Founded a streetwear label at 19 that sold 1,000+ units and turned a profit in month one.

87% of the people I surveyed had already been scammed by an Instagram store. They were still buying.

Buying streetwear online in India in 2020, during the pandemic, meant a real chance of losing your money, and it had not slowed any of them down.

Supply was the other half of it. There wasn't much clothing in India at the time that was actually cool and fun for Gen Z. Only a handful of brands were doing genuinely good streetwear, BluOrng was just getting started, it was early days for the whole category.

I was in college. I taught myself to design, found suppliers in Tamil Nadu, and started print on demand so nothing got made until somebody had actually ordered it. Once the brand had made enough money to fund itself, I put that back into buying in bulk from those same suppliers.

Before I drew anything, I ran a 200-respondent study on how people my age actually bought clothes online. It told me what to make and what to charge, so I used it to test demand before I spent a rupee on stock. The first designs were built around pop-culture moments, specific albums and artists Indian buyers were into but couldn't easily find on a shirt.

It started as void.exe in 2020 and became voidx properly in 2022. I put it together piece by piece, from my phone:

• The visual identity and the full product catalog, designed by me.
• Suppliers, printing and fulfilment, sourced and managed end to end.
• Pop-up stores at college events, stocked and staffed.
• A/B tests on designs and pricing, then the analysis on what actually sold.
• A distinct brand identity that stuck with a Gen Z audience.

I leaned into absurd and dark comedy, in the branding and in the clothing itself. Compared to what everyone else was putting out, people my age found my clothes more refreshing.

I didn't know the term product-market fit back then, but I was getting orders before I'd done any marketing.

Every pop-up I did sold out, and more than once I had to scramble and get new stock printed overnight for the next day of the event.

Those pop-ups ran at college events and college clubs, and they turned into a second line of business. Schools and clubs started ordering from me directly, and I used the B2C brand as the way into those conversations. The B2B orders moved revenue significantly more than the direct sales did on their own.

1,000+ units and about ₹9 lakh in revenue, roughly $11K, profitable in month one on money the brand made itself. I stopped in 2023 to take a full-time job and start a master's.

I started with no capital, no supplier and no audience. I finished with a brand that paid for itself from month one, sold out every pop-up it ran, and was designed, sourced, marketed and sold from a phone.

The brand identity came first, and everything else came off the back of it: the B2C front, the pop-ups, and the B2B orders those pop-ups opened. Running all of it alone is where I picked up selling, operating and holding relationships with suppliers, venues and buyers. Those are the skills I have used in every job since.