Tell us a bit about yourself and your family.
Hi there, I'm Niddhi Motwani. I have a home-based setup for chocolates, brownies, tea-time cakes, and cookies.
I would love to create exclusive and customized hampers for your loved ones for special occasions.
I also cater to corporate gifting’s by providing chocolate varieties for your elite clients and team members. I stay in Mulund (Mumbai) with my hubby, who works as a hedge-fund manager, and my daughter, studying in 8th STD.
Have you had any formal training or family business?
Yes definitely. Maybe not like the formal-formal training that kids these days get during the start of their careers.
I started with online training and then did a professional crash course.
And as you know learning is always a never-ending process, I constantly keep on updating and upgrading myself.
Tell us about your venture and what inspired you to take this challenge, and get started?
I always wanted to do something but didn't know how to start or where to start.
Before the lockdown, I used to be busy serving the needs of my family and when they were out, I used to be busy arranging for the stuff they might need once they are home. During the lockdown, I got a lot of time to self-connect, as my family was home and the overall chores of the home were reduced to a large extent.
One of my relatives was into this same business. I consulted her and asked her for advice.
She guided me through. I have been making so many delicacies over the years for my family, and I am pretty good at it. So with that spirit and my relatives' guidance I took up this challenge to achieve something of my own.
What has been your proudest moment?
Well, out of my mind, there is this incident, I got a call from a fellow chocolatier.
She had a bulk order and was falling short of time. She outsourced me an order for 300 kgs. This was my proud moment because for me it was a first-time experience of this huge quantity. And I could assist and complete the order on time.
What are some of the biggest challenges you faced as an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, you need to connect to many people.
Connections help you with orders. For me, this was a challenge. It took me some time to identify my client base and target them to get more orders.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting out?
There are a lot of things to consider while starting out, firstly a strong belief in oneself, secondly, do the ground research work about your products- and be consistent in your efforts.
Given a chance would you alter any of your life decisions?
Would definitely want to change the learning curve, where today I feel I could have spent more time earlier in learning and experimenting more, though learning never stops at any age.