Encouraging entrepreneurial thinking, motivating innovators to take the plunge, and inspiring women to break their shells – Prachi Garg puts together life-stories of 20 superwomen in her maiden book. An author, traveler, and an entrepreneur herself, she talks about her life and her learnings from this book. “These twenty women entrepreneurs nurtured their innate quality of entrepreneurship and made real what remains a far-fetched dream for most. These ladies come from the age group of 20-30 years as this is most crucial age when women go through tremendous societal
pressure of marriage/kids/jobs. The USP of the book is the spirit with which these women have fought all odds as well as the society to reach where they have,” says Prachi. Read on…

Could you talk about your journey and list 5 books every woman entrepreneur should read according to you. Also, since you have chronicled entrepreneurs, how difficult is it for women entrepreneurs in India?

In India, women still have long way to go to venture into entrepreneurship. Though I would not be biased as I think having something on your own is equally difficult for both men and women. It is difficult in India primarily due to societal structure, where-in we are expected more to be at home. We usually don’t have much control over financial decisions and are not that great at networking. These are the few blockers that most of the Indian women face to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

You are an entrepreneur yourself, tell us about the stereotypes binding women entrepreneurs

I think the field they want to venture is always stereotyped. I remember the days when people used to stereotype me saying “travel is not a field of women”, you can start some business related to IT or anything that would require less travel or just being at home. B/w I was quite lucky to have requisite support from my family.

You are a true ambassador of digital India. You have been featured as one of the top 10 Indian women, who made big online. Tell us how you have leveraged from the web

These days social media have been helping us a lot. It is more about posting relevant content and sharing it with targeted audience that can help you to get more traction and leads. Be it marketing of my books, or ghoomophiro I have used both social media and content to maximize our reach. Sharing moments with the audience not only give them the glimpse, but also provide them with relevant information. eg: via ghoomophiro blog, we try to share our personalised experiences and this is what makes us popular. According to me these days, digital marketing has more reach, better ROI than traditional offline marketing. We can always start with low budgets.

Talk about Superwomen and what made this book happen

Superwomen is the journeys of women entrepreneurs who took the journey less travelled at an early age of 20, when most of the women are still struggling to decide on their career paths.
This book was a serendipity. I was working on my startup www.ghoomophiro.com during my college days and was trying to resolve my internal conflicts, challenges. I used to speak to various women entrepreneurs of my age to understand their challenges and if they are going through the same, and what is their approach to resolve them. It was during this time, I thought to compile all these conversations and shape them to a book so that larger fraternity could be benefitted.

Tips for aspiring women entrepreneurs. Are we risk takers? Are we good leaders?

We are born entrepreneurs, multitaskers and risk takers too. Infact each of us have qualities to be successful entrepreneur. What is needed is to come out of shackles and raise your voice about pursuing your passion. Do not hesitate to take up direct conversations about your desires, aspirations and their execution. You have just one life and you should make most of it.