Eshna Kutty- The Entrepreneurs of India Magazine

Eshna Kutty didn’t plan to be a business owner. With a degree in psychology and a deep love for hula hoop dancing, her world revolved around movement and self-expression. But when friends and strangers kept asking where to get a quality hoop, she noticed the lack of affordable, well-made options in India. She began melting old hoops, visiting small factories, and creating a recycled version that actually worked. That’s when the idea began to grow roots. When the pandemic hit, her in-person classes had to shift online. Eshna launched her first four-week Hoop Flo program over Zoom, expecting a small response. But it took off. What started as an experiment turned into a full-blown movement. She realized it wasn’t just about selling hoops—it was about creating a space where people could reconnect with themselves and each other. It became about joy, not just product.

 Even though she had read business books and done the workshops, some lessons only came the hard way. She made the classic early-stage mistakes—overspending, jumping into shiny ideas, hiring too soon. “I knew the mistakes. I still made them,” she laughs. One key thing she’d do differently? Spend less on making things look perfect, and more on building something that could last. Burnout came next—fast and loud. She went all in, ran on passion, until she couldn’t anymore. That pause taught her to pace herself. Now, she works slower—and smarter. In the early days, she lived in Bangalore, surrounded by high-energy startup folks. Everyone was talking scale, speed, targets. It was exciting at first. But slowly, she began losing connection with her own work. Her brand was about play and flow, but she was stuck behind a screen all day. So she shifted—more parks, fewer coworking spaces. She started spending time with dancers, climbers, travelers. That helped her come back to her why.

Her family, she says, played a big role. They never pushed her into the usual path. Even when she told them she wanted to go to circus school, they let her try. Living at home during the early phase meant she could focus on figuring things out without rent and bills weighing her down. “The biggest support they gave me was freedom,” she says. “And that made all the difference.”

While the internet is full of free business tools and resources, she admits it got overwhelming. What she needed wasn’t more info—it was direction. Eventually, mentors helped her filter what mattered. That made all the difference.

The biggest challenges were managing money, building systems solo, and balancing the artist with the entrepreneur. She learned to track expenses better, created repeatable processes, and launched a social arm of her business—Hoop for Hope—to share the art form with under-resourced communities without draining her business.

Today, Hoop Flo offers adult-sized hoops, online courses, and in-person workshops. Their global community has grown to over 12,000 people. They’ve traveled across 25+ cities through their Hoop Flo Tour, keeping the movement alive and accessible.

What makes Hoop Flo unique is how it combines product, teaching, and community. There’s no global playbook for what they’re doing. They were also the first in India to launch travel hoops that fold to fit in a backpack.

“Most people only remember hula hoops from childhood. But once they try it again, something shifts,” Eshna says. Her final advice: “Don’t do it all alone. Let people in.”