24-YO Friends From Bihar Run An End-To-End Garment Manufacturing Unit Offering As Low As 5 Pieces - Their Small Biz Now Clocks Rs 4L/Month

Talk to any budding founder of an apparel brand, and one of the top concerns they will mention is the stress of getting their manufacturing sorted.

Many do not possess the capital to jumpstart an in-house garment manufacturing unit. So, they outsource it to manufacturing units, only to start grappling with high MOQs (minimum order quantities), delays, lots of back-and-forth, and an overall chaotic process.

Fabric sourcing, for example, becomes a whole different ballgame.

“We wanted to solve this very concern, especially for newer brands and founders who wanted to see how their sample ideas looked on a real garment, without burning a hole in their pockets. This was a very real problem statement, and we knew a new-age garment manufacturing unit was the need of the hour,” Anamika Kumar, co-founder of Diva Daulti, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in March 2025 and started by young small business founders from Bihar, Diva Daulti is a Delhi-based boutique garment manufacturing unit that manages everything from fabric sourcing and design to manufacturing and brand setup, including photo shoots.

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THE BACKGROUND: DELAYED SALARIES, QUITTING JOBS, AND IDEATING A STARTUP

Hailing from Bihar, Anamika Kumar pursued her fashion education from NIFT, Kolkata. As part of her graduation project, she joined an export house as a fashion designer.

But life at the export house was filled with numerous struggles: for a salary ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000, employees were made to work long hours. On top of that, payments were delayed and verbal promises of increased pay were not honoured.

“I eventually decided I wanted to do something of my own in the apparel space itself. I discussed it with a work friend of mine, and she told our boss. As a result, he withheld two months' worth of my salary. I finally quit the job in March 2025,” small business founder Anamika says.

Towards the end of 2024, Anamika had also met Arunoday Kumar, who is currently 24 years old.

Also hailing from Bihar, Arunoday is an engineering graduate from IIIT Vadodara. With a tech background, he has worked in the spaces of software and gaming in Bengaluru. When Anamika told him about her plans to start something in the apparel space, he quickly decided to handle the backend operations. He shifted from Bengaluru to Delhi-NCR and took up a work-from-home job in a gaming company.

“This same job acted as a financial safety net during the start of our small business,” Arunoday remarks.

From January to March 2025, the young founders from Bihar were in the ideating phase of their small business. They wanted to start a D2C brand called Diva Daulti selling high-quality apparel.

“In March 2025, with my resignation, we became fully committed to starting our brand called Diva Daulti. We planned a total runway of Rs 1.73 lakh, and decided to use our savings to bootstrap the business,” small business founder Anamika Kumar says.

This amount was partially spent on establishing a minimal setup, including a basic stitching machine and overlock machine. This was set up on the ground-floor store under Anamika’s apartment located in Noida.

“We designed a few pieces and started to run ads for our D2C brand. For the first 15 days, there was radio silence. Absolutely no orders came in. But something unexpected happened – we saw inbound interest from new brand founders and international clients wanting garment manufacturing support,” the entrepreneur explains.

Very soon, the young small business founders from Bihar decided to pivot from a D2C-first brand to a manufacturing-first business model.

“We had planned the beginning from a D2C apparel brand approach. But when we realized that our customers weren’t end consumers but business owners, a pivot became necessary. We started covering our initial journey through Instagram reels and began seeing substantial traction,” small business founder Arunoday Kumar says.

By May 2025, Diva Daulti was able to secure its first large garment manufacturing order, worth Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.

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JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

With the remainder of the bootstrapped amount, Arunoday and Anamika started sourcing high-quality fabric from Seelampur, Shahpur Jat, Jaipur, Khagalpur, and Kolkata. They also started hiring labourers and purchased a few more machines.

The Delhi-based Diva Daulti’s mission was simple: become an end-to-end boutique garment manufacturing unit for new brand founders and entrepreneurs.

“When we did our market research, the number one pain point was clear. The high minimum order quantities demanded by manufacturing units would make a lot of first-time founders feel hesitant towards exploring and experimenting with collections and samples. The high prices would deter them,” small business founder Anamika shares.

“Other than that, chaos was another gap when it came to outsourced manufacturing spaces. Designing and sampling were functions that the founders had to go elsewhere for,” Arunoday adds.

Diva Daulti solved these exact gaps by bringing all functions of garment manufacturing under one roof.

The small business founders relied on organic marketing and shared their journey points via Instagram reels. 

“To date, we haven’t done any paid ads for our manufacturing arm at Diva Daulti,” Anamika remarks.

DIVA DAULTI: END-TO-END BOUTIQUE GARMENT MANUFACTURING UNIT 

Today, Diva Daulti operates as an end-to-end boutique garment manufacturing unit, offering minimum order quantities as low as 5-50 pieces of garments, compared to high industry norms of 300-500+ pieces.

This value proposition is ideal for first-time founders and experimental entrepreneurs who want to explore their designs before spending on bulk apparel.

Unlike typical factories, Diva Daulti has in-house designers as well as a dedicated sampling team. All tailors (a team of 20+ at the small business) are trained in sampling and ensuring quality and unwavering consistency.

Anamika’s and Arunoday’s small business offers fulfillment of all functions of the manufacturing process:

• Designing (original, thought-led designs, not Pinterest copies)

• Fabric sourcing (as demanded by the client)

• Sampling

• Manufacturing

• Labels and branding support

• Photoshoot at nominal costs

“Each and every piece that we send to our B2B clients and founders is manually checked for detailing. We do not have an ‘adjustment culture’ that you will find at other bulk manufacturing houses, where they only care about the ‘overall’ quality and often mix good and bad pieces together. They justify it as “slight variations.” At Diva Daulti, we are strictly against that,” small business founder Anamika Kumar tells Startup Pedia.

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THE UNIT ECONOMICS

At Diva Daulti, the price per garment is slightly higher than other manufacturing units because the small business offers end-to-end garment manufacturing services. 

“For 5 to 10 samples, we charge somewhere around Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000. Then, for a bulk order containing at least 150 pieces, the price comes to Rs 1,50,000,” small business founder Arunoday Kumar says.

For an average order value of Rs 1 lakh, Anamika and Arunoday reveal the unit economics breakdown of Diva Daulti: 40% of the amount is taken by the fabric sourcing cost and logistics charge, another 40% goes into the design, pattern, and labour cost, and 10% is spent on rent and miscellaneous expenses such as buttons, threads, and accessories of the apparel. 

“We are currently drawing a profit of 10%, which is not taken home, but reinvested in our garment manufacturing unit,” Anamika notes.

GROWTH AND TRACTION

To date, Diva Daulti has served 100+ clients, which include 20-30 retainer projects.

“In the manufacturing space, what matters is how many entrepreneurs and brands are choosing to work with you on a repeat basis. Around 70 of our customers have chosen us for one launch and come back again for a second launch of their apparel collection,” boutique garment manufacturing unit founder Anamika says.

As for the revenue, Diva Daulti has witnessed a steady growth.

While in May and June, the small business recorded a monthly revenue of Rs 1 lakh, the figure surged to Rs 2.5 lakh in July and August.

Post that, the small business founders expanded their operations, bought new machines, and shifted to a new space.

Since September, the monthly revenue figure has settled at Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh.

“We are now also launching our D2C apparel brand alongside our manufacturing arm. Diva Daulti has been extremely creatively fulfilling for both of us, and to know that we are coming up as a new-age manufacturing unit solving long-persistent gaps in the market makes us very grateful. We do not have any Plan B and want to scale our small business further. Clothes and everything that goes behind them is our passion,” Anamika Kumar signs off.

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