“Growing up, I have seen my father work his way through his career as a business owner, learning the skills it took to be successful at each level. Our family has been in the carpeting business for over 100 years now. My father founded Extra Weave in the year 2000, which has now been established as one of the leading manufacturers of rugs and carpets from India.

I have been brought up in a business environment seeing my dad and extended family members working with clients across different cities prioritizing sustainability at every step. So all of those insights have inspired me towards entrepreneurship and innovation.

I did my Engineering from VIT University, Vellore, and then worked for an MNC for almost three years in Chennai. I then came back home and worked in our company, Extra Weave, for two years. I started working from scratch where I had got hands-on experience in several departments and I worked my way up into the organization.

After two years of work experience, I did my MBA from the US at Babson College, Boston, which was one of the best schools for Entrepreneurship. After my post-graduation, I worked in the USA for one year. I then came back to India in early 2019 and took up the responsibility as Director of Operations at Extra Weave.

I have worked my way to bring in innovation and that inspired me and my wife Nimisha to start Neytt which we started in late 2020.

The main reason for starting Neytt was to work with more sustainable materials in the manufacturing of our products and also to create designer pieces using these sustainable materials.

We transform houses into homes with indoor, and outdoor rugs, and home accessories to elevate certain spaces using design as an element.

Talking about the Met Gala 2023, this was the second consecutive year that we supplied the Carpet for the prestigious annual event. We are extremely proud of the fact that it is manufactured in Cherthala and that our indigenous and sustainable practices are now being showcased globally. We manufactured the carpet, while it was hand-painted by artists in the USA.

This year, for the Met Gala 2023, we had been asked to manufacture the white carpet as per the theme, honoring the late German designer Karl Lagerfeld. The specialty of Met Gala’s 2023 Carpet is it is spread around 6,960 sq meters and was made with Sisal fiber.

We sourced the natural fibers from places like Brazil, Tanzania, and Madagascar. It took about 60 days and more than 150 workers to weave the carpet. A lot of effort has been put into the process of making this Carpet; right from sorting the fiber, to spinning it into yarn, to shearing and looming to ensure that the final product was fit for the event.

After the successful completion of the Met Gala event, we have been flooded with messages from people, including celebrities, across India and abroad which uplifted our workers’ spirit. Today, we look forward to taking up new projects across the globe which help prioritize innovation and sustainability in our product manufacturing.

I think the biggest learning in my entrepreneurial journey so far was to realize that people are the key to the success of a company.

My advice for budding entrepreneurs would be to execute your ideas into business realities. It’s all about doing things rather than leaving it in the idea stage. It’s all about going out there, executing things, and trying it out. It’s okay to fail. But it’s always better to fail fast than not fail at all and then regret later that somebody else had executed your idea. It’s all about going out there, doing it fast, doing it first, prototyping, testing it out in a small market, and seeing if it works out. It’s all about doing! That’s my biggest advice.”