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Dhiraj Agarwal
CEO & Co-founder - Campus Sutra
Dhiraj Agarwal, aged 33, is the CEO and co-founder of Campus Sutra, a prominent Indian fashion brand for men's and women's apparel & accessories established in 2013.
Under Dhiraj's leadership, Campus Sutra has grown to become a category leader on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra, with a projected turnover of INR 160 crores for FY 2018.
With a workforce of 120 employees, Campus Sutra has achieved remarkable success being bootstrapped, profitable since its inception, and expanding without any external investments.
Dhiraj's entrepreneurial journey began after completing his BBM from Christ College. He embarked on a career at ING Vysya Bank before pursuing an MBA in Marketing from NMIMS, enhancing his retail expertise with a certification from the Indian School of Business and CFA Level 1 completion.
During his tenure at Bharti Retail, partnering with Walmart-India, Dhiraj played a pivotal role in the launch of numerous supermarkets and hypermarkets across India.
Recognized for his exceptional leadership abilities, Dhiraj received the Economic Times Young Leader for the Year Award in 2011, standing out among top professionals in the country.
Passionate about 'starting up,' Dhiraj's strategic approach to retail management and marketing has been instrumental in Campus Sutra's success, with manufacturing operations spanning India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
Highlights
Last week at Campus Sutra we had the pleasure of having Arjun Vaidya at our office, the founder of Dr. Vaidya's & an active investor. Arjun built Dr. Vaidya’s to India’s largest Ayurveda brand online and took it to acquisition by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, marking one of India’s pioneering D2C exits. Currently he is an active early stage investor (through V3 Ventures and as an angel).
He shared his inspiring journey and his learnings with the team here.
-> Customer Loyalty - Customers typically take time to trust a new brand, as they need to ensure its reliability, quality, and consistency. However, once this trust is established, the brand can unlock substantial potential. Ultimately, a trusted brand can foster deep loyalty and drive long-term success.
-> Prioritize Focus - It is always crucial to focus on key one challenge at a time. Spreading resources too thinly across multiple issues can dilute efforts and hinder progress. By concentrating resources and energy on solving a key issue, you can achieve more effective results, build a strong foundation, and set the stage for future growth and tackling additional challenges.
-> Niche Product offering - Launching unique products is challenging, but in current scenario they are more destineed to be successful in the long term. Niche offering stands out in the market and creates a distinct brand identity. This approach helps build a loyal customer base and drives sustainable growth.
Aditya Agarwal Khushboo Agarwal Sonal Agarwal Kaushik Tibrewal Hina Goyal Abhinav Gairola Haneef Muhammad Tushar Dokania
#D2C #ecommerce #fashion
Had 2 amazing sessions at IFF last week. One as a moderator and the other as a panelist.
The first panel was regarding People Management during Rapid Digitalization.
Shailesh Chaturvedi (CEO- Arvind Fashions Limited) - spoke about the importance of looking to identify high productivity teams. He gave couple of points of view which were very interesting : -> One was about looking out for the corner with the most noise. His point was that the team which looks most lively and is making the most noise usually tends to be the team with the best motivation and in turn most productive -> The second hack (if I can call it that) was about how he monitors the camera installed in the office lift. His point was seeing the faces of associated coming and going from office gives the best view of the office culture and environment more than even surveys and interviews
Abhishek Ganguly (CEO Agilitas) spoke about the importance of creating a culture in which people are not afraid of digitalization but embrace digitalization.
Swadesh Behera (Chief People Officer Titan Company Limited) spoke about how he and the CEO spend 100 hrs every year listening to employees individually and how some great solutions have come from that.
The second panel where i was a moderator was about Fast Paced Changing Consumer Behaviour
I was amazed and literally inspired by the energy that NINA LEKHI (MD & Founder Baggit India Private Limited) brought to the table. The fact that she has built Baggit and has been running it for 35 years and is as excited about the business as she was on day 1 is testimonial of the India entrepreneurship spirit. This i guess does not get spoken about as frequently as it should.
Anand Aiyer. (CEO - Arrow) spoke about how legacy and established brands like Arrow are devising strategies and revitalising the offering to keep pace with the rapid changes in the consumer behaviour
Some very interesting points from other panelists as well - Ankur Damani, Ninad Umargekar, Sonali Lalvani, Satyen Momaya.
Thanks Images for conducting another amazing event - probably the best happening for fashion in the country. Shout out to Nikhil Behl, R S ROY, PHYGITAL RETAIL CONVENTION, Bhavesh Pitroda
Aditya Agarwal Sonal Agarwal Kaushik Tibrewal Khushboo Agarwal Abhinav Gairola Hina Goyal Haneef Muhammad Tushar Dokania
#ecommerce #fashion #d2c #indiastartups
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.