We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samir Kavadi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samir below.
Alright, Samir thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My partner Abhi Sundaram and I both grew up in Indian households where tea was consumed in a far greater quantity than coffee. It was a staple beverage that we felt connected to and saught out when given the chance.
Whilst in college, we went back and forth debating if we should start a CPG business together. It had always been a lifelong dream of ours and during COVID we had ample amount of time and opportunity to go to the drawing board. By this point in our lives there were drastic lifestyle changes with new inspirations. We both enjoyed a certain type of style, design, fashion, and culture.
After a lot of research, we realized very quickly that tea, a beverage that we cherised, was never represented in a way that catered to us. The industry in our eyes was a bit sleepy and pedestrian and lacked the disruption and risk that other industries and beverages have taken,
This visceral reaction sparked the beginnings of CHAIBOY. The aim of our business was to transform and reshape the identity of tea. And the best way we thought to attain that goal was to create a luxury lifestyle brand that presented tea throughout various industries.
We were cautiously optimistic since we had an open canvas to play with. Some big markets that we are tapping into to include design, fragrance, fashion, and alcohol.
While our approach is unconventional we earnestly believe that this is an untapped burgeoning market. The modern customer in our demographic are looking for new, fresh experiences that shake the status quo. We are still growing, but we think we have created a beautiful escape from the oridinary in the world of tea.
Samir, 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 professional story begins like majority of people rasied in the US. Go to school, get a steady job, and work your way up in the corporate world. I was a finance major in college and pursued my career in healthcare M&A for 3 years post graduation.
During this time I questioned if the traditional 9-5 was right for me. It’s very easy to say you want to be your own boss etc but reality isn’t as straightfoward. But I knew the creative outlet that I was missing from my current situation was creating a void to big to ignore. My mind has always seen the world differently especially in a imaginative lens. I definitely live between the lines so when the opportunity presented itself to trust my intution and take the risk to start CHAIBOY I knew I would regret it more if I didn’t try.
Going into CHAIBOY a lot of the skills and knowledge came through trial and error. My partner and I, both having finance backgrounrds, understood the framework of captial and costs for a business, but had to teach ourselves every other discipline. Whether it be how to run effective ad campaigns, how to deal with supply chain and shipping logisitics, packaging designs, you name it we learned it, the hard way. At the start we made many mistakes, but it was those experiences that hardened us and taught us critical lessons for future growth.
From all the stress, long hours, love, and passion we are happy to share CHAIBOY with the world. We are a luxury tea brand that aims to reshape the identity of tea. We do this by showcasing tea in a new light, one that’s akin to other premium industries such as cosmetics, fragrances, alcohol, and fashion.
We currently offer 7 signature tea blends that have been sourced and blended from high quality ingredients that we procure from around other world.
We are proud to possess the ability to spark curiousity, discussion, and wonderment. We know we are unconventional compared to other tea brands, but it is this very tenet that allows us to share unique stories and visions with the world.
CHAIBOY is for anyone and everyone. Whether you are a tea connoisseur, a purveryor of luxury goods, a design admirer, a gift giver, or simple someone who is curious, CHAIBOY has something for you. We want to build of community of thinkers, creatives, and risk takers that stray off the beaten path. We want to inspire people to believe in themselves and their dreams that they have to share.
Our brand is a testament that everything is possible depending on how badly you want it.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I was fortunate and grateful to meet my business partner and best friend back in 2nd grade. We were inseparable through life and it provided the best foundation to start a business together.
Growing up together for that many years you become family. He knows me better than I know myself and vice versa. So our trust in each other became the cornerstone of our business.
I could get into a myriad of more details but the most important piece of advice I can share from all of this is who you work with is far more important that the product or service you provide. Everyone that has earned success never did it alone and along the way they had to trust someone to be open and vulnerable with. Choose your partners, friends, etc carfeully and listen to your instincts.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Every brand and business is different but the one common denominator that everyone shares is transparency. People want to be able to trust what they are buying into and I would say our reputation was heavily predicated on that. Whatever we claimed and marketed, people could verify through tangible evidence.
I also think our trusted partners that we do business with provide strong support to our reputation. Since we are selective with who we work with, our notability is directly associated with who we work with. It helps further establish trust and crediblity for anyone that comes across CHAIBOY.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wearechaiboy.com
- Instagram: @wearechaiboy
Image Credits
N/A