Diamonds are often seen as a symbol of romance and love. For Mithun Sancheti, his journey to becoming the co-founder and CEO of CaratLane.com , an online jewellery provider, was inspired by his lady love.

Reticent of his glittering achievements, Sancheti eagerly shares his slip-ups and lessons he learnt in carving out a niche for himself in the jewellery business. He also shares his passions — from playing bridge to being a tech junkie and going the ‘angel’ way for investing.

Landing in Chennai Sancheti comes from a family of well established jewellers who own Jaipur Gems.

“My parents moved to Mumbai from Rajasthan to set up business. My elder brother and I studied in public school and in retrospect, both these were great blessings,” says Sancheti. Why so? “My mother was busy and left us to play and explore. And when you are in a crowded school, you have to work hard to find the one thing you excel in among the hundreds of other students,” he explains.

He recalls his trip to the US, which he says made him tough. “My cousin brother and I went on a trip to the US when I completed high school. The learning from that wild road trip was immense,” he says. The notion of the franchise model of business and maintaining uniform standards was an eye-opener to him.

Sancheti joined the commerce stream in college and regrets the decision. “I was good at science, but colleges consider only the aggregate marks, not individual subject marks or the student’s aptitude,” he bemoans. College was not quite helpful, he says, as all the accounting and business lessons taught were already familiar to him, growing up in a business family.

Later, he went to the US, this time to study gemology at the Gemological Institute of America, California. On his return, he went to Chennai to help Jaipur Gems expand in the South.

But why Chennai? “I was in love with a girl since high school. My best chance to marry her was to establish myself well in business. So, I took this as a chance to venture to a new city and prove myself rather than take on a smaller, safer role,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.

Going online He built good relations with the who’s-who of Chennai, and soon many families came to Sancheti for their jewellery needs. In four years, the store established great traction and turned profitable.

Not ready to put his feet up just yet, he went on to expand in Coimbatore. “I bought this old building in the city and started fixing it up. I was very particular about how the store must look and it took a long while to get it to be the way I wanted,” says Sancheti. Thanks to his good judgment, acumen in building rapport with the local families and marketing the product, the new store scaled up quickly, in less than two years. But he soon started to wonder about the scalability of the business.

“One store every few years made me rethink on the business model,” says Sancheti. He felt certain that selling jewellery online was the way to move forward. “Inventory costs are high in offline jewellery business. But, understandably, it was not easy to convince others about this idea,” he says.

“About this time, my friend Srinivasa Gopalan, a techie, felt it may be possible to sell solitaires online after he heard that someone he knew bought diamonds from a store based on size, clarity and other specifications,” says Sancheti. So, all they needed to do was to upload all this information online for buyers. The duo started CaratLane.com in 2007 and commenced sales in 2008.

Sancheti, whose eyes light up when talking about technology, says their venture has been focusing on 3D technology and software to enhance user experience. For example, CaratLane is working on a new app to enable buyers to try out ear rings virtually.

Sancheti is also an avid bridge player. “I learn a lot from the game,” he says.

Adding glitter For instance, is a person likely to buy or is only feigning interest in the product? Playing the game with strangers gives him an insight into human behaviour, particularly from a salesperson’s perspective, he observes.

And thanks to his passion, he is mentoring a social media start-up that helps bridge players find partners. Sancheti actively mentors a few other start-ups as part of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) forum in Chennai. He also invests in start-ups and is a member of The Chennai Angels group.

Like his work and hobby, Sancheti prefers his investments to be active as well. “I don’t prefer land and other passive property investments. Something that you can develop and harness value is what I like to do,” he explains. Still, coming from a family of jewellers, antique collection is one of the assets his family holds. “I love art and buy it from time to time,” he says. But there, the only appreciation he looks for is his visitors’ admiration. What about the stock market? “I don’t understand many businesses. So, I am not comfortable buying stocks,” he confesses. The only stock he ever bought was that of Titan — a business he says he can evaluate well. “I invest in mutual funds and have taken the help of a portfolio management service to handle my investments,” he says.

And what about the girl behind his journey to Chennai more than a decade back, we quiz. “She married someone else,” he says matter-of-factly. “And by that time I had become too interested in business and moved on,” he added.

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