“I would ask youngsters to be consistent and focus on providing quality service, which is important to help build the brand name in the public”
Dr Bindu Sathyajith’s story is an inspiration for those women who have inhibitions about breaking the stereotypical image of an ‘ideal woman’ who is expected to get married, have kids and confine herself within four walls of a house. As the part of the conditioning that women in general go through, Bindu too dreamt of becoming a housewife and a mother she got married to a doctor at the age of 18. However, things changed when her marriage ended. From a chaotic situation that was totally unexpected, she picked herself up and set out on a journey where she has achieved so much so that she has no time to look back.
However, describing her journey that started at the age of 19, she says, “ I completed my degree and started working in the sales department of the Taj Group of hotels as a trainee. In a year’s time I understood that it was not a career option that I actually wanted to pursue and that I should start a business of my own.” Bindu says that she has since then been driven by her passion and ambitions that persuaded her to go ahead and start an all-women first-of-its-kind pigment manufacturing unit in Kerala in 2013.
Bindu says that the path to success was not an easy one at all and she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. “I had to encounter so many problems that at one point my entire business crashed with multiple liabilities to address. There have been times when we literally had to starve. It was my son who came to my rescue at the time when I needed strong support. He took a break after his 12th standard to support me and help me sail through the rough waves. My husband Sathyajith has been a constant inspiration and stood by me through thick and thin. I understood that there are no constant well-wishers in the world of business. You might think that there are many helping hands coming to you. However, none will actually have the intention of helping you out. It gave me a reality check and I understood that I need to devise strategies to save my business on my own and that is exactly what I did. The first thing that I did was to cut down my expenditure and then speak to my vendors as well as customers and give them a clear picture of the crisis the business was going through. At the same time, I made sure that work inside the organisation was well delegated and not a single aspect was left unnoticed, as there are chances that during turbulent times employees panic, which in turn affects their work-quality. By 2019, I was able to come back to business in full swing and started an NGO to help the entrepreneurs build their careers,” she adds describing her journey so far.
Bindu adds that the failures and success that she has seen in her career has taught her that one should always think twice before taking a decision and once decided, the implementation part should be fulproof and on point. When asked about the major lesson that the business industry has taught her, Bindu says, “A business can run smoothly if strategy implementation is on track. Keeping certain aspects of the production and accounts department confidential is also mandatory as those are the key factors that help the business go forward,” she adds.
The NGO that Bindu has set up helps aspiring young entrepreneurs about the prospects and constraints of setting up a new business and the strategies that they need to implement inorder to see success. Quizzed about an advice that she would give youngsters who would like to make it big in the industry, she says, “I would ask them to be consistent and focus on providing quality service, which is important to help build the brand name in public.”
