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Creating Paw-sitive Impact | Rashi Narang @ Heads Up For Tails
155 Plays3 years ago
Passion, patience, and perseverance are the ingredients to be a successful entrepreneur.
In this episode of Founder Thesis, Akshay Datt speaks with Rashi Narang, Founder and Creative Director, Heads Up For Tails (HUFT), whose entrepreneurial journey is nothing but perseverance and grit.
Rashi, an ardent animal lover, found her calling when she realized that the Indian market has nothing to offer when it came to pet care. She started Heads Up For Tails in 2008 and after numerous rejections from various retailers, today HUFT is the largest D2C brand in the pet care segment backed by Verlinvest and Sequoia Capital.
Tune in to this episode to hear Rashi speak about how Heads Up For Tails is leading the pet care space in India and making pet parenting a delightful experience.
What you must not miss!
- Diversification during COVID
- Drivers for online expansion
- Working around changing the mindset towards animals.
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Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Take a minute, I'm dead. You're not dead. Hi, I'm Akshay. Hi, this is Aurabh. And you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast. We meet some of the most celebrated sort of founders in the country. And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
Rashi Narang's Journey into Pet Care
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi, I'm Rashi Narang. I'm the founder and creative director at Heads Up Street.
00:00:30
Speaker
Sometimes the best way to find products you really want to buy is to make them yourself. This is pretty much what happened with Rashi Narang after she caught a beloved pet dog in her life. Having spent time abroad, she was aware of the best in class pet products and struggled to find good quality pet friendly products in India.
00:00:49
Speaker
Instead of complaining about it, she set out to build those products herself. And when no retailer would stock her products, she decided to start her own pop-up store. Rashi's journey of more than a decade in creating and scaling up heads-up for Tails
00:01:04
Speaker
is a classic case study on how entrepreneurial success is all about perseverance and grit more than anything else. Today, Heads Up for Tales is the largest D2C brand in the pet care space, having raised a massive $37 million in their Series A round and the journey is just beginning. Here's Rashi telling Akshay Tath about building this wonderful venture.
00:01:29
Speaker
So Rati, you know, what's your origin story? I think I always had that entrepreneurial streak in me ever since I was little. I was always at the forefront of collecting funds for charity, going door to door selling Christmas cards and Diwali cards and raffle tickets and organizing, you know, colony melas and exhibitions and anything that had to do with bringing
00:01:56
Speaker
something together I used to love to be leading that so I think that and I always I always knew that I wanted to become an entrepreneur and and at that time I actually wanted to do it to be able to be there more for my family not knowing how demanding it's going to be and how far
00:02:16
Speaker
that is so I always thought okay you know I'd love to do something of my own be my own boss very idealistic big dreams in my eyes all of that stuff in my teens I wanted to become someone who could possibly go on to working with National Geographic and Discovery Channel and then at some point I wanted to become an astronaut and go and explore outer space
00:02:40
Speaker
And then multiple times I was told by counselors and family, there's no future of any of that there. And then I think I moved on to wanting to do, actually I always wanted to do something with animals, even when I look back at my scrapbooks from like class three, class seven, you know, there's something about that there forever.
00:03:05
Speaker
And then when I think I was in the 11th or 12th, I got very, very keen into design and art and I wanted to do graphic design. So there was all sorts of spaces that I wanted to explore and none of those happened. Why didn't any of those things work out? Well, I think a lot of the
00:03:34
Speaker
spaces for conservation and that space fell off when I decided I didn't want to do science and biology and all of that stuff. And then for art, graphic design etc was also very new in the country at that time.
00:03:54
Speaker
When I actually actually studied for those exams and I prepared, yes, but somehow when I went to visit the institution, when I actually saw what they were doing, I couldn't connect to it at that time. I hadn't had the exposure of what futuristic design looks like. And so I decided to go in for a more general degree around commerce.
00:04:20
Speaker
And that's really where life took me. So that's what happened. And then after I finished...
Influence of Studying Abroad on Rashi's Career
00:04:27
Speaker
Why did you decide to study abroad? Actually, it was my father who pushed me. I lived in this big joint family. I was the only girl and I was very sheltered and protected. And my father really wanted me to...
00:04:43
Speaker
step out and feel that independence and learn all the things that come with leaving home, fending for myself, being able to manage so many emotions, finances, studying, etc. So he was the one who really championed me to explore that life and I'm so glad he did because that was just so valuable what I learned from there.
00:05:10
Speaker
and the friends that I made and the lessons that I've learned. So that was a wonderful opportunity. So then what happened when you like finished your bachelor's in business?
00:05:22
Speaker
I came back to India for a little while. I did a couple of internships. Then I wanted to do my master's. So I went back and did my master's in human resource management. And during this time, I had completely forgotten about that entrepreneurial dream. Everybody was applying for jobs and it was so exciting. And I did the same thing.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I did get a lovely job at a international MNC. I was super excited about that. This is a city group. Yes, yes. And this job was in UK only. Yes, it was in London. But then I remember that when I did start finally,
00:06:05
Speaker
I remember just the first couple of weeks were very exciting but then I remember just being in a massive tower with thousands of people and just starting to feel that whether I'm here or not here actually doesn't really matter and I just felt like the impact I was making was
00:06:25
Speaker
just not enough to drive me. And so that chapter came to an end fairly quickly. I realized that this is just not what I want to do. And then I got married and moved to the US. When you like when you quit your job, did you have I mean, you're getting
00:06:47
Speaker
like a salary and it would be a pretty sizable salary. So did you not face resistance? And you know, what did you tell people that what's my plan? Everyone would have asked you, why are you quitting? What's your plan?
00:06:57
Speaker
Absolutely. But I was also getting married at that time. So there was a lot going on in my life. And I think people were happy to give me that space to figure it out. And then when I did get married, I moved to the US with my husband for a couple of months. So it was a very different life. And so I was just in that zone where I was just in such a big transition. And then he got transferred back to India. So we came back. Tell me about your husband.
00:07:27
Speaker
My husband, he's been in the finance space for many, many, many years. So he was working in a hedge fund and an investment bank. So he has basically that background. And so, yes. And after that, we moved back to Delhi. And that's when a little puppy came into my life, who pretty much changed everything.
00:07:55
Speaker
Was it gifted or did you want to adopt? I wanted to adopt because I had always grown up with dogs and even in the US I used to keep bringing, I used to foster, I used to bring dogs home from the shelter because there they have couple of days and if they don't get adopted then they are put down.
00:08:16
Speaker
There were always dogs there. And then when I came back, I... I mean, once you've tasted life with a pet companion, it's hard to live one without. And so we got little Sara home in November, I think, sometime. November, which year? I think it was 2006. Okay.
Challenges and Breakthroughs with Heads Up for Tails
00:08:39
Speaker
Yes. And she...
