November 2018 Gap Funding: Doctor Brinsley
Taking on diabetes one step at a time, international entrepreneur, Vidhan Bhaiya, designs revolutionary line of footwear.
What’s on your feet matters, especially for those prone to diabetes. In fact, it’s estimated that every 30 seconds one person around the world with diabetes undergoes amputation. A majority of these amputations could be prevented with appropriate footwear. However, in the past, suitable footwear has been synonymous with ugly footwear, Vidhan Baihya, the founder of Doctor Brinsley, is on track to change this with a revolutionary line of fashionable, diabetic dress shoes.
Doctor Brinsley is a medical shoe, but draws style inspiration from the fashion house of Ferragamo rather than the hospital wing. Bhaiya believes that style is a form of self expression, and deems that the 69.2 million diabetics in India or 371 million diabetics worldwide shouldn’t have to sacrifice fashion for function.
While attending a family wedding in 2016, Bhaiya observed a well-dressed man sporting a rather unattractive pair of shoes and felt the disconnect there. After investigating further, he found out they were diabetic shoes, which are an absolute necessity for 1 in 4 diabetic patients.
Bhaiya has taken the operations of Doctor Brinsley to the next level while co-oping abroad in India as part of the Sherman Center, which allows students to co-op for their own venture. For six months, the center provides entrepreneurial engineers with financial resources and mentorship that allows them to further develop their venture. Bhaiya is the first Sherman co-op to take his venture abroad. Recently, Doctor Brainsley, formerly known as Richard Brinsley, was awarded Gap Funding. While in India, Bhaiya will be using the funding to manufacture his first line of diabetic footwear. The Gap Funding is very important to him as it was his goal to launch production without using family financial support. Bhaiya is currently a third-year student and studies Chemical Engineering Actually, he recently hired his first employee, a senior sales manager, who is much older then him. Sometimes, being a young entrepreneur has its challenges; Bhaiya joked that he’s trying to grow a beard to make people take him more seriously.
“I’m not who they expect when they walk into the room. That sometimes makes things more difficult, especially in a conservative country like India.”
However, Bhaiya’s previous experience with IDEA’s Management Team has given him a firm grasp on what it takes to launch a successful venture. He had many other ideas and actually had four other ventures go through the Ready Stage before focusing solely on Doctor Brinsley. After graduation, Bhaiya plans to move back to India full time where he sees great potential for his career as a young entrepreneur.
To learn more about Vidhan Bhaiya and the trajectory of Doctor Brinsley, click here! To get in touch with Bhaiya directly, you can contact him via email at bhaiya.v@neu.edu.
If you are interested in starting your own venture and being part of the IDEA process, please visit this page to sign up for an upcoming New Venture Orientation.
IDEA Gap Funding is a non-equity educational grant available to ventures in the GO stage of IDEA’s process. Applicants may apply on a bi-monthly basis where their business plans are reviewed by IDEA’s student Investment Committee upon being selected to pitch plans to IDEA’s Advisory Board. Applicants may receive up to $10,000 in funding.
