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The accidental mompreneur | Harini Sivakumar @ Earth Rhythm
328 Plays2 years ago
Not fancy pedigrees but grit and determination- Harini's journey is a powerful example of scaling up through these two. It resembles a captivating Hollywood movie, beginning with a homemaker turned accidental entrepreneur, and culminating in the creation of a 100-crore business.
Additional links:-
1.How Harini Sivakumar built D2C brand Earth Rhythm to help her specially-abled child
2.How Earth Rhythm is Using Technology to Offer Non-Toxic, Sustainable and Biodegradable Products
3.‘I was a Homemaker for 7 Years. Here’s How I Built a Brand Worth Rs 200 Crore’
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Transcript
Introduction to The Grand Tellers and Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, everyone. I'm Harini Shankar, founder and CEO of The Grand Tellers with them.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey listeners, I am Nandini Kunde. I edit some of the episodes of the founder thesis podcast and I am also the voice artist for the episode introductions.
Harini's Journey to Entrepreneurship
00:00:26
Speaker
I wanted to put in a personal note for introducing this episode featuring Harini Sivakumar, the founder of Earth Rhythm. This episode literally goes like the plot of a well-made Hollywood movie, which started with a stay-at-home mom who accidentally became an entrepreneur and ended up building a 100 crore business.
00:00:43
Speaker
This episode was especially inspiring to me because I am also a mom and can totally relate with the challenges Harini faced while scaling up earth rhythm. This episode is a must listen. It's proof that not all founders need to have an IIT IM background and all you need to scale up is grit and determination. Stay tuned and subscribe to the Founder Thesis Podcast on any audio streaming platform to get inspired by founders reshaping the future of business in India.
00:01:17
Speaker
I'd like to call myself an accidental entrepreneur. Started my career as a banker. I find from Chennai, a certain part of India, born, brought up Chennai. When I reached Delhi, I think there were two things that I did, right? One was obviously like I said, because of the language barrier, I had no friends, so socializing and hanging out with them.
00:01:37
Speaker
It has been far-fetched, at least in the initial few couple of months that I landed in Delhi.
Inspiration Behind Earth Rhythm: A Mother's Quest
00:01:44
Speaker
And Vengta, Delhi has these extreme weather climates as compared to Chennai when we have three types of them, hot, hotter and hottest. Delhi has hot air and hot cold dives and all of that. So it was difficult for me to probably
00:01:59
Speaker
I figured out a lot of things for my son because of his special needs. He had a lot of issues near the eczema which started getting aggravated in the cold winters in Delhi.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yes. You know how we Indian moms are, right? We like to do grandma's secret. We like to do things at home. We like to do everything, you know, from our kitchen. And I started, you know, using capstone soaps that depend on my son, which were pure olive oil soaps, like 100% olive oil soaps. And these soaps
00:02:35
Speaker
were not available in India at that point of time. I would typically wait for someone who's coming from U.S. and I used to buy my one-year stock from them and keep it with me and use it every month once though for my son.
00:02:47
Speaker
And it used to be like, you know, there was a point in my life when my Facebook status was, you know, anyone travelling from US, please feed me. So, it became like a regular noun for me. And off the point, why am I even, you know, handing around every single person to help me get it? And I, it was just, I didn't rely on the thought, I decided, I just turned on Google how to make Castel soaps, right? And I learned how to do it. How do you spend the Castel CASD?
00:03:18
Speaker
This is like a genre of soaps.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yes. It's kind of pure olive oil and soap. It doesn't lather much or anything. It has a high oil cut bit, which means that anyone who has extreme dry skin or eczema, it washes off at the same time, very moisturizing. So you don't get these center cast and soaps in India. Even today, it's quite difficult to find unless and until you go to a specialty store or an uptime market where you will find these kinds of products.
Turning Point: Coping with Personal Loss
00:03:51
Speaker
Um, so, you know, I, I learned enough into a YouTube video, which, uh, which, which was actually teaching you how to make that stuff. And I saw that video and it was like, Oh my God, it's so simple. It's better. It's easier than making it out. I didn't have it. Okay. Why don't I just, you know, uh, attempt making, uh, that's the soap at home. And, uh, I think it was one of the ingredients needed. And I was trying to, you know, go on Google and hunt back. And I get this ingredient, like, and I source it from, and I got a couple of ingredients.
00:04:21
Speaker
And I decided to wait my first batch, which was the biggest disaster. I had no clue what was happening. It turned out like the failed Mysoon Park written phrase for the first time saying, which was very hard. And it was like, you know, like somebody could really be hard with it.
00:04:37
Speaker
So, and then after a couple of times of clients to make the cast and soap, I managed to make something which looked like a soap. And my trial and error into, you know, making these soaps, and obviously the Guinea up exam me and my son, we were using these soaps to figure out whether it's actually matching the one that I use from the US or not.
