Success Story of Supam Maheshwari: From IIM-A to Co-Founder of FirstCry
Indian entrepreneur and businessman, Supam Maheshwari is known for his most successful company FirstCry which is the largest baby as well as mother care products manufacturer in India. They have online and offline retail shops across India and overseas. He is the first-generation entrepreneur and considered a wealth creator, has created 3 successful companies- other two are BrainVisa Technologies-an e-learning company, and XpressBees- a logistics company. 52-year-old Supam Maheshwari is an IIM-Ahmedabad pass out and his current net worth is estimated to be $190 million.
Quick Facts:
- Name: Supam Maheshwari
- Nationality: Indian
- Net Worth: $ 190 million (estimated) as of 2021
- Education: Apeejay School, Mechanical Engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering, PGDM from IIM-Ahmedabad
- Occupation: Businessman
- Designations: CEO of FirstCry
- Date of Birth:1974
- Age:52
- Place of Birth: India
- Marital Status: Married
- Spouse’s Name: Unknown
- Children: one daughter
- Spoken Languages: English, Hindi
- Hobbies & Interest: Reading & Playing Squash
Early Life:
Maheshwari attended Apeejay School for his formal education. He completed a Mechanical Engineering degree programme at Delhi College of Engineering. He then proceeded to IIM-Ahmedabad to pursue a PGDM.
Career:
Brainvisa Technologies:
Supam did not join any high paying job like other IIM passed out students do. In fact, he directly got into entrepreneurship. He started working on a project soon after receiving his IIM postgraduate degree, and the project was eventually launched in 2000.
Brainvisa Technologies was the name of that project. Brainvisa Technology offers end-to-end learning solutions and has a unique instructional design. By creating customised learning solutions that were focused on set and defined business objectives, Brainvisa was nothing more than an e-learning company that was dedicated to assisting businesses all over the world to increase the learning and training effectiveness.
Supam took forward Brainvisa by including offices in the US, Europe, Australia, and two development centres in India in a period of less than 8 years, making it one of the largest global providers of e-learning solutions. A core team of specialists in the fields of logistics, aviation, pharmaceuticals, telecom, and technology verticals, among others, had been added to the company’s 450-person development team.
Even though the growth was astounding, this period of his life came to an end in 2007 when he made the decision to sell the business to a US-based organisation called Indecomm Global Services for $25 million. But it wasn’t at all what it appeared to be! He had left the company though, he continued to be involved in organisational activities up until almost the end of 2009! And at the same time, he was getting ready for a significant undertaking that would elevate him to new heights.
Firstcry-Inception:
Supam had now become a father during his time with Brainvisa, and his job required him to travel frequently to the United States and Europe. Because he could trust the quality of products available abroad and because many of them weren’t readily available locally, he used to bring back a large number of items for his new-born daughter.
After leaving Brainvisa, he started looking for products for his daughter, but he was unable to find any of them. At that point, he realised there was a significant supply-demand gap in the domestic market for brands geared toward children, including many international brands. Further research revealed that 95% of sales in the baby and children’s market in India were made offline and that the sector had a turnover of approximately Rs.50,000 Cr.
The market remained incredibly disorganised, and customers couldn’t even easily access top-tier brands, let alone variety and high-quality goods, despite the fact that the standard of living and spending power for children’s clothing had significantly increased over the years with better brand image and quality.
He could now clearly see the concept. He wanted to develop a platform that would give parents simple access to high-quality baby and children’s products. He sought to offer a wide variety of top-notch products. With his model, he hoped to close the gap for Indian parents.
FirstCry-Foundation
After everything was ready, Supam founded BrainBees Solutions with his friend AmitavaSaha using seed money totaling Rs. 2.5 Cr. That they had collected from friends and personal funds. Firstcry.com was then launched in 2010 under the guidance of BrainBees.
FirstCry was founded in 2010 and began conducting business using an inventory management system. For the massive stock management, there were four storehouses operating in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata. Profits were at an all-time high, topping out at about Rs. 100 crores annually.
FirstCry-Growth
In 2014, Retailers started listing their products on FirstCryand could sell them online. There were 600 nationalised and international brands working with FirstCry on the project. FirstCry’s first internal brands, BabyHug and CuteWalk were launched in 2014, which were created specifically for clothing, and for footwear respectively.
In 2015, the company participated in a network of 6,000 hospitals and gave new mothers FirstCry motherhood boxes. As a matter of fact, this was an excellent sales tactic. In this way, FirstCry was happily received by more than 70,000 parents.
Today, Firstcry has grown to become Asia’s largest online retailer of goods for kids, expectant mothers, newborns, and kids after acquiring Mahindra’s baby project BabyOye in 2016. Over 1200 people work for FirstCry as staff members. The company has received financial support in six rounds, with current sales estimated to be around $65 million. Firstcryhas become India’s largest community for parents and has 20 million families as members. It also has more than 2,000 000 products and 5800 brands.
Personal Life: Supam Maheshwari lives in Pune with his wife and daughter.
Awards and Honours:
- FirstCry received the “Most Popular Online Site” honour at the Delhi-based Child Awards ceremony (2013)
- Xpressbee Logistics Service Provider was also co-founded by him.
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