Top SMB stories of the week: unglamorous beginnings leading to phenomenal rewards

Not all beginnings are alike. Entrepreneurial beginnings, furthermore, are the least glamorous. It involves the burning of midnight oil, and a seemingly endless wait for a breakthrough. 

SMBStory picks three stories this week that began with much sweat and toil but eventually translated into great stories of success.

Inder Jaisinghani

Inder Jaisinghani was 15 years old when his father, Thakurdas Jaisinghani, passed away. It was 1968 and his mother asked Inder to quit his studies and take over the family business started by his father.

The Jaisinghani family, who are Sindhis, ran Sind Electric Stores, a small hardware and electrical store in Mumbai, which sold fans, lights, switches, and wires. It was located in Lohar Chawl – Mumbai’s epicentre for electrical goods and products, and a trading zone.  Fortunately for young Inder, he was not alone when he took over the business. His older brothers Girdhari and Ajay, and his younger brother Ramesh teamed up to scale up the family business and take their father’s legacy forward.

The brothers started a firm named Polycab in 1983 to manufacture electrical goods at a large scale in Gujarat.

The company had a beginning which was far from being glamorous or fancy. However, today, it is reaping phenomenal rewards. The company today clocks a turnover of Rs 7,985 crore but it plans to surpass this number soon.

Read the full story here.

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Madhur Goyal

A ban imposed by the government changed the roadmap for this company. 

House of Decor, founded in 1981 in Delhi is an almost four-decade-old brand founded by Rajesh Goel, and the second wallpaper company in India that is trying to make a big impact in the still-nascent Indian wallpaper market. In 2018, the company opened a vertical called STENNA.

Madhur says that his father, Rajesh Goel, started the business in 1981 by investing Rs 25 lakh. He started importing wallpapers and his company was at the second spot in this domain in India. In 1983, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had banned import of certain goods to promote domestic manufacturing. This included the banning of wallpapers as well. That is when Madhur’s father took a loan of Rs 1 crore to set up a manufacturing unit in 1986.

The ban turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it reduced foreign dependence and encouraged domestic manufacturing.

Today, the company, which produces a wide variety of 1,200 wallpapers in its manufacturing unit in Bewari, has tied up with 2,000 retailers and clocks a turnover of approximately Rs 25 crore per annum. 

Read the full story here.

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Majikhan Ilamkhan Mutva

Mud and mirror work, which is also known as lippan kaam, is a famous art form of Kutch region in Gujarat. It is centuries old and was primarily done on the interior walls of the house to keep them cool. Now, it is offered in frames as well to enhance home décor.

A Class 10 pass out, Majikhan wasn’t too keen on studies but had a passion for this art. In 2013, he decided to learn the art to make it famous around the country. 

“I belong to the Mutva community, which is one of the oldest to hold the talent of working on this art. I have grown up seeing this art but sadly, this beauty was restricted to our villages and once in a while, tourists would come and praise it. Surprisingly, there are only five people in the village, including me, who know this art,” he says.

Majikhan learnt the art from one of his community members. He started making the art at his home using just Rs 1,500 to purchase the raw materials.

In November 2017, Majikhan listed his artwork on Amazon India by the name Mutva Mud Work Art By Majikhan.

Today, Majikhan receives around 15 to 20 orders per month and generates around Rs 4 lakh a year.

Read the full story here.