Vedant Lamba - I See a Lot of People Laying Heavy Emphasis on Just Product or Just Marketing/Sales (Entrepreneur, India)

Instagram - @vedulamba

1. Tell us more about your company and your journey.

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of running a business all my life. Having started and shut maybe 10 or 15 businesses, this was the best idea that I’d had the opportunity to work on.

Mainstreet is a sneaker platform at the core of everything. On one end we’re content creators driving awareness for sneaker culture in India, on the other side we’re a trading platform for sneakers driving the commerce of the same culture. We’re a community led business very excited with the way things are building in this country.


2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it? 

I was never a sneaker head growing up, and whether I’m a sneaker-head today is also highly debatable. Mainstreet came very organically as I learnt about the existence of sneaker culture around the world and the lack of it’s presence in India seemed like such a massive gap and opportunity, the business model really just built itself.


3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that? 

Our business is majorly c2b2c, as in, our supply chain and end users all stem from the same consumer audience, which is very niche in India. So scaling that side of things is very hard. We haven’t fully overcome it yet, but we’re building some interesting tech at the moment to get past these issues - let’s hope they work!

4. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur? 

I’m not sure I’d know the answer to that haha. But from what I’ve seen and been inspired by, it’s always been less about how hard you work and how well you do things, but more about how hard you can get hit and still be standing tall.


5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business?

Again, not something I’d know yet haha, but again, from what I’ve read and seen - equal importance to product and brand/marketing. I see a lot of people laying heavy emphasis on just product or just marketing/sales. 

Product is definitely important, but a crappy product that is sold really well is a much better business than a great product that doesn’t sell. Likewise for long term growth and scale, good product is very important as it ultimately does play into brand building and ales related activities.


6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs?

I’m still an aspiring entrepreneur myself so I hardly find myself qualified to offer any such tips but if I had to look back and tell myself to do something different a couple years ago, maybe I’d tell myself to be more patient and trust the process, or maybe I’d tell myself to do nothing different. 

I think all the mistakes I made played a big role in bringing me to where I am today, and I’m very happy with the way things are going so I’m not sure I’d want anything changed!


7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?

The same way you overcome any other hurdle. You understand what the problem is, what the end goal is, then find a way around it. Take up side jobs/hustles, work longer hours, find alternative sources of income, or sell yourself!

Money should be treated like any engineering/strategy problem - you study the subject, understand it in and out, then find your way around. Understanding money is very very very very important. 

At the end of the day ALL businesses are in business to make MONEY. If you can add strong revenue generation to synergise with your impact related goals, they will always help each other.

- Interviewed by - Aditi Vakani