Adesiflava
Gaurav Pardeshi
CEO
But that young boy from Seattle didn't stop with his failure. Today, you know him as Bill Gates, one of the most successful businessmen in the world. In 1975, Bill Gates shut down Traf-O-Data to incept Microsoft Corporation. It's always inspiring to listen to the stories of people who didn't stop at their failure. Gaurav Pardeshi, CEO, Adesiflava Private Limited belongs to such a breed of entrepreneurs who redefine failure as learning and determination to succeed.
Gaurav's entrepreneurial journey had a humble beginning in Hong Kong with the inception of Adesiflava as a proprietary company in 2011. It's no secret that Hong Kong's business landscape is over whelmingly competitive. One bad move could mean catastrophic failure. In 2013, Gaurav launched his first 70 seater Indian Restaurant & Bar in Hong Kong, naming it Aamchi Mumbai. Although the business achieved great success initially with great profits, wrong expansion plans and subsequent bad investments pushed the business into losses. Gaurav knew well enough that 'you need to cut the bleeding arm if there is no cure', and he did so by shutting down Aamchi Mumbai in 2016.
But Gaurav's determination had only grown stronger. It was majorly because a couple of years back, in 2014, he had not only transitioned Adesiflava to become a partnership firm, but he had also started a parallel venture in the B2B branded products trading business in 2015. He never looked back. Today, after half a decade and having had his baptism of fire in the cut-throat business landscape of Hong Kong, his B2B trading business alone has a turnover of over $20 million. A Young Turk who is passionate about success and growth, Gaurav had to combat every thing from jealousy to language barrier, banking challenges and the expensive traits of Hong Kong to have the final smile. CEO Insights is delighted to engage in an exclusive conversation with Gaurav to further explore his amazing journey. Let's hear it from him.
What is the kind of business strategy that helped you achieve such an inspiring level of success in such a short time period? How did this expansion really happen?
After I started my B2B branded products trading business in 2015 with majorly Samsung products, I slowly ventured into other consumer brands, and eventually adapted to Xiaomi brand. By the end of March
2021, I grew my company's turnover from $1 million to $20 million with over 20 percent net profits every year.
In August 2018, I founded another company, ALPS Enterprises in India, which was started with a seed funding of Rs. 2.5 crores from the parent company Adesiflava. ALPS Enterprises was awarded the national and exclusive distributorship for the Roidmi brand (co-owned by Xiaomi). Roidmi Cordless vacuums are now selling with over 20 big format online and offline retailers across India. In the successive year, we launched our own brand Voltmi, which focuses on smart and healthy consumer products. Roidmi and Voltmi brands are now successfully penetrating in the Indian market.
As a young entrepreneur, what were the challenges that you faced while entering such a competitive industry?
Jealousy was a real thing! A young guy, who is below 40 years of age and has no family or friends background in Hong Kong, comes to this competitive city, and starts his own magazine, owns a restaurant, and builds a highly successful trading business. It is bound to make other businessmen jealous and envious. In order to overcome this challenge, I always made someone who is ahead of me the benchmark in terms of achievements at his/her business. This lets me focus on reaching the same level as my benchmark and then putting in more energy to identify a new higher benchmark and reach there. This way, I keep myself away from jealousy.
Language barrier was another hassle. Hong Kong has a huge language barrier. Right from acquiring new jobs to transportation, and literally for everything, you need to know Cantonese (local Hong Kong language). This language barrier is so huge that it literally makes you feel like an odd man out at all times. To overcome this challenge, I always hired and worked with the Hong Kong Chinese who speak decent English and I have also learned to speak in `Hong Kong English' (which means you speak slowly with a pause after every sentence). Now, I am mostly surrounded by my employees and people who definitely speak decent English or I can say, they understand my Hong Kong English.
What about the operational challenges, especially when it comes to finance and expenses?
Business Banking has always been a stumbling block. Mainstream banks in Hong Kong will consider Indians and small sized companies as a fraud and will never open new business accounts and even sud
In August 2018, I founded another company, ALPS Enterprises in India, which was started with a seed funding of Rs. 2.5 crores from the parent company Adesiflava. ALPS Enterprises was awarded the national and exclusive distributorship for the Roidmi brand (co-owned by Xiaomi). Roidmi Cordless vacuums are now selling with over 20 big format online and offline retailers across India. In the successive year, we launched our own brand Voltmi, which focuses on smart and healthy consumer products. Roidmi and Voltmi brands are now successfully penetrating in the Indian market.
“My experience across multiple industry verticals and functional departments help me seamlessly run the operations of the entire company with extremely calculated risk-to-returns ratio and great interpersonal skills pertaining to smoothly handling customers and suppliers”
As a young entrepreneur, what were the challenges that you faced while entering such a competitive industry?
