Insights By Accel
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Episode
7
What's Right About WROGN?
What's Right About WROGN?
Anjana Reddy's Entrepreneurial Journey and USPL's Success
Discovering a New Market
Anjana Reddy, a sports fanatic and forward-looking business mogul, left her hometown in Hyderabad to attend university in the US. There, she discovered a market opportunity for sports merchandise and memorabilia in India.
The Birth of Collectabillia.com
Anjana brought the sports merchandise business model to India in 2012 by launching Collectabillia.com. The brand signed legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, and Rajnikanth, and even managed to sign Lionel Messi in 2014.
Expanding into Fashion with WROGN and Imara
After her initial success, Anjana scaled her business to include women's fashion and youth-oriented clothing with WROGN and Imara. She meticulously studied the clothing industry, learning the entire process from yarn to final product.
Lessons from USPL's Market Disruption
USPL demonstrates the power of market disruption, customer valuation, and entrepreneurial drive. Anjana’s journey shows how understanding and analyzing the market, distribution, and funding can lead to success.
Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
Anjana's hard work and innovation have earned her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, an achievement that highlights her dedication to building her fashion empire.
“You can’t get bigger than Messi,” Anjana Reddy says. Less than two weeks ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Reddy, founder of Indian fashion company Universal Sportsbiz Private Limited (USPL), reflects on her entrepreneurial journey from a sports e-commerce brand to a national fashion industrialist.
A sports fanatic and forward-looking business mogul, Reddy left her town in Hyderabad to attend university in the US, where she discovered something she had never seen before in the Indian market: Dogs wearing team jerseys at sporting events. Well, everyone wearing team jerseys - and drinking from team-branded beer mugs. At pep rallies, football games, and after-parties, every single attendee had a way to let you know exactly which team they were supporting. That’s when she struck gold and decided to combine her two favourite things.
With India’s craze for the game - whether that’s cricket, football, or entertainment - Reddy decided to bring the business model to India in early 2012 through Collectabillia.com, a celebrity-based e-commerce merchandise and memorabilia brand. For this brand, she signed legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, and Rajnikanth. In 2014, she even managed to sign Lionel Messi right before he played the World Cup (despite a run-in with the Spanish Embassy; you’ll have to hear her story to believe it).
After her initial success, she developed her business even further, scaling it to include women’s fashion and youth-oriented clothing in both online and offline markets with WROGN and Imara. Though she was unfamiliar with the clothing industry, one of the oldest trades in the country, she spent nights studying the entire process from yarn to final product at factories, and analysed the market for years in order to position her brand effectively.
USPL is a lesson in market disruption, customer valuation, and how a little entrepreneurial drive can make a world of difference. Join us as Reddy, now on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, discusses the importance of market analysis, distribution, and funding.
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!