Young Entrepreneur Figures Out How To Spend Every Day With Cats

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Not all millennials are this driven, and that is, driven to start their own business. But the entrepreneurial bug hit 24 year old Kanchan Singh who made the decision to open her own business, and it’s a unique one. On a backpacking trip to Thailand in 2014, Singh discovered a cat café that inspired her to do the same, start her own cat café.

Singh says that her thoughts about the idea were that is was “magical, fun and ridiculous,” for her to do. She didn’t even know that cat cafés existed but when she came across it, she just knew that it was something she had to do. She says that it was her “aha moment.”

Back in 2014, cat cafés were essentially non-existent in the U.S., and not only that, but starting your own business at the age of 24, was also not a common thing. As a matter-of-fact, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, the majority of people under the age of 30 who own their own business has actually declined by 65% since the 1980’s, and it is now at a quarter-century low.

On average, a third of Americans who are ages 25 to 34 years old have admitted that it is the fear of failure that is the biggest barrier for starting their own company, and the average actually increases slightly for women. Singh admitted that she felt that same barrier.

Singh says that it was terrifying, thinking about the prospects, but she also said that luckily, on the other side of fear, there is “hope and possibility.” She says that is what she decide to cling to and focus on.

It was within a year of her “aha moment” that Singh quit her corporate consulting job, raised nearly $36,000 on Kickstarter to move forward with opening D.C.’s very first and only, cat café that she named Crumbs & Whiskers. Not only was it the first cat café to open in D.C., but it was also one of the first cat cafés to open in the entire United States. They just weren’t heard of, but today, there are dozens of cat cafés all across the U.S., which also includes Singh’s second cat café that she opened in Los Angeles. CA.

Singh has a lot to be proud of. Not only has she started a business at a young age, making a positive, forward move for young women, but she is helping felines in her community.

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