A developer turned marketing manager, Jay Sonavane has always been passionate about technology & innovation. And his academic journey as a computer science graduate & an MBA in International Business helped him in the right way to turn his passion into a career. Having started his career as a PHP developer, Jay quickly acquired a better understanding of the business world and stepped ahead to become a business development executive, later business development manager at several IT companies.
With Tailor Zone, Jay has taken another step forward in his career by becoming an entrepreneur. Tailor Zone is an online designer tailor shop that takes the whole professional tailoring experience at customers’ doorstep. With Tailor Zone, Jay aims to tidy-up the currently unorganized custom tailoring industry.
Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.
TailorZone is Ahmedabad’s First Online Designer Tailor Shop. With TailorZone you don’t have to step out of your house to stitch your next garment, as we brings the whole professional tailoring experience right at your doorstep. We take care of all your stitching needs starting from Indian, Western and Indo-Western wear. You need to simply submit your booking request and our tailor/consultant will come at your place to understand and collect your order. We also guide you in selecting the best design that can suit on your garment.
USP of TailorZone
- One Stop Shop to stitch all your garments like Indian, Western & Indo-Western.
- Ease of booking and scheduling your pick-up request from anywhere online.
- Flexibility to select your convenient date and time to schedule a pick-up.
- Expert Advice and Consultation provided for selecting best designs for you.
- Saves your lot of valuable time as everything happens right at your place.
- Very affordable rates for all this premium services.
- 100% customer satisfaction and perfect fitting guaranteed.
- Free shipping on all your order above Rs 750 within Ahmedabad.
- Cash on Delivery option available on all your orders.
What inspired you to build the above product/ service?
An idea of Tailor Zone was plotted last year, when one small incident happened. I got a CALL from my college friend who was getting married and for which I bought some good formal cloths. But when I reach to my tailor he refuse to accept my order as he was overloaded with festive season and the same story was with few other local tailor aswell. Later on I discuss this incident with my friend and to my surprise, they all also had face a similar excuse and problem from their tailor. When we dig this topic further, we realize that females were facing more problem with their tailor. We did some more research and found that the Tailoring Industry was most unorganized and we though that may be by making few corrections, we can organize it upto some level. This gave rise to TailorZone.
What is your life mantra?
Be the Change you want to see and when you start changing, you will find the all building bricks start sitting at the correct places for you.
What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?
At the initial level trying to convince tailors and boutique shops to work on an online tailoring concept was very difficult. All of them were happy with their traditional way of doing business and none of them were interested in accepting the online business model. So I think at the initial level trying to convince tailors to work on Online Business Model was the real challenge for us. But later on after few discussions we manage to convince them to work on this model.
How did you overcome those challenges?
Very first we did a small survey with end customers to identify what all major and common difficulties that they face with their regular tailors. Then we created a process about how the online tailoring concept can address those issues. This information, we collected and share it with Tailors and Boutique shop to convince them to work on this Online Tailoring Concept.
Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.
We are bootstrapping
How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?
In start-up there are no rules and no authorities. May be we can say everything is like try and error until we make it correct. So at TailorZone we accept and encourage ideas and inputs from each and every members. We ensure that each and every member enjoy the work that he do and in the way that he wanted to do. And at the end, we always get the results that we are looking at.
According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?
- Courage to take the first little step
- Patience till you achieve your goal
- Being flexible in different situations
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
Skype & Gmail
Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.
Taking time in making decisions
Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.
Working on multiple ideas at single point of time
Answer in less than 50 words
Try Try n Try untill you make it.
- One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:
Don’t ever fall in love with your idea, be realistic…
- One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:
To make any product or service perfect, you need to have a great team. So respect your team and ensure the their expectations are getting fulfill.
What are your plans for next 3 years?
We have defined both short term and long term plans
- Adding men category
- Offering Express Service (delivery within 48 hours)
- Targeting corporate sector
- Offering personalize design consultant service
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
There is no Perfect Start, but yes with correct decision and judgement you can always achieve a Perfect End. So I would say, I am happy with the way I have started and may not try anything different if I ever get a chance do it again.
What are your top three getaway destinations?
Ladakh, Goa, Vegas
Share a quote that inspires you the most.
“Be the change you want to see.”