Sibling Revelry : These Entrepreneurs Show Us How It’s Done
They say a sibling is part blood, part rival, part coach, and a forever friend. We would like to throw in one more term to this list – a probable business partner. And this essence of partnership, in most cases, develops early during childhood – somewhere between negotiating pocket money together to planning a surprise anniversary party for your parents or ganging up against nosy relatives. So what happens when two or more all-grown siblings decide to kickstart a business together?? On the occasion of Rakshabandhan, we spoke to a few Myntra brand partners who are also sibling entrepreneurs to find the right answer. Read on.
Khushboo Agarwal, Aditya Agarwal, and Sonal Agarwal, the co-founders of the clothing brand, Campus Sutra, decided to launch the brand to offer relatable clothing to the trendy youth of India. The trio feels that working with siblings is like working with your best friends. “The great thing about working with your siblings is that we can fight over anything, disagree on most things, but once we come home, it’s all good,” Sonal says.
So which of the siblings has the best fashion sense? “We all do!” pat comes the answer. But when it comes to shopping, Khushboo is the pro. On being asked what the sisters plan to gift Aditya, they said, “It’s a hoodie from Campus Sutra’s latest collection.”
The Su (Sujata) and Ta (Tania) of Suta are sisters that beautifully complement each other’s skills and personalities. They both gave up their cushy corporate jobs to create something they believed in – a brand that would make beautiful, borderline minimalistic sarees while supporting traditional weavers.
“We have grown up together, and learned things together because we have a very small age gap. Our father had a transferable job, so we moved around quite a bit growing up.. With all the change around us, the only constant factor for us was each other. We are best friends, and we know each other’s quirks and strengths very well. We even finish each other’s lines! The best thing is that we have each other as a witness to what we are doing in every step of our entrepreneurship journey,” Sujata says.
On being asked who the bigger shopaholic was, Sujata says it is Taniya. “Taniya loves to shop for everyone. She will buy things for herself, the neighbours, and neighbours of the neighbours as well!”
And what would they gift each other on Rakshabandhan? “We’ve decided to gift each other a Da Milano bag and a Calvin Klein trolley bag,” they say.
Siblings Agnim Gupta and Stuti Gupta joined Amrutam, their father’s business, in 2016 and completely revamped it. They did not just rebrand products, but also decided to take the business online and joined hands with Myntra last year to reach a wider audience.
“What I love about working with Agnim is that we both follow two different approaches to solving a problem, which helps us every time we’re faced with a challenge at work. While his approach is very bottom-up where he researches a lot and studies a certain topic to solve a problem, I am more of a top-down-approach person where I try to work around things that are already available. This difference in approach really complements both of our problem-solving skills,” Stuti says.
Between the two, Stuti is a bigger shopaholic who is always excited to try out new buys online. For Rakshabandhan, this year, she plans to gift Agnim a pair of sports shoes.
Sisters Aayuushi Agarwal and Anushka Agarwal launched EROTISSCH with an aim to encourage women to be comfortable with their bodies and promote body positivity in general. When asked about how it feels to work with a sibling, they both look at each other and smile.
“When Aayuushi and I founded our business together, we didn’t really agree on everything ☺. We were coming together to do something after years and for a long time, it felt that we didn’t know each other well. Eventually, with time, we realized that we were different but made of the same ingredients. To be able to work with this weird like-mindedness has been a really interesting journey. The best thing about working together is the in-depth understanding of each other cultivated over years. I’m sure all this sounds really heart-warming to read but to be honest, it’s also a mix of headache and over-expectations too. The constant nagging of sisterhood and responsibility of partnership has made us a somewhat crazy and sassy duo.”
So what would be the ideal gift for the Agarwal sisters? The answer is as real as it gets. “We prefer to give each other gift cards because it’s impossible to shop for each other, we both can be really picky about what we want to wear,” they say.