Roochi Traders, Inc. |
 |
When 14-year old Neeraj "Mickey" Sachdeva left India and came to the United States in 1982, it didn’t take him long to jump head-first into American commerce. First, Mickey took on a newspaper route. Then he got a job washing recreational vehicles. He flipped hamburgers at Wendy’s. Had a stint as a cashier at Knott’s Berry Farm. Worked in a General Motors plant. Took a job as a bank teller. Still a teenager, Mickey already had had more jobs than most 30-year-olds.
"It gave me an insight into a lot of different things," says Mickey. "How to deal with people, how to handle money, how businesses work."
|
Apparently he learned his lessons well. Mickey, now 35 years old, is vice president of Roochi Traders Inc., a leading distributor of sportswear and active wear. Roochi is based in the City of Commerce, California, but the company also has offices in New York, Miami, and India. Roochi also has two subsidiaries Vimco Enterprise, which deals in the importing, distribution
and trading of marble and granite, and Universal Impressions, which does the sort of heat-transfer printing typically seen on t-shirts. |
| |
|
| Company Roots |
|
Roochi Traders Inc. is the proverbial large oak that grew from a small acorn. The company was founded by Mickey’s father, Vishwa Sachdeva, back in 1982, the year Mickey and his dad came to America.
Landing in the country with only $25 in his pocket, Vishwa started importing fabrics from Japan with the help of some relatives. Then in 1986, when the Japanese yen turned strong, and it was no longer profitable to import from Japan, Vishwa began selling garments to Indian shops in the Los Angeles area. Mickey’s mother, Prem, would sew from 6 AM to midnight every day, making the clothes that Vishwa would sell. Mickey’s brother, Vikram (Vik), helped out with the family business, and so did Mickey when he wasn’t busy with schoolwork. |
|
By the time he was in the 11th grade, Mickey, always the budding entrepreneur, began pressuring his father to let him take on a bigger role in the business. "But my dad, a typically Indian father, wanted me to concentrate on my education first," says Mickey. "I was very persistent and told him I would bug him every day about it. My father finally said, ‘OK, I’ll let him feel the heat of the sun, feel what it’s like to be out in the real world.’"
Vishwa gave Mickey a box full of undergarments and had Vik drop off his younger brother at a Los Angeles flea market. Mickey was told to sell the undergarments, but wasn’t given any instructions about how to do it. The resourceful Mickey managed to sell 20 dozen of the 24 dozen pieces he had in the box, and a businessman was born. |
| |
|
| Branching Out |
|
Mickey started selling garments out of the family garage, splitting his time between the fledging business and the college classes he had begun taking.
Mickey’s neighbor inadvertently gave him a push that proved to be exactly what Mickey and the business needed. Because large trucks were constantly rolling up to the Sachdeva house to drop off and carry away merchandise, his neighbor complained to the authorities. Local officials told him he could no longer use his garage as a commercial facility. So in 1988, after being kicked out of his makeshift warehouse, Mickey got a real warehouse, an 800-square-foot facility in Santa Fe Springs, California. |
 |
As the business grew, Mickey moved Roochi into larger warehouses, gaining several hundred square feet with each move. Today, the company is based in a 110,000-square-foot warehouse in the City of Commerce, its headquarters since 1996. The company also has distribution centers in New York and Miami, for a total of 165,000 square feet of warehouse space. |
|
|
