Roheena Nagpal started hustling at 15, today she runs two ventures

“Every challenge feels it is the biggest until another one comes along. I believe every challenge has a solution and nothing is too big,” says, Roheena Nagpal, the Founder of Atelier and L’Orange.

It is one belief that has always taken her forward and helped her reach for the sky.

As an army kid, she has had her fair share of growing up across the country but she has learnt early in life through her experiences.

Roheena started early. When she was 15, she started her first job. It was selling credit cards during the summer. Part of a team of 18, she was the youngest amongst mostly 21-24 year old men who were doing this as part of their MBA summer project.

“I cannot forget my first day at work after a day in training,” she says.

Sent on the field on the first day with an assurance from her boss to call incase there was a problem, Roheena set out.

I stepped out into the real world – where I didn’t know the people I was to meet. I walked into an office and from a distance I remember a manager screaming, and telling me to get out from there without even knowing why I had dropped by. That was my first encounter with rejection.

In those days of no mobiles and only landlines, a dejected Roheena managed to reach her boss and pour out her woes. Though the boss heard her patiently he told her that she had to deal with it.

“That was the first time and the last time I ever went to anyone with a complaint.”

Not the one to let such a small hiccup affect her, she started with a salary of Rs. 2500 for the month and incentives. However, she ended the 60 days summer job with a takeaway of Rs.15,500 and as the highest performer of the month.

What worked in her favour was aloo parantha bribes. “A lot of my clientele were homesick youngsters who insisted on bribes of aloo paranthas. So I would cook at dawn and then collect their applications by 9 am. These two months, I learnt to deal with rejection, competition and achievement.”

In another year, she added mobile phones to her list. “They were a novelty back then and selling them was not so easy – after all call rates were 16 rupees per minute in peak hours.”

Starting up

While she had enjoyed the selling experience, she realized she needed something to satiate her creative hunger when she was at the crossroads of choosing her life’s direction a year later.

At 20, she started Knots and Krosses, selling cushions, wrought iron candle stands and decor to big Home

 Stores in Pune. Her first ‘interior design’ client, was a co-passenger she met on a train while coming back from Mumbai to Pune after using a years saving to buy paint to makeover her room. This was in 2000.She did her schooling from Pune and did Commerce, majoring in Banking and Finance and Business Entrepreneurship from Symbiosis. She has also done short courses in Interior Design, Lighting Design and Retails Design Experiences from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

In 2005 she set up a design firm named Interno Moda, specialising in interior design but it was her love for retail that drove her to become a design entrepreneur. In 2008, Roheena set up Atelier Homes in Pune which started as a 1000 sqft home store in a quaint by lane on the outskirts of Pune and is now, Roheena says proudly, “a 5000 sqft home decor boutique in one of Pune’s premier residential areas.”

The highest point of her creativity so far, according to Roheena, was designing Urbane chaise, which got her many accolades and awards. “I sketched its design while flying over a beautiful sunrise over the South China Sea.”

When this interior designer turned mom, set out to design a child’s room she realised that there is no ready product in the market that she could buy for her child’s room. This got her thinking that the furniture market in India is mostly organised and within that no one has ventured into decor for kids and branded kids room are the future. So L’ Orange was born.

L’Orange has furniture, curtains, cushions, bed linen, finials, tie-backs, decor, accessories, rugs – almost everything for a child’s world. It is the destination where one can design and build a room and its’ furniture for ones child.

Challenges

Roheena’s journey has been full of challenges with its ups and downs. She says, “Retail whether brick and mortar or online, is a continuous learning process. Building a brand – has its own set of challenges – you have to keep thinking of long-term consequences of your actions. As an entrepreneur, I have had to draw my own roads.”

She adds, “L’Orange – being one of the first brands in this sector – The challenges have been several. Starting with having to educate the retailers about the brand offering as most traditional retailers were resistant to new concepts when we started out in 2013.”

Future plans

Self -discipline, time management, prioritization and hard work are the key to balancing all her responsibilities.

Actively involved in the product development, marketing and business strategy of her venture, the business mantras she follows are -be ready to learn and adapt to change every second, there is always scope to do things better and never regret, learn and move on. As she loves what she is doing, motivation is never a problem.

This march, Bennett Coleman invested in L’Orange by way of advertisement towards the Marketing of L’Orange. After a launch in March in Mumbai and Pune, plans are to open a store in Delhi and increase the numbers in Mumbai.

Her future plans include, “ Make our vision of ‘every child’s room’ a reality, pioneer omni-channel retail (Brick and mortar stores with E-Commerce), 100 L’Orange stores across the country in the next 48-60 months and take L’Orange to other countries in Asia in the next 36 months.

Roheena’s mantra for women looking to start out on their own:

-“Don’t feel guilty to love your work, it doesn’t mean you love your family any less.”

-“Believe in yourself, build a business to make a difference – reinvent yourself and your business or service everyday.”

-“Don’t waste your time on thoughts of any inequality, do your thing !”