Ishita is a successful entrepreneur and founder/CEO of 99labels.com. After graduating with an MBA, she worked at Cadbury for over 3 years before leaving to co-found Orion Dialogue, an IT company focused on the Indian market. Orion Dialogue experienced success early on but Ishita faced challenges with investors not taking her seriously due to her gender. After 11 years, she sold her stake in Orion Dialogue and later used her experience in e-commerce to found 99labels.com, an online retailer of branded goods. As a woman entrepreneur, Ishita believes it empowers her to work on her own terms rather than having to wait until age 40 to become a CEO or deal with constraints

1. Young CEO
'I did not want to wait till 40 to be a CEO'
“Even when I was in college I was sitting with the new business idea every week, so the thought
of doing something on my own was never out of the question” says this economic graduate who
completed her MBA from IMT and is now founder and CEO of e-commerce giant 99labels.com
Leap of Faith
The brilliant entrepreneur was soon
spotted by Cadbury’s soon after her
MBA completed. After a three-and-a-
half year stint with Cadbury, where she
handled the brand management of both
the confectionary division and Cadbury’s
Dollops ice-cream Ishita was itching to
do something on her own. Reason, there
was nothing left to learn, and Ishita liked
the learning curve’s upwardly movement
more. So she quit Cadbury’s and teamed
up with a school time friend to start up
her first company called the Orion Dialogue which was going to be instrumental in the ITES
sector in India and one of the first to focus solely on the Indian market.
“We did our research before jumping to the business bandwagon. Back in the 1994-95 the BPO
industry was just starting out and it was a good time to venture into the same. We did our
research and with as good as no money in our pockets and no backing we took a big leap of faith
and founded what we called the Orion Dialogue private limited company” she tells proudly.
“Fortunately for us, the business was soon spotted by a leading international bank who wanted us
to do this for them” she tells. Ishita says that they were well equipped with the expertise on the
field and were lucky that the profits started rolling in much sooner than expected but it was not
all as hunky dory as it sounds” she adds
There were many times when she and her business partner would approach investors with a
business plan and they would turn her away asking her to get her father and then they would
discuss things further or would simply not take them seriously enough.
However, in the 11-year-run that Orion Dialogue had, Ishita and her partner now were operating
out of three offices from different cities in India which was quite an achievement she tells.

2. After leading the company to great heights she was bought out by to Aegis BPO in 2006 leaving
Swarup to achieve even greater heights. While she was deciding her next venture, Ishita also
helped setting up businesses but consulting other women entrepreneurs.
99labels.com
Ishita tells us that as tough as it may seem to start an e-commerce business, her creative
experience at Rediff and Yahoo helped her immensely. In spite of her corporate
accomplishments she opted to become an entrepreneur and eventually launched 99labels.com.
The idea of 99labels.com says Ishita made a lot of sense as a consumer. She says, 99labels offers
an exclusive chance for people to buy credible, branded items from a reliable source at
discounted prices and from the privacy and convenience of their own home. So from a
consumer’s point of view it was a win-win situation. Swarup further adds that the timing of
entering the market seemed perfect too. E-commerce was big abroad and people in India had
started to accept the idea and hence there was huge potential for a site like 99lables.com here.
On being a woman entrepreneur
Ishita says that she always wanted to do something of her won. “You see I never wanted to wait
till I was forty-years-old to become a CEO. I became a CEO at the age of 25, when the rest of
my friends or ex-colleagues were cribbing about their unsatisfying jobs.
Ishita personally feels that being an entrepreneur itself empowers a person, and if a woman wants
to build a career as an entrepreneur there is nothing that is more satisfying. She even feels that
being a woman entrepreneur has more advantages than otherwise.
“Being an entrepreneur gives women the freedom to work the way she wants to, when she wants
to and how she wants to. A woman sometimes struggles more in the corporate world than when
she works on her own terms” she quips. As an entrepreneur gets to explore more and push her
limits which is not really possible when it comes to working in a structured atmosphere. She
even says that now is the time to start your own ventures, when the market is ready, investors is
ready and when the mindsets too are ready to accept women who run their own show.