noun. पेपरबाग
“When you try hard to achieve something, the whole universe conspires to get it for you”, Priya & Sumedha.
We were always passionate about art and when we went to study masters in the UK, I (Sumedha) wrote a dissertation on Gender Inequality and female entrepreneurship in India. That’s when we realized how small this sector is and how huge the gaps are.
So, to solve the problem we decided to be a part of this sector and therefore the solution - though it had already started for us when we entered our undergraduate course in Miranda House, Delhi University. It gave us an array of opportunities to explore and create. Even though we studied Economic Hons., we kept creating greeting cards, hand painted journals, posters which eventually led us to starting our small art initiative we then called ‘Meraki’. With a lot of support from our friends and family, we started putting up stalls in various college events and fests that ended up being completely sold out.
Later in 2020, we formally curated and launched ourselves as ‘PaperBaag’.
Our name is made of 2 words - Paper and the Hindi word Baag (बाग़) that signifies growth, evolution, building a world that is more beautiful than we found it. The idea and goal has always been to start from a scribble on a paper, representing the preservation, promotion and creation of original hand painted art that forms the core of all our designs and products.
It all started with making a birthday card for a friend! This one dream had become so dear, that to pursue it, we did not even exhaust our student VISA in the UK and registered it as soon as we came back to India in January 2020.
Priya Gour, Founder & Head of Operations
It was a pandemic business and we had just returned from our post-graduation from the UK. We opted not to apply for any jobs but rather built our own Home Office in a small 8 x 8 ft store space on our terrace. We worked in that space for 3 years and executed 100s of orders.
Sumedha Mahajan, Founder & Head of Design
Our idea of growth is one that is inclusive, and hence, we will continue to work on creating opportunities and building a culture of growth through shared dreams, because dreams are important and the courage and persistence to make them work is more important than your talent.
Every small business is trying to make a social impact or solve a problem that cannot be addressed without them. Even if there are 100 businesses doing the same thing, each one of them is doing it in their own way, every effort is different even though in the same direction. And that is very important, because every drop in the ocean counts.
BOTH PRIYA & SUMEDHA HAVE STUDIED B.A. HONS ECONOMICS FROM MIRANDA HOUSE, DELHI UNIVERSITY. THEY HOLD A PGDM IN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT FROM NMIMS. THEY ARE ALSO MSc IN APPLIED ECONOMICS WITH PUBLIC POLICY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BATH, UK.