After completing Bachelor’s degree, Nikesh Shrestha started working as a marketing officer in various companies. In that duration, he came across many youths who were willing to do something, and had potential to contribute the marketing industry. So, he planned to start a company to provide a platform for Nepali youths to carry out marketing services.
“These youths had idea and could carry out marketing, but couldn’t take risk on their own. So, with a dream to provide employment opportunity to the youths in Nepal itself, and to some extent, check the flow of youths to abroad, I founded the company together with four my friends Navin Singh Thapa Magar, Dinesh Karki, Ramesh Pun Magar and Shriya Karmacharya,” Nikesh shared to Glocal Khabar. After D Karmastha Pvt. Ltd. was founded, they started to actively work on marketing, promotion, and branding of various kinds of startup companies, along with their products and services.
They had started the company with an initial investment of 8 lakh rupees. And, the partnership is going very well as there is mutual understanding among all the partners, and have divided their roles properly. “In this one year of operation, we have already worked with 40 companies, including hotels, travel companies, e-commerce sites and varieties of other startup companies,” shares Nikesh.
Lately, they have also started carrying out outsourcing of various events organized in the town, and look after designs to management and every other work about event hosting. To add more, they are working as associate partners to carry out branding and digital marketing of products and services of 4 startup companies.
Along with this, they are also providing photography, videography, animation, and promotion services to a fashion store that is about to be launched very soon.
From his experience of working in the industry for the last one year, Nikesh finds marketing and brand promotion industry in Nepal to be very competitive.
“The clients’ response so far is very satisfying and they are loving are service,” says Nikesh.
“Sometimes, it’s little challenging to manage time as I’m also doing MBA degree. In the beginning, the revenue was not being generated, had some partnership disputes, and couldn’t focus my mind on work,” he shares. “But, everything is moving smoothly now,” he adds.
“Along with this, my family response is also very good. They are equally supportive, and I too share about our works and progress in the family. They understand it very well,” he shares.
As he is very passionate about marketing and sales, he is giving his fullest effort to it. He considers it to be his last business, and the only direction ahead.
The team is soon launching karmastha.com, an e-commerce portal with tagline ‘we place your business online…’, where clients can get everything under one portal. In that platform, people can buy/sell products and use it as an advertising platform to carry out marketing/promotion of their services.
“We are getting a very good response for the e-commerce site, which is about to come into operation very soon,” says Nikesh. “And, numerous of renowned brands have approached us to place their products in the portal,” he adds.
In this one year of duration, they have gone through highs and lows and reached a certain distance. They are planning to open a branch in Butwal very soon as they have seen bigger market and opportunities there. Along with this, the group is also coming up with a mobile app to make availing all these services easier.
Sharing messages to the aspiring entrepreneurs, Nikesh says, “You need to have skillsets, resources, good team, vision, and know what you are going to do in concrete before you formally start anything.” He also highlights the importance of having mentors, and the necessity to know basics about how things work and how businesses function before actually entering the field.
Startups for a better Nepal!
Presentation: Basanta Kumar Dhakal
