Shailaja Rangarajan - Outlook Times

Shailaja Rangarajan, Founder, Director of Rimagined

Brief us about the outset story of your career.

I started my career in the area of Supply Chain consulting. It was while I was in the corporate role, I got involved with Solid Waste Management. While doing voluntary work in SWM, I became aware of the environmental issues and crisis that we are all facing. After quitting my corporate job, I got into SWM work full time, which eventually led me to lauch Rimagined 7 years ago.

Enlighten us about your greatest strength. How are you different from others in your field?

Having been a process consultant for 15 years, I am tuned to connecting the dots and coming up with solutions to address various challenges. The vision that drives Rimagined is to make Upcycling a worldwide movement and get people to look at Upcycled products as their first choice of consumption.

The idea is to dream big as the challenge we are addressing is also global. While most upcyclers focus on a particular type of waste material, we choose to work with varied types of materials. The idea is not to just Upcycle. The idea is to make Upcycling a lifestyle and create an Upcycled alternative to almost every product that a consumer would use as part of everyday consumption. With that as the key focus area, we continuously experiment, innovate and come up with interesting and practical designs while playing with different and varied materials.

Since I don’t come from a design background, I am not constrained by blinders in terms of design feasibility. This gives us the option to experiment and come up with ideas and solutions which others might not conceptualise.

Tell us about your organisation. What are your primary roles and responsibilities?

We are a team of individuals who are driven by the passion to excel at the work we do.

While I handle the strategy, operations of the enterprise, I am supported by a very strong and committed team that translates all my 30000ft ideas into tangible products.

My strength lies in creative visualisation of solutions and establish a strong network and supply chain in the backend. The team complements this with their skill in working with different materials and design concepts to be able to come up with the very high-quality products that one will find at Rimagined.

Can you please walk us through the major accomplishments throughout your journey?

Rimagined was launched as a marketplace 7 years ago. This was the time when no one even spoke about marketplaces focusing on Sustainable consumption. We were the first movers in the space. One major milestone is the switch in our business model 4.5 years ago. This was when we started our own production unit of creating Upcycled products. We realised to chase the dream of making Upcycling a movement, we need to get deeper into the game and create our own products. Design and wide range of product is key.

Products that are of very high quality, clear focus on utility while being aesthetically pleasing. The Wow element is what we take pride in.

We started working with Denim waste. Our next milestone was when we added waste yarn to our range of materials. From here, we went on to add Wood, Woollen yarn, Tyre Tubes.

And as we did that, our product categories expanded. So today you can say we are a conglomerate of Premium Upcycled lifestyle products.

How did you respond to the challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic? What measures did you incorporate to surpass the challenges?

Like most of the business, we were also hit badly by the pandemic. But what helped us deal with the pandemic was our “lean inventory” model. We were not having to deal with piled up stock like many other businesses. We did not have our cash held up in stock that could not be liquidated immediately. Being a boot-strapped enterprise, this was our lifeline. This helped us pay our staff even during the pandemic when we had zero sales. This reconfirmed to us that we got our working model right as this also helped us adapt quickly to unforeseen challenges

The pandemic also taught us that online model is the future. This is infact a bigger challenge to surmount, given the mindset of the consumers towards upcycled products. Seeing is believing – this worked very well for us as we grew. But now we are reinventing ourselves so that we can convey the same story, more convincingly through our online store. This, I would say, is a new innings for us.

Who in your life inspires you the most?

I have found inspiration from various people at various stages. As a person, what I am, is all thanks to my mother. Stoic, composed and never a person who would complain. She would silently do what is needed even in the toughest of times. As a kid, I grew up emulating her.

Focus on knowledge not on money. This was another aspect that got ingrained in me from my mother. And that still continues.

And once I stepped out of my corporate role, I have taken inspiration from so many eco champions like Jane Goodall, Sir David Attenborough and closer home my uncle Govindacharya. What strikes me most about that generation of conservationists and champions is how they have gone about quietly doing what they believe in without bothering about brand building and promotions. The impact their work has had in conservation of the ecosystem speaks for itself. Find your purpose and dedicate your time to that purpose. Let the work do the talking! Rest will follow.

What advice would you give to the next generation of aspiring and budding Business people?

There is no ten-point formula to success. Also, there is no standard definition of success. I believe each one has to write down their own definition of success. The key is to believe in what one has set out to do. There should be a certain degree of madness while chasing a dream. I think it is this madness that will ensure you don’t give up when challenges come up. And challenges are bound to come up in any business.

Be open to taking advice. But yes, what you do should always be defined by your set of values, not because someone else says so. End of day, what an entrepreneur goes through is a very personal journey. No two entrepreneurs will have the same trajectory or path. To falter is to learn. To get up and move ahead is growth.

So, own it and live the dream every single day.

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