Upkar is the founder of CREA Worldwide where he focuses on group strategy, expansion and finances. He intends to make CREA the biggest and the best name in corporate, travel and retail merchandise industry in India and the Middle East. He believes that one needs to constantly hone his skills to reach the zenith of the industry and believes that brand merchandising as a vertical is disorganized but has the potential to turn into an organised large-scale industry. He is an avid reader, traveller and an autodidact, who armed with the sense of wonder, devotes two months a year to the endeavour of learning newer disciplines. He uses his time on travel to absorb new locales, cuisines, cultures while unlearning and purging the "know all attitude" that we all are besieged by. He keeps himself abreast with ever-changing knowledge-scape by delving deeply into emerging trends in consumer markets around the world to open new vistas for CREA and the brand merchandising industry in India.
 
Established in 2008, CREA has graduated from being a 2-person business with a desk in a tie share business centre to a multinational sourcing agency and a manufacturing enterprise serving over 400 clients in 18 countries, 4 continents and 7 different time zones. CREA is a domain expert and firmly believes that merchandise should be indicative of the brand ethos. CREA, which originates from the Hindi word meaning “process” is an ever-evolving enterprise that is pushing its boundaries by crossing the prescribed threshold. Right from sourcing the raw material to manufacturing and exporting and importing it, CREA seamlessly integrates all the aspects of a true brand merchandiser in it. With over 7 years of experience in serving the requirements of corporate gifts, promotional merchandise, conference gifts, employee appreciation awards, uniform and corporate apparel for their esteemed corporate clientele, they have developed high quality and cost consciousness superior levels of customer service, proactive approach for solution providing and a Sound logistics setup. With a pool of over 400 clients and numerous case studies that each depict a story of its own, CREA has embarked on a journey of turnkey projects creating great products that resonate with the brand ethos of its clients. MindYourBusiness caught up with Upkar who was more than forthcoming to talk about himself and CREA and his foray into the niche arena of corporate gifting.
 
I was born in Jaipur in the western state of Rajasthan. I spent my childhood in many places, notably Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ambala, Jammu and Srinagar. My longest stints during my school years were at St. Anne’s, Jodhpur and Tagore Public School, Jaipur, then I did my graduation and post-graduation in commerce and business management from the University of Rajasthan.
 
Corporate gifting is a tiny subset of brand merchandising. Corporate gifting is a means for a brand/company to reward its internal/external stakeholders, channel-partners, employees for being associated with them. Brand merchandising encompasses the entire universe of a brand’s endeavour to permeate the consciousness of its audience by using merchandise elements like packaging, gifts, print and promotional merchandise etc. Using corporate gifting with brand merchandising interchangeably is part of the reason why the industry is often misrepresented.
                 
I got into brand merchandising after working for a few years. It wasn’t a conscious plunge into the arena. While I was planning to start out on my own, a friend working with an advertising agency asked me if I could help him source a few t-shirts for his client. It was serendipitous that I said yes because soon after began my journey into this industry.
 
Around the time I was in high-school, I had decided that I would do something on my own. I didn’t really have clarity in terms of what I planned to do, but the bug of entrepreneurship bit me long before it went viral in India.
 
I’ve had many mentors. I’ve been fortunate enough to have come across people with an amazing work ethic in my journey as a young upstart. Each one of them unknowingly shaped my philosophy and helped me immensely. I didn’t actively seek a mentor, nor do I think that only those who are good to you are your mentors. In my view, the many unscrupulous characters I’ve come across have been my guiding light on “what not to do” and “what not to become”. 
 
CREA is my third entrepreneurial endeavour. I started a web design company in Jaipur as my first venture, but I lost interest in it. Jaipur being a small city was making me feel claustrophobic, so in early part of 2000, I came to Delhi.
 
I had just resigned from my first job and had signed up for a computer programming course. Being a full-time student was something I grown unused to from the age of 17. Soon I was itching to either get a job or start something on my own. Since I was learning programming, I teamed up with a friend to launch a website development firm, we did alright till I lost interest. My friend stayed the firm and still runs it albeit under a different name.
 
When I started out, I just saw it as a means to do something on my own. I didn’t start with a big vision statements or with the intent of solving a problem. I just saw an industry with a low entry barrier and I found it interesting. The goal was to work hard, grow and stitch together an honest living without being answerable to anyone. The ambition to scale up came much later. It was an organic outcome of being in the industry, being confronted with problems, understanding the potential. But in the last few years, Crea, is what I wanted it to be. We have been meticulous in the last few years in shaping its direction and culture. We have a vision 2021 and we are steadfastly sticking to our roadmap.
 
