In Conversation with Dr. Drishti Anand, Co-founder, LetsDressUp.
LDU is building a Shein-like model but from India. We are building the most inclusive fashion brand for women of Bharat with a zero-dead inventory model. We have grown from ~₹1Cr annualized revenue to ~15Cr annualized revenue in just a matter of ~9 months. This growth comes with healthy unit economics. We turned EBITDA+ in April 2023. We are on our way to reaching our next milestone of ~₹100Cr annualized revenue in ~12 months and ~₹1000Cr in the next 3-4 years, eventually heading toward IPO.
Dr. Drishti Anand, Co-founder, LetsDressUp.
Before following my entrepreneurial aspirations with LDU, I successfully worked as a doctor. I was associated with some of the largest and busiest Indian hospitals, such as Medanta the Medicity, Gurgaon, and Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. I have always been a firm believer in the power of dressing. I have always loved wearing stylish, comfortable, high-quality dresses that made me look great and significantly boosted my confidence and self-worth. And I knew that I was not the only woman who felt that way when dressing up.
However, the challenge was that irrespective of the outfits I chose; there was always a struggle to find the right ones that offered the fit and style combination I desired. Typically, half of the dresses I used to buy went back as returns, and even the others I kept usually had to go for rounds of altering to get ‘my fit.’ My Eureka moment happened during a discussion I had with my husband, Aditya, who was then working with Kearney, one of the largest consulting firms in the world. Aditya had been working closely on building scalable supply chains and was solving various CXO-level problems while scaling multiple billion-dollar businesses. When I told him how I had to struggle daily to choose the right dress, he said it was normal. He told me that according to data, two-thirds of Indian customers remained unsatisfied with the clothes they buy and that the fashion industry has a return rate of about ~30% to 40%; this really baffled me. Having faced the pain point myself and Aditya having scaled businesses, we realized that we were the right combination of the right and left sides of the brain to go after this problem, and thus LetsDressUp (LDU) was born.
We have sizes from XS to 8XL across all styles, something not even renowned brands can boast of. All these sizes are based on the Indian audience. We dedicated two years to building the Indian Size chart and are the first company to build the Indian Size chart based on real measurements of more than 3000+ Indian women. The chart is dynamic, and every time a new customer buys an outfit, the system makes operational improvements by adding the inputs.
We leverage deep learning Generative AI models to create newer designs at a much faster pace for our customers. We come up with new designs every Friday, a concept we call “LDU blockbuster Fridays.” Our design to execution times is < 7 days.
We are a community of 40000+ women growing consistently at 40-50% MoM with an NPS>50. Our return rates are <3%, which is 10x better than the industry average of 30-40%. With this growth comes immense customer love too.
With over 50% of our orders coming from non-Tier 1 cities, we are on our way to revolutionizing the $100Bn Indian Fashion market, building Fashion 2.0 for India, and then building Fashion 2.0 for the world.
