After spending more than 15 years in managerial roles in the IT sector, I decided to start a microbrewery in Bengaluru because of my passion for craft beers. My most cherished memories are around the time of setting up the brand.
During the research phase, I reached out to a number of existing brewery owners just to hear their experience and get a hang of the microbrewery business. During the course of my interaction, I received valuable inputs from key industry players and built some good relationships.
One such connection that I made was with Ajay Nagarajan, CEO of Windmills Craftworks (a place that I frequented as a guest) who was kind enough to share key insights about microbrewery business. It was this meeting that made me aware of the intricate details about starting a microbrewery.
After numerous visits to other microbreweries, I finalised the plan and pitched the idea to potential investors. It was promising to see investors interested in the idea of being a part of the brewery journey. I teamed up with like-minded friends to work on the project and my family and friends joined as partners and investors.
Some of my cherished memories from the early days include events like finalising the location in Koramangala, working long hours with architects to design the place and seeing it take shape exactly the way I had imagined and finally opening the doors of the brewery to the public. It’s gratifying to see our patrons enjoy our brews and to be recognised as an iconic
ambience brewpub.
- Prashant Kunal, CEO and founder, The Bier Library
I started T4Tales with an aim to introduce Indian languages to children in early years. The excitement of receiving my first lot of books is in close competition with having them sold out. When the first set of books arrived, I was overwhelmed.I had worked tirelessly to translate the idea in my head into a printed book. With no prior experience in this field, alongside the feeling of achievement, it was just sinking in, what this path would uncover. This was my very first step into the world of published books, a published author, International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and all that. -
Pridhee Kapoor Gupta, CEO and Founder, T4Tales
During the early days of Tynimo, to understand customer response in raw form, I decided to take the role of cashier/salesperson in the store. During this time, there was a customer who praised our products and designs for the entire time he was in the store and there was a customer who neither appreciated nor spoke negatively but gave feedback on many aspects. But there was one customer who sort of was against anything made in China and hence was being harsh to all of us while he was in store.
This role of being on the field directly interacting with a customer, helped me understand a key lesson that every customer is different and has to be attended to with patience. Secondly, one of our recent wins for a store at Bengaluru airport has been an extremely cherished memory.
Getting the airport deal was the most challenging task of my life. Firstly, we were competing with all the big brands of the industry and secondly, we were only three stores old at that time. Hence didn’t have much data to present. In order to get the deal, I have made numerous calls, continuous follow-ups, innumerable on-call discussions to convince them. We finally got the deal and I realised that while other brands only spoke of scale and numbers, we spoke of our passion and vision.
Lastly, our experience of working with Indian artisans has been quite memorable. While we were working with many small artisans from across the country to source products, there was one vendor who made us feel good and proud of what we were doing. Before working with us, he used to serve only small orders with an average ticket size of
Rs 10,000 per order. We were the only customers to give him per ticket value of Rs 75,000 and above. This made him grow, understand the market better and manage his inventory efficiently. And for this, he personally called us and thanked us. It truly feels good when all the stakeholders involved experience equal growth and happiness as the brand grows.
- Vaibhav Jain, CEO and founder, Tynimo