I take this opportunity to pay my heartfelt tributes to Alji Bhai Marediya, the esteemed owner of Hotel Aaram in Paldi. Had it not been for him, Hearty Mart wouldn’t have existed.

In my business, there isn’t any co-founder, but Alji Bhai can be considered as one, for he was instrumental in convincing the initial partners of our Juhapura store. It was because of him that we were able to create our first store. From the store infrastructure creation to its launch, he played an active part, as I was still working with an advertising agency and couldn’t devote much time initially.

Alji Bhai had always been an entrepreneur, starting from a diamond cleaning outfit to running a hotel in Ahmedabad. His business insights and acumen during the initial stages of my entrepreneurial journey were a great help.

I knew Alji Bhai since my early teens and often visited his hotel in Paldi, which was in my neighborhood. We developed a bond and mutual respect, and that is how we came together.

Today, though he is no longer with us, we remember him for his unmatched contribution to my venture. His legacy lives on in the success of Hearty Mart, and his memory continues to inspire us everyday.

Let me tell you a story that seems almost too good to be true. My name is Bhavesh, and this journey starts with a simple meeting that felt like fate. In 2019, in Ahmedabad, at a networking event by Patel Business Network, I met another Bhavesh -

Bhavesh Korat

. We both believed in doing good for others, and that’s what brought us together.

We quickly realized we shared more than just a name; we had a common dream. So, in 2020, with a small team of six, we started Brands.live. Our goal was pretty straightforward: help small businesses in India make a name for themselves without breaking the bank.

The idea was to make branding simple and accessible. We wanted every small business owner to have the chance to tell their story, to stand out, and to grow. It felt like everything just clicked into place as we worked on this.

Now, looking back, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. We’ve faced challenges, sure, but our belief in our mission has kept us going. We're not just building a company; we're hoping to inspire a whole community of entrepreneurs.

Our roles also complement as

Bhavesh Korat

  manages the Tech, Finance, and sales, I manage Content and Marketing.

So, back in 2019, I just tagged along with a buddy of mine because he had this meeting about some Women 4.0 ML workshops happening across India. Honestly, I wasn't all that into it; just wanted a quick way to hitch a ride to LD BRTS and head home. But then, things took a turn.

We met this guy who was all pumped about organizing the event. They were chatting away about plans and execution, and there I was, just hanging. I had a bunch of ideas popping into my head, but I kept quiet. Then they shifted gears to talking about growing their community, and I couldn't help myself—I just blurted out my two cents on how design and branding could really make a difference. That's all I really knew back then.

Turns out, this sparked a whole new conversation, and before I knew it, I was deep in discussion with Tirth, who was running this Instagram community with over 18K followers. We met again the next day, and bam, we were on the same wavelength, dreaming big about starting our own thing in the ed-tech space, which was pretty fresh at the time. We quickly cooked up MAD—short for Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science. Fast forward six months, we were teaching over 300 students and had made some good cash. But then, COVID hit, and everything just fell apart. We had our share of clashes and decided to call it quits.

Fast forward again, two years later, I hit Tirth up out of the blue, thinking we should give it another shot. This time we launched HYPR, aiming to shake up the ed-tech scene. But turns out, the timing was off; the market wasn't looking for another ed-tech player. So, we had to pivot from that too.

Now, we're onto something new called YOMO. 

YOMO is a user insights platform that enables product teams to build better customer-centric products by going beyond basic analytics. It's been quite the ride, from a random meetup to launching not one, but two startups, facing setbacks and still pushing forward. If you told me back in 2019 that tagging along for a ride would lead to all this, I'd have laughed. But here we are, proof that sometimes the smallest decisions can lead you to places you never imagined.

 My co-founder is my mother and has been an inspiration for me always, we started this business in covid as we did not have any source of income.

We were having tea in our flat balcony and decided that to run our house we will have to start something from home.

Each co founder should do what they love and where their interest lies and give their 100% in it. With division a fluid structure is always important to learn what happens in the other departments.

I met my co-founder, Tuhin in 2008 at The National Institute of Design. At NID we teamed up for projects, eventually falling in love, our relationship sparked a realisation to Tuhin about the lack of menstrual education and the stigma surrounding it. My personal experiences and Tuhin's newfound understanding inspired us to address this gap. Leveraging our skills in communication and user experience design, we sought to provide trustworthy and accessible information on menstruation, recognizing its potential impact not only in India but also in other countries facing similar challenges.

In India, every year 1.2 core girls reach puberty. Since periods are a taboo, 85% of these girls would follow one or more restrictive customs.

1 in every 4 girls start to miss out on her school as she starts getting her periods . When a girl misses out on her education, she goes through systematic gender discrimination throughout her life. 

Also in schools, the chapter on periods comes much after the girls have started getting their periods. And in most of the cases teachers skip the topic. As they don’t know how to go about teaching about periods and puberty to their students,

Periods are a taboo in India. Tuhin and I saw it more like a communication design problem.

Menstrupedia Comics are now available in 17 languages and are being used by more than 25,500 schools as a part of their curriculum across India. Apart from India, the books are locally printed and published in 11 countries in their local language.

Tuhin and I are fundamentally different people with distinct skill sets, but when we work together, something magical happens. It's like we're yin and yang, complementing each other perfectly. Tuhin excels in product development, being very diligent in his approach. On the other hand, I bring strong research and people skills to the table. This is how we define our roles: Tuhin takes charge of all decisions related to product development and content creation, while I handle decisions regarding marketing and sales strategies for the book.

⁠I was associated with iBall Brand since 2001 and Vikalp joined in 2008 and we did lot of projects together for 11 years.

When I discussed about the idea of making a business intelligence software with Vikalp, he immediately came to Ahmedabad from Delhi to discuss about the next steps.

Our approach to defining co-founder roles was intuitive rather than structured. Vikalp naturally gravitated towards product management due to his deep tech background and passion. Our mutual understanding was that, regardless of our individual expertise areas, we would maintain an open dialogue, challenging and questioning each other's decisions. 

This dynamic allows us to progress collectively, guided by the strong conviction of the decision-maker in any given situation.

Haripriya Bhagat

  and I met first-time as co-workers at part-time roles at the post office while studying in the UK. 

We became friends and then got married eventually. She worked in finance, and I worked in business growth roles in the UK.

We decided to launch www.indiabizforsale.com to solve issues of Indian businesses and investors during M&A to start with and then investments and more.

She looks into product/analytics/HR/Finance, and I look after business growth, investments, marketing, and more.