Nepal

In this interview, we meet Tulja Kedia, the Co-founder of Né Nepal, which is a design house that creates lifestyle products that are handmade in Nepal. They currently work with 28 artisan groups to create a range of products in Wellness, Jewellery, Home Decor, and Tableware. We talked about how Né Nepal was able to turn the lockdown into a very productive period for them. They were able to work on their website. They took the time to work on a lot of creative areas like designing and working on new collections, talking to artists and also do research for upcoming products. They were very active on social media which helped them keep their customers engaged and connect with them on a different level. With a physical store on the horizon, Né Nepal is very positive about the future.

Sonam Shrestha, the Co-founder of NoChini, which is Nepal’s first cold-pressed juice company. NoChini (which translates to No Sugar) stands for quality products. Health and sanitation is their first priority. Now, NoChini is moving into healthy snacks and other food needs. In this interview we talked about what business was like for NoChini before the lockdown and how they adapted during the lockdown to move forward. Sonam tells us how pivoting the right way helped the company to get the revenue stream going for the business and what they are focusing on right now. With these strategies in place he talks about what the outlook for NoChini is for the near future.

We meet Aabhushan Jyoti Kansakar, the founder of Jeevee, which is a health tech company in Nepal. It is a one-stop solution for health services. Users can book an appointment with a doctor through the app or get on a video consultation which can serve as a personal health record. It also delivers medicines, runs vaccination camps and is a smart diabetes management solution. We talked about how Jeevee coped with the challenges of the lockdown. They had only been in operation for 3 to 4 months before the lockdown. We talked about how their business model and creating a new service during the pandemic helped stimulate their business. Their efforts did result in an increase in the number of users and Mr. Kansakar thanked his team tremendously for the spirit they showed. Now that the lockdown has been eased, Mr. Kansakar says they are getting a lot of repeat customers. They also plan to increase their video consultation service in the coming months

Rahul Agrawal is the owner of House of Palettes, a lifestyle art studio in Nepal. It is a place where people with no training or practice in the art can go and create beautiful paintings with the guidance of professional artists employed by the studio. We talked about the problems House of Palettes faced during the lockdown. It was very challenging as the studio had to be shut down for three months during the lockdown. They still tried to keep their customers engaged by having them share the paintings they created at home. They provided some online art classes. They added the service of creating paintings for interior decoration to their business. For the future, Mr. Agrawal would like to collaborate with more artist, studios and even the tourism industry to extend their services to more people.

Sajan Joshi is the co-founder of Kayo Creative Studio, an online handicraft company in Nepal. Kayo designs and manufactures handmade products and provides customization. We talked about the problems Kayo faced during the lockdown. It was very challenging as the company took a major hit in the first month of the lockdown in terms of sales and production. However, Kayo implemented some strategies to stimulate their business. Firstly, they collaborated with other handicraft companies for an online event. Secondly, they worked on their digital platform to keep their customers engaged and make them aware that Kayo is still present in the market. Currently, they are working on their website and some new products, potentially under a different brand, for the near future.

Nirdesh Dwa is the co-founder of inGrails (Veda app) Pvt. Ltd, an edu-tech app in Nepal. They started as an outsourcing firm but now are totally into edu-tech with the app, Veda (वेद). It is an MIS, process automation system, and E-Learning platform all in one app. We talked about how Veda had to strategize to stimulate business during the lockdown. They were into MIS and process automation but during the lockdown as schools were not allowed to open, they felt the need for an E-Learning system that was reliable. The addition of this feature saw an increase in demand for their product but less time to fulfil that demand. In a short period of time, they had to restructure the organization and add team members to remodel their app. They work in a customer-centric model and are currently focusing on adding features to their E-learning platform.