Get full access to one story every week, and to summaries of all other stories. Just create a free account

When it comes to startups, is there such a thing as too much money? Can you be addicted to it? Speak to Rajiv Srivatsa and Ashish Goel, co-founders of furniture e-tailer Urban Ladder, first-hand survivors.

The two 38-year-old co-founders, one a Chennai boy, and other from Ghaziabad, who still tries to take the bus wherever he can, brought their frugal middle-class upbringing to the business too when they launched in 2012.

Growth for the company was steady for the first two and half years, growing at 1.8X a year. And then came the boom in 2014, the time when companies went giddy raising money. Urban Ladder, too, was one such that went from having a modest $6 million in the bank in November 2013 to a cash pile of $77 million in two rounds by the summer of 2015.

So what does so much cash do to a company?

Simple, you grow like you never did before.

Until 2014, the company was a team of 40 people operating out of a 6,000 sq ft bungalow making revenues of Rs 2.7 crore (as per Registrar of Companies filings) from selling an assortment of about 500 products on their platform in three cities.

But when you see competition raise money and see that the macro environment was upbeat (for funding), you start making bigger bets, says Srivatsa. Dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a black shirt with the company logo emblazoned on it, it’s evident he wears Urban Ladder on his sleeve.

So with two consecutive rounds of 20 million in July 2014 and 50 million in April 2015, Urban Ladder’s ambitions suddenly expanded into a 42,000-sq ft swanky office.  Everything assumed larger proportions in those 16 months–it had more than double the people, eight times more products were made available, expanded to 10 more cities and surely to keep them going four times more coffee was consumed.  

With this ramp up, the company was making close to Rs 19.2 crore in revenues by FY15, about six times more than what they did in the previous years.

And Urban Ladder was hooked to this.

“When you have more money, you start to think, we grew close to 1.8X earlier, so we thought let’s grow a bit more,” says Srivatsa confessing to the addictive nature of growth.

And that bit became 4X.

By now, the company also wanted to be seen as a big brand. So from 2015, it spent big bucks on running three different TV campaigns for nearly 15 months in prime time slots.  

Besides chasing growth, what came with the money was the restlessness to solve problems.

AUTHOR

Arundhati Ramanathan

Arundhati is interested in how people use money in the digital age and how new economies will take shape based on that interaction. She writes the newsletter Ka-Ching! every Thursday. She lives in Bengaluru and has spent 14 years reporting and writing on various subjects.

View Full Profile

Subscribe to read this story

The Ken is the only business subscription you need. Questions?

 

Premium

  • 5 original and reported longform business stories every week
  • Access to ONLY India edition
  • Close to 250 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories
  • Pick up to 5 premium subscriber newsletters
  • 4 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to ONLY Southeast Asia edition
  • Close to 200 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to all paywalled stories since March 2020
  • Pick up to 5 premium subscriber newsletters

Rs. 2,750 /year

$ 120 /year

India Edition
Subscribe Subscribe
Most Asked For

Borderless

  • 8 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to both India and Southeast Asia editions
  • Close to 400 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories across India and Southeast Asia
  • Unlimited access to all premium subscriber newsletters
  • Visual Stories

Rs. 4,200 /year

Subscribe
 

Echelon

  • 8 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to both India and Southeast Asia editions
  • Close to 400 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories across India and Southeast Asia
  • Unlimited access to all premium subscriber newsletters
  • Visual Stories
  • Bonus annual gift subscription
  • Priority access to all new products and features

Rs. 8,474 /year

Subscribe
Or

Questions?

What kind of subscription plans do you offer?

We have three types of subscriptions
- Premium which gives you access to either the India or the Southeast Asia edition.
- Borderless which gives you complete access to The Ken across both editions
- Echelon which gives you complete access to The Ken across both editions along with a bonus gift subscription

What do I get if I subscribe?

The Premium edition gives you access to stories in that edition along with any five subscriber-only newsletters of your choice.

The Borderless and Echelon subscription gives you complete access to The Ken across editions and unlimited access to as many newsletters as you like.

What topics do you usually write about?

We publish sharp, original and reported stories on technology, business and healthcare. Our stories are forward-looking, analytical and directional — supported by data, visualisations and infographics. We use language and narrative that is accessible to even lay readers. And we optimise for quality over quantity, every single time.

Our specialised subscriber-only newsletters are written by our expert, award-winning journalists and cover a range of topics across finance, retail, clean energy, cryptocurrency, ed-tech and many more.

How many newsletters do you have?

We are constantly adding specialised subscriber-only newsletters all the time. All of these are written by our team of award-winning journalists on a specialised topic.

You can see the list of newsletters that we publish over here.

Does a Premium subscription to your Indian edition get me access to the Southeast Asia edition? Or vice-versa?

Afraid not. Each edition is separate with its own subscription plan. The India edition publishes stories focused on India. The Southeast Asia edition is focused on Southeast Asia. We may occasionally cross-publish stories from one edition to the other.

We recommend the Borderless or the Echelon Plan which will give you access to stories across both editions.

Do you have a mobile app?

Yes! We have a top-rated mobile app on both iOS and Android which allows you to read on-the-go and has some amazing features like the ability to bookmark stories, save on your device, dark mode, and much more. It’s really the best way to read The Ken.

Is there a free trial?

You can sign up for a free account to experience The Ken and understand our products better. We’ll send you some free stories and newsletters occasionally, and you can access our archive of previously published free stories. You can stay on the free account as long as you’d like.

The vast majority of our stories, articles and newsletters can be accessed only by a paid subscription.

Do you offer any discounts?

Sorry, no. Our journalism is funded completely by our subscribers. We believe that quality journalism comes at a price, and readers trust and pay us so that we can remain independent.

Do you offer refunds?

No. We allow you to sample our journalism for free before signing up, and after you do, we stand by its quality. But we do not offer refunds.

I am facing some trouble purchasing a subscription. What can I do?

Just write to us at [email protected] with details. We’ll help you out.

I have a few more questions. How can I reach out to you?

Sure. Just email us at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter.