00:00 India is slowly but surely embracing the power of women in shaping a society and more importantly
00:08 contributing to the economy's growth.
00:11 Founded 60 years ago, ladies and gentlemen, on this spirit of entrepreneurship, Amway
00:18 is a firm believer and supporter of women entrepreneurs and has inspired them across
00:24 the globe.
00:25 Amway India today has more than 60% of its direct sellers comprising of women entrepreneurs
00:32 and today we have with us three such women entrepreneurs, Amway business owners who will
00:39 take us through their entrepreneurial journey and share their experience with us.
00:44 May I now call upon Shruti Venkatesh from Outlook Business to please join me on stage
00:50 to moderate the chat with three Amway business owners.
00:54 Let's welcome all of them with a warm round of applause.
00:56 Shivani Gupta, Rashmi Pachnanda and Nidhi Agarwal.
01:04 Shruti, over to you.
01:17 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
01:25 I hope you're having a great time this evening listening to, you know, the many, many inspirational
01:29 stories of our women entrepreneurs.
01:32 And you know, the best thing about self-employment or entrepreneurship is that you get to be
01:36 your own boss.
01:37 And I'm lucky to be sharing the stage with three women who have kind of, you know, successfully
01:41 scaled their own, you know, kind of, you can say their own startup, the Amway way.
01:47 So you know, I want to begin with you Rashmi to, you know, understand when did the entrepreneurial
01:52 bug kind of get into you?
01:54 Why did you want to start entrepreneurship?
01:57 I'm actually born and brought up in Delhi, graduated from here and married to a shipping
02:02 captain, merchant navy captain and sailed with him for a few years.
02:06 And I did my master's in computer systems management from NIT.
02:10 So when I got married to him, I started sailing with him and we were sailing for a few years
02:14 till we realized that when our children were born, our son was born, I mean, we couldn't,
02:20 I couldn't go with him.
02:22 And it was not easy.
02:23 And that is when you migrated to Australia.
02:25 So we migrated to Australia a few years, almost 27 years ago.
02:30 And I was working there as a programmer, software programmer for seven years.
02:34 That's when somebody introduced this model to us.
02:37 I didn't think much of it then, but my husband did because he was bit of an entrepreneurial
02:42 in nature, though he was a shipping captain.
02:44 So he wanted to make this thing, okay, let's start.
02:47 I was pretty apprehensive, but then now we thought, okay, let's give it a chance.
02:51 And we came back to India to do the launching bit and all that.
02:56 And slowly, slowly, when we started building it, you know what, found so many, so much
03:01 of goodness in it.
03:03 It is not just, it was a complete package.
03:06 And then with women entrepreneurship coming, wow, it became such a beautiful thing.
03:10 I mean, it just became my passion because we work in health and nutrition, we work in
03:15 creating more entrepreneurs who are also independent, start having their own incomes, their own
03:20 identity.
03:21 So it became more enriched and enriched in last decade.
03:24 So it's just that I would say it got accidental, like accidental entrepreneur got into it.
03:32 Until then, slowly, slowly it got into me and last one decade I've been really absolutely
03:37 sold out to the idea.
03:38 Moderator (Anita Loh): So Shivani, do you also want to give us a brief of how you were
03:41 introduced to this model of business?
03:43 Shivani Nath (India): Hello everyone, I'm Shivani and I basically come from an industrialist
03:48 family and I did my master's in management and I did my law.
03:55 And initially I was always multi-talented, like, you know, I've had a keen interest in
04:00 sports, in classical dance and into academics and like, you know, I always wanted to pursue
04:08 in a corporate sector and always I had a dream, you know, like to scale high, high, higher
04:15 heights and… but there was always a limitation to it.
04:20 Slowly and gradually I came to realize that doing a job, you have lot of limitations.
04:27 You have… don't have that much of flexibility and when… when you know what happened, like
04:37 I came in association with a team of people who are very enthusiastic and they were talking
04:43 about some goals, some dreams and putting in hard work to fulfill those dreams and I
04:51 love the association, I love the power of entrepreneurship.
