Every festival has different gods and prayers associated with them. Prakash Mundhra offers around 32 items required for a festival-specific puja into one designer pack
Bored of gifting your associates dry fruits and sweets on special occasions? Chinese gift items seen too passé? Or are you looking for a gift that could not only serve as a utility item, but also instill emotions in the receiver?
Well, if you can identify with any of this, Prakash Mundhra, CEO of Sacred Moments, a company that manufactures the Blessingz puja kit, could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
Thanks to Mundhra, designer tags are now not only limited to clothes, shoes, and bags, but even something as sacred as your puja items. Ask him what purpose these puja kits serve, and the 27-year-old promptly replies, “Every festival has different gods and prayers associated with them. We offer around 32 items required for a festival specific puja, including sindoor, haldi, kumkum, puja booklet, cotton, agarbatti, honey, and even Ganga jal, into one designer pack. In Holi, for example, we have a celebration kit that includes balloons, colors and water guns.”
But such items are readily available in the market, at a cheaper price, right? Well, clarifies Mundhra, “Those items can never be given as a gift in corporate organizations, because they aren’t packaged aesthetically. Our products are reliable, more organized and delivered right at your doorstep, which is why clients are willing to pay a good price for them. The manuals are both in English, as well as Hindi, and every single item is labeled properly. The concept of designer puja kits gives corporate clients the option of a novelty gift, yet an ethnic one.”
Sacred Moments’ puja kits are being exported to countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Indonesia.
Building ground
As a student of the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Mundhra participated in a variety of business plan competitions. In his first year of college, for example he took part in the Mera Gaon Mera Desh contest, organized by ITC, where they were looking for a business idea that would align with their already existing business. Since ITC was into Mangladeep agarbattis, Mundhra proposed for them to get into other branded puja items, such as, Mangladeep haldi, Mangladeep kumkum, and so on. “The plan did
not click with ITC, but I went ahead and participated in Zee TV’s Business Baazigar and won the Baazigar title,” claims Mundhra.
It took him six months to modify his business plan and come up with the idea of puja item outlets. “Just like we have Archie’s Galleries for greeting cards, I was thinking of something along the lines of Shubhlabh outlets for puja items,” he says. But soon enough he realized that his plan had flaws and that it would not be a viable proposition.
In the last eight months of his MBA, Mundhra arrived at the idea of puja kits. “With the Rs 50,000 I had won from Zee TV, I went on to research the idea and created my first designer puja kit under the brand name Blessingz.” He showcased his business plan to venture capitalists judging business plan competitions, who gave him a lot of feedback and suggestions.
In May 2006, after his MBA, Mundhra faced the dilemma of joining the company he got placed with versus starting his own venture. “I thought I would not be able to take such a bold decision, but the entrepreneurship instinct was too deep inside and I started feeling that it was now or never,” he reminisces.
Executing the idea
Mundhra made an investment of around Rs 5 lac on designing, producing, and procuring the puja items. Where did he get the funds from?
“There were talks with a venture capitalist, but the investment wasn’t so great, and I decided I could do it myself. I took loans from my friends and relatives, but paid them back soon after,” he says. To save on extra costs, he used his father’s old office, which was also close to all his suppliers.
While sourcing materials for his kit, Mundhra chooses from a range of items that are available in the market and then, with the help of priests, customizes them for the kit. Some of the raw materials like sindoor, kumkum, and turmeric are procured locally. Other materials such as ghee sachets are sourced directly from the manufacturers in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Mathura, etc. The production happens from both Mumbai as well as Ahmedabad.
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