The 30-year-old,Rasheed Kappan is today one of India’s exclusive breed of mechanics capable of repairing an Apple product!
Agarwal’s obsession with Apple products has today made him a millionaire, the master of a business with a Rs 3 crore turnover. His already upbeat customer base of 2,000 plus is on the cusp of a hyperboost.
For, the man who once stared into a hopeless future, is ready for an expansion drive that would put his footprint in Pune, Mumbai, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Chennai and beyond!
A faint hope rose in the horizon when his employed brother in Bengaluru helped him get a job at a friend’s mobile service centre. But Agarwal showed his calibre when he ventured to repair laptops and desktops on the side. “That was in February 2012. The first month, we earned Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 1.5 lakh the next month, all without any investment.”
“A neighbouring Apple mechanic brought one Macbook to our shop. I didn’t know anything about Apple then.
But I managed to dismantle it and repair it.” That opened the floodgates. Over the next few months, Agarwal would repair a slew of MacBooks, iPhones and iPads. The process had begun,he said.
Three years ago, his passion for all things Apple made him set up a service centre in Koramangala, Bengaluru. Starting with an initial investment of Rs 2 lakh, he gradually acquired a range of high precision tools necessary to work with iPhone, iPad and MacBooks. .
His Apple obsession has helped Agarwal grab a piece of every new device launched in the market, the first day of the release. The immediate step is to dismantle it and see what is inside. “The iPhone-6 was launched in India on October 17, last year. I picked up six phones on the first day and dismantled them.”
Agarwal’s eyes are now set on the iWatch. “It was launched in the US on April 24. I expect a lot of interest for this product in India,” says he. Wearable gadgets are surely the next big thing for his business.
Agarwal is also an Apple-certified Mac technician now, arguably the only one in the country. Keen to have many more of his calibre, he has proposed to start a course at the city’s Koramangala centre soon. “We, as a company, are now planning to have our own building for a training centre,” says he