Country Needs More Women As Face Of Businesses: Devita Saraf

The #DigitalWomenAwards held last evening also comprised a supremely empowering talk by Devita Saraf, founder-CEO, VU TVs. She enlightened the room with a talk about herself, her work and women in entrepreneurship and leadership.

"I wanted to be the leader in the industry"

Devita, while sharing the intriguing turns and twists of her journey with the audience, stressed on the importance of having women leaders. "I started 13 years ago when I had the idea that Indian consumers are becoming upwardly mobile. The fact that all strong brands were American, Japanese, and foreign-based, for that matter, had me ponder over having an Indian international brand in place," she said.

She ventured into the space of high-end electronics, zeroing in on the space wherever the opportunity lay. Her brand generated about Rs 30-34 crore revenue by 2014. Time and again, she was told to reconsider her future path -- was it worthwhile to continue in the business? However, the desire to grow and learn made her continue what she started. "In 2014, when I was ready to throw in the towel, I thought why should I be willing to give up something I spent eight years doing? I wanted to keep growing and at the end of the day, I wanted to be the leader in this industry."

"This year, we will close at a revenue of thousand crores"

Since then, Devita has put in all her efforts in the game. From continuously funding her company internally to growing distribution of each and every product in every corner in the country to personally approaching e-commerce leaders for collaboration to sell her products, she has definitely come a long way. "Last week, Flipkart sold 1 lakh VU TVs in a matter of three days."  

Devita's journey is path-breaking in more ways than one. Till today, she remains her brand's best ambassador. She shared an interestingly reflective incident of when she decided to be the model for her brand and thus its rightful face. Becoming one's own face for a business, she believes, is the most significant factor when it comes to women building their businesses.

"The biggest challenge for women is not the fear of failure, but the fear of success"

She raised some serious questions as to why women, even today, aren't aiming for the big ticket game. She emphasized that it's time women come out of their comfort zone, realise their potential and grab what they deserve. Devita's idea of building a brand is to scale up and grow with time and this, she says, will be possible when women embrace their success with open arms. 

"Our biggest challenge is: What will people say!"

While shedding light on how women often question themselves about what others think, Devita reflected on the plight of women entrepreneurs in context of the Indian society. She highlighted the importance of women raising the bar on their own and rising up to it. "We may be satisfied getting awards and getting recognised, but we need to aim higher and continue growing. Women entrepreneurs need to set goals for the big numbers and also aim at getting listed here, at the Bombay Stock Exchange, one day," she signed off. 

Also Read: Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Is Key, Say Reema Sathe, Shuchi Pandya

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