Our last week's writing class assignment sent us hunting and digging for interesting people with interesting ideas that actually make money too -- arguably one of the toughest assignments for us. I found my person in 'girl Santa' Ruchi Chopra who has perfected the fine art of springing surprises....read on:
One crisp and chilly October evening in 2006, Ruchi Chopra got an innocuous text from her friend sharing how she was craving a pizza more than anything else. A fashion designer working out of American clothing retailer Gap Inc.’s New Delhi office back then, the 23-year-old decided that some wishes deserve to come true.
Neck-deep in work and unable to step out, Chopra called a local pizza service and asked them [pizza service is singular] to deliver to her friend’s. Her only request, in a conversation that lasted thirty-five minutes with six employees at that pizza express was: don’t ask my friend to pay!
It backfired. After all, playing fairy godmother is a tough job. When the pizza was finally delivered, her friend was stuck with the bill! "I was so irritated, Chopra said. "They blew my surprise. Was it really that hard to pull off a surprise?” Yet something good came out of the incident, because it sowed the seeds of what today has become a curious and rapidly expanding business venture across India.
Her three-year old business, Any Surprise Any Place or ASAP for short, plans roughly 150 to 200 surprises a year across 10 cities in India. While ASAP customizes products too, the outfit has really caught the eye for being ‘surprise planners’. Chopra, now 27, was counted among the top 30 best business entrepreneurs by India's Business World magazine in March and won the Indy's Young Achiever Award in 2009.
The initial months, however, were a real stutter. In December 2006, Chopra decided to sample her business idea with close friends and family and got 30 chocolate bars imprinted with the ASAP logo, taped her contact details on the cover with a handwritten note about her firm, making it arguably the first chocolate business card of its kind. Then came the harder part: “I and one my friends went around the city, dropping these packets at 4 a.m. We were chased by dogs in some houses, stared at suspiciously by the watchmen in others..,” said Chopra, chuckling.
The next few days were pure heartbreak. The chocolate campaign generated just two calls. “Maybe the watchmen ate some of the chocolates,” she said upon reflection, but refused to give in. The second campaign made up for the first. A few days later, 150 people received fortune cookies that cracked open to read their individual names with the message “(Name), you have been ASAP-ed. Call ### to know why.” This was harder to ignore -- sixty-eight people bit the bait this time.
The next couple of months brought in so many more customers wanting to surprise their parents, friends, lovers and colleagues that Chopra had to scamper around after work to pull the logistics together. By Valentine’s Day of 2007, she was in eight places at one time, dodging her colleagues in Gap in hotel lobbies, as she planned these surprises. Of course, she was calling in sick more often than she really was, those days. By April that year, Chopra knew her venture was going to fly. And that entailed choosing between a cushy job as a fashion designer at one of the world’s top fashion labels or starting her own quirky venture. It wasn't a hard decision. “I was so young," she said. "It was just my first job.” Better to goof up early on.
The venture, at least in terms of funding, was easy to launch. The initial promotion and website cost about $1,200 , which Chopra paid for. She kept her overheads low, sometimes even working from a laptop in her bedroom. All she really needed was a wild fire imagination and she had lots.
The best part of her business: people have no price points, no notion of a fair price. They’ll pay just about anything to stage a moment in a loved one’s life.
Over the years ASAP has devised a full repertoire of tricks up its sleeve to flip you. The firm has so far created personalized 'monopoly' games – a board game that will have pictures of places that are memorable to the giftee, say her school, her first home, her vacation etc; a personalized magazine cover/newspaper that only has pictures, stories written by her friends, customized wine labels and lots more. Kids often get greeted by a clown or their favorite animation characters carrying cakes on their birthdays.
Once ASAP filled up the boot of a guy’s car with helium balloons and a gift and waited for his fiancé to open it. She said yes, of course.
Two years ago I hired ASAP, requesting a guitarist to take a birthday cake to my mother and sing her favorite Abba songs outside her door. She was equal parts thrilled and embarrassed and I’m told she kept trying to hush the singing fellow because neighbors were getting curious. Chopra says her most logistically grueling assignment was planting 40 surprises for a guy on his honeymoon across two days and that meant traveling one step ahead of the couple in every place. For $4,500, the gig started with a personalized car radio program to bathroom towels to silverware and ended with midnight crackers and a customized salsa class for the couple.
Then, there are also the weird ones such as edible lingerie. A daughter once asked ASAP to prepare a “naughty cake” for her father’s 70th birthday and got a three-dimensional cake in the shape of a girl in pink bikini. There was more. The cake had tequila shots stowed away inside and tiny straws jutting out of the cake. “I think I was more embarrassed than the father,” Chopra laughs.
ASAP employs just six full time employees but has “half the world freelancing” for them. After all, as Chopra explains, she doesn’t need a clown to come in to work five days a week on a work station. And it makes a pot of money – there is a profit margin of 20%-80% in every surprise -- although Chopra would not divulge hard figures.
There are challenges too. Finding suppliers is one. Many of the suppliers are just not interested in making 1-2 pieces as it isn’t profitable. But then getting them to do the whacky stuff is another. “You have no idea what we go through when we ask a tailor to make a pair of boxer shots and print “Poochie-Coo” or some such love lorn stuff on the backside,” she said.
Her business is a bit of a con job alright. But who cares? Conning our dear ones into some of their most memorable moments is the best way to show we love them. And you don't have to be a six year old enjoy surprises. And Santa needn't crash down ur chinmey anymore. I think he got laid off :) ...and last heard, his work was outsourced to some more efficient Indian firm, ASAP!!? :)
True?
This is a great story and an innovative business. We need to have more fun and less stress. Good luck to ASAP.
Brahm
Posted by: Brahm Vemra | 11/26/2010 at 06:51 AM