00:04:58
Speaker
And that's how my journey into, you know, getting into doing something on my own started. And another, I think, stock reason for me to, you know, start figuring out to, you know, probably keep myself busy was also my mom passed away in 2015.
From Hobby to Business: The Growth of Soap Making
00:05:13
Speaker
And that was a huge turning point because, you know, generally, girls are very close to their parents and specifically mom, right? For me, especially because I had a child with disability, she was a huge support system for me in my journey.
00:05:28
Speaker
And when she actually passed away, it was like a big hollow in my life. I wasn't able to relate to the fact that, how do I even move on right now? And to keep myself busy, to probably keep your mind from divert yourself, you need to get into something, like do something to keep yourself busy. And these are a couple of reasons which pushed me to start exploring to do something on my own. And that's how the journey of soak making started.
00:05:55
Speaker
And, you know, the interest was so intense that once I started making castile soaps, I think I made batch number one, batch number two, batch number three, and I think about four, three months time, I started experimenting different types of soap, like Sushia butter soap, cocoa butter soap, many different types of soaps that I started making. And these are all traditionally cold process soaps.
00:06:15
Speaker
which does not require any fire or machinery or anything required. But you can simply make it like, you know, even if you, you know, a lot of, you know, furanas or banas, you go and see. A lot of people, you know, used to make their own washing soaps at home. Like, it was very simple. This process was very similar. So it was, you know, soap modification using, you know, sodium hydroxide and, you know,
00:06:37
Speaker
a bunch of, you know, oils, a combination of oils and never soap that cleans. What is sodium hydroxide? Is it a liquid or is it a gas?
00:06:48
Speaker
It comes in flakes. Basically, it's a chemical compound. It comes in flakes. When you put water on it, it turns really hot, like acid. It can actually burn your skin. That's how it becomes. You mix oil with it at a certain proportion. And when oil and this particular sodium hydroxide solution come together, there is a process that happens called soap-nification. And when you let it sit overnight in a pan or in a bowl, it turns into a hard bar of soap.
00:07:17
Speaker
So that's how a soap is created, right? So a washing soap will have more sodium hydroxide and less ions, but a bathing soap will have more ions and less sodium hydroxide. The idea is to keep it more moisturizing and more cleansing and all of those abilities.
00:07:32
Speaker
So within like three, four months, I, you know, gathered, I started making a lot of soaps and, you know, my room was filled with at least hundred soaps, hundred soaps. And I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do with these? I mean, hundred soaps? And even if it was something to eat them, I would just, you know, I finish it somehow, but soap is something you can't even finish it if you want.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I started distributing these to friends and family, right? It was also an attempt to make friends in the new place that I was in Delhi. So I used to carry these soaps to my son's school when I used to pick him up. I used to give it to his classmate's parents saying that, hey, I made these. Why don't they try and give me feedback? And I started sharing it.
00:08:13
Speaker
This was around the time when, you know, a couple of months later, you know, doing this again and again and again. A lot of these people who, you know, actually started using my products used to come back to me, say, you have Borokushya butter soaps, I want to buy them.
00:08:28
Speaker
this time, please take money. I'm willing to pay you. Can I get me your pen? I want to give it to my sister. I want to give it to my brother. I want this. I want that. And that became a regular routine for me where people started asking me for something that I actually distributed to me, of course. And I started enjoying it because I actually had an opportunity to make what I like. And that's how, you know, my journey, my baby steps into, you know, and, you know, something on my own came into existence.
00:08:53
Speaker
This was around the time of 2015. 2016 came. I think this phase was more of a learning phase for me. Like I said, I come from a commerce background. I studied to be a banker. So I decided to spend some money and do some couple of courses to understand how skill care formulation works.
00:09:12
Speaker
Um, uh, because there's a lot of chemistry and more, uh, while, while manufacturing skincare, um, and with economics commerce, uh, you know, credit debit, I think understanding how so open education work and how stability words are all different, uh, completely avoid different volume altogether.
00:09:30
Speaker
So I wanted to go through that phase. So 2016, I think I almost knelt that near while I was doing all of these work-based stuff and making a little bit of money here and there. But the whole of 2016, I spent that time studying, trying to unlearn the economics commerce that was there in the brain, relearn organic chemistry and organic chemistry, understand how formulation works. That was also more towards the fact that people were actually
00:09:59
Speaker
buying my product and paying me by and I had some kind of, I had to have some kind of responsibility in terms of being confident of what I'm giving them to use on their skin. It's more of a responsibility that I need to take for the product than I create, right? I know it's what I was just a kitchen expert trying to make something and you know, it just happened on its own.
