Bewakoof: Entrepreneurship Journey of two IITians to Leading Quirky Fashion Apparels

There was a time when we used to buy apparel on the basis of the quality of the fabrics. We were least concerned about the design parts. We used to accept already designed clothes like generally printed items, clothes with random celebrity pictures. At that time, Siblings were identified through the same kind of apparels. One person from the whole family used to do the shopping for maximum apparels.

Currently, things have changed a lot. Even 4-5 years old children have their own likes and dislike about their clothing. Quirky t-shirt is a new trend among the customers who are mainly between the age group of 17-35 years. Bewakoof.com is a popular brand name among those who like funny, humourous, creative, and trending topics related to apparel.

Beginning of Bewakoof

IIT Bombay Civil Engineering graduates Prabhkiran Singh and Siddharth Munot had a dream to be a successful entrepreneur. To fulfill their dreams, they selected different fields to start their own ventures. 

Prabhkiran started his lassi startup outside his college with the name Khadke gLASSI but failed. Siddharth also became a part of an education startup but did not get much success. After failing in their separate ventures, they came together and decided to do the joint business of T-shirt printing.  Initially, they targeted the college students for selling the t-shirts.

After finalizing the business idea in 2010, they both started searching for the domain related to their business. They came across an old unused domain bewakoof.com and acquired it immediately. Quotes designing were the next requirement for printing t-shirts.

They did detailed research about what kind of designs/quotes/pictures students prefer to have on their t-shirts. Funny and quirky quotes related to students’ courses, hostel life, informal conversations,  favorite sports, and movies were written and a lot of inputs were taken from the students.

Bewakoof website was finally launched in 2012. Bewakoof is a name given to the people who do silly things or the people whose activities do not match with the normal routines of society.  The website domain name perfectly matched the business idea and the brand became an instant hit among the students. 

Mumbai based Bewakoof used Facebook and Justdial to promote their t-shirts. “2 Minute Aaya Yar Raste Mein Hun” and “Bewakoof.com” were the two Facebook pages from where the company attracted most customers for T-shirt selling. 75000 facebook users in a few months tell the story of how the target audience connected with the brand instantly. They also had college campaigns to attract more students.

Currently, they are dealing with different types of men and women apparel other than t-shirts. Bewakoof products like Trendy masks and mobile covers are also having a large fan base. Recently, they have tied up with different e-commerce companies like Snapdeal, Indiatimes shopping, etc. A brand that started its presence in the affordable category is also becoming popular among Indian celebrities.

Growth, Revenue, and Other Initiatives

The year 2014 brought a lot of success for Bewakoof. The company achieved a magical 10 crores revenue and saw a growth of 15% monthly. In the same year, the company also had an agreement with film banners like Viacom, Excel, and t-shirts with dialogues from their movies released in the market. Not only Indian movie houses, but Bewakoof partnered with Marvel’s, Disney, and Star Wars to print their movie scenes/dialogues over t-shirts, mobile covers, and other apparel.

Bewakoof Policies like Cash on Delivery, easy returns, and exchange have won customers’ trust. With the help of Investcorp and Snapdeal, Bewakoof has got a total of $16.88 Million in funding. A company that started with an initial investment of rupees 30000, has 200 crores of revenue in FY 2019. They also have 30 different categories of products for the customers. Currently, Bewakoof has more than 400 employees. 

The company is also having a strong fan base over social media. They have around 45 lakhs of fans across all social media platforms with a maximum of 40 lakhs fans on Facebook. The company has sold more than 2 million products so far nationally/internationally.  Under the “Design of the Day” initiative, Bewakoof launches a new design every day. They have more than 3000 style trends. Bewakoof mobile app has also hit 10+ million app downloads across all platforms.