Madangopal Gounder, a Mumbai-born entrepreneur, turned an early startup setback into a thriving offline branding and marketing venture called Brandola Marketing Solutions. After quitting his job in late 2023, he launched Brandola with ₹25 lakhs of personal savings, aiming to fix reliability gaps he saw in the offline branding industry — notably poor execution, inconsistent quality and missed timelines by many incumbents. His end-to-end design-to-installation model prioritised accountability and execution excellence, differentiating the firm in a crowded market.

In early 2024, Brandola quickly won traction, generating ₹30 lakhs from a single client within three months even before its own production facility was ready. By March, an in-house printing setup gave the company tighter quality control and cost efficiency. However, November 2024 brought a sharp blow: a series of hiring mistakes and supply issues triggered a ₹1.5 crore loss, threatening the young, bootstrapped business. Rather than retreat, Gounder restructured teams, sharpened processes and galvanised staff, turning the year around and restoring financial stability.

Today, Brandola employs over 85 people and serves more than two dozen brands across India, offering turnkey services like visual merchandising, signage, POSM production, logistics and planogram audits. Its AI-powered project platform supports deployments in hundreds of cities, improving transparency and execution tracking. The company reported an annual revenue of ₹15 crore in FY2024–25 and plans to nearly double growth next year, with ambitions to become India’s leading offline branding partner.

Gounder’s journey reflects resilience, hands-on operations and a focus on disciplined execution as keys to startup success.