How Indian Marketer Is Growing Local Businesses 3x In Just 90 days, A Founder’s Story with Harsh Shah

Harsh is the Founder of Value Essence, India’s leading Hyper Local Marketing Agency. Harsh is a versatile marketer with over 5 years of experience in the marketing landscape. He has worked with over 550 clients and trained over 2000 professionals in the area of marketing and sales. Harsh is on a mission to support over 50,000 to surpass their competition and dominate the local market, and 1 million professionals to achieve excellence and growth in sales and marketing.

Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up

I grew up in the city of Mumbai, in a very affluent family. My childhood was one of the best childhood any child could possibly imagine. However, after a preteen joyride, I was on the rocky road ahead of me during my teenage life. When I was just 13, I got diagnosed with a deficiency of ‘Growth Hormone’ which stunted my growth. Moreover, I changed my school during this time for better academic prospects, but that came with daily bullying, poor social life, and toxic peer groups. When you face peer pressure and bullying for years, your naïve mind starts to create alternate personalities/roles to feel safe and adapt to the situation. Due to my short stature, I would often try harder than others to compensate for my shortcomings. I would act tough and very rude and harm others before they would harm me. I was damaged and I did not even know it. As the façade drifted away after a few years and maturity prevailed, I would slowly realize what I had chosen to become, as a consequence of the circumstances of my school life. I really did not like the person I had become. I started working on becoming the best version of myself and in this journey, I discovered the many inner talents that I possessed. Even today, I still live with the shortcomings of my short stature, but I believe the experiences of my teenage have played an essential role in the person I am today.

How did you get started as an entrepreneur?

There has been no definite moment when I started my entrepreneurship journey. even while I was studying at B-school. I would often organize pop-up stores and sell food, goodies, and collectibles. I believe every time someone has an idea, along with the passion to materialize the idea, an entrepreneur is born. I was born an entrepreneur in April 2020. I got the business idea very intuitively, I simply realized one day that entrepreneurs had a very hard time building awareness about their businesses. I bootstrapped my business idea, with an investment of approximately $3000 and got my website designed and advertised.

What is one business lesson you would tell a startup founder?

The one lesson that I could share with a startup entrepreneur would be: Don’t follow the Competition, find your own sweet niche and work on creating a unique identity. The market you would cater to may be smaller, but your customers would be loyal. Ensure this niche you select is less competitive and more profitable as per industry standards. If you curate a special offer for this niche audience, an offer that matches their needs closely and is hard for them to refuse, your business is likely to see rapid sales growth even without a large marketing budget.