Shagun Singh: An Accidental Entrepreneur

It’s been 14 years since I quit my corporate job with ITC Hotels.  At the time I thought the break would be a short one maybe for 2-3 years till my son was a little older.  I had no idea at the time that years later I would be an entrepreneur some day and one with some standing at that. I joined my father’s already existing manpower solutions company to see if we could grow that business to some extent. It was a hard business & very far removed from my fancy job at hotels.

 In 2012 I came up with the idea of Homework as a deep cleaning & floor maintenance service provider. With all the fancy homes coming up in Gurgaon and the domestic staff situation in Gurgaon not being very well trained I got a sense that this may be a need for many women like myself.  We did our first service in 2012 and by 2016-17 we had a database of close to 2500 homes who had all used the service. What helped us stand out was the fact that the entire team of blue collar workers worked on our payroll. This allowed us to control quality & timely delivery of services and training & development of the staff. In the meantime, a lot of our regular clients were really keen that we got into the space of providing other services such as plumbing, electrical and carpentry as again this is a very disorganized work area in the country. People have basic skills but need a road map and better training. In 2016 we renovated our first home and since then never looked back. Today a mason working on our payroll can lay anywhere between 80-100 sq ft of tiles in a day as against a regular mason who would lay 20-30 sq ft. We have instilled in our staff a sense of pride in what they do and achieve.

 I am not shy to tell clients or workers that I am not a conventional designer but one with a keen eye for style and sensibility and my added advantage of being a housekeeper also helps me help my clients make long term durable choices of materials.