He's Built a ₹3,000 Device That Does What a ₹70,000 One Does - Hunny Bhagchandani, Torchit

What does an assistive device for the blind cost? Anywhere between ₹50,000 to a lakh in India, whether you import one or buy one locally. Hunny Bhagchandani's Saarthi does the same job for ₹3,199. That's about 1/20th of the imported alternatives.

He started Torchit in 2017 after watching a visually impaired mentor get badly hurt on a street because the device in his hand was not good enough. Three years of research and development followed. 16 prototypes. The whole thing nearly killed him before it ever shipped a single unit, while his classmates from his engineering college were getting fat job offers and he was still figuring out how to package a torch.

Today Torchit has impacted 1.5 million lives. He has a national award from the President of India. He's on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in both India and Asia. The company crossed 25 crore in revenue this year and is on track for 50 crore next year. He famously walked off Shark Tank India Season 1 without a deal, then raised a similar amount within days from his existing investors.

This conversation is about building hard tech for an audience nobody else wanted to serve, why the imported devices were 20x more expensive, what the "for the blind by the blind" model actually looks like in practice, and the 2% weekly growth philosophy that compounded into market leadership.

If you're building anything in hardware, deep tech, or social impact, this one will rewire how you think about pricing, distribution and patience.

Key Takeaways: Building Hard Tech for an Underserved Market

The Pricing Math:

• WHO data shows 2 billion people globally need assistive devices, including 236 million visually impaired
• Imported assistive devices cost 30,000 to 50,000 rupees, Torchit's Saarthi costs 3,199 rupees
• The R&D was funded by Government of Gujarat grants, so there was no upfront cost to recover

The Innovator vs Entrepreneur Cap:

• Innovators want to keep adding features, entrepreneurs stop and sell so feedback can drive the next version
• Hunny used the iPhone analogy: Apple knows what iPhone 17 will do when shipping iPhone 15, but ships and waits for feedback
• Overbuilding is a top reason hardware startups die, the product becomes too complex or too futuristic for the actual market

The Distribution Innovation:

• "For the blind, by the blind" model trains visually impaired users as micro-entrepreneurs who train other users
• Selling 2,000 units in batch one was achievable, especially after pre-validating demand by visiting 5 blind schools and getting 7,000 unit interest
• 70-75 corporate CSR partners now sponsor Torchit devices for users who can't afford even the affordable price

Q: How did the first three years of R&D actually feel?

Hunny: I just graduated from my engineering and I had a prototype in my hand. The Government of Gujarat trusted us and gave the grant. Then I was struggling from one organization to another, one set of people to another, showing our demo, learning from their experiences, feedbacks, suggestions, and putting it all together in one product.

Being an innovator is different from being an entrepreneur. There's a very thin line. The innovator wants to innovate new, new things. The entrepreneur stops, sells, creates, sells. So 2017 was all about traveling, getting feedback, and being an industrial engineer. I'm not a coder. So managing everything at the same time, websites, social media, the feedbacks from users, applying in new competitions, traveling, pitching in front of big investors and founders.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Every founder thinks they need to be the visionary. Hunny calls out the trap. The innovator cap and the entrepreneur cap are different jobs. Knowing when to stop iterating and start shipping is what separates founders who go to market from founders who keep tinkering until they run out of money.

Q: Walk us through the iPhone metaphor you keep using.

Hunny: When I was developing Saarthi, it was a very good product, but I wanted to develop more. The family was asking what are you doing, you're not earning, and you're the only engineer from my family background. A mentor told me a simple thing. When the end user is ready to pay for your service or product, stop innovating, take their feedback. Then again iterate.

It's like iPhone 15. They know what iPhone 17 will do, but iPhone 15 stops, takes feedback, then launches iPhone 16, gets feedbacks, launches iPhone 17. They need that iPhone 17 idea at the stage of iPhone 15. But they stop, sell, get feedback, relaunch with new innovations and new upgrades. So this is the cap which we have to take on and take off.

