Brand Story: Started work with 5 thousand, how did Vikas reach close to 500 crore business?

Vikas Gutgutia, who belongs to Marwari family, was born in Bihar. After high school, he moved to Kolkata. Then came to Delhi. Today Gutgutiya's company is said to be the country's leading company in the flower business.

The business world is very strange. Either one has to face a lot of struggle to reach the platform from the ground or sometimes one gets the lottery overnight. Vikas Gutgutiya is one such personality who started the flower business with just Rs 5000 but today he has a turnover of hundreds of crores.

Vikas Gutgutia is the Founder and Managing Director of Ferns N Petals. Today they have a big business of flowers and flower bouquets. Now he wants to take his company to the target of 500 crores.

When did you start the flower business?

Vikas Gutgutia laid the foundation of a flower and gift shop in the year 1994 with Rs 5,000. Later he got an investment of 2.5 lakhs from a partner. This investment proved to be the turning point in his life. He opened the first Ferns N Petals store in Delhi with four people in just 200 square feet of space in South Extension.

Where did Vikas Gutgutia get his inspiration from?

Vikas Gutgutia says- He had a desire to do some different type of work from the beginning. He had seen most of the business of flowers and bouquets on the footpath not only in Delhi but across the country. Seeing this, he felt that this market is dominated by footpath vendors only. From the obvious price to accessibility – breaking this dominance was not easy.

Vikas Gutgutia has told a very unique story to the media about starting the business of flowers. The story is from before 1994. Vikas wanted to give flowers to his girlfriend but he could not find the flowers and bouquets he wanted on the pavements of Delhi as the flowers sold on the pavements were usually withered. During this time he decided to open a flower shop.

How did Vikas's company progress?

Vikas started his flower business in the year 1994 but it was not easy to stabilize and take it forward. It took a lot of effort to make him a customer. He adopted a different approach from the footpath flower sellers. Vikas opened an air-conditioned shop instead of a footpath. The result was that the flowers used to remain very fresh here.

Apart from this, he gave designer look not only to ordinary flowers but also to bunches and wreaths, this gave him an opportunity to go into the corporate sector. In the year 2002, he started a website of his own. Through this site, he started getting a lot of orders for flowers, flower bouquets and designer wreaths. From here his business boomed.

Lesson learned from loss, then move forward

But this startup was not continuously beneficial for development, in between they had to face a lot of loss. In the year 2009, he suffered a loss of around 25 crores. He took many lessons from this loss. And going forward, his business became 200 crores. As on date, the branches of his company have been opened not only in Indian cities but also in 155 countries of the world.