Siddharth Nambiar
Co-Founder
Office Yes
Short Description
I am Siddharth Nambiar, Co-founder at OfficeYes.com and MBA in Finance from University of Oxford.
Company profile, offerings and achievements
Office Yes is a 6 month old company which was established in May 2012. We have a catalogue of around 3000 products, spread across various categories and the three main categories include office furniture, stationary and customized gifting products. These provide a one stop shop for customers. The achievements of the company have been vast and we have grown dramatically in size. Last month, in October we tripled revenue and now we are an annualized multimillion dollar company.
Thoughts regarding entrepreneurship
I believe that entrepreneurship is a state of mind. I have few thoughts on it, which are:
a. Firstly, I feel that you should be an entrepreneur at heart; you can't turn it on or off. At heart means, you should be intellectually curious, filled with high energy and intrinsically a sales person, to sell your ideas. An entrepreneur should posses the attributes of a sales person, because he has to sell his ideas. He should have a passion for his product or service. This helps to convince and ultimately sell your idea.
b. Experiment: Secondly, you have to have high interest and should learn to experiment.
c. Lastly, you should know how to run a startup.
a. Firstly, I feel that you should be an entrepreneur at heart; you can't turn it on or off. At heart means, you should be intellectually curious, filled with high energy and intrinsically a sales person, to sell your ideas. An entrepreneur should posses the attributes of a sales person, because he has to sell his ideas. He should have a passion for his product or service. This helps to convince and ultimately sell your idea.
b. Experiment: Secondly, you have to have high interest and should learn to experiment.
c. Lastly, you should know how to run a startup.
Company you admire
I personally admire three companies; Google, General Electric (GE) and IBM.I feel that Google is a great company with a great mission statement that any company would look upto. General Electric produces leaders, as it is a people factory and a place for learning. As I am keen on analytics and data, I look upto IBM as global leader for their power data.
Difficulties faced while building product
Any company can't function without a team as it helps to build a company. I would like to talk about my team and the people involved in shaping it, to what it is today. The company has grown immensely with the help of an enthusiastic team and Co-Founder Arvind Sivdas.
Holding an MBA from Oxford University, I started my career as a consultant at the H fund and later on lead an investment banking team called e value serve, based in London. Before establishing 'Office Yes', I worked at a VC firm called Rocket internet where I was the director.
Arvind Sivdas was at McKinley and Company as a management consultant earlier. He holds an MBA from IIM Kolkata and an engineering degree from IIT Madras. Both of us share our roles; I run the marketing and technology function and he leads the operations and forcing function. Within the team there are a couple of strong individuals who are credible for the growth of the company. They are strong in respect of academic background and work experience as well. For example, our Head of Technology was the key person for Jeevansathi.com and 99 acres. Another member worked for Microsoft and Yahoo! In marketing we are specialized with professionals who have work experience in agency facts, India Today and online division. We have people from various backgrounds as Office yes is keen on talent.
On Arvind's side, we have IIM Lucknow graduate who heads operations. In operations and management, I have hired people with expertise and talent.
In terms of head count we have around 70 - 75 people and I want our company to grow in a strong pace like any company.
Speaking of difficulties I would say that, it is critical to note that we are the single largest company in B2B e-commerce industry in India. For example, in India we have flipkart and Jabong which is a B2C e-commerce industry, while there is no much of B2B e-commerce and we are the largest. I would like to add more customers from across the country.
Holding an MBA from Oxford University, I started my career as a consultant at the H fund and later on lead an investment banking team called e value serve, based in London. Before establishing 'Office Yes', I worked at a VC firm called Rocket internet where I was the director.
Arvind Sivdas was at McKinley and Company as a management consultant earlier. He holds an MBA from IIM Kolkata and an engineering degree from IIT Madras. Both of us share our roles; I run the marketing and technology function and he leads the operations and forcing function. Within the team there are a couple of strong individuals who are credible for the growth of the company. They are strong in respect of academic background and work experience as well. For example, our Head of Technology was the key person for Jeevansathi.com and 99 acres. Another member worked for Microsoft and Yahoo! In marketing we are specialized with professionals who have work experience in agency facts, India Today and online division. We have people from various backgrounds as Office yes is keen on talent.
On Arvind's side, we have IIM Lucknow graduate who heads operations. In operations and management, I have hired people with expertise and talent.
In terms of head count we have around 70 - 75 people and I want our company to grow in a strong pace like any company.
Speaking of difficulties I would say that, it is critical to note that we are the single largest company in B2B e-commerce industry in India. For example, in India we have flipkart and Jabong which is a B2C e-commerce industry, while there is no much of B2B e-commerce and we are the largest. I would like to add more customers from across the country.
Advice to young entrepreneurs
I feel that in the current day the interest is unparallel and cannot be measured.