Beyond that last blue mountain

Till the early 1980s, Bangalore was a sleepy pensioners’ paradise where life moved unhurriedly. But not for K.S. Dinesh. It started while he was flipping through the pages of That Untravelled World, Upon that Mountain and Blank on the Map by British mountaineer Eric Shipton at the City Central Library. Dinesh was riveted by the stories of the mighty Himalayas. That was 1982. The career adventurer, who was then a young engineering student, had begun his ascent.

He took up mountaineering for the adrenalin rush and before long he had made a decision to follow his passion and make a living in adventure, mostly as an instructor.

During his frequent trips to the Himalayas, Dinesh noticed a wide gap between demand and supply of quality adventure gear in India. Most of what was sold was either expensive or hand-me-downs of foreign travellers. He incorporated Wildcraft in 1992, hoping to bridge that gap. In its early days, Wildcraft started supplying gear (mostly climbing equipment, tents, and sleeping bags) sourced from abroad to the defence services and the occasional adventurer.

From its small beginnings, Wildcraft has grown to be one of India’s largest makers and sellers of outdoor gear and adventure-inspired lifestyle products through 44 exclusive stores. It’s also present in over 100 shop-in-shops and over 500 multi-brand stores across 50 cities.

Most of the growth came after 2007. For many years, Wildcraft was run more as a hobby than a business. The push to expand came from two young management graduates—Gaurav Dublish and Siddharth Sood. Fresh out of the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, their first job took them to Bangalore in 2001. There they met Dinesh at a local mountaineering club meeting and almost immediately realised he was running a business with potential.

In 2004, they suggested that Dinesh should test the waters with a strong retail presence—sales till then were mostly through direct selling. What adventuring was to Dinesh, entrepreneurship was to Dublish and Sood. And this was a business that needed more of their attention. Dublish left his job with Standard Chartered Bank, Sood quit Hewitt Associates, and in 2007, both moved to work full-time at Wildcraft.

The three have the same designation—director—and consult each other on most major decisions.

Early on, the Wildcraft trio divided their responsibilities according to their individual strengths. Dinesh brought in the thinking and insights that only an adventurer could, Dublish brought in marketing and sales know-how, and Sood was the numbers guy.

The first thing they did was to ensure that the company concentrated on manufacturing and marketing. This meant they needed to wrap up the division that provided adventure tourism packages and services to corporates.

“What we were anxious to know was whether people in our country were ready for Wildcraft,” says Dublish. Turns out they were. From a modest Rs 2 crore revenue in FY08, Wildcraft has grown exponentially to touch nearly Rs 70 crore in FY12. Bags account for the bulk of sales, followed by sleeping bags and tents.

The Bangalore of the late 2000s had all the right ingredients for Wildcraft to take root. Young engineers in Infosys and Wipro with fat wallets needed their fix of excitement. Unlike previous generations, these twentysomethings were well travelled—mostly to service clients in the U.S.—and had been exposed to outdoor activity that they wanted to experience in India.

Add the arrival of television channels such as Discovery, which Dinesh says opened minds to the idea of a world beyond. “Adventure always comes with an element of risk. Only a handful of people ever broke out of their comfort zones before that. We built this brand keeping them in mind.” That, ultimately, is at the heart of the success of Wildcraft—its arrival coincided with India discovering a passion for the outdoors.

It helped that there was not much competition and whatever little was there was too expensive for the price-sensitive Indian. Akshay Chhugani, founder and CEO at Indian Backpacking, a small firm that plans backpacker holidays, is a Wildcraft customer. He says Wildcraft’s success is the result of the company offering good quality at affordable prices. “Getting a light and sturdy backpack for Rs 3,000 versus shelling out Rs 12,000 for one from The North Face makes a lot of sense in this market.”

Costs were kept down because Wildcraft manufactured in Bangalore and spent next to nothing on marketing. There was also a shortage of funds to sustain an international manufacturing and logistics operation—another reason why it decided to set up manufacturing in Bangalore and not China or Bangladesh (two of the most popular manufacturing destinations for adventure gear).

The fabric is mostly imported from countries such as Korea, but the designing and manufacturing of sleeping bags, tents, and bags is done in-house. The emphasis on quality is so high that the helpline number printed on Wildcraft products is not that of a call centre, but is Dinesh’s mobile number.

Last year Wildcraft decided to set up a second facility at Solan in Himachal Pradesh. This was done with the objective to keep up with demand as Wildcraft slowly made its way north. The company also expanded beyond hardcore adventure gear, developing a line consisting of travel bags and laptop bags that helped it garner customers, including the armchair adventurer.

Rajat Sethi, managing director of Delhi-based Carabin Adventures, says, “Though most of Wildcraft’s sales come from bags, it still draws its recall from adventure even though it is more of a lifestyle adventure company.” Sethi’s company distributes high-end adventure equipment but doesn’t sell bags and apparel.

Wildcraft is also a case study in low-cost and high-impact marketing. It is among the more popular consumer brands from India on Facebook, with nearly three-quarters of a million fans at last count. It is also quite active on the page, interacting with fans through regular updates and travel tips.

The journey thus far has been funded mostly by debt from the Bank of Maharashtra. But Wildcraft is preparing for the future. Encouraged by its success on Facebook, Wildcraft has been ramping up its online presence, both through its own website and through e-retailers such as Myntra. Sales through clicks, however, are in low single digits but Sood expects that to climb in the next few years.

The company’s target is to hit Rs 500 crore in sales by 2016. To get there, the company will have to go beyond bags and outdoor gear and start branching out into footwear, eyewear, and apparel over the next couple of years. Dublish says these products have been introduced in some test markets and the response has been encouraging. The adventure has just begun.