Ours is a B2B business, it’s driven by our interactions with our current and potential customers. The constant grouse of people on the service provider side in a B2B environment is that the customer often comes unprepared to table which wastes a lot of effort and time at both ends. This is a real challenge the world over, but in India with the “mai-baap” culture so firmly entrenched even in the corporate sphere, it is often a lopsided relationship where the vendor is usually at the mercy of the client 100 per cent of the time. From the client’s side, there is a genuine grouse that vendors are unreliable and constantly falling short on commitments. In an environment like this, it’s extremely important to scope your interactions.
 
In the initial years, we used to get frustrated because there were no tangible outcomes despite multiple rounds of meetings. We did a bit of soul-searching and decided that the best course of action would be to focus on interacting with decision-makers, going for big ticket projects and essentially becoming careful about choosing whom we would take on as clients. We also undertook a shocking exercise in the 6th year of our existence, we fired 70 per cent of our customers (we refused to work with them). This allowed us to better our service and product offering, go international and get on to a rapid growth trajectory. The result is that in the last 2 years, we have quadrupled our business and are looking at 80%+ YOY growth this financial.
 
Our milestones are revenue led only to an extent. While we chase growth, we are mindful about bottom-line. Being a bootstrapped company, we don’t talk or think “burn rates”. We are focussed on becoming the gold-standard of service and quality in our industry internationally, a 100 per cent of our focus is on innovation, capacity expansion and reach. We don’t obsess about numbers in the short-term, we have to focus on being the best in what we do and be known for it, globally. As we cross these milestones and come across the bridge where inorganic avenues of growth or rapid scale need to be achieved, we shall explore the best possible avenue of monetisation. We are agnostic towards VC, PE or going public, it’s just a means to an end.
 
Learnings never stop! But I guess, the earliest learning was that it always seems easier on paper than doing it in real life. Entrepreneurship is a masochistic play. You really need to be able to self inflict misery upon yourself to be a bootstrapped entrepreneur.
 
I play with a straight bat, it’s best to be honest and direct and have integrity. Having said that, human interactions tend to be complex and layered, often one forgets the outcome one is hoping to achieve and starts focussing on the emotions one feels, especially during tough times. The book Art of War by Sun Tzu is perhaps the most valuable resource to learn about business interactions, I often reflect on that, sometimes I don’t measure up but I do genuinely try to be the best I can.
 
The one thing I can share is that one should not avoid conflict neither should one go looking for it. My clients have taught me that, “a customer is not always right”, you have to know them, learn about them and your purpose should be at all times to help them achieve their objectives without compromising on your welfare or ethics. Thanks to my customers, I’ve learnt to say “NO”.
 
Employees, are your responsibility as an entrepreneur, I’m old fashioned that way. But they are not children, if one seeks responsible adults, one should treat them that way. One learns the most from employees, their experience, their motivations. If a person low down in the chain of command has an opinion about your product or your company, it’s your responsibility to pay attention to it. I have learnt to understand that not everybody will share your passion or your vision, but if you could just place a right person in a right job, even the most unenthusiastic can deliver amazing results. Dealing with employees have made me more objective.
 
Since CREA is evolving with strategic partners in various geographies, I’ve learnt my lessons the hard way but it has changed me for the better. I’ve become assertive yet sensitive to the other person’s thought process.
 
We were fortunate to have customers that expected the best and were willing to wait for it and pay for it. Our first major international project was for Kohinoor rice – to develop a one-of-its-kind special edition value-added packaging (VAP) for its rice globally. It was a drawing board to the last mile project where we conceptualised, developed and shipped high quality tin packaging for our client across the world. It gave us immense confidence in our ability to undertake and execute large-scale projects. Since then we have undertaken turnkey project management for our customers across 18 countries and 3 continents.
 
I learnt very early to value experience and learning over cash in bank. Importance of value over valuation. If there is one principle that drives me as a person, it is to create value. Value for customers, employees and partners will ensure Crea will last, it won’t be a founder-driven company inextricably linked to the founder. I want to make sure that that I build companies that last where honesty, integrity and loads of hard work count.
 
Since my goal is straightforward, I can safely say that my biggest reward is that I have a happy life. I look forward to each day, I always believe that today will be better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better than today.