Meet Innovative Woman Aarthi Ramamurthy, founder and CEO of Lumoid, a YCombinator-backed Silicon Valley startup, that provides a try-before-you-buy service for consumer electronics.
1. How/Why did you begin your business?
The idea for Lumoid sprouted while I was working at Netflix, building the Netflix streaming software for various CE gadgets. I realized that there’s so much innovation happening in hardware manufacturing but so little has changed on the consumption/retail side. Discovering and trying new gadgets without paying full price is nearly impossible, but people wanted the ability to test drive products, without committing to buy it. Thus came the idea for Lumoid, and we applied to YCombinator, and got through the accelerator program.
2. What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
When we started Lumoid, we expected a steady trickle of customers discovering the service, and a slow ramp-up of our fulfillment side of the business. Instead, in the first month of launching, we got hundreds of orders, and the next month, it doubled, forcing us to really figure out our operations. We hired some great candidates experienced in operations, and were able to overcome the massive demand.
3. How do you define success?
Happy customers is my biggest definition of success. At Lumoid, we go above and beyond expectations to make our customers happy (like sending handwritten holiday cards to our customers – click here for examples)
4. If there was one thing you wish you knew before you began your business, what would that be?
I used to always be hesitant about asking for help or advice, especially from my friends who are entrepreneurs themselves, since I thought it would be a waste of their time to help me. I wish I’d reached out sooner, because every time someone else reached out to me asking for advice/help, I learned a lot about their business, which helped the way I was thinking about Lumoid. Having a closely knit circle of entrepreneurial friends is very helpful to learn from each others failures and successes, and I wish I’d started earlier.
5 What makes you an innovative woman?
I believe that Lumoid is fundamentally changing the way retail works, in a manner that’s financially sound, and is beneficial for the consumer. We’re just getting started and while we constantly hit roadblocks, we also constantly innovate at breakneck speed, and provide the best possible tools and solutions for our customer.
Find out more about Aarthi’s company Lumoid at www.lumoid.com, connect with Aarthi on Facebook or Twitter.