An accidental beautician makes it big

Women have always been given a raw deal. With poor literacy levels they have no choices to make. Their parents think that their responsibility lies in getting them married off. Some get into good families. Most of them wont. But for the ones who believe in lighting a candle than curse darkness find the right opportunities. This is exactly what Brunda R did. She lit up happiness in the family. But three years ago, it was a different story. She and her husband were struggling to make their streetside food shop breakeven. They toiled throughout the day. But ended up with a meagre profit of Rs 500 to Rs 600. There was not enough left to take care of basic family needs and her two children's education.

Brunda realized that she needs to take charge to supplement family income. With skills like waxing, eyebrow trimming and facials she learned from her sister who works in a salon, she opened a small parlour. She ended up paying for cosmetics and rent. She was hardly left with any money even after working very hard.

Then came the moment for change when a friend explained about Urban Company, the opportunity giver.

Got an identity

After joining UC in 2019, Brunda got to learn everything about beauty products and service properly. She learnt how to attend to the customers and deal with certain challenges. Brunda picked up the skills to the satisfaction of her customers. Now she earned their respect.

In her first month, Brunda honoured 80 jobs and earned Rs 40,000 after paying for product expenses and commission. Now she is even able to earn Rs 1.5 lakh and more. Brunda's life took a turn for good.

Brunda is one among the 15 service providers who got immense benefit from the Partner Stock Ownership Plan (PSOP), an industry first by the Urban Company. The company has set aside stocks worth Rs 150 crore to thousands of service partners over the next 5 to 7 years.

Brunda being one of the early beneficiaries is sure to motivate other service providers across the country to aspire for the PSOP, besides their regular earning and incentives. Commenting on the PSOP plan, Raghav Chandra, Cofounder of Urban Company said, "the PSOP will help thousands of service partners become shareholders of the company, thereby enabling broad-based wealth creation through equity sharing. This is perhaps the first of its kind plan globally, where gig workers become shareholders of the very platform they work with. This will allow our service partners to benefit from the company's growth in the coming years. This PSOP plan underscores our commitment to empower service partners and treat them as equal stakeholders in the company building journey."

Now, Brinda feels more confident about growing herself each day. Moreover, she's got an identity. She feels that Urban Company is the reason why she has become a confident and strong professional and that has changed her life around.

As per the recently released UC Earnings Index, UC partners who delivered at least 30 orders a month, earned Rs 30,455 per month, with the top quartile of partners earning Rs 38,263 per month. Further, according to the findings of PGA Labs' Earnings Benchmarking Study, Urban Company partners earn at least 60% higher net monthly earnings than their offline counterparts while working for considerably fewer hours (almost 50% less).

Building A Home

Brunda renovated her old house into a 4-storey building. Her children are now studying in international schools. Good education for children was very important for Brunda as she could only study till 10th and that too not in a very good school. Brunda has also recently booked another flat. Brunda also got promoted to the Luxe Category at UC. Her family, her parents and even her relatives are very proud of her.

Living With Certainty

Brunda, who knows that struggle brings catalytic change, wants her daughter to become a strong individual and is supporting her to become a lawyer. She also wants to buy a car and jewellery for her daughter.

She feels secure when she is out on her professional work. The reason for the security is Urban Company offers a safety net to its partners in the form of insurance and access to financial support. All active partners on the UC platform in India are covered under the Group Life and Accidental Insurance cover. Some of the key aspects covered under the policy are life insurance (Rs 6 lakh), disability cover (Rs 6 lakh), accidental hospitalization (Rs 70,000), accidental OPD treatment (Rs 10,000), among others.

Brunda's belief levels have soared and she is confident She believes that with UC, she will be able to achieve anything.