The 'kids konnection' with clothing: Namta Gala at EkChidiya

Post motherhood, when Namta Gala, was looking to engage herself with something constructive, venturing into the kids space seemed to be the natural route to take. Together with Hetal Dedhia she co-founded of EkChidiya, a children-special clothing and accessories brand.  In June 2014, they created a FB page and got a great response to their initiative. The duo now experiments with new designs and colours to bring some creative hand-printed outfits for kids. Namta spoke to SheThePeople.TV about this business venture.

Entrepreneurship emerged out of the need to do something creatively satisfying

I am a post graduate in finance. I used to work as a proprietary trader trading in F&O. I worked in this industry for 3 years. The biggest transition that happens in a women’s life is motherhood, and when I gave birth to my first child, after that there was always a dichotomy to get to a corporate job with fixed hours or to start something on your own to achieve flexible timings. Also I always had this urge to pursue something that will be creatively satisfying. I always wanted an avenue to channelize my creative energies. That’s when EkChidiya was born. It’s a self-funded business. We invested some money from our personal savings and borrowed some from the family.

Now I am a mother of two daughters and even after working hard to mother my kids I still do justice to EkChidiya only because my work is driven by my creative energies which are always uplifting.

The art of dressing up children: EkChidiya

It’s the creative energies that flow from work that uplifts us and helps us to have a great work life balance

EkChidiya and it's connection with what kids love

Right from conceptualizing the name to working on the designs it’s always been reflection of us and what we passionately desire for our kids to be. Ekchidiya is us and we are Ekchidiya. Every creation involves a reflection of our kids in it...  The comfort we want to see in them, the playfulness and also their individual self.

That’s why the collections we have launched establish the things that kids love. The first things that stimulates them from the environment like a ‘cement mixer’ or a ‘monkey’. The EkChidiya clothing is all handprinted and the idea of choosing a hand printing process is to let those imperfections be. Just like a child, the imperfections are perfect for us.

Also read: No kidding! This is serious business: Ruchita Chadda of The Goodie Bag

The challenge of balancing work and home 

We were never intimidated by the challenges in business because we always thought if we can overcome the challenge of balancing family, kids and work and still strive to do our best then the rest will fall in its place.

Even today our biggest challenge always remains to do justice to kids while growing EkChidiya alongside

Cute comfort for kids: EkChidiya

Women’s energy is unbeatable; she just has to think to achieve it

Passion is the driver

Our work is driven by our passion. To be able to keep the brand growing successfully with all the time being responsible for 2 kids is possible only if there is a driving force. It’s the creative energies that flow from work that uplifts us and helps us to have a great work life balance.

The digital medium is empowering 

Being a mother and having constraints of time and freedom of mobility, today our brand is able to sustain only because we have digital platforms at our disposal. We are generating our maximum sales from these platforms all the time having the convenience of having minimum physical mobility. We extensively use third party platforms for sales.

You might also like: How Naiyya Saggi built her startup Baby Chakra

Women have special strengths which make them successful

In this journey I have discovered so many strengths which I didn’t recognise I never had until now -

Managing multiple roles and juggling between numerous tasks

We can be quick thinkers, we use our intuition power extensively

We have insurmountable energies; we should just exactly know where to draw those energies from

Women’s energy is unbeatable; she just has to think to achieve it. When a nation has so many women entrepreneurs its collective energy will be boundless. It is definitely a sign of a prosperous nation

A word of advice for entrepreneurs

Be in pursuit of passion.