My journey to Raay
My first real attempt at a “business project” was in high school, where I decided to make yearbooks for our grade. I personalized each page for each of the individuals in our class. I left the opposite page empty so that people could write a note to each other. I ended with an awards section where people were put it into categories of “Most likely to…” This was a great experience because it taught me how to work with numerous personalities, produce something creative, that still was desirable to a consumer (aka students) I’m happy to say we were completely sold out! People loved our product! We even had people skipping class to fill in our yearbooks. It sounds cheesy, but its at this juncture I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Especially when the feedback I was receiving was overwhelming positive.
My entrepreneurial hero is my mom. When I think about what we are building at Raay - it’s her as a business. Our mission is to be like the mentor in the family - always trying to guide and help other’s achieve success.
Rather than getting an MBA, as once was typical for aspiring entrepreneurs, it was truly a humbling experience getting real life experience at work. My mom and I started a fashion jewellery company in Bombay. We had a small team of 5! I am also truly grateful to my tribe of mentors who worked not in front of me - but alongside me. To my customers, who believed in me, in what I did and kept coming back for more! My biggest learning was through my mom in sales, during all my exhibitions she reminded me to treat people with kindness and that my unhappiest customers were my biggest source of learning. She always pushed me to “Honour my calling”. Perhaps thats why I decided I wanted to start exporting my products and look at new ways to build my business.
My second phase of learning came when I applied to Northwestern for a program called Global Lab. We had four Students from the Kellogg School of Management join us as part of their Curriculum. They came to Mumbai with a goal to explore how to expand the fashion jewellery business, but they left with so much more. The experience of coming to a new country like India is somewhat unforgettable. While we worked on presentations, took meetings with vendors and visited factories; we also did a fair bit of sightseeing and indulging in some great food! As I look back at the case report today, I feel not only did we learn a lot about exports but also about the curious nature of the west to know more about how India works. These four students inspired me; little did I realize this would be an important part of my journey to Raay.
My third phase of learning came when I began working with my co-founder in the UK, creating unique jewellery pieces as part of subscription box business. It was hard to believe but sometimes her personality was similar to my mum but only younger! What a coincidence it was when I found out she was born on the same day as my mum. Looking back at my time with her I learnt from her ethics, discipline and confidence. You know there’s a phrase- “What if I fall, oh my darling but what if you fly?” She’s the one who helped me look at life and realize that my fears are always going to be there, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be taking the next step! Coming to terms with the fact I wouldn’t be working with her anymore was hard. We came to the conclusion mutually. However - If you asked me would I do it all over again, my answer would a resounding yes! I have made a lifelong friend and this experience helped facilitate that.
After I got married, I took a short sabbatical and tried to figure what I wanted to do next. Shortly after, the pandemic hit us all in India. I decided to just take a step back and enjoy the present moment with my family. My mother-in-law started a baking company called “The Dough Show” It was great getting back into the swing of things - like pricing or chatting with customers, as well as photographing products. It’s something I knew I wasn’t going to do as a full-time career but an interesting lens I began to apply was would I be happy even if this failed? That’s when I realized what I was building at Raay was something I really wanted to do! I saw how vital internships were in the growth of a persons career, I had evidence from the Northwestern students that this could be a global vision, and if I were to leverage my network I would hope it would be towards something greater than myself. Whatever the journey or the outcome, I know its worth it to me and I will truly try to give it my best shot.
