2 minutes read

A Local Retail Success Story – Conversation with Nadeem Jafri of Hearty Mart

A mart with a rural heart! An Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur finds that economically backward and rural areas want Supermarkets as much as cities do.

In this latest episode of D’Podcast, Abhishek Desai and Kuntal Shah converse with Nadeem Jafri, an MBA from IMS, Indore and an advertising and media professional, who decided to plunge into the retail wave and start his own venture Hearty Mart in the unexplored and often neglected area of Juhapura-Vishala Circle in Ahmedabad.

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A few excerpts from the conversation:

Abhishek: How did it all start?

Nadeem: Hearty Mart started in 2004. I always say that when I started the word “Startup” was not coined. This is how I try to introduce my business. It is a journey of 13 years now.

Abhishek: Interestingly, our journey at Digicorp also started in 2004 so that way we are co-sharing a journey. How did the idea of Hearty Mart came into the picture?

Nadeem: I was in Bombay trying to meet few recruitment consultants and wanted to see what is my prospect as an ad professional in Bombay. I was bluntly said that my age and my experience does not matching as I was 31 with 2 years of experience. My first job in 1993 was in Sales and the experience was really bad. I had closed doors for Sales as a career. There was no other options left and there was no opportunities in Ahmedabad. The growth was stagnant. The only option left was to look entrepreneurship. So that is how I started looking at Entrepreneurship as a career.

Abhishek: OK Great! Very interesting because generally this is not the way people jump into Entrepreneurship. It is great to hear your story.

Kuntal: We heard that you have a great passion of serving customers in a much better way. What would be so special when someone visits Hearty Mart?

Nadeem: We try to sale the product the way everybody else does but we do lots of work on customers’ preferences, we analyse lots of data now. We try to create customer profile and we try to create product profile. This process connects us with the customers directly. We also come up with customer schemes on regular basis.

Abhishek: How many number of stores are there right now?

Nadeem: 12.

Abhishek: Which are your favorite brands if you have to pick any two?

Nadeem: Amul. I like the communication of it. It is very difficult to build a brand from the co-operative sector which Amul has successfully done since long time.

Links

• Hearty Mart Website
• Hearty Mart on Twitter and Facebook
• Hearty Mart: Endearing Success of a Small-Town Retailer
• Hearty Mart is creating entrepreneurs at rural level

If you like what we’re doing, please review this podcast on iTunes. You can also follow Digicorp, Abhishek or Kuntal on Twitter.