[Year in Review 2021] Top 10 SMB stories to motivate and inspire you
Behind every successful business there is an inspiring story that needs to be told. This year, SMBStory uncovered stories from the length and breadth of the country, becoming the voice of small businesses. Here are the top 10 SMB stories of 2021.
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MSMEs are one of the prime drivers for the growth of the Indian economy. They also contribute significantly to value addition, employment generation, and exports.
According to MSME Ministry data released in May 2021, there are around 6.3 crore MSMEs in India, which contribute approximately 29 percent towards the country’s GDP.
While the pandemic posed many challenges to Indian MSMEs in 2020, year 2021 was all about adapting to the new normal and building self-resilience and courage in the face of adversity and moving forward.
This year, SMBStory brought stories of small businesses who, through small steps, are reaching their goals to become successful big businesses.
We bring to you the top 10 SMB stories of 2021 to motivate you with their uplifting journeys and to influence you to kickstart working on your dreams.
Failed twice, found success by making semi-automatic bike covers
Twenty-seven-year-old Keshav Rai was an average student in school, but his keen interest in repairing things made him pursue engineering. However, he soon got bored and decided to try his hands at entrepreneurship.
While Keshav’s first two startups were failures, he never gave up on innovating and learning. After going through some difficult times, he came up with the idea of starting a semi-automatic bike cover business.
Keshav started in late 2016. It offers two-wheeler parking covers that are water-resistant and protects vehicles from dust. The handy device can be fixed on the vehicle and the overall operational time of the cover is below 30 seconds, says Keshav.
Today, Bike Blazer is seeing an annual turnover of Rs 1.3 crore.
From running a dhaba to building a 33,000 sq yards resort
At the age of 13, Ankush Kakkar (now 38) took up the responsibility of helping his father run his woollen shawl business in Ludhiana as the family could not afford to hire a helper.
Recalling the old days, Ankush says the family had to struggle a lot and he had to manage both his studies and help in the business.
However, he realised something needed to be done to make the business financially stable. After three years, in 2000, the father-son duo decided to set up a dhaba near Ludhiana bus stand. Ankush was in Class XII and had acquired the skills to run the business.
“We got a patch of land to run a small dhaba where we would feed bus and truck drivers. And within two to three years, we bought another property to build a small hotel of 20 rooms,” he recollects. One thing happened after the other, and in 2006, Ankush and his father bought another hotel in Ludhiana.
Going the extra mile and fighting tooth and nail to make his dream of growing business come true, in 2020, Ankush built a 33,000 square yards resort called Treeoise in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh.
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Started from home to make ends meet, now a global rakhi brand
The journey of Shree Rakhi dates back to 1962 when Murli Dharji Mohta was working as a clerk in an accounting firm in Kolkata, but was unable to meet the family expenses. The times were hard, job opportunities were scarce, and he did not even have enough money to start a business on his own.
Seeing the family circumstances, his wife Pushi Devi Mohta decided to make simple rakhis at home after seeing the significance of the festival in the country. Though the investment required was little, a creative sense was crucial to turning a simple thread into a beautiful piece that would fascinate people to buy it.
“My nani (grandmother) started making rakhis at home to help my grandfather, but suddenly, after two years, she passed away and the business also got shut. But my grandfather didn’t give up and so he began the work again,” Kamal tells SMBStory.
Mohta restarted the business in the fond memory of his wife, and his son Jiwan Das Mohta carried the business forward. In 1979, Kamal joined his uncle in the business and decided to make Shree Rakhi a renowned name in the country.
“Earlier, we were selling rakhis without any branding and in an unorganised way. When I joined, I thought that making a brand out of rakhis would benefit us and so, we started labelling our rakhis as ‘Shree Rakhi’,” Kamal recalls.
Today, Shree Rakhi is a registered MSME that serves 700 districts across the country. Kamal says the company follows a distribution model with a network of 500 wholesalers and 2,000 retailers across India.
