A Plaything that became a passion : Dileep Goli’s inspired journey

Hyderabad, July 10 :

“For me,” recalls Dileep Goli, Founder, Missamma, with a half-amused smile on his face, “my family’s shop was my playground.” He’s of course referring to the saree store owned by his parents in Mangalagiri, a small town between Vijayawada and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. So while his peers, most of them in their pre-teens, would be kicking up some dust in the playground, Dileep would be lost in a riot of colours and his own imagination, fascinated the yards and yards of flowing fabric that women, including his mother and aunts, loved draping in different styles.

Years rolled by and even as the pursuit of academic excellence took centrestage, - as in most middle-class Indian households – Dileep held on to his dream. “The heart was always here, in this business even if the body and mind took a little detour,” he says cheekily. That detour, which included pit-stops for an MBA in Marketing and Operations from Delhi’s Fortune International Business School and work-stints in Unilever and Future Group, helped chisel his home grown and natural born business acumen – converging into the launch of his first venture, Nakshatra, a boutique saree store, in 2015.

But why go independent in a business where the family already had a legacy? The family business, Dileep says, had suffered some reversals over the years which is why a fresh foray made more sense to him. Going independent also helped him get a fresh perspective on the saree business, especially on the supply and backend side. For Dileep and his wife Alekhya, Missamma had two chief objectives – create contemporaneous designs for the modern woman of today and uplift the status of the weavers. Dileep’s commitment to preserving and promoting India’s heritage is reflected even in the brand, Missamma, which means a Miss or a young lady in Telugu – Dileep’s mother tongue.  Today, Missamma is a ₹220 crore brand over 550 people with 17 exclusive brand stores across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, offering an extensive range of sarees for daily wear, festive occasions, weddings, formal events and traditional celebrations.