Today, we celebrated 15,000 followers on Instagram.
I know what some of you might be thinking.
Why 15K? Why not wait for 25K or even 50K?
The answer is simple.
This number has been living in my head for almost six years.
Let me tell you the story.
I've always loved art.
As a child, give me a pencil, some colours, and a blank sheet of paper, and I could sit for hours. Drawing made me feel calm. It was my little escape from everything. Whenever I drew, all my worries somehow became smaller.
But like most Indian households, studies took centre stage. Art slowly became something I loved from a distance.
In 2019, I came across an Instagram profile called Kate Canvases. She was an artist from the US who shared her illustrations online. But it wasn't just the art that caught my attention.
She would tell stories around her drawings.
Why did she make a particular piece? What inspired it?
How she created it on her iPad using Procreate.
I was glued.
Around the same time, she was celebrating 15,000 followers on Instagram.
And for some reason, a thought entered my head.
"Someone sitting in the US is showing up on my Instagram feed here in India. Maybe 15K is the point where Instagram starts recommending your profile to people outside your country."
I have absolutely no idea why I convinced myself of this.
Maybe it wasn't true or still isn't.
But once that thought entered my head, it stayed there.
Fifteen thousand became a magical number.
A milestone, a dream.
That same year, I ended up buying an iPad.
At the time, it cost around ₹38,000, which felt like a huge amount of money to spend on something that was "just for drawing."
I remember being so reluctant.
Thankfully, my then-boyfriend, now husband and co-founder, Chethan, kept pushing me.
He knew how much I missed drawing & how happy it made me.
I'm so glad he convinced me.
I started drawing again.
I drew little things that made me smile.
I drew my thoughts & stories simply because it made me feel like myself again.
Back then, I had no plans of starting Bop Canvases.
Not even close.
And in 2023, we started Bop Canvases.
Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos of building a business, that old 15K story quietly stayed with me.
I would occasionally think,
"One day, we should reach 15K followers."
Not because it was a vanity metric or because it would make us look successful.
But because it was tied to a memory.
A younger version of me had looked at that number and believed it meant something special.
Today, we crossed that number.
And it feels surreal to even type that sentence.
I still don't know whether Instagram will suddenly start recommending our profile to people all over the world.
Maybe it will or it won't :)
But I've realised that's not the important part anymore.
The important part is this:
Something I imagined years ago has become real.
A number that once felt impossibly far away is now sitting right in front of us.
That deserves a celebration.
And today, our team made it even more special by surprising us with a cake and celebrating this little milestone together.
Building Bop Canvases has given me many moments to be grateful for, but this one feels different.
Because this celebration isn't really about 15,000 followers.
It's about a girl who loved drawing as a child, got inspired by an artist on the other side of the world, bought an iPad despite all the hesitation, and somehow ended up building a brand with the people she loves.
Life has a funny way of connecting the dots.
And today, one of those dots made me smile.
Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey, supported our work, bought from us, shared our posts, or simply cheered us on from the sidelines.
And a big thank you to our team for making this milestone feel even more special.
Here's to the next chapter.
With love,
Nalina, Co-founder of Bop Canvases