We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nrithi Subramanian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nrithi below.

Alright, Nrithi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of a legacy is: impact. Whether it be through my small business or any of the endeavors I’ve pursued throughout my life, the foremost goal that I’ve had is to create a tangible, meaningful impact. In general, I also think that as a society, we place a lot of value on mass impact and while I think it’s incredible, to positively impact a lot of people, I also think it’s just as valuable to change or significantly impact one person’s life. And with the work that I’ve done, I’ve kept that at the forefront. Even if I am able to impact a single person positively and help them understand their value, I will consider my work and legacy satisfactory.

Nrithi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Nrithi and I’m currently a freshman at Southern Methodist University studying Finance and Human Rights with minors in public policy and international affairs, psychology, and economics. Growing up the child of Indian immigrants, I saw the multiple ways systems affected my parents and how the same systems that uplifted them, marginalized others. Seeing this, and growing up with a pluralistic background allowed me to be passionate about multiple different issues in society, ranging from capital punishment to environmental injustices. However, I never found meaningful avenues for me to express my passions or make a true impact on these subjects.

Thus blossomed my company, Mantra and Co., a jewelry and accessories business that donates all of our net proceeds to multiple organizations, supporting a versatile range of issues. We handcraft our jewelry and have shipped to 42 states and over 8 countries, with 100% plastic-free packaging. At the core of our items, are minimalism and aesthetic accents. Mantra, to me, has been more than a jewelry company. It has been a platform, or avenue for me to be able to express my passions and uplift different communities. Through Mantra, I’ve also been able to find a cohort of passionate women who have similar goals as me, that comprise my team.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

An important lesson that I had to unlearn is that hard work directly correlates to success. Mantra has taught me that not every launch will sell out. Hear me out I — know that this might seem like the biggest cliché or truly basic understanding, but it is genuinely something that I had to learn. Every single launch of ours takes hours of thought, photography, marketing, making the jewelry, and so much more. So, especially when social media glamorizes the success of others, I genuinely expected every launch of ours to sell out or be met with an onslaught of sales immediately. Yet, especially as I balance Mantra with being a full-time student among other extracurriculars, giving myself the grace and leeway has been integral for me to grow my business and dissociate my self-worth from my business. Some weeks may be filled with multiple orders, and some just one: but that one makes all the difference to us and is what keeps us going. For small businesses, you are never just a number. You might be the reason we decide to keep going.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I keep in touch with clients through interacting directly on social media (on multiple different platforms). I’ve also had customers come up to me or DM us on multiple different social media platforms. Connecting with y’all is so important to us, so we have multiple people staffed to check in on our social media to make sure we can respond as promptly as possible. As I mentioned before, brand loyalty is at the forefront of who we are as a team, and with every personalized thank you note and the little gifts that we include in every package, we hope to foster brand loyalty.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mantraandco.com
• Instagram: @mantraandco
• Other: Tik Tok: @mantraandco