Friendship Day special : From Best Friends to Business Partners: Building a Venture on Trust

Our friendship really is the foundation of this partnership. Our families have known each other for years, but it was a casual dinner conversation about coffee that brought us together in a new way. What started as a shared passion soon turned into countless conversations about the future of coffee in India and before we knew it, we were exploring the idea of building something together.

As coffee enthusiasts ourselves, we both loved the convenience of coffee pods but struggled to find an Indian brand that delivered the quality and experience we were looking for. We also wanted to make the pod eco-system more affordable in India . That gap is what inspired us to launch ELEVENS Coffee to make specialty coffee more accessible through a product that combines convenience, consistency, and genuinely great taste.

Becoming business partners felt like a natural next step because our strengths complement each other so well. Gautam brings deep experience in F&B, while Jai's background in tech and finance adds a different lens to how we approach the business. Trust has been central to everything. We share the same core values, respect each other's expertise, and have clearly defined day-to-day responsibilities, while every major decision is made jointly.

Our friendship has shaped how we work. It lets us communicate openly, push back on each other's ideas, and support one another through every milestone. More than building a coffee brand, our shared ambition has always been to build something with purpose, a business that can outlive us and keep making an impact for years to come.

Most companies begin with a business plan, a market opportunity, or a shared vision. The Pittch began with something more personal: friendship, trust, and nearly a decade of shared experiences.

The journey began in 2015 at Wizcraft, where Sunil Nazare, Co-Founder and Director of The Pittch, was then serving as Head of Client Servicing. He interviewed Sonny Sharma for a client servicing role. Sonny joined as an executive and later transitioned into operations, a space where he discovered his strengths and developed his expertise.

Around the same time, Sonny’s childhood friend, Vishal Garg, also began his journey with Wizcraft as a freelancer before eventually joining the organisation full-time.

At the time, none of the three could have imagined that their professional journeys would one day lead them to build a business together. Yet, over nearly a decade, they worked alongside each other on multiple projects, navigating complex mandates, demanding timelines, and last-minute challenges across events of every scale. With each experience, they built not only professional expertise but also a deeper understanding of one another’s strengths, USPs, and areas of development.

When the opportunity arose to build something of their own, the foundation was already firmly in place. Together, they launched The Pittch, an event management brand focused on the conceptualisation, planning, and execution of impactful brand experiences.

Today, the company has partnered with leading brands including Myntra, Diet Coke, Amazon Prime Video, Royal Enfield, WWM, JioStar, and SkillBox, bringing ideas to life through thoughtfully crafted and engaging experiences.

As the company continues to grow, the founders believe their greatest strength goes beyond industry experience. It lies in the friendship, trust, and alignment they share qualities that enable them to navigate challenges, make difficult decisions, and continue building together.

For Sonny, Sunil and Vishal, entrepreneurship was not simply a result of their friendship. Their friendship gave them the confidence to take the leap into entrepreneurship, while the trust they built over the years gave them the foundation to build something meaningful together.

People often say your sibling is your first friend. For us, that has always been true. We were fortunate enough to find our best friend for life in each other long before we became business partners.

Growing up together meant we understood each other’s personalities, strengths and ambitions instinctively. As we grew older, our careers took us in different directions. One of us found a passion for creating exceptional flavours through the culinary world, while the other explored engineering, finance and innovation. Although our journeys were different, they were always driven by the same desire to build something meaningful.

That shared vision led us to co-found Latambarcem Brewers. Trust was never something we had to earn because it had been built over a lifetime. Instead, our focus was on playing to our individual strengths. Today, Ishan leads the company’s strategy, finance and innovation as CEO, while Anish oversees brewing, product development and operations as Co-founder and COO.

One of the biggest advantages of building a business together is that we’re incredibly in sync. We often say we’re able to build almost twice as fast because we already understand how the other person thinks. The handover of responsibilities is effortless, communication is instinctive, and the trust and guardrails are already in place. We spend less time aligning and more time building.

Building brands like Maka Di, Borécha, Super Maka and now Life6 has been an incredible journey filled with both challenges and milestones. Like any brothers, we have disagreements, but they’ve only strengthened our ability to make better decisions together.

Looking back, we believe our greatest strength has never just been our business; it has been the trust, respect and lifelong bond that continue to guide everything we do.

Coming from a business family, we were always surrounded by conversations about entrepreneurship, resilience, and creating something meaningful. But when we decided to build Humuss Beauty together, we wanted it to reflect our own vision and values. While we are siblings, we've always been more like friends, and that friendship has shaped the way we work every day.

Like any startup, the journey has come with its share of challenges, uncertainties, and countless decisions. What has helped us navigate it all is the trust we've built over the years. We communicate openly, respect each other's perspectives, and never hesitate to question ideas if it leads to a better outcome. Our differences have become our biggest strength, allowing us to approach problems from different angles while staying committed to the same goal.

As first-time founders building a brand from the ground up, we've learned that entrepreneurship is as much about relationships as it is about business. Having someone who understands your vision, celebrates your wins, and stands by you during setbacks makes all the difference. Humuss Beauty is not just a business for us, it's the result of years of trust, shared values, and a friendship that continues to grow stronger with every milestone we achieve together.

This Friendship Day, we celebrate the friendships that go beyond shared memories and become the foundation for shared dreams. The stories of these entrepreneurs remind us that when friendship is built on trust, respect, and a shared vision, it can evolve into a partnership that stands the test of time. Because businesses may be built on ideas, but the most lasting ones are built on trust. And sometimes, the best business partner is the friend who believed in you long before there was a business to build.