Jealousy was a real thing! A young guy, who is below 40 years of age and has no family or friends background in Hong Kong, comes to this competitive city, and starts his own magazine, owns a restaurant, and builds a highly successful trading business. It is bound to make other businessmen jealous and envious. In order to overcome this challenge, I always made someone who is ahead of me the benchmark in terms of achievements at his/her business. This lets me focus on reaching the same level as my benchmark and then putting in more energy to identify a new higher benchmark and reach there. This way, I keep myself away from jealousy.
Language barrier was another hassle. Hong Kong has a huge language barrier. Right from acquiring new jobs to transportation, and literally for everything, you need to know Cantonese (local Hong Kong language). This language barrier is so huge that it literally makes you feel like an odd man out at all times. To overcome this challenge, I always hired and worked with the Hong Kong Chinese who speak decent English and I have also learned to speak in `Hong Kong English' (which means you speak slowly with a pause after every sentence). Now, I am mostly surrounded by my employees and people who definitely speak decent English or I can say, they understand my Hong Kong English.
What about the operational challenges, especially when it comes to finance and expenses?
Business Banking has always been a stumbling block. Mainstream banks in Hong Kong will consider Indians and small sized companies as a fraud and will never open new business accounts and even sud
denly close your business account. Despite the fact that the banks cannot explain what exactly they found suspicious in your business activity, they will close down your business account or most of the times, will never let you open a new business account. To overcome this challenge, I have to open and close our business accounts from one bank to another frequently.
Huge expenses are another challenge. Office rentals, salaries and overhead expenses in Hong Kong are overwhelmingly expensive. If you need to be in business, you better make good profits; otherwise you could be out of business within a couple of months. The only way I've overcome this challenge is by maintaining good business profits at all times and keeping the expenses and overheads in control and minimal.
You also boast experience across different industry verticals. How does this experience help you in chalking out business strategies for Adesiflava?
My experience across multiple industry verticals and functional departments help me seamlessly run the operations of the entire company with extremely calculated risk-to-returns ratio and great inter personal skills pertaining to smoothly handling customers and suppliers. Magazine/ Publishing business experience always helps to keep a good media & social image for the company in mind, while the F&B experience has taught me to maintain high levels of customer experience and tolerance.
What's your USP?
Our USPs are sustainability & perseverance in the small-sized market of South Asians in Hong Kong. The audience that A-Desiflava Magazine caters to in Hong Kong is not even 200,000 people in total. The total population of South Asians in Hong Kong is very small. Hence, the competition can never be with the mainstream Chinese media. When it comes to competition with any other South Asians related media, we are surely the longest running and most known magazine in Hong Kong.
What is the future roadmap of your company?
We are launching the Voltmi brand in the Middle East market and launching at least five new products by the end of 2021. For Adesiflava, I want to get distributorship of at least two more brands of Xiaomi for the Indian market.
What will be your advice for other international leaders who aspire to shift their area of operation to Hong Kong?
First and foremost, now, it is not the right time to move your area of operation to Hong Kong. Keep a watch on the news and see how the entire China take-over of Hong Kong' unfolds. The next 2-3 years will be crucial for everyone living in Hong Kong.
Gaurav Pardeshi, CEO, Adesiflava
Having had his baptism of fire in the cut-throat business landscape of Hong Kong, Gaurav's professional journey is synonymous with determination, perseverance, and passion for success
Huge expenses are another challenge. Office rentals, salaries and overhead expenses in Hong Kong are overwhelmingly expensive. If you need to be in business, you better make good profits; otherwise you could be out of business within a couple of months. The only way I've overcome this challenge is by maintaining good business profits at all times and keeping the expenses and overheads in control and minimal.
You also boast experience across different industry verticals. How does this experience help you in chalking out business strategies for Adesiflava?
My experience across multiple industry verticals and functional departments help me seamlessly run the operations of the entire company with extremely calculated risk-to-returns ratio and great inter personal skills pertaining to smoothly handling customers and suppliers. Magazine/ Publishing business experience always helps to keep a good media & social image for the company in mind, while the F&B experience has taught me to maintain high levels of customer experience and tolerance.
What's your USP?
Our USPs are sustainability & perseverance in the small-sized market of South Asians in Hong Kong. The audience that A-Desiflava Magazine caters to in Hong Kong is not even 200,000 people in total. The total population of South Asians in Hong Kong is very small. Hence, the competition can never be with the mainstream Chinese media. When it comes to competition with any other South Asians related media, we are surely the longest running and most known magazine in Hong Kong.
What is the future roadmap of your company?
We are launching the Voltmi brand in the Middle East market and launching at least five new products by the end of 2021. For Adesiflava, I want to get distributorship of at least two more brands of Xiaomi for the Indian market.
What will be your advice for other international leaders who aspire to shift their area of operation to Hong Kong?
First and foremost, now, it is not the right time to move your area of operation to Hong Kong. Keep a watch on the news and see how the entire China take-over of Hong Kong' unfolds. The next 2-3 years will be crucial for everyone living in Hong Kong.
Gaurav Pardeshi, CEO, Adesiflava
Having had his baptism of fire in the cut-throat business landscape of Hong Kong, Gaurav's professional journey is synonymous with determination, perseverance, and passion for success