Chinu Kala, a perfect example of rags to riches is an entrepreneur, socialite, model, and one of the prominent women in the fashion jewellery business in India today. Her start-up Rubans Accessories, founded in 2014, is amongst the fastest-growing fashion jewellery brand in India. She has come a long way in life through genuine hard work, persistence, eagerness to learn, and understanding of the gigantic power of the human spirit. Rubans is like her personality.
It’s quirky, fashionable jewellery that supports her values of being persistent, hardworking and budget conscious. Her journey started at the age of 15, when after a heated argument with her father she left home with a pair of slippers, a salwar suit and just Rs 300 in her pocket, never to return. Since she had no place to go, she went to the railway platform thinking that it was the safest place as there were people around throughout the night. In order to survive and to have her daily food she started working as a door-to-door salesperson selling knives and coaster sets earning Rs 20 per day. During her struggle days, she did all possible odd jobs right from working as a waitress to being a telemarketing executive. She started her 1st venture Fonte corporate solutions in 2008 which was into corporate merchandising.
In 2007 her friends pushed her to participate in the Gladrags Mrs. India beauty pageant. This was her 1st encounter with glamour and fashion and it is here that she realized the power of Jewelry. How a piece of jewellery could transform the overall look of a person. For years this thought lingered on in her mind and in 2014 she started her Fashion jewellery brand Rubans. The brand had a humble starting as its 1st store was a small kiosk of 36 sq. ft in Bengaluru with an initial investment of 3L and from this small place in the 1st year of operation Rubans did revenue of 36 Lacs. And from here Rubans started growing exponentially and in the next 2 years, the brand emerged as a key player in the fashion jewellery industry, expanding its presence across the prime location in the cities of Hyderabad and Kochi. Chinu saw her brand growing but understood that she had to capitalize on the emerging e-commerce and internet boom that was taking the country by storm. So, in 2017 she started transitioning Rubans to an online model and within a few years, Rubans became a 100% online brand and started topping the charts across large e-commerce platforms like Myntra and Flipkart.
Chinu’s fashion sensibility coupled with her business acumen has resulted in the brand posting a phenomenal run and consistently growing by over 100% year on year, despite the pandemic and lockdowns the brand grew by more than 100% last year too and has evolved from being a small kiosk brand to setting new benchmarks for the online market. Rubans today has close to 2 million happy customers and counting. Rubans aims at touching revenues of 150 Cr by 2023-24. Chinu’s vision is to make Rubans the highest-selling accessories brand in the country”. Rubans is on a mission to take the fabulous work done by Indian artisans and showcase it to the global audience, by stretching the brand’s reach beyond boundaries. Rubans is poised to grow and hold a firm spot in the hearts of all the fashion-loving women in the country and beyond.
In 2021, Chinu was featured in Business World Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list of top entrepreneurs. She has also been recognized as “Women Entrepreneurs in the Spotlight’ by Makers India and ‘Woman Entrepreneur to Watch for’ by YourStory. Chinu has appeared as a panellist on BBC Worlds Work Life India show and “We the Women” Asia by Barkha Dutt. Chinu’s story has been published in the book “All you need is Josh” covering her journey as a female fashion jewellery entrepreneur and insight into a successful startup. She is a TEDx speaker and her motivational video on Josh Talk has garnered more than 17,00,000 views.
