My Story
How it all began for me and how it’s going:
I’ll break my story down into 8 phases for you:
Phase 1: Early Childhood
I grew up as a shy, underconfident kid. My parents left their small town to start their own business in Delhi, made mistakes, had to take loans and had to take immense risks, self-learn business and do massive hard work to afford to send me to a good school, live in fine locations in Delhi (on rent of course) and send me to the best coaching institutes.
Money was always a struggle for us due to this. So my fee payments were always delayed everywhere.
Even going to birthday parties wasn’t allowed because that would mean investing money in buying gifts for my friends.
Was constantly poked and demeaned by my school authorities due to delays in fee payments.
Was not allowed to give exams.
Was not given my yearly report cards.
Was ridiculed in the middle of my classmates.
And when my family used to manage to clear all dues and get my report card, that was even worse due to my below average results.
Phase 2: Things Getting Serious
One day my dad made me sit in front of him and made me realise how difficult things were financially.
And how important it was for me to level up in my studies so that I could get a good job and make money, to be able to support the family with him.
I was put into a CBSE Caching Institute called AVTE in South Delhi.
That’s where I met my first mentors, Mr.Vipin Setia and Dr.Mukesh Setia.
They took me from being a failure in school to excelling with my academics.
My vision was clear: Get into a good engineering college, get a job, go for an MBA, and make great money.
But then, engineering happened to me.
Phase 3: Engineering
I remember walking inside the gates of my engineering college campus. It was one of the best engineering colleges in Delhi. After getting into engineering I realised it was far far away from what I thought it would be.
Speaking to my seniors and teachers made me realise that I didn’t want that typical ‘engineering’ life.
I didn’t want to code or be 1 of 300 people to get placed in big IT companies every year.
And this got me worried because the plan I had created for myself to support my family financially wasn’t going my way.
That’s when one of my seniors, called Bhavya, walked into my class to make an announcement.
Phase 4: Internships
A bunch of seniors announced an internship program being conducted.
They were looking for college ambassadors to promote their products and increase their reach.
I interviewed for it, got selected and became one of their college ambassadors.
This one opportunity opened doors to a whole new world of internships, companies and digital marketing.
I went on to give interviews, apply for internships, get referrals, pitch to companies to work for them as an intern.
I ended up interning with brands like LetsIntern, Micromax, Channel V, Viber, WeChat, Star Sports, OLX, Freecharge.
Phase 5: Making money
After getting experience from interning with these brands I started pitching companies that used to offer internships to run college marketing programs. Which I would lead and manage.
I went on to lead teams of up to 300 college students Pan India.
Gave 1000s of downloads to apps like FreeCharge.
Sent 1000s of participants to events like the Channel V India Fest.
Made a ton of money for the companies I was working with.
This was the time when I sold travel packages to students in colleges.
And also got into network marketing where I sold to over 50+ people and became the fastest person ever to build a downline of 50+ people in the city for that company.
All of this involved a lot of physical work. And I was skipping college almost every day, had a 5% attendance and was hardly home.
I wanted to do something online. Something I could do from home.
That’s when I started exploring ways to make money online.
Phase 6: Online Marketing
I started searching for ways to make money online. Found a 100 things but decided to go with blogging.
Started a blog called HowToRuleOnline and then another one called LetsLearnToEarnOnline. Gave it my best, but could not make it work.
For the next 3 years, I tried affiliate marketing, SEO, CPA, building websites etc. But couldn’t make it work.
My first dollar online was made after publishing a book on Amazon Kindle called Career Success Blueprint. It went on to become a best seller in that category. We packaged our learnings in a course and started selling it through Joint Venture partnerships on Warrior Plus and JVZoo.
While my partner was leading the Kindle business, I started exploring the world of freelancing and making money on Fiverr.
To make money as a freelancer, I had to learn a skill. So I started learning the skill of making animation videos using Powtoon. Learned it, started a service and started making 3-4L/mon from it on Fiverr itself.
Then we went on to form Blisstro Videos, an animation video company.
We created animation videos for several clients like DHL, Tinder and Deloitte. And scaled BV to 70 Lakhs+ in 2 years.
Then I started looking for something more scalable and something that allowed more freedom.
That’s when eCommerce happened to me.
Phase 7: eCommerce
I got to know about drop shipping in 2016.
Found myself a mentor, paid him over 7 Lakhs to learn the business. Started my eCom business in April 2017.
Within a year of starting with Dropshipping we crossed 10 Crores in sales.
We were on the top of the world.
We mastered the art of selling printed T-Shirts mainly in the US.
We started and scaled multiple stores. And did over 30 Cr+ in revenue for our eCom business in the next 4 years.
As the market became more and more competitive, we had to transition into something with a high barrier to entry and with a unique brand voice and identity.
And instead of finding a product offered by some other vendors, I decided to utilise my dad’s expertise in the world of shirts. He’s been in the shirt business for 3 decades. And understands the craft well.
That’s when I started my brand Kalmin Ross, in 2021.
KalminRoss is an international brand wherein we sell shirts mainly in the US and India. KR did over 3Cr+ in sales within it’s first year in business.
We’ve got our own production, a core team of 4, my dad leads the entire production and 2 of my partners take care of marketing and operations.
Phase 8: eCommerce Coaching
After crossing our first $ 1 million in sales with the print-on-demand drop-shipping model, I started sharing my learnings on my Facebook Profile.
This garnered attention from people around the world. Which led to several DMs asking if I could teach them how to do what I was doing.
We saw a need and started building our education business at this point.
We currently run 2 core mentorship programs that teach people how to build eCommerce businesses.
Our students have done over ₹90 Crores in sales combined for their own eCommerce businesses through our trainings and programs.
Currently, I’m growing my brand Kalmin Ross and helping people build eCommerce businesses through my free content and mentorship programs.
When I look back, I realise that the #1 thing I always wanted was Freedom.
Freedom in terms of time, location and money.
Freedom to travel with my wife, family and loved ones.
Freedom to spend time with my wife and my family.
Freedom to buy the things I need and really want.
And freedom to craft a life that I wanted to live.
That’s what my journey has all been about.
Through the things that I share here, I want to help people get freedom. Freedom could have a different definition for everyone and I truly believe that building online businesses and making money online definitely gets people closer to it. It has for me, my friends and our students.
And it can, for you.
You can continue learning from the stuff I share across my social channels.
Keep Going.
And Never stop chasing your dreams.
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