To spurn a Rs6-lal<h job offer is itself a sacrilege for young

generation. But Pral<ash Mundhra started an unusual concept

the hard way and it is a raging success. Anil Nair tells about

what goes behind a beautiful mind

::J::Jo<~o::J

•

A a quizmaster he has aninteresting question: whatould be a business

proposition that emanates fromour daily lives, the product is ofinternational quality but has littlemarket abroad, and the productwill even endear itself to the

gods? Prakash Mundhra, 26, onceattended a ITC competition'Mera Gaon Mera Desh' when he

was doing his first year in MBAin marketing at Symbiosis inPune. ITC competition called fornew business plans.

Prakash chose lTC's

Mangladeep agarbathi as the baseproduct for his innovation in thecompetition. He suggestedMangladeep matches, kumkumand all other puja accessories togo along with it. Though thecompetition did not yield anyresults, the seed of an idea was

sown in his mind. As time passedhe made an in-depth analysis onbranded puja items. But mostpeople dissuaded him, saying thatpeople will not really pine for abranded puja item. For instance,a match box from any currentmanufacturer would suffice for a

puja. The same logic applies to abranded pooja shop near everymajor temple and pilgrimagecentre. The temples in India areusually, Prakash found much tohis chagrin, surrounded by pooja

shops owned by localites whoform a cartel and don't allow anynew brand chain to come up.Prakash admittedly would be asmall player to fight this cartel ineach temple. Also, will people goto the market to buy a particularbranded match box for their

pooja?! Good question."Further, the pooja items are so

cheap that branding the itemswill be a non-starter. That wouldnever have been viable. But I was

not ready to give up the plan soeasily. I knew somewhere below islurking a big idea. And that faithwas driven by the fact that Indiais a religious country. I wouldaften tell friends that there is so

much to explore in the ruralIndian markets for productinnovation which is endemic to

the country", he explains.Then it dawned on him that

instead of selling the pooja itemsat temples or asking the believerto visit the retail shop to buy hisbranded products, he shouldrather deliver all the pooja itemsat people's doorstep. That's whenthe Blessingz pooja kit was born.

"I did a lot of study on theproduct and viability beforetaking the plunge. For example, Ilearnt that people howsoeverpoor, would use dalda at homefor cooking but would prefer gheewhen it comes to pooja. It is

about sanctity and keeping totraditions when it comes to poojaitems. That is why I have notintroduced any artificial orcontroversial items in the

product".Prakash first thought of giving

a match book rather than a

match box as it looked rich, it

had better quality than theavailable match boxes in themarket and also convenient to

carry. But later on he realizedthat it was not such a bright ideaas pooja was a female domain,and the women in the familyusually did the rituals. Men werejust silent bystanders. Women arenot used to match book as much

as match box, as lighting the stickfrom the match book was adifficult task.

"If my customers find thatusing the matchstick was a pain,then my kit would be rendereduseless as many of the otheritems in the kit depended onlighting the matchstick like ghee,vicks, agarbatti, etc".

Further, when Prakash started

sourcing the materials for the kit,he had to pick and choose from arange of items from the marketand then customize them for hiskit. The Shubh Labh sticker

available in the market today forhis Diwali kit was so shabby andof bad quality that he rejected it 5

OSlale Bank of India.' .~ ....""'" --------

co~>occ

H~ is now ready: ~o offericust0ll'!-ised pooj..~a..kIts for Ganapthtas well as Grlh Pravesh

6

outright. He then went on tomake dome-stickers which are of

good quality.The branding of his product

had to be done carefully. He didnot imprint his brand name

Blessingz on every item package.He only printed them on fouritems which had long shelf-lifelike the vidhi booklet, thecontainer box, matchstick boxand the stickers.

There are several innovative

ideas in the pooja kit. The poojaphoto that is provided in the kithad a self stand so that people

don't have to stick it up or taketrouble of framing it prior to thepooja. Prakash, who is an atheist,is now planning to bring outRamzaan and New Year kit as he

has received several enquiries forthem. But he wants to keep theproject details close to his chest,lest competition might get smartideas.

Talking of competition, it isnot that Prakash had a cakewalk

all through the inception stage."There was this guy who boughtmy kit, promised to buy manymore, asked a lot of incisive

questions and finally made offwith a kit. Just about threemonths before last Diwali, the

same person came to my officeand told me that although he hadtried to steal the idea from meand make his own kit to become

a millionaire, he lost over Rs 2­

lakh in working capital only tofind that the idea came up acropper", Prakash says demurely.Two facts remain the clincher Jor

his success, viz: high quality andgreat packaging.

He is now ready to offercustomized pooja kits for

Os•••••••• 011••••• ' .Willo,•• -_III';-;;:; ..

