Tanish Agarwal, a 16-year-old entrepreneur who hails from Assam, India, is the founder and CEO of JP Designs & Prints. The company provides customisation for various products, ranging from t-shirts and coffee mugs to various other personalised articles.
In today’s competitive world, excelling and establishing oneself in any field has become the need of the hour to survive in that particular field. Though it is never too late to start something new, the one who starts off their journey soonest is the one who gets proper experience in the field by the time they complete their education.
By starting off the soonest, we mean that anyone can start off working towards their dream career by taking baby steps — be it researching about their dream career to beginning to work on it on small-scale. This is exactly what 16-year-old Tanish Agarwal from Assam did. This article talks about the journey of Tanish, who was born on August 23, 2004. We’ll get to know how this entrepreneur became successful in a business that he started at the tender age of 16.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit the whole world in March 2020, schools, colleges and offices shut down. This led to the transfer of the working sector to a work-from-home module. During this time, Tanish, then a student of Class 11, passionately studied and researched his dream career — i.e. being a seller of customised products. He researched the various types of machinery used for making such products, different business opportunities available in the field, the margin that can be achieved in each of them, and other relevant information regarding running a business.
Following the completion of his research in July, he sourced necessary machinery and raw materials required for printing on customised items; and thus began his journey. To begin with, he offered customised t-shirts, mugs and other personalised items, which he himself designed and printed on the articles.
Challenges: Stepping Stone To Becoming A Successful Entrepreneur
Just like in any other start-up, finance was initially a massive concern for him — he had to invest around Rs 1 lakh, whereas he only had only Rs 30,000-40,000 saved with him. But obviously, he wasn’t planning to stop — to meet the balance investment amount, he took a loan from the bank.
Though this problem was solved, another major problem was procuring the materials — he couldn’t travel to places to procure the machines and other materials due to the lockdown. Even then, he managed to communicate with five shopkeepers, out of which one of them was from Ulhasnagar, Mumbai. After getting into talks with this seller in June 2020, he purchased the machinery from him and launched his business a month later.
Even after starting the business, it seemed difficult to acquire clients at first, since they were hesitant to pay him in advance for items purchased from a new business. Another arguable concern was if their items would be delivered in one piece — what if their products were delivered in a damaged state due to manhandling while being couriered to them? To address this problem, Tanish assured them that their products would be properly packed using bubble wraps, etc., which will protect the item during transit.
Even after this issue was resolved, another one cropped up. Sometimes, customers would ask Tanish to make the product and show them before making the payment but would reject it later. This way, the customised product go to waste and the business would encounter a loss. These things initially made it difficult for him to run the business, but as time passed, people began to trust him with their customised products’ orders and his business flourished. Though his parents were initially hesitant about him starting the business, they were convinced once they saw him set up everything and handle it well.
Future Plans: Where Tanish Sees Himself A Few Years Down The Line
Though Tanish started off by using a single machine, he sees himself establishing his business with around 10-15 hi-tech machines in the future. This will help him expand his business and reach a larger crowd beyond boundaries. And if the business flourishes beyond his current imagination, then he plans to take this business offline, too, apart from his current online business that he runs from his home in Assam.
How Tanish Plans To Expand His Business
With the passage of time, as Tanish gained more and more clients, he expanded his services to include various other services such as graphic design, content writing, digital visiting card, marketing and so on. To keep this separate from his start-up, he is launching a new venture called Webizill on August 5, 2021. This will be a company dedicated to IT, graphic designing and marketing.
Seeing and acknowledging his immense hard work, Growthbeats awarded him with the ‘Global Growth Accelerator Award’ in April 2021 under the Business category. He is one of the youngest entrepreneurs to receive this prestigious award.
Age Is Just A Number: Tanish’s Message To Everyone
Tanish believes that age is just a number — it is never too early or late to start working on something productive. “I would advise people of my age to have the guts and start something similar to what I did and to use the tools available to them because it changes your entire perspective on life when you do something of your own. The experiences you undergo when you confront the real world teach you a lot,” he says. He also strongly believes that one must look at a person’s strengths and encourage them instead of discouraging them merely because of jealousy or stereotypical thinking.
One important lesson that this teenager definitely teaches us is that one must not squander their time. Instead, putting whatever time one has in their own hands to use towards productive work is the best and most effective use of this precious time. And age is never a barrier for the one who wants to bring about a change in the world, no matter how small or big it is. We definitely have a lot to learn from this young, aspiring boy.