#4: The Royal Treatment

A kid who loved to scribble. 
A child who loved to sketch. 
A lady who loves to design. 
That should easily sum up the introduction of my friend, Ruchi Verma. She is the proprietor of Rayana, a place where you can order customized diamond and gold jewellery. “Sketching and rendering was a favourite past time while growing up. I remember taking every activity related to art and craft during school days. I could never sit idle and watch TV, hence would be sketching. This eventually took me to National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), where I specialized in accessory design, with jewellery as my first love,” she starts.

“After doing my graduation project with Tanishq, my love for jewellery grew like never before. Later I even worked with Mehrasons Jewellers, Raas Jewels, and did a lot of exhibitions all over India to explore my marketing potential,” she adds. 

Ask about her big idea and she gets all excited, “Rayana means Royalty/Queen in Persian. The name itself describes the idea behind my brand. I realized that women want a personal touch to their jewellery pieces, which is not possible with a jewellery retailer or mass manufacturer. Hence I gave them the option to customize their own pieces. My clients have the option to design their own pieces as well. They should feel special and royal even while getting their piece made!”

She started her journey by designing wedding jewellery for a friend. She customized every piece for her big day, and the word just spread. “Few of my clients are based outstation, so they order just over email or phone, whilst discussing every nuance. Hail the digital world,” she adds. 

Since Ruchi started her own brand, it has been a blessing in disguise: one order after the other, and then she got a chance to interact with some long lost friends (including me!!) and designed jewellery pieces for them. “Although, the most thrilling part so far of my entrepreneurial journey has been being chosen for the '10k Women Entrepreneur' Course sponsored by Goldman Sachs with Indian School of Business as their academic partner. I feel like a real business woman, even though I am still very young as compared to the rest,” she quips.

For a woman who is surrounded by sparkling diamonds and precious stones, she enjoys being her own boss and having the luxury to travel where ever she wants, whenever she wants. “After doing a lot of customized pieces, I wish to explore the e-commerce world with a slightly different concept. A lot of work needs to be done before that actually happens,” she says.

We wish her the best of luck!