If you don’t come from a rich family, let the rich family come from you

 A young Kashmiri who started his online business when he was only 17 years old today has a handsome turnover annually. Umer RB is the founder of Marketbuz.com, an e-commerce website that sells diverse Kashmiri products like dry fruit, saffron, honey, Kashmiri spices, special and unique Kashmiri Wazwan, papier-mâché and much more. Umer says that he wanted to create an online market space like Amazon or Flipkart. Later, he decided that he must not copy anyone. That made Umer decide to market only Kashmiri products on his website.

“My main motive is to popularize Brand Kashmir all over India.

After the abrogation of Article 370, we moved to Delhi to continue our online business because in Kashmir there was no internet connectivity at that time. E-Commerce is becoming the hook of successful businesses internationally. It is important to have a digital marketing strategy that aligns with online selling. Fortunately I was able to formulate a good marketing strategy, and am happy with the growth of my venture,” says Umer.

The young entrepreneur says the first step must be to outline one’s goal. Thereafter, one must identify the target market. “Study your competitors. What are they offering? How can you do better? How can you offer your consumers greater value for money? Why should they choose to shop with you? You must answer all these questions in order to create a successful business,” Umer advises.

Pursuing The Dream

Umer lost his father, Mr Abdul Rashid Bhat, was a government official. He died in an accident in 2018. His mother Fehmeeda is a homemaker. Umer has two elder siblings who work in the private sector. Umer studied at Sheikh-ul-Alam Model High School, and then at Candid Higher Secondary School, Nowgam. He did Bachelors in Commerce from Bemina Degree College, Srinagar in 2018. By the time Umer finished his graduation, he had been an entrepreneur for a year. Interestingly, Umer wanted to become an engineer. “Unfortunately, that didn’t work out due to some reasons. Then I took commerce as my stream and decided to be an entrepreneur.”

Umer’s Success Story In His Words

Many business leaders inspire me, but I would have to say that my greatest inspiration comes from Indian startup founders like Ritesh Agarwal of OYO and Binny Bansal of Flipkart. Ritesh Agarwal is a self-made billionaire, and my biggest inspiration. From them, I have learnt to stay focused and goal oriented, no matter what obstacles come my way. This focused thinking has greatly contributed to my success.

We shall always have self doubt – we are humans. The key is to take the doubt, acknowledge it and then lock it away.

Spend your energy and focus on your mission which should be building a successful business.

 My target is to make it big nationally and internationally. This is not possible in offline mode. Also, it is difficult to run a business in Kashmir due to the situation here. In the coming years the scope of e-commerce is going to increase majorly. This is the big area of growth.

Message for beginners

Start now. Don’t hesitate. Just jump into it. Work on it in between homework, work, and examinations. Your social life might take a hit, because you will need to put in as much time as you can.

Talk to people. You will make progress faster if you get help or advice from other entrepreneurs.

From them, you can learn how to avoid mistakes and how to skip a few steps. Be patient, it’s going to take time. Regardless of what your business will be, it’s going to take some time to get it started. You have to consider so many things that it can overwhelm you. Just stay organized, keep working, and be patient. My message for youth is, if you don’t come from a rich family, let the rich family come from you. Work hard, believe in yourself and never give up.

Hardships

I have faced many hardships because I was inexperienced and new to the online market. I followed many business tycoons. This helped me to stay strong and positive to achieve my dream – becoming Kashmir’s top businessman.   I faced many financial problems but I am very thankful to my friends who helped me financially. I used my pocket money for developing my website. Now I am able to continue my business by my own. My first order was for Rs 25,000. From then onwards, I have earned good profit Alhamdulillah.

Family support

My family didn’t support me at first because they don’t understand my plan. They didn’t know about online business. They were always after me to do something in the banking sector, but I was focused on online business. I shared my plan with my brother. He is well-educated. He understood my plan and started supporting me. Now everyone is in my support.

Future plans

I want to expand my business worldwide. In the next five years, I want to make my startup unicorn (The term was introduced by venture capital investor Aileen Lee to describe rare tech startups that were valued at more than $1 billion.)

 Why I love being an entrepreneur

* I work where I like.

* I work with the people that I like

* I create my own opportunity and destiny

* I solve problems and make a difference in the process

* I stand up for what I believe in