London Business School ecch:
ecch:
LBS REF:
John MullinsDate: August 2011
Myntra Designs Pvt Ltd (A)Mukesh Bansal took a deep breath. Hed
spent more than ten years preparing for the presentation he was
about to give, and he hoped his preparation would serve him well.
Intent on starting and successfully growing an entrepreneurial
company, Bansal, following his graduation from the Indian Institute
of Technology Kanpur, had left his native India for the
entrepreneurial hotbed of Silicon Valley in California. There he
had worked for four different start-ups, learning the ropes and
building entrepreneurial skills which, together with his innate
entrepreneurial instincts, he hoped, would serve him well when he
returned to India. In 2006, seeing Indias burgeoning growth and
increasingly fertile entrepreneurial landscape, Bansal had returned
to Bangalore, Indias own entrepreneurial hotbed. There, he
reconnected with some former schoolmates who brought complementary
skills and started Myntra Designs, a company which, like VC-backed
companies Zazzle and CafePress in California, would offer
personalised goods T-shirts, coffee mugs, and much more to Indias
growing cadre of internet-savvy consumers. Bootstrapping the
business with funds he had saved in California, Bansal incorporated
Myntra in November 2006, launched a beta website in May 2007, and,
on the strength of promising initial results, successfully raised
additional funds from some local business angels in September 2007.
In January 2008, the fledgling business took in RS 2 lacs in
revenue, about $4,000, and Bansal believed hed shown enough
traction to support a real market launch and to raise serious
money. By April, $400,000 had been committed of what Bansal hoped
would be a $4 million round from one or more major venture capital
firms, whose coffers were overflowing with investable money from
western sources. A few days earlier, he had secured a meeting with
Indo US Ventures, a new venture capital firm, whose founder, Vani
Kola, had also built her entrepreneurial career in Silicon Valley,
having started and successfully sold two ventures there. In just
under an hour, Bansal and his team were due in Kolas office to
pitch for the rest of the money they needed at this point. Was
Myntra a backable business, Bansal wondered? Did the business plan
he had prepared effectively articulate what he saw as significant
upside potential? Was there anything therein that was confusing,
inconsistent or unclear? He would know more about the answers to
these questions very soon.
John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice, London
Business School, prepared this case as a basis for class discussion
rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling
of an administrative situation. Financial data have been
disguised.
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