HYDERABAD: In a world that often seems filled with stress and negativity, Hyderabad-based OyeHappy stands out as a ray of sunshine, dedicated to spreading happiness and love through its unique experiences and gifts. Founded in 2014 by Varun Todi and Harsh Khemani, OyeHappy has become a prominent name in the realm of thoughtful and personalised surprises, helping people create unforgettable memories for their loved ones. CE speaks to Varun Todi to know more about OyeHappy’s success, how it has brought joy to countless lives and the road ahead.
Tell us about the inspiration behind the company.
When Harsh, my business partner, wanted a gift to propose to his girlfriend, he couldn’t find anything out there apart from flowers and cakes. When I wanted to tell my crush how much I liked her by sending her a birthday gift, I couldn’t find anything thoughtful either. At that time, we both helped each other out with our love lives. Soon, we started helping our friends and family surprise their loved ones. Before we knew it, what started as a hobby ended up becoming one of India’s biggest gifting companies.
Tell us about your experience at Shark Tank.
Talking to sharks for an hour about the company and ourselves allowed both of us to look at the brand and ourselves with a new perspective. We are also very glad to not have been roasted. The risk of starting our pitch with our concept of naughty games worked well. The sharks were scandalised, amused and intrigued within the first few seconds of our appearance and that paved the way for some amazing conversations that followed. There were dozens of double meaning jokes about ‘Happy endings’ and ‘climaxes’ cracked by Anupan and Aman, most of which were unfortunately not aired.
Yours is the first Indian gifting company to launch naughty products for couples. How has the response been?
We started with just one board game 4 years ago to trial this segment out. Today we have over 25 products which contribute to over 15% of our revenue. And thanks to Shark Tank, our naughty products are now available across a multitude of platforms such as Cred, Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto and Amazon. We have also shipped our first consignment of board games to the USA and South Africa.
How do you approach new gifting concepts?
All we have to do is listen to our clients. We launched our first naughty board game because a client was going on his honeymoon and wanted something playful. Today, naughty is one of our fastest-growing categories.
Road ahead.
We’re launching an entirely new brand called ‘LittleChirp’ to help new mothers celebrate special milestones.
This whole category started with a simple letter that we wrote on behalf of a 1-year-old for her father. We’ve just launched a new brand called ‘90ml games’ for our board games. We are working on supplying them across the world. We did a pilot on quick commerce apps - Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto — in February. It was so successful that each of these apps has launched a category for gifting and/or board games. These apps have also started doing campaigns on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to cater to last-minute gifting audiences. We are investing in people and products to introduce more innovation and spread more love and happiness with the world.