Tanish Agarwal—Founder & CEO of JP Designs & Prints

In today’s competitive world, excelling and establishing oneself in any field has become the need of the hour, to survive in the particular field. Though it is never too late to start something new, the one who starts off their journey soonest is the one who will at least get proper experience in the field that they want to set their career in, by the time they complete their education. By starting off the soonest, we mean that anyone can start off working towards their dream career by taking baby steps initially—be it just researching about their dream career or beginning to work on it on small scale initially. This is exactly what the 16-year-old boy from Assam, India—Tanish Agarwal—did. This article talks about the journey of Tanish Agarwal, born on 23^rd August 2004 and hailing from Assam, India, wherein we’ll get to know how this entrepreneur became successful in a business that he started at the tender age of 16.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the whole of the world, schools, colleges, and offices were shut down in March 2020, which led to the transfer of the whole working system to the work from home module. Exactly during this time, Tanish Agarwal, then a student of class 11, passionately studied and researched about his dream career—being a customized product seller. He researched about the various types of machinery used for it, different business opportunities in the field, how much margin is achieved in each of them, and other relevant information regarding the business sector in general. Following the completion of his research in July, he sourced the necessary machinery and raw materials required for printing on the customized items; thus began his journey. To begin with, he offered customized t-shirts, mugs, and other personalised items which he himself designed and printed them on the articles.

Challenges—Stepping Stones To Being A Successful Entrepreneur

Just like any other start-up, finance was initially a massive concern for him—he had to invest around 1 lakh rupees, whereas he had only 30-40 thousand already saved. But obviously, he wasn’t planning to stop—to meet the balance investment amount, he took a loan from the bank. Though this problem was solved, the other major problem was procuring the materials—he couldn’t travel to places to procure the machines and other materials due to the lockdown. Even then, he somehow managed to communicate with five shopkeepers, out of which one of them was from Ulhasnagar, Mumbai. After getting into talks with this seller in June, he purchased the machine from this shopkeeper and finally launched his business in July 2020.

Even after starting the business, it seemed to be difficult to acquire clients at first since they were hesitant to pay him in advance for items purchased from a new business, fearing if they would instead be conned. Another arguable concern was if their items would be delivered in one piece—what if their products would be delivered in a damaged state due to manhandling while being couriered to them? For this, he assured them that their products would be properly packed using bubble wraps, etc., which will protect the item during the transit.

Even after this issue was solved, the other thing that was a concern was that sometimes, the customers would tell him to make the product beforehand and show them before they made the payment, after which they sometimes also rejected it, which made the customised product go waste and led to losses at times since it was customised as per their personal interest. These things initially made it difficult for him to run the business initially, but as time passed, people began trusting him with their customised products’ orders and his business began flourishing. Though his parents were initially hesitant about him starting the business, they were convinced once they saw him set up everything and handle it well.

Future Plans—Where He Sees Himself, Few Years Down The Line

Though he started off from using a single machine, he sees himself establishing his business with around 10-15 Hi-Tech machines in the future, which will help him in spreading his business and reach a larger crowd, even beyond several boundaries. And if the business flourishes beyond his current imagination, then he plans to take this business offline too, apart from his current online business, which he runs from his home in Assam.

What He Is Currently Working On, To Keep Expanding & Progressing

With the passage of time, as he gained more and more clients, he has expanded his services to include various other services such as graphic design, content writing, digital visiting card, marketing, and so on. To keep this separate from his initial start-up, he is launching a new venture “WEBIZILL” on August 05^th, 2021, which will be a company dedicated to IT, Graphic Designing, and Marketing.

Seeing and acknowledging his immense hard work, Growthbeats awarded him with the “Global Growth Accelerator Award” in April 2021, awarded to him under the Business category. He is one of the youngest entrepreneurs to receive this prestigious award.

His Message To Everyone—Age Is Just A Number

He believes that age is just a number—it is never too early or late to start working on something productive. “I would advise people of my age to have the guts and do something or to start something similar to what I did and to use the tools available to them because it changes your entire perspective on life when you do something of your own; the experiences you undergo when you confront the real world teaches you a lot”, he says. He also strongly believes that one must look at a person’s strengths and encourage them instead of discouraging them merely because of jealousy or stereotypical thinking.

One important lesson that this teenager definitely teaches us is that one must not squander their time; instead, putting whatever time one has in their hands to use in productive work is the best and most effective use of this precious time. And age is never a barrier for the one who wants to bring about a change in the world, no matter how small or big it is. We definitely have a lot to learn from this young, aspiring boy!