The Neon Show The Journey of CaratLane: Challenges, Growth, and the Acquisition by Titan with Founder Mithun Sacheti
In this episode, we talk with Mithun Sacheti, the founder of CaratLane, who has disrupted the traditional jewellery industry in India by leveraging technology and innovation. He started CaratLane in 2008 with the vision to provide access to beautiful jewellery designs at an affordable price.
Mithun Sacheti comes from a Marwari family and joined the family jewellery business, Jaipur Gems, after graduation. He started its stores in Chennai. Later, he founded CaratLane in 2008 after being inspired by the online jewellery retailer, Blue Nile. CaratLane aims to solve the problem of limited access to beautiful and affordable jewellery designs for the middle class in India.
The conversation dives into his entrepreneurial journey, his insights on the Indian D2C startup ecosystem, and the challenges he faced along the way. Mithun recalls the struggles he had in convincing Bluedart to be their shipping partner and how it took them almost a year and a crore to build their website.
Tune in now to know Mithun’s journey of building CaratLane from scratch, his belief that in life, the harder thing is not to find answers but to find the right questions and what are the next questions for him in life.
Notes -
00:00 - Highlights of the conversation
01:45 - The idea & Need of CaratLane
01:55 - Disrupting the underserved jewellery market in India
03:19 - The first one to bring jewellery at low prices
03:33 - The designs should be democratised
03:55 - Becoming the Market Maker
04:04 - The reality of the Jewellery Market in India
06:08 - Why 25% of your wealth should be in form of gold?
06:47 - The effect of the Ukraine War on the purchase of gold
07:05 - Quitting family business to start Caratlane
08:30 - Life of kids born in families running big businesses
08:58 - Inspiration behind starting Caratlane
10:36 - First few pivots in their product journey
13:38 - Initial phase of building and growing Caratlane
17:57 - Raising funding & building for Titan
21:57 - Journey after Tiger Global’s funding
24:12 - Getting advice from Raamdeo Agrawal at Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s dinner
31:48 - Why do people really buy jewellery?
39:13 - Tata group being able to marry the Entrepreneur to the business post-acquisition
43:03 - Learnings while working with Tata
46:15 - What are the next questions in life for him?