Two Mothers Turn Family Traditions Into Thriving Businesses

Praveen Verma's mother spent decades knitting sweaters for an entire Himachal Pradesh village and never charged a single rupee. Nidhi Niharika's great-grandmother pressed mustard oil by hand for her family in Jharkhand, a practice so pure that Nidhi couldn't find anything like it when her own daughter was born.

Both women grew up watching their mothers and grandmothers create something valuable that the market had abandoned. Praveen became a GIS engineer in Bengaluru, but the image of her mother's skilled, unpaid hands never left her.

Two years ago, Praveen returned to Himachal Pradesh with a mission. She founded Pahadan's, combining rural tourism with handmade artisan fashion, directly employing more than 250 women across 20 to 30 mountain villages.

These women, some living at 8,000 feet altitude, now earn Rs 4,000 to Rs 7,000 monthly through skills they always possessed. Before Pahadan's, selling apples was their only income option.

Across the country, Nidhi solved her own problem first. When she couldn't find pure cold-pressed mustard oil for her newborn daughter Himika, she started making it herself using the traditional wooden kolhu method her great-grandmother had used.

She launched Himika Foods and later added nidhi niharika.shop, offering digital resources for homeschooling parents. Both businesses emerged from lived experience, not market research.

The conviction was strong, but mountain craft sold in mountain villages stays in mountain villages. Both women needed a bridge between their deeply local products and a national market.

Praveen launched her website with Hostinger and received 700 orders within 15 days, plus 15,000 applications for her village cottages. None of it came from paid advertising, just a searchable online presence connecting Chennai buyers with Himalayan artisans.

For Nidhi, the website transformed perception. Social media had given her reach, but the website gave her legitimacy and ownership beyond algorithm changes.

The Ripple Effect

Praveen's mother knitted for everyone and kept nothing. Nidhi's great-grandmother pressed oil so her family would have something pure.

Neither was building a business, just doing what mothers do: making the best possible thing for the people around them without counting the cost. Their daughters simply finished what they started, turning invisible labor into visible value.

According to Hostinger's March 2026 survey, 58% of first-time website builders in India now come from rural or Tier II areas, the same communities these women represent. What once stayed local now reaches national markets because the barrier between conviction and commerce has shrunk to a single day.

The women who once gave their skills away for free now see those same skills valued. Over 250 families in remote Himalayan villages earn steady income, and parents across India access the pure ingredients and resources corporate markets stopped offering.

Two daughters honored their mothers by refusing to let valuable work remain invisible forever.