A creative entrepreneur and a Marketer, Saniya Sugla, has been in Marketing and the content industry for the past three years, and she is here to prove that the future of content belongs to her.
To delve deeper into her educational background, she did her Undergraduate from the University of Delhi in English Honours and proceeded to pursue her Master’s from the University of Bath in Management with a specialisation in Marketing.
While she was in Bath, Saniya did a project with Accor Hotel that propelled her to take a leap into the world of social media and marketing. After coming back to India, she worked as an Influencer Marketing Specialist and Social Media Manager before she ventured forth to establish her own Boutique Marketing Studio.
Entrepreneurial Journey
Saniya started off alone as a freelancer back in 2021, and it’s inspiring to know that her team has grown since then and now 12-15 women are working in her team.
Entrepreneurs Today caught up with Saniya to understand the nitty-gritty of her entrepreneurial journey. She shares that the idea to start the business came during the pandemic when she saw people spending more time on social media and their phones and realised that the traditional ways of marketing were completely off the grid as social media marketing was replacing the traditional ways of marketing.
Saniya admits that she had to leave her former job and take a sabbatical due to a family emergency. She further shares that starting her venture was not really planned out, and she had thought of going for further studies and looking for another job. Within seven days of figuring out what to do next, Saniya came across a vacancy for a social media marketing specialist, and soon after joining discovered a gap in the market for companies looking for innovative marketing strategies. So, as she was venturing into a novel and uncharted field of entrepreneurship, things were first somewhat precarious.
Services offered:
The range of services offered by Saniya’s team includes ideation, verbal and visual storytelling for branding and marketing, as well as content development and communication.
Achievements
Saniya has so far worked with several well-known and reputable companies and labels in India. She has worked with more than 30 brands over the past 18 months.
She says that one of her personal milestones is becoming financially independent from a very young age and launching a business of her own.
Saniya has also received a lot of recognition in a very short time ever since she focused more on personal branding.
Saniya talks to the team at Entrepreneurs Today about the reason behind not registering her venture under a different name. She confides that she is a huge advocate of business being personal. Moreover, a few years down the line, she expects her work to be recognised by her own name. Contrary to popular perception, which holds that businesses and personal life should be kept apart, Saniya believes that business should have a personal touch in a very cultural and traditional setting like India.
Her other feat includes creating work opportunities for young women and encouraging and teaching them how to get financially independent. Seeing such women work, get financially independent from such early age and be at the top of their game is truly inspiring to Saniya, as it makes her believe more in her dreams. She is extremely proud of the safe space and the ecosystem she has managed to foster in her company.
Rocky road
The recruiting of the right team has been one of Saniya’s concerns in developing her marketing studio. Saniya also mentions that finding the right teammates is a never-ending struggle and that it takes a lot of work to make sure that every employee at her company shares her vision and is in line with her goals. She adds that it was not easy to find the right team as not everyone understands or has the skills to match the expectations of the target customer.
In her line of work, Saniya also highlights the difficulty of keeping up with the most recent social media algorithms. Considering how unpredictable and anxiety-inducing social media is, it is also difficult for her to maintain a balance in the world and often finds it difficult to take a break from it.
What the future holds
As per the plans for the future, Saniya wants to move forward with her goal of creating more opportunities and empowering young women to get financially independent.
She also looks forward to working with more brands and labels in the future to help them create a solid brand presence with storytelling and leaving behind a legacy.
Furthermore, as she has already worked with numerous brands across India., her next goal is to expand her personal brand Internationally and carry out event design and content creation.
Takeaways from the 20s
One of the lessons Saniya wants to share with budding entrepreneurs is not to let the world dictate their choices and goals, and that even if it seems scary at first, it is important to figure out your path.
She also asserts that if you have the privilege or the opportunity to give back something to society, try to add value to your work.
A message that she wants to send across to the youth is to strike a healthy work-life balance and not to get sucked into the hustle culture since the burnout at the end of it won’t help with your creativity.
