Mala (Thrissur): Raghunathan was forced to leave the country when the business he started with his father’s retirement savings collapsed. He began his career as an assistant in a textile mill and a crusher in Mumbai. Today, he owns a company with a turnover of ₹12 crore and 135 employees. His business has grown to the extent that it even furnishes the rooms where VIPs stay on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.

Valiyaparambu native TS Raghunathan started a plastic sales agency in Chalakudy in 1989, but the venture closed within 6 months, leaving him in debt. While working at a textile mill in Mumbai in 1990, he became friends with an engineer who changed everything.

Raghunathan, who learned about the construction and installation of machine parts in textile mills, was later assigned by the engineer to run his workshop. He returned to Kerala in 2000 and began working as an agent for furniture fabrics, selling them on a bike both locally and other regions.

In 2001, he started a one-room business in Irinjalakuda under the name 'Achoos'. A year later, he opened another outlet in Kodungallur and began selling furniture alongside fabrics. In 2016, a friend offered him the opportunity to manufacture furniture for a ship of Anchor Offshore Company in Mumbai. Though he incurred significant losses on the first project, he learned valuable lessons. Since then, Raghunathan has completed interior design work for the INS Aditya, Mariner India, and G One Offshore India Company ships.

He now holds a memorandum of understanding with all Indian Navy ships and has furnished 22 vessels to date. Achoos Interiors and Promise Marine and Offshore operate on a two-and-a-half-acre plot adjacent to his house in Valiyaparambu. A new unit for manufacturing vehicle containers has also been launched at the site.

Raghunathan’s 99-year-old father, Surendran, remains a source of support, alongside his wife, Preetha, and children, Roopa and Pavan, who help in the business.