From a corporate career to building a home appliance brand
The growing internet penetration around 2015 was leading to the rise of ecommerce in India. Sitting at Bain and Company in Gurugram, Bharat Kalia mulled over consumer durables.
Bharat, who had been using the same home appliances used by his parents for around 20-30 years, was convinced the consumer durables sector needed a digital revamp.
“In 2015, there was so much development happening in mobiles and TVs, but none in the home appliances and consumer durables space. These legacy categories comprised supremely bulky and non-efficient methods of production and distribution,” he tells SMBStory.
Bharat decided to leave his cushy corporate job and take a leap into the world of entrepreneurship and started Lifelong Online in Gurugram in 2015. He was joined by Bain & Company colleague Varun Grover and entrepreneur Atul Raheja.
“I decided to start making these products according to their needs and at price points that were honest and transparent,” he adds.
Today, the 60-member team sees Rs 40 crore revenue in the peak months, Bharat claims. Around 33 percent of the overall sales come from home and kitchen appliances, one-third from grooming and sports products, and the rest from its lifestyle and health category.
This couple scaled their handicraft products brand to sell internationally
Until 2010, Nitin Pamnani was an award-winning documentary filmmaker. A few years later, he, along with his wife Jia Pamnani, decided to leave Mumbai and settle in his hometown, Gwalior.
Around the same time, the duo noticed that ecommerce was picking up steam. They had several acquaintances who were dealing in handicraft and handmade products. This compelled them to explore a business opportunity in this segment. Investing Rs 30 lakh from their personal savings, they started working on a platform that would sell artisanal products such as home decor items, printed suit materials, bags, dupattas, neckpieces, cushion covers, and more. In 2012, their project, called iTokri, finally went live.
Nitin tells SMBStory that the company went through difficult times between 2012 and 2016. Gwalior, unlike metros, was less developed and lacked the infrastructure to support an ecommerce business.
With limited resources in hand, Nitin and Jia opened an office and a warehouse facility in their home to launch the business. They initially relied on local delivery mechanisms and partnered with Blue Dart in 2015. That is when the brand really took off.
With the number of freight companies on the rise and logistics infrastructure expanding in and around the city, not just started delivering pan-India but also exported to the US, the UK, Middle East, and Europe.
Today, iTokri, which was started with 20 employees, has grown to become a team of more than 200 members.
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This rickshaw puller turned entrepreneur is now selling his product globally
Dharambir Kamboj was in his early teens in the 1970s when the financial hardships of the family forced him to stop studying.
Hailing from a village in Haryana, Dharambir looked after his family’s farm and herbal plantations, but that did not help him earn enough to support his family and the medical treatment of his ailing mother and sister.
Struggling to make ends meet, he moved to Delhi to find a job, but eventually started ferrying people in a rickshaw. Here, he was surprised to see people paying hefty amounts to buy processed fruit products from Delhi’s local markets, and this idea stayed with him.
After meeting with an accident, he returned to his village. Here, he did a number of experiments related to organic farming. He also did innovative work in mushroom farming, vermicomposting, and others and wanted to extract aloe vera juice. Realising the exorbitant cost of the machines, he decided to develop one in-house called the Multipurpose Processing Machine.
Now, Dharambir is selling his patented machines to 15 countries and making an annual revenue of Rs 67 lakh.
This couple built a Rs 15 Cr revenue business in 3 years
IIM Raipur graduate Anusha Chandrashekar was always passionate about the fashion industry and dreamt of running her own women’s western wear brand. Her batchmate, Alok Paul, was interested in building ecommerce businesses.
Not only did they marry each other but also married their interests. They launched a direct-to-consumer (D2C) online women’s western wear brand in Noida in 2018.
Starting with four machines and a small manufacturing setup, the couple began manufacturing and selling apparel, including dresses, tops, jumpsuits, and skirts on ecommerce platforms such as Myntra, Ajio, Flipkart, Amazon, and their own website.
In two years, Berrylush has reached annual revenue of Rs 15 crore, the brand claims, adding that it has sold over three lakh products in the 18 months preceding January 2021.
