How Majh Blends Jewelry, Confidence and Wearables (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Coco Chanel famously said that before you leave your house you should look at yourself in the mirror and take one thing off. Shruti Garadia, you have a company called Maj and it is in the jewelry business.

[00:00:12] Speaker 2: Yeah I would say it's more in the self-expression and self-confidence business. Jewelry is just the enabler of it. Does work feel like work for you? Not always, not as much as it used to definitely. Used to when? What were you doing?

[00:00:25] Speaker 1: When I was in corporate. And work just felt more like work then?

[00:00:29] Speaker 2: It felt like work. Even though I loved what I did, it definitely felt like work. All the deadlines, all the pressure. This is now all me. It's my passion so I absolutely love it.

[00:00:38] Speaker 1: I'm sure that because you are responsible and accountable for your own business and you're making money from it, you also feel some pressure and some deadlines, right?

[00:00:45] Speaker 2: Definitely, yeah. 100% on that one, yeah.

[00:00:48] Speaker 1: But you set them yourself or why do they feel more comfortable to you now?

[00:00:52] Speaker 2: I think it's the passion. It's just loving what I'm doing and yes there's definitely a flexibility from the standpoint that you know if it doesn't happen today, it'll happen tomorrow. Because there's always something going on. I want to be more present for myself. My daughter who was growing up and I was actually very lucky. I think it just so happened that unfortunately my mom fell ill right after I you know within my first year of being out of corporate and running my own business. So I was able to go back to India and spend time with her and be there for her as well.

[00:01:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why you said you appreciate the geo-flexibility. I'm sorry to hear about your mom but I'm glad that you were able to spend time.

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: She's doing great, you know. She is? Okay, good.

[00:01:33] Speaker 1: That's good. Do you believe that like jewelry, you said is the business of self-expression and is that, can a necklace give you confidence or earrings or?

[00:01:43] Speaker 2: Yes, actually that's my story. So I used to be extremely extremely shy and I didn't, I started relying on my earrings as icebreakers during networking situations and things and I started getting noticed and remembered. Compliments led to confidence and today I am the CEO of my own business and one of the reasons I'm the CEO of my own business is I wanted to be able to share the same level of confidence with everybody else. Yeah. So I definitely, I feel like and I see it in my business, you know, in so many of my pop-ups I'll see somebody come on try on a necklace and I see their entire demeanor change. They're standing taller, smiling brighter, just feeling better about themselves. What does the name Majh mean? Majh means joy. So there's a song in Hindi called Majha Hi Majha and I guess it was stuck in my head for a long time and to me it's a joy but it's the joy of self-expression through dressing up and living life on your own terms.

[00:02:39] Speaker 1: You're an early mover in this kind of space of jewelry inspired apple band. What would you suggest I put on it? How would you style this watch?

[00:02:48] Speaker 2: You know with what you're wearing, I mean just think, just look at what I'm wearing. So I'm doing, I do a mix and match version which actually I started doing because I was showing, I don't know if you can see it, but I would wear that to show people the two different kinds of watch bands and people started loving it because it's even more unique. So I, with what you're wearing in the blues, I would definitely recommend that. I also have, you know, this watch band here, I call it the eternity. They're like repeating sides. I have done ones in like a pearl gray and a black. I think those are super versatile and get me warm with almost everything.

[00:03:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for people who wear lots of colors you need to like, and sometimes you wear silver, sometimes you wear gold. So it's good to have the versatility. Apple is always, you know, releasing new watches. How do you decide what you're going to build next?

[00:03:33] Speaker 2: Obviously the designs or the ideas just kind of ruminate in my head and they come from a space. I believe it's my experience, but then I definitely get my community involved and I get their input. So for example, this Kundan collection watch band that I created, I got them to vote on the style or the design of the Kundan and then even the pattern in the back. It's a reversible. That's the one I want. I love Kundan.

[00:04:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Kundan for people who don't know in South Asia, it's very common, but it's in Pakistan and also in India, it's like that raw uncut diamond.