00:08:43
Speaker
And what breed is she? She's a Labrador. Okay. Yeah. And she was just naughty and full of life and curiosity and she was just this happy little baby who just brought so much joy. And I think that that was the first time that I was solely responsible for a dog versus being part of a larger family. And so I really felt like the pet parent and I wanted her to live her best life
00:09:13
Speaker
And it was just such a special relationship. I mean she was just incredibly special and I think when I started to try and find products for her I just couldn't find anything that I
00:09:28
Speaker
really liked and that was really the spark of that I saw a lot of white space I realized that other pet pens like myself would want products for their furry family members and I remember specifically on her first birthday I went to seven eight stores in the city and I came back home with nothing like nothing at all I think that was really like okay now that's it but how
00:09:57
Speaker
How did you know that this is not a good product? I mean, you're not that consumer, so to say, you know, you're buying it on behalf of the consumer. Yes, yes. I'll tell you, there were treats, they were
00:10:12
Speaker
full of chemicals. I couldn't even pronounce anything that was at the back of the packet. If it was a biscuit, it was, say, if it was a chicken biscuit, it was actually maida with a few drops of chicken flavouring called a chicken biscuit. If it was a toy, it was just not doing anything bad quality, looked dirty. I mean, like, nothing really for her to live.
00:10:37
Speaker
Best life and city dogs they have a different life from dogs in the wild dogs in the wild have so much mental stimulation You know whether it's for taste or sound or touch or smell and as city dogs They need they need a different kind of care and I just could not find that at all I mean that was a limit that was a limit of the product out there, you know very basic stuff and
00:11:02
Speaker
Did you also compare with products available say like in the US or UK where you had lived previously? Was that like a benchmark you were looking for here or was it purely on the merit of the product standalone?
00:11:16
Speaker
purely on the merit of the product standalone. I wasn't, because over there I didn't actually go into that many pet stores. We'd get a lot of, we'd get some basic stuff from the shelters that we were working with and these dogs were with us just for a couple of days or weeks. So I actually did not explore that side of the UK or the US.
00:11:38
Speaker
And it was purely just this. I mean, if it was a collar or a leash, it was just made of steel. And there was nothing that was nice that would appeal to a pet parent or to anyone's design sensibilities. That was completely missing. They may be very functional.
00:11:54
Speaker
And they may be able to restrain a dog from you know being free and like having a collar etc but nothing that was designed for comfort for their comfort understanding that body type understanding that mentality nothing at all.
00:12:10
Speaker
So, yeah, that's really where the spark happened and I realized that I wanted to do it. So in this one year, like, you know, on our first birthday is where you felt that. So in that one year, like, how were you spending your time?
00:12:26
Speaker
I was just in the process of settling down in Delhi. I was helping an NGO close by, working with some children, having an amazing time. This NGO was doing some lovely work and I was looking for the next opportunity, the next thing to do. I had also just come back and I was settling into
00:12:49
Speaker
um my in-laws big family um and so they weren't you know we were just trying to figure out okay what what should i do next and then yeah so i was i mean i was in a full-time role in this NGO um and that was just a very rewarding lovely chapter so this part like got ignited uh you know what did you do about that then
00:13:15
Speaker
I didn't really know where to start. I started doing a little bit of research, trying to build a business plan, but there was nothing out there. There was no one to learn from. There was no data. There was no reference points. There was no product. There was no customer. There was nothing. After a couple of weeks of really trying to dig deep, I just
00:13:39
Speaker
I gave up because it had nothing in it in terms of how do i project anything at all and i started to.
00:13:52
Speaker
decide what do I want for Sara first? So what could I work with easily? For example, I realized that I could work with soft furnishings easier than other things. That's something that's accessible. I can find vendors for it easily. So I started by making bedding, clothing, some toys, things like that. But it took forever to even do that because nobody wanted to work with me when they heard that it was for a dog.
00:14:21
Speaker
the vendors just used to show me the all very politely and they used to make fun and... So what do you mean by vendor here? Was it like a, like a, you know, say Chandni Chow killer or like was it like a proper factory or what like... Like small factories. I didn't know where to start. So, you know, small factories that even have 8, 9, 10 tailor setups. And they just used to laugh at me and
00:14:46
Speaker
be sarcastic or whatever else and show me the door. And I was also learning everything actually. It's not like I knew any of this. So my growth, my learning curve was really steep. I was trying to understand body structures, patterns, what is okay for their skin, what is not, how can I build something that does not inhibit their
00:15:12
Speaker
Mobility and they should be able to run and play and sleep and you know do anything that they need to and be super comfortable and It was lots of lots of trials and lots of stumbles and then I finally found literally one tailor through a friend and a friend and a friend and
00:15:36
Speaker
who said, OK, I will come and build these samples with you. And literally, that's how it started. And then I took them to pet stores in Delhi first, and then even slowly across the country. And again, there was complete rejection there. They just said, this is not going to work.
00:16:02
Speaker
these leaves wasting our time. At that time I couldn't understand why but now when I look back I realize it was because a lot of these pet stores were being run by people who didn't really have pets. So they couldn't understand the emotional connect, they couldn't understand the relationship. So that's why the way that they were curating their stores or what they had
00:16:27
Speaker
It was just a transactional business that they couldn't understand where I was coming from. Exactly. That's what they used to say, who's going to buy this and whatever. So I remember that phase of feeling extremely low and rejected and I tried in so many places. But then I decided, OK, I'm going to launch with an online store.
00:16:56
Speaker
because I didn't have the funds to do this. This was in 2008. So we started with a tiny online store, a class 10 or 11 student built it for me for 5000 rupees. And Econ was also new then, you know. There was nothing that was happening.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, and the infrastructure around it was also not available. So it was really plugging basic stuff together. And I remember, of course, I was a one man army, but I remember Akshay, even if I got four orders a month, I would be so thrilled that somebody from Chennai or Vishakapatnam or Bihar or someone has found my website and actually bought for their pet. I mean, it was the best feeling ever.
00:17:44
Speaker
You had like a payment gateway on it? Yes, I think CC Avenue had also just launched around then and Flipkart had launched so you know that ecosystem was being built but we were just dying. And you would like courier it to whoever ordered it? Yes, we'd courier it. So I was trying to do everything, customer care, cataloging, photo shoots, content, everything.
00:18:12
Speaker
And I remember I tried handwritten notes to every single customer, putting little freebies, all of that stuff. Just the thrill of an entrepreneur getting an order with just lots of effort. And then one of the malls in Delhi had just opened. This was Select City Walk.
00:18:33
Speaker
And when I went to visit, I saw these little carts, you know, in the corridors and with some small businesses displaying their product. So I got super excited and I told the management that, you know, please, I really want to rent it. And I remember the rent was pretty high, but it was a very premium mall, you know, in the 80s. Exactly.
00:18:57
Speaker
And they gave me the rental amount and I said, no, there's no way I can pay this. So I said, can you please make me a weekend contract? They just again, they thought I was totally crazy. Like, you know, this is not what we do. These are our rules. We cannot draw our contact out for two days for you. Like, please, what the hell?
