We were lucky to catch up with Sushmitha Pidatala recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sushmitha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?

Social media is a boon to business owners in the modern day.

A convenient plug-and-play outlet through which I can potentially reach hundreds of millions (possibly billions!) of people, social media platforms like Instagram are a prime example of Arjuna’s lifeline to its customers.

At Arjuna, I am responsible for each of our social media posts. While photos in static posts may sometimes be from photographers I have commissioned, the content of our messaging is always me.

This is all by design. From the inception of Arjuna, I have made it a point to retain an authentic voice. In my view, nothing falls more on deaf ears than mass messaging or a gimmicky voice. That is why I strive to make every one of our social media posts from the heart, meaningful and tied to an issue that I actually care to speak about. Yes, Arjuna is still a business that promotes goods, so obviously the posts are self-promotional. But I genuinely believe there is a way to hype up one’s products without being presumptuous or pushy.

Sushmitha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Sushmitha Pidatala, the Founder of Arjuna (arjunadesignstudio.com), an online lifestyle and home décor boutique which promotes both a classic and stylized South Asian aesthetic to the mainstream. Arjuna is where traditional designs meet modern day form and function. My personal mission is to cultivate a community of creatives, all while specifically promoting handcrafted goods from artists and artisans in South Asia (and India in particular).

Introducing the world to the profoundly elegant and awe-inspiring heritage of South Asia is a guiding force behind everything we seek to accomplish here at Arjuna.

What sets us apart is also what I am most proud of accomplishing. That is to say, we have managed to fill a market void. Finely made artisanal goods for the home are hard to identify at an accessible price point. Moreover, goods and accessories that celebrate South Asian tradition are difficult to procure except in campy designs or in stereotypical patterns and prints. Arjuna is a rejoinder to all that because we have put into market original, classic, elegant and unique items borne from the creative visions of either myself or other South Asian artists whose works and ideas are often overlooked by a mainstream marketplace that has historically been more interested in profit margins and mass production instead of originality, vitality and respect for South Asian heritage.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built my audience on social media — particularly Instagram — by first building connections with other South Asian creatives and small business owners. This was and still is the cornerstone of our social media strategy.

Our social media growth story is very much still a story. A story in progress…

But I am confident that one of the keys to our success is that we have taken a slow-and-steady, organic approach to gaining followers. While many Instagram mavens may deride this approach for being naive to the economic realities of the platform, I have consciously chosen to sacrifice mass growth and indiscriminate marketing in an effort to hone my authentic voice and to build meaningful relationships with fellow collaborators whose missions often overlap with ours.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A general lesson I’ve had to struggle with and learn to “unlearn” is that clients pay you to be perfect. I came from corporate America, where this is very much the standard by which your corporate career survives and which is hammered into you from your first day at work all the way up through and until the day you walk out of that revolving door in the building lobby.

But when starting one’s own business, the standard has fundamentally shifted. Now, clients are less concerned with their perception of how hard I am working or how “perfect” of an output I have produced. Instead, clients care about receiving a positive, responsive and immersive consumer experience. They care about being heard and catered to.

In corporate culture, there is often an unhealthy and misplaced emphasis on perfectionism and ensuring that every box is checked before implementation. I have now learned that mapping out every potential scenario and being fully prepared for everything that can go sideways is not only unrealistic, but is also a drain on resources. Resources that can be more effectively deployed towards enhancing the customer experience!

In my business, for example, there are numerous variables that come into play when manufacturing a new item and ushering it from factory floor to customer hands. It’s not humanly possible for me to be in control of every variable, so the best I can do is to be informed, mindful, disciplined and always attuned to what the customer wants, expects and needs to feel.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arjunadesignstudio.com
• Instagram: @arjunadesignstudio
• Facebook: @arjunadesignstudio
• Other: Tik Tok: @arjunadesignstudio

Image Credits
Paige Beitler Photography