After completing her Masters in Finance from IIM Kolkata, Runjhun Gupta started her career in finance at an MNC. She was passionate about being successful and dreamed of becoming the CEO of the company.
But fortunately one fine day she fainted in her office and realize that all her hard work and passion was not going in the right direction. She decided to quit her job in order to achieve happiness instead of success.
Gupta has a passion for dance and been training in dance since the age of 6. Her passion towards dance was a stress buster during her initial struggling days. She also realised that there are a lot of people in the surrounding who are stressed and need help.
“I decided that I want to be happy and I want to spread happiness. Dance makes me happy and I started making a program around it, because it was working with me, I thought it will help other people too” expressed Runjhun Gupta.
That’s how the idea of initiating ZipOut came into existence. Here Runjhun Gupta, Founder, ZipOut sharing her journey so far, exclusively with IndianMediaBook.
A lot can happen over a coffee
After making the decision of initiating a program around dance, Gupta was sitting in Café Coffee Day (CCD) to discuss the strategy to implement the plan. The major topic of discussion was the name. Lots of suggestions had come such as Euphoria, Breakfree etc. but one name suggested by her friend grabbed Gupta’s attention and it was Zindagi in Pyjama.
Gupta believes that people go for their morning orevening walks in pyjamas, that helps them relax. Thus, meeting and discussions at CCD was a new direction to the business.
From Dance Addiction to ZipOut
In August 2008 Gupta started Dance Addiction with only one student, that journey of dance addiction was very tough.
“When I started Dance Addiction it was not easy. At that time nobody valued or understood the entrepreneurship”, said Gupta.
Gupta was focused and to promote her initiative, she not only designed the logos, posters and pamphlets but also pasted and distributed pamphlets all by herself. She believes that marketing and advertising is very challenging
However, Gupta managed to add 200 students along with three companies for corporate workshops. But unfortunately in 2009 her whole journey came to a standstill as she suffered from anxiety disorder for two years. In 2011, she gave a fresh start to the whole idea with a fresh name ZipOut.
ZipOut celebrates life by de-stressing and loving yourself. It operates in health, wellness and happiness industry. It works on the four pillars de-stress to increase the happiness quotient, second is to lose weight, third learn dancing and last but not the least self-exploration. So far ZipOut has touched 10,000 lives and serving 32 companies for its corporate program.
The challenges
Gupta, plans to write a book on her journey so far, her struggles and the challenges she has face on her journey to success
“The biggest challenge was how to tell people that ZipOut is not a dance institute, it’s a lifestyle company. If you are searching something on Google you just say Google this, likewise I want to make ZipOut a common word used by people such as let’s ZipOut today,” expressed Gupta.
She further mentioned that it took years to explain this whole idea, as this concept was new. Only people who joined the classes understood it. Before making any programme, team ZipOut does an intense research to find the reason for stress and gives them a solution for that.
On the other side, approaching companies and to convince them for corporate programs was another big challenge.
The funding journey
ZipOut is a self-funded company. The venture has been approached from angel investors but Gupta is not ready at the moment.
“My customers are my investors. My purpose to start ZipOut is to reduce stress and spread happiness. I believe in results and I want to touch as many lives as possible. People who are raising funds are burning money. Funds should be used for the growth of the company, not to sustain,” added Gupta.
According to Gupta, ZipOut is growing organically and in next few months, to scale-up the profitable business the venture will make a strategy for funding.
ZipOuters
Apart from Gupta, 4 other members are managing the day to day operations at ZipOut and Gupta call them ZipOuters.
Speaking about ZipOuters, Gupta said, “We have ZipOuter program which bring out the best in each and every person. Everyone is very unique and I am firm believer of that. ZipOuters are those people who have worked on their mind-set to a level that they know how to be successful and happy and how to spread happiness.”
Gupta personally has trained her team and she is very careful in selecting her team members.
Road ahead
Besides ZipOut, Gupta regularly visits various colleges as a motivational speaker and she call herself as Inspirational Rock-star.
Currently ZipOut is working towards expanding its reach in various metro cities through franchise model
“We have been approached by couple of people from South India, who are interested in opening a franchise of ZipOut. We would like to expand our reach to where there is a demand or need. I am looking at a franchise in Bangaluru and Chennai”, concluded Gupta.
