Ankit Shah, Founder, Tempting Chocolates
Saturday August 29, 2009 , 3 min Read
“The Taste of Success”
Chocolate has been a delicacy enjoyed by the Incas and Mayans since three millennia. The distinctive taste has not only been the foundation of great confectionaries but also given rise to popular fiction like Roald Dahl’s children's novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Chocolates are a part and parcel of our lives come rain or shine. Ankit Shah realized this early on and took it upon himself to introduce a new type of chocolate to Indian markets.
The Young Entrepreneur sums up the essence of his company Tempting Chocolates saying “If a flavor or fruit is edible we can make a chocolate with it. We customize the chocolates and its packaging as per our customer’s requirement.”
Made to order chocolate are a new entrant into the Indian market and Ankit plans to increase his market space “By entering new sectors like Hotel, Travel and tourism.”
Ankit is a reasonable man, and it evident that logic and clear thinking have prompted him to take up the mantle of an entrepreneur. He says “The earnings whole or part of a 9 to 5 job will not continue if I stop working, however part earnings (a major part) will continue even if I stop working, once I streamlined my venture into business.”
“The biggest challenge so far was getting repeat orders of similar magnitude from our regular customers at the onset of recession in October 2008, I overcame it by making new customers which was a big ask in those times.”
Ankit learnt a lesson or two in his early going as an entrepreneur, and is thankful that life bought them his way early on. He states “I have made a number of mistakes and learned from it, the magnitude has not been huge as all my decisions first pass through a closed user group (with diversified background) and then to everyone, so monetarily loss has been low in each of those mistakes.”
Ankit is practical and knows that the end profit is a necessary element of entrepreneurship. He speaks of growth saying “I measure it in the volume of business and the number of customers, which has been very impressive about 50 % CAGR.”
He is proud of their bumper season in October 2007, where the sales for the year more then doubled, and hopes for a repeat very soon.
Ankit is strangely enough not motivated by the customizable chocolates he makes (though I know many who would be), his enthusiasm rises from the adrenaline rush of entrepreneurship.
Ankit has had a lot of experiences in entrepreneurship and he shared the one lesson he deems most important saying “It is not how hard you can hit but how hard you get hit and still keep moving forward.”
Yourstory wishes Ankit and Tempting Chocolates good fortune and prays that they taste the sweet taste of success time and again.
