Nandini Rathi started her entrepreneurial journey by co-founding Instablogs Network in 2005, at the time when the world of blogging was at its advent. She then launched Bornrich in 2006, a luxury website that featured lifestyle content for affluent customers. The site was popular, mainly in the United States and became one of the top luxury sites in the world. In 2007, PCMag listed Bornrich as one of the top 100 sites.
In 2013, Canadian-based Valnet Inc acquired Bornrich. Following the acquisition, Nandini exited and went on to co-found Betaout, a marketing personalisation and engagement platform for e-commerce companies with her husband, Ankit Maheshwari. Betaout raised $500,000 in seed funding from the founders of Snapdeal, Paytm, Redbus, Freshdesk and several other companies.
The Foundation of Instablogs and Bornrich
The internet always fascinated her and she realized the possibilities it had to offer and how they could be tapped. Nandini started her career by engaging in various forums around the world and became a moderator at one of the biggest marketing forum at that time. She took up marketing projects and strengthened her niche in content and marketing. She knew where she was headed and things fell into place as she paced ahead.
Nandini co-founded Instablogs Network with her husband, and Bornrich was a part of it. They bootstrapped it by maxing out their credit cards. They knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Another challenge that they faced was their target audience. They intended to target the global audience and for that they tried recruiting bloggers from different countries and built advanced systems to automate multiple administrative tasks.
“Back in India, the startup scene was in its infancy. People were clueless about blogs, in general, leave alone, making money out of blogging. So, we had a tough time hiring the right talent, that too, on a very limited budget. I was fortunate to build a great team early on, and that helped to make Instablogs the largest blog network in Asia.”
Nandini was based in India while her blogs were aiming an audience worldwide. They were often ignored by competitors and faced rejection, as they operated from a different time zone. She recalls how editors ignored her emails in the early days. But she persistently worked towards her goal and improved her news hunting skills. Soon she was breaking a lot of scoops, expanding her coverage and getting noticed by popular blogs like Gizmodo, Cnet and BoingBoing. She started an interview series called “Cool Geek of the week” which helped her establish her brand. Despite the initial setbacks, Nandini endeavored to make a place in the blog world.
Consistent efforts and determination led to Nandini bringing to the world great content in some of the verticals like luxury, eco-friendly living and technology. Soon Bornrich became one of the best luxury sites and got featured in several newspapers and magazines like NYTimes and The Times.
Over the years, Nandini has seen the start-up industry in India take off and become one of the world’s fastest growing start-up ecosystem.
“Whether it’s e-commerce or Saas-based businesses, India’s startup ecosystem is booming.”
Moving forward towards Betaout
Nandini co-founded Betaout, an online marketing personalisation and engagement platform for e-commerce companies. Betaout helps online retailers to increase conversions and personalise user engagement using real-time user persona and intent data. The platform helps you personalize your marketing across email, on-site engagement, chat, SMS and other channels.
While Bornrich was a pure passion play as Nandini describes it, Betaout was born out of a desire to build a global Saas company that would help marketers engage with their customers in a highly personalized way.
“Passion drives all entrepreneurs. And, I consider myself fortunate that I got to do something I am truly passionate about. Running a startup is a grind. It requires absolute dedication, commitment and drive at all times. So, you got to believe in what you’re doing.”
Women and Entrepreneurship
Nandini talked about how there are a numbered female entrepreneurs to male entrepreneurs and how despite so many startups initiated by women, the startup industry continues being a male dominated territory.
“As a society, we need to inculcate the same risk-taking abilities in our young girls like we teach our boys. We need to motivate and support our women to move beyond the family domain & take the lead. Female entrepreneurs are hardworking and competitive too. We just need to continue to support and promote our women entrepreneurs to encourage other budding female entrepreneurs working through the moments of self-doubt.”
Nandini thinks that people are not accustomed to see women in leadership roles, but that should never be a deterring factor. Female entrepreneurs bring a different perspective to business. She advises women to trust themselves because it’s your company and only you can make it big.
Nandini Rathi: A wife, a mother and an entrepreneur
She attributes her success to her husband, Ankit Maheshwari, who has not only been a pillar of support to her but also been a source of motivation while sharing her dreams with her.
“One of the things that I’ve learnt from him is his never-say-die attitude. You would come across so many people that tell you ‘no’ or ‘that your idea is crazy,’ but he taught me to be just as determined to prove them wrong.”
Nandini is a mother of two children, and the family and her ventures keep her busy. In her free time, she likes to explore the world and try out different vegetarian delicacies. She believes that with Betaout, she can build a global Saas company that will serve both small and large e-commerce companies globally.