00:19:17
Speaker
But I begged them, I don't know how I begged them but I did and they actually allowed me a weekend and the joke is that I still haven't left. So this was back in 2008 in around September or something.
00:19:35
Speaker
It was a little like a kiosk. It was a tiny kiosk, yes. It was a tiny kiosk. But Akshay, what it did was that it suddenly made the product very discoverable because people had not been exposed to it before. And so we had the opportunity to talk to customers directly, understand pain points, understand problem areas of what they were facing with their dogs and cats. And that...
00:20:03
Speaker
Input really is what I kept taking to the drawing board to say to saying, OK, how do I how do I solve for this with the product? And it could be it could be things like products for senior dogs, products of puppies, functional things, everyday things that had just been overlooked.
00:20:21
Speaker
somebody telling me okay my dog you know his joints and bones are getting I mean he's getting old he can't get up you know and they would obviously not give the solution it's just conversation but then you take it to your team and we said okay let's build an orthopedic bed and let's build supplements that can help natural all natural turmeric coconut oil all these kind of things treats which are preservative free so so many products we've introduced more than a hundred India first products
00:20:50
Speaker
And so that was a very exciting journey of constantly taking this real conversation and then trying to build a product to be able to solve it.
00:21:02
Speaker
So you would man the store yourself? I used to spend a lot of hours standing there. I did get help because it was hard and there were so many other places to be at, orders to be packed and phones to be answered and tagging to be done and little warehouse which was on half a room of things to be sorted. So I did get a little bit of help and I used to sort of be there in all the busy hours of the day to be able to speak to customers and get this input.
00:21:32
Speaker
How much sales did you see that made you convinced that yes, I can afford this place? I remember on the weekends, sometimes on busy weekends, I would even do something like a 25,000 a day. That was super exciting. Weekdays were much, much slower, just to be 5,000, 6,000. But just the fact that if there were people, there was demand. So I think that's what
00:22:00
Speaker
gave us a little bit of encouragement and hope that this
Expanding Retail and Securing Funding
00:22:05
Speaker
is possible. I mean, it was a tiny little chaos with just a few products, but if we could do that, then there was just that excitement.
00:22:16
Speaker
And then just a year after I started out, my husband got posted again out of the country. So I had to... 2009 this happened? Yes. So again, I went with him and I could not shut this down. Everybody said, this is crazy. I mean, how are you going to run this? It's anyway so small and then...
00:22:41
Speaker
I was at the center of it all like there wasn't a team around it so I just decided to keep it going and I used to come back quite often every couple of months for a couple of weeks and then go back.
00:23:00
Speaker
Was it breaking even? I'm sure it could have been paying the rent cost at least, like the rent and cost of materials. Yes, it did. And also whatever savings I had, I had put them in just to be able to build out the product. It was the inventory. And of course, all these numbers were small actually, but at that time they were huge. So yes, it was breaking even.
00:23:23
Speaker
Like you would be doing couple of lakhs a month kind of sale. Yes, early numbers like maybe three four lakhs and that was just it. So it was just about just about breaking even after cost of inventory and somebody to help etc. So then I commuted for the next seven years
00:23:45
Speaker
And that was frustratingly difficult because I didn't know what the end point was. I didn't know when we went that, okay, it's going to be so and so time. And finally, in 2000, why didn't you just like, you know, give it up, give it to someone? What did you want to keep running it? I'm sure in Singapore, you would have access to the things you needed. I mean,
00:24:10
Speaker
The origin was that you wanted good quality product for your pet. Yes. In Singapore that would have been solved. Yes and no actually. There wasn't so much even there at that time. I think the market has really evolved in the last couple of years. But back then not much. All the pet stores they were also very basic. They had food and they may have a better quality collar and something else but it wasn't like
00:24:37
Speaker
I want it. I always envision that should walk into our stores and feel like you've come in to a Disneyland for dogs and cats. There should be these happy things that help to improve their lives and bring joy to both of yours.
00:24:53
Speaker
And the store experiences were very basic, even there. So while it was lovely on the personal side, it was really a wonderful chapter with lovely friends. I spent that time commuting, I spent that time learning as much as I can. Thank God for the age of digital.
00:25:13
Speaker
and it was largely offline like those seven years they were offline and online too so i kept the online store going sometimes it would become too overwhelming and i didn't have people so i'd shut it down then i'd start it again i mean it was just very sporadic and
00:25:30
Speaker
Were you also doing new product development and launching new products? Yes, all the time. I did a quick course in graphic design and I was trying to do my own designs and things like that, experimenting with a lot of stuff. It is that one childhood dream of being a designer. Yes, absolutely.
00:25:51
Speaker
And even now, I mean, I work entirely on the creative side with the design team. So I feel fulfilled. That part feels very fulfilled. Yeah. So you kept researching, launching new products in these seven years. So by the end of seven years, what scale had it reached? Was it still a couple of lacs?
00:26:15
Speaker
Yes, it was still a couple of lakhs. It was still that one retail kiosk. And online was also 2-3 lakhs a month, if that, by the end of the seven years. So it was very small. And I remember coming back in 2015 end,
00:26:39
Speaker
And I think by then our revenue was about seven, eight lakhs a month. So we were about at that scale. And had the market overall evolved in that case? It had, it had, yes. But not so much. And also during my time away, that's another thing that I really focused on. So we had the power of
00:27:06
Speaker
Social media available to all of us no matter big or small and that time the algorithms and all were not so Paid traffic driven, you know, there was a lot of reach even with organic and It was lovely to be able to share our products share our stories talk about what we were thinking Educate a lot of customers
00:27:28
Speaker
We did a lot of blogs and video content and so much even then to try to Build the consumer because the consumer didn't quite exist In their current form and and then when we came back I came back and I had a two-year-old daughter with me as well. So that was another new chapter trying to come back with her and settling her down and two-year-olds need a lot of
00:27:57
Speaker
time and attention and energy and so that was a difficult chapter because I came back also to grow the company and the company needed me like 100% as well so it was hard you know I used to take her to office many times and
00:28:14
Speaker
What office? Like you only had a kiosk and maybe some warehouse where you would or like did you take up an office space also? I took up a tiny office space when we came back. Very small, very, very tiny. So I used to take her there and try to and then I started to hire some people. What kind of people did you hire?
00:28:39
Speaker
very basic, just help people to help pick up the phone, somebody to help me with inventory, someone to help with logistics. And you know, a lot of the orders or a lot of the calls and emails to be about where is my order and just help with things like that. But then we scaled up quite rapidly, you know, trying to build up small versions of every team, one graphic designer, one content person. So I was not trying to know everything myself.
00:29:06
Speaker
So it was 7-8 people that we hired, junior level. And what was the plan? Was it to go more offline expansion or online expansion? We were very excited with online first to start with, but we realized that nobody was searching for any of the products that we were making.
00:29:28
Speaker
So we decided, okay, we have to make the product discoverable. So then we went totally offline. I mean, we still stayed omni-channel and kept the website, but the focus went entirely offline to try to build stores. And we built out one store after the other.
