Until recently, I was actively working towards building my profile as a consultant by lending my expertise in building projects and ideas from scratch into a properly functioning business. In the last 4 years, having worked with over 50+ clients varying from big multi-nationals to brand new start-up ideas, I decided it was time I put my effort into building something all by myself (with a lot of support from my team and community).
Ever since my college days, I had an inclination towards selling physical & digital products. Having designed products myself, I knew it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. It took months of research and planning to finally decide my entry into the Global Trillion Dollar Industry of Cannabis with a marketplace named Its Hemp which aims at selling products manufactured from Hemp (a non-psychotropic: doesn’t get you high; species of Cannabis grown as an industrial raw material).
So without any further ado, let’s delve into the secrets that led me to create a Marketplace for a product that has been misunderstood & hallowed as a drug in the country.
1. Understand your Opportunity
Anyone who loves possibilities will fall in love with Hemp as a raw material. There are over 25,000 different products that can be made out of a single raw material: Hemp. Ranging from clothing to food and cosmetic supplements; plastics, paper, and rubber to oils, from bio-fuels to cars themselves, you can make anything out of your Hemp produce. All this while maintaining a strong positive environmental impact as it uses 4 times less water, replenishes the soil quality, has anti-biotic properties, and grows very quickly!
“ The varied use of Hemp makes it an Industry Agnostic Raw Material, which is the best thing for someone like me.”
2. Get a Relevant Industry Overview
Even though Hemp had me intrigued from the day go, I was still a long way from deciding on entering the field. With all my comprehensions and doubts, I started reaching out to various players in the market to understand the people I will be dealing with and the way they work. This was probably the most important part of the research as it plays the most crucial role in defining my role in the Industry. I had conversations with all the major players in India one could find online — BOHECO, Health Horizons, NHCO, Hempsters, BE Hemp India, CHOI, IIHA, Himalayan Hemp, and a couple more. This drill gave me valuable insights into the industry — how things are done and how I can make them better.
“ Doing your homework on the industry helps you find your fit. You end up saving a lot of time and investment and make some really good friends along the way. “
3. Find your Fit
To build a new venture in any industry takes time, skill, effort, investment, and knowledge. To build a new project it is imperative for you to be able to map the skill set of your team with the task at hand. In the early days of a start-up, however, you have the liberty to map your journey to your skills and build a business that you are confident about. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take risks or venture out into the unknown. It just means that you need to be smart enough to take the path through the mountains if you are a hiker or build a boat to swim through the ocean if you know how to build one to reach your destination.
For me, the value lay in my core skill of making people want and experiment with stuff. My years as a consultant played well into it and in an industry where everyone was trying to compete and make products, I decided to tackle the problem at the other end of the spectrum and build a market where everyone could buy these products. And just like that, ItsHemp fixed its position in the Industry.
“ Once you know where your company stands in the ecosystem, the path you need to follow is automatically laid down for you. “
4. Make Partners not Competitors
Let’s face it. You aren’t smart enough to be the only one doing something cool. If you are thinking about it, probably a hundred others are too and a lot of them are acting on it as well. Every business has competitors and how you deal with them defines the future of your business as much as the effort you put into building it. The thing that works best for me has always been collaboration.
“ Your competitors can make amazing partners in a new and unexplored industry like Hemp in India. “
With only a handful of players in the market, it sometimes is difficult to get things done all by yourself. The Hemp market is fairly new to accommodate everyone who is planning to start-up in the space, even if it is with the same business model as yours. Collaborations within the industry will define how quickly it booms. When I stumbled upon my first competitor, I was ecstatic and the first words that came out of my mouth were “Yes! This validates our business model!” Then, I immediately connected with the guy and asked if we could meet and figure out how to work together.
5. Build a stronger Community
Building strong and reliable communities have been a part of everything I have done since 2012 when I had launched my first learning and experience sharing-based start-up: 365 Degrees in the first semester of college. Since then I have been working with a lot of organisations around the world that have community development at their core. I still organise TEDxDharamshala annually and am a part of the Global Shapers initiative by the World Economic Forum.
“ A strong community is everything to a new Industry. Your friends, co-workers, partners, collaborators, investors, customers, competitors, everyone you will know in the industry, irrespective of their relationship with you come from the same community that shares a common belief and is actively taking every step in their capacity to give meaning to their belief. “
Keeping business aside, through Its Hemp, I aim to build a positive and forward-thinking community around Hemp and Hemp products in the country. This community will work towards educating, empowering, and enabling its members to make informed decisions about their engagement with the idea of Hemp and will have stakeholders ranging from start-up-founders to people who have just heard about Hemp and are willing to know more. This community will be driven ahead by the people who would take steps to actively talk about Hemp with their friends, family, colleagues, and anyone who would like to know more.
I would love to connect with everyone who stumbled upon this article and urge you to send me your thoughts and feedback on the same in the comments below.
You can reach me at srijan@secondstudio.in. In case you are looking to learn more about Hemp, then do check out The Wonder Resource.
Join hands with me in building a stronger Hemp community and check out India’s first Hemp Marketplace.