00:10:18
Speaker
So, you know, so 2016 was more of a base of a study based 2017. Did you like join online course or something? Yeah, I mean, I did a couple of courses. One I did with Formula Botanica, which is a UK based organization that helps people, you know, hobby people to learn skills more formally, something like Udemy, which is there in India right now. And then I also did another course with Institute of Personal Care Sciences, which
00:10:46
Speaker
which was a much more detailed program where you get the post-raduative in cosmetic science, which enables you to call your sense of cosmetic chemist upon completion of the course. And I did that course and then once that was done, I think 2017,
00:11:02
Speaker
I decided to create my own small little catalog of products. I had soaps, I had nubums, I had lotions, some interesting products, like say, trees and stuff like that. And I created 710 products and I started selling it. This is all being made in your apartment only.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yes, I had converted one room in my apartment as my studio and I started, I used to be the maker, packer, dishwasher. I've gone through that phase when a customer used to call me and shout at me saying that it's been since I ordered and I have not received my order and I would say I let the manager know and I let the people know.
00:11:49
Speaker
So 2017, I decided for, you know, leverage on social media channels. I think for small brands to see. Branding it through them.
00:11:59
Speaker
No. Back then it was called Soapworks India. Why Soapworks? Don't even ask me because I just made Soaps back then and I needed Soapworks India. You had like a printed packaging on it which said Soapworks and all. Like how did you package it?
00:12:20
Speaker
So and I can say my initial investment when I started soapworks was 5,000 rupees. And this 5,000 rupees I actually, you know, used my husband's credit card, stole like 5,000 rupees but not swiped it without his knowledge and make money.
00:12:36
Speaker
And then they pay it by the end of the month to the card account so that he never gets to know the IU $5,000 card. So my initial investment was exactly $5,000 if I have to be relatively honest with you. And the initial days like you asked me, he's labeling all of that red everything in house. I bought a printer and I bought label sheets. There was this website called onlinelabels.com in US and I used to buy labels wherever my friends were traveling. I used to get labels in bulk from them.
00:13:03
Speaker
And they have templates on their website for the labels that they sent. So I used to design my own labels, and I used to print my own labels, and everything was in-house. Nothing. And there is a reason to it also, right? The reason is that in India, if you have to start looking at outsourcing, hobby is not very huge in India, like the Western countries, but hobby is a huge thing. Guard me.
00:13:27
Speaker
you know, fishing, all these things are very huge. That is in India will be still very underrated even today. But you do have, you know, specialty hobby stores here, but it's not really something which everybody has the time and luxury to, you know, spend their time on. So I decided to buy these niggas, you know, design it myself. And if I have to go out and get it done, there are MOQs involved. I need to print 5,000 labels. MOQ is quantity.
00:13:52
Speaker
minimum order quantity, right? And each vendor will tell me that at least Hazar enabled print Karado. Come sit on Hazar Karado. When I was selling only five was free source, they might be like, Hazar late, right? But it didn't make sense to me. And I didn't want to block any of my money in any of the event because I had no goal at that point of time, whether I was actually building a business or not. I was nurturing my hobby, I would say, or my passion project.
00:14:18
Speaker
And then, you know, I started doing everything, even photography, I still remember. I bought these, you know, these white background, you know, these textured, you know, photography sheets that you get. And then I used to place my product on the top, and I used to click with my NSLR, and then I pre-owned it. And I've done a great thing, right, right, from, I just said, unless you have done everything in the company, right, from customer service to digital marketing to brand marketing to, you know, right, from, you know, delivery boy, I've done it. And I still remember,
00:14:48
Speaker
There was this time where one lady, she had ordered a soap and she was in Noida and I live in Gurdav and I drove down and she was very angry with me because she had ordered soaps to gift it to someone and I haven't donated because these cold process soaps actually have a process called curing which is like it needs to stay on the shelf for three weeks to get the maximum benefit out of the soap and she wanted it so gently and I had to break that curing period and run to her and give it.
00:15:17
Speaker
And the cost of the soaps were around $500, $600. And I drove some $50, $60. And off and down, it was $100 in the readers. And then anyone that sold for that $500, and she opened the door, and she was like, can you please take the company, then? This is the easiest service that I've had. I was sending them, can you please take your owners number? I said, I am the owner. But she had, like, only on your letter. And yeah, I'm the owner. I'm so sorry about this.
00:15:45
Speaker
You know, the space of, you know, how, you know, small businesses, homegrown entrepreneurs actually go through everything for the first time, first time experience of, you know, getting the feel of, you know, standing in front of the customer, getting streamed back, getting appreciated, getting feedback. Everything happens first time, right?
