This woman entrepreneur quit her CA dream to start a jewellery brand, saw sales of Rs 2 Cr in FY21

Chartered Accountancy is a challenging undertaking, with aspirants spending several years to clear the exams. For Aditi Garg, founder of jewellery label Adwitiya Collection, her CA journey led her to find success in entrepreneurship. 

Noida-based Adwitiya, which started in 2018, registered Rs 2.78 in sales in FY 20-21, growing 400 percent this festive season.

In an interaction with SMBStory, mom to a nine-year-old boy, Aditi narrates her story of becoming an entrepreneur.

CA dreams

“I was attempting to clear my CA but it was becoming more difficult with each passing year,” Aditi tells SMBStory while recounting her journey. 

“Without clearing CA finals, no one would have given me the job and I had started developing feelings that I am too much dependent on my family. This is when I thought about starting a side business of artificial jewellery and becoming financially self-sustainable,” she adds. 

Aditi started as a reseller of jewellery in 2013. Building a micro-level side business is what gave her the confidence and financial independence to dream bigger. She started selling jewellery online through Amazon and Flipkart. Her business was giving her good profits but she couldn’t give her 100 percent to the business as she was also focussing on clearing her CA finals.  

Four years passed and the Rs 17,000 worth inventory that Aditi had bought from the wholesaler to start the business was still stuck with her. Neither was she able to clear her CA nor did she carry forward her business consistently. 

In 2018, Aditi, tired of sailing on two boats, decided to quit her CA to scale the business. She first listed her jewellery under the brand name Adwitiya Collection. 

This was the time when Myntra was also aggressively onboarding new brands. Aditi grabbed this opportunity to push Adwitiya onto an e-commerce marketplace. 

“I listed my brand on Myntra and on the first day got around 25 orders. That was a big number for me back then as I had never got such a big order before.”

Fast forward three years, Adwitiya now generates 90 percent of its sales from Myntra where it gets around 350-400 orders a day. Aditi claims that the company expects to close FY 21-22 at Rs 5 crore in sales. This festive season, Adwitiya Collection got 9,000 orders and raked in Rs 75 lakh in sales. 

Aditi runs the business herself and has hired people for packaging. She says that the brand gets orders from pan India, with demand being higher from tier 1 cities. Bangles are the brand’s hottest selling product. The price range for Adwitiya starts from Rs 399 and goes up to Rs 10,000.

Challenges and the competition

During the initial days of her entrepreneurial journey, Aditi faced several challenges. First, she had limited funds to buy bulk inventory and second, wholesalers failed to keep up with the demand for specific designs.

“I used to buy a minimum quantity of a particular design but when multiple customers demanded the same product, it used to get out of stock. In this scenario, not every time the wholesaler was able to meet my requirements as they don’t manufacture. I realised that if we want to scale, we need to get in touch with manufacturers directly,” she says. 

Aditi then partnered with manufacturers to supply her jewellery. 

Apart from the business front, Aditi also faced personal challenges when her family wasn’t happy with her launching an artificial jewellery brand. However, her persistence paid off. 

Competing with the likes of Rubans, one of the prominent online jewellery brands, Adwitiya Collection sells earrings, necklaces, bangles, bracelets among other items.

Adwitiya is also available in Ajio, Mirraw, and other online marketplaces. 

The way forward

Aditi says that bringing the exquisite collection is and always will be in the pipeline. Besides, she also wants to penetrate deep into the online sales channel and is in the planning stage to begin a D2C (direct to consumer) channel. 

What advice does Aditi give future entrepreneurs, especially those pursuing CA dreams?

According to Aditi, the pass percentage of students is 12-13 percent. This leaves 88 percent who have a lot of potential, but are not able to clear the CA which leaves them disheartened. But they should not lose hope as the learning helps us in one or another way.

“Though I didn’t clear my CA, my study helped me a lot in understanding the things in business. From POs, to costing and finance, I look over everything. This is my best win,” she says.