When you overbuild, the product becomes very complex. It becomes very high-tech, futuristic, or the market is not ready. I've seen many hardware and even software startups fail just because of the product. They don't fail, but the product fails. Too much tech in one, too many features in one. Your product never can be the best one. It just gets better day by day.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Apple already knows what iPhone 17 looks like when they're shipping iPhone 15. They ship anyway. The roadmap exists, but feedback drives the timeline. Most hardware founders kill themselves trying to ship the future when the market hasn't even paid for the present. Sell what works now, capture feedback, iterate.

Q: Imported assistive devices cost 50,000 rupees. Saarthi costs 3,200. How is that possible?

Hunny: The simple answer is the scale of production and the serviceability. WHO says 1 billion people have some kind of disability and require 2 billion assistive devices. Coming from a Sindhi business family, the inner calculation was straightforward. Yeah, there's a huge market. We can put the price at 1,000 rupees. I'm not trying to sell 2 billion products, I'm trying to sell 2 million products. Then it becomes a big business opportunity.

236 million people are visually impaired globally. We picked 20 million as our addressable target. So can I not sell 2,000 units the first time? I told my incubation, my father, my mentors that my first batch should be 2,000 units. When you make 2,000 as a bill of quantity, the vendors give you very competitive prices.

One mentor said, can you sell 2,000? I said 20 million is the market and 2,000 is achievable. He said, before I give you permission, can you go to five blind schools and take requirement? I took requirement of 7,000. So 2,000 was very achievable.

The products in Western countries cost $500 to $800, which converted in 2017 to 30,000 to 50,000 rupees. My products cost 2,500 to make and I can sell at 3,200 very easily. My users don't want fancy packaging, they don't want marketing, they don't want very good branding. They want a good product, very accurate, with good training.

And I don't have R&D cost to recover because the entire R&D was borne by the Government of Gujarat. So we can put our price as affordable as possible.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Three things compound to make the 20x price gap possible. Volume math from a massive global TAM. Government grants covering R&D. And a brutally honest read on what users actually value. Hunny's customers don't want premium packaging. They want a working device. Everyone else priced for the western consumer. He priced for the Indian school.

Q: Your distribution model is "for the blind, by the blind." How does that work?

Hunny: Everyone wants to be financially independent. Everyone has different abilities. If you've ever encountered a blind person, they're very good at communication, very good at talking, very good at storytelling because they hear stories. Why not use their abilities?

When I was testing one of the prototypes, I heard this comment that I was doing marketing, so people were taking me a different way. I decided then, why not have a visually impaired person doing personal marketing of our products? Nobody can say no. I'm fortunate I heard that comment and worked on it. Getting criticism and working on it is what takes Torchit to the next direction.

We developed communities. We made master trainers and they go in their local areas. They train, they become our micro entrepreneurs, they provide the training, they provide all the services support. That's how the production at scale and the supply chain network help reduce the cost.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Most companies hire able-bodied salespeople to sell to disabled users. Hunny inverted it. The visually impaired user is the salesperson, the trainer, and the micro-entrepreneur. The trust model is unbeatable. A blind user buying from another blind user gets a peer review, a service contract, and a training session in one transaction.

Q: Was there a moment where your heart melted and you thought, this is exactly why I'm doing this?

Hunny: The Torchit journey started with a melted heart. The first day I saw the accident of a blind user bumping into a construction site and getting seven stitches on his forehead. That's still in my heart today. Whatever we do is around the independence of our users. How can they live a life with more dignity?

Of course, with our affordable product, if you go to tier 7 cities or tier 5 cities, there are people who still cannot afford even this affordable product. So we have to find donors who can sponsor the device. We can identify, do a need assessment, and give the device along with training. That's why the CSR angle came in 2018. ONGC was one of the first companies, then many followed. Today more than 70 to 75 corporates are partnered with us.

