NINA LEKHI The woman behind the bags and accessories brand Baggit

how make to it!

Who says you need money to make money? Four entrepreneurs tell us how they dreamed different, broke the rules, took the risks and struck it big

NINA LEKHI The woman behind the bags and accessories brand Baggit

M ANY STUDENTS are asked to stop coming to class when they bunk too many lectures. Only that Nina Lekhi used that year off to kickstart her own bag-making business at the age of 17 in 1984. “I had no idea I was going to be an entrepreneur,” says Lekhi. “Even now I still see myself as a designer.”
Even her family had difficulty grappling with her work. “My father would ask me, ‘Why are you doing all this when you’re eventually going to get married and make rotis?’” recounts Lekhi. But they let her turn the living room into a factory and her bedroom into a storeroom.

So she persisted, designing bags, selling them in consignments, making deliveries via buses and managing all aspects of the business from purchasing to sales. “I had no fear because I had no targets and I never saw myself as an entrepreneur,” explains Lekhi.
Today, Baggit is a R50- crore business. Its bags, purses, belts, shoes, multi-purpose pouches and wallets are stocked at major malls and 16 Baggit stores across the country. But Lekhi’s not done just yet. “I want 200 stores and I want to retail abroad. I’m just waiting for their economies to grow.”
Lekhi also confesses to thinking about business “all the time”. “On holiday, if I see a woman with a nice bag, I immediately start following her.” And even during the photo shoot, when we ask to pose with her bags, she picks up each one and first asks her sales staff, “Will this be in stock when the story comes out?”