Success gets talked about and a successful entrepreneur is held up as a role model. But there are lessons in failures too. This column will highlight the mistakes made by successful entrepreneurs and the lessons they learnt from their failures.

Ms Hemu Ramaiah is the founder / ex CEO of the Landmark chain of book / leisure stores. She started this exciting brand in 1987 and created a chain of 18 stores across the country. Landmark is known for its well-designed stores, a wide range of international products and legendary customer service which changed the way people buy in India.

Ms Hemu was instrumental in getting Landmark the ISO certification which was a first in retail in the country. Landmark has a track record of continuous growth in sales and profits over the last 20 years. She also set up the one of the biggest e-commerce sites in books in India called www.landmarkonthenet.com.

She founded a distribution/import/publishing company called Westland Books to establish the supply chain. Hemu has been a trend-setter whether in design, technology, concept or product.

She now uses her wealth of experience in the retail space in Shop 4 Solutions, her new consulting business. She is a venture partner with TVS Capital funds, a private equity fund specialising in the retail consumer space.

What is one major business decision in retrospect that you think was not wise while building Landmark?

I have 33 plus years in the book business. We started with one big store, made it profitable, considered mall opportunities, expanded in other cities as well. I started the backward integration process in 1994 and was successfully in the business of importing-retailing and publishing. In 1999, I wanted to be on the Internet. I spent about Rs 12 lakh on this medium and never had the vision on the Internet space. We were dependent on partners for search engine capabilities and Landmark was just executing the deals. If I had spent about Rs 10 crore in this medium which was the cost of opening two outlets then the Landmark brand on the Internet would have created waves considering the fact that we were carrying so much inventory.

What is the one mistake that you made and were able to rectify by making course corrections?

Franchising was a bad decision that we made. We don't own the product and we are in the trading business. Franchising is meant to be for a manufacturing venture and is not a good model for a trading business. This made the whole retailing complicated. Brand could not be replicated and consistency of the inventory was a major problem. The range of merchandising, which you want the franchisee to have, was not there. We cut our losses and quickly went back to have company owned stores and that continued to help us build a chain.

What is your advice to current entrepreneurs?

Learning is ongoing. Don't think you know it all. I still learn a lot from people. Even after the experience I have gained in the business there are areas where I reach out to people in order to learn. Entrepreneurs are good with the concept but when it comes to people, money and domain management they lack the experience and hence the need to learn.

We all come with a baggage be it the upbringing or our mindset. Entrepreneurs have to open their mind out and need to believe in building a business at a larger scale. Don't think that you want to control every aspect of your business. Then the growth is not scalable. When imparting knowledge and training, entrepreneurs need to do it whole-heartedly. It is fine if the employee leaves and goes elsewhere. If you think that you are helping the market to grow then you will also grow. That's the key to success.

(The author is the CEO of Energeate, an advisory firm for early stage ventures and cross-border companies. He is a Charter Member of TiE Chennai.)

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