Transcript of Interview with Founder of ArtWaley, Priyal Ostwal.

Priyal Ostwal – Daughter of Tr.Gautam Ostwal and Manju Ostwal .

Hello Ma’am,

Thank you for taking this time out of your schedule to discuss your journey with us. I
hope this is a good time to talk.

Yes, Please go on.

So, like we mentioned in our mail, this discussion is for academic uses for our course
called case studies for entrepreneurs where we get to know the life, journey of many
entrepreneurs. And as a part of it, we are supposed to personally get in touch with an
entrepreneur and get to know their journey from the start and draft a case study of it.

Sure, Sure. I get it.

1) So, I think we can get started on the discussion then. From what we understand,
We see that you have always had the inclination towards the wonders of painting
from your childhood. But is there a particular streak of thought process that you
went through when you wanted to start up Art-Waley?
Well, With the constant support of my parents, which I am very thankful for, I was free to
think and do what I wanted in a state where most people didn’t know where they wanted to
carve out their careers and had community restrictions from being a girl. Thankfully, none of
it stopped my fascination for art, painting and colours.

There were these moments where my work gained great accolades in the preliminary rounds
of card design and all. Along the way, I was also alarmed by the scenario wherein many
individuals in the art landscape were grappling to display their works and gain recognition
due to financial or social impediments.

So 2015, I came up with a solution to resolve this problem as well to satiate my own passion
and unveiled Artwaley, a platform for research-based artists to explore diverse materials and
studio facilities, connect with their peers across global markets and also merchandize their
work via marketing. And as of today, Artwaley is at a very good pace and we are becoming
famous all across.
2) What was it that attracted you towards art and painting, was there any inspiration or
it naturally came to you?

A. Like I said, since my childhood I loved to play with colours, curious to understand the
blend of paints and voice my heart out through different colourful strokes. During my college
days I refined my skills by contributing my major time towards it. Realising my passion I
wanted to take a step ahead and make it my profession. I can put it this way, since a child I
loved playing with colours and innocently created art through decorating the walls of the
house.

3) You're a successful entrepreneur at the age of 25, what made you make your passion
as your career so splendidly, so much so that Artwaley has become talk of the town and
one of the largest galleries for paintings and arts.

A. It is actually a wonderful thing that I realised my passion at a very young age and having
incredibly supportive parents to share it with and turning it into a profession. Art or painting
is always considered to be a hobby rather than profession but I strived towards making it a
profession and sharing the prosperity through art which was possible only because of the
support by my parents ( Manju and Gautam Ostwal ) , siblings (Nidhi and Aditya Ostwal who
are always there for me ) . Despite hailing from a Marwari community where are restrictions
are rampant for a girl to be a professional, my parents gave me enormous support in
establishing Artwaley. Any thought needs capable hands to turn it into reality, just then the
Co-founders Gautam Ostwal (My dad , My strength ) and Naveen Jha ( X – Deshpande
Foundation CEO ) joined hands together to make it so. At Artwaley we offer Paintings ,
Artifacts , 3D Murals , sculptures , Customised art .

4) Can you elaborate about the milestones by Artwaley achieved thus far? And you
journey as an artist so far?

Talking about our achievements,

we were Invited by Prime minister for Champions of change by NITI Aayog.

Selected for Global entrepreneurship summit GES 2017 during Ivanka Trump’s visit.

Selected for CEO under 30 – CEO insights.

Artwaley story video was selected for best film award at National Entrepreneurship network

In Top10 for Tie Luminous award Delhi.

First place in Business Plan competition in Global JITO 2015 held in Dubai (among 40
global participants)

Second place in Tiecon Business Plan competition 2016 held in Hubli

Runner up in Business Plan competition in WE-TIE

Awarded by Prafulla Art Foundation , GOA

we have beautified the Hubli and Belgaum airport with our artworks. Beautification of
Badami railway station with 3d murals depicting their cultural heritage. Beautification of
schools in Dubai and successfully completed turnkey project for well known hotel chains and
builders/architects.

