Shreyans Parekh began his career as an entrepreneur in 2003, co-founding a wholesale
party and wedding supply company, Koyal Wholesale. Beginning as an online provider
of balloons, party goods, novelty item and favors at wholesale prices, Shreyans
sent out orders from his home as he received them. With the swift success of his
business, he quickly expanded, leasing a 10,000 square foot warehouse to run his
operation. He hired 5 employees and in a span of two years, has built one of the
largest wholesale distributors of balloons, flags and wedding supplies in Southern
California.
As the founder and marketing director of the company, Shreyans has performed many
acts of philanthropy for his community. He is the co-founder of the humanitarian
rights organization See Evil, End Evil which is currently working on a project to
build the first public library in Rwanda. See Evil, End Evil encourages teenagers
to ‘question, understand and act’ on issues pertaining to human rights and socio-economic
development.
Q: Why did you choose party supplies?
Shreyans: When I was about 10 or 11 years old I used to go to my parents party supply
franchise that they owned and just look around the aisles and see what kind of products
we sold and what kind of prices they were. And so that’s why I got really interested
in parties and weddings. And so then later on a lot of my older brother’s friends
were just about to get married, they had a hard time finding a lot of supplies in
bulk quantities. They could only find supplies in very limited quantities that were
pretty expensive. So that’s where we came in to find bulk quantities that were cheaper.
I started the business when I was 16 along with my two older siblings.
Q: What were some of the challenges you faced in starting the business?
Shreyans: One of the big challenges I faced in the business was establishing credibility.
With our suppliers, with our customers, with our employees, because I was so young
to start off with, so a lot of people found it hard to take what I was saying seriously.
At the same time I was making a lot of mistakes myself, so it was difficult for
me to delegate responsibility and expect people to really accomplish their tasks.
It was a learning process for me as well.
Q: What kept you going when there were challenges?
Shreyans: I knew that this was a unique opportunity for me, so I wanted to really
persevere and try to achieve my goals despite all these challenges. I talked with
some of my parents’ friends who were also entrepreneurs who were kind of my mentors
in guiding me and they said that yeah, you are going to run into these obstacles
so you just have to face them and move on. Obstacles are only learning experiences
for you.
Q: Did you get help or advice from other people?
Shreyans: I’ve learned that mentors not only come from your elders but also your
peers. In this field particularly I think because entrepreneurs are always helping
each other out, always exchanging ideas, guiding each other through tough times.
My older brother decided that he wanted to run his own business and his passion
really fueled me to explore entrepreneurship as a career option as well in high
school. Also, I was involved with the Junior Achievement program and Goldman Sachs
Scholars.
Q: How did you finance your start-up business?
Shreyans:. Well initially we were just operating through an online Web site and
once business started picking up we earned a little bit of startup capital and we
decided that we wanted to take this business on full time. So we decided to explore
our options for financial assistance and we took out a small business administration
loan that really gave us the foundation to lease the warehouse in Corona.
Q: Were you able to pay yourself from the beginning or did you have to put in a
lot of unpaid hours?
Shreyans: In the beginning my two siblings and I didn’t give ourselves salaries
because we were just continuing to reinvest our profits in our inventory to build
up a very loyal supplier base and customer base. And so we thought that it would
be better off for our business for long-term sustainability if we didn’t give ourselves
salaries at that point. Then every year after that we started giving ourselves little
gradual increases in salary depending on our profits for that year, or what we expected
our profits to be. It took about a year and a half to become profitable.
Q: What do you like most about running a business?
Shreyans: I like the creativity factor involved with not only our business but also
the party industry that we’re in. I feel good when I get positive feedback from
our customers, helping them choose a particular type of favor that I think would
go well with their themed wedding or themed event. And so that’s what I like about
it is it allows you to be very creative with your thinking, with your advertising
campaigns and with just your interaction with your customers.
Q: Does your business give back to the community in any way?
Shreyans: I wanted to be able to really highlight this core value of Koyal of social
responsibility. I decided to organize a fundraiser to raise awareness of the tenth
anniversary of the Rwandan genocide1994. So through this program we donated about
4,000 dollars to build the first public library in Rwanda.
Also, my sister has been heavily involved in a program that helps to seek educational
and employment opportunities for impoverished youth in Northern India. And so we
sent about 2,000 dollars to help that campaign.
And the third large project that we helped out with pretty recently was sending
500 cans of silly string to Iraq because a lot of the troops use the silly string
as one of the first measures of safety when they walk into an unidentified building.
If the stilly string floats in the air they know that they have a potential problem
with trip wires for bombs. And the silly string won’t set off the bombs because
it’s very lightweight.
Q: What is the most important thing you’ve learned through your experience as an
entrepreneur?
Shreyans: Time management has a huge learning factor for me. Managing the smallest
details or managing your time very wisely in order to accomplish everything that
you want in on a given daily or a weekly basis. And I think that has been one of
the most helpful attributes for me of being an entrepreneur because that has not
only helped me run my business but also to be successful in college.
Q: What would your advice be to other kids thinking of starting businesses?
Shreyans: I think if you ask any entrepreneur they would say that failure is what
really makes you strong as an entrepreneur and what really gives you a strong backbone
and really motivates you. If you don’t fail then you haven’t experienced the full
impact of success.
