Gaurav Mehta, the founder of Jaipur Watch Company, debuted his legacy brand on Shark Tank India season 2. In a conversation with The Pioneer, he takes us through his experience with and learnings from the series.
Tejal Sinha
With a strong belief in the ‘Make in India’ initiative, Jaipur Watch Company is India’s first bespoke watch company. Gaurav Mehta, the founder of Jaipur Watch Company, hails from Jaipur and has always had a hobby of collecting ancient coins. He later founded a company that had an ancient history attached to it.
The brand is recognised for its limited edition watches that showcase India’s history and rich heritage. Gaurav’s tryst with watches began at a young age. While experimenting with designs, he once embedded a British India 1-pice hole coin as a dial in one of his favourite watches of the time. To his surprise, it became an eye-catcher, after which requests started pouring in from friends and family to buy the watch.
The brand watches are donned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi; actors Amitabh Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Rajkumar Rao, Rana Daggubati, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and cricketers Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, and KL Rahul, among others.
“It will make anyone proud. Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji is the ambassador for Make in India, and when he says this is a good quality product from India, what better feeling can one get? Mr. Bachchan is an avid watch collector, and he loves watches, his look said it all when he held my watch,” shared an enthused entrepreneur.
Recently, Gaurav debuted his legacy brand on Shark Tank India season 2. Although the brand couldn’t bag a deal from the investors on Shark Tank season 2, it certainly did turn a lot of heads and made a great impression amongst the sharks. It’s Pret and Bespoke collection received rave reviews from critics as one of the most innovative Indian watch brands, beautifully capturing Indian homage through their watches.
Sharing his experience of being on the show, he said, “Shark Tank India has been a game changer for us. We have gained many eyeballs and huge traction on our website and in our offline stores. We have taken valuable lessons back from the tank; we have already opened one store in Delhi and one in Jaipur. We are coming up with another store in Gurgaon and Bangalore. We are working on building our offline presence. We are also consolidating our collections with more focus on the line for scalability.”
Ending the conversation on a lighter note, Gaurav shares his piece of advice with those who have ambitious ideas but struggle to put them across. “It’s always a challenge to be able to implement your idea into reality as there are risks involved, but the best way to go for it is to first have at least 5–6 months of your current income in savings so that the lives of your loved ones don’t get affected by you venturing into something new if it’s a switch from a job. And once you roll into the business, patience is the key, there are no shortcuts.”
