Last Saturday was not mundane, witnessed hustle stories of 6 power packed speakers as a part of eChai startup hustle series at coworking space 91SpringBoard, Mumbai.
First up was Riddhi Doshi Patel, Founder The Mocktail Gazebo. She is a Mompreneur and her aha moment happened while she was having dinner with her hubby and ordered an aerated drink. This led to the foundation of a mocktail connoisseur, her fascination for colors and flavors gave birth to TMG. All of TMG’s mocktails are made with farm fresh ingredients mixed with the right amount of spices, making them a great start to any food palette at any event. She launched her website when she had a 2 months old baby. She had her own course of downs making losses for 2.5 years but it was a long way from where she started as a home chef.
She was concerned about the effects of plastic on health it was always glass bottles her products are in. Then she started with exhibitions in the first week of 2014, alas for the first couple of days she didn’t sell any but on the third day people who have tasted free samples bought bottles. Then she raised funding of Rs 20 Lakhs from her brother in law. In 2016 they have setup a unit in Ahmedabad which is cost effective, she has a team of 4 in Ahmedabad and 2 in Mumbai. Even though for the last 6 months there was stagnancy in the market but that’s a phase she is ready through sail through too.
Currently TMG is approaching market for funding and setting up a new unit. A mother, an entrepreneur, a Professional Independent Trainer, a soft skills trainer, a visiting faculty, a child psychologist, a Graphologist and a Director, she is making her own strides inspiring many on the way.
Now it’s the turn of Gaurang Shetty he is one among the 50 Most Inspiring CEO’s 2017, he also chief Innovation Catalyst at Riidl. His journey started when he went to Germany and got awed by their research methodologies then he came back and spoke with the trustee of his college, that there is a need for everyone to make a meaningful project in engineering which will help them in the future.
Then he started going through the past projects found few good ones that they want to take to the market and the venture kicked off when Somaiya Trust employed them, interesting projects like the musical staircase that we all enjoyed came out from this organization. This proliferated into starting 5 students driven companies using canteen tables as offices, making the best use of the limited resources. Today, they have widen their branches with 70 startups in their portfolio along with raising $1mn raised from GOI.
Now they have a full fledged Fab and Bio lab along with 3.5 Crore grant to set up DIN labs. Then comes an idea that raised million dollars, squareoff an autonomous chess board which changes colors red on kill, green on a good move and much more which lead the discussion to how to evaluate a startup and he puts it in three buckets,
Bucket 1: AIR, you constantly need them and you can imagine your life without them. (Whatsapp)
Bucket 2: SUPPLEMENT, you don’t need it, but you still use it. (Instagram)
Bucket 3: PAINKILLER, you are addressing a dire need (Net banking, Uber)
With his bucket philosophy he is playing the game in a completely different league on the way to legen-wait-for-the-word-dary.
Next up was Lavina Utamani, Design Way her work reflected one word INNOVATION, working at the intersection of Biomedical Engineering and technology she designed products for simplifying tasks where we take the human brunt work for granted. The first one was Kalamastii, Handcrafted jewelry even though it did not takeoff as expected, she kicked off with redesigning Machines, she made machines for doctors more customized and artsy. She went on to do her masters degree in Product design. Her first patent was on Helicross clips, she designed a clip which reverberates that it is for Biomedical or Medical Personnel along with a penholder. The Helicross clips have a simple manufacturing process using aluminum wire and Wire Bending.
Next she changed the way milk is stored and transported with her design, the day to day milk collection requires a lot of space for storage and opening, closing lids with the risk of bacterial contamination. Also length of the milkcan can become a problem while washing and also causing of sticky surfaces due to spillage of milk. Checkout the Design at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/51560065/MILKCANSS
Lavina went on to design Lunchboxes which could be aligned in anyway easy to stock and along with sharing them with family members, it also comes in 4 different types FLOWER, CATERPILLAR, TENORILS, ORANGE making eating food a pleasure. ( https://www.behance.net/gallery/51546377/JUBAKO ), She even designed a mechanical device which represents temporomandibular joints and the jaw members to which maxillary and mandibular casts may be attached to stimulate jaw movements ( https://www.behance.net/gallery/51531945/DENTAL-ARTICULATOR )
Her products and its simplicity yet solving complex things left the audience in aww and she truly is redefining the word DESIGN THINKING in her own way.
