what exactly is a "Scentrepreneur?"

Yes, I made the term up. :)

The word entrepreneur has been synonymous with exciting, glamorous, sexy, and rich. And while it can be all of those things, it usually also comes with lots of blood, sweat, tears, overdraft fees, maxed out credit limits, sleepless nights, breakups, makeups, weight gain, weight loss, emotional eating, excessive adrenaline, confidence, self-doubt, overconfidence, disappointment, pride, ego, hard work, luck, and lots and lots of money lost, and lots of money made (only if you play your cards right for that last one).

I like to use the term scentrepreneur not only because it’s a fun play on words, but it makes me a little more special. My mom did always told me I was special, but maybe not in the way it was intended. I also like to use that term because I am building a perfumeverse, or oudverse, or fumeverse. Whatever you want to call it—I’m trying to build it. Who the f—k am I though to build this!?

Well, let me tell you a little about myself. TL;DR I’m currently the COO of my 25+ year old transportation family business based in NJ that is pivoting post COVID-19 and building something totally new for World Cup 2026, taking my passion project of my perfume oil fragrance brand to the next level, building the first NYC multi-sensory perfume + chai walking tour, and trying to create an empire.

For the longer story . . .

I’m the product of immigrants coming from India with a total of $100 in their pockets in ‘93, starting a small shuttle service from a hotel in NJ on a loan in ‘97 charging $5 each way to NYC — the greatest city on Earth. (OK, maybe I’m a little biased). After all, that shuttle service is what got me, the youngest of 4, a credit card at 9 years old, a brand new Mini Cooper S at 17, an “infinite” allowance, and no need for a *real* job until I got my first corporate one out of college at 22. As an immigrant and the one of the very first ones in my family and extended family—I was a privileged brown princess. Hell, I’m still privileged princess, but a little differently now.

While my parents business let me live a life of rainbows and butterflies in my youth, things changed when I turned 26 and had to take over the business overnight and my dad got sick. I took over the shuttle ship and ran it on auto-pilot, and things began going down as my dad was no longer able to work for $2.50/an hour, I could not collect a salary, and the market began changing thanks to Uber and changes in hotel managements. In 2020, we got wiped out thanks to that *ahem* thing that happened around the globe and we went into hibernation in 2021, 2022, and most of 2023—until I began seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

While from the outside, people may think we have tons and tons of money (big houses, 4-day destination wedding in Dubai), I actually have not collected a salary since 2017. I’m super, duper, duper privileged either way and I know that very well. At the same time, I have a unique set of challenges where sometimes more money truly means more problems. I can’t just throw in the towel, for a variety of reasons, but the top being I just can’t abandon my parents, my dad’s legacy of this little shuttle service, and the hope that this business can survive this storm.

While transportation is not exactly the sexiest industry to work in, I’ve took my leftover creativity and desire for “prettier” things into fragrance building. This fragrance universe is like no other, friend. Fragrance is different from fashion, clothes, and other beauty. Firstly, it has nothing to do with your size or skin color. Second, it’s not something that can be conveyed via our current technology, it truly smells and feels different on everyone based on their olfactory memories and upbringings, yet there is a collective olfactory memory, and it has infinite opportunities for storytelling and universe-building. What I’m trying to say is — there’s nothing like fragrance.

So, while my GOOOOLs (see what I did there hehe) seem kind of crazy, I’m here for it and I hope you will be too. I guess I like to do hard things. But, isn’t everything worthwhile hard, or something? I’m building something here, and if nothing comes from it, the one thing I hope will is that it will help another naive, young, creative immigrant (or non-immigrant) little gworl who has big dreams.

XO

—N