Sticking Through Adversity – Custom Sticker Printing Business

Sticking Through Adversity

What does one do when there aren’t enough jobs when you graduate? You can start a business that leverages your educational background, but what do you do when it doesn’t scale? This conversation with Subodh Mujumdar who is running a custom sticker printing business teaches us a thing or two about sticking through adversity. Read more from the real genie behind ‘Sticker Genie’.

About Sticker Genie – Custom Sticker Printing

Sticker Genie is an organization involved in the stickers production business, more specifically it is into custom sticker printing. They make vinyl and paper stickers in all shapes and sizes. They offer you the comfort of online ordering from the comfort of your home with an assurance of a fast turnaround.

Custom Sticker Printing Business: The beginning

What is your background?

I am a Printing technologist by profession and have been in the printing industry for the past 12 years or so. After completing bachelors in printing technology I worked for a couple of years in Mumbai. Thereafter I decided to pursue higher education and completed my MBA in operations management from Pune in 2009.

What happened after you finished your education?

It was a really bad year to step out of college, since there was a recession across all industries. I searched for jobs for few months, but it was really bad out there and I couldn’t find any jobs.

Meanwhile few of my friends joined in small companies and they called me up for some printing requirement in their organization. I thought this would at least help me earn some living expenses and got my first order. After earning few hundred rupees, I thought this isn’t that bad and scouted for more orders through all channels available with friends and networking groups. This is how my first venture, Print Genie took shape.

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What was your core business model?

Catering to the B2B (Business To Business) segment was my core business. I found out that there is always urgency and hence, I decided to purchase few machines of my own. However, that was another nightmare in waiting. I was completely busy in managing production activities. This left me with little time to make new clients or to generate leads.

Frustrated with the low inflow of new clients, I decided to sell off all my machines and become free from day to day operational activities. I emptied my entire shop and focused only on marketing activities.

What Marketing Channels did you use?

I experimented with all channels of marketing and client acquisition and found that Google was the best amongst all of them. So, I decided to build my reputation on Google. It was easy for me since there was no service issue and being a printing technologist, I knew how to provide best quality products to my clients. I proudly say that till date Print Genie is still the highest rated and reviewed printing company in Pune or India.

However, over a period of time I realized that the B2B clients were very price sensitive and hardly cared for top quality products, timely delivery or the way the order was delivered in best packaging and not to mention the long payment cycles.

Did you encounter any more adversity and setbacks?

I was involved in pre-printing (pre-press) part only and production and fulfillment activities were outsourced. This left me with enough time to research online about new businesses and products that are possible in my sector.

I tried a couple of ideas in the printing industry and failed miserably. Most of the ideas were inspired from the western counties. Here I learnt a big lesson that something that is working well abroad may not work well in India.

I always wanted to do something in retail printing, something that I could sell to a large audience and was scalable. I was fed up with B2B clients and wanted to be in the retail printing category. Without thinking much, I launched a premium stationery products and it failed as well.

Meanwhile Print Genie was doing well with the good inflow of orders, but, apart from the issues discussed above, it was not and never was scalable. The commercial printing products were on a decline, so I continued my research online and stumbled on the shape cut stickers. I searched online thoroughly and found none in this category.

How did you approach the Custom Sticker Printing Business?

Stickers isn’t a new product but there was no company that is as focused as Sticker Genie. This time I didn’t invest a dime before I validated the product. I focused on proof of concept and then set up everything else.

In fact, I didn’t even set up a website for the first few months; just an Instagram profile. I was and still am doing the custom sticker printing business via emails.

How did you leverage Instagram?

My offering was targeted towards a specific group of people and was substantially dependent on the presentation of the product. There was only one platform that I could think of for this purpose – Instagram. Before starting Sticker Genie, I had not explored Instagram much and didn’t know anything about hashtags etc. All I knew was to make the feed as beautiful as possible.

I started contacting artists on Instagram and asked if they would like to have few stickers free of cost. My profile didn’t have beautiful illustrations, so I started approaching many artists to send me few designs, and, in return I would send them free stickers. The Instagram community of artists backed me and some people even taught me how to use Instagram to its potential. Some Instagram users suggested new products on the same line and that definitely helped to increase the product portfolio.

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Sticking through adversity to a re-start

How did you launch Sticker Genie?

The business at ‘Print Genie‘ was already at a break-even point. So I decided to soft launch the custom sticker printing business and did so in the name of ‘Sticker Genie‘ on 1st January 2020. It was all new for me. Shifting from B2B to retail; shifting from large value orders to small value orders. The printing technologies, materials, suppliers and vendors, everything got changed. I was going to make a fresh start.

New challenges awaited me; for I knew that I had to build the reputation again on a new platform, in front of totally new people. The new materials, new processes, new people were not aligning easily. I decided to launch it any way. I knew I was going to face the same challenges that I had faced 10 years back when I started Print Genie.

I don’t give up easily and thought I can always improve. Every time my perfection attitude kicked in, I would recall the words of Mark Cuban:

Perfection is the enemy of profitability.

Mark Cuban

Sticking through Adversity during the Lock-down

By the time I could set the products and service on Instagram, the lock-down happened. I thought of this as an opportunity to connect with more people on Instagram and tried to fathom out what exactly they wanted from a start-up like Sticker Genie. I wasn’t going to the office due to the lock-down. I focused on building a follower base. I was bold and willing to experiment. I went for paid promotions on Instagram. In short, I built around 10k follower base in the lock down itself. I made friends with some wonderful people online.

As soon as the lock-down got over (1st Phase), I launched the website and started the operations. At this moment all products, materials and processes are perfectly set to take up new projects.

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What has been the Inspiration for your journey?

The major inspiration behind sticking through adversity and starting something new was to do something good and big in my life. I wanted to impart the knowledge gained with hours of learning new things and reading. I wanted to solve some real life problems of people and make as many people happy as possible. Each set of adverse circumstances and failures taught me something.

Is there anything you would do differently?

Looking back at the way I have been sticking through adversity, I think I should have launched this custom sticker printing business much earlier.

Related Read: How to avoid crisis in business

About The Author

Subodh Mujumdar did his bachelors in printing technology and has worked for a couple of years in Mumbai. Thereafter he pursued MBA in operations management from Pune. He is the founder of ‘Print Genie’ and ‘Sticker Genie’.

A self confessed workaholic, he likes to plan and stay ahead of the competition. He is highly focused on customer happiness. Subodh is a fan of ‘Shark Tank‘ and has picked up a thing or two therefrom.