Story Of An Indian Women Who Created A 1 Lakh Crore Company In India – Falguni Nayar

In our beautiful country India, when a woman reaches the age of 50, she starts thinking that her life is over.

I have not seen many Indian women starting a business or even working at this age. 

But today’s story is different. It is about an Indian woman with an entrepreneurial spirit who started her business at the age of 50, and 10 years later, her company is valued at over 13 Billion USD.

Today’s story is about Falguni Nayar. As brilliant as it may sound, Falguni’s journey to success was not smooth.

She created a beauty marketplace in India when most Indian women only knew Eyeliner and Lipstick as makeup products. 

Let’s dig a little deeper and find out how it started.

Coming from a Gujrati (Most entrepreneurial Indian state) family, Falguni was exposed to business and finance from her childhood. She witnessed her father build a business from the ground up and was interested in finance.

She started her career in 1993 with Kotak Mahindra Finance (NBFS). Later she played an essential role in establishing Kotak Mahindra as an Investment Banking Firm. 

However, in 1994 Falguni’s husband (a Citibank employee) was posted to London. Falguni decided to move along, but Kotak Mahindra’s founder Uday Kotak resisted her decision.

After much consideration, Falguni decided to stay with her husband and move to London. It could have been the end of her career at Kotak Mahindra. Whereas Uday Kotak was unwilling to let go of Falguni and decided to expand his business and open a new branch in London under Falguni’s leadership.

Falguni agreed to it. Recalling the incident, Falguni once said, “I was never a good swimmer, but I would always be the first to jump in. The thought, what if I break a leg?, doesn’t occur to me.”

The decision turned out to be advantageous for the company. In 1997, Uday sent Falguni to New York to establish Kotak Mahindra in the USA.

At this point, Falguni was the Head of International Business at Kotak Mahindra. It was also the point when India was changing, finance was changing, and a new century was beginning.

As a result, Falguni was called back to India. She was the Incharge of Kotak’s Institutional Equities Business. It was when entrepreneurship was booming in India, and Falguni helped many businesses launch their IPOs.

She had the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs like Ronnie Screwvala, the founder of UTV that went public in 2005 and divested with Disney in 2012. She also worked closely with Ajay Bijli, the founder of India’s first multiplex, now known as PVR cinema, and his company went public in 2005.

All these interactions left a positive impact on Falguni. Now Falguni was in a dilemma, she spent most of her life working for someone else, and there was security in it. She was at an excellent level and leaving all of that was difficult.

She recalled how her father built his business from scratch and followed her heart. 

After leaving her job in 2009, she made a promise to herself. Now onwards, she will be the Nykaa (Heroine) of her life.

After brainstorming many ideas, she planned to create an online marketplace for beauty brands. She named her marketplace “Nykaa.” 

There was not much demand for B2C for beauty products in India, mainly because Indian women were never exposed to the beauty products that Falguni saw in London or New York.

Falguni knew that she needed a plan to change the market. Her business model was to educate and sell, and with that strategy, Nykaa was born in 2012.

That’s where the 3 C’s of Nykaa come into play. 

The 3 C’s of Nykaa means:

Curation: She reached out to all beauty brands available to give her exclusive o discounted deals. She also brought global brands in India that were not available before.

Content: She heavily created and supported beauty related content in India. She brought influencers, beauty bloggers, content creators on board. 10% of all the beauty content created in India is by Nykaa. 

Convenience: She ensured that the customer experience right from researching and downloading the app to placing the order was smooth and effortless.

Apart from that, she also opened offline stores to facilitate trials for beauty products with various shades.

In the last six years, the 3C’s strategy helped Nykaa 80X. Nykaa went public in 2021 and is worth over 13 Billion USD.

But there is a catch, Nykaa was never profitable until 2021. However, Falguni used her financial experience and always kept the burn-rate low, and she invested most of her money into the business.

Falguni is one of the few business owners to have more than 50% of the equity in her company. At the age of 60, her wealth is over 7.5 Billion USD.

More than 50 investors rejected her in this journey, and her businesses were considered unworthy. 

By Investing her life savings, leaving her job, and following her heart at the age of 50, Falguni has set an example.

If this story touched your heart, then leave a comment below “I am the Nykaa of my life.”