Shradha Sharma: The envoy of India’s startup story 

There’s a story in everyone. And if it is to do with Indian startups and entrepreneurs, chances are Shradha Sharma’s YourStory would have told that.

The website is perhaps the most influential—or at least the most vocal—platform for startups in India today. Since its launch in 2008, YourStory has published nearly 72,000 articles, and has over 10 million “engaged readers every month”, according to the company.

“Sometimes you just need to listen to people, they don’t need solutions from you, they will find solutions themselves…they just need someone to hear them out,” says Sharma, the founder and chief executive.

Sharma’s proposition is straightforward: Tell the story of an entrepreneur who is doing anything that could be a gamechanger in the industry. “I think YourStory was a very simple idea. It was such a simple idea that nobody thought of doing it—just tell stories, and tell these stories digitally without judging the person (entrepreneur) and write on their voice, pains, passion…what is that person thinking,” says Sharma.

While the journalistic argument against articles that focus solely on one side of the story is always strong, YourStory isn’t your typical news platform. It occupies a place somewhere between a hard news publication and celebratory journalism.

According to the company, its content is “positive, vibrant, celebratory, even ana - lytical but never cynical”. The articles and videos are done in-house by a team of 22 reporters and more than 15 freelancers. In all the company has 100 employees.

Regardless of how one describes YourStory, what isn’t disputable is Sharma’s success in building a venture bootstrapped from personal savings of Rs 2 lakh into a force to be reckoned with in the startup community.

Sharma also has the backing of prominent venture capitalists such as Kalaari Capital, UC-RNT, 3one4 Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures are the other inves - tors who together have funded over $8.5 million in YourStory since 2015. That Sharma has previously worked as an assistant vice president of Capital18, an investment arm of Network18, perhaps helps her understand business model better.

The strong footing such investments provide is relatively new for Sharma. She says in the early days she had to plough the profits back into the business to keep the lights on. The company recorded profits between 2011 and 2015; its EBITDA margin—a measure of operating profitability—was around 44%, says Sharma.

It, however, posted a loss of Rs 5.9 crore in FY16, which increased to Rs 7.9 crore the following year. Its revenue in FY17 stood at Rs 10.4 crore. Sharma says the company “will be back to profitability” this financial year. “In the worst case scenario, we should be breaking even.”

Crucial to this ambition are YourStory’s partnerships with businesses. It currently has over 140 clients who pay for “discover - ability, rich data and connections”. “We do this matchmaking very effectively. From Google to Microsoft to IBM to Tissot, we work with all sorts of brands. This is also our moat to the business. I call it storyas-a-service,” says Sharma. She, however, asserts that YourStory “never takes any money from entrepreneurs for featuring them”. “We take money from corporates and unicorns for co-branded content.” Unicorn is startup parlance for companies with a valuation of at least a billion dollars.

Sharma’s investors appear confident of her strategy. Vani Kola, managing director of Kalaari Capital, says the investment firm looks for entrepreneurs focussed on “building sustainable businesses and creating a brand with tremendous integrity”.

“There is a very large market opportunity and some people will capture a piece of the opportunity. I think her target market is clearly defined and we firmly believe she has created a unique brand,” says Kola. “Also very important for us is the entrepreneur’s ability to evaluate the market evolution, create something compelling, and have the ability to be capital efficient.”

Sharma believes she knows the market and has the ability to tap into it. So she has set ambitious targets of 100 million visitors over the next 12 to 18 months and revenue of Rs 100 crore. It is easier said than done as, according to SimilarWeb, a website traffic monitor, YourStory.com had 4.5 million visitors this January.

Sharma is also keen to take YourStory to new territories; it launched in Germany last year and she hopes to enter Israel in the near future. Back home, YourStory is strengthening its Hindi offering, besides continuing its other 11 language services.

She also foresees YourStory playing the role of startup accelerator and even setting up an investment fund of its own. “We are running accelerators for a lot of people. Will we start our own accelerators or a fund, let’s see. These things are all about the right time and for us the right time is now,” she says.

In Sharma’s vision, the first 10 years were spent in laying the foundation of YourStory. And now “it is ready to take off”.

(The article was originally published in 15 March-14 June special issue of the magazine.)