00:29:47
Speaker
That enabled the discovery. So if somebody came in asking for a bag of dog food, then we'd have the opportunity to connect with them on their pet, give them recommendations, help them discover these products that were built to solve problems. And literally, that was it. One by one, one customer at a time, one store at a time, one product at a time, just trying to
00:30:12
Speaker
How did you fund the expansion? Each new store would mean a significant upfront expense, right? Yes, yes. So when we came back in 2015 and in 2016, I raised the Angel Round.
00:30:27
Speaker
And in fact, at that time, we also merged with another pet company in Bangalore. And the two founders of that also came on as co-founders. So suddenly the team became bigger. It was three of us. Tell me about this merger. How did it get initiated? Because they're in a completely different city. What made that happen then?
00:30:53
Speaker
When I had built out the product range for Heads Up for Tales and I had gone to all of these pet stores and all of them had said no, a couple of months later after I did start out and pop up stores and select city, I got an email from this one store in Bangalore who said, you know, we really love a lot of what you're building and we want to keep 10 each of everything. And I was super excited because 10 each of everything is a lot.
00:31:21
Speaker
for that time. So ever since then, we just became friends and we became partners. And then we had very aligned thoughts on what we want to do, the kind of product, the kind of customer, the kind of stores. So we said, you know, why do two of them? They were also offline first. They were also only offline. Yes. Okay. And the geography was different so that
00:31:47
Speaker
Synergy was pretty good then. Yes. Yes, so they so we just said why do double double let's just do it together and that was that was back in 2016 so and this was after your angel round or first they came on and then you after the angel round, okay Yes, okay. Okay, and like yeah, how did it get negotiated like, you know in terms of who has the
00:32:14
Speaker
bigger stake and stuff like that. That's like an awkward conversation to Nagosha. How did you do that? I think we've always been very transparent. So we were just able to put on the table our strengths, what we could each contribute, and what value each of us would bring. And then we were able to navigate through that fairly easily.
00:32:42
Speaker
So that was not very hard. And also, it was all fairly small at that time. So it didn't seem so intimidating or so overwhelming. And I think we just had a good understanding. So that was not so hard.
00:32:57
Speaker
Okay, but but it became like a decentralized organization like you had two co-founders in Bangalore and one in Delhi or like did you move in into a common office or like, you know, we were doing we were doing all of us were responsible for different things. So we did have a Delhi office in a Bangalore office. And we weren't so
00:33:20
Speaker
How do I say we weren't so worried about the title or the work. It was really just everybody getting their hands dirty and just getting things done and moving forward. Okay. So tell me the story from there, like you're at like a pretty good position of strength now, three co-founder team, one million fundraise, then what?
00:33:43
Speaker
Then we simultaneously started to do a little bit of the online piece, hired more people for that, built that team to be a little bit bigger, started to work much more on products, on production, inventory, supply chain.
Building Supply Chains and Retail Experiences
00:33:59
Speaker
Supply chain was hard because
00:34:02
Speaker
So we had to build it up piece by piece and then we started to work a lot on the retail experience. There was no one that we could hire who had been there done that. So anyone that we hired was somebody that we had to train from scratch and so the learning curve was very long.
00:34:18
Speaker
And so, I was trying to do a lot of the product side. One of the other co-founders was, Ridhima was doing a lot of the store side and the training side. And Sandeep was doing a lot of the operations, the warehousing. And so, we had divided it very nicely.
00:34:41
Speaker
How did you figure out the supply chain part of it? Was it third-party manufacturing or did you decide to do in-house manufacturing? How did you get that in place?
00:34:53
Speaker
We had started out with our own label as heads up for tails. And it was fairly niche and premium when we started out. But I think soon we realized that the customer is looking for a more convenient solution in this space. They're not going to come to us to buy one thing, then go somewhere else to buy another thing.
00:35:13
Speaker
And so we started to do a third party as well. And so, for example, food is not something that we manufacture as yet. So we had to add a couple of brands like your Pedigrees, Royal Canines, et cetera. So similarly across different categories, not all categories, but categories where we felt like we didn't have the expertise or the supply, we started to add those third party products.
00:35:41
Speaker
Okay. Okay. And your own product, like how are they getting made? Like our products, some of them were contracted out. We also set up a small manufacturing unit, very tiny, but we were doing a lot of lot of product there. All the soft furnishings we were pretty much doing in house. And then other things where you need molds and rubber and steel and all of those other materials that we didn't have capabilities for. We were outsourcing those.
00:36:13
Speaker
By 16, what kind of top line were you doing? Because you would have had multiple stores by then.
00:36:21
Speaker
Well, actually, I think by the time we got the funding and settled down, I think we only did one store maybe in 2016, one more. But then in 2017, we started ramping up. By 2018, I think we had about 9-10 stores. So that was quite exciting. What were the catchment areas for these stores? What would you look for?
00:36:48
Speaker
At first we did one or two standalone stores, then we realized that
00:36:54
Speaker
Again, we need to build a lot. Like a premium locality, like say a Basant Koonj type of a locality. Yes, yes, yes. But then we realized that we need to be in some place which is more high football, because again, people are not going to come out of their way to come to one of our stores. It was just too niche at that time. And so then we started to try to get onto the high street. That helped a lot because
00:37:21
Speaker
people that already had natural footfalls. So even if you came to buy your everyday groceries, et cetera, et cetera, you'd see us and walk in to buy a dog, shampoo, dog, treats, et cetera. And that definitely helped to get the word out in so many ways. And I think that it also helped to build trust for our online piece. So if somebody was shopping online, they said, okay, we know they're there.
00:37:48
Speaker
So the whole omnichannel piece for us has been very important, very useful. I can't exactly remember, but it must have been around four crores maybe, three, four crores.
00:38:07
Speaker
I know that for the first, when I came back in 2016, I think, or 15 and I think we were at one crore tentatively for the year, and then we did double every year for the next many years. So I'm just assuming that we were around three, four crores at that time.
00:38:27
Speaker
which also felt extremely overwhelming. It was still not easy to be able to manage even that because we still didn't have enough of a team in-house. I remember making all the payments and writing out all the checks and waiting for those so many hundreds of OTPs that had to come in. I mean, offline means a lot of
00:38:55
Speaker
A lot of small, small headaches, like running stores, making sure it's opened on time, and then there would be so many compliances around it, and so many issues which would crop up. Something like that. Absolutely. I've been there and dealt with all of them.
00:39:16
Speaker
Cleaner has not come. You have to fill in the gaps. Staff has not come. You have to fill in the gaps. Painting is taking too long because the store has to open tomorrow. You have to fill in the gaps. Everything we have done. But honestly, I think there is such a joy to building it up from scratch and ground up because you know every part of what needs to be done. And so if there's ever a problem, you know exactly how to step in.
00:39:42
Speaker
So whether it was implementing software or billing or working with banks and credit card machines and so many vendors and coordinating inventory and we've been there and done every single part of it. 17 is also when you raised your next round, right? Yes. Yes. We raised a bridge round at that time. Yeah. We just we just wanted to top up to be able to scale further.
