With humble beginnings, these businesses rose to become an epitome of success - top SMB stories of the week

This week, SMBStory covered the business journey of entrepreneurs who despite having small beginnings, rose high to become an epitome of success.

Sunday February 09, 2020 , 5 min Read

The journey of entrepreneurship is a roller-coaster ride. Entrepreneurs have to go through a lot of ups and downs to finally make their businesses prominent in the ecosystem. It takes years of grit and determination to make the business stand on four pillars.

This week, SMBStory covered the business journey of entrepreneurs, who despite making humble beginnings, have become renowned names in their sector, taking their businesses to profit worth crores.

Sangeetha Mobiles

Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Subhash Chandra L comes across as well-educated and has a strikingly clear way of expressing his thoughts.

In displaying his business acumen, he has no trouble recalling specific dates, numbers, and financial figures from over two decades ago.

One might associate this with a fancy degree from an expensive, international university. However, Subhash is a Class-X pass out, and most of his real education happened while he was running a business.

Subash had a tough childhood. His mother passed away when Subash was just seven-years-old, and his father’s business was not doing well. After completing Class-X, Subhash quit his studies. He never went back to formal education and took over his father’s business. The name of the business was Sangeetha Mobiles.

Today, the name is synonymous with offline mobile phone retail in South India with almost 650 retail outlets across the country and a turnover of close to Rs 2,000 crore.

Read the full story here.

Loom Solar

The Union Budget 2020 allocated Rs 2,516 crore for the solar power sector, including both grid-interactive and off-grid projects. This is a 10.35 percent increase from the Rs 2,280 crore provided in the revised estimate for 2019-20. This thrust and the increased need to look at renewable power sources propelled brothers, Amod Anand and Amol Anand, to make a disruptive start in the solar power sector.

The brothers launched Loom Solar in 2018 in Faridabad, which, in just a year, generated a Rs 25 crore turnover in the financial year 2019. The company has installed 3,500 kW solar panels in 9,000 Indian homes since its inception, creating around 4.2 million units of electricity from solar panels and 99,000 tonnes reduction in carbon dioxide emission, which is equivalent to planting 1,58,000 trees.

In January, Loom Solar won the title of fastest-growing SMB at Amazon Sambhav.

Read the full story here.

Munchilicious

After completing his MBA in Finance, Rohit was working at a stockbroking firm in Kolkata. Between meals, he craved for a snack, and often resorted to the more unhealthy options.

Rohit’s wife, Purvi, then started sending extra stuff along with the usual office dabba, but this only increased the boxes of food he had to lug to his workplace every day. But Rohit noticed that he wasn’t the only one. Speaking to SMBStory, Rohit, one-half of the brain behind healthy snack brand Munchilicious, says,

“It was not only me but my colleagues too who used to get midday cravings. Zomato and Swiggy were not prominent then and we were short of options. Whatever was available was either stale or unhealthy.”

At present, the company has products placed in around 200 stores spread across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi. It also paved its way to Singapore in July 2019, through Lazada, one of the leading ecommerce marketplaces in the country.

After a while, the couple moved to Mumbai. This also prompted them to take a stab at addressing their midday cravings with healthy snacks.

First, Rohit and Purvi started in 2015 by supplying fresh fruit salads and juices to people located around the Malad area. Back then, delivery platforms were few and far in between, so the duo tied up with platforms like Tiny Owl and Holachef to get the deliveries done. Though it was a small start and they did not expect much, they were surprised by the demand.

The couple then launched Soch Foods LLP in May 2016, as they knew they needed to go after something bigger than salads and juices. Rohit says, “Fresh fruit salad and juices were a start but we knew we cannot grow with this. We all crave for our crunchy evening snacks or something yummy during the day because our taste buds refuse to compromise for health.”

Read the full story here.

G7 CR Technologies

In the 1980s, a young schoolboy delivered newspapers early in the morning to several Bengaluru households. He earned Rs 120 a month.

The newspaper boy, Christopher Richard, lost his father when he was a child. His mother, a primary school teacher, made Rs 1,500 per month. The boy supplemented her income with earnings from his delivery job.

For the family, money was always a problem. And for Christopher, it was a teenage life full of adversities and hardships.

By the time he was in Class-X, he was working two jobs besides going to school. He’d distribute newspapers in the morning, and work at an ice cream parlour after school.

“Working at these two jobs, I got a lot of exposure and hands-on experience talking to different people,” Christopher tells SMBStory.

Read the full story here.

Aspagteq

Today, robots are one of the most critical elements for the advancement of humanity and the economy. However, not everyone is happy with this technology.

While one section of society says robots increase productivity and efficiency, and reduce the cost of operations, critics argue that they play a big role in taking away jobs.

But, no one can deny that robots are fascinating, and are becoming more capable with newer innovations. One such company is Noida-based Aspagteq Technology, which designs and produces robots.

SMBStory caught with founders Aawesh Dahiya and Anurag Ranjan to decode the journey of this company.

Read the full story here.

(Edited by Suman Singh)