‘Necessity is the mother of Invention’ was rightly quoted by Plato and we’ve witnessed this time and again over the past decades. Komal Soneji’s venture may not be an invention but, a form of art and a work of art is good if it has grown out of necessity said, Rainer Rilke!
The start of a Home-grown Business
At the age of 21 when Komal was in college, she started Code Knot with an initial investment of Rs. 10,000. At the age of 26, Komal found a start-up idea amidst the pandemic in April 2021, simply by realising the necessities of the growing number of small businesses in the country. Being an environmentalist, Komal wanted to build a brand catering to the necessities of small businesses while being ecological at the same time. Hence inspired by her name she started a home-grown brand called ‘Ko Necessity’.
Graduated from Fashion school, Komal was naturally inclined towards sewing as taught by her grandmother in her childhood. Based out of her home in Pune, during her college days, Komal first started selling men’s bow ties & pocket squares. After being overwhelmed with the positive response, she started selling scrunchies. Komal is now proud to have hired and created employment for several other women while empowering the local community.
New necessities need new sustainable solutions…
Komal soon realised the need for the hour and that was branding for small businesses. While branding on a small scale seemed expensive for most entrepreneurs, Komal wanted to bring forward an affordable and yet impressive solution and that’s how she came up with the idea of customised stamps. Plastic was something she deterred and hence came up with a better alternative to use pine wood. Wood mount stamps are expensive to import to India. Hence, the tool Komal uses is wood stamps. The self-thought entrepreneur was overjoyed when the orders started pouring after one of her reels became viral on the social media platform, Instagram.
Family is Strength for past and future endeavours
6 years into the two business with more than 6000 successful orders, Komal is a grounded person and believes in living life in simple ways. She gives huge credit to her family who has helped her be the brand that she is today. With her sister managing the admin work from overseas, her mother overlooking and maintaining the product quality checks, and her father helping with stamping, packaging deliveries, to even sourcing the raw materials, Komal takes pride in calling this a family business.
Code Knot plays a big part of Today, ‘Ko Necessity’ caters to individual customers as well as the business’ and is spread across the globe in countries such as Europe, Malaysia, the United States, and Canada. She is a home gardener at heart and an avid traveller too. While she lives in the present, this self-thought entrepreneur’s future plans are to coach and guide other budding entrepreneurs.
Instagram link – https://instagram.com/ko.necessity?utm_medium=copy_link
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