The essence of bespoke lies in B2C, as it is the experience that customer gets: Rohan Gupta

Fashion industry has always gifted new styles and cuts in garments for all fashion mongers. Indian market has always been counted as an epitome of latest fashion trends. We have witnessed brands tailoring ready to wear garments for its target audience, which has stormed the market from many years. Today, if you want to get a customised outfit, you don’t need to ponder much!  Bespoke clothing has wooed people’s taste and has given them a chance to customise their clothing options.  Over 30-35 percent of total luxury apparel market accounts for bespoke clothing in India. This sector is male dominated and it has acted as a plus point for fashion designers.

With all these emergence and market transitions in tailoring, SARTOJIVA came into existence. This startup was founded by Rohan and Shrey Gupta in order to bridge  the market gap of bespoke clothing. These two co-founders realised that bespoke clothing is on the verge of extinction, so they took it up as a challenge to preserve the same. This is how this startup began its journey ahead.

Retailer Media understood the vision of Rohan Gupta, one of the two co-founders of SARTOJIVA by interacting with him.

Please share your background. Your education and whether entrepreneurship was something you always wanted to do?
I have donned many hats in my career besides being a mechanical engineer. This even includes a brief experimentation in energy sector. The charm of powerful clothing was soon envisaged and led to the vision of SARTOJIVA. I wanted to take up the challenge and eventually evolved the concept of ‘travelling clothiers’ by meeting customers’ ever increasing demand for ‘convenience’.
Being from a business family background, I was involved with my ancestral work since my higher education. Entrepreneurship was always my vision; ancestral business was not sufficient, so, I started the journey towards inception of SARTOJIVA with Shrey Gupta, my Co-founder.

How was the idea of your Start-up conceptualised? What is the need you are addressing in the market?
Shrey and I had a flair for dressing and entrepreneurial skills. This led to conceptualisation of the ultra bespoke tailoring that was dying in India. Indian customers are largely unexposed to the bespoke tailoring services.
Over the past 2 years, startups have been promoted in India, so we wanted to grow with them as a start up, making new entrepreneurs understand the importance of power dressing.
Basically we want to create a need and make the consumer aware of the right constructions of the wool. We want to offer customers the one stop solution wherein, we offer the bespoke services for suits, shirts, shoes and bags.

Is there a story behind the name you have given to your business?
Sarto came from the Anglo Saxons period, where Germans inhabited in Scotland and these people used to be well dressed. Jiva is life, in Sanskrit. SARTOJIVA denotes the saga of well dressed human being.

What is your Business Model? Please share numbers of founders, Product/services offered and current Business size
We are a horizontal integrated company and control all aspects of business: marketing, production, sales, operations and finance. We believe in catering to all aspects with the in-house services.
We have a B2C model and operate in New Delhi. The essence of bespoke lies in B2C, as bespoke is the experience that customers get. Later, by the end of 2015, we wanted to reach out to the global customers, so, we worked out on a B2B model and tie up with a store in Dubai, for shoes. Shrey and I founded the startup and we have a hand in clothing, shoes and bags.

Who is your target consumer? Could you please share how you have detailed your consumer?
We have nurtured in a niche market where we try to target the consumers who are affluent & well travelled.  We have identified different segments as wedding, corporate & expats.

What is your current distribution in Brick and Mortar space? What are your future distribution plans?
Currently, we have our bespoke studio in New Delhi. Besides this, we have a tie up with a store in Dubai. In future, we plan to reach out to more people by creating a team of travelling bespoke clothiers. Besides, we are looking forward to tap the Global market for customised shoes. In fact, we are moving forward with a new online store coming soon.

Have you raised any funding so far? How are you planning to use the fund?
Funding has been reserved for 2nd phase of business.

What is your team size? What is your office culture like?
We are a team of 14 people, wherein most of them are skilled craftsmen, who always stay motivated to reach out to perfection & preserve the heritage of tailoring intact.

What has been your A-ha Moment in the business? (The high point)
It’s been 2 years ever since we have started bespoke tailoring. We never thought of surpassing bespoke patina shoes. But, as we started, it worked out well. It was kind of close to Aha moment.

What has been your biggest challenge so far in scaling -up? How are you addressing it?
Biggest challenge faced by us is the need to hire skillful resources as  personal attention and our involvement with clients is a must as we cannot delegate personnel for the same.

How do you see growth in this business? What is your future scale-up plan?
1st phase: steady & consistent growth is what we target.  Future plan is first we want to create more value for  our brand SARTOJIVA & establish ourselves well in Delhi and then plan to grow.
2nd phase is reserved for first search for an investor who understands our brand well and grows further.