00:40:12
Speaker
And so we, but both of these rounds and in fact, our even subsequent round in 2019 was from family offices and HNI's. We didn't want to get, go down the VC route yet because there was still so many things that we were trying to set in the foundation. And the foundation was still felt shaky in many ways. But like, how does,
00:40:40
Speaker
How does having a family office as an investor make a difference as opposed to having a VC as an investor? Like how does it help you? For me, or for us rather, we found that the family offices were
00:40:57
Speaker
People who believed in a longer relationship, in the long-term vision of the company, they weren't coming in necessarily for a quick exit. And they were just willing to sort of put their money into this and just let it be for the long, long run. Okay, patient capital. Yes, very patient capital and compliances were a lot less.
00:41:23
Speaker
So the amount of time that you're spending on getting all those things and reports and all of that ready was all the time that you're taking away from your business and it can get very overwhelming and it can get a lot. So we just wanted to keep it simple at that time and see how it goes, where does it lead us to. What made a family office select you?
00:41:52
Speaker
appealing from their perspective to invest in heads-up hotels? I believe it would be a combination of passion and market opportunity. So these were people that I had met along the journey, talked about and they understood my vision. The pet care market was in its nascent stage but
00:42:18
Speaker
I do believe that they saw an opportunity there and so it just came together. Would it also be that offline business is something that they would understand better, like it's more closer to traditional businesses?
00:42:34
Speaker
Yes, possibly some of them. There was also a lot of talk of online and we were doing the omni channel as well, but it's just that we were focusing more on the retail because of the things that I told you. And then once you're building something on the side, even if it's slow, then it's easy to scale it up when you need to, because you already started to put the basic building blocks in place. How much were these two rounds? Like the 17 and the 19 round?
00:43:03
Speaker
17 was 2 million and then 19 was 10 million. That was a pre-series A. Which is a pretty big pre-series A round, especially for that time. I mean, not for today. Absolutely. And such a big round from family offices, it sounds like a pretty remarkable achievement. Did you do a lot of pitches and all that or was it like a lot of inbound interest?
00:43:32
Speaker
It was a lot of inbound interest. We hadn't actually done any pitches. Were these also people who had pets of their own and so they could connect? Yes, absolutely. And we were very picky about, we had a lot of inbound interest so we were very lucky to be in that position where we could
00:43:53
Speaker
in some ways, choose whom we wanted to partner with. And that was just so important to us and learning ourselves. This was not something that we had done before. What were the big mistakes that you remember, like stuff which really would have given you sleepless nights?
00:44:13
Speaker
When we first merged with Pause, the three of us decided that we will keep Heads Up for Tails as a brand which makes products and we will do a new brand for the multi-brand stores because Heads Up for Tails was just a single brand company. And so we set up another company, another one.
00:44:34
Speaker
And that was so hard because on very limited bandwidth, now instead of one brand, we were trying to run two. Absolutely a disaster. So you thought that the store will be called one thing and the products, your own product will have.
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, because we were getting in more brands as well. So this was going to be one of several brands and we wanted to retain this as a product piece and build that as a multi-brand platform piece. But it was very hard. I realized that it's so hard to build one brand, forget trying to build two simultaneously.
00:45:14
Speaker
Seven, eight months later, we decided to just close it down and just make one brand for everything. So that was definitely on the list of big mistakes. Why did you choose Heads Up for Tilt as the flagship brand? Because it had been known much more than a new brand that we had come up with recently. And so we just decided to retain that. It had already been in the market for eight years by then. So that's why.
00:45:44
Speaker
So their brand was already there also in Bangalore, which you said was called Paws. Yes, yes, yes. So we decided to do something completely new. Paws was becoming a very common name and a lot of pet stores were using it. So we said, okay, let's try something different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The challenges for that would have been true. Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's why.
00:46:10
Speaker
This is a pretty funky name, a heads up for tails. How did that name originate? I wanted to get something with a dot com and anything that I could think of with a paw, with a tail, with a vag, with a bark, with a wolf was taken in the US because the US market is so big and so evolved. So I remember going for our first exhibition and not even having the name on my table.
00:46:39
Speaker
And then one day one of our friends called and said, hey, what about heads and tails? Then we said, OK, what about heads up for heads up and tails? And then someone said, OK, no heads up for tails. And it just stuck. But honestly, I did not know again from at that time about SEO, about having such a long brand name, about how people need something short and crisp to remember. So it just came out of
00:47:05
Speaker
I didn't know any better to think in that direction. So that's that. Okay. So tell me about that evolution from 17 to 19. 17 to 19 was super exciting. We did, I remember in 2018, we had already reached about 20 stores. And one of our big ones. How many cities?
00:47:32
Speaker
I think we were in four cities. Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore. Yes, we were in Pune, Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay. And the exciting part about 2018-19 was we opened a store in Khan Market in Delhi.
00:47:50
Speaker
And we opened a big one in Bangalore as well. So we went to more prominent locations and increase the size of the stores. And that also gave us very big visibility. I mean, we didn't realize that someplace like a Khan market could have
00:48:08
Speaker
that much impact in getting the brand known not just in Delhi but also people from everywhere in the country somehow it's just center of Delhi it's a busy market and so that obviously we didn't feel it immediately
00:48:24
Speaker
But as time went by, and I would meet someone and tell them what I do, they'd be like, I've seen your store there. And I started to realize that actually, like, you know, has played such a big part. And then in Bangalore, we opened a big experience center for pets. So we had the spa, we had a little bakery, we, you know, it was a large format store. So, you know, for humans.
00:48:57
Speaker
So it was very exciting two years and 2019 is when we raised these flagship stores. What kind of daily or monthly sales would they do? A flagship store for us does between 25 to 35 lakhs. Yeah. And how does that compare with what would be a way to understand this number? A small neighborhood store could do 7 to 10 lakhs.
00:49:25
Speaker
And with other brands like say like a cosmetic store, how much would they be doing? Oh gosh, a lot more Akshay for sure. The market is still very small and niche and we are still capturing only one end of the customer segment. So we still have a long way to go. Yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
So the 2019 10 million fundraise. So what was that for? Again, more store expansion? I think what we wanted to do was upgrade our talent, be able to at every level we've wanted to, we've sort of sometimes, not every time, but we felt like we had outgrown the team and we needed to bring in more senior people who could help us get to the next level.
00:50:16
Speaker
So, definitely hiring was always on top priority. Store growth, which, like you said, is capital-extensive. Inventory is capital-intensive, product development, research. All of that requires a lot of capital. So, it was really the same set of investors who were supporting us.
00:50:41
Speaker
And yes, so maybe a couple of new people came in, but primarily it was the same people. And we also won the World Branding Awards in 2019 for the second time, which is an international one, which made us really excited that the small home brand... What is that signified? World Branding Awards?
