Successful startups in Chennai

While most women’s shopping list being incomplete without brands like HushPuppies, Inc5 and Catwalk, there are a growing number of startups that give people the choice of handmade, customized footware. And who wouldn’t want to flaunt a jazzed up pair of Kolhapuri footwear? With more and more women going the unconventional way with funky flip-flops and harem pants, there are entrepreneurs starting up to give them more of what they love wearing!

When I got chatting with one such young entrepreneur, I understood that business is not always a conscious decision. For some, it is a result of a few fun things that they have been doing for years. One fine day someone said, ” why don’t you do it for me?”, they just thought to themselves ‘why not?’. More people started asking and same and that’s how ‘Mink Accessories and Footwear started. Read on to know more about Mink, which started off in a very interesting way!

The Story and Idea behind Mink

Divya and Harsha, both B.Com graduates from MOP Vaishnav, Chennai, made the best use of their curriculum that was dedicated to running a business where they hatched an idea of designing footwear. They found a cobbler who helped them and then their mutual interest in making and designing footwear led them to starting MINK, soon after college. While in college they custom-designed their friends’ old sandals, crocs and even jazzed up medical shoes for people they know. This started in 2010. Says Divya, “We are both fond of footwear.I am more style oriented and Harsha is more comfort oriented. So the idea of doing something creative with footwear sounded interesting and exciting to us.

Divya reminisces, ” When Harsha and I were bored we used to pull our hair clips out, bows and even scarfs and pin them up to our slippers. We liked how they looked on our slippers. That’s when we started putting our creativity to use. We wanted a random name that sounds funky, and Mink was what we could think of!”

The Entrepreneurial Journey -From Accidental to Successful

Divya and Harsha claim to be accidental entrepreneurs; They did what they enjoyed doing and are now fairly well to do. “We experimented with our ideas and wanted to see how the market reacted to new products. Not wanting to let the response die out, we went on giving our clients the best”, Says Divya. MINK is bootstrapped and has broken even.

For the twosome, it wasn’t difficult to get clients, as they were quite popular in college because what they do at Mink now. Their primary mode of marketing is via social media.

Challenges of being a Young Entrepreneur

Laughing about her parents’ reaction on starting Mink, Divya says, ”They did not accept the idea of us designing ‘footwear’ and thought it was ridiculous.” However, after witnessing the growth of MINK, they are now happy and proud, said Divya.

Having been an entrepreneur for 2 years now, Divya is well aware of the fact that entrepreneurship isn’t a ball game. “A lot of people, especially the bigger clients and manufacturers don’t take you seriously. Even when you are ready to invest money the manufacturers are not ready to try anything new, atleast with young entrepreneurs. We want to get into manufacturing our own footwear other than just custom-designing them. The conventional manufacturers do not like too much of change”, says Divya, who urges for people to take young entrepreneurs more seriously.