Viraj Parakh, Cofounder at Boxtron International Pvt Ltd

Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?

Viraj Parakh : Me and my co-founders were all working in similar spaces, either of the operational front or on the client side of this kind of business. And we all were facing similar issues with the companies that were into this space. While having coffee on one of the lazy Sunday afternoons, we thought starting our own venture into this space.

Great Companies: What are the various products and Services provided by Boxtron International Private Limited

Viraj Parakh : Boxtron is addressing returnable packaging needs of the automotive industry with plans to scale up in the sectors of agriculture, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Boxtron is fast advancing from a packaging asset leasing player to a holistic service provider for returnable packaging. Boxtron provides customised packaging solutions on rental basis by giving clients the freedom of using PaaS (Packaging-as-a-Service).

Great Companies: What makes Boxtron International Private Limited different from hundreds of other industrial packaging firms?

Viraj Parakh :

Boxtron is providing customised solution to clients which no one else in the country is doing. Our competitors follow a one-size-fits-all concept, which Boxtron is completely against as each requirement is different and needs to be treated differently for maximum efficiency and cost-benefit.

Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?

Viraj Parakh : Currently, this being a capital intensive business, we have a lot of projects on hand and our clients are eager to give us more and more orders. But sometime the investment is an issue. Till date the company is bootstrapped and doing a positive cashflow each month. From FY19-20 to FY20-21 we had 200X growth. If we have to keep up to this pace, we need a good investor or a strategic partner to back us.

Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Boxtron International Private Limited?

Viraj Parakh : The future looks very very healthy and strong for Boxtron. The next 5 years we plan to scale up in other areas like FMCG, Electronics and Pharma markets as well. In the near future, we plan to have a Sales, Marketing and operations team in place. Sustainable packaging is the way of the future and Boxtron doesn’t plan to look back. We also plan to cater to the B2C segment with very innovative product offerings

Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Viraj Parakh : Patience is the key. Whether it is in terms of gaining your first client or whether it is terms of financial returns. We worked effortlessly for 9 months before we scored our first client. Of course the thought of quitting and going back to a comfortable corporate job crossed my mind, its human tendency, but hanging in there was the right choice. Also entrepreneurship in itself is a tough path, if it would have been easy, everyone would do it. As I always like to say, you need to have a skin of a Rhino to be a successful entrepreneur.