Today we’d like to introduce you to Denish Ghayal.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was born in India in 1984 and immigrated to the USA in 1991.
I graduated in 2007 with a BS in Honors Marketing and a Minor in Finance and Accounting from DePaul University.
I worked at MB Financial Bank as a Credit Analyst and then Cole Taylor Bank as a Commercial Lender.
I quit my job in December of 2013 to pursue various ventures and have several products under patent pending. I’ve also pitched my ideas to investors on T.V. shows such as Fashion Inc.
Today I continue to expand my interest in e-commerce field.
Has it been a smooth road?
We’ve faced many challenges along the way: from sourcing/creating our products to the final distribution of our product to the end user.
Everything must be tested, tested tested. When you’re offering a new product that people aren’t too familiar with, there is a challenge in creating interest to the right interest groups.
A lot of the struggle of a start-up typically is related to capital and cash-flow. In the beginning, it’s fairly low and your money tends to get used up very quickly if you’re not too careful with how you spend it.
You have to be mindful of your strategy and be logical enough to know when something is not working and be willing to pivot.
The biggest challenge is to remain courageous in the face of obstacles and to stand by your convictions. If you can remain faithful to your abilities and continue to work every day in a positive direction, you will see tremendous growth in yourself.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
While people apply sunscreen on their face, many people fail to apply and re-apply on their back – which is the number 1 spot where the skin cancer Melanoma strikes.
Wearing sun protective clothing makes it easier to prevent skin cancer because it blocks 98% of the sun’s harmful UV rays.
But crafting resort wear fabrics that perform for the types of activities you’re into requires technical know-how and perfected craftsmanship. Our honey-comb weave is made with state of the art machines able to design intricately creating a fabric that offers features and benefits unlike any other: wrinkle resistance, four-way stretch, repels sand, repels suncream and 10x more chlorine resistance.
In 2013, while working on a project, my partner and I met and launched Karapaze with the intention of bringing fashion forward sun-protective fashion all made with high-quality fabrics imported from Italy and made in the USA. Today, we are active on social media and sell online at www.karapaze.com with the aim to become the #1 leader in sun-safe fashion.
Most of our competitors source their fabrics from China and are manufactured overseas.
My specialty is to bring ideas to life. I like to create products within niches that can cause disruption. I believe that e-commerce is here to stay and with the continued improvement in technology, efficiency, and customer faith in on-line purchase, we can exploit niches in ways that couldn’t have been done before.
We separate ourselves by being vertically integrated and offering our customers the best service possible. We design, cut and sew, and even do the creative marketing in-house.
This means that all products are guaranteed to deliver what you expect in terms of performance and quality. Even if for some reason our clothing comes apart, we’ll take it back and mend it for free.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes, I believe the city of Chicago is a great place to start a business as many designers and fabric suppliers can be found all over. There are many ways to find vendors for any type of need you many have and also places to sell what you have to offer.
Pricing:
- All of our beach essentials range between $40 – $130
Contact Info:
- Website: www.karapaze.com
- Phone: 847-791-7836
- Email: explore@karapaze.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/karapaze
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/karapaze
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/karapaze
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