.png)
Courage Is Not the Absence of Fear. She Built a Company to Reclaim Her Story.
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
She walked on stage afraid. She walked off having reminded 550 women not to disappear from their own stories.
The first feeling was not pride. It was fear. Backstage at the Fashion Business Summit 2026 in Goa, Amita Roy worried she would speak too fast, that her story would not connect, that she could not do justice to the moment. She had been on stage before, for dance, singing, and impromptu speaking. Walking out as a founder, with her real history, was something else entirely.
The phase before the business
Amita started INHANSS after a difficult personal and health period that included a diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease. She writes that she had lost her sense of identity and was trying to rebuild herself from scratch. The company became more than a source of income. It was, in her words, a way to rebuild her courage, her identity, and something that carried her name.
Clarity came after she started, not before
Her early path was not clean. She experimented with a different niche, changed direction, and rebuilt her understanding of the customer before finding her footing. The lesson she draws is blunt: be okay with making mistakes, but start. Clarity did not arrive ahead of action. It came from starting, observing, failing, correcting, and continuing. She adds a sharper commercial point. Stop trying to sell to everyone, because once you understand your real customer, the product, content, pricing, and distribution all become sharper.
The recognition
That work earned her a visible platform. Out of around 90 applicants, Amita was chosen as one of six speakers at the Fashion Business Summit 2026, the two-day annual event run by Harvi Shah’s Fashionpreneur community, which counts more than 18,000 women entrepreneurs and drew over 550 attendees this year. The speaker slots are given to founders whose journeys can guide and inspire others who are still building. She also received the summit’s Falcon Warrior recognition.
“Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is showing up with fear and still doing justice to the opportunity.”
What she wants other women to hear
Her message to women founders is direct: do not disappear from your own story. You can be a wife, a mother, a daughter, or a partner, she writes, and still hold an identity of your own. She credits mentorship for the shift, naming Harvi Shah and Unhu’s Kshitij Doval as guides on positioning and customer clarity. The honesty itself did the work. When you share your story openly, she found, it stops being only yours and becomes a mirror for someone else.
Key Takeaways
— Start before you feel ready: clarity follows action, not the other way around.
— Pick a real customer: narrowing the audience sharpens product, content, pricing, and distribution.
— Mentorship moves direction: the right guidance reshaped her positioning and customer focus.
— Identity is the deeper return: for many women founders, a business rebuilds confidence and self-respect, not only income.
She walked on stage afraid. She walked off having reminded 550 women not to disappear from their own stories.
"With heartfelt thanks to Shraddha Negi, who urged Amita forward when nerves nearly held her back, and to Kshitij Doval and the wider Unhu community for the mentorship, belief, and steady encouragement that shaped this milestone. Moments like these are built on the people who refuse to let you shrink."
~Editor
Shobhit Mehandiratta