Donations require a different mindset. Transparency, especially. Whenever you give a donation, you think whether your money is going to the safe place. From day one, we are very clear and very transparent on our systems. That helped us boost confidence.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Even at 3,200 rupees, the device is too expensive for the bottom of the pyramid. So Hunny built a parallel CSR-funded distribution channel that 75+ corporates pay for. Most founders see CSR as a marketing budget. Hunny treats it as a primary distribution channel for users who otherwise wouldn't get reached.

Q: From your first thousand customers to 1.5 million lives impacted. What was the strategy?

Hunny: Patience. Never reduce your patience. Persistence is the second thing. One of my mentors told me a simple thing. Grow 2 percent weekly. Whatever stage you are at, grow 2 percent weekly. Don't think about a 10-year plan, don't think about a 5-year plan. Think about how you can grow 2 percent next week. When you successfully develop these 2 percents over 50 weeks, you are already doubled.

By God's grace, we've been following this for the last five years. Constantly from 1 crore revenue to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 6, 6 to 7, 7 to 13 crore last to last year. This year we have 25 crore. Next year we are touching 50 crore. These are not just in revenue, but in the lives we are going to impact.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: 2% weekly compounds to 180% annually. Most founders chase moonshots and burn out in 18 months. Hunny picked the slowest, most boring metric possible and stuck with it for five years. The result is market leadership. Compounding works for revenue the same way it works for capital.

Q: There's a community question. What were the biggest challenges during the three years of R&D?

Hunny: Communication. What I want to develop and what they're developing is completely different. Vendors are developing what they want to develop, not what I want them to develop. So I changed one vendor to another vendor. When we have a half-cooked product from one vendor, the second vendor will not take hands on that. He starts from the beginning.

I took my vendor on the ground, talked to a blind person. The vendor was sending suggestions like this is happening in South Korea, why are you not incorporating this. Of course as an innovator I also wanted to develop that. But that development has a cost I don't have, takes time I don't have, and increases the product complexity.

I'm thinking about a blind person in Vishakhapatnam, in Jharkhand, in Jammu Kashmir. They don't want a complex product. They want Nokia 2030. They don't want iPhone. They don't want Samsung. We will develop Samsung later, but I want the Nokia first.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The classic R&D vendor trap. Engineers want to ship the most cool, complex thing they can build. Founders need to ship the simplest thing that solves the user's problem. Hunny had to physically take his vendors to meet a blind user before they understood. If your supply chain doesn't have empathy for the end user, you have to install it manually.

Q: You walked off Shark Tank Season 1 without a deal. What happened?

Hunny: I never imagined Shark Tank would get that popular because I was in the first season. Outside the tank, they were saying things like there's a founder, Roshni, taking her skin off. I was like, I'm not going to focus on what's in front. I'll just talk in front of Vinita and Anupam. The experience was super humbling, super nice, and not scripted at all.

I went with zero expectations. I had a big order in my hand right after COVID, our valuation justified at 70-75 crore. At last I could go up to 50 because I was on national television and wanted to maintain dignity. My previous angel investor was super supportive. He said, you go all the way, don't worry about anything, we are with you.

We did exploration. My previous investor gave money at 20-22 crore valuation. Anupam said he wanted to go in at that same valuation. I said that was before COVID, before we were even break-even of profit-making. Today we are profit making. I don't want to justify with my existing investors, so I said no.

Sony television cut it very nicely. It built my reputation in the market. After that I got more than thousands of comments on what a clear vision and clarity. Today we have a 150 crore valuation.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The lesson isn't that turning down sharks is brave. It's that Hunny had a fiduciary obligation to existing investors who had backed him pre-COVID. Walking off without a deal protected those relationships. Most founders panic on TV and take whatever's offered. Hunny had a longer time horizon than the cameras did.

Q: When founders are stuck in depression or aggression about the journey, what would you tell them?