[00:04:09] Speaker 2: Yes, Kundan is raw uncut diamonds and it's like, you know, it was popularized by the Mughal royals and it's typically big, large and chunky and reserved for weddings and celebration. And so my Kundan collection is more for contemporary everyday wear.

[00:04:22] Speaker 1: Everyday wear, which is what an Apple watch is. Can you actually design like jewelry for every unsightly wearable technology that exists in our life?

[00:04:31] Speaker 2: Oh my God. You know what? People have been asking me to do that because especially since I started doing the Apple watch bands, everyone's like, where's my Samsung or where's my Fitbit band? And I'm like, they're coming. I promise you.

[00:04:41] Speaker 1: How, you know, you're obviously taking this call in Europe. You've built this business. Is this business paying you a lot of money? I hate to, it's very rude to ask about money, but I need to ask you about money. Are you making a lot of money on your business as a solopreneur?

[00:04:55] Speaker 2: It's getting there. It's definitely not replaced my corporate tech salary, but it's getting there. It's getting there.

[00:05:02] Speaker 1: How did you have the confidence besides your earrings? How did you have the confidence to believe that you could leave a corporate tech job and build a company on your own? And what made you believe that that company would be successful?

[00:05:15] Speaker 2: I never doubted that it would be successful. I knew that it would take, I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I knew that it was going to be successful because the very fact that people used to stop me in the streets and ask me where I got my jewelry and my accessories from and strangers started shoving money in my hands and say, okay, buy two of whatever you're buying. So I was like, okay, there's a no brainer there.

[00:05:36] Speaker 1: No strangers are shoving money in my hand, but yes. That's a good sign you should do a business. Yes. How do you use technology in your business? Obviously you're using tech, you're covering up some technology with your business, but how do you use technology in your business?

[00:05:50] Speaker 2: I design everything in California and then it all gets handcrafted by artisans in India. And during COVID, in fact, all of the entire first collection of watch bands, including Kundan was designed entirely remotely.

[00:06:01] Speaker 1: You're running a global supply chain remotely.

[00:06:04] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. And these are artisans, they're generational artisans. And this craft in South Asia, as you probably know, is very generational. It's very like geo, like one village will have its own craft and things like that. So you have to work with them. But thanks to COVID, I think there was a huge mass adoption of technology, especially WhatsApp and Zoom as well. So I've been using both of those like very, very often, and it's become part of my process.

[00:06:36] Speaker 1: Okay. Like approving designs over Zoom?

[00:06:39] Speaker 2: Approving designs over Zoom. Absolutely. Yeah. How interesting. I haven't really jumped into AI yet, but for my next collection, I'm going to get AI to kind of model what I'm thinking and then make decisions. So hoping that that will speed up the decision-making process. Oh, wow.

[00:06:56] Speaker 1: So you're a tech-enabled, tech-related, not jewelry, but health expression business.

[00:07:02] Speaker 2: Health expression business, yes. That's what you're doing.

[00:07:04] Speaker 1: Well, it's so amazing. When I do these meetings, I probably, you don't do this all the time, but every time I'm on Zoom, I want to know how tall the other person is, because I feel like I can never guess. And when I meet people in real life, I never know, Shruti, are you going to be a giant? Are you going to be small? What's going to happen? I'm going to guess that you're five foot three. Am I correct? Very close. Five foot two. Five foot two. Okay.

[00:07:24] Speaker 2: Do you want to guess my height? I'm going to say about five foot, about the same height.

[00:07:29] Speaker 1: No, I'm five, six, five, five and a half.

[00:07:31] Speaker 2: Okay. Yes.

[00:07:33] Speaker 1: Anyways, well, hopefully one day we'll get to meet in real life.

[00:07:36] Speaker 2: I would love that.

[00:07:37] Speaker 1: Hopefully that will happen in Dubrovnik or Hvar or wherever in Croatia you're hanging out. That would be amazing, right? Yeah. We can have a business meeting in Hvar. You can do that on Zoom. I don't think people do that in real life. Let me see. But it's so lovely to meet you. Thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you. Thanks so much.