How Niharika Jain Is Making Her Mark In Operation Based Industry

Niharika Jain never thought of becoming an entrepreneur but things happened to her. She decided not to do MBA and start working. Today, she is a Co-founder, Chief Sales Officer, and Head of strategy, finance, and content teams at Broomees. Jain took the risk and today she is known for her exemplary business mind. 

Recently, she pitched her start-up on the national stage Shark Tank and receive funding to scale it up. SheThePeople spoke to Niharika Jain about her journey as a female entrepreneur, her hardships, and her future plans for the business. 

Jain is a commerce graduate from Hindu College, Delhi. She started her career as a research analyst and worked with start-ups which gave her business lessons on how to start a business from scratch. Today, Jain along with her two co-founders, started her company in 2020 with the mission to revolutionise the way domestic workers are hired in India. They aim to bring trained, experienced, and pandemic-ready conquerors to their customers. 

Que- How did your journey as an entrepreneur begin?

Ans-I was about to go to pursue an MBA at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, when COVID happened. Since I didn’t want to study online, I put up a message on the MBA group asking if anybody was doing a start-up. Vaibhav (Broomees co-founder) reached out to me. That is how it started. We discussed the operations and soon I was on board. When I got into the problem, I understood people actually find it very difficult to find good workers. I never imagined that I would do a start-up in my life, I’m grateful that I began a start-up because it’s been such a great journey. Being an entrepreneur is a journey of ups and downs. Every day is a new day for us. It's a very challenging journey, but it’s very satisfying.

Que- How has the progress been over the past couple of years?

Ans- The progress has been exponential. We started out serving only a very small area of south Delhi and gradually spread out to other parts of the city. We then went to Gurgaon and Noida as well. In terms of workers, we have a strength of 50,000 workers. From two or three workers in a week, now we have 20 workers in a day, started with a team of just three people, and now we have 150 people in the company, that's the progress. From workers to the team to the client base and to technology everything has grown. 

Que- What challenges you faced while working with clients and workers?

Ans- The trust has been completely eroded in this industry. There is a boom of unorganised agencies in the market, a few turned out to be scam agencies. Both customers and workers have been exploited. So trust has been a huge challenge. But now that has taken a backseat with our pitch on national television, we are considered a legit company. 

Second, both customers and workers in this industry have lacked professionalism. For instance, workers don’t stick to the given time or take off without prior notice. On the customers' end, some don’t behave well with workers; they give them stale food or don’t let them use the washroom. So professionalism and standardisation regarding ideal timing, wages, and working days were issues that needed to be addressed. The standardisation and structuration were done from scratch as they never existed. So with a trial-and-error method, we are somewhere there. 

Que- How do you communicate between the customer and the worker?

Ans- Our website does a lot of work for us. Clients access our website, the required options are given, and they can choose or customise and tell us their needs. On other hand with workers, we give them offline forms to fill in their details and work skills. We were letting the client and workers tell us what they wanted. So we had enough data to know what was accepted by 90% of the people, and this helped us in standardisation. It was easy for us to communicate with both the customers and workers. We have laid out our terms and conditions for both sides clearly on our websites for customers. 

Que- Did your business concept seem impossible when you started up?

Ans- It was quite the opposite. I knew it would work because people need workers, they are ready to pay, and nobody has done something like this before. It is very operations-heavy, and one technology will not solve everything. We also realised that a lot of companies have tried this and failed, eventually shutting down. It was not about the idea but about execution. So if the execution is right, then there’s scope. Our USP is not marketing or technology. 

Que- How did society perceive you as a woman venturing into entrepreneurship?

Ans- Initially, no one was supportive. My parents agreed to let me do this for a year. My relatives were critical that I left my MBA and a corporate job to begin a start-up. Even now, after Shark Tank, I received one call from a friend’s mother, who suggested that I do anything but this. A lot of people didn’t understand that this could be a business that women could venture into. People don’t realise that the start of every business is at ground level. Without interacting with workers, you can’t reach the level of an urban company without doing these steps.

"When a woman does all this, it becomes questionable for a lot of people. Only when you receive a certain amount of fame or reward do people actually start trusting you a bit."

My parents and I have never cared about criticism, but then there is 1% of myself and my parents that would think the neighbour is doing an MBA and you are doing this. But I’m very happy that, as a female entrepreneur, I’m in an industry that women don’t even think of entering. Most female entrepreneurs would venture into business, fashion, technology, and e-commerce, and only a very few have picked up operations. Somebody has to start, and I’m proud that I’m doing this.

Que- How is it working with male co-founders? How do you handle conflicts?

Ans- I’ve been fortunate to have the best co-founders and supportive men. I have never felt that I was being disrespected, ill-treated, or unheard of because I’m a woman. My opinions are always respected, and there’s a lot of fairness and equality at work. Talking to customers is my strength, which is why I handle marketing and strategy. My co-founder, Vaibhav, is in charge of the tech-related finances and the overall functioning of the company. My other co-founder, Saurav, does operations and training. 

Que- Niharika Jain On Shark Tank, How has life been? 

Ans- It’s been crazy. I think I have to hire an intern to reply to all the messages. I have no idea how to respond to so many people. We have received an immense amount of love and appreciation from people. It's so heartwarming to see messages from young women and other female entrepreneurs telling us that the pitch was very interesting, they loved it, and I inspire them. Our entire growth has become faster due to the increased visibility, which is great. On the personal front, it feels really good to see my parents feeling happy and proud after receiving appreciation from random people.

Que- How important is it for women to be financially independent?

Ans- All of the women in my family have worked, from my mother to my extended family. So it's been very important for me to be both professionally and financially successful. Since I worked in the corporate sector, I had enough savings to sustain myself for a year, which is why I took the plunge and became an entrepreneur, and it has paid off well.

"We have to take certain risks in our lives to reach certain places, and now it is very rewarding. Everybody should give themselves some time to figure out if something is working or not and take that risk because without taking risks, we won’t reach our goals."

Que- What advice would you like to give aspiring entrepreneurs?

Ans-  Be passionate about what you want to do and solve real problems. A lot of people are building complex businesses, but people might not need those businesses at all. Don’t begin a start-up just because it is fancy at the moment. 

Que- How future look from here? 

Ans- We are planning to expand to Bangalore and Pune, and we are excited about the growth. We are not going down the franchise route, but we are happy to expand and be more accessible to people within India and abroad. We have a lot of growth plans in the pipeline; we are very happy and looking forward to executing them.

Interview by-

Snehal Mutha And Kalyani Ganesan