Meet the 29-year old techie turned salsa pro cum teafe owner

By - Mansi Aneja

Coming with a sharp sense of humour and a confidence almost on the border line of being self-obsessed, Chaipatty owner's story is what Bollywood blockbusters are made of.

85 per cent in tenth standard, 58 per cent in eleventh standard followed by 62 per cent in twelfth boards - Chirag Yadav was an average student like many of us.

"There are no calculated risks in life," says Chirag the founder and owner of ‘Chaipatty Teafe', which is a unique tea bar in Bangalore. Apart from serving tea, the teafe, as Chirag wants to call it, hosts activities like salsa classes, pottery, baking and bar tending.

The journey of this 29-year old hailing from a family that has three-generations of defence personnel, was not free of bumpy roads. "I have always tried to do more than just study or work", says Chirag.

Most of Chirag's schooling has been in Kendriya Vidyalaya, as the family had to keep moving due to his father's job in the army. After not getting through many engineering exams, Chirag got through CET and studied in an Engineering college in Gurgaon, Haryana. A PCMB student in 10+2, he studied Electronics and Communication engineering.

While studying engineering and staying in the hostel, he took up a job as a card executive in a five-star hotel. "I always thought, why should we just study and sit idle rest of the time", he says as he recalled getting caught in the college for going out to work. The job paid him Rs 1500 per week and continued for 3-4 months. He also did other jobs like sampling for ITC Kitchens which paid him about Rs 600 per day.

"I was never the kinds to go after brand. Money and kind of work I get to do was more important, something that gives me chance to experiment". While his batch mates got placed with Infosys, Satyam and others went ahead with GATE to study Masters in Engineering or M Tech, he chose to work for a start up.

Later on a job with an IT company as Account manager took him to Bangalore. After working there for few months his whole team was laid off, except him. He quit his job to take on Salsa full time. Here also his entrepreneur bug made him get many corporate contracts and he conducted Salsa classes for companies like Infosys.

Parallel to this he launched this company called Projexionz, a branding and social media marketing firm. "I wanted to start something of my own and even this company did not satisfy the creative urge. Hence came along Chaipatty", says Chirag.

"I wanted to start an activity centre, where people learn and enjoy an informal environment. And not just take it as a hobby class. With the name Chaipatty, many people started asking when will you serve tea?" he adds.

About one and a half years into the business, Chaipatty has two flourishing outlets and "I have been able to pay back whatever I took from my father", says Chirag. The outlet serves selected food items and of course tea.

"The plan is to open 6-7 outlets in Bangalore and also go to other select cities. But the big plan is to go international", says the 29-year old entrepreneur.

Asked which was the happiest moment as an entrepreneur? Chirag goes back to when he started off, "right in the first month of operations the 300-page visitor book was filled with comments and out of them only one was a negative." From a humble beginning in Indranagar of Bangalore the Chaipatty outlets are jam packed on weekends and sees about 400 people on weekdays.

Chirag says candidly, "Does parent pressure stop you from taking decisions related to relationships? The point is we should stop blaming pressure and follow our heart. Once you start earning you should be ready to take your own decisions."

"The mistake most youngsters make is that they have passion but don't have any ideas, just passion won't take you where you want to go." He further shares his winning formula, "Start from an idea, have belief in it, execute and drive passion from it."

"Not taking feedback and being too possessive is not passion." he adds.

"There will be many tea outlets in the future, but Chaipatty is Chaipatty because it has Chirag", he concludes.

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