In a conversation with G20, Sanya Goel, co-founder and director of HUMSAFAR, talks about her passionate entrepreneurial endeavour, and how her business has provided opportunities to people.
Q. You are an achiever extraordinaire, would you mind sharing with us your story?
A. I have grown up around the Petroleum Industry and have visited the retail outlets innumerable times with my extended families. After completing my post-graduation, I joined the family retail outlet to have a firsthand customer experience of retail business and also to serve the customers better. It was here I saw the shortcomings of this industry; diesel was delivered to the customer in barrels which used to lead to pilferage, wastage, and theft. After a lot of deliberation within the family, we decided to adopt the Swiggy and Zomato way, thus the concept of diesel door delivery was born. However, this could not be formalised until 2017, as Government clearance had not been obtained. My father backed the concept of doorstep delivery of fuel and pioneered the use of technology to minimise human intervention. Now with a click of a button, diesel can be delivered at the customer’s homes.
Q. During these unprecedented times, how have you been able to sequester and anticipate the plight of farmers?
A. We were the first company to understand the plight of the farmers and act swiftly to refuel their harvesters to ensure normal harvesting. Today I am proud and happy to say that we have helped 289 farmers and delivered 1,87,377 liters of diesel. We understood that farmers had a small window of time to harvest and reap their crops or the crop perishes. The lockdown further worsened the situation for the farmers. We rose to the situation and helped them to receive diesel in their hour of crisis. We are extremely grateful to Dy. Commissioner Karnal who flagged our initiative backed us and also to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas who helped us in reaching out to the farmers. Our humble and sincere thanks to them!
Q. Share with us the processes of your engaging and uplifting budding entrepreneurs in your sector.
We extend end to end solution. We help our network of dealers to fabricate bowsers to help them enter the business. They are trained to give an end to end solutions for their customers which includes marketing and sourcing, new customers. We encourage people who are not in the business of fuel delivery to become entrepreneurs by giving them franchise options. To deserving entrepreneurs, we also handhold for financial support. And being a Tech platform, Tech artists get employment as well. We have managed to give gainful employment to around 50 people.
Q. Share 5 applicable points of application for any business person.
The five important tenets to survive in this business, in my opinion, are:
Hard work: One should have the passion and the ability to thrive even at the cost of personal comfort
Risk-taking: This step requires courage as you solely follow your gut instinct.
Value employees: Treat your employees fairly as they are partners in your business and help you to grow.
Innovate with time: Offer value-added services to your customer for them to stay loyal.
The devil lies in the details: Intimate knowledge of the industry helps you to get the right solution.