As an artist, I have enhanced my skills in different styles of artworks being updated on new
upcoming trends in the industry so as to cater to all the future growing needs.

4) What makes the artwork range (paintings, sculptures and other forms) of Artwaley
unique and stand apart from its competitors? What is it’s USP?

A. Artwaley strongly believed and aimed at empowering the artist by providing them a global
platform to display their paintings, as we rightly said “shared prosperity through art”. We are
also associated with artist, art collectors, creative minds, Art galleries and museums(soon)
which is one of its kind in the industry. We are aiming at collaborating all the creative works
under the same roof by growing together achieving and spreading divinity through art.

5) How good is the online platform to sell paintings? Tell us something about the
response you’ve attained.

A. As the world is turning digital, online platform is the significant medium to reach the mass
audience effectively. Talking about paintings, the online platform such as the website, E-
commerce and social networking sites has an upper hand in providing global reach for the
company. As far as the response is concerned, we have a testimonial blog on our website
where you can find our happy clients and their reviews on our products also to add on to this,
our online platform also uses VR technologies – where you can see the artworks on your wall
even before buying the art . Virtually presentation of art on various interior options
empowering the customer with better decision making abilities only at www.artwaley.com

6) Could you enumerate some of your noteworthy milestones so far?

During my period as a freelancer, I also set up an art gallery at Hotel Naveen in Hubli, further
understanding the market and its structure we later evolved to our franchise model. Presently,
we are incubated at Sandbox Startups of Deshpande Foundation in Hubli. In no time,
Artwaley has evolved into a highly regarded and accomplished firm that cherishes its art
works of exemplary standards and unmatched diversity. Our artists are in fact endowed with
a bulk of opportunities and the right work environment to exchange their ideas, learn,
experiment and grow while they exhibit their concept of art sometimes by conducting
campaigns wherein celebrities create artworks through their assistance. While embracing a
treasure trove of 1500+ hand painted original art collection and associations with 75+
versatile artists PAN India, we are also proud for having obtained the first round of funding
for Artwaley on valuation of Rs.20 crore.

7) Please share with us the remarkable memory of your tryst with Artwaley; we've
heard that your paintings are with Ramesh Babu, Phill Britten, Will Poole and many
such successful people. What is close to your heart?

A. Well, there must be many as a matter of fact, But if we are speaking of celebrity gidting
that you are talking about, All that I think about is my first painting gifted to Ronnie
Screwvala. This was during my college days when I used to attend exhibition and also be a
part of it, during one such exhibitions I was privileged to have Ronnie Sir visit my stall and
was glad to present one of my paintings which captured his heart. I personally believe that the
first memory of coming across such one such eminent personalities is the everlasting one as it
was way before the starting my career. To be more precise, let me quote their Testimonial

Testimonial by Ronnie and Zarina Screwvala

“Dear priyal
Ronnie and I live your gorgeous painting of a Labrador. We fell in love with it because
it looks exactly like our dog Sprite. We love the innovative way you've used colour as
well. Priyal’s paintings portray colour, life and human emotions, all-in-one.”

7 )Kindly walk us through the challenges you were posed with while becoming an
entrepreneur. What strategies you adopted to combat them?

Regardless of tackling multiple challenges during the transition from an artist to an

entrepreneur, I managed to learn from this crossover and overcame the biggest challenge of
matching art to the personality of clients. This indeed was possible by customizing packages
exclusively for each customer in accordance with his/her tastes and personality which in turn
elevated my position both as a budding artist and a successful entrepreneur in the industry.

I strongly believe that firstly I must love what I do to enkindle people around me to work
relentlessly towards achieving the vision. Besides, commitment, self-discipline, team
orientation by knowing them and sharing a common vision with them, creating the right work
ambience and showing respect towards people and work are the instrumental traits one ought
to possess to sustain as a good leader.

