WAS it the velvety texture or the creamy darkness? What drove her chocolate-making hobby into a promising business within 18 months? The answer: packaging.

Name: Rashmi Vaswani
Age: 25
Company: Rage Chocolatier
Based in: Bangalore
Founded in: 2005
Industry: Gifts, Retail, Confectionery
Business summary: Premium, made-to-order chocolates for corporate and personal gifting.

The idea
Having worked in market research before her MBA, Rashmi was loath to return to a 9-to-5 job. She knew she wanted to start something on her own. The question was what?

Her father provided the opening. He asked Rashmi to make chocolates as Diwali gifts for his friends and clients. The chocolates were well-received. The friends, in turn, started requesting chocolates to be sent out as gifts. She started out "very, very small".

"For me, catering to the initial handful of customers was more of a pastime,” she smiles.

The opportunity
Rashmi may have started small, but the word spread shockingly fast. A lady to whom Rashmi had sent chocolates invited her to put up a stall at a festival mela. "From there, another contact told us about more such exhibitions."

Rashmi also invited friends to her home, where she displayed her chocolates. One of her first clients, Wadhwani Foundation/NEN, sent chocolates to its supporters, and a box of the chocolates reached Mindtree Consulting. Mindtree provided her first large order: 150 kilogrammes of chocolate for a company festival.

Images courtesy NEN Online

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e-mail: NEN Online

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