“I am very ambitious and I have been an entrepreneur all my life. I always want to do the best, so I always try to set high goals.”
- Hiral Sanghvi
Meet Hiral Sanghvi. At just 29, he along with his wife, Yoganshi Shah, touched a soft nerve for all kinds of travellers all over the world by creating the world’s best travel jacket. The Baubax Jacket, that had touched $2 million on KickStarter when we first wrote this, only needed to fulfill a goal of $20,000 over two months, so the fact that they reached $2,667,127 via 15,008 backers from all over the world with 38 days to go was testament to the fact that this is the jacket every traveler in the world was dreaming about, even if they didn’t know it. It’s also the most funded item of clothing in Kickstarter history.
What’s so special about it? Well, let’s just start by dissecting a few of the 15 main features we wish every single ‘sensible’ multi-purpose jacket in the world would include. These include more utilitarian ones like an in-built neck pillow (no, really, it’s that amazing) a detachable hood, an eye mask, in-built gloves so you don’t feel cold, nine tech pockets of all sizes to name a few. Then we move on to the more ingenious ones. The Koozie Drink Pocket is one of our favourites, while there’s also a compartment specifically for your earphones (hallelujah). They also come in four distinct styles to suit every kind of person. You’re always traveling on business? No problem, get the wrinkle-free blazer style. You’re a college student who lives in hoodies and shorts? Still nothing to fret about, you can get a sweatshirt style Baubax jacket. Additionally, they also have a bomber version and a wind-breaker version and they’re all priced between $150 - $200.
Saghvi’s inspiration for the same is the kind of story ‘90s sitcoms are made of. Travel is a consistent and routine part of his life, both for work as well as play when he had to visit his wife in the U.S. She soon grew exasperated watching him spend $25 on a neck pillow every time he went to the airport due to his forgetfulness, not to mention the growing number of pillows that were piling up at their house and thus, the gap that needed to be filled for organised travellers more effectively became apparent.
Initially, they thought of creating an app that could remind forgetful jet-setters and commuters of what they’d need, and Shah being a user experience designer by profession helped tremendously here. It didn’t take her long to realise that a jacket would be far more convenient and useful for everybody. Especially because in most places, according to Shah, one hardly leaves home without it. In an interview with Entrepreneur, Sanghavi admits he knew the idea would be a winner right away so while on a plane to Mexico to celebrate their one-year anniversary, the couple created the initial sketches for the super jacket. And they say romance is dead.
From then onwards, things moved at a record pace, partly due to their own drive and partly due to the fact that manufacturing wasn’t too complicated since Sanghavi already had multiple touch points to contact in a network full of Asian suppliers and factories that he could leverage. Post three months of designing and prototyping, all that was left to do was shoot a video and launch their Kickstarter campaign, which they did on July 7. The rest, as they say, is history. And the future has never looked brighter either.
Sanghavi says that these jackets are just the first in the line of Baubax products, as he’s always planned to merge robotics with clothing design to create futuristic, progressive clothing by inputing sensors into apparel. Kind of like those temperature-controlled blankets everybody went crazy about a few years ago. Whatever their future plans are though, one thing is abundantly clear—this couple is India’s dream team for the crowd funding world, considering their campaign reached a whopping $9 million!
Click here to buy yourself one of their travel jackets.