Akshaya Kumar Gupta: Don’t Hesitate to Change the Business Model. Try New Technology, New Ideas , New Modelling

Akshaya Kumar Gupta of Solarclue.

Tell us about yourself.

I am Akshaya Kumar Gupta, working as Co-Founder and Chief Operation Officer at Solarclue.com and Varistor Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

with 6 years of experience in different domains like electrical, electronics, and computer science. He served clients by providing them with the best solutions, and it was possible due to his top-level managerial skills, particularly in sales, management, procurement, and project pricing estimation.

The role is to develop the complete business profit vision, business modeling, and operations for the company.

What lessons has being an entrepreneur taught you?

Keep calm and trust your decision to start a company. You should have a strong belief in the vision you have seen at the start. Always work hard to achieve goals and adopt different strategies. Patience is the key here.

If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Don’t hesitate to change the business model. Try new technology, new ideas , new modelling . Do market research before starting a company and understand your customers’ and their behaviour.

A lot of entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance their work and personal lives. How have you found that?

You started the company in your early 20s and being single, you have had at least 6 years without much family responsibilities. Schedule your work very smartly and work efficiently. Great things take time. Even if you work 12 hours daily , you still have another 12 hours to give to your family.

Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?

Solar products will be the most in-demand project in the coming future. We found that the industry is very disorganised and that there wasn’t much information for people like us and for the customers as well.

We opened the market place to standardise the prices and to showcase all the products and information on one single portal.

What do you think is your magic sauce? What sets you apart from the competitors?

We started at a very young age. Most of the top level management in our competitors’ companies are more than 40 years old. which takes them far from the internet and technology. They are more into conventional types of business. We use digital marketing instead of conventional marketing.

How have you found sales so far? Do you have any lessons you could pass on to other founders in the same market as you are just starting out?

The market is very competitive and the margins are very thin. On top of that, customers of these products want to purchase products offline by visiting showrooms or shops and not via an e-commerce website.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in your business, and how did you overcome it?

Trust: Trusting a new website to purchase products that are costly is the toughest.

Purchasing online: Our customers are on average 35–55+ years old. It is getting very difficult for them to understand the product and buy it online.

Product Knowledge : Our vision is that every customer should be able to purchase the product on our portal without our expert consultation.

which is not happening as the products are very technical. We are using digital marketing and taking reviews from customers to win trust. We have been writing blogs and creating YouTube videos to educate them.

What do you consider the main strengths of operating your business in India and the specific state you are in over other states in India?

As we are a marketplace, we do not have to put offices and warehouses in all locations. Our sellers are all over India and then upload the products on behalf of us. Some of the products are compulsory in Bangalore, which makes the demand high and so do sales.

What (if any) are some weaknesses in operating your business within India and your state?

People do trust online platforms People still want to touch the product , feel the product , want one-on-one conversion with the sales executive/consultant, they want to understand the product and then they will purchase it, mostly in cash.

If you could operate your business in another state in India rather than the one you are in, which state would it be and why?

We are already doing it in almost all states.

India has an incredibly diverse population. How has this affected your consumer base and business?

More customers bring more competition. Demand is very high, but they don’t know of a single reliable source where they can purchase their solar products.

Infrastructure is really important to businesses. How have you seen India’s infrastructure improve recently? Do you see new opportunities opening up?

Yes, the increase in infrastructure setup for any industry, especially the solar industry, has been remarkable. We are producing our own solar panels , water heaters, and inverters.

What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years with your business?

increase the trust factor among our customers when buying online. Educate customers so that they can buy our products without our help At least 50% of sales should come automatically without sales executive support Even people from the village understand the importance of solar. Atleast 100 crores in turnover

And finally, if people want to get involved and learn more about your business, how should they do that?

We support fewer tariffs. Due to the increase in tariffs, the price of the product and project increases. which is not favourable for the customer’s budget.

Follow Solarclue on Twitter or Linkedin.