Urban Ladder has no plans to expand into new cities. Founders explain why

After raising Rs.120 crore in July 2014, two-year-old online furniture label, Urban Ladder has decided to stop expanding to other cities. Currently, the Bangalore-based brand is present in seven cities, and is on its way to become a Rs.125 crore company by March next year, claims Rajiv Srivatsa, Co-Founder, Urban Ladder.

Excerpts from an interview with Co-Founders Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa about their growth strategy and focus on technology development:

At the time of investment you had told us you will be entering 25 new cities. What is the development on that front?

Ashish Goel: In the last three to four months we have grown more than double in terms of revenue. We are seeing a huge amount of traction in the seven cities that we are present in right now and we want to service these cities well. So, we as a team, have decided to continue to deepen our focus in these cities for a while and refrain from increasing [our presence in other] cities for the next four months. Until December, we have decided to double the business and then figure out on what’s the right answer on expansion. We have a list of cities where we want to go to, but the growth in the existing cities have been so crazy that we have decided to focus on them for now.

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Will all the projects aid Urban Ladder or will we see independent projects too?

Rajiv Srivatsa: It will definitely be something related to what we are doing and in the space that we are in. It could be an app for an Urban Ladder product or it could be an app related to the furniture space and may or may not help the company at all. This is more research-based. It will be in the home dcor space and largely based on what Urban Ladder is doing right now.

If you are not going in for expansion now, where will the money intended for it be used?

Ashish Goel: Hiring and technology advancement have been on our mind before this round of funding. We knew we had to develop that. We will build a much stronger team which can enable us to be the largest furniture label in the next 18 months. We want to build a team which can help us to achieve that target. We are putting the largest share of investment on the technology side because we want to be the best technology team in e-commerce. We are also building the brand and you will see a lot of action in the next four to six months.

Rajiv Srivatsa: On the technology development front, we have recently launched Urban Ladder Labs to create new tools for buyers. The idea is to build a fleet of apps or tech-based solutions for customers. Currently, we are working with four to five such start-ups. We are looking to work with at least one start-up every two months. The initiative started two months back.

Was logistics a problem when you started off, considering the bulky products that you sell?

Ashish Goel: It was a problem initially, but we did a lot of research and started innovating on packaging. We work with entrepreneurs operating in logistics, but we bring our own packaging design and logistical solutions. In the next few months, buyers will see a bunch of new stuff on the logistics and packaging side.