A Barrister by profession, an entrepreneur by passion and now a shoe mogul of London by an idea. Different adjectives but one person. 37-year-old Ankur Shah started a business by following some Google trends and converting billions of search results in billions of pounds.
Shah's journey began much in the same way as that of most other immigrant Asians: he was the protagonist of his own story of “Rags to Riches” with £17 in his pocket as he had stated to The Times. Having acquired a degree in law from King's College London and bar school, he started practising as a criminal barrister but Gujarati genes and entrepreneurial instincts over-powered his law and so the adventure begins.
He spent a few years dabbling in the tech industry and developing apps suitable for the Facebook-savvy young customers of Vodafone, Sony, and Paramount. And decoding the complex algorithms made him give birth to Mahabis.
Mahabis, as its tagline reads, is a business designing and manufacturing slippers in a fashion that it is “re-inventing the slipper”. After learning that only big daddies of retail like M&S, Debenhams among others sold comfy slippers, Shah instantly found an opportunity. How? In creating a monopoly for himself by designing and manufacturing slippers which began with hiring a German designer. The duo embarked on having some fun and started cutting up Primark slippers to detect its flaws. Soggy, the rubber sole of the Primark slippers would go soggy once outside the house. The pair then converted that one flaw to their advantage. But the design did not pay off as much as the strategic marketing and advertising did to the barrister.
Mahabis started as a business with an annual sale of £1.5mn in its first year, but four years into, it has now expanded into an asset worth nearly £100mn according to some finance gurus. The flip-flops start from £49 and go upwards. What started as a successful adventure with slippers spiralled into a business that now sells everything from Loungewear, backpacks, detachable accessories to basic everyday use products such as notepads and scented candles.
Everything about the company speaks comfort and while they are on it Shah looks nowhere near to stopping as he aims to establish his business as the next Nike of downtime.