04:56 And then I decided that there is a tremendous possibility in a… in a being an entrepreneur
05:02 and the time flexibility, the way you can manage your children, the family, your in-laws
05:08 and then I decided to be an entrepreneur.
05:10 And then Amway has given me a platform where I can manage when… it has instilled in me
05:16 the capabilities which I had within me to lead people, to motivate people, to mentor
05:24 people, to enhance their lives.
05:27 And how has that been for you Nidhi?
05:28 Nidhi Agrawal - Hi, I am Nidhi Agrawal and qualified MBA and as Shibani said, I belong
05:35 to an industrialist family and you know, when I started my journey, I was just eighteen
05:40 years and that was in my blood, I really want to do something, I really want to prove myself,
05:47 you know, as people used to say, women can't do this, women has many responsibilities,
05:54 they cannot handle, you know, business life as well as, you know, house life but I want
06:00 to prove myself and in that way, I was in looking zone and job was not my style and
06:07 I really don't want to be in a job family or the job class, I really want to do something
06:13 my own, you know, the life of choices I was looking and the real thing I was looking in
06:20 that way, yes, I want to prove myself with all the flexibilities and with that I got
06:28 this opportunity and I started my… then I got married after four, five years and my
06:37 husband also a part of the business and we started together and we proved and today we
06:44 have significant business in Amway.
06:46 So Shibani, if you can tell me what was your first year of entrepreneurship like and you
06:51 know, when was that moment where you felt that, okay, you know, this can really go a
06:55 long way, this can really be scaled up substantially, what was that moment like?
06:59 Yeah, see as a new startup, every new startup has its own phases and similarly, it was there
07:05 with me also but yes, slowly and gradually when I was there in association with the team
07:11 of successful people and talking about positive, positive attitude, slowly and slowly when
07:18 I started putting in hard work, effort, I started seeing money in it and when my little,
07:25 little small dreams started fulfilling, then I realized that yes, my big dreams can also
07:33 be fulfilled through this opportunity and then I started giving it full time and yes,
07:42 this company Amway sponsors international travel every year and it was a dream destination
07:49 for me when Amway sponsored us for a Switzerland trip, that was way back in 2011 and since
07:55 2011, we have been traveling international every year through this corporation and then
08:01 I came to know like, yes, it can be a bigger dream come true.
08:07 And the same question to you Rashmi, if you can tell us what the first year was like and
08:11 when did you taste the initial success?
08:13 First year was not like when you start something, you have more failures and I think it was
08:20 when we, we were also with the team of success, we have a very strong support system, it teaches
08:25 us a lot of things which taught us that persistence is one thing which we need to keep and that
08:30 is one quality I think every entrepreneurship needs to have.
08:33 So that's okay, one day is a good day, another day is a bad day but that's how you have to
08:39 just take it in your stride and keep carrying on and that's what we did basically and when
08:44 the start, when the success started, you know what it basically gave us, I would say like
08:50 flexible option, flexible hours of working, no bosses and you know, you can design your
08:57 own day, you have more choices, more freedom and it's the best way to I think work, not
09:04 in a job environment and then you are an entrepreneur, like entrepreneurship is an idea which comes
09:09 to you every day, so you are thinking out of the box and you're applying those ideas
09:15 and having fun with it.
09:16 So I think after a while, it just became so addictive that we want to like, every day
09:21 is a new day and we just love it.
09:23 Perfect, Nidhi, if you could also tell us that.
09:25 First year was, the moment you start something, see this is like with maybe every women, you
09:33 know, the moment you start something, it's full of surprises.
09:36 First year was like, you know, you are always in puzzle, people don't take you seriously.
09:43 In my case, people used to ask my age, they used to laugh, they don't know the direct
09:49 selling industry and you know, as I told you, I am from an indigenous family and the Bela
09:55 family, so people used to ask, why are you doing this business, why are you not putting
10:00 or investing some money in franchise business or you are starting something like that, but
10:05 I took it as a challenge, first of all and I want to really prove myself, I can take
10:12 a challenge and I can prove myself.
