My Journey
My Story
Entrepreneur, Retailer, Business Transformation Expert, Brand Artist, Blogger, Travel Enthusiast, Leather Connoisseur, Senna & Raja Fan.
About Balachandar
With over 24 years of experience in retail, Balachandar R specializes in transforming legacy brands. A recipient of the prestigious D&B Academic Gold Medal Award, Balachandar earned his Master’s in International Business before becoming the Head of Retail for Asia at Hidesign, helping drive the brand’s growth until 2010.
As the co-founder of India’s first organized laundry brand Wassup, Balachandar has proven his innovative spirit. Over the last decade, he has been instrumental in leading transformations for renowned brands like Junior Kuppanna, Naturals, Wangs Kitchen, Kanakavalli, and Thulasi Pharmacy, among others.
Current and Additional Roles
- Partner & Executive Director at Junior Kuppanna, a top non-veg cuisine brand with 48 restaurants across five countries.
- Co-Founder & Partner at Blue Koi Ventures, specializing in investing, transforming, and scaling legacy brands, particularly in South India.
- Honorary Council Member of Retailers Association of India (RAI), Tamil Nadu
- Co-Chapter Head for the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), Chennai Chapter.
- Member of the management committee for Startup Thamizha, Tamil Nadu’s first startup reality show on TV.
Core Areas
Business Transformation for Legacy Brands
Balachandar specializes in modernizing family-owned and legacy brands, guiding them through complete transformation. From rebranding and restructuring to operational streamlining, he ensures these businesses remain competitive while retaining their core identity. His strategies focus on process improvements, human resources development, and driving revenue growth.
Retail and F&B Consulting
With extensive experience in the retail and F&B sectors, Balachandar provides expert consultation to optimize brand positioning, enhance customer experiences, and scale operations efficiently. His approach is data-driven, ensuring market relevance and operational agility.
Franchising & International Expansion
Balachandar excels at creating scalable business models, particularly through franchising and geographic expansion. He develops robust franchise systems and global market entry strategies that allow businesses to replicate their success internationally while ensuring consistency in quality and service. His experience with brands like Junior Kuppanna and Wangs Kitchen showcases his ability to help businesses thrive beyond local markets.
These services are designed to ensure brands not only sustain but excel in today’s competitive environment, leveraging his deep expertise in business transformation, retail innovation, and strategic growth.my story
This is my story
Hi, this is Bala, the Founder and CEO of Wassup Laundry, India’s leading on-demand laundry services. As a pioneer in the laundry space, Wassup has been taking steadfast strides in organising the laundry sector. The best part is that it has inspired many professionals along the way, and 80+ startups have followed in our footsteps. Together, we aim to empower and enrich the livelihood of washermen.
In another dimension, I work as a Business Transformation Expert for many family run and promoter driven businesses, and help them to transform their business to Professional run and scalable businesses. Specialising in branding, marketing, retail and fundraising, I have built and been an integral part of well established and successful brands in Retail, services, food and fashion.
Formerly, I have worked as the Retail Head Asia at Hidesign between 2003-2008, and played an integral part in their expansion within India and worldwide. I was involved in the scale up of Hidesign from 5 stores to over 80+ stores and 300 points of sale!
My love for retail keeps growing, and I was a Founded Next gen Forum of RAI in 2013 and have contributed in my own way as Council Member and Volunteer at the Retailers Association of India and their activities for the benefit of retail community.
Looking back, I have come a long way! After graduating with a Masters degree in International Business, my family’s export business gave me the much needed exposure into the working model of businesses. The challenges and the unexplored opportunities piqued my interest, and laid the foundation for my exhilarating journey
I have over 20 years of experience in retail, branding and fundraising. My passion and dedication keeps growing with each year!
My vision is to help transform 100 Native and heritage brands from India into Global brands and to make Wassup the leading laundry brand in India, and revolutionise the livelihood of over 11.2 million washermen.
MY SKILLS
My Skills
Retail has become an integral part of my life, and I take pride in giving back to the retail community with a heartfelt passion. Apart from being an entrepreneur, I am a business transformation expert, and have helped many new and established retailers to build their brands and scale up. My sweet spot of work includes working with Family run and Promoter driven companies that are looking to move towards professionalising and scaling up. I specialise in Business transformation which includes – Brand management, Fundraise, marketing strategy, technology transformation, martech, leadership management, growth hacks, customer engagement strategies and many others.
Achievements and Accolades
- Recognised as one of the TOP 100 RETAIL MINDS in India by CMO Asia.
- Recognised as a pioneer in the organised Laundry industry.
- Hony President - NextGen Retailers Forum which is a group of over 200 young CEOs and MDs from Retail Industry across India.
- Wassup awarded the TOP 3 Retail Startup 2017 by Future Group & RAI at Retail Startup Awards.
- Awarded ’Dun & Bradstreet Academic Gold Medal‘ for best academic performance during Masters.
- Adjudged the ’Best Outgoing student‘ in Masters Program run by PSG Tech & IIFT.