. That is the reason we tied up with corporate because this concept is quite known in western world. Considering the western exposure the parents in IT had, it was relatively easier to convince them. Still the conversion rates were not great initially. So we took products to corporate themselves to show what we can offer to the parents and invited parents to our warehouse for a demonstration. Then the word spread!

Arun: What has been the most cherished moment in your journey as an entrepreneur so far?

Santhosh: Letters from parents! Especially when the parent starts using the library with a specific objective in mind. Most of the parents were hesitant to share that objective too. The best moment was when a parent approached us saying her pediatrician referred us! That was the eureka moment for us J

Arun: How do you plan to take this venture forward? Are you looking at a franchisee model to expand your footprint, both in and outside Chennai?

Santhosh: The market is huge and is still afresh. We are working with schools to make play as part of their curriculum having successfully completed our pilot project with an international school. With regard to franchise, right from the first few months we started, we are being flooded with franchise requests. But we were waiting to get it right in Chennai. Now we have fine tuned our model. So we are considering few places for expansion through franchise route.

Arun: You are constantly connected with entrepreneurial groups in Chennai. How do those sessions help you?

Santhosh: The startup environment really helps. Most of us as entrepreneurs repeat the same mistakes. Staying in connected with similar startup ventures helps you avoid these mistakes (and of course you can contribute to the pool of ‘new’ mistakes J) and reach out to right people for your needs. I have personally seen lots of ventures coming out of these startup clubs themselves when like-minded people meet!

Arun: Before we wind up this conversation, could you please let us know how ‘mooremarket‘, your facebook based old stuff trading portal is doing?

Mooremarket is just an experiment I am trying with social media and its really catching up well. I had few stuff to sell/get rid off. So started this to see if it can sold through Facebook among friends. Now some 2300+ people are members in 8 days time with few successful transactions. Only, when the number of transactions pick up, can we say if it is successful or not.

Santhosh, thanks a ton for time taken to share your thoughts and experiences. We Wish you all the best in your journey.

To know more about bambaram, please visit www.bambaram.in . Your experience will be ‘TOP’ notch J.