Another important factor I would like to mention when we speak of strategies and becoming
a successful Entrepreneur which, our generation clearly fails to demark in this economic race,
is being a good human being. The most basic and fundamental factors of the management
lessons are something that everyone learns at home in the form of culture, I could never thank
my Mother Manju Ostwal enough for providing me with such an environment to help me
build a strong moral compass which constantly guides me to date.

8) You were also invited by Honourable Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi,
for "Champions of Change" by NITI Aayog, how was your experience?

A. Firstly, to have received the invitation from our Honourable Prime Minister - Narendra
Modiji and getting selected among 150 start ups across the country was a thrilling experience
in the whole journey of Artwaley until now. We were all grouped into 6 groups covering all
the industries .Amitabh Kant ji (NITI Aayog CEO )gave us all an opportunity to meet Modiji
, Central Ministers , various leaders and put across my views on the various sector – I was in
the SOFT POWER group that includes: Art, culture and hospitality. It was a three day
summit where we discussed on different topics and exchanged views on ongoing issues of
various sectors with few great founders like Ritesh (OYO rooms ) , Ashish Shah (Book My
show ) , Priyanka ( Popxo) , Shradha sharma (yourstory ) and many more.

9) Throw some light on the new concepts of paintings, celebrity artworks, bulk gifting,
corporate gifts, and customized artworks at Artwaley. Something that you would love to
share with you readers

A. The new concept of paintings that we’ve employed is Impasto, Pop Art, Foil Art(gold and
silver) and few more. The recently added celebrity artwork (Works done by celebrities for
artwaley ) is by Mansi Kirloskar, Mohandas Pai ( co founder Infosys ) , Malini
Agarwal(Miss Malini) , Charu Sharma and few more. These days people do not prefer sweets
, perishable products for gifting – they like being different , personalising it and adding value
to their money , The corporate , bulk , festive , event gifting that we have recently added are
desktop/table top artworks and customized portraits (realistic/pop).Talking about customised
artwork as already mentioned that we are associated with 150+ artists of versatile skills and
2500+ curate work – we believe we have the capability to curate any kind of artwork as per
the requirement .We have recently started beautification of educational institutions through
creative – projects done at Chennai , hubli , bangalore (ongoing) Dubai .

10) Please cast some light on your propositions for the future of Artwaley.

Predominantly known as the one-stop-shop for any genre of art, Artwaley is striving to
become the world’s largest art holder. The most recent development which was in our
pipeline since the last one year is the four tie ups we recently entered into, we are now also
present in Bangalore , Jodhpur, London and Australia. With this we have also made our first
international presence. Reminiscing our accomplished projects – painting at Hubli airport,
murals for Badami railway station, 300 paintings for a dedicated project, revamping corporate
office spaces with art, and beautification of colleges and schools, we keep moving forward by
breathing the quote from the bestseller – The secret ‘If you believe in yourself and if you feel
you can, you will; if you feel you cannot, you will not’.

11) What are your suggestions for employees to excel in their work? Also, how do you
stay abreast with the industrial advancements?
Employees at Artwaley are seamlessly empowered to think out of the box and implement
their ideas in order to cope up with the daily challenges at work. Clearly by exploring group
solutions and competing with each other in a healthy fashion, they are capable of devising
exceptional solutions and business practices followed by cultivating team work and
responsibility. My personal suggestion for them is to remain energetic and fervent in each
endeavour and recount ‘There are no shortcuts to success’, thereby encouraging them to work
extra hours with no resentment and perfectly balance their personal & professional lives.

Moreover, I ascertain to participate in varied mentorship programs, seminars, conferences

and events like Champions of Change by NITI Aayog, GES Summit during Ivanka Trump’s
visit, Jito Growth Summit, TiECON Events and others to gain profound insights on the
industry by associating with eminent leaders and inspirations to make uncharted strides

I keep moving forward by breathing the quote from the bestseller (The secret book ) as
quoted and preached by my dad to us – ‘If you believe in yourself and if you feel you can,
you will; if you feel you cannot, you will not’.