From zero to crores. Bootstrapped.

From Kurukshetra to code — a boy who never stopped building.

I grew up in Kurukshetra, Haryana. My family was in wholesale confectionery — my father built his livelihood through relationships, bulk orders and the quiet satisfaction of watching something he created reach thousands of hands. I absorbed more than I realised at the time.

After 12th, I enrolled in B.Tech Computer Science. In my final year, personal circumstances forced a decision I never planned for. I had to drop out. No degree. No clear path. No safety net. What I had — and this turned out to be everything — was the ability to adapt without losing ambition.

The software years — where discipline was born.

Before Meraki, I was a software tester and web developer at an IT company in Delhi. I had dropped out of college but I had not dropped out of ambition. I taught myself. I applied. I got in. The discipline I built in those rooms — meeting deadlines, thinking in systems, understanding what clients actually need versus what they say they want — became the invisible backbone of everything I built later.

The best MBA I never got.

I took a loan, bought a car, and became an Uber driver in Delhi. For nearly two years, I drove. The front seat of a car is one of the most honest places in the world. Founders venting about investors. HR managers worried about retention. Sales directors explaining entire industries in fifteen minutes. Every conversation was a module. Every passenger was a professor.

"I was a dropout who became a software developer who became an Uber driver. Everyone around me had a cleaner story. I had a real one." — Shivam Arora

Stuck in Delhi traffic — a conversation that built a company.

A passenger was a businessman in corporate gifting. As he explained the industry — custom merchandise, branded hampers, welcome kits, festive gifting, enterprise clients — something in me recognised it. A world where creativity met commerce. I asked directly: "Can I join your team in sales?" He said yes. That conversation became the first chapter of Meraki Merchandise.

Learning the trade nobody teaches.

This was my pre-Meraki career. My first project was with Penguin Random House India — custom passport holders, mugs and coasters, completely from scratch. From there the work grew across retail, malls and travel — including DLF Saket Mall and Vistara. I climbed from Sales Associate to Sales Head — building relationships and developing a standard of quality I refused to compromise on. These were engagements from my earlier career, not Meraki clients.

Zero to crores — building Meraki from nothing.

I started Meraki Merchandise in 2019 with no office, no funding, no staff and no safety net. Just a phone, a laptop, a network of trusted suppliers built over five years, and a very clear picture of what corporate clients actually want. My first client as a founder was McKinsey & Company. From McKinsey, Meraki grew. Quietly, steadily, order by order. No investor rounds. Pure bootstrap — from zero to crores in revenue.