So, what was the impetus behind this venture?
GuitarStreet's foundation dates back to the
time when I bought my first Guitar. Not knowing where to purchase it from, I
asked some friends and eventually spotted an old store in Chandni Chowk in
Delhi. I wasn't aware of the large music stores at CP. Finally, me and my
father spotted the store we were looking for, and bought a Givson. The store
had very limited options and almost no guidance for making an informed
purchase. Fast forward a few years, and the scenario had not really changed. So
when we were evaluating multiple ideas, I instantly connected with it.
Considering your ambitious expansion plans, what market size are
you tapping?
We are very confident of becoming the largest retailers in
our segment. We are targeting an average daily sale of 30 instruments
within next six months.
What types of customers are you catering to presently?
Our customers are spread across all over
India. Tier-2 towns constitute about 60% of our sale currently. Remaining 40%
comes from the Metros and Tier-1.
But, is the response competitive enough? Wouldn’t people still
prefer a physical store over an online portal?
Not really. A good offline store with multiple
buying options is a rarity even in Tier-1 cites, for our segment. Online offers
ease of product research and purchase along with a very large number of options
to choose from - something that customers don't get in most offline stores.
How did you come up with the Travel n Guitar Camp? Are you
trying to diversify?
Not really. It is an experiment aimed towards
getting customers from other segments excited about music. Currently, while
everyone wants to own/play a guitar once in a lifetime, very few get to do it
because of lack of information on the 'hows'. We said what if we disconnected
the idea of playing a Guitar from the theoretical aspects of music - it is a
culture. What if, guitar playing got down to the simple thing that it is - a
strumming instrument enjoyed over light chat and meeting new people.
What is the idea behind this Travel n Guitar Camp?
The basic idea is very simple. A lot of our customers said that they wanted to
know where to learn Guitar. At the same time, we got to hear things like
"I don't get the time" and "On holidays, we spend time with
family and really cannot focus on Music". So we said, let’s have a
dedicated boot-camp on learning music - away from the noise of city, in a calm
scenic environment.
What are your plans and aspirations for the future?
We have had an amazing response from
customers. Our customer base and Facebook community, both have grown rapidly.
We plan to broad-based our product offering to include many new models in
Guitars and electronics for music. Moreover, we are working towards developing
some many 'firsts' in ecommerce to increase the stickiness of our site. The
basic idea is, you think music, you think GuitarStreet.
Have you raised any funding yet? If no, would you want investors
to reach out to you?
We are self-funded as yet. We are in
talks with a few investors right now.
Any closing message for budding entrepreneurs?
Execution
is the key. It is far more effective to release an imperfect plan that not to
release a perfect one. It may sound clichéd, but if I look at our own journey
so far, the only thing we have done is keep taking new steps - one after the
other. And more often than not, we have stumbled, corrected and then moved on.