00:51:02
Speaker
This is an international competition for brands across the world and they started an animal section. So it had all the brands in the pet space apply and it was really exciting that to have been started as a tiny homegrown company, we were now on a global platform. So that was super exciting.
00:51:29
Speaker
And then 2019 just flew by and then came 2020. One thing about 2019 though, so by 19 you must have been what, like 15, 16, if you were doubling each year, you would have. By 19, yes, I think we must have been about 20 plus. Yes, maybe 25. I can't remember exactly, but I think we were around that time. Yes.
00:51:58
Speaker
So like when the pandemic hit, what percentage of your revenue was from offline?
Pandemic Shift to E-commerce
00:52:06
Speaker
Almost 70%. Okay, so what happened?
00:52:11
Speaker
And then it all just came to a standstill. Like this became zero is it? It became zero for a couple of weeks because we had to shut down the stores and there was just such little clarity on what you can do, what you can't. Then we appealed for
00:52:28
Speaker
Pet food to be considered an essential item we don't let us we did social media campaigns because customers were going crazy is that you know this is this is not a joke coming that's what my dog or cat lives on how am I supposed to feed them and so slowly but surely one state at a time we started to get passes but we made sure that we were only selling essential items and that was just
00:52:57
Speaker
chaos like there was everywhere else. So the first wave was scary and it was just confusing and difficult. I think we all got through it. But fortunately you had money in the bank that 10 million funders would have given you financial comfort to not have to do layoffs and stuff like that. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. So how did business evolve due to pandemic? And I mean, you know, pandemic has forced every business to
00:53:27
Speaker
kind of pivot. So how did that happen for Hedda Patel?
00:53:31
Speaker
For us, it was an accelerated shift to e-com. That was for sure. However, we've continued the retail expansion. We haven't stopped. We also really have continued hiring and onboarding of a lot of critical teams. Virtually, to do that was difficult. I remember just not having met or seen a lot of these new people who were now leading
00:53:59
Speaker
so many things and that was such a strange feeling or just talking to them on a zoom call it just wasn't the same but i think we got better and better at it you know over trying to over communicate sometimes trying to bring teams together and
00:54:14
Speaker
Making sure that we had enough time to bond even if it was with a zoom and I remember trying to open every call with a question like how was your weekend or what one highlight that you want to share about something just helping people bring a little bit of a personal aspect instead of just going into work because I think we all just missed.
00:54:32
Speaker
lunchtime conversations, a walk together, coffee conversations. The magic of bringing four people in a room and brainstorming. I really did struggle with the virtual thing for a little bit and then slowly started getting better. But we did, despite it being difficult and even the supply chains being so broken, we really pushed hard and tried to build a bigger vendor base. We scaled our in-house manufacturing.
00:55:00
Speaker
So there was a lot that we were able to do, but I think the big lesson was just around agility and adaptability and how important that is. No matter how big or small you are, it's just important to think like that. And it was also new for us while we were scaling e-commerce to understand the digital customer because they were very different from our
00:55:24
Speaker
Our offline customer is much more loyal. We have a relationship with them. Many have been with us for many years. We know them. We know their dogs. We know them by name. And so for the online customer, understanding that they're looking for convenience. They're looking for a very wide catalog. They're looking for price, competitiveness.
00:55:46
Speaker
just being able to and also learn about digital first strategies. How do you acquire online? There were so many things that we were learning and trying to experiment with. So what did you learn about driving sales online? Like, you know, if you had to get some bullet points to other founders on how to go online and how to drive sales online, what are like drivers for growing that?
00:56:17
Speaker
Drivers are getting the fit between your product and customer and market correct. What is it that your customers want? So we spent a lot of time understanding our customers, trying to see how do we build segments? What does each segment want? How do we map our customer journeys? Because of course, the easy thing to say is digital marketing. Sorry. The offline product market fit doesn't translate to online product market fit.
00:56:45
Speaker
not as easily because again, discoverability is limited because nobody is typing in for mental stimulation toys for dogs. Whereas if somebody came offline, we'd be like, okay, now your dog can't really go out for a walk. Here are three, four games that you can play at home to keep them busy, happy, engaged. So because these are just new products, they just aren't that easily discoverable online. So
00:57:14
Speaker
There still needs to be a lot of awareness built around them. So online for you is a lot of customer education then. Like that could have been a key driver. Yes, it is. Absolutely. And always has been. And I think that actually it's exciting also because it's nice to be able to give value to your customer. How do you create that value? It's through education, through helping them learn something new. If that's what they value, some people don't value that. They just want
00:57:43
Speaker
The price, the price is what is most important. And some people value convenience that I wanted now or I wanted tomorrow morning. So just understanding the different motivations. And I remember you mentioning at the start of the conversation that retail can be quite difficult and there are so many parts to it. But I feel online is much harder than retail. It's so much harder.
00:58:10
Speaker
And of course, it's so much more exciting because you can scale it up that much. But when we were at a place where it was 50-50, the offline piece felt so much easier. A customer would come in, buy what they wanted and leave. There's no returns and exchanges and couriers and all of that stuff. But now, of course, we have to be able to get those pieces right, whatever it takes, and keep getting better at it. What is the mix today, offline versus online?
00:58:39
Speaker
Today, we are about 60-40, so 60% is online and 40% is offline. Sorry, 60% is offline and 40% is online. And how many stores do you have now? We have 42 stores and we have about 8 more in the pipeline and fit-outs. So by the end of the year, we'll have about 50.
00:58:59
Speaker
You doubled from 2019 to today. In 2019, you had about 20 odd stores. Yes. Did you see retail football picking up? Why did you decide to invest more in offline?
00:59:17
Speaker
We realized that if that was a core part of our strategy, then we might as well continue it. And it's something that we just believe in that slowly but surely it is that the mix is what is helping us understand our customers and be able to reach have our products reach them well.
00:59:38
Speaker
And for a little bit, of course, we did break when there was no option during the lockdowns. But then we said, OK, let's just keep trying. Maybe we get better deals at this time. And we did once in a couple of places because retail, there was a lot of people coming out of there. So we got better deals. We just wanted to go slow one store at a time. And we've just been building it ever since. And also, it's that.
01:00:03
Speaker
thought that maybe immediately there's not a return, but in the future, you know, whether it's one year or two years, it may help. Plus at a time when a lot of people are coming out of a particular industry, you get better locations as well. Locations is not easy to find. So there's more supply and there's all the advantages that come with that, even if it's for the short run. Tell me about your learnings with respect to location.
01:00:30
Speaker
like you know you realize the Khan market location and that could have probably attuned you to how to evaluate a location and you know so tell me about that yes we we tried a couple of different formats we tried a standalone we tried a mall location we tried a neighborhood location and we tried a
01:00:51
Speaker
high street location which is like a car market and we realize that we need a little bit of all of them but we need to be able to be intelligent in the way that we're thinking about it. So for example if it's a high street
01:01:08
Speaker
Those rentals are much more so we need to be mindful about where we're opening how big should this store be not necessarily invest in a very large format there. What is really for branding it's like your your board is really like a billboard in some ways is reminding people of you and building trust and enabling the discoverability the stand alone stores was slightly more larger format but then when we first open and we found that.