The next person to speak was kartik Raichura, Websites.co.in. He truly was wittiest among all, his journey reflected just he eats the word hustle for breakfast. It all started pretty young with him getting notes and research papers from friends and putting them up together to benefit those who have missed the lectures which led to the foundation of ManagementParadise.com. Advertisements from coaching classes was his revenue model and he did not need to even market about the company.
Then kartik solved the biggest problem of all the students, he solved board papers of the past 5 years and along with them the important questions and printed them into a book with was of 1000 pages which put it in a price column not soo friendly to the student, so went ahead and reprinted them with Raddi Paper making them cost effective and non-xeroxable, it captured the 50% of market share in the first month itself.
Now his latest one is websites.co.in, it is A SaaS Platform that takes local Small and Medium businesses online within 15 minutes flat, lets them post updates to their website through web, app and sms platforms and helps them rank better for location based searches on Google at an affordable price. Kartik tip for budding entrepreneurs is to, “Always think you are right. The world might not be ready for your innovations; you may even be considered a wannabe or a whacko, your ideas may be laughed or frowned upon. But if you truly feel that your idea is going to help change lives, nothing should stop you from giving it your best shot. Your passion will drive your team to achieve excellence. Never shy away from experimenting.” Reinforcing that HUSTLE is what an entrepreneur should live by.
Then came the crazy level multitasking person, Vipul Madhani, PustakMandi. He is a software engineer and founder of PustakMandi.com, the first only global book community platform which deals selling and buying of books, nationally and internationally. He is a professional Web Developer by choice, who has completed approximately more than 50 Projects in a span on 1.5 years. His clientele goes around the globe. He has shown his interest in writing industry as well and, his own biopic “THE CEO IN MAKING” has been released in 2016.
PustakMandi initially started with different idea but ultimately it went in a different way. Whole idea of PustakMandi was never for a Monetary Benefit but it was always to make a community. He compared it with the PustakMandi which was started 2 years ago and it has diversified on a huge path and now PustakMandi is not just an e-ecommerce platform. People/Authors come here not just to purchase but they come to feel a homely shopping like they do in an actual store.
Vipul opines that after his graduation dream of going abroad got shattered and ultimately joined Service Industry but soon started his research and began creating webapps and researching about Online stuff and all that bought PustakMandi into existence. His decision to leave a promised corporate life to find his true calling is the core characteristic of an entrepreneur, his passion put the company on the verge of a hockey stick growth.
Let me introduce to you the serial entrepreneur on the panel who is skilled inside out on how to run a company. Been there and Did that is what represents Dr. Vandana Jain of The Advanced Eye Hospital. She bootstrapped her first company with money from friends, family and bank, Clear Ear Inc. medical device company focused on delivering hearing innovations that make ears around the world happier. Clear Ear was founded out of the Stanford Bio Design Program in 2011. Its first product line is TEC (Total Ear Care), whose initial application addresses the number one cause of hearing loss and hearing-aid failure worldwide. This solution seeks to expand patient access and improve quality of ear care for the 47M Americans and over 350M patients affected worldwide and the company went on to become a huge success.
With a deep understanding of the industry she is in her companies truly are a game changers with great value addition and has high end user ability because of key problem solving. She wanted to run something which makes companies scalability independent of humans so she entered the field of consulting. She encouraged the audience to come up to her and share their ideas so she can help them execute. Key takeaways from her breath taking serial entrepreneurship journey are:
1. Never take investors for granted, they always come for their own share of pie so always lookout for yourself.
2. Don’t be a perfectionist when dealing with people that should be done when it comes to a product.
3. The stake that you have today is not going to be the same forever, always expect the unexpected.
With such seasoned skill set, she is all in with her 5th startup, kudos to such entrepreneurial spirit reflecting let the money work for you but not work for the money.
On that note the session ends and it’s time for some networking.