10:14 One thing, another thing as an qualified MBA, you know, my guru was Philip Kotler and he
10:21 used to take the name of Amway, which was sufficient for me to prove myself and with
10:27 that, the thing was, it was like first year was like a kind of stuff, you know, you are
10:35 always in, you are always stuck up with something, but my take out from this, like you have to
10:45 believe on yourself, you know, you have to keep courage with you and you have, you know
10:51 the story actually, you know from where you will get the success and the moment you have
10:56 faith, there was no stories of direct selling, proven stories in front of me, but I thought
11:04 when it is possible, why not, that was the thing.
11:07 I would like to add one thing more, you know the first year is more challenging, even more
11:12 because you know people accept you to be in job, the people expect you, you know to do
11:19 the same thing what others are doing and you are little bit skeptical that whether my decision
11:25 is right or wrong, that I have put in my job and entered into entrepreneurship, so that
11:30 is little bit more challenging, what the people have the perception towards me.
11:35 And you know lastly if you could kind of give me two things that you know being associated
11:40 or doing entrepreneurship with Amway has been beneficial, there are two things that you
11:46 could point out.
11:47 You could start.
11:48 It has given us a life of choices and then you know what it has also given us something
11:54 that we can, where we, every day we know we can make a difference in somebody's life and
11:59 that is what actually drives you and it is not the material possessions and the money
12:03 that you get, of course that is there, but it is the person you become after that journey
12:08 and the more resilient, you are ready to take chances every day and that is what I think
12:15 I love about the whole thing.
12:16 Sure.
12:17 Nidhi?
12:18 Yeah, see as we are talking about empowerment of women or women entrepreneurship, my key
12:27 thing is I really want to empower women through the opportunity, one thing without you know
12:34 compromising so many things because as we are talking about women has many roles to
12:39 play, you know, their mother, their house takers, you know and they are taking care
12:44 of so many things, so with that this is an opportunity, awesome opportunity and apart
12:50 from this, another thing is like passive income, the moment you will settle, you will just
12:55 go through on one significant level, it gives you the life of choices as Rashmi is talking
13:02 about as well as you know passive income is possible in this business and so many flexibility,
13:09 life of choices and so many things, after 20 years, you know, I started my journey in
13:14 the age of 18 and after 20 years I can say I am, you know, building my business as well
13:21 as I am taking care of my family, my kids and you know I am giving them the quality
13:26 life as well as I am touching thousands of people's life through the opportunity which
13:30 was not my thing which is from the opportunity side with this.
13:35 Sure.
13:36 Shivani?
13:37 People normally don't follow followers, people follow leaders, so I feel like you know this
13:46 opportunity is a blessing, you know, where you lead people, you motivate people and you
13:51 keep adding value in their lives, you touch so many lives, you help ladies, you know,
14:00 who are there in their homes, you know and they really want to do something big and you
14:04 are there to hold their hand and tell them, I am there with you, I am there with you,
14:11 come together we will make it happen, come together we will make our dreams fulfilled.
14:16 So I love this opportunity where it's a noble cause, where you fulfill all your dreams,
14:23 where you can make a good combination of your family, you know, there is a rewards and the
14:28 four fundamental principles of this corporation, the freedom, hope, reward, recognition and
14:34 it's an amazing opportunity which has entirely changed my life to 360 degrees and today I
14:40 feel privileged that… privileged that yes, it has made me a woman of substance.
14:48 Thank you.
14:49 What a wonderful way to end the panel.
14:50 Thank you so much for sharing your journeys with us.
14:53 Thank you for having us.
14:54 Thank you.
14:55 Thank you.
14:56 Thank you so much ladies for sharing with us the Amway experience.
15:03 Thank you very much.
15:04 Thank you.
15:05 Thank you.
15:06 Thank you.
15:06 Thank you.
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