Start ups were little babies in their diapers, just learning to crawl, back when I had started working with them. I remember the first IIT start up that I had worked with. They were an extremely chaotic bunch of guys who were trying to launch a quirky tee shirt brand. We would spend day after day researching themes that were relevant and hip and then spend nights sketching our ideas.
You see, the D day was nearing rapidly and we were all set to showcase our first set of designs. Tempers were flying and everybody had turned into a match head.
After shouting and screaming themselves hoarse the team finally managed to shortlist the first set of designs that they were going to print on the Tshirts. And that’s when it hit us!
While letting their creative juices flow, we completely forgot one essential element. PRINTING!!! With just two days left and about a 100 tees to print, we were completely out of options. Never did we think that such a small little thing would get in the way of our dreams. In between this, somebody realized that we did not even have business cards to hand out. Designing was not a problem; any one of us could come up with something amazing. The question was, “Printing kahanpar karenge?“
We were facing the typical MC problem that every start up faces. M bole toh Money Crunch! Our investors were not willing to give us a decent printing budget and the local printer was charging us an exorbitant sum because he knew we were desperate.
All I can tell you that after traversing all the gallis of Mumbai we managed to find our angel who printed our designs marvelously well. Being a small start up, we did not even have space to store the tees and we all took some with us home to store in our ‘temporary garage’. That was our small happy ending that taught us a very big lesson; never have a “Chalta hai” attitude when it comes to printing. Back then, we did not have any options except to be dependent on undependable printers but things have changed today.
Printing has become a serious and a very economical business; something that start ups really need. After all, nobody can afford to be held hostage by an old dying printer! An entrepreneur requires so many things! From business cards to standees, brochures and so many more things.
One website that I can absolutely vouch for and trust when it comes to printing is Vistaprint. They have great prices and their delivery is super quick. I remember when they had first launched, I had ordered a set of business cards for my own blog. I could not invest too much money in the designing and printing and wanted an economical option. In many ways my blog was a start up for me, too. I logged on to the website and with a few simple clicks designed an elegant card for myself. Vistaprint did an amazing job and I proudly showed off my first set of self designed cards to my friends and family when it arrived in just three days!
We remember the day seven years back when were travelling in a Mumbai local trying hard to come up withe a name for our blog when struck us; Khushboo was always called a Jack of all Trades. The name stuck (with a slight modification, of course) and Minni was born. Six years, over 100 collaboration, lakhs of readers and several awards later; our love for blogging continues to grow. We continue to write on an eclectic range of topics from the funniest autorickshaw signs that we have spotted in Mumbai to how to bathe an elephant. We are true blue Munni of all Trades and we hope to continue on this joyride with our fellow Munnies and Munnas. 