Unification of beauty and business

One Step at a Time

BRAND CONNECT

Published: Mar 30, 2020 11:52:56 AM IST

A Marketing Professional and an Interior Designer, Mr. Anurag and Mrs. Vinita Gupta, Director and Co-director, Shear Genius Unisex Salon, Shear Genius Academy & Services Pvt. Ltd., make the perfect pair for bringing a good salon to life.

THE FOUNDATION

“I have imbibed the essence of integrity, discipline and hard work from my father; he and my mother have always been my pillars of strength and moral support,” says Anurag. An alumnus of IIMC Kolkata, his education has always been of the grade that is personally and professionally fulfilling. Rich with extensive professional experience of having worked with some top brands in the market like Heinz, ICICI Bank, Reliance Communications and A Little World as Vice President India, Anurag surely had enough experience for establishing a brand of his own.

Mrs. Vinita Gupta was raised to be a strong and free willed woman. Speaking about her work she said, “Backed with my degree in Interior Designing, I had always wished to make homes cosier and more comfortable places to stay until I met Anurag. He made me realise that we can do a greater good to the society by grooming a person’s outward appearance. I’ve witnessed some fantastic changes in regular people like you and me only with the change in the way they wear their hair. Since I come from a humble town, Dehradun, I feel proud of being able to contribute to the hopes and aspiration of so many.”

THE STEP AHEAD

For Anurag, giving-up on a highly rewarding and comfortable job as a Vice President and dreaming to be an entrepreneur was a huge risk in itself. However, he quickly realised that retail business was changing between 2005 and 2007. Making the most of it, he said, “After quitting my job and all geared up with my education and experience, I found a cavity in the retail end of the wellness sector. I saw this as a great opportunity and chalked-out a detailed plan—that is when I introduced the concept of Unisex Salons in tier two towns, back in 2007.”

Anurag and Vinita carved the road ahead for themselves— establishing the brand with their ‘One Step at a Time’ approach, they opened a salon every year. Today, Shear Genius Unisex Salon has made its presence felt PAN India with an academy and over 20 salons running successfully in cities like Dehradun, Bhopal, Indore, Raipur, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram, Pune, and Chennai. The power couple is proud to say that they were the pioneers and a major role-player in grooming of the society at large with their Unisex Salon chain.

THE BEND IN THE ROAD

Inspired by game changers like Dhirubhai Ambani, Ratan Tata, Mahatma Gandhi, and Steve Jobs, Anurag and Vinita had their share of challenges with shortage of skilled manpower, to begin with. “When I decided to start my chain, we faced a dire scarcity of skilled resources. In the initial years we struggled to get trained people aboard and then decided to build our own army by training recruits as per our standards.” Another challenge was the capital intensive nature of the business but to combat the issue they came up with a smart and scalable model—where they introduced their idea to selective people and helped them begin their entrepreneurial journey and the rest is history.

Having started from scratch and built a chain of salons across India in a span of just 10 years, Anurag strongly advocates that persistence, hard work, planning, and execution are the essential cornerstones of any successful enterprise. He gently smiles and says, “It would be hard to picture a sound and stable entity in the absence of any of these.”

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Forbes India journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.

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