1 year of BanaGloo

One year into running her business, Founder and Director of BanaGloo pens down her thoughts as a first-time founder continuing to learn the ropes while building a revolutionary art ecosystem for social impact.

Exactly a year ago today, BanaGloo took its first breath! BanaGloo was officially registered as a private limited company by the MCA in October 2023, although it had already risen from the ashes thanks to years of sketching out an itch and leaning on the people I trust to help me make some tough decisions.

There were a couple of things I knew before founding a business. I knew that jumping into something new and entirely self-led after a stable 9-5 was going to be unpredictable. I knew that moving to another country, albeit back home, would feel different in the beginning, perhaps even alien—I was returning 8 years later to a city bustling with tenfold the people, and a culture and mindset unique from that of the States. I also knew that working here would not be the same as a month-long summer vacation before flying out again.

What I underestimated was how easily I would enjoy rebuilding new goals, and how smoothly all of India's grooves would fit into my physical and emotional clockwork. The people, cultural depth, food and glitz, savviness of society, enterprising nature of our youth, jugaad mentality to make things work, and an overall kindness of a giant, diverse community began to promise abundance I hadn't felt so richly before.

Yes, there’d always been the general idea that working towards my own dream would feel self-actualizing, but it was nice to see the extent of this “unshackling” within a month—risk and financial investment couldn’t compete with the fact that I had something of my own to build on every day, at home, with my family and friends around me. For that I consider myself unbelievably lucky.

Building BanaGloo has taught me a lot about myself and about people. Remarkably, my progress in the first couple of months hinged on understanding those two things as it did on strategies and plans. Something I gravitated towards early on was surrounding myself with thinkers who consciously chose to dream big and who valued quality over quantity—their preference for innovation and meaningful growth would inspire the long-term sustenance BanaGloo and I sought, because it would help build a long-term venture bottom-up, block by block, without needing it to get big quickly.

My close ones kept my momentum going for me. My sister taught me that envisioning something meant it existed in some future reality. Regardless of when it might happen, being able to see a figment of a fantasy today was proof enough that it would manifest. Someday, but eventually. And that if a passion was true enough and not given up on, no journey would be too hard to stop one from fulfilling it. The simplicity yet potency of that struck a chord with me.

So despite the prolonged slumps, periods of frustration, and heaps and heaps and heaps of work, I experienced elevating moments of pride, met some hugely inspiring people, and witnessed BanaGloo make grassroots-level impact.

The pieces fell into place one-by-one: building a team of volunteers, teaching painting to first-time creators, leading workshops at NGOs and residential societies, constructing a cost-revenue-analysis system from scratch, designing BanaGloo's very first logo, developing the official BanaGloo website, launching an online Shop, meeting brilliant minds at community events, attending conferences across Mumbai, partnering with compliance, payments and shipping vendors, managing a catalog of products, handling sales and payments, growing from 1 giveaway to nearly fifty pieces going out of stock, overseeing delivery fulfillment, scaling the company brand across various channels, building worthwhile business partnerships, collaborating with brands, selling, selling, selling, and so much more!

Today, BanaGloo is a fully functioning, for-profit, social impact startup. We are based in Mumbai and have a wonderful team of both creators and volunteers. We currently host workshops on-site and fulfil sales through our website while continuing to strengthen BanaGloo’s business model, test market receptiveness and spread impact. We are always looking forward to local tie-ups, and just successfully led a 2-days artisanal booth at an incredible café called Ink n Brew in Mumbai.

Our goal in the coming years is to combine creation and sales in one physical outlet, hire a strong management team, and scale meaningfully…

…stay tuned, folks!

And thank you for continuing to be part of our journey!