Are you excited to know about Khilonewala's Journey?
Here's how we made it
India’s No.1 Toy Library
Today we would like to share a very interesting story with you so that you also know WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO…
It all started at our own home in Indore in the year 2011 by 2 young fathers — Abhishek & Bharat. Bharat had raised this concern that his 2-year-old son was spending a disproportionate amount of time on TV & Mobile phones.
When we stopped our child from watching TV & Mobile, he started demanding more Toys and Books to play. As a parent we understood that kids love playing with Toys, Games & Books as they are the most attractive tools for engagement, education & entertainment.
As parents we first felt happy that playing with toys & reading books has led to drastic reduction in screen time. But our happiness didn’t last longer, because when we gave him new toys to play with and some books to read, he got bored of it within a few weeks and again started demanding newer toys & books.
Buying new branded toys & books often started to put extra burden on our pocket while also creating space constraints at home due to the clutter of unused toys that was increasing every month.
Also not giving something new was not an option as it was hurting our child as his screen time was increasing continuously and other side effects like headaches, eye strain, reduced attention span, irritability, poor behavior, loss of concentration, addiction to screen, impaired learning & academic performance, no socializing skills etc. were also visible to us.
Knowing that the early year of life is the most important phase for any child, where 90% of brain development occurs. We wanted our son to be involved in activities that could aid his growth while engaging him positively. As with any busy parent, we were also pressed for the time to ensure that our child was engaged in meaningful activities.
As a family we just discussed these problems & tried to find a solution. We needed toys & books that we could get for a short time and then exchanged to Save Money, Time & Space.
This is when we thought it would be great if we can design a product or service which would engage kids positively, at home, away from the TV, and does not need the parent’s constant supervision. So, we landed on the idea of getting Toys on Rent. We searched for it and found nothing in our city. Since we found nobody, we decided to explore this idea.
After working on our idea, we finally thought of giving it a try. So, we named it as KHILONEWALA – India’s No.1 Toy Library & that’s how it was born…
So Khilonewala is a Service developed & designed by Parents for the Parents😃
When we started the objective was very clear. We did not want other parents to go through the same pain that we as a parent have gone through in our life. Neither do we want the young generation to waste their time on gadgets and get addicted to it and thereby hinder their mental & physical development & growth.
Today, Khilonewala has revolutionised the child’s early learning & screen free engagement space and has created a remarkable difference in the lives of 1000’s of children across India.
Today Khilonewala is the market leader in the field of screen free engagement for children at home and a pioneer in the Toy Library business model in India. Over the past 12+ years, Khilonewala has delivered more than 4,00,000 Toy Kit through our 75 + franchise centers!
But you would be wondering how Khilonewala Started from one Centre & then spread its services across the country with multiple centers. We have also revolutionized people’s life by giving them the FREEDOM they always wanted in their life.
It's an even more interesting story, so just read on…
Actual Plan
When we decided to start this Toy Library idea with the name of KHILONEWALA, the next things that we needed to arrange were.
So, we had a meeting that night and it was decided that we will use our past savings & will borrow the remaining amount from our family and friends to fund this project. Our wives came forward to take charge of running the daily operation of the library. We also decided to make the furniture as per our requirement from a known carpenter.
Now what was left was arranging the retail space for the shop, so we thought of taking the shop nearby only so that our wives can manage the library easily while taking care of kids at home. We had one shop in our society that was vacant for more than a year, so we decided to book it the very next day.
We reached the society office early in the morning with payment in hand to book the shop but to our shock we found someone had already booked that shop 3 days before only, to open a boutique there. We lost all our hope, and we became very sad as the next shop that was available to us in a nearby area was 2 km away, which had low rent but that would make library management difficult. All our hopes of starting a business of our dreams appeared foggy…
We all sat down again and discussed what could be done, then our wives suggested that we have a small area in our living room where we can put up the racks and store the items there and at least we can start from there. We just loved the idea and we thought of giving it a try.
We got all the inventories in the next 2 months and decided to do a grand launch exhibition in our society hall. We marketed our 2-day launch and we got around 150 walk-ins, and we got 32 Parents who subscribed to our plans. It was a good start to have such a new concept.
But our happiness was not long lived, as when we started operations, our member base did not increase even by the end of the month. We were wondering if people always told us that they would come to the library, but no one came to meet us and join. Then we decided on a new strategy, and we started taking appointments by call from all leads and going to their home with a Toy Kit sample and giving them a Physical demo. To our surprise, out of the first 10 demos we got 6 members on the spot.
We kept on doing the same thing repeatedly for the next 1 year and we reached 150 plus members by the end of the year. We also found that 80 % of the members never visited our physical library as we gave them free home delivery and they can choose toys from our online catalogue anytime. So, after a year of operations we realized, the lack of Retail shop turned a Boon in disguise as we saved a lot of money on rentals and the management of the library from home was quite comfortable for our wives.
It gave us True Freedom to work from the comfort of our homes, make money, manage family, and work life balance while doing something valuable for society & making a self-identity in our area by becoming an entrepreneur or what we loved calling ourselves as FREEDOMPRENEUR. It was a EUREKA! Moment of our lives.
We kept on doing well for next 3 years and then we started getting enquiries from outside Indore as well, as they wanted to start similar concept in their city as they believed this is a common problem of every parent.
So, we thought of Launching the Franchise of Khilonewala and make it a home run business model which will deliver True freedom of making People Financial Independent or earn Extra Income, make then Entrepreneur, give them work life balance, get social recognition & self-identity for solving a real-life burning problem which no one else is solving effectively.
We discussed and arrived at Khilonewala Profitable Franchise Opportunity
F.R.E.E.D.O.M F.O.R Y.O.U
Today, Khilonewala has revolutionized the child’s early learning & screen free engagement space and has created a remarkable difference in the lives of 25000 + children across India. Today Khilonewala is the market leader in the field of screen free engagement for children at home and a pioneer in Toy Library Franchise Model in India. Over the past 12+ years, Khilonewala has delivered more than 4,00,000 Toy Kit through our 75 + franchise centers and the growth continues…
We are happy to see that people understood the feelings by which we started Khilonewala. We are very much sure soon Khilonewala will become a household name and will be known by Parents as a service which makes a real difference in their lives and their kids’ life for a better tomorrow… We are sure after reading this fascinating story, you also want to become part of this journey and want to take your 1st Step towards living a life of FREEDOM. So, what are you waiting for, fill us the enquiry form and we will be touch with you very soon…