01:01:36
Speaker
It was not so easy to have people walk in. They had to drive up to the store, especially for us. And of course, over the years, we've built up those clientele that come in frequently and they've been with us. And so many of them have been loyal, but it took a very long time to build that up. And then you have the mall stores. Again, those are...
01:01:57
Speaker
in very high football areas. But we've also gone wrong. We've gone wrong with locations four or five times. What locations went wrong?
01:02:08
Speaker
Again, a mix of all. Sometimes a mall has not worked out and another mall has done really well. Give me more details. For example, we had a store at the Shanti Niketan Mall in Bangalore. We just closed that down because it was breaking even but it was just slow for a long time and it just wasn't seeing the kind of traction that we wanted it to.
01:02:32
Speaker
Then we opened in a club in Gurgaon, which apparently had a lot of football, but our store was at the back and nobody would come to the back. Things like that, you know, where we realized that it has to be visible. They say in retail, there is only one rule, location, location, location.
01:02:52
Speaker
and sometimes for a lower rental you feel okay maybe I can try and maybe I can spend more on marketing and maybe I can drive football but the pain involved and the time involved in making that happen just made us realize that it's it's perhaps just not worth it and in a niche category where our goal is discoverability we just have to be in
01:03:17
Speaker
places where people can find us very easily and places where people come for their everyday stuff. Whether it's a local market, whether you're coming to buy your milk and bread and eggs every day, or whether it's a mall that you would go into for 20 other things or a high street, we realized that we had to be there. Okay. Okay.
01:03:39
Speaker
and you know so in terms of customer education like what all stuff are you doing there like that is an important driver for your online growth so tell me about that like we spent a lot of time on using social media because we realized all our customers were spending their time there so a lot of educational posts a lot of educational videos we've been writing blogs
01:04:04
Speaker
Primarily Instagram and Facebook for us. We found Twitter not to be, or maybe we just don't know how to use it well enough at the moment. It's not where we're very active. So it's primarily these two. And we've been creating content for the last many, many years.
01:04:23
Speaker
However, now when I look back at some of it, I feel like the videos look a little bit dated, you know, seven years old, so it's eight years old, five years old. And I feel like that video space and the content space is also moving so quickly that I feel like I want to remake a lot of those. So what kind of video like are they like,
01:04:43
Speaker
animated videos or like you actually use it with a dog? Yes, it could be me or it could be members of my team or it could be an expert who's helping us understand how do you train your dog? How do you cut their nails? Why is something more important? How about cats? How do you even approach them? What are the myths that we can bust around? So many things that we think incorrectly.
01:05:10
Speaker
and just helping people understand how they can help their pets live their best lives. And does this also like get published on your website and you know, do you get that SEO benefit? Like if I search for some problem with my cat, for example, would I like land on your blog as a solution to that? We never optimized so well for SEO, but recently we started to just change some of our
01:05:37
Speaker
blogs and make them more SEO-friendly. But even on the website, we have a lot of content. We've got something called the HuffTV, which is primarily our YouTube channel. And we've got the blog in a written format. And then for audio, we've just started this podcast I was mentioning to you about. So there is a lot happening. And we just have to get better at being able to present it in a more consumable manner so that people can actually benefit from it.
01:06:07
Speaker
So 21, you raised another round. Tell me about that. 21, yes, just recently. That was the first time that we went the VC way and it was very exciting. The lead investors were World Invest and Sequoia. So Sequoia we had been speaking to for the last two years.
01:06:30
Speaker
and we had met them a couple of times and we said we're not ready yet and then earlier in the year they reached out and said okay how are you guys doing and we said okay maybe we're ready should we just talk and they said yes and then we did and it just happened
01:06:48
Speaker
So it's been very exciting.
Recent Funding and Growth Plans
01:06:50
Speaker
Well, invest also came in and they're lovely as well. So we feel like we have two really great partners. Well, invest has been in the pet space for a long time. And so they bring that understanding and Sequoia brings many, many other areas of expertise as well. So excited about what's to come, excited about what we're going to build and how we're going to build it.
01:07:14
Speaker
And this was a pretty large round, right? 37 million. Yes, it was. And what is going to be your turnover now? Like, is it still doubling? So like 19, it was, you told me, I think 25 crores, something like that. Yes, it was about that much. Last year, we did about 70 something. And so this year, we are hoping to close at around 150. Wow, amazing. Amazing. Okay, great. Awesome.
01:07:44
Speaker
So, you know, what is the unit economics like over here? You know, like what kind of margins do you typically have on products and how does it differ from offline and online? Margins are very, very ductious. So food companies give very thin margins, which are pretty much almost all lost when you ship a bag of food. So and yet that is a big category for all
01:08:15
Speaker
everybody in the industry. And it's a difficult one to crack online. So like on your own website, you also sell like pedigree and other. Yes, we do. We do. So the margins vary from 18% all the way to about 50, 60%. So it's a quite a varied range, depending on each category, primarily plus our in-house brand versus third party brands. So there is quite a mix there.
01:08:45
Speaker
And do the margins differ from online and offline? No, no, they don't. Oh, they are the same. Okay. Yes. Okay. And how much of your online sales is through your own website and how much through marketplaces? It's almost a 50-50 split. So we do our 50% online. I mean, via heads up for tails.com and 50% through other channel partners.
01:09:11
Speaker
So what is your online strategy going forward? Like next couple of years, what do you want it to be? We want it to be a destination where you can find everything for your pets, whether it's product, whether it's content, whether it's community. How will community happen?
01:09:32
Speaker
Community is, you know, via, for example, Facebook groups and other groups that we want to build online where pet parents get connected, they're able to help each other answer questions. We're in the process of also building out an app.
01:09:47
Speaker
which adds a lot of value in so many small ways. There it's a lot easier for you to get connected to other people. It's easy for you to save data. When does your pet need the next vaccination or de-worming or little things like that. So we're really trying to see how do we add lots of value into an app.
01:10:08
Speaker
You're also looking at bringing in a lot of, say, a listing of veterinary doctors whom they can approach and stuff like that. Yes, absolutely. So like an all-in-one app for a pet owner, like anything he needs for his pet, he can find it over there, be it a service, be it a product, be it advice. Yes, that's right. Sounds like an interesting vision. Yes, we're very excited.
01:10:38
Speaker
So what is like your online reach today like number of people wise like some rough estimate? We do about
01:10:55
Speaker
30,000 orders a month online. So yeah, traffic is of course much more, conversions are a lot less than traffic. So yes, tentatively around that much. Okay. Okay. And how many cities are you in now? Like you were in four cities in 2019. Now what is it? Yes. Now we're in nine cities. Well, what all have you added?