Hunny: Trust the process. Trust your user feedbacks. That will allow you to be grounded. Even big founders with 25,000 crores of turnover annually go on the production line, do the quality check, weekly or monthly. The small things won't be told to you by your team, and the way you look at your organization, they won't look. When you go down, you find you can do much more.

I have met the prime minister, many other prime ministers, in Africa, in the UK. They are human beings. So all opportunities are not once in a lifetime. There are many other opportunities. Just be on the path, never cut off. Try, try, try and you will get success.

Don't think about money first. Money should be a byproduct. If you target only money, it will not work. The journey is more important than the destination. The process. Don't worry about the future, future is not in your control. Don't take stress on your past. Life is in today.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: "Be on the path. Never cut off." That's the entire philosophy. Most founders quit between year three and year five because they're optimizing for outcome rather than process. Hunny's framework is to grow 2% weekly, talk to users daily, and trust the compounding. Boring works.

Q: What advice would you give to younger entrepreneurs starting out?

Hunny: Trust the process. There is some divine intelligence that goes with you if you're passionate about your project. If you're passionate enough about a project, you do get success sooner or later. If you're not passionate, you get tired off very fast. Then you're about to fail something.

Numbers and money are not success. We are in the world of capitalism, so we value numbers a lot. But apart from that, your happiness doesn't measure with numbers. Even when you achieve your target, it feels OK. It's good. Not great. The journey is more important than the destination.

Give yourself a target, but not too many. Weekly target, because that is in your hands.

🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: "Weekly target. That's in your hands." Annual goals are aspirational. Quarterly OKRs are corporate. Weekly targets are operational. Hunny's mental model maps to what a founder can actually control. The future is not yours. Last week's results are not yours. Next week's targets, those are yours.

Final Thoughts: 2% Weekly, Compounded for a Decade

Hunny's parting reframe: "Your product never can be the best one. It just gets better day by day."

The bottom line: Torchit is what happens when a 22-year-old engineering graduate refuses to accept that assistive devices for the blind have to cost 50,000 rupees. The R&D was funded by Government of Gujarat. The first batch sold to schools. The distribution was built by training visually impaired users as micro-entrepreneurs. The CSR channel pays for users who can't afford even 3,200 rupees. Each piece reinforces the others.

What's striking is the discipline. Hunny doesn't talk about hockey stick growth. He talks about 2 percent weekly. He doesn't celebrate the Forbes lists, the national award, or the 25 crore revenue. He talks about journey over destination, weekly targets over annual ones, and grounding yourself by going to the production line. The numbers came because the process was right, not because the process was glamorous.

For founders in hardware or social impact, Torchit's story is permission to play the long game. You don't need to ship the perfect product. You need to ship the simplest version that solves a real problem, listen for feedback, and iterate weekly for years. Hunny built market leadership not by being the smartest in the room, but by being the most patient.

And if you're stuck in the depression-aggression cycle that hits every founder around year three, his advice is straightforward. Be on the path. Never cut off. Try. The almighty does the rest.

Q: How can people connect with you and learn more about Torchit and EnableMart?

Hunny: You can find Torchit and EnableMart online. EnableMart is the super marketplace we're building for anything to do with any impairment, with some lovely products in this space. I'm active on LinkedIn, sharing the journey of building hard tech for an underserved market. If you're a corporate looking to partner with us through CSR, a builder thinking about this space, or just someone curious about how the model works, do reach out.

Final words: Hunny's whole philosophy fits in two lines. Grow 2% weekly. Be on the path, never cut off. There's no growth hack here. There's no AI moat. There's no unicorn marketing playbook. There's a guy who built a 3,200 rupee version of a 50,000 rupee device, sold it to people who couldn't afford the alternative, trained those same users to sell to others, and just kept showing up week after week for nearly a decade. The lesson for every founder is the same. The future is not in your control. Last week's results are not in your control. Next week's targets are. That's where the work happens.

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