Ink, paper and passion: How these Kochi brothers are capturing the global market selling planners and journals

In 2015, when brothers Nasaf S and Sachin S began their business journey with mobile phone accessories, the ecommerce market had just opened up. While there was immense potential in the space, the funds weren’t sufficient to sustain their bootstrapped venture, and they had to finally call it quits.

However, they held on to the belief that everything happens for a reason. And this belief held them in good stead as their subsequent business endeavour—centred around their shared passion for design and stationery—not only flourished in the country but also went on to address the global market.

Factor Notes, a Kochi-based stationery brand, was started by the brothers in 2018. The business now rakes in a multi-crore revenue with a presence across 4,500 stores in India, UAE, and Africa and a customer base of 3 million. The brand recently partnered with one of India’s leading stationery retail chains, Crossword, and its products are available at its stores as well.

How did the brothers from Kochi put aside their setback with their first venture and triumph in their second innings? It is all about understanding the market and the passion for our venture, Sachin tells SMBStory.

From Kochi to the world

Sachin and Nasaf decided to enter the stationery business for the love of design. They also sensed the gap in the market for quirky stationery with a premium look and feel.

Factor Notes today offers a range of 250 SKUs, across the categories of journals, planners, organisers, art supplies, and stationery items such as sticky notes, sticker books, and game cards.

“Our collections encompass a broad range of preferences, offering everything from lively patterns and vivid colours to sophisticated motifs and enduring classics,” elaborates Sachin.

While brands such as Alicia Souza, The Ink Bucket, and Happy Wagon are prominent players in the premium stationery segment today, Sachin says that, when they launched Factor Notes, there was no formal player in the category and there was immense opportunity for them to make a mark.

Sachin and Nasaf started Factor Notes with Rs 20 lakh—they took a loan of Rs 10 lakh under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana and the remaining came from their savings.

Today the brand has a network of 20 distributors for offline retail, while its online presence spans Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart, and Local Nation and its own ecommerce site.

Factor Notes entered the online space in 2019 via Amazon’s marketplace, and that proved to be a turning point for the brand in scaling its customer reach.

“In our first stint in business, we had acquired an understanding of online retail, and that was a learning we implemented in Factor Notes. From stock management to funds utilisation, even the failures tend to give great learnings, and here we are now selling around 2,000 products a day,” says Sachin.

Factor Notes’ business took off in a big way during the uncertain times of the pandemic when journalling picked up as a hobby among people.

There has been a significant upswing in journals and personalised planners especially after the pandemic, says Sachin.

Initially, the brothers were sourcing their products from third-party factories, but in 2022 they began production at an in-house facility. Now the binding and printing is done at Factor Notes’ own factory in Kochi, while the papers are outsourced.

The company employs around 50 people.

Design is the heart of the brand, and its design team consists of ten people, recruited from leading design institutes in the country.

Sachin says price is an important factor in the market, and Factor Notes ensures good quality and easy-on-the-pocket pricing.

The brand’s undated planners start from Rs 899, while the all-purpose notebooks start from Rs 225.

Last year, Factor Notes entered the global markets of UAE and Africa via the online mode and an offline distributor network.

Market and growth

The stationery market in the country is largely unorganised, and diaries as a category is crowded. However, the opportunities for growth are huge, especially for players in the niche segment.

Sachin says India is a saturated market when it comes to diaries, and that’s the reason why Factor Notes doesn’t do plain old diaries and focuses on products with premium designs. He also says exports hold great promise for stationery players.

According to 6wresearch, the stationery market in India is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% during 2023–2029.

Going forward, Factor Notes is looking to expand to the United States and the United Kingdom. It also plans to enter the children’s segment with toys and back-to-school stationery.