An outlet for a girl’s desire to flaunt: Chai and Cheese
Chai and Cheese is an interesting portal which brings together two very basic human instincts- showing off and curiosity. Some might call it a bit shallow but since when has internet become partial? Ragini Varma is an Assam based software engineer and designer with a thing for fashion. While traveling one day in early 2013, Ragini noticed a very beautiful girl who wore really simple clothes but looked amazing.
This got her thinking. Taking in factors like not everyone having a blog or the reach to flaunt and also the people who’d be interested in knowing what clothes are girls taking a liking towards, the idea for Chai and Cheese was born. “When mainstream fashion refuses to recognise the beauty that is in every woman, we thought of creating our own means of doing so! We have people wearing chappals bought from flea markets and also louboutins. We want people to move from Facebook photos which only their friends can see and come on a public platform, for everyone to ape their style,” says Ragini.
Ragini has joined forces with Hitesh Sharma (childhood friend) who has had previous startup experience and the duo plan to take Chai and Cheese to the next level. They’ve featured more than 60 girls who send in their photographs till now and the response looks encouraging. Shopping brands will be really interested in something like this and the duo have already cracked a couple of deals where these brands will be giving away freebies to the winners.
Targeting and woman over the age of 18, Chai and Cheese certainly has a virality angle associated with it and multiple revenue models can be thought of involving shopping and fashion brands. The duo is tight lipped about what they have in mind exactly but are waiting for some time to hit a critical number in terms of traffic.
“I remember the first day I had launched the blog, I could barely sleep. I wanted to know the reaction of the people who read it, how many page views did I get. I breathe and live chai and cheese, all the time I am just wondering how to make this bigger and better How to reach more audience, to include new sections. This is the first thing I think about before sleeping and after waking up,” says an enthusiastic Ragini about starting up and what keeps her going.
