The Midlife Station

Taking E-Commerce to Rural India with Ram:TMS08

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Episode notes

During his corporate stint, Ram always had this huge passion and inclination towards serving villages and making an impact to the lives of people living in rural India. It was due to this passion and unprecedented support of like-minded co-founders Karthik and Narayanan, Ram went ahead and built Boon Box in his early 40s. With Boon Box, he aims to bring e-commerce to rural India to ensure villagers are not left behind or deprived of the world class products that usually only cities can get their hands on. Due to their unique business model, Boon box has been able to serve one lakh villages since its inception and further has the capacity to scale up to 3 lakh villages Ram firmly believes that he and his team are on way to leading the eCommerce market in the large 'white space' which is rural India. Ram was recently facilitated by Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu with Inspirational role model award @ CII Connect Awards 2020 for work that Boon Box is doing during these unprecedented pandemic times Ram is also a fitness freak and an eco-warrior. Key Points we discussed: • How one can develop an entrepreneur and an innovative mindset • Learnings from the corporate world • The story behind Boon Box inception in his early 40s and scaling it to 3 lakh villages • Advice for people who are in midlife and are thinking about entrepreneurship Time Stamps: • 04:42 - What do we mean by having an entrepreneur mindset? • 06:44 - How one can develop an innovative mindset? • 11:01 - 3 learning's Ram had while being in a corporate world • 13:36 - How was the idea of Boon Box was born? • 15:42 - Was Ram determined to go all out right from the word go? • 18:34 - What steps one who is in middle age can take if he wants to do something different? • 24:30 - What does Boon Box as a company do? • 26:29 - How was the initial phase when you got started being on your own? • 28:09 - How did Boon Box went ahead building a world-class team? • 32:14 - Boon Box operations and business model? • 34:30 - Exotic locations that Boon Box has delivered? • 35:55 - Consumer story that touched his heart wrto how Boon Box is making an impact? • 37:20 - Major setback and how he navigated through it? • 39:18 - Decision-making process that Ram follows? • 41:39 - How Boon Box looks at threats from competition like Amazon's and Flipkart's of the world? • 43:12 - Vision for Boon Box going forward • 43:55 - Quickfire segment Key Takeaways • It's key to always maintain an entrepreneur's mindset irrespective of whether one is in a job or on his own. Take complete ownership and do what is right for the company and not just for sake of looking good in front of others. • Be creative and try to innovate- innovation is only for few brilliant folks is a myth. The key is to develop a questioning mindset and back yourself with full confidence. Go out and question every single assumption that you come across, we humans right from our birth are gifted with a questioning mindset, go ahead and use it • It is never too late to start something of your own. In fact, the 40s is a wonderful age, you have a vast amount of wisdom, experience, and knowledge, so If you have a passion for doing something of your own, then go out in battleground and fight it out like a samurai warrior