Ganapathi as well as Grih Pravesh.Prakash is planning to sell to the realestate companies who can gift the GrihPravesh pooja kit to their customersafter they sign the agreement ofpurchase. Prakash has an interestinganalogy to entrepreneurship. "Howmany frogs remain if three out of fivedecide to jump out of the well. ..Ostensibly two, but that is begging thequestion. It is still five as the frogs haveonly decided but are yet to execute theplan!" MBA students participate inseveral B-Plan competitions happeningevery year across the major B-schoolsin India. Aspiring entrepreneurspresent, fanciful ideas, outrageouslylucrative P&L, exponential growthprojections and the works, but whenasked to put their money where theirmouth is as an entrepreneur theyquietly make an exit.

Prakash Mundhra was a fresh MBA

pass-out from Symbiosis Centre ofManagement and Human ResourceDevelopment (SCMHRD) when hestarted his enterprise, Sacred Momentsmanufactures the puja kits under thebrand name 'Blessingz'. "Innovationcomes if one has an active mind,

searching questions and then theNewton thing will happen to you too".Soon after the ITC competition camealong the Zee TV's 'Business Baazigar'where he modified his idea from

branded puja items to branded pujakits. The idea set the show on fire and

his plan was adjudged 'Mini Baazigar'.Prakash has never looked back since

then. He won 12 business plancompetitions at IIML, IITK, TAPMI, etal. His two batchmates, IGshore and

Priyank were "my great support indeveloping a winning business plan".

It was the Giftex exhibition that

turned the tide finally for Prakash ashis concept was finally being acceptedin the marketplace. He had thesmallest stall in the exhibition, he did

not have a company name, no ready

O_\Ia"ol~.' .IVltll' •• ··/I' •••.••·, .. ,

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product, just a million-dollar-idea!Giftex exhibition set thingsrolling as his production andmarketing efforts started itsjuggernaut.

Though he had a fairly goodidea of the product that hewanted to manufacture he never

knew where to start -- searching adesigner, contacting suppliers,meeting pundits and templepriests, networking withprospective clients, all at once.He enlisted designer AnilKulkarni to get the basic designof the product. Prakash all the

time knew that he could not get abright young star from adesigning school who had noknowledge of Hindu culture.Because small errors could be

sacrilege and his product could bedoomed.

Corporates lapped up the idea

working nine to six, but fromworking six to nine". He alsofaced setbacks in productionoften for silly reasons like oncewhen he lost the mobile number

of his vendor. "Small thingsmatter a lot", Prakash saysgravely.

seeds of entrepreneurship."The big deciding factor is the

fat pay cheque you get fromcorporates, but when in businessyou have to deal with peoplefrom unorganized sector whohave not heard about lIM". His

product and concept hasdramatically changed since hispresentation to ITC and Zee TV"But yes, winning in mega B­Plans helps you to raise initialcapital, I have won Rs2.25-lakhfrom all the B-Plan

competitions" .Sourcing of raw materials is

yet another of the daunting taskfor an entrepreneur. Prakashexplains that when he waslooking for a 20gm ghee sachets,dealers in Mumbai laughed at hisdemand, but searching oninternet gave him access to theright kind of raw material from

Entrepreneurship is romantic till theyou start the business

•tIme

8SME

FEB-APR 2007

as they liked the ethnicityassociated with puja kits as bestfor Diwali gifting. Assembling theitems in perfect quantity andquality was a test of perseverance.One item missing and productioncame to a grinding halt. Also,corporates require dedicatedservice as compared to retailclients. He got the seed moneyfrom his father, but the workingcapital requirements burgeonedand he had to seek help fromfriends and relations.

"Entreprepreneurship isromantic till the time you start abusiness", he says. His firstincome came from selling 70 kgscrap from his family businessoffice. "Success comes from not

The other side of

entrepreneurship is thenetworking capability. Formarketing support he approacheddirector of SCMHRD K.S.Subramanian. At the end of theDiwali season his sales would not

have touched Rs34,20,000 but

for the help from Subramanian.But Prakash feels strongly aboutbranding B-schools as 'temples ofentrepreneurship' for students tobe entrepreneurs.

The entrepreneurship taughtin B-schools is usually byacademicians who have never

been entrepreneurs, he avers. "B­schools should not hesitate to callsmall and medium-sized

entrepreneurs to help sow the

Tamil Nadu. At the same time he

tells us of where Google searchfails. "I wanted a shloka to

feature on the puja kit cover.After trying hours on the Googleand consulting pundits I realizedthat I have to read the Englishversion of Bhagwat Geeta to findthe most-suited shloka. After

rummaging through the Geeta for50 hours he got his results."Divine intervention that!".

"This is the best Diwali Gift Ihave ever received" wrote Vice

President Bhairon SinghShekavat to Prakash just asseveral industrialists includingAshok Hinduja (Hinduja group)and Santrupt Mishra, Director,A.VBiria group .•