Start-up with a cause

Women in today's life choose to be an entrepreneur as this field of business is more challenging and open to show the inner talent and skills of a person. Bhargavi, owner of Ten & Below, started this start-up as she wanted to focus on the best self-care of kids. Her main concept behind opening the store was to give safe, comfortable and enjoyable surroundings to the kids, be it a store spa or salon. In an interview with 'The Hans India', Bhargavi shares about her start-up store and the journey in the business world.

Speaking about her journey as a businesswoman, Bhargavi says, "As a woman entrepreneur, it's exciting in terms of seeing how my vision of kids having fun is really working out and that parents know a place where their kids have a place to have fun. As a woman entrepreneur I am happy that I have at least stepped into this field of business and that women are also equally talented as men and I am also very happy that I can bring change to the day to day life habits of kids."

Speaking about the concept behind the startup, Bhargavi says, "For me as a mother I want nothing but the best for my kids. The best childhood, the best friends, the best lifestyle and most importantly the best memories. "Ten and below" is one such place where I feel kids can get that. Along with memories, kids will learn about self-pampering and self- care which is very important to love oneself. We are not doing something new. It is all what our grandparents used to do. Maintain the skin and make you look perfect."

Bhargavi says that she don't know if she really have a competitor as such right now. She said, "I don't know if I really have a competitor as such right now because we have built such a unique place a one-stop place where you have a salon, spa, clothing shop and we're now bringing up a full-end play area. This is a place where anyone ten and below kids can come down and have fun."

Talking about the struggles and challenges faced during the startup of the store, Bhargavi said, "The main struggle I have seen is that if you see the sector that I have picked up is an area which we have to be very careful about. Like for instance, you wouldn't want your kids to go into the hands of someone who has no experience, where you don't give your kids their hands and legs to someone that doesn't know how to handle them and treat them right. The clothes, the clothing is very important, especially here. As you've seen the clothes here is all in-house, the fabrics were all hand-picked, the sticking, the colours were all hand-picked, to find the highest quality possible clothing material and setting up of the store itself. All together it was a little challenging but I'm glad I was able to pull it off."

Bhargavi says that she tested everything on her kids first. She said, "I've given almost all my time and effort for at least a year. I've also taken the time of my kids and my friends' kids because they were my guinea pigs where I had to test everything on them because if I am not happy for my kids to wear it, I'm sure nobody else would feel the same."

Talking about spa & salon, Bhargavi explained, "For salon & spa, we use all non-toxic stuff. If you see, the nail polish is imported from Canada, the stuff we use for the skin of the kids are all natural and non-toxic like natural cocoa powder and natural brown sugar. These days, a lot of them are having problems with letting their kids be cared for elsewhere, like in an adult salon where the dye for hair colour is Ammonia, the nail polish smell is all toxic. We are trying to encourage people to get into a kid's friendly environment at a very normal cost.