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LIFESTYLE
By Admin
10 September, 2019
From the age of 16, Naadia Mirza has been involved in events including birthdays, weddings and other celebrations. She started with baking cakes for such celebrations and moved to put together parties entirely by myself. After a course in creative business at the Manchester Business School, she came back with a list of ideas I wanted to execute. This led to ‘Dotted i’, a gifting brand, which I started 10 years ago. Today ‘Dotted i’ is a one-of-its kind “experiential gifting” brand with various verticals and new-age gifting trends.
Since then, they have gone pan-India with our e-commerce store. This year, we also revamped our website and experience inventory adding to it more than 2,000 products and 100 services. Below are the excerpts from the conversation with BananiVista:
Naadia Mirza
Inspiration to come up with Dotted i
My personal inspiration comes from everything around me. Inspiration strikes me in the hustle-bustle of cities, be it at a simple cafe or bistro. Most of my ideas come out of my travels to souk markets.
I come from an Iranian heritage that has taught me about perfection in everything, especially when it comes to hospitality. All this has been inculcated in me since I was a child and I understood it’s immense value when I started off with my firm.
I love traveling and have extensively covered Europe, South Asia, and the US. During these travels, my curiosity led me to extensively study creative businesses from all around the globe. Back home, the gifting and celebratory market was and still has been quite an unorganized one. The only contenders I could draw up were just cake and flower sellers. There was a requirement to support this need and ‘Dotted i’ was born.
USP of the brand
As the name and tagline of the brand suggests, we dot the i’s and dash t’s when it comes to gifting. We aim at “making it amazing” for our clients. One can expect quirky, fun elements and complete personalization from us through our products and services. Reinventing gifting and celebrations is our speciality. At Dotted I, we've always believed in infusing a tad-bit of wacky and a whole lot of wonderful into every creation.
The company is a one-stop-shop for all your gifting and service needs to make someone feel special. Our product line consists of more than 2,000 products, services, and experiences. Our expertise lies in reinventing gifting and breaking our previous records by doing something extra fun, quirky and exciting.
Challenges faced
BOOT STRAPPED I started with a credit card debt. In 10 years of service, ‘Dotted i’ is transformed into a gifting powerhouse. With no funding so far, we have been able to grow year after year. Today we have served over 50,000 people and have over 2,000 products, services, and experiences to offer.
PLAGIARISM With technology, came a lot of plagiarism- replication of our products and services. It only means that our products are popular and the market for it is increasing. After all, imitation is a form of flattery. But, we stand true to the quality, delivery, service and overall experience that our customers expect which cannot be recreated.
MARKET NOT BEING READY Gifting has been an unorganized market for decades now. Moreover, gifting is a personal choice that people are not yet ready to let go into the hands of a third party. But with many years of experience in this market and an in-depth understanding of what our customers need, we have been able to work through these challenges by prioritizing our clients and redefining gifting.
AWARENESS Though social media helps in keeping up with trends, there is a large chunk of the population that is not aware of unique gifting services and experiences. People still look at teacups and murals to be given as gifts, while there is a whole new range of options to choose from. The concept of “experience-gifting” is still very new in India and ‘Dotted i’ is a one-of-its-kind company that curates them. We are constantly working with trends to roll out something unique.
BEING A MOM ENTREPRENEUR, PEOPLE THINK ITS A HOBBY AND NOT BUSINESS Though it seems tough, being a mother has made me more efficient. I start my days as early as 6 am and try to wrap up by 4 pm. Not only has this responsibility made me value time, but it has also helped me to improvise and deal with crisis.
Collections
My favourite section is the launch of a section called ‘surprise-surprise’!
We have got the Humshakal surprise, the https://www.thedottedi.in/
and rent a party... we can pretty much qua-rate anything for you...https://www.thedottedi.
Future plans.
Building ‘Dotted i’, making it become ‘India’s best unique gifting brand’ and constantly creating memories is a vision of mine. Constantly revolutionizing and redefining gifting is very exciting for me and my team at ‘Dotted i’.
