To celebrate Women Entrepreneurship Day, novice yet eclectic mix of reminiscent Bengali women entrepreneurs are sporting potential buzzword in their innovative business ventures and making a swift entry by ditching the conventional tag unlike other community counterparts, says Tapapriya Lahiri

The concept of community-driven or camaraderie of business-blood has outshone the echelon of legacy. And Bengali women have added an entrepreneurs’ feather on their cap and running successful ventures with an unequivocal poise.

In India, certain communities especially, Marwaris, Gujratis, and Punjabis play a very imperative role in the economic sphere. Despite that, these young and dynamic Bengali women entrepreneurs are jostling to grab eyeballs in India and as well as cross-borders, irrespective of their marital status.
What is tempting these young entrepreneurs to leave their cosy jobs and run from pillar to post to establish a start-up venture? It seems, a feeling of independence, prized possession, to churn out creative legions and lastly, being your own boss produces best-in-class entrepreneurs.

Be it a customised styling, apt designs of digital communications and angel investor, newbie’s in the entrepreneur’s world are churning out huge profits, despite meetinghard challenges.

This Women Entrepreneurs Day, let’s salute their empowering and brilliant roles they perform everyday to bring the best-in-class entrepreneurial echelon.

Gargi Banerjee Koul — Founder and CEO, Élanstreet.com

Gargi Banerjee Koul, is a newbie in her venture, launched Élanstreet.com in 2015 and she is crafting her entrepreneurial venture with élan. Based in Bangalore, it is the first and one-of-its-kind e-commerce platform to offer styling and personalised service together— while bringing fashion brands and styling professionals onone podium—The portal offers its customers with in-house team of qualified stylists and also online catalogue to provide scale and tangible outcome for the consumer.

Gargi being conversant on Women Entrepreneurs day, said, “The last quarter of the year is filled with festivity, and also this is the time for wedding bells and everyone wants to look their best. Styling is an art, a skill needed by all to look smart and presentable. With the hastiness and the busy schedule during the pre-wedding, it is a cumbersome task to select the right pair of lehengas, to sarees. Quite often, one doesn’t always have their best friend to tag along while shopping, and that’s where Élanstreet comes for the rescue.”

Gargi also added, “Everyday we showcase our entrepreneurship skills by curating new styles for the discerning customerson a tech-enabled platform and I believe that, we learn from our failures.I had to learn every aspect of the business from scratch, be it technology, styling ecosystem or merchandising and a dedicated entrepreneurship day for women folks, acts as an icing on the cake.”

Rashi Ray — Co-founder, Zero Budget Agencyrashi-ray

Kolkata-based creative entrepreneur, Rashi Ray believes in an apt mantra of marketing—implementing powerful designing skills for innovative communications— can curb the immense budgeting score and reduce it to a negligible sum. Rashi, along with his father Ram Ray, an adman launched India’s first dedicated agency to offer zero-budget communication solutions. Rashi expressed, “Precise communication and proper use of digital technology slashes media spends and helps to connect brands with their specific audiences at near-zero production and media costs.

Similarly, Zero Budget Agency precludes media that cost the earth and include ones that don’t and we use unusual media, too. Like humour-mongering, unexpected props, mouthable stories, human heads, even public spaces to boost brands without spending fortunes.”

A 27-year-old Rashi is very focused and recently won thein-book for Digital Design at the Kyoorius Digital Awards for her work for Zero Budget Agency. On this note, she shared, “Zero’s out-of-the-box communication approach has spurred interest among the various organisations—those who are trailblazers progressive thinkers and risk-takersfrom tier-II, tier-III cities and big metropolis across the country.Being a Bengali and hailing from literary capital of India, Kolkata, it’s an outstanding instance while establishing digital communications footprints in India and as well as abroad. “

Dr. Somdatta Singh — Entrepreneur, Investor and Mentordr-somdatta-singh

Dr. Somdatta, armed with MBA and PhD in Management and a Bengali hailing from Kolkata, headed for Bangalore to pursue her dreams and set the stage to execute her entrepreneurship skills. A start-up advisor, angel investor, Nasscom 10k, Mircrosoft and Target Accelerator mentorand founder of Unspun Consulting Group — a technology-based marketing consulting firm.

She can be termed as a true example of ‘success through struggle’ and redefining the face of entrepreneurship in India. Dr. Somdatta initiated her career as a consultant and being an angel investor she said, “I went on to build a marketing technology platform that helps business leaders to connect with their audiences before going to market—and now my mission is to build the future of Bangalore’s start-up ecosystem.”

“Being an entrepreneur, it sounds good to have a dedicated day to unleash the hardship that women entrepreneurs faces while executing the project. But for women in India, the risk of entrepreneurship involves more than the typical financial and professional risks that many Western entrepreneurs face.She recounts, “in Indian landscape, physical security is the prevalentthreat for a women entrepreneur and late-night travelling across India—something that entrepreneurs can’t avoid—which is a keydisquiet.”

Bengali fairer folks are sporting significant and well-managed entrepreneurship skill-sets amid facing and meetingroller-coaster navigations to carry out their brainchild’s.

— By Tapapriya Lahiri

http://www.freepressjournal.in/featured-blog/bengali-women-the-new-breed-of-entrepreneurs/974647