For someone who didn’t give herself a career choice- Poonam Bir Kasturi was always born to lead. Her entrepreneurial skills were first identified and nurtured by her father, who was her friend, philosopher and guide in the true sense of the word. With all
For someone who didn’t give herself a career choice- Poonam Bir Kasturi was always born to lead. Her entrepreneurial skills were first identified and nurtured by her father, who was her friend, philosopher and guide in the true sense of the word. With all the innovations to her credit, this humble and humane lady prefers to be called the ‘Compostwalli’ of India. Giving her due credit for all that she has gone through to make her contribution count for the ecosystem, Poonam calls Daily Dumps a 'not-for greed company', for which she is charting a growth route with sustainability at its core foundation.
Quick facts:
AP: Tell us about your company Daily Dumps? How did the company come into existence?
PBK: Daily Dumps is a company that helps you convert your organic waste to compost. We facilitate a lot of product, service and technical support in this regard and also encourage opening of clones that will take this venture a step further. Daily Dumps is all about the age old composting, that has been decoded to make it feasible at the micro or home level.
I have always been curious on how we can design a fresh way of looking at change in the way we do business; in the way we approach our everyday problems, change in our mindsets. My background of working in small scale industry, crafts, design education etc helped me formulate the vision I had for Daily Dump. I wanted to do something where I could apply all the ideas that were to crying out in my head for action.
AP: What is your business model? What all do you offer under this name?
PBK: We offer products, services and an open-source platform for others to use the knowledge and build on it. We are slowly developing into a community of domain experts who have experience on the ground.
AP: How has the company grown under your able guidance? What has been your strategy to bring it to this level since inception?
PBK: I think that the time is right – there is a heightened consciousness about the environment now. Bangalore is a great place to work with new ideas, so it is both a case of the right time and place and a case of hard perseverance. Saying yes, I can do this, even if there seems to be no real change visible – as yet, is what drives me.
AP: What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far while trying to promote eco-friendly means in India?
PBK: Mindsets. Nobody wants to work with their own waste in India. The government believes and supports large centralized systems without enough support on informal networks or decentralized solutions. The tender document of waste for every city in India needs to be rewritten.
AP: What has been the key marketing and brand building strategy that you have adopted? Also what is your USP?
PBK: We have relied on word of mouth publicity to build our brand. We are very committed to customer satisfaction and our USP is that we are transparent about our processes and our faults. We do not market – we innovate and wait for the light of that to draw people in.
AP: What is your take on Private equity and Venture capital investment as funding options in case you look out to expand your business operations?
PBK: So far, I have used my money to fund the business. I believe, I need to learn more about this, but yes, good partners who bring other skills to the table are very valuable.
AP: What is your word of advice for today’s entrepreneurs who would like to enter into this Industry? What investment is needed?
PBK: The investment of fresh thought. If we continue to do business as usual, the sheer size of our population will bring down whatever growth figures we now are proud of. Fresh thinking is the best investment this country needs. Money it already has.
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