A failed restaurant business, a disastrous comeback debut and an unenviable task of punching above his weight, Viraj Bahl fought many odds to make Veeba India's biggest homegrown sauce and condiments' brand. Can he now make it a consumer goods company?
New Delhi, 2013. “Restaurants are quite a naked business,” says Viraj Bahl. “If they stay empty, you become a public failure.” In 2013, Bahl felt naked, and was a proclaimed failure. After little over four years of struggling with the food business, the second-generation entrepreneur lost his appetite for restaurants, and shut down all the six outlets of Pocket Full. “It was a wonderful brand and concept,” recalls Bahl, who had been enamoured by the food processing venture of his parents and expressed his desire to join the family business when he was in class XI.
The patriarch, though, put a stiff and almost improbable pre-requisite. “Feel free to join when you start earning Rs3 lakh per month,” he said. The intent was to dissuade the young lad. Remember, underlined his father, the amount earned must be sufficient to raise your family in the same comforts and standard in which you have been raised. The seventeen year old, however, earnestly picked up the gauntlet. In the 90s, it was nothing less than a fantasy for an undergrad to even dream of earning lakhs in salary.