The Accidental Businessman

by Neelima Mahajan-Bansal

Posted: Aug 4 2009

When N.K Chaudhary set up his first carpet weaving loom, it was almost on a lark. But then he discovered a passion for the art and today, his Rs. 67.75 crore company, Jaipur Rugs, employs a huge network of weavers
by Neelima Mahajan-Bansal | Aug 4, 2009

Thirty-two years ago, N.K. Chaudhary was young, restless and quite without direction. He had just finished college and had started work in his father's shoe shop in Churu, Rajasthan. But he wasn't happy.

"In 1978, Churu was a small town without much purchasing power. I realised that beyond a point, there wasn't a lot of potential in the shoe business." Soon, he landed a job as a cashier in a bank in Jaipur. But that didn't excite him much either.
He knew he wanted to start something on his own, but what?

Then someone told him that hand-knotted rugs were in huge demand. "I came to Jaipur and studied the industry. I went to carpet looms and saw how carpets were being made," he says. He was fascinated. He also learnt that back home, in Churu, the government had a training centre for weavers, so availability of skilled weavers wouldn't be a problem.

"My father grudgingly gave me Rs. 5,000 to buy two looms. He thought that I was very young and this was a lot of money and I couldn't afford to waste it on an experiment," he says.

He hired eight weavers and a master weaver who would give instructions in a sing-song manner. "Since I started this business at home, I could save on a lot of expenses such as rent," he says.

"I started spending all my time on the looms. I developed a love for weaving that was so intense that I wouldn't leave the looms for even a minute - I would even eat lunch sitting next to the looms!" he adds.

Chaudhary's interest in carpets grew. In two years, he ramped up his little in-house carpet factory to six looms. He started taking on small projects for exporters, but soon realised that he would have to find other ways of expanding. "There were a few small villages close by. I started installing two-three looms in each of these," says Chaudhary. That was the first step really in the creation of his network of weavers. Soon he expanded his reach to Jodhpur. And for eight years, Chaudhary covered almost all of Rajasthan.

Somewhere along the line, he learnt that the government was keen to promote carpet weaving in the tribal belts of Gujarat and was training tribals.
"I went to the Valsad and Surat districts of Gujarat two-three times and surveyed the region. I realised that while the government was keen to encourage the carpet industry there, they were using cooperative societies to manage the process," he says. Somehow he felt that he could manage the process better than a cooperative society could. "I thought that this would be a great opportunity for me."

But it wasn't easy to do this sitting in Rajasthan. So Chaudhary took his family and moved to Jhalod, a small town in the tribal belt of Gujarat. As for his existing business in Rajasthan, he appointed Area Commanders to oversee it. "We had 200 looms in Rajasthan by then and wherever we had a concentration of 50 looms, we would depute an area commander to monitor them," says Chaudhary.

After two years in Jhalod, Chaudhary moved to Valsad because it had a bigger concentration of government-trained weavers. Staying in the tribal areas was not easy. "I would be scared to go anywhere -I wasn't sure if I would come back safe or not. The tribals kept weapons and would get drunk and that would scare me," says Chaudhary. It took him three years to settle down and be comfortable with the tribals. "We developed a good rapport and started to get along well," he says.

In the eight years he spent in Gujarat, Chaudhary involved 10,000 weavers in his network. He then came to Jaipur in 1999 and formally started Jaipur Rugs after dividing the business between him and his brother.

Those were tough times and the number of weavers in Rajasthan had also dwindled to 100 during the time Chaudhary was in Gujarat. "In the first year, I did exports worth Rs. 5 crore. I had come back to zero - all the exports had gone to my brother. I had lots of problems. I had the looms but no staff - in Rajasthan I had just 100 looms left. The situation in Gujarat was a lot better where I had around 10,000 looms,” he says.

The state of the business was one part of the story. The other part was that Chaudhary himself lacked the skills that a businessman ought to have."I had no idea about things like finance or HR. I didn't know how to hire people," says Chaudhary. The first team he hired was a complete disaster - some were not efficient and others tried to dupe him. There were similar problems in Gujarat as well.

"I had to replace a lot of people. My children also saw the troubles I was facing and starting in 2005, one by one they started joining me," says Chaudhary.

"I had to replace a lot of people. My children also saw the troubles I was facing and starting in 2005, one by one they started joining me," says Chaudhary.

Despite the organisational problems, Jaipur Rugs' exports kept rising. But Chaudhary knew that he would need to teach himself basic organisational skills.