We’ve all hunted for that perfect gift for our loved one’s special occasion, diving into the crevices of the internet. All of it to find that one gift that shows you’ve really put some thought into it and not just picked up the first thing off the shelf.
The Industrial Revolution paved the way for mass production. Numerous things that required dedicated artisans were now sorted on the assembly line like clockwork. Businesses started manufacturing on a large scale, profiting from increased demand and supply.
This helped boost the economy and create many income-generating opportunities, but that human touch slowly dissipated from different products. In a fast-paced world that rewards businesses selling at scale, few still appreciate the value of customised gifts that take time and space to create.
Operating in this space of storytelling-led customised gifts is Shreya Srivastava’s AlienChikki . Shreya completed her engineering degree and pursued a professional career in content and digital marketing. An introverted kid, her journey began by drawing on the last page of her textbooks between classes and during free time. Throughout her professional career, this desire to reunite with her passion for drawing kept piercing her heart.
This sparked her venture into personalised illustrations in 2021. Still experimenting as a freelancer, she was illustrating frames for people, working with a host of organisations, including Pro Kabaddi League team UMumba, in parallel with her marketing consulting gigs.
In mid-2024, she decided to experiment more consciously with storytelling-led personalised gifting formats, including handcrafted miniature keepsakes. The whole point of these illustrated miniatures was to make people feel seen, while capturing their unique traits – quirks, hobbies and essentially anything that makes them ‘them’, or at least a holistic composition of them.
Aided by the e-commerce boom, increased purchasing power, and the convenience of online shopping, the global personalised gifting market, estimated at $34.03 billion in 2026 , could catapult to $ 61.66 billion by 2035.
Interestingly, this personalised gifting market extends beyond a single demography, with people across different age groups and strata yearning to express their individuality. The recipient also appreciates gifts that align with their personality.
Many times, we don’t remember what people tell us but distinctly remember how they made us feel. Whether promoting employee engagement, celebrating an anniversary or cherishing a loved one, the value of customised gifts lingers in our hearts. One of the standout products of AlienChikki is its hand-illustrated storytelling miniature keepsakes.
Highlighting the importance of one’s personality in the gifting process, Shreya talked about her distinctive traits and the problem of scale.
“Shreya may be someone who LOVES animals, she's an entrepreneur, but she’s also someone who cannot go through her day without a cup of chai. It’s these little attributes that make people, people. You know, attributes that make people, people and the response when we first started experimenting with this around mid-2024 was very encouraging, but the problem was scale.”
A defining point occurs when any story-led personalised gifting brand has to balance between two sides. Do you templatise products, making it easier for repeat production, or stick to making truly creative products every time? There is no correct answer, and maintaining equity between both needs a huge number of resources, not usually available to small businesses just starting. Shreya faced something similar in her journey.
There was a period in late 2024 when AlienChikki temporarily paused miniatures because scaling deeply personalised storytelling products operationally became difficult, but that’s when customers continuously asked her to revive the miniatures. That’s when she realised the real market pull, and the need to acknowledge what people really appreciated in Alien Chikki.
From the end of 2025 onwards, they intentionally restarted and began building AlienChikki more consciously around storytelling-led miniature keepsakes, while gradually branching into story-led books, memory-led keepsakes and personalised story magnets. Around that time, Shreya also realised they didn’t want to be a heavily occasion-driven gifting brand, spiking during Christmas, Diwali, Valentine’s or other occasions. Rather, they wanted to be an all-season gifting brand, resonating with people year-round.
Maintaining a story-driven gifting brand is also emotionally demanding because the process is deeply handcrafted and detail-oriented. Making the gifter an important part of the process and ensuring engaging 1-on-1 discussions is a key component in the creation process. Because of these deeply customised relationships, the storytelling and precision required are more than your average gifting product.
Thus, maintaining quality, conversations and consistency with a keen eye for detail forms an integral part of the business. AlienChikki is gradually diversifying beyond miniatures into story-led keepsakes, storybooks, song magnets and emotionally immersive gifting concepts with the larger idea that every gift should feel like a personal story translated into a keepsake, rather than just recreating faces.
Having completed her graduation in engineering, Shreya concedes to no formal training in art. However, growing up watching her mother paint quietly planted the seeds of creativity within her. Over the years, she taught herself, gradually evolving as an artist, with her mother remaining a constant source of guidance and inspiration throughout the journey.
In an ecosystem where words like optimisation and rapid growth are thrown around, AlienChikki is promoting individuality and attention to detail, something very important in a personalised gifting brand.
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