Q – Please give us a brief introduction about yourself.
We are Anushri & Akshay and we started Mug Aur Mooch out of our passion for creativity and stationery.
Anushri started her career as a corporate lawyer and then moved to crafts and designing about 7 years back. Anushri decided to pursue a professional post graduation from Indian Institute of Crafts and Design, Jaipur. She did her post graduation from Indian Institute of Crafts and Design (IICD). She loved making handmade stuff since she was 6. She has explored various craft techniques with different medium. She is obsessed about every tiny detail that one would not even notice.
Akshay is an IITian. He is witty and aces the art of adding humour to every little thing. He is a storyteller who has funny stories to tell about every damn thing in life. He spins a character into the most inanimate of things.
Q – How did your journey(s) as entrepreneurs begin ?
We started our journey during our long walks in the streets of Koramangala. We would admire the architecture of the houses and weave the stories and plans of starting Mug Aur Mooch. We started creating products and kept improving them until we were satisfied that they were perfect to showcase to our customers.
Q – Please give a brief introduction about your company “Mug aur Mooch”.
Both of us like to write. Infact, Anushri has been collecting notebooks all her life. (She has a collection of over two dozen notebooks from all over the world.) But what we found was most of the diaries available in market today are so mundane that they do not inspire you to write.
So we wanted to create something new that inspires you to write. Thats’ where we thought of this idea of making cheerful handmade notebooks.They had to be handmade because we wanted them to have a character. We wanted to make something that says, ‘Writing is back!’
How did we arrive at Mug Aur Mooch as our Brand Name –
We want to create products that bring a fresh and modern design perspective to the rich traditional crafts. That’s how we came up with our brand ‘Mug aur Mooch’. The Mooch represents royal pride that we have in our crafts and the Mug represents reinvigorating freshness of inspiring design.
Q – With so much competition around how different is “Mug aur Mooch”?
If we go to the market, we find handcrafted products to be very mundane and not inspiring enough, so we created fun and colourful products. Mug Aur Mooch products are fresh and they provide a new perspective to traditional Indian handicrafts, which differentiates us from the others.
Q – As a company what were the hurdles that you had to face? Please tell us about your milestone journey a bit elabourately.
Greatest Challenge –
We would consider building a team of ladies and training them everything from how to thread a needle to how to understand and execute a complicated design as our greatest achievement.
Anushri: “I was very scared in the beginning as I always had an eye for details and perfection, but I was really glad that I could train these women and empowered them in something so creative”.
Best Compliment –
We receive a lot of appreciation on our notebooks but the best one so far was by a lady, advanced in years and who has been crafting since 50 years or more. She said that she has never seen such a detailed embroidered art on paperboards anywhere before. She did mention that most of the crafts can be seen on internet these days, but this was new.
Q – Was it your dream to design this line of product?
It was always a dream to create fun stationery products, with Mug Aur Mooch, we have just began to fulfil our dreams. We have a lot of new products in the pipeline, which will make our dreams come true! 🙂 We have poured our heart and soul in creating these products.
Q – How would you describe your journey with “Mug aur Mooch” ?
Anushri: “Mug Aur Mooch has helped me discover myself, my strengths and weaknesses. With Mug Aur Mooch, everyday is a new learning experience”.
Q – Do you believe in dreams?
Oh Yes! I do believe in dreams. When I was growing up, since then, I always used to dream and that inspired me to work towards them and achieve them. If you can dream it, you can achieve it, so dream!
Q – What was the best and worst advice you received when you started your company ?
Best advice was to always organise yourself since the early beginning with focus on futuristic needs.
Q – What would you like to tell those who were inspired by your story?
Dream. Love. Execute. Love some More. Make some more.