Tag: Business Reboot After Lockdown

Covid-19

‘Covid-19 Gave Me Extra Time & A Home Business’

By LokMarg

Pooja Makin Kapoor, 44, from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, learnt making soaps at home from a YouTube clip. In no time, it has turned into a successful home-based business and she is loving it

Among the changes that a raging Covid19 pandemic brought into our lives are: 1) we all found some little extra time on our hands; and 2) there has been an excess of soaps and sanitizers on our hands. I teach English and Maths on voluntary basis at NGOs and in the lockdown I got time to indulge myself in other pursuits. So one evening, when I chanced upon a You Tube video on how to make soaps at home, I decided to give it a shot. The idea so occupied my mind that I could barely sleep, eagerly waiting for the day ahead. I had a list of ingredients ready in my mind was excited like a young child.

The following day, I ordered glycerine, honey, goat milk, charcoal, Shea butter, castor oil, coconut oil and other knick-knacks. A few items like lemon grass, basil leaves were sourced from my kitchen garden. I already had silicon moulds that I used for baking and used them as moulds for soaps.

Just like many people learnt cooking and household chores in lockdown, I learnt making soaps. It was a new talent I acquired and soon enough honed it to perfection. When I was satisfied with the quality and novelty of my products, I started gifting them to my relatives and also started sharing pictures of them on various messaging apps.

ALSO READ: How I Turned (Dining) Tables On Lockdown

It was an expression of my creativity and I was having fun. Till, one of my husband’s cousin got super excited with the soaps and commented that these cakes would attract children to wash their hands more frequently. And then, she egged me on to start making them commercially. Thus my home-made brand Meraki Kraft came into being.

It takes a few hours to make the soaps in my kitchen every day and I have to focus intensely to get the balance of ingredients right. My family has been very supportive and help me with the chores as well as making of the soaps. My two teenage daughters keep giving me the right ideas to promote my soaps on social media. I am a very private person so my Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp lists are restricted to friends, but word of mouth has turned into huge sales.

Meraki Kraft’s first hit was the tangy orange soaps, but things hit the roof with my doughnut shaped soaps. From there, it has been a successful range from muffin-shaped soaps to those with fruit and herbs bases like watermelon, lavender, basil etc.

ALSO READ: Covid-19 Taught Us Some New Business Lessons

Things went a notch higher when I released my Shea butter and charcoal soaps for men with a hint of Hugo Boss perfume. It came in two shapes, circular and a square one that looked like men’s shirts. And then came the clincher soap, one that I have got the maximum feedback for. It is a soap that looks like an ice bucket with champagne bottle. Except the bottle, the cubes and the bucket are all soap.

While courier services have been a lifeline, a few stores in Dehradun have also started stocking my products. Each of my soap lasts almost a month. Now, I have started getting repeat orders from as far as Delhi- NCR, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Reeva (M.P.), Mumbai and Goa and of course Dehradun where I live.

If people are looking to start home businesses, it is possible if you strike the right balance. Just make sure you are enjoying yourself in the process. The pandemic is nothing in front of your courage, passion, instincts and ingenuity.

The name of my brand Meraki Kraft means labour of love. It’s a Greek word derived from the Turkish term Merak and after the pandemic subsides I feel only those businesses will survive which are a labour of love.

‘Covid-19 Has Taught Us Valuable Business Lessons’

By LokMarg

Sachin Kumar (25), a Cyber Café owner in Moradabad, UP, had to shut shop for three months after the district became a Covid-19 Hot Spot. With the start of Unlock, Kumar is picking up the pieces with hope

My business was dependent on people who wanted a secure future. I run a cyber café which also helps in filing online application in government offices for various documents. Before Coronavirus hit us, it was a hub where youngsters would come for buying and submitting exam forms. Many would apply for PAN cards after they got their first job, some applied for passports, driving licenses or its renewal. The pandemic taught me that nothing is certain. Right now, just about surviving is my only objective.

I had started my cyber café in Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh) two years ago and had even hired a person to help me out. But after this district turned a hotspot for Covid-19, strict lockdown meant my business nosedived. Now with Unlock process, we are picking up the pieces with hope. I believe things will keep getting better with each passing day. If people follow all the social distancing norms, businesses will restart again. We all need it.