Selling products at Rs 5 and Rs 10, this brand caters to the masses
Prabhu Gandhikumar was working as a consultant in the US for many years before he moved to India in 2012 to join his family business of manufacturing metal castings in Coimbatore. He, however, felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction.
In 2016, he explored various sectors he could venture into, and beverages seemed like a good option. He realised that daily wage earners yearned for carbonated drinks that were affordable yet tasty, especially during summer months like April, May, and June.
Moreover, according to several data reports, a daily wage worker, on average, earns between Rs 9,000-10,000 a month. Sometimes, even less.
Prabhu says he found a real gap in the market. Prabhu and his wife Brindha Vijayakumar launched Tanvi Foods, focusing only on beverages, in 2016 with two flavours — mango and apple juice priced at Rs 10.
There was no looking back since, and the company later got converted into TABP Snacks and Beverages in 2018. According to the numbers shared by Prabhu, TABP has grown from clocking Rs 92 lakh in FY17 to Rs 35.5 crore in FY21.
Quitting a job in the US, he bought 20 cows and made a dairy brand
Like many of his peers born in middle-class families, Kishore Indukuri aspired to study and work in the US.
The IIT Kharagpur graduate’s ambitions became a reality after he completed his Master’s and PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and took up a job at Intel.
However, six years into his job, Kishore realised his real passion was agriculture.
His family back in India owned some land in Karnataka, and Kishore used to join them in visiting the fields and interacting with farmers.
He says, “I decided to quit my job and return to my agricultural roots. Moving back to Hyderabad, I realised there were limited options for affordable, unadulterated milk. I wanted to bring a change not only for my son and my family but also for the people of Hyderabad.”
This inspired him to start his own dairy farm and milk brand. In 2012, he bought 20 cows from Coimbatore and set up a dairy farm in Hyderabad. Kishore started supplying milk directly to consumers in the city on a subscription basis, and his business began to grow.
In 2016, the brand was officially registered as Sid’s Farm (named after Kishore’s son Siddharth). Now, the 120-employee brand delivers milk to over 10,000 customers daily, and achieved Rs 44 crore turnover last year, Kishore claims.
Quitting CA to start a jewellery business
Chartered Accountancy is a challenging undertaking, with aspirants spending several years to clear the exams. For Aditi Garg, founder of jewellery label Adwitiya Collection, her CA journey led her to find success in entrepreneurship.
“I was attempting to clear my CA, but it was becoming more difficult with each passing year,” Aditi tells SMBStory while recounting her journey.
“Without clearing CA finals, no one would have given me the job and I had started developing feelings that I am too much dependent on my family. This is when I thought about starting a side business of artificial jewellery and becoming financially self-sustainable,” she adds.
Aditi started as a reseller of jewellery in 2013. Building a micro-level side business is what gave her the confidence and financial independence to dream bigger. She started selling jewellery online through Amazon and Flipkart. Her business was giving her good profits but she couldn’t give her 100 percent to the business as she was also focussing on clearing her CA finals.
Four years passed and the Rs 17,000 worth inventory that Aditi had bought from the wholesaler to start the business was still stuck with her. Neither was she able to clear her CA nor did she carry forward her business consistently.
In 2018, Aditi decided to quit her CA to scale the business. She first listed her jewellery under the brand name Adwitiya Collection.
This was the time when Myntra was also aggressively onboarding new brands. Aditi grabbed this opportunity to push Adwitiya onto an ecommerce marketplace.
“I listed my brand on Myntra and on the first day got around 25 orders. That was a big number for me back then as I had never got such a big order before.”
Fast forward three years, Adwitiya now generates 90 percent of its sales from Myntra where it gets around 350-400 orders a day. Aditi claims the company expects to close FY 21-22 at Rs 5 crore in sales. This festive season, Adwitiya Collection got 9,000 orders and raked in Rs 75 lakh in sales.
Edited by Megha Reddy