Mitesh Soma Spills the Beans

The sky is the limit for founder of Chemistdirect, Mitesh Soma.  Achieving fantastic results since it started in 2007, the online pharmacy predicts to hit £5 Million in turnover by the end of the year.

Despite rapid success, Mitesh remains modest and admits that one of his favourite past times is shouting at the TV when Dragon's Den is on, just like the rest of us!

Ditching the day job and risking it all
The brainwave for the business came to Soma during a visit to the chemist where his pharmacist wife, Krishna, worked.  Mitesh, then a Management Consultant, realised there was a gap in the market for lower priced chemist goods and that this could be a thriving internet business.

He says,

"I started looking at product prices in various supplier catalogues and was just amazed at the mark up that was being charged! The cost that they were buying these products in for and the price that they were being sold for weren't in proportion, I was gob smacked at the difference.  For example, things were being bought for 30 pence and being sold on for £7 or £8."

Achieving a first class degree business and computing and witnessing success of earlier dotcoms like Amazon, Mitesh knew he could be on to a winner.

"I thought that there is got be a demand for these products at lower prices; making use of the internet would make it successful and scalable so that we could offer these little prices for people across the country."

Leaving his job at Deloitte and risking his own cash on the idea, Chemist Direct was born and took off at incredible rate.
"There's a lot of risk in it for me, I've also invested a lot of money into it but I'm hoping that risk will pay off in the future...we've gone from a handful of staff to over 30 in the space eight months this year!"

"I was surprised at how {the business} has taken off but particularly how it has carried on; we had a piece in the Daily Mail and I thought we would see a peak and it would drop but it hasn't.  We have had continuous growth month on month which is great.  It shows the power of repeat business, people are coming back to use us again and again , telling their friends and family and showing me that there is a demand for what we're offering and  that's really encouraging; it makes me want to  improve it and make it better."

Finding new recruits for the Online Pharmacy
As a start-up, Mitesh recruited every member if staff from warehouse packers to pharmacists, he has since put a management team in place but still likes to keep a close eye on the recruitment process.

"I still like to be closely involved to see that new staff are a good fit for the company. It's important that they share company values that I feel are important to make a successful organisation. "

With a senior team in place, Mitesh can concentrate on driving the business forward and he is confident that the management team are all passionate and share his vision. But he admits that recruiting managers was far from easy.

"Recruiting for management positions has been difficult because you're letting go.  Prior to that you are doing it yourself and you're handing over control."

As orders for products continue to pour in, Mitesh is keen to expand the team even more and is particularly interested in retail people who have worked in health and beauty for key positions to build the commercial team. 

Competing with the giants 
A new found safe haven for sufferers of embarrassing illnesses, Chemist Direct's growth spurt is difficult for competitors to ignore. The pharmaceutical giants, whose high prices have gone unchallenged up until now, have tried to throw a few spanners in the works to slow the online retailer down but Mitesh seems flattered by the protests.

"It shows that we have made an impact on such massive organisations that they are watching what we are doing; lots of competitors try using dirty tactics trying to bring us down.  My knowledge of lawyers has improved drastically; I've realised the need of getting a good legal team in place." 

The Business Man
Softly spoken and polite, Mitesh a million miles from the cut throat portrayal of business people that we see on TV, he is funny and comes across as genuine but it's clear that he has that special business savvy.

"We're using our marketing budget carefully to make sure that we target the right people who are going to be customers.  I don't want to go down the route of many dotcoms that spend a lot on marketing and don't deliver much, you see them for a while and then they disappear off of the radar; we don't want to be one of them."

"Ever since I was young I was interested in business, it's just in me.   I don't know if its nature or nurture!   When I was 12 I tried doing car washing as a business and I've done other things, I ran a small perfume business and left a very well paid job to do this full time."

The father of three admits that that running a growing business and raising a family can be hard work, but sheepishly he tells us that if he can find the time, he likes nothing more than to relax in front of Dragon's Den!

"Some of the stuff on there is great, the people really believe in it and you're thinking, that's never going to work!   You get more commercially astute as you go on in business and start realising what works and what doesn't.  Even friends of mine will have an idea and I don't want to tear holes in it so I suggest, ‘why don't you look at it from this angle'!"

Building a household brand
Global plans for Chemist direct are slightly ambiguous right now but Mitesh is quite clear about his goals for the business in the UK.

"I'm keen on building it into something that's massive, a house hold name.   It's that that wakes me up in the morning and makes me feel like getting out of bed and doing something. Not the money, the money is a metric that's there to see if we can grow it further."

"Potential international expansion may happen but it's not priority at the moment, we want to make sure that we've touched everybody in the UK and that we're a household name."

Mitesh's business tips:
1. Utilise your network

"It helped that my wife was in the industry, she's got lots of friends and colleagues who have all been very helpful, try to make use of the network you've got."

2. Keep a close eye on your cash flow.

3. Start slowly, test things out before you go full steam.

4. Check that there's demand for your product.

5. Expect to work hard.

"People tell me that it's great we're taking sales all day and all night but they don't realise what it takes to get there, there's been sleepless days and nights, you put your whole life into it to make it happen. "