At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the start-up ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited Mehul Patel for an exclusive interview with us. Mehul is a Passionate Entrepreneur, Leader Mentor and Change Enabler. He is the Founder of Mr Paanwala. Let’s learn more about his background, his inspirational journey and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Mehul:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please;
I have done my education in Plant Science. I was always a passionate individual about Plant and Nature from the beginning and always aspired to be one of the individuals to explore more about it.
I have learnt about Paan and its health benefits from my Nanima. At the young age of 8, I learnt pretty much everything about Paan and all the ingredients that go into it with the health benefits of each of them.
Combining my knowledge about Paan with my education, helped me a lot to turn this Passion into a Successful business. We are doing a business to spread awareness about the health benefits of Paans and why it is so important in our life to stay healthy.”
We have developed a business from scratch to provide all our customers with a Tobacco and Nicotine free environment, today we have developed such a unique and innovative Paan brand in the world that does a completely Tobacco and Nicotine FREE business, which makes us a leader in this 32,000 CR industry. With all the Unique Paans and an Innovative Paan business, we have developed many beverages from Paan which gives us an opportunity to capture a wider market in the world.
In India itself, the Beverage industry is roughly about 30 Lakh CR, in which 71% is about in the F&B segment, We are in the Paan wing of the industry but we have developed many out of the box beverages with Paan flavours, so it makes us a game-changer in this industry!”
With the Unique product range on hand, our current customer acquisition ratio is 3:1 which makes us a highly profitable and fastest-growing F&B brand worldwide.
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
The entrepreneurial journey is not an easy journey for any individual, I chose this journey because I always wanted to make a change in society even with a small contribution from my work, You see – It’s fascinating how you build something from scratch to build an empire around it and not everyone can do it.
It takes a lot of courage, planning, perseverance, hard work, teamwork, combined with good strategy & execution skills.
‘Mr. Paanwala’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving?
Mr.Paanwala is such a common name in our society, if I would translate it in to our local language, it would sound something like “Paanwale Bhaiya”, I had started this whole journey with my passion and hobby, there were many people around me in the USA who didn’t know about my name but I was still popular among them due to my Passion and amazing Paans that I was making, hence everybody started calling me “Mr.Paanwala”, so when I actually started the business I kept the same name as my business name so that I can continue with the Popularity that I had already gotten before even starting my professional business.
We as a Mr.Paanwala and Paan Casa company, are solving a major issue of “Tobacco Addiction” we are currently providing 100% Tobacco Free products and an Environment where the entire family can visit and enjoy the delicacies of Paan Casa and Mr.Paanwala, we are also associated with numerous NGOs to contribute whatever we can to spread the awareness what issues happen in individual’s life or in the family due to Tobacco consumption.”
Today, we are able to make a big impact on this issue by providing a Non-Tobacco Paan environment through our business.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
As the business is born during COVID, each measure is taken to ensure that the model aligns with the challenges of the pandemic.
– We have implemented contactless delivery
– We have our Online delivery activated for customers to enjoy all our products without visiting the store
– We have our own phone Application coming for better customer service
– We strongly follow employee and store hygiene to maintain a sanitized environment for all our customers.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
I believe in myself and keep doing what I love doing, I am sure everyone can bring change in the issues of society and make a better place to live, by Empowering and Challenging the myths and cracking the stereotypes of Paan business, I am able to spread the self-awareness today to courage more people to do what they want to do!
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
My life has been always full of challenges, but my Wife has been the biggest source of motivation in my life, I have seen many ups and downs in the business, but interacting with Jalpa, we have always been able to solve the issues, she is always my first customer of new products, being said that, anytime we are doing R&D on new products, she is the one tries it out first besides me.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
There are a few:
1) Being mindful
2) Always being resourceful
3) Taking extreme ownership and responsibility for my actions Courage
4) Ability to take risks & venture into uncharted territories.
5) Share the knowledge
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
My motivation comes from my Passion because I enjoy it. The motivation to innovate and bring out of the Box business model takes a lot of courage and hard work, it took me almost 15 years to master my skill to keep learning something new every day from everything I do.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
I will say it straight that there are many factors but if you really have to have the key elements then to me these are the ones:
(a) Accepting & Loving myself.
(b) Responsibility for my actions
(c) Hard Work
(d) Resourcefulness
(e) Curiosity
(f) Positive Attitude
(g) Taking massive action (execution) with consistency and belief
What are the major factors that differentiate your company from others in the market?
“Tobacco and Nicotine Free” business model plus, we have integrated many technologies into this business, today we have AWS based web, customer loyalty program, centralized POS system, data-driven customer ordering system, inhouse phone application, centralized warehouse system, I would say – we the probably only ONE in the whole world running this type of business with full-stack of technologies integrated to give all our customers that WOW Factor!
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
