The company, located in a tiny space in Nagarbhavi Main Road in Bengaluru, has been pursuing a strategy where it creates and fabricates niche products to areas where individual product mark-ups are lucrative, such as in the gifting market.

The owner, Manish Jhawar said: "You’ve got to think about how valuable these kinds of products are to the end-user. A buyer who comes to us won’t hesitate to pay extra for a gift product or an award that will be really valued by the recipient - so that’s an area we’re really concentrating on."

Jhawar, who dons "a thinking hat" at all times, is a drop-out and this is he ensures "we do things differently" and aren't bogged down by the market formula. He said: "One example of this project really taking off is the number of big brands that are approaching Minkey Mouse for specially designed items. And the good news is, they’ll be coming back to us for each production."

These visual merchandising items along with momentoes, trophies, gift packaging and personalised gift packs, are printed on the firm’s BizHub. which was recently installed. The machine is ideal for simple prints but the main work of designing, die-cutting, kiss-cutting and fabricatiing begins after that.

Jhawar said, the total team of seven is totally hands-on like "mad scientists in a lab". And they create products out of acrylic, MDF, and even pre-perforated board.

Minkey Mouse is also in the early stages of bringing to the special technologies, produced on one of the company’s three digital laser die-cutters. Jhawar and his team have tweaked the technology to optimise its usage and simplified for Indian conditions. However Jhawar said that, though interest is high, such a new idea will take time to gain traction.

On this and the other gift formats, Jhawar said: "We’ve been promoting these ideas for a few years but we’re only just getting through. With innovative products our strategy is to start with the big retailers and then eventually develop our own brand."