Basumaya is the proud owner of Nepali Mann Udhyog. She started her business in the year 2010 and her products consist of a variety of pickles having base ingredients such as timmur chhop  (a mixture of powdered chili and Sichuan pepper)  and these pickles come in different flavors such as buff, chicken, and shrimp. There were already various pickle businesses running quite well when Basumaya thought of starting her own business. She then came up with the innovative idea of using timmur chhop as her base ingredient to make pickles. This has now become a big hit in the market and her business is quite successful.

Disaster Experience 
The pandemic affected Basumaya’s business to a large extent. She gets her raw materials from various parts of the country and due to the nationwide lockdown, she could not get the raw materials at all. She was unable to deliver the orders that were made by the customers. This led her to huge losses. With a lot of hardship, she tried getting her hands on a limited quantity of raw materials at an expensive rate. If she had added the cost associated with the price of the product then it would have made her pickles pricier and would have been difficult to sell them during the time of the pandemic. Deciding to go with a regular rate again cost her money. She has been running her business in the loss for almost two years now. She was looking for opportunities to expand her market linkage and grow her business and when she came across the chance to get associated with Udhyami Utthan Campaign and get training on ‘Building Resilient Businesses’, she thought this could be a great learning experience. 

“Fostering Resilience of Women-Led Businesses (including home-based women producers) and Consumers” is a project being implemented by Thulo.Com and Enterprise for Management, Economic Reform, and Gender Equality (EMERGE). The project is supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Tayar Nepal - Improved Disaster Risk Management Project and also contributes to Udhyami Utthan (UU - https://udhyamiutthan.com/about-us/ ), an entrepreneurship empowerment initiative.

Experience as a Project Beneficiary
Basumaya took out time for learning from her busy schedule and is happy that she got associated with this project as a beneficiary. According to her, “Working with my team on Business Continuity Plan was a great experience as together we have prepared a document that will help us make strategic decisions in coming days.”   
She continued that it was interesting to learn about e-commerce and the different techniques of digital marketing. It was great to have influencers promote her product through videos which have helped her product get visibility to a larger audience.

She also mentioned, “ Association with Thulo.Com has been an amazing experience. Thulo has helped me sell many of my products. Their support in boosting my sales has been incredible during the pandemic.”
   
Future Plan
Basumaya wants to have access to nationwide market reach. Therefore, she believes in the e-commerce system which can support entrepreneurs like hers reach to a larger market. She will be continuing her association with Thulo.Com and Udhyami Utthan as she wants to keep up with her learnings in the future as well.

Basumaya is an owner of Nepali Mann Udyog.
Visit her Online Shop at Thulo.com/uu