06/09/2026
5.9.2.0.
This is, incidentally, the passcode to our lock. Which means that after posting this, we will have to change it ;)
September 5, 2020. Six years ago to the day, we decided to unlock our lives and start HoP.
₹500. That’s all it took. 10 kilos of soybeans basically. A pressure cooker. A mixie. That was pretty much the entire business plan.
No office, no equipment, no strategy deck. Some soybeans and a certain amount of either courage or poor judgement. We are still trying to determine which :)
We made something. Sold it. Made a little money. Put the money back into the business. Bought a slightly bigger pot. Then a bigger one. Then another. We have essentially spent six years converting profits into increasingly large vessels. That's the business in one line. COVID helped, in a strange way. When many people couldn't supply, we found an opening. But the more important thing was clear from Day 1: we were doing this because we were passionate about the product. So we rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty. Literally. Six years later, they still are.
Would we trade it for our old lives? No.
There have been dark days. The sort where everything that can go wrong does. All at once. And then, inexplicably, the next morning brings a little hope. Sometimes even joy. That is probably the strange seduction of building something yourself.
Entrepreneurship is hard. Building a company with a bootstrapped ethos & profitability, is harder still. It is a long road. We are not in a hurry.
And six years in, the road is beginning to look rather interesting. This is turning out to be our best year yet. Exports, certifications, international compliance, a bunch of new products and, most excitingly, our third facility is coming up.
This one will have state-of-the-art automation and, for the first time in our history, we are hoping to have - more capacity than demand.
That will free up a lot of bandwidth. Bandwidth to make some of the things we have slowed down on—not because we didn't want to make them, but because there were only so many people, pots, machines and hours in a day.
Happy 6th, HoP.
