MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT AND DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR VENTURE
Natasha Jain, 29 founder, bent chair, delhi bentchair.com
Anyone familiar with the Bent Chair aesthetic knows how it revels in unique, colourful and quirky designs. But Natasha Jain’s story of successfully running a furniture and decor website didn’t happen overnight. Jain moved to the US for her graduation in industrial engineering at Georgina Institute of Technology and post-graduation in management science engineering from Stanford University. She then started Freshmentors, an online college mentoring platform to help international students through the process of applying to universities. She returned to Delhi and decided to revolutionise everyday payments by creating an app called Ruplee. After Ruplee, Jain wanted to shift her focus on product creation and so Bent Chair was born. “It’s been two years since Bent Chair but I started working on it a year before it launched,” says Jain, adding, “It made sense as there are a few design brands that are affordable and cater to people between 25 and 45 years.” Her biggest challenge was making people believe in her product. Today, in addition to the primary manufacturing units, she has set up four facilities for polishing, carving, weaving and painting of Bent Chair products. “We have recently opened the Bent Chair Café in Delhi and we participate in exhibitions as well. We are planning to expand our retail presence through franchises (with stores opening soon in Hyderabad, Raipur, Agra and Mysore) and we are also about to open our first restaurantcum-retail centre, Plum by Bent Chair in Mumbai,” says Jain. No wonder then that the company which was started with an initial investment of `5 crore has recorded a turnover of `12 crore in 2017-2018.