Meet Neha, a College Dropout Who Used Her Creativity to Introduce All-Women-Led Home Decor Brand
“A crazy traveler creating her hippie’s heart, that’s how The Hippiesaaz got shaped,” Says Neha, founder of The Hippiesaaz
“I was randomly scrolling through Instagram and came across a beautiful ruffle curtain. I searched it throughout on the web and found out that it can’t be availed in India. With my disappointments of not being able to get it here, I realized the fact that this is something I can create on my own too. And, this was how the whole journey started off.” told Neha adding that she was about to leave for a trip to Goa when she discovered her zeal for creating these curtains. Just a day before she was supposed to leave, she posted on her personal blog, about these ruffled curtains. “It was surprising enough for me when I woke up with DMs of people wanting to order these curtains, that too on the day when I was ready to leave for a good, long trip as an escape. Dwelled in dilemmas, impulsive me choose not to go and that is how the Hippiesaaz got shaped. I managed to complete those pre-orders and started developing a business idea from it.”
Neha was a 21-year-old Mass Communication drop out who was trying to make the ends meet when on 16th December 2018. She eventually found a way to channelize her creativity. She had earlier worked on a few home decor and set designing projects and realized now how expensive home decor is in India. This very fact was the reason when she navigated through the idea of Hippiesaaz, she decided to make it an authentic home decor brand that could affordable by all.
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When I received my first order, all I had was the zeal to make it possible. I had no idea of where and what fabric should be bought, where to get them dyed, what should be the right sizes, what will be the making charges yet I quoted a price I could estimate from the first look, and eventually, we pulled it off. We received our first payment, we managed to make and deliver then and further sat down the derive how to make it a business now”, says Neha while telling about how they pulled off the first order. Now, the Hippiesaaz is dealing with several products like Curtains, beddings, cushions, and other home accessories, all at a very affordable price.
Neha’s mother tells us that the place where they are living, i.e. Najafgarh, a small town in southwest Delhi is not really very progressive for women. She says, here live women who have the desire to work and grow. In our neighbourhood, there are a lot of women who want to harness their skills, and sillai- kadhai (stitching and weaving) is what they all know to perfection. So, when Neha thought of developing Hippiesaaz as a business, she, parallelly pursued it with a vision to provide employment to these women. Hippiesaaz is now an all-women-run home decor brand with only two males, Neha’s brother, Abhishek, and her partner, Rajneesh supporting her.
Telling about how she expanded her business, she mentioned that whatever we are is because of the trust people have in us. We started marketing from Instagram itself and eventually started with prepaid orders and an immediate confirmation basis. It is only now when we have expanded to a website. “I have nurtured every bit of Hippiesaaz on my own. From bringing Instagram from 1 follower to 95.5k to production of products, I look after everything on my own and will keep on doing it that way. It is something which is personal to me and doing it on my own gives me satisfaction”, says Neha on her relationship with Hippiesaaz.
Talking about the whole experience, Neha says that Hippiesaaz is something that empowers her. Seeing herself as someone who is helping housewives in earning a living is what gives her peace and satisfaction. Hippiesaaz will complete its two years in December. Where lockdown had affected their business largely, it had managed to give employment to more than 50 women based out of Najafgarh. Further, they are planning to introduce other production units in other cities of the country too.
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