01:11:19
Speaker
We've added Ludhiana, we added Lucknow, we've added Hyderabad, we added Chennai, we've added, gosh, I'm totally blanking out. That's fine. Do you see offline more growth from smaller cities now going forward?
01:11:43
Speaker
We've just started to try tier two. We just also did Ahmedabad. So we're going to see how what the response is like. A lot of them are fairly new and they need a couple of months to let people know that we're here. So we're going to see how that works. And if it is, then we'll be so excited to go and try more tier two cities. Is there like a
01:12:07
Speaker
a significant price difference between let's say a heads up for tail product and the same product from a regular pet store.
01:12:16
Speaker
There isn't actually, but there is the perception that there is. So yeah, there isn't though. We try to make everything very competitive. We want to be able to reach a large audience and we really want Heads Up for Tales to be in every home. So we've worked on a very wide catalog where there is something for everyone. There is, for example, a caller that may start at 199 and then we have, which is a basic
01:12:42
Speaker
Call but still durable still strong and then you may have a printed version or a designer version that goes up to seven eight hundred rupees but we've really tried to widen it and build for everybody anyone with a bet okay and what is the like kind of competition that you have do you have like organized competitors
01:13:04
Speaker
Yes, there have been quite a few new players who have come into the market, who are much more organized. And then of course, we have teams in both.
01:13:18
Speaker
So, somebody may have 6 doors, somebody may have 10. And then online also, there are quite a few new... Actually, online, there are just so many new people who've come in. Some are smaller, some have more funding and are larger. So, it is getting popular as an industry and as a space. And everyone seems to think that it's...
01:13:41
Speaker
It's very hot right now. But the truth is that it's still very niche. And like I said, the market size is at the maximum, still about 7-8,000, which is tiny as compared to cosmetics or anything else. So, yeah, we'll see how it progresses. And it is definitely becoming slowly growing.
01:14:04
Speaker
You must be the biggest player in this industry compared to the other players. At the moment, yes, because we have a head start of a couple of years. But we have to obviously work harder and harder to retain that because everybody else has us to learn from. And for us, it took us a long time to learn ourselves.
01:14:26
Speaker
And is life different as a woman founder as compared to being a male founder? Or is it like it doesn't matter? For me, the only thing that's different is
01:14:41
Speaker
I mean, I think as a mother, it's hard to balance work and home. But otherwise, I don't think so. I think that it depends on your personality. You could be any kind of male or female founders, but it's just that as just as a mother, that is a primary responsibility that no one else can quite take from you. And that is a very, very big responsibility. But other than that, I don't
Advice for Women Entrepreneurs
01:15:09
Speaker
think so.
01:15:09
Speaker
So my last question to you, what advice do you have for young women who are considering starting up? I'd say that starting up needs a lot of grit, which is a combination of passion and perseverance. And things take a while to be able to come together. So you have to really hang in there for the long haul.
01:15:35
Speaker
And it can be very overwhelming a lot of people will discourage you and you are expected in society to play a certain role whether it's Managing your home or your husband's home and family But and when it does seem overwhelming Don't stop but take one small step at a time. You don't have to take big leaps, but you just keep moving forward little by little and
01:16:01
Speaker
Okay, good advice. Okay, so tell me about Heads Up for Tales Foundation. Akshay, we started the foundation formally just two years ago in 2019. But we've been working on a lot of these causes ever since we started out. And the main aim of the foundation is to help with peaceful coexistence of human and animal, especially in urban cities.
01:16:30
Speaker
and to remind people that we have a shared planet because what we see is that people forget that and we see them showing away these dogs and cats who may live outside their office or outside their home forgetting that this belongs to them as well and this is their home. So what we've been doing is trying to just create awareness and trying to educate again people because we feel that it's about a mind shift change
01:17:00
Speaker
And you start to care about something only when you understand it. And in addition to a lot of education, we've been doing things like vaccination programs, like an anti rabies or sterilization program so that there are not more babies being born on the streets. Food drives, we've done more than five, six lakh of food sponsorships. In fact, we send out food, a bag of food with all our online orders as well.
01:17:28
Speaker
above a certain value so that customers are also empowered to make that change and go and feed a dog in need. So adoption drives, we use our stores to do lots of adoption drives and really trying to also change the mindset against our Indian dogs. There's a lot of bias there.
01:17:47
Speaker
We want them to be equal to any other breed and if you're looking for a breed where you are able to give the time and energy for a dog that is super intelligent, great with family, but does need a lot of exercise. They're just absolutely wonderful and we just want to be able to shift.
01:18:10
Speaker
the perspective a little bit where we see even people who love dogs will shun them or throw a stone or say, okay, get them away from my gate. And that's just, they have so much of love and friendship to actually extend. We can just understand them a little bit and peacefully share our space.
Promoting Human-Animal Coexistence
01:18:31
Speaker
So that's really a lot of work the foundation is doing.
01:18:34
Speaker
Are you trying to change more through government regulation kind of an impact, like a more large-scale countrywide impact?
01:18:45
Speaker
We're not, we're not. We haven't yet gotten involved there. It's a difficult space to go into. So we feel that whatever we can do, again, one message at a time, one person at a time. And sometimes we organize feeding drives. Sometimes we do things like this distribution of now in the winters, we'll give away heaps of beds. We've done about lots of reflective collar drives where dogs get hit by cars at night because they can't see them.
01:19:14
Speaker
But with the reflective colors, you can spot them easily. So little things that we can do where we can change one, help one person at a time, one dog or cat at a time. That's really what we want to do. But we believe that the larger impact will come not by these smaller drives, but really by mindset change. And that's where
01:19:36
Speaker
you can mobilize a lot of people to come together and do more good. How do you do the mindset change? Is it through social media campaigns? Right now it is through social media but before the pandemic hit we had started to go into schools, we had started to go into slum areas where especially they're afraid of dogs and they see one and they pick up a stone because they're afraid of rabies and helping children, helping
01:20:02
Speaker
people to understand dog body language, how to communicate with them, how to approach a dog correctly. So many reasons why people get bitten is because they're not understanding the signals that that animal is giving to you or they don't understand just them at all. So there's a lot of fear and people do things that they can easily avoid. So hopefully we should be able to go back into more physical models in the coming months.
01:20:32
Speaker
The funny thing about India is that the lower down in social hierarchy people are, the more they are closer to animals. The more educated you have, the more you will shun an animal. Absolutely. But I have seen so often a panwala with a very small coca will be giving biscuit and milk to the dogs near his coca.
01:20:54
Speaker
And that's so heartening, right? That when they have little, they're still willing to share. And so many people who have so much, they just aren't. So I think it's just about reminding them because it's in all of us, but sometimes we forget. Yeah. If you have got a pet in the family, then I'm sure you would love to pamper them with some premium products. Check out the entire Heads Up for Tales product line at headsupfortales.com.
01:21:21
Speaker
This episode of Founder Thesis Podcast is brought to you by Long Haul Ventures. Long Haul Ventures is the long haul partner for founders and startups that are building for the long haul. More about them is at www.longhaulventures.com.