Born on 19th February 1963 into a family of Guajarati merchants, Falguni Nayar seemed like your average everyday child with nothing setting her apart as destined for great things. Falguni’s father had immigrated to India from Pakistan with pittance. But together with his brother, he started a trading business which was later followed by a medium sized ball bearing manufacturing business in Mumbai. Academically Falguni was a good student and a competitive one too!
As a child, her father involved her in his growing business, thus sowing the seeds for her future endeavors. It was but natural that at home, the conversations revolved around business related topics like investment, stock markets and insurance, which taught her the many nitty gritties of business. Thanks to her open-minded father, she had access to educational opportunities and freedoms which helped groom the young introverted Nayar into the confident, bold lady she is now is. Falguni pursued her B. Com and later her MBA in Finance, which one could call as the building blocks of what was to come, and began working at Kotak Securities in 1994 as Head of International Business, first in London and then in New York.
In 2007, after a brief stint as Director and Head of Institutional equities, she joined the Kotak Investment Banking sector, working as the managing director overseeing IPOs of various big firms like Godrej. So far, her life could be pretty much described as a steady uphill climb. It was something many aspire to have-financial independence and job security. She was also happily married to Sanjay Nayar whom she had met back during her days at the IIM, Mumbai, while pursuing her MBA and was a proud mother to twins. But still, she felt there was something missing-a void somewhere that needed to be filled. During her time as managing director at Kotak, seeing so many young business ventures start up and flourish made her dream of doing the same. But it would be a leap of faith, and was the risk worth taking? The decision was difficult to make, as everything so far seemed to be smooth sailing, so she set her herself a deadline-by age 50 she wanted to be an entrepreneur. So in 2012 after 20 years as a investment banker and stock broker, at what one could call the peak of her career, Falguni Nayar quit her job to pursue her dream, and few months shy of her 50th birthday she launched Nykaa from her Father’s office. Nykaa was an omnichannel beauty product retailer with an online platform which today has stores all around the country. But why a beauty product related venture? and that too it started off as an online platform-Nayar was no techie nor was she very passionate about using beauty products. And also, at that time e-commerce wasn’t very popular.
The idea dawned when she began to feel empowered and confident on being guided to use beauty products the right way..no wonder she chose to name her startup Nykaa which means heroine and beauty in Sanskrit. She wanted to do the same for others-guiding and helping other women to do the same, as at that time, buying make up for women was an activity that involved limited choice and range of products. Today Nykaa fantastically manages to bring together the personal care market i.e., fashion and beauty products and also capitalize on a strong online presence, bringing international luxury brands to Indian households. The beginning had its fair share of hurdles, remembers Nayar’s daughter Adwaita “Our founding team quit within a year of launch. The website would keep crashing. Our CTOs kept quitting. We had no enterprise resource planning system in place therefore the minute we hit 100 orders, the whole system crumbled.
My mother and I would be at the warehouse packing boxes’’. They started investing in marketing, and by August of 2013 it paid off and demand picked up, and participation in the Google Online Shopping Festival proved a shot in the arm. Nayar is a risk taker but then, it is only the brave that fortune favours. Lakmé was the first brand to get associated with Nykaa and today, it has thousands of brands associated with it dealing with skincare, haircare, make up products etc. It also has its own range of beauty and personal care products. Through her experience as a banker Nayar managed to create a capital efficient and asset light business model. And within a span of just a few years Nykaa became a profitable company, a feat achieved by few. The company was listed with a market capitalization of around 13 billion dollars thus comfortably breaking into India’s top 50 most valuable companies. In 2017 she was awarded the ‘Most Powerful Woman in Business’.
Falguni proved to the world that it is never too late to chase your dreams. In 2020 they started the process of preparing for an IPO, which was oversubscribed and debuted with a nearly 80% premium. The IPO made Nayar the first Indian woman to take a unicorn public.When the pandemic struck it affected sales, but they took the call of not letting go of employees, choosing rather to involve themselves in the deliveries of essential goods.Surely one would think that this would be the epitome for Nayar but no, she still wants to continue to take risks and explore new possibilities. Nykaa Man was launched as a lifestyle platform with products for personal care and tech accessories. Her son Anchit joined in to help the growing business, taking over the retail business while his sister handled the offline business. And as Anchit Nayar says Nykaa has democratized access for both customers and brands.
In November of 2021 Nayar became India’s richest self made woman billionaire. Nayar says she never quite realised that Nykaa was the ‘next big thing’ until listing day. “We didn’t anticipate this kind of a post-listing performance” she says,“I think the investors liked the fact that we have a long-term orientation.” When asked about the next big milestones, “Nothing” she says, “Just keep going.”Falguni Nayar was ranked 88th in Forbes’ list of the 100 most Powerful Women in the World for 2021, the only Indian besides Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Like her role model Bill Gates, Nayar also indulges in Philanthropy, raising funds for Project Nanhi Kali which is an Indian NGO that provides Primary Education for underprivileged girls in India. Nayar has also tried to build her platform as one for women empowerment, providing employment to many women. In Falgun iNayar’s words “Entrepreneurship is an adventure that needs courage. Age and inexperience are not liabilities”.In a country where women are expected to devote less time to careers and more to their children and homemaking responsibilities, Nayar has led by example that where there is a will, there is a way, all you need is a strong will to never give up until you reach your goal.
Speaking of adventures- as Thornton Wilder quoted, Life is a fatal adventure, it can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and as free as possible? ”Carpe Diem!
By: Ishana de Souza
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