Kathmandu, August 27, 2018: When many youngsters choose to party hard rejoicing their youth at 19, this Nepali female entrepreneur, Nikita Acharya was already set to go with her revolutionary dream and clear vision. In the amity of all those sleepless nights and foregone friends gatherings, Acharya succeeds to open Nepal’s most successful e-commerce portal, i.e. Urban Girl at such a tender age.
Nikita founded Urban Girl (UG) accompanied by his colleague Kiran Timsina with an investment of Rs 10000 each and a facebook page. Now, UG is considered as one of the few successful online shopping portals of Nepal that are supplying branded fashion wears, accessories, cosmetics and cakes. The company was awarded as ‘Best Start-Up Company Award’ in the 4th Newbiz Business Conclave and Awards 2017.
She is an inspiration to many of the youths and strongly believes that age is just an impotent benchmark against which we can fly higher and be our own master.
Starting her journey
Nikita is a leader since childhood. As a captain, she used to lead the students in schools. Similarly, as a boss of herself, she decided to lead her interest towards business after the college. She says, “Frankly speaking, I studied science in my +2 but after those two years, I realized that science wasn’t my cup of tea. Despite doing good in the academics, I didn’t enjoy science and gradually started to grow interested towards management. So in bachelors, I switched my academic sphere with BBA where marketing used to be my favourite. I still remember the days, when I used to surf international e-commerce websites and insight into how exciting and comfortable it would be if we Nepalese had the same option. I have always been an active girl accountable to lead any curiosity that comes to my mind. So, maybe this was the reason why I dreamt to establish my own e-commerce company one day and at the age of 19, I turned my dream into reality by starting Urban Girl with my co-founder Kiran Timsina.”
Tackling the odds
Since she was new in this field and the concept of online shopping itself was fresh for Nepalese society, there were many challenges laying before. More than issues related with the payment system, it was difficult to receive customer’s trust at the beginning because shopping via internet, always made our customers worried about the quality that is portrayed in the digital screen. She states, “It was really challenging to meet the customer trust when we started. Many of them preferred to buy from locals because it made them convenient to check the quality themselves despite extra time spent. I think, my nature to cope up with the people as a team and the qualitative services UG provides, made it easier for us and now we have served more than 60000 satisfied customers.”
Likewise, Acharya’s whole family, including her grandfather, is from the science background. So persuading them to let her engaged in commerce as a pioneer was something new. She shares, “I was achieving good as a science student. Maybe this rose certain expectations among the family and relatives that I could be a Doctor. When I told about my decision, many relatives mocked me. They criticized how I was playing with my future. But I have to say that I am really fortunate to have parents like them who know what my dreams meant to me. I am really grateful to them who have always had my back when I was emotionally low during my journey.” Nikita sacrificed many get-togethers with her friend making them sad and confused. However, the mutual understanding was maintained eventually.
Future Nikita
Nikita doesn’t believe in thinking about the future because she thinks life is all about going with the flow. One never knows what might the future beholds but should be prepared to cope up with every situation that it offers. Nevertheless, she has some vision to work on, “Professionally, I definitely want to expand UG, contribute in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem of Nepal and increase women empowerment. Personally, there are many places on my bucket list where I want to travel and explore myself.”
Her message to the youths
