The tea industry is growing day by day and there are a lot of tea-prenueurs coming up ! 

All have their stories, backgrounds and innovations.

Today we are presenting the story of this 24 years young man Arpit Raj aka Arpit Sinha who started this concept of Chaai Seth back in 2015 during his college time. 

Arpit’s vision is to take this Fully Indian brand to a global level.

Let’s have a short summary of discussion we had with Mr. Arpit this Tuesday over telephone.

Reporter: Arpit First of all, many Congratulations on your amazing growth, and we believe you’ll keep on growing. Can you share something about your family, and their reaction when you thought of entering into entrepreneurship?

Arpit: Hey. Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I have my roots from Bihar. Being a typical Indian family, some members of my family wanted me to continue my job after my College.  But I am lucky enough to have  supporting parents and elder brother. It was obviously a tough decision to step into entrepreneurship when I was making good amount of money through my job.

Reporter: Alright. You mentioned you have roots from Bihar, didn’t they ask you to go for a government job or atleast try for UPSC?

Arpit : (Laughs) yes. Being a Bihari, you have lot of peer pressure to get into the government sector or atleast to have a banking job. I started getting my parent’s support after my matriculation (10th board) only.  During my 11th, I chose commerce stream, and I was the 1st one to study commerce in my family. Again my family members wanted me to take Maths or Bio or atleast Arts. 

But again my parent’s supported me with my decision. And in 2015 I went to Shillong, Meghalaya to pursue my BBA – Specialised in Hospitality, Travel and Tourism. I got a lot of exposure there, and the idea and concept of having my own tea tapri started from there only.

Reporter : Well. That’s pretty interesting Arpit. You are of just 24-25 presently, how this seriousness towards life, business venture came? I mean generally youths aren’t so serious about their life, especially about entering into new venture.

Arpit : See, I really appreciate you asked this. Today I’ve seen most of the youths are focused on their career, but some are still in the “Moh Maya“, running after showoff and spending time on social Media all the time.  

And that is completing fine if that is giving them happiness and enjoyment, but I believe there is a thin line between enjoying and destroying your life. One can enjoy but should always maintain that thin line.

Reporter: Interesting ! If I ask what is the story behind the logo and the name “Chaai Seth” ?

Arpit : Initially, back in 2015, we just started. No one no brand no logo, nothing. It was just an adda !

Later when we planned to start it in full fledged, we did all legal formalities, chose the logo, designs etc and stepped into business.

Reporter: Okay ! In the very less span of time you have shown tremendous growth of your venture. How was your journey?

Arpit : I feel bad when people say Arpit has made this brand, that’s not me alone who is building Chaai Seth. I’ve my complete team, and whole team is working in backend.  

And I think, everyone should be given the credit. 

The painter painting the shutter, the sweeper, my each and every staffs, everyone, literally everyone is behind the brand building! 

Asking about the Challenges in the journey Arpit shared, “Convincing my family to start the business was the biggest challenge. Also, during the pandemic, our outlets were closed down. The franchise partners could not pay the rent. Everything was down. I have to pay salary to the staff from my own pocket. Learning from the challenges was to not stick to one thing and should go for alternatives. Thus, I started other ventures.”

Asking about the Social Cause behind the venture, Arpit shared that Chaai Seth caters to the social cause of unemployability. For semi-literate and illiterate people Chaai Seth provides employment opportunities. Also, the Kulhars where they serve tea is procured from UP where people sell Kulhars and get only 50 rupees per day. So it gives them immense happiness to buy the Kulhars from them. 

Asking about the Future Plans, Arpit stated-

“I would like to connect with more like-minded people, grow my network and partners, and want to work 24/7. My goal is to reach 300 outlets by 2025”.

He suggested that aspiring entrepreneurs start their businesses without waiting for the right time. Situations will never be in favour. Make mistakes and learn from the mistakes of industry leaders.

Asking about how someone can get your franchise, Arpit mentioned: Getting a franchisee is easy now a day, but getting a Chaai Seth Franchise is a bit difficult, because we do not consider money only. There are a number of eligibility and criteria we check before offering the franchise. Once someone meet the criteria, then only we offer them the franchise, as we are not Quantity centric rather we are Quality centric. We don’t want to open Chaai Seth anywhere, but we want a quality outlet.

Apart, if someone is interested, one need to apply the form on our official website, or may call us on the hotline given on our official website. 

We wish Arpit and his whole team a great success ahead.