Today we’d like to introduce you to Asha and Vivek Kangralkar.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Asha and Vivek. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Vivek: Well, it all started way back. Asha loves cooking for family and friends. She cooks different cuisines good. If she faced any issues with the cookware or had any questions about them, there was no way to get any answers from manufacturers of the cookware. Even if they got back, it was way too late and it would be a standard response that was not useful. This used to frustrate her a lot. There was one such incident and she said, “why is it so difficult for businesses to stand by their product or at least answer your customer’s question”, it was this moment she thought she can do this and make a difference and the idea AVACRAFT was born. It was around mid-2015 when Asha told me that we should start a cookware start-up with a difference, I immediately said, let’s do it! Our main idea was to manufacture cookware bottoms up with higher quality, make it friendly to use and be available to customers any time. We wanted to create an experience!
Asha: We both knew that the idea is backed by passion and we would enjoy it. There was nothing to lose but an opportunity to try something different, so we set on a journey! It was a journey full of challenges. We had no idea of manufacturing. We learned metal composition, metal properties, design, supply chain & even box design and started looking for a manufacturer. We didn’t know where to find the manufacturer but they say, when you want something badly, you will find it. We talked to many manufacturers but all of them rejected our idea, some didn’t even bother to respond, some banged the phone. After 3-4 months of continuous hustle, we hit on a manufacturer that appreciated our idea and was ready to work closely with us. We learned a lot from day 1, what design works, what doesn’t work, what will cost more, what will take more time etc. This needed a lot more patience on both sides.
Vivek: We talked to people, read reviews of existing products online and defined a lot of processes including how to do quality checks, how to pack the product, etc. We also evolved them over time as we learned. We knew that we wanted to be close to customer hence e-commerce was an obvious way. We started selling on our website and Amazon. We made sure we make it easy for customers to reach us and made sure we “amaze” every customer. Fast forward to today, we have a pretty large operation with very happy customers with thousands of reviews and 7-digit revenue. It’s been a very tough but rewarding journey that we look forward to working on every day!
Both Asha & I come from very humble background where everyday life and education was full of challenges. Where we were and where we are today is hard to imagine. I think this background has a big role to play in dreaming about starting something.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Asha: Oh no! It’s been full of challenges and ups & downs. Even today it’s challenging, every day is different. We do have sleepless nights but the difference it makes is rewarding! There’s nothing like seeing a happy customer. The challenges started from day 1. We had absolutely no idea of manufacturing and what it takes to manufacture cookware. We tried to reach many people to understand, read online, see videos to gather knowledge. The bigger challenge was also to search the right manufacturer who has the right attitude to work with you and understand the differentiation. Many manufacturers shut the doors on us which taught us not to take things personally & be tough.
Vivek: We had to learn a lot about sourcing, supply chain, inventory management, warehousing. The harder part of all this is, you can’t learn it all by reading. Once we went through it, we realized it’s much harder, like Asha said, many sleepless nights. In manufacturing many things come together to become a product and you’ve to make sure each one of those things is planned and sized right, else you lose efforts, time, money, customer trust…everything. Management of money was another challenging aspect, you will never have sufficient money and that taught us to be creative and negotiate, find out ways to work things out. Challenges are there every day, some times your inventory calculation goes wrong and you run out of inventory or you end of overpaying and losing the profits. Some times, the shipment of products get stuck and never reaches in time.
One thing we learned is, if you are focused on your goals and passion, you will go through challenges, no matter how hard they are.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Avacraft – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
We are a cookware company where we design, manufacture on our own and sell directly to the customer over e-commerce channels, mainly our website and Amazon. Avacraft is our passion and dream, when we design new cookware, we make sure we get samples to our home and Asha tests it in our home kitchen just like any mom chef would use it. This has made a tremendous difference.
Our specialization is how it is designed. We design it right from the metal composition, user-friendly features that make life easier and after-sales support. It’s very easy for customers to reach us and we get back to customers with priority to help or clarify. Many times we are busy chatting with customers, we enjoy the process.
Avacraft is a woman driven business and Asha working on cookware makes her understand what customers would want. We reach out and talk to customers on how we can improve or get ideas for the next product. Customer is truly a central part of our start-up. For example, there are many women out there who have arthritis problem and can’t lift heavy pans, we made sure we focus on the weight of the pan and create type of a pan that still has good performance but is easy to lift. Even today, we visit our manufacturers many times a year and do hands-on inspection. We have also shut down manufacturing with manufacturers that do not strictly follow our processes.
Over a short period of time, we have thousands of reviews from customers. We get a lot of emails from customers telling us how happy their daughter is, grandmother is or bride is. How they plan to replace all their existing cookware with Avacraft etc. We also have got emails from customers who can’t afford to pay for cookware but they’ve heard how good the cookware is from their neighbor, we have gone ahead and shipped them the products free. There’s nothing like creating a happy customer, we meant it!
Probably, by seeing Asha’s efforts behind Avacraft, Amazon sent a crew to our home to make a story. They not only made a video on Asha’s story but they have also published it on amazon.com/stories. The video is also on our website avacraft.com.
We are proud of the fact that we are very close to our customers every day and that the world’s largest company noticed us how we working on Avacraft & made a story on us.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Asha: We want to continue working on Avacraft and bringing good cookware, accessories and continue to work closely with customers. We are working on our manufacturing to increase capacity and also have a geographically spread manufacturing, including the US.
Vivek: We just launched our newer website to make it easier for customers to navigate. No big changes really other than continuously adding products that help customers, learning and improving every day!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://avacraft.com/
- Phone: 4695437976
- Email: info@avacraft.com
- Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/myavacraft/ - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/ AVACRAFTKitchenproducts/ - Amazon: https://amazon.com/AVACRAFT
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