Pritika Chatterjee Solving Space Crunch in Indian Homes

24 years old, Pritika Chatterjee decided to become an entrepreneur after working for 2 years in Singapore in an Audit Firm as an Audit and Tax Consultant. She has grown up  in a business family and has seen her dad who is a first generation entrepreneur work hard to build a star export house which now exports to over 80 countries.

“I was away for education in the UK and that opened my eyes to so many opportunities. That’s when I decided that I will not just go back and join my dad which would be the easiest thing to do but instead work for a few years and see what that feels like”, says the founder

Pritika left Singapore and came back to India which was at that point, criticized by many because they could not understand why a girl would come back to a small town Aurangabad and start something from scratch when she already has a safe desk job. But having her dad to support and guide her made her feel confident about the situation.

She thought it would be a good time to take their B2B (business to business) and make it B2C (Business to Customer) and that is where Tidy Homz comes in and becomes a part of forward integration for us. Since running a business is something which comes to her quite naturally, she did not have a hard time adjusting to this new environment.

From working in a fancy office to working in a factory setting was a huge change for the founder . It was drastic and she took time to adjust to it. ” Suddenly there is a 23 year old girl, telling them to develop new products and work differently which came as a surprise to everyone. It was just a change which people took time to accept. But you can’t give up, you have to show the people around you what you are worth. You have to be persistent and get your work done”, says the 24 year old founder.

Tidy Homz

Tidy Homz, started by Pritika is an attempt to solve “Space Crunch in Houses”. By creating unique products which are mainly utility based as most of them are either foldable or knockdown so that when not in use, they can be put away thus saving space in the house. Pritika says, “Ladies are on the constant lookout for new interesting products which will help save space and make daily life easier. In the bigger cities, people have smaller houses or flats and that’s where our products come into play”.

The team is constantly innovating and experimenting to come up with products which  people need at home but aren’t available in the market.  They try to take advantage of the fact that the utility based furniture market is not fully developed in India and  they are trying to bring awareness amongst people . we are holding a series of POP UP KITCHENS, the first of which was already held last weekend in Aurangabad where we are collaborating with YUH Foods, a brand for frozen goods and doing live demos of our kitchen range. We plan to do this in various cities over the next few months.

It is hard to run an E-commerce portal. It requires constant upgradation and keeping up with the customer needs. The two biggest hurdles for the company were pricing and quality. Pritika says, “Luckily for us, we aren’t a market place like most others. We manufacture most of our own products which gives us an advantage on both those fronts. Our parent company being an export house, we only manufacture export quality products”.

For any business, it is vital to give back to the society. It is interesting to see how Tidy homz has been involved in actively giving back to the society. Good foundation and education is a basic right which unfortunately many children especially girls are denied. Pritika taught English to a group of underprivileged girls and that’s when she realized that there is nothing more fulfilling than this. Tidy Homz is a part of the Udayan Care- Shalini Fellowship Program which provides education to under privileged girls.

“When children get high quality education, it opens up a life full of choice and opportunities which not only benefits them but also their parents, families, society and also a country as a whole. The glow in their eyes and the smile on their face is unmatched. This is why at Tidy Homz we decided to support girl child education from the beginning” , says Pritika

Pritika believes that only if you treat your work as your baby and nurture it utmost care and passion, will it grow into something wonderful. If you don’t think what you have started is good enough, your customer’s wont either. If you don’t think that the product you are selling is something that you would not personally use, don’t sell it just because it’s making money.

“There are 1000 ways to make easy money today but being an entrepreneur is much more than that. It is giving life to an idea which will help other people and hopefully solve a problem” , says the Founder

Thankyou Pritika Chatterjee for sharing your entrepreneurial journey with Feministaa. !!