A year before the (humble) launch

College was over and everyone went their own way. Until—Ashwajeet quit his first job within three months to couchsurf with Arman, who was working in Mumbai. The deal was, if the duo came up with a business idea, Arman would quit his job.

At the same point in another time zone, Ajai graduated from college and started working as an investment banker in New York (the Big Apple dream). There, he was discovering coffee from a new perspective, understanding how different it can be from just the instant option.

The idea is planted

Once their mutual love and passion for real coffee was realised, Arman’s resignation letter was next on agenda. It was, enthusiastically, co-written with the help of Ashwajeet. It was around this time that Ajai too made up his mind to leave his highly reputed job in New York, and return to India. Once they had assembled, it was time to get down to work!

Ever wondered where the name Sleepy Owl came about? Ashwajeet says that if it wasn’t for Arman’s strict deadline and initial name suggestion ‘Red Cherry Coffee’ (which he absolutely hated) he wouldn’t have had the epiphany which led to the brand’s oxymoronic name.

Another fun fact: Ashwajeet was sitting in a Mumbai local, travelling from Andheri to Churchgate, when the idea had hit him. And here is where he came up with the name Sleepy Owl.

All the ‘First’s

Initially, the founders contacted farmers who sent in their samples. All the brewing experiments took place in the boys’ kitchen, which became the hub of all happenings.

It was during this time that they decided to take their first work trip to Karnataka to recce coffee plantations. The foundation was laid when they cracked a deal with a plantation owner in Chikmagalur.

First Taste of Retail

Sleepy Owl might now be available across thousands of retail stores but it was in 2017 that they realised they could be bigger. They made entry into retail stores, and although the numbers were very few, it was a start. There was no bigger joy than seeing us on the shelves!

This is no secret that we love a good feedback. This was the reason why we sampled it in stores ourselves before we ever got anyone else to do it.

Hiring and new office space

Our A-Team soon realised that three people might not be enough to run operations by themselves. This could only mean two things for us--one, we needed to get more people onboard and second, we needed to find a proper office space.

It was time to move all the action from their little apartment and this was exciting, and terrifying all at the same time. Sleepy Owl rented their first office in Shahpur Jat and this is where our first batch of employees came in. The office was small but it was a huge start for us.

Demand increases, and not just in Delhi!

As word of mouth spread, demand for Sleepy Owl started pouring in from in and around Delhi. While expansion was not on cards so soon, the time for it had come already.

It all comes down to scale

To reach our new goals we needed funding. It was our first time discussing scaling and investors and all these big business words. Suddenly it was more than just coffee. We were intimidated but determined. Once we decided on raising money, we got the renowned Singapore based venture capital firm DSG Consumer Partners to back the company. Then we were off to the races.

Sleepy Owl Decides To Go Pan-India

With one roadblock out of the way, we were back to focusing on what we truly love--getting real coffee to consumers. We started drawing up our plans for reaching households across the country.

Brew Packs are Born

The thing about shipping our only product, the Brew Boxes, across India was that it would cause a lot of logistical problems. Some of the key issues we realised early on were the shelf life and volumetric weight. We had to come up with something which was true to our identity of delivering real and convenient coffee and still easily deliverable.