TUTORIAL ASSIGNMENT

FOR
ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

PROJECT PROPOSAL ON EXISTING

“There is no
secret sauce
for success
and the only
way to grow
is to hustle,
fail, learn
and grow.”
-Mr. Peyush Bansal, CEO of
Lenskart

PROJECT DONE BY
NAME: ANKIT PRASAD
ROLL NO: 231011-21-0249
REGISTRATION NO: 011-11111-0617-23
 INTRODUCTION
Today, a third of India's population needs spectacles. The term "need" applies to the people
who have been diagnosed with vision issues, but only about a quarter of them wear
spectacles. When we sum up the number of people who choose to wear glasses as a
fashion accessory, the figures are staggering. Customers in this group are interested in
having several pairs of eyeglasses to go with a range of outfits. Every day in India, over 1.5
million (15 lacs) spectacles are sold. The industry is highly divided, with mom-and-pop shops
dominating. This eyewear industry has taken a new turn since 2010 when Lenskart was
born.
Lenskart is a Faridabad-based optical prescription eyewear retail chain, which operates as
an ecommerce marketplace for prescription power glasses, BLU glasses, frames, and
goggles. Furthermore, Lenskart also focuses on brick-and-mortar stores. It has already
managed to establish over 80 physical retail stores across India, as of December 2021. It is
Delhi manufacturing facility produces 300,000+ glasses every month. Lenskart also has a
factory in Zhengzhou, China, that handles nearly 20% of its production of frames. Hailed as
the largest eyewear brand in India, the company is also known as a unicorn prescription
eyewear company, which entered the coveted club of Indian unicorns back in December
2019.
Co-founded by Mr. Peyush Bansal, Mr. Amit Chaudhary, and Mr. Sumeet Kapahi in 2010,
was built with a mission to sell glasses within India to reduce the massive need for eyesight
in what they deem ‘the blind capital of the world’. Amidst the process of accomplishing this
mission, Lenskart has sprinted to be India's fastest-growing eyewear business.
The mission of the company is to give India a vision, as the fastest-growing
eyewear company of the world and the largest presence online.
Lenskart sells prescription eyewear, branded contact lenses, and sunglasses, all of
which are personalized to the vision requirements of the customers. The company
aims to provide every customer an access to high-quality designer glasses without
shelling out their pocket, and by cutting out the middleman, using hi-tech robotic
technology, and incorporating world-class designs into the products. They also serve
the lenses for men, women, and kids by creating eyeglasses, sunglasses, and contact
lenses. The company also aims to provide high-quality eyewear to millions of Indians
at affordable prices.

Vision:
a. 15 million people in India are blind, which is 50% of the blind people of the world.
b. 75% of these are cases of avoidable blindness. Thanks to the country's acute shortage of
optometrists and donated eyes for the treatment of corneal blindness.
c. 153 million people in the country need reading glasses but do not have access to them.
d. Our country needs 40,000 optometrists. Unfortunately, we only have 8,000.
An extension of Lenskart’s core mission — Vision for Billion is our effort to eradicate
preventable blindness and eye disease. Eye health is a major health concern, but one that
has never been given the prominence it deserves. Especially when it comes to knowing about
and wearing the right eyewear.
Long Term Goals:
Lenskart plans to invest upto $2 million in eye technology startups over the next couple
of years.

 Their investment would be made in eyewear technology brands across the globe and
Lenskart would also mentor them.
 One of its pilot projects includes giving out the glasses to the customer on the spot
instead of them taking the eye test and waiting for delivery.
 On the side, Lenskart is looking to hire over 2,000 people for tech, retail, and
corporate development teams in India and abroad.
 Lenskart has picked Singapore, Middle East, and the United States for its bets.

Lenskart investment ambition also coincides with the company’s aggressive domestic and
international expansion plans. The company is planning to hire over 2,000 employees in
India to manage retail operations, technology operations, supply chain efforts and corporate
functions.

Besides this, it is looking to hire another 300 in sales, marketing, and product development
teams to expand internationally in Singapore, Middle East, and the United States. The
company already has a presence in Singapore and the Middle East since August this year. It
will launch in the USA in another 30-45 days.
Problem Statement
At Lenskart, our vision is to bridge the vision gap India faces today, with more than 600M
people needing vision correction. Being India’s fastest growing eyewear company and the
largest eyewear company online, we are striving hard to make that happen at scale every
day. One of the biggest challenges we face today is that since our product is half fashion/half
medical, users prefer to “touch and feel” it before buying. We were very much aware of this
from the very beginning and hence decided to take an Omni approach. We currently have
600+ stores across the country and a strong online presence with our apps (Android and iOS)
and website. At stores, it is very easy for our users to “touch and feel” the frames but online
that is not possible, making it a tad difficult for the users to make buying decisions. That is
what we wanted to solve using Augmented Reality (AR) and build something which
completely mimics (if not improves) the offline experience for our online users.

User Research and Understanding our customers:

To be able to help our users select the best frames without visiting the stores, it was

important for us to understand the difference and what our user is missing in the online

experience. After speaking to 100+ users, we realized the biggest thing is the inability to

visualize how the frame would look on them. To further understand this better we visited

some of our stores and carefully observed the “selecting the frame” process. As we spent a

few hours in the store, we realized the process consists of three steps:

1. Firstly, users take a walk in the store and look at all the available frames with the

cursory look to select a few frames — basically add products in their

“consideration set.” Till now, the primary criterion is just “looks.”

