Moulding smiles into success

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"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand," said Vince Lombardi, the famous US football coach.

True to this maxim is the 28-year-old Santosh K Regella, chief executive officer of Endless Exploring, an SSI unit which specalises in manufacturing smiley stress relievers and non-toxic clay for children.

He started his career as a chaiwala (tea seller) in Osmangunj in Hyderabad but today he supplies products to many a corporate executive in the twin cities to relieve them of their stress.

"During my intermediate days, I dreamt of constructing a five-star hotel someday. As my financial position was not well, I thought of taking up some work and saving money to start a business later," Regella recalls.

"I even approached some small hotels in the city and requested them to employ me. But as I was educated, they refused to offer me any job," he said.

After repeated failures, he decided to start a chai bandi (tea stall) on his own in 1995 at Osmangunj where a lot of transporters were located. Soon, he started selling tea during the day and snacks in the evening.

"I used to save around Rs 40 a day for the 18 months and with that I subscribed to a Rs 20,000 chit scheme. However, as bad luck would have it, the company duped me of the hard-earned money and I had to shut shop," he said.

But this budding entrepreneur did not lose hope and during his graduation days started marketing artificial clay, which could be moulded by young children into different shapes. After learning the tricks of the trade, Regella set up a small unit himself to manufacture the clay.

"I failed some 780 times experimenting with various ingredients before I got hold of a right formula to make non-toxic, non-sticky and durable artificial clay. The company kicked off operations in 2000 with an initial investment of Rs 80,000. The clay he produced attracted several schools in the city. Regella now supplies his products to schools like St Ann's, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, St Peter's and St Joseph's, which incidentally were his first customers.

Finally came the stress buster. "My smiley stress balls are perhaps the softest conduit to stress-free moments, portable and handy. They are as big as a tennis ball and works on the technique of progressive muscular relaxation that is an effective stress management technique worldwide," Regella says.

He provides these stress busters corporates like Dr. Reddy's, Tata Indicom, Gland Pharma, AirTel, Prasad's, Virtusa, Gati Cargo and ISB. The employees squeeze their stress away, getting relaxed and recharged, which enhances their productivity.

The very naming of the company speaks of the attitude of its CEO. "Since I like to explore and there is no end to exploring the company was named Endless Exploring," he says.

The company has its manufacturing facility at Mallapur on the outskirts of the city and employs five full-time workers. For the financial year ended March 31, 2004 the company's turnover was Rs 10 lakh and Regella expects it to cross Rs 25 lakh during the current fiscal.

"We are also into manufacturing disposable gloves and currently I am working on a small puzzle which would act a brand reminder for the customers of corporates," he said.

Speaking about his family he says, "I am from a very orthodox middle class family. My father passed away when I was young and my mother brought us up." He has two sisters and a brother. "My mother worked for a meagre Rs 1,800 a month in a private school but never let us feel that we did not have enough."

"When I was working as a marketing executive and then came up with this idea of setting up a company, she did not believe it and thought that I was off my head but then I stuck to my stand," he says.

In his free time Regella likes to read and his favorite author is Ayn Rand. On his future plans, he said: "I am exploring the possibility of getting into the retail market but this would be possible only after having a bigger manufacturing facility. I am also looking at expanding the business to other cities in the country."

"I want to stick to my humble roots and make my mother happy who is one of my sources of inspiration and the other being Dhirubhai Ambani who rose from rags to riches," he added.