Kamal Khushlani always had a keen interest in the fashion retail business. However, hailing from a middle-class background, and losing his father at the age of 19, he didn’t have the money to capitalise on his vision of starting a brand that offered progressive fashion for Indian men.

To finally start building on his dream, he borrowed Rs 1…Read More

In 2015, two friends started working out of a small basement in a house in Bengaluru. The basement had a few laptops, chairs, a table, and a mosquito bat.

“Lanwin Pais and I started as event enthusiasts during college -planning and organising experiences for F&B clients. We decided to leverage our network of reliable contacts within the F&B i…Read More

Zephyr Toymakers

In the late 80s, entrepreneur Zaheer Gabajiwala was running a toy workshop in a small, abandoned lift shaft. He did not have enough money to rent a regular working space in the building.

For raw materials, he had to convince people to sell him on credit. It was certainly a bleak situation, but Gabajiwala didn’t give up.…Read More

Rubans Accessories

Chinu Kala was 15 years old when she fled her home in Mumbai due to issues in the family. The young girl was then staring at a bleak and uncertain future. Despite the Indian jewellery market being vast, Chinu felt that there were no unique designs to meet the demands of the consumers.

When she was older and after trying…Read More

Back in 2001, when Ashok Rajpal, 39, had been in the textile business for 11 years, he decided to venture into the peripheral mobile devices industry, though he had no knowledge of it.

Putting his head and fortunes together with his brother, who had a small peripheral devices shop in Nehru Place, New Delhi, Ashok began his journey as a…Read More

Umar Akhter was just 16 years old when hard times fell upon his father, Saifulla Akhter, a Bengaluru-based sarees distributor. Saifulla’s retailers in Hyderabad shut shop and Saifulla’s payment of around Rs 8 lakh was stuck.

One day, they heard that a small businessman from Kolar was selling his small shop at a meagre amount, and ins…Read More

When brothers Rajat Jain, 34, and Mohit Jain, 31, launched Kimirica in 2013, they were working out of a small, 100sqft room. The duo also had bad debts, and faced a huge cash crunch.

But they had seen that more than 70 percent of amenity products and toiletries for international hotel brands were imported. And they were convinced by their idea…Read More