heres a recipe for success take the ecofriendly fad mix in ethnic chic add a dash of tribal art garnish with some savvy marketing and you will be laughing all the way to the bank ulhasnagarbased kamlesh hotchandani 31 does that every day the analyst with a private company also runs a parttime business that sells ecofriendly bamboo furniture and cane products the green gold furniture and products are sourced from tribals of assam and have aroused interest of quite a few furniture dealers in mumbai pune and thane selling ecofriendly products is one way of giving back to nature what we have received from it says hotchandanito be sure this is not a pioneering venture hotchandani got hooked to the idea two years ago inspired by the pathbreaking success of prashant lingams bamboo house india he travelled to assam and lived with the tribal people for almost a month understanding the business and establishing contacts while i was in assam i studied all aspects of how these bamboo and cane products are made the time each item takes the sources of the raw material and the costs involved he saysarmed with this knowledge he came back to ulhasnagar and started green gold in october 2009 he also set up a website agreenanswercoin to showcase the bamboo furniture and other items he has almost 200 such items listed on the site the price ranges from rs 20 for a pen stand to rs 20000 for an elaborate sofa set clients can browse the website and place their orders the order is forwarded to assam from where the product is sent by train it takes about 15 days to be delivered to the client but some products can take up to 40 daysfor hotchandani this is a low margin and low volume game he barely makes rs 1000015000 a month from this business much of this is because of the low volumes the business is doing right now the monthly sales are around rs 1 lakh but the overheads and procurement costs are very high leaving only 1015 on the table for hotchandani going forward he expects sales to pick up if bamboo products and cane furniture becomes a middleclass ragestill hotchandani is satisfied with the progress that his fledgling venture has made in the past one and a half years for someone who was struggling to find his feet and switched jobs in rapid succession during the past seven years the very thought of an additional source of income is comforting he has seen the gloomy days when the economic slowdown took jobs away and put life out of gear for thousands of call centre employees like him all that seems history now i finally have stability in life even if i were to lose my regular job today i can depend on green gold to help me sail through he says