How I Made It

Ranjiv Ramchandani , Founder, Tantra Ltd .

Bill Clinton sports them. They are new-age guru Deepak Chopra’s newfound mantra. Sting thinks they rock. Tantra T-shirts are a rage from Mumbai to Miami. Meet Ranjiv Ramchandani, adman turned entrepreneur, who sells India on T-shirts. What started as an experiment in wordplay less than 10 years ago, is today a cult brand growing at 30 per cent annually, in more than 500 outlets across India. Ramchandani, then in his late 20s and a creative director at advertising agency Triton-BDDP in Mumbai, was holidaying with a friend in Scotland where T-shirts mirroring life in the highlands were on display. “Nothing like that had been tried in India,” says Ramchandani. “The idea was cool and I knew it would be profitable.” Back home, a survey suggested that T-shirts topped the list of souvenirs tourists picked up. For Ramchandani, who was a seasoned cartoonist with leading publications like Mid-Day, writing smart one-liners for T-shirts was hardly a task. And thus, were born T-shirts which showed an image of Lord Ganesha and read: Lord Ganesha, 50% human, 50% elephant, 100% cute. In another, a leering Rajput prince asked: “Your palace or mine?” Ramchandani got such messages printed on a few plain white T-shirts and placed them in outlets along south Mumbai’s Colaba Causeway. The T-shirts were snapped up in no time. Ramchandani quit his job, and Tantra was born. “At the end of the day, who wants to work for someone else’s dream,” he asks. Ramchandani set up an office, along with a friend in Colaba, with three employees. Later, his brother-in-law, Vimal Mariwala, joined him. As his idea was to sell India, the name Tantra seemed apt. “There was a zing about that name,” he recalls. “And its mystical connotation appealed to the youth.” In the first year, they rolled out 40 designs and placed their products in over 50 stores; they also opened a Tantra store in Colaba itself. Before the year had ended, 1,500 T-shirts were sold. Strange though it may seem now, Ramchandani didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur. He studied microbiology at Jai Hind College in Mumbai, and his first job was as a microbiologist at Bhatia College in south Mumbai. “The six months I was there sucked,” says Ramchandani. “My idea of a job was to arrive at work dressed in denims.” Advertising gave him that freedom. His unusual creativity saw him climb the ladder quickly. Alongside, he honed his skills as a cartoonist. During one of his overseas trips, he even landed at the MAD Magazine headquarters in New York as a tourist and made some comic strips. What he practised earlier as a hobby is now his bread and butter. Originally aimed at the foreign tourists, the first Tantra designs carried the usual imagery of Goa and Goddess Kali, and were unisex T-shirts. Gradually, the brand caught the fancy of the Indian youth. “Tantra T-shirts are so nuttily Indian that they are cool,” says Ramchandani. Today, there are six Tantra variations — including Woman, Teeny Weenies, Polo and Fleece — and two brand extensions, Barking Dog (a wacky, alternative T-shirt brand) and Line Maro T-shirts. “We never chased targets,” says Ramchandani. “Taking one step at a time was our mantra from the beginning.” In order to gain volumes and higher brand value, he made a presentation to department store Shoppers Stop in early 1998, only to be refused outright. Far from being dejected, Ramchandani shot off a letter to the store eight months later, stating 20 reasons why it should stock the Tantra brand, and managed to get a foot in the door. Today, the Tantra brand is available at 18 other such stores. Besides, Ramchandani has set up an exclusive outlet at Churchgate in Mumbai and started five standalone Tantra stores in New Delhi. Similar stores are also being planned in Bangalore, Goa and Jaipur. Tantra T-shirts are now also being exported to France, West Asia, Australia, the UK, Hungary and South Africa. To grow, Ramchandani has constantly challenged the status quo of the market. It’s hardly surprising that he is now diversifying into new product categories which could, over time, become popular souvenirs. Like tea. Six months ago, Ramchandani launched Tantra Tea. Unwilling to talk about sales, he is confident he is on the right track. At the end of the day, as a businessman, you need to know what works and what doesn’t. Source: The Telegraph