Founders of 20Cr textile company who ate one meal a day and slept on floors
Nona Lifestyle is a company that today supplies work wear to Zomato, Oyo, etc., has 40-50 full time employees, around 60 factory workers, has customers in more than five countries, once experienced heavy losses but its founders Hari Mishra and Ankit Rajput bounced back from that situation and took their company to new heights.
How it all started?
There were days when both Hari and Ankit used to live with their friends and slept on floors. They even had to skip a day’s meal because of their financial condition they were going through at that time. In 2016, they started a custom clothing brand in Mumbai but soon their business ran out of money. With in almost one year, they lost around 25 Lack Rupees and all their resources were exhausted. Due to their lengthy purchase cycle, the founders lost all their clients and struggled a lot to convert them for their custom clothing designing studio.
The business was actually started by four partners who were all good friends but two out of four exited due to the pathetic condition and fear of survival. After the backing up of two partners, Hari and Ankit were forced to leave the city of dreams i.e. Mumbai and they shifted to Delhi and made a fresh start.
A fresh start
First and foremost thing was to cut down on their expenses so they had to figure out a solution and they decided to live with their friends in Delhi. But they knew they can only live for a month or two with their friends and they cannot depend on them for more than that so they had to plan something at the earliest.
During this difficult phase of life, Hari & Ankit observed that they have to shift their business from B2C model to B2B and they planned to be an organized supplier for uniforms for businesses which are in a growing stage like hotel startups, food suppliers, etc. They understood that there are not many dedicated uniform suppliers for these kind of companies and this gave them a ray of hope that they can setup a benchmark in this business.
Difficulties and tackling it with a self-belief
Hari Mishra who is a 32 years old IIM Ahmadabad graduate knew that if they catch this opportunity and satisfy their customers, their brand can become a first organized player in this particular field. Due to this hope, they finally took a bold decision to shift their company from B2C model to a B2B one. But they soon realized that a B2B business is not easy as it requires a huge investment and a free flowing cash flow. They got the initial orders but the challenge was to arrange money to buy raw material.
Ankit Rajput who is 28 and a Computer Science Engineer from Amity Noida arranged some cash in his personal capacity by borrowing from one of his close friend. This was just a beginning and they both had to spend hours visiting the markets, meeting with suppliers who can provide good quality finished product and last but not the least – searching for customers.
In their early days, these both partners had to do all petty work themselves starting from transportation, loading & unloading of material, supervision, quality check, accounting, etc. to save on overheads.
The turning point
Their life took a turn when they got their order from Oyo for just 70 T-shirts which they executed under their new brand name called “theStyleWorx” under their parent organization called Nona Lifestyle which is a Gurgaon based company. Their company had a vision to provide a low-cost uniform that starts from Rs.150 t-shirt and along with that they provided the design support to maximize & enhance the client’s brand value via uniforms worn by their employees.
After Oyo, the company got orders from Coca Cola, Zomato, Delhivery, Urban Company, Chaayos, Denso, Bayer, Tiktok, and many more. With the growing business both the partners realized they need a good team to support the company operations and creating a good team is always the biggest challenge in a business. With limited resources, both the founders knew that they have to find alternate ways and not the conventional ways so they started the company operations from a co-working space in Janakpuri in West Delhi.
Hari and Ankit knew their strength is hard work and perseverance which paid off and now they have almost 100 employees and factory workers collectively. They have also started other textile brands in soft furnishing like towels, bed sheets, etc. for hotels, hospitals, hostels, & restaurants. They have separate teams to handle these verticals which were their original B2C business. Their business recorded turnover of more than 20 Crore Rupees in 2019-20 and further growing at a pace of 160 percent at the moment. The Nona Lifestyle partners currently are one of the biggest work wear suppliers in the hospitality and food delivery industry. In addition to India, now the company also exports it’s products to USA, UAE, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Future plans
Nona Lifestyle, under the leadership of Hari Mishra and Ankit Rajput has many future plans like they are planning to provide rental textile products to their clients. Also, they are targeting a 24 hour delivery in Delhi NCR. In Corona virus pandemic scenario, they have done lot of research work on hygienic and ant bacterial products and they are aiming to improvise their production process accordingly to improve the quality. The company currently has production units in Ahmadabad & Gurugram and believes that they are very adaptive and flexible in nature according to the market dynamics. The founders believe their Unique Selling Point (USP) is that their products are very honestly priced and this will help in further growth of their company and it will take them to new heights.