ALSO READ: ‘No Work For 4 Months Drains Creativity’

I reopened my café on July 1, after remaining shut for nearly three months. Since then we have 20-25 people coming in every day. It used to draw nearly 200 people earlier. But I like to see things positively. If right at the beginning of Unlock we are able to draw 10% of the business, in a year or two we should get back to pre-pandemic level. Things never remain the same, but love and support from family means we can overcome this together. The business community too needs to come forward as a family to support each other.

I take care to practice social distancing norms in my café. Only one person is entertained at a time and only people wearing masks are allowed in. I wipe my counter with surface sanitizer after every interaction. We have bought a 5 litre bottle and though it comes at a high cost (₹900), I don’t want to take any chances either for me or my customers. We mop the floor with disinfectants at regular intervals. Plus, we also have a thick plastic curtain that is being used in most shops to ensure distancing.

ALSO READ: ‘Reopening Our Restaurant Needed Courage’

Earlier, the times when Board results were announced, it was brisk business for us. My shop would be swarmed by schoolchildren and their parents; this year that excitement was missing. Most of them called me on the phone to check their results or did it on their own smartphones.

We also used to earn a lot from money transfer, sale of offline forms, sale of government and private sector jobs, lamination, challan submissions, application for licenses and passports etc. Now, no one is coming to buy new forms, or filing online applications.

Yet, it is nice to see that despite the uncertainty people haven’t stopped studying and many of them come for getting study materials ‘Xeroxed’. I feel education is an essential thing and people aspiring for a better life will also never stop, so I feel as soon as this pandemic is under control, businesses like ours will be one of the firsts to get back on its feet.

Fly Kouzina

‘Reopening Our Restaurant Needed Courage & Caution’

By LokMarg

Saurabh Jalan (36), a restaurateur in Kolkata, used the lockdown period to set new safety and hygiene standards in place. When Unlock 1.0 came, Jalan was ready to reboot

I own three restaurants in Kolkata and have been in this business for last five years. The business was running smoothly till Coronavirus pandemic struck. People in Kolkata love adda (loosely, a hangout buzzing with debates and discussion), and long social meetings are an inherent part of the city’s culture. Coronavirus and the ensuing lockdown brought an abrupt end to this.

The hospitality sector has been the worst hit and we didn’t know what the future would hold for all of us. The first lockdown had been announced so suddenly that many of our employees were not able to go back to their home towns in other states, especially our housekeeping staff and chefs etc. on duty that night. The first thing we did was to tell them not to panic and keep their morale high. We provided them shelter in the restaurant itself and took care of their needs to make them feel they were not alone in this crisis.

Realising that the pandemic will change the way we would socialise in future, we trained our staff to set new hygiene and sanitation standards in place.

ALSO READ: ‘How I Turned (Dining) Tables On Lockdown’

I then sat with my partners to draw a plan to provide food to the needy. It had twin purpose: we served our society and also kept our employees engaged in work. Every day, we sent out around 1,000-1,500 food packets. We thus we got better equipped against Covid-19. When the Unlock 1.0 was announced, we were cautious but ready to be back in business.

Our patrons’ safety was paramount. So we kept only one of the three restaurants fully functional while other two were turned into take-away or home delivery setups. The dining in facility was kept limited to our veg multi-cuisine restaurant called Fly Kouzina (Kolkata’s first airline-themed restaurant in Salt Lake area).

I would be lying if I said we are not scared. But we have a solid team which brainstorms every morning about how to make things safer, more hygienic and yet enjoyable for both customers and employees.

Saurabh Jalan (middle) at his restaurant

There are paper envelopes for guests to keep their masks while they are eating. We share the menu via WhatsApp so there is minimum need to touch anything except the food we eat. If customers want to order food from their cars parked outside, we make sure we provide them with as good a service as we do inside the restaurant.

ALSO READ: ‘Some Work From Home, I Workout From Home’

The surfaces are regularly sanitized. Excessive care is taken in keeping the washrooms sanitized after every single use. We also take out the time to address each and every query the guests might have related to our preparation against Covid-19.

Based on our experience on Fly Kouzina, we hope to open our other two restaurants pretty soon. Both the public as well as restaurant owners are showing courage with caution. Each day brings with itself new challenges and newer solutions to keep the fight against Covid-19 going.

We have only about 30-40 people coming in to our restaurant every day but we hope things will begin to pick up slowly. Flying is still very risky but people can get a little feel of travel at our airline-themed restaurant.