About five years ago, Ankiti Bose was carving out an enviable career for herself. After a stint as a management consultant in McKinsey & Company, she had moved on to Sequoia Capital, where she was an investment analyst working with companies investing in Southeast Asian businesses.
As she got to know Southeast Asia better, however, the thought of building something of her own started to germinate. The region had a wealth of creative entrepreneurs running small retail businesses. “But they had no idea how to solve certain problems, like how to procure the right items at the right costs. And these small players are competing against huge international brands—it was like a David versus Goliath story, and that’s what resonated with me,” she explains. “I thought it was time to shake things up. Technology is changing things really fast, and that’s the only way that we can provide opportunities for these entrepreneurs.”
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The result is Zilingo, launched in 2015 when she was just 23. Today, the company says its valuation is approaching US$1 billion. While it has an e-commerce portal for consumers, the majority of Zilingo’s revenue comes from providing B2B services. Say, for instance, you are selling scarves at Bangkok’s Chatuchak weekend market. By signing up with Zilingo, you get help with procurement, so you can buy your stock at a lower price. You get advice on the kind of designs that are trending, based on data analytics. You get financial services, such as loans and insurance, to expand your business. And you get tech support that enables you to start selling your scarves online.
With these systematic boosts, this hypothetical scarf stall can very well grow into a major brand, Bose concludes, and this straight-talking dynamo is very persuasive in person. When her parents had doubts about her turn to entrepreneurship, she assuaged them by suggesting they take the money they had been saving up for the MBA they had been hoping she would get, and use it for a vacation in Europe instead.
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