Success Story Of Drunken Monkey: How This Ex-Infosys Engineer Built Rs 60 Crore Turnover 110 outlet

Samrat Reddy, the owner of Drunken Monkey, a fast-growing Indian smoothie chain, has repeatedly proven that he is a renegade entrepreneur, from abandoning his first job at Infosys after obtaining a promotion to choosing an odd business and giving it an eyebrow-raising hilarious name. 

At such a time when tea and coffee chains were springing up across the nation, Samrat chose to open a smoothie chain, albeit he was inspired to do so by Starbucks, an international coffee house.

Drunken Monkey, which began with a single store in Hyderabad in 2016 with the tempting tagline "Naturally High," has grown enormously in the following five years thanks to its embrace of the franchising concept. 

In FY 2020-21, they will have 110 stores with a revenue of Rs 60 crore. Except for two company-owned stores, the rest are all franchisees. 

With several of its branches in Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bengaluru, the company has a strong presence in South India. They have a few locations in Delhi and Mumbai, as well as one in Kolkata.

Samrat, 36, isn't resting on his laurels; in the next 10 months, he aims to more than double the scope of his company. He hopes to reach 250 outlets in the next ten months and to expand to other nations in the next three years. 

He wants to start a smoothie subscription service that makes smoothies a routine for people. Strawberries in a bottle are comparable to smoothies. He believes that if individuals develop a smoothie addiction, the industry will explode. 

Samrat's turning point came when he decided to leave Infosys, where he had worked for almost a year and was earning Rs 1.5 lakh per month.

He'd been stationed in Melbourne, Australia, for almost a year when he decided to leave, and the company had recently upgraded him and given him a four-year extension in the country. 

It was, however, Samrat's favoured way of life. He left Infosys to pursue an MBA in Marketing at Glasgow's University of Strathclyde (2008-09). 

In his franchised shops, he now works with over 1,000 people. He no longer grades people solely on their grades; instead, he assesses their communication skills. 

Samrat also succeeded in the classroom. In 2002, he graduated from Union Christian Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Chennai with a 96 per cent score.

He graduated from SRM College in Chennai with a bachelor's degree in electronics and instrumentation in 2006, then worked for Infosys as a Test Environment Engineer for more than a year before departing and enrolling in an MBA programme in the United Kingdom. 

He returned to India in 2009 and co-founded Hestia Studio Pvt Ltd with a friend, investing Rs 5 lakh in the company. In its first year, the company made Rs 1 crore in revenue. 

Between 2010 and 2015, Samrat worked on a variety of different projects while Hestia was looked after by his friend and business partner. At this moment, he was also considering starting a smoothie franchise.

He graduated from SRM College in Chennai with a bachelor's degree in electronics and instrumentation in 2006, then worked for Infosys as a Test Environment Engineer for more than a year before departing and enrolling in an MBA programme in the United Kingdom. 

He returned to India in 2009 and co-founded Hestia Studio Pvt Ltd with a friend, investing Rs 5 lakh in the company. In its first year, the company made Rs 1 crore in revenue. 

Between 2010 and 2015, Samrat worked on a variety of different projects while Hestia was looked after by his friend and business partner. At this moment, he was also considering starting a smoothie franchise.

In 2016, he launched the first Drunken Monkey location in Hyderabad, in a 700-square-foot facility with five employees and 200 smoothie varieties. Their smoothies are made entirely of natural ingredients and do not contain any preservatives. 

Smoothies are priced between Rs 90 and Rs 250, with dry fruit and watermelon being the most popular flavours. 

Smoothie bowls were recently introduced. His wife, who has a doctorate in agricultural sciences, runs the household and has no intention of joining him in the business.