He built a simple family stationery business into a Rs 100 crore turnover brand

 

Looking at the growth of his father's stationery, Atul Garg decided not to waste his time pursuing his lamp studies and immersed in the family business after writing his first year commissions.“We wanted to give it a name that would suit all kinds of stationery products, and initially we thought of 'On Demand'.

"Atul Garg launched Oddy stationery brand in 1998 after joining his father’s business"

As the name was a bit long, we shortened it to Oddy.” My father had recorded Atul Paper Pvt. Ltd. In 1995 for the distribution business, but we decided to focus on Oddy instead. “I opened a small office in the basement of my house and worked with my small team using the knowledge I had acquired over the years working with my father in the store while I prepared my Initially, he started with products like OHP projector sheets, copier paper, sticky notes and PCO STD rolls that were used for billing calls in the busy public telephone booths at the time.

Oddy offers over 100 products including correction pens, glossy paper, adhesive paper labels, notepads Not only did Atul build the Oddy brand from scratch, but in 2019 it also launched a paper food wrappers, Oddy Uniwraps, whose turnover reached Rs. 7 crore in the financial year 202021. But Atul learned his first entrepreneurial lessons from his father Shri Niwas, who married Sunita in 1976. Atul has two younger brothers, Amit Garg and Sachin Garg.

"Atul started Oddy with five employees from the basement of his house"

The brothers studied at the Mahavir Senior Model School in Delhi. Atul was a scholar boy and has always been among the first five class changes. I was driving to college and everyone was looking at me in amazement. However, I had to rush to the store once classes were over at 1 p.m.

"After spending the day at the store, I drove my dad home at 7:30 p.m. Two until that critical moment, I couldn't make any friends in college, but the few friends I did am facts stayed with me for life. However, Atul has no regrets. "I didn't have that fun college life that everyone talks about, but I learned firsthand, from the person who created a company from scratch, at a time when startups were unheard of. ", he says. 1998, after passing the first year exams for M Com, he decided to join the company full time.

"Atul started working with his father from his college days"

They now owned a 20,000 square foot building, which was opposite their former store (50 sq ft) in Chawri Bazar and the business had “The turnover of the business at the time was Rs 8 crore,” he says.“My father was the distributor in Delhi of Reynolds pens and 3M stationery products. We also made our own products, such as fax and teleprinter rolls and tracing papers. Created the Oddy brand and started well with a turnover of Rs 25 lakh in the first year. Their shop started selling Oddy products along with other brands.

Atul's brothers Amit and Sachin joined their father's stationery business in 2000 and 2002 respectively. But Atul continued to focus on Oddy products The family set up a 12,000 square foot manufacturing unit at Okhla Industrial Estate in Delhi in 2004 Two years later, nationwide distribution was started for Oddy. As their business grew, they opened another factory in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh in 2008. In 2010, the family stopped.

"Atul launched Oddy Uniwraps in 2017"

While he is not at work, you might catch Atul doing one of these things – playing squash, reading, watching movies, or playing cards.

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