Mysore Deep Perfumery House | After quitting a sales assistant job at a textiles store, Prakash Agrawal tried his hand at manufacturing and selling soaps, detergents, and hair oils. However, all his attempts proved to be unsuccessful. When he couldn’t succeed as a manufacturer and his mother suggested that he worked as an agarbatti distributer, he took this as a challenge. Prakash observed that the Indian market for agarbattis was flourishing in the 90s and he decided to give agarbatti manufacturing a try. He borrowed money from his relatives to start the Mysore Deep Perfumery House and agarbatti brand Purab Paschim Uttar Dakshin with his brothers. They started making agarbattis out of a small garage in their Indore house and today, the company has four manufacturing units in Indore with a cumulative floor space of 6.5 lakh square feet. They also set up the world’s largest raw agarbatti manufacturing unit with over 550 machines, reported SMB Story. (Image: MDPH)
GALF | Founded by Amit Vasistha, an ex-investment banker, GALF has become India's fastest-growing corporate wellness ecosystem provider. Amit observed the real-life events of his corporate colleagues, particularly CXOs, who were impacted due to stress, anxiety, and depression. The increasing number of cases of loss of life among corporates at a young age prompted Amit to initiate a social media-based wellness campaign in 2016. The campaign focused on embracing "Wellness as A Lifestyle". In 2018, the campaign was commercialised into a start-up and in 2022, GALF created a tech-enabled 360-degree corporate wellness ecosystem called MyGALF". The company has serviced a host of corporate clients across industry segments of banking, financial services, insurance, ITO and BPO firms, and automobile manufacturing. (Image: Mygalf)
Red Chief | In 1995, Manoj Gyanchandani set up Leayan Global Private Limited to export leather shoes to Europe. However, after two years he realised that there was a bigger opportunity in India as the leather footwear market wasn’t organised. Thus, he wrapped up the export business, and launched the Red Chief brand in 1997, under the parent company Leayan Global Private Limited. The brand started by showcasing products in multi-branded outlets across Kanpur, and slowly spread to multi-branded outlets in other different states. In 2011, the first exclusive Red Chief outlet in Kanpur was launched and by 2021, Red Chief had 175 stores across 16 states and it has a presence in over 3,000 multi-brand outlets. (Image: Red Chief)
Loom Solar | After Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid out a roadmap with a slew of measures aimed at improving the renewable energy sector and the solar power industry of India, two brothers, Amod Anand and Amol Anand, decided to make a disruptive start in the solar power sector. They launched Loom Solar in 2018 in Faridabad, which generated a Rs 25 crore turnover in its first year in 2019. By 2021, the company had installed 3,500 kW solar panels in 9,000 Indian homes, creating around 4.2 million units of electricity from solar panels. In January 2021, Loom Solar won the title of fastest-growing SMB at Amazon Sambhav, reported SMB Story. (Image: Loom Solar)
Mamaearth | When Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh were expecting a baby, they wanted to ensure the baby’s safety at all costs. However, they observed that there weren’t many chemical-free products that are safe for children and their mothers. Thus in 2016, the couple launched the brand, Mamaearth under the parent company Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd, in Gurugram. Mamaearth used the best available ingredients sourced naturally from plant-based or manmade sources, which are certified safe and effective. The ingredients are also ISO, GMP and Non-GMO compliant. With this, in just four years, Mamaearth became Asia’s first brand to get the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free products. Started with six products in the baby care range, Mamaearth has now diversified into skin and hair care products for men and women and it has catered to over 1.5 million customers in over 500 cities of India. (Image: Shutterstock)