Divya Kakkar, Witchery, The Sandwich Co.

After multiple experiments in life, food was the space that stayed constant and despite coming from an economics & design background, it was a poace I knew I had to be. Reoeated failures in prtnership ventures in F&B pushed me to say what the heck, I can do this on my own. And thats how WITCHERY came about.
As a female and the biggest challenge was to be taken seriously. Its a common held belief that for wome that its a hobby and will shut down soon.

Its a harsh industry & labour intensive, with long working hours and largely less educated people – mostly men. To be kind and yet to get uour work done was near impossible. To be bossy ruffled the male egods way too often. The good that came out – oy the good people stuck around.
Getting loans, accounting, sourcing, dealing with labour and day to day operations – everything has been a challenge.

The inspiration to start Savri Personalized Gifts came from my deep desire to create meaningful connections through personalized, thoughtful gifting. I believe that gifts hold immense emotional value, and personalization adds an extra layer of sentiment, making people feel truly special. This idea sparked during a family celebration where I saw how a simple personalized gift brought immense joy. That moment inspired me to turn this passion into a business, allowing others to experience the same joy through uniquely curated gifts

One of the biggest challenges I face is scaling up operations to meet increasing demand without compromising on quality.
My challenges are not because I am a female as in the changed scenario a female is capable to overcome any difficulties and with the support of family you can make everything possible.

My passion for organizing tempted me to start this business.
It was a niche business where creating awareness was a challenge. There were days when managing personal and professional life was a challenge but asking for help when needed and being at it in my journey really helped me. I never ever thought of quitting or giving up on my idea even when there was zero / minimum revenue in the first year. Being persistent and believing in what I was doing instrumental in making this business a success.

I always wanted to be a mentor and to be capable of giving buisness to as many artists as I can Challenges at every step but I never stopped with challenges I made them my strength rather.

Digitising and seamlessly sharing information is something that is still not there in the rigid industry such as supply chain and international trade. Key challenges are the balancing of personal and professional life specially when you are a mother
And this industry accepting women in the higher position.

My dad is my inspiration .He is into this field from 40 years i wanted to take it to the next level.The key challenges that is face is : very few or very limited women in this field and i face strong gender bias in this particular field ,which i battle everyday.I overcame them with my sincerity and perfection in work.

Faced issues in my lactation journey and even as a doctor myself didn’t know how to resolve them and whom to reach out. In obs gynae OPD also had many moms coming with issues related to Lactation. So studied more on this and then decided to work full time as a Lactation Consultant. Key challenges faced are not to know how to do business in a proper way, since it’s professional service, so building a profitable business around it was the major challenge. But slowly learner and still learning.