Pritika Chatterjee, Co-Founder, and CEO of Tidy Homz, is a young lady who took a bold step to move out of her comfort zone to something entirely different. 

“I was born and brought up in Aurangabad in Maharashtra and despite it being a small city, I’ve been lucky to get the best of everything. After Class 12, I went to the UK for my undergrad degree in Accounting and Finance. Later, I moved to Singapore to work for a big audit firm called Moore Stephens for 2 years as a tax consultant. During my time in Singapore, I managed to grab a Chartered Accountant degree from ISCA (Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants). But fate had something else for me.”

Read Pritika’s story in her own words where she opens up about everything from handling the clients at a young age to proving herself as the woman boss.

I was 23 when I started Tidy Homz, a home furnishing company.

Tidy Homz is based on the concept of utility, and we design and create products which are not easily available in the market. Our parent company being a big export house, it was easy for us to manufacture. Ours is a B2C business and when we started, we were sure we wanted to be an e-commerce platform. Therefore, we managed to get an edge over the others in terms of prices offered.

Luckily, my family business helped me execute the tactics smartly. 

Since I was young, one-to-one communication with the clients was a little difficult. To build the trust was a task. They would wait for my ‘Dad’ to turn up and take up the meeting. It was kind of both hard and funny at the same time seeing how everyone thought I was still a college-going girl who was handling a business.

Apart from this, there was another challenge of shifting from an office environment in Singapore to a manufacturing setup/factory in Aurangabad. Portraying me as a (woman) boss became an issue. Our employees were not used to taking orders from anyone except my father and now they had to listen to me. A woman!

Also, it was a struggle to make the staff understand the concept of E-Commerce and Tidy Homz. Aurangabad is a very small city and that time, we were the first company that went online.

My business mantra? I always have my Plan B ready. Sometimes, Plan A doesn’t work and therefore, I make sure I have the backup ready. There are times when the plan looks brilliant on the paper but won’t work when executed. I understand that business is all about taking risks, however, there is no harm in being safe. Agree?

Making sure the company is contributing to the society, we have adopted two girl children. We take care of their education and have a plan to sponsor their schooling and health check-ups for the coming 5 years, at least.

I am doing what makes me the happiest. My business makes me feel content. Of course, entrepreneurship is not easy but believing in your ideas is. Isn’t it?

This article has been republished with few corrections from here.