2. After selecting the initial frames in the consideration set, users start trying them

on their faces more seriously and start comparing amongst them. We observed

that most of the time, users would try one frame and then immediately the

second frame and then go back to the first frame. And this process of back and

forth continues for some time, and in between, they would like to take the

feedback from the companion (mostly wife, friend, and husband) with whom they

are visiting the store. Interestingly, most of the time, a companion also plays a

vital role in the decision-making process.

enquire more about price, warranty, etc. — in our case; price is not a very

important factor since we have kept prices for most of the frames as same

(depending on the brand) since we do not want users to overthink and make the

whole decision-making process simple (primarily on looks)

Solution:
Based on research, it was clear that we need to do three things:

1. The ability for the users to try product live on their face
2. Enable comparison of products in real-time
3. The ability for the users to seek feedback from their friends and family

And that is exactly how we built our roadmap. In the V1 we decided to build the Augmented
Reality / AR view inside the product where users can superimpose any frame on their face
and in real-time can see how it would look on them.

For comparison, we wanted to give users a better experience than even stores. One of the
problems in the stores is that you cannot look at more than one frame simultaneously on your
face making it a tad difficult to decide. Our tech worked hard to solve this — we were able to
allow users to take a picture with one of the frames and keep it static on the screen while
trying other products in real-time AR View on the screen which made comparison smooth. As
the last part of our AR product, we are building the ability for the users to share their
pictures/videos over WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram to seek feedback/approval from
their loved ones. To make it a little more interesting we are also introducing “Stickers” which
users can put on their photos before sharing. During this development, we also replaced the
static product images with the 3D model of the image — this allows the users to have a 360
view of the product making the buying decision slightly easier.

Results:
Our online conversion saw growth in double digits on average resulting in a significant bump
for us.

We also saw an increase in App Store and Play Store reviews with heart stickers! Not to
mention the traction we got on social media.
Lenskart Stores Expansion Plans

With 1400+ stores in India, and a rapidly expanding presence in Southeast Asia, Lenskart is
the largest eyewear retailer in Asia. Lenskart aims at giving a clearer vision to 1 billion people
globally from children to adults by 2025.

Our priority list for this includes-

 Data driven strategy for physical store expansion

 Revenue estimation for prospective sites

 Enhanced expansion plan by minimizing site selection error

 Prevention of cannibalization from new locations

 Procurement of cost indicators, particularly information about rentals

LENSKART STORES IN INDIA

Identification of best existing stores and finding new locations with real time location related

inputs that includes socio-economic, demographic, stage of development, population

density, nearby brand, consumer spending potential and other store-specific attributes.

These new store locations which are look-alike to the best existing stores are the

promising spots as they can replicate the results that high-performing stores have

experienced.

Lenskart Funding:
Lenskart, the eyewear startup, has experienced a remarkable funding journey, secured
substantial investments, and paved the way for its growth and market dominance.

Here is a brief overview of Lenskart’s funding history:

 In March 2023, Lenskart raised a remarkable $500 million in a funding round led by a
wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).
 Following the March funding, Lenskart continued its funding streak by securing an
additional $100 million in June 2023, with the investment coming from ChrysCapital.
 Approximately 80% of the total $600 million raised in the funding rounds was through
secondary sales, providing early investors, including SoftBank, with a significant exit
opportunity.
 The remaining $100-150 million was a primary fund infusion, injecting fresh capital
into Lenskart to fuel its expansion and strategic initiatives.
 Notable investors such as Chiratae Ventures, Premji Invest, Unilazer Ventures,
Kedaara Capital, SoftBank, and KKR partially sold their stakes during the funding
rounds.
 Lenskart’s impressive funding success has enabled it to raise over $1.6 billion to
date, with nearly $850 million secured in the past year alone.

With the latest funding, Lenskart’s total capital raised has crossed the $1.6 billion
mark, with nearly $850 million secured in the past year alone. This achievement is
particularly noteworthy, given the prevailing funding winter and the challenging
macroeconomic environment.

Proposed Benefits
Channels of Distribution
Lenskart is a rapidly growing business that reaches out to over 1, 00,000 customers a month
via a unique combination of a strong online business as well as a first of its kind home
check-up service. It has grown more than 200% in the last 2 years and the company is said
to be among the top 3 optical businesses in India today. From servicing 30 customers per
day to more than 3000 today, the firm has come a long way.
The hybrid Lenskart model ensured maximum outreach for the brand to cater to the varied
needs of different types of consumers of all ages by ensuring the most convenient buying
mode. While the younger generation of buyers, from the teens to the millennial and Gen-Z,
prefers buying spectacle online, the older consumers are still more comfortable
buying eyewear from brick-and-mortar stores. While the younger generation focuses more
on fashion trends and variety, the older generation prefers to stick to the traditional offline
experience of buying and eye testing. According to a Lenskart case study, it becomes clear
that besides catering to the largest section of the audience, the business model helps to
generate brand trust among offline users. As the brand becomes more trustworthy to offline
buyers, they would have the option of buying the products online if they want.
The Lenskart franchise is an example of the company’s efforts to provide customers with
the most convenient and comfortable buying experience. The company could take the
business to customers’ doorsteps by operating through franchises. The company executives
reach customers’ homes with a bagful of products to help select and collect the order on the
spot while assuring free home delivery within 24-48 hours. It is like setting up a mobile shop
that provides door-to-door service to customers.
Adapting new technology has given a competitive advantage to Lenskart that provides
various solutions to all types of customers. Online buyers can try out different spectacle
frames virtually during selection, almost in the same way as done in a physical store that
ensures a more satisfying buying experience.

Lenskart Company’s intensely sales-oriented business model helps retain customers by

Success Criteria
Time to Break Even
Cost/Budget