Meet woman, an IIM graduate who became CA at 21, quit job to start small outlet in 2021; now earns Rs 4.5 crore monthly

Some people are very successful in life but they still don’t stop hustling, as they want to do something of their own and not work for others. Thus, they believe in their instincts, take risks in life and achieve something that nobody else could.

One such story is of Divya Rao, who was born into a lower-middle-class family and she barely got ₹1000 as monthly pocket money. Despite this, she showed unwavering determination and became a CA at 21 and went to IIM Ahmedabad to pursue MBA in finance.  “I was very careful with money when I was growing up. I knew my family’s finances were weak, I used to wait for a week to be able to eat a single egg puff. We had no assets, and I knew I had to study to earn money to take care of my parents. I’d studied really hard to become a CA, changing 2-3 buses to get to tuition. I was the first CA in my family,” she said.

While at IIM Ahmedabad, Divya first came across the idea to start a food business.“The course had detailed case studies on McDonald’s, KFC, Starbucks, and how they became successful,” she shared. “One of the professors remarked that Indians weren’t good at running such food chains. This triggered me: it was true that there was no world-class food chain from India. I wanted to introduce traditional South Indian food to the entire globe,” she said.

But Rao couldn’t act on the idea until she met Raghavendra Rao, who had previous experience in the food industry, who contacted her in her capacity as a CA. “Raghav had more than 15 years of experience in the food industry,” she recalls. “He had started off with a roadside cart in Seshadripuram. He had no support from his family. He had worked at a lot of restaurants — he’d worked a Le Meridian as a cashier, cleaner, counter boy, and as a manager. He’d cut vegetables, he’d done everything. He’d started a small restaurant business with some other people, but that hadn’t gone well. I met him as a CA and gave him some advice on how to manage the business’s finances,” Divya stated.

But Raghav’s restaurant business eventually failed, and he invited Divya to collaborate to start a new restaurant chain. “By this point, I was an established CA, and my career was doing well. But I decided to take the plunge,” Rao asserted.

While they finalized their decision to establish a restaurant, Divya’s family resisted it. “I made you a CA with so much difficulty, you want to sell idli and dosas on the roads for 10-20 rupees?” her mother had stated.

But Divya was relentless in the pursuit of her dreams and proceeded undeterred. They combined their savings and opened Rameshwaram Cafe, the name was chosen to pay tribute to former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who was born in Rameshwaram, and the fact that it had an instant south-Indian connection.

They specifically worked hard to ensure that their food stood out in terms of quality. Their plan eventually succeeded and they received amazing reviews, and soon they opened another outlet. Thereafter, the founder’s personal and professional life converged — Raghav proposed to her. “He said, we’re already business partners, why don’t we become life partners”, Divya recalled.

Currently, Rameshwaram Cafe has four outlets in Bangalore, and is set to open another in Dubai, Hyderabad and Chennai. It employs a whopping 700 people. 

Reportedly, they are earning Rs. 4.5 crore per month sales from each store, and are clocking around Rs 50 crore a year. This was revealed by the Co-founder of B2B startup Udaan, Sujeet Kumar in a podcast with Zerodha CEO Nikhil Kamath, which went viral.

“If you see Rameshwaram Cafe. They cut 7,500 bills a day. One store is hardly 10 by 10 or 10 by 15 square feet. Does Rs 4.5 crore business a month and clocks around Rs 50 crore a year. They also make decent margins. Around 70 per cent gross margins,” Sujeet Kumar said.

But Rameshwaram’s dreams are even bigger. “In the next five years, we want to have a presence in South India, North India, and even abroad,” Divya said. Thus, from being mocked for selling Idli on the streets after IIM Ahmedabad to earning over Rs 50 Crore yearly business, Divya and Raghav’s story is an inspiration for anyone who dreams to make it big on their own and wants to take risks in life.