JOIN US‘Holige’ businessman wins acclaim on start-up reality show
Until recently, people would buy sweets and snacks from Bhaskar’s Mane Holige and leave in no time. Now, they wait to meet the owner and click selfies with him.
Bhaskar K R shot to fame overnight after his rags-to-riches story aired on the business reality show ‘Shark Tank India’ in January. Starting out as a hotel cleaner in Bengaluru at the age of 12, he now runs 17 outlets across Karnataka, 10 of which are in the city. He sells 22 varieties of holige (sweet stuffed flatbreads, also called puran poli or obbattu), and 400 snacks, traditional sweets, spice powders, and pickles.
A Class 5 dropout, Bhaskar had come on the show with franchise partners to raise investment to expand his business in Maharashtra, where he had four quick service restaurants (QSRs) then. He didn’t get funding but investors on the show lauded his hustling spirit.
Because, between his days as a cleaner and opening the first Bhaskar’s Mane Holige on DVG Road in 2015, he taught folk and break dance, ran a paan stall, sold tea on a cart, and distributed milk packets in and around Hanumanthanagar, where he has now settled. When times were hard, he says he slept in hotels, temples and inside tea stalls, and used hammams (public baths).
“Since the episode came out, our daily sales in Karnataka have gone up by 10%, and by 15-18% in Maharashtra. I have got about 300 enquiries from people interested in opening a franchise, from Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kolkata, to Germany, Dubai, UK, and California,” he says. “Four-five big businessmen have also made offers” but he doesn’t want to make hasty decisions. The most heartwarming of all, his customers now tell him ‘We didn’t know your story’.
“The response to my life’s story has been like the response to ‘Kantara’ film — Unexpected,” the 46-year-old says with a smile. Incidentally, both he and the film’s director and actor Rishab Shetty are from Kundapur, a coastal town in Udupi. Bhaskar’s family is into farming but he came to Bengaluru along with “people from his village who were migrating for jobs.”
However, the success hasn’t changed an unassuming Bhaskar. He makes holige at his DVG Road outlet even to this day during festivals, or rush hours. And he doesn’t forget to name the several people who helped him in this journey.
On the show, he claimed he started the concept of serving holige hot and fresh at live counters in Bengaluru. Bhaskar says he gets his business acumen from his mother, who raised him and his sister single-handedly after his father’s passing early on.
Recalling how his holige venture came along, he says, “After somebody stole my tea cart on Magadi Road, I started serving coffee at a hotel. There, I met a customer who used to make and sell holige from his home.”
Bhaskar quit the hotel job and started working with that customer, making holiges and distributing them to shops in packets of five on his cycle.
He recalls the turning point, “One day when I was 10 minutes late to work, he shouted at me ‘You leave’. I waited at the door till afternoon. He didn’t let me in.”
One year later, Bhaskar started selling holige from a shed in Gavipuram, close to his wife’s home. And 12 years on, he took a leap and started Bhaskar’s Mane Holige.