00:16:03
Speaker
This was around 2017. For most D2C brands, I think the digital channels or the social media channels are the first way how they will get the experience of selling or building a brand. That's simply because the entry barriers are very low. There's no cost requirement. There's no investment at all, practically. I used to sell on Facebook pages, Instagram,
00:16:27
Speaker
Google, I mean, I think I mentioned all these channels, right? That I could actually send my product and people used to place orders on WhatsApp. And then after a point of time, like, did you have an e-cover site or something? No, you create groups. So when, when people, uh, yeah, so, and, and that point of time, movie groups, you know, these groups are very, very popular. So I, you know, create, today that is replaced by WhatsApp groups, but yeah, exactly. Right. Google groups.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yes, yes. So, you know, I started utilizing all these channels to sell the products. I don't know what a point of plan even back started getting a little difficult and fluffered because, you know, in WhatsApp, you know, what happens is you lose track of, you know, the conversation.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, and for a CRM, you just can't really manage everything after a point. And that's when I was like, you know, I need, I need a website now. And obviously, like I said, low cost investment, I didn't have money. So I just decided to go to GoDaddy and buy a domain. And I built the entire website myself. Like it was a WordPress store. You won't believe, you understand WordPress requires some amount of technicality.
00:17:35
Speaker
Right. And I still remember going to Google YouTube and figuring out how to write a code, how to write a code to actually get this text in this place. Right. And I saw literally, you know, the plan, the journey of building my own website. And my website has crashed, let's say four or five times. And those nights when the website crash and the beauty language is something above my head. And I don't know what to do. My website is not working.
00:18:03
Speaker
You know, we throw on that face in 2017 and 2018. And your website was soapworks.com or something like that. Yes, soapworks.com. And that 2018 scale, during this time, I actually started building my network very much, you know, when established, I would say, like people knew soapwali, RPA, Sareenee. What sales were you doing by 2018, like Madri sales?
00:18:30
Speaker
Not much, probably I would generate about a lakh or two only per month. That was the same story I was doing. Put a home to an entrepreneur. So I started stepping out a little bit of my house. I started during the Diwali Christmas New Year. You have these main hours everywhere in these societies in Gurgaon.
00:18:53
Speaker
I used to put up a stall there, I used to pay money and put up a stall and I used to pick stock work one lap and my target used to be to send out the one lap stock and that's it. So that is how I started, you know, building my network and that's why in every society they know so many countries.
00:19:09
Speaker
So I started selling and I started seeing the process of how a business is starting to, you know, be right in front of my eyes. And this was the time, I think, end of 2018, my dad was casually visiting me in Gurdam.
00:19:27
Speaker
My dad was actually going, he was on his way to Kainashman, Sarovar. And on his way back, actually, he vaulted in Gurgaon. Not while going. On the way back, he vaulted in Gurgaon. And he was staying with me for a couple of months. He wanted to stay for 2-3 months and then head back to Chennai. So while he was staying, you know, one friend there, he was like, Harini?
00:19:45
Speaker
You're stuck inside this room, morning to evening. You have two kids who are screening for your attention outside and I have no clue what you're doing inside this room. Isn't it even worth it? It's finding your day, night, everything inside this room. You're sitting on the floor. You don't even have a chance. You're sitting on the floor and evening you're telling me my back is hurting, my leg is hurting. And what are you even doing here?
00:20:07
Speaker
I just told him, don't ask me any questions. I have too many things to do. If at all you want to do something, just help me. He's like, what can I do to help you? I gave him a nap top and I told him, become my customer service executive. There are so many emails from this email ID because I used to have a customer service made called sokwatsindia.gmail.com. I told him, there are so many emails over here. Start responding. If you have doubts, ask me. Technically, my first employee was my dad. He was a customer service executive.
00:20:35
Speaker
Well, he started responding to all the emails saying that, you know, we have met my teenage, we used to reply to them, call and speak to them and ask them and all of that. So he was being busy, right? He's also retired and he was also feeling very happy, you know, helping me in doing something. After two, three months, my dad was like, you know, Harini, you know what? You're actually taking customers' money and you're keeping it with you for two months.
00:20:59
Speaker
And then you're sending the product to the customer. I think this is really bad because one, you can't keep customers wanting to do like that without knowing when you want to dispatch the product. And secondly, your entire business of taking money into your personal account. Although I come from a commerce background, my economics are so weak that I'm actually taking more money into my savings account and I didn't even know that it was not even allowed.
Formalizing and Expanding the Business
00:21:23
Speaker
So it was like, what are you even doing? I mean, if you're really serious about this, let's make a company.
00:21:29
Speaker
like when the sole proprietor company where you create an account and you get all the money if they are only a company account, it should not be your personal account. And he built some structure around what I was doing. He created a small sole proprietor company called Soapworks India and then he opened an account for me. We got a GST number for that and he started doing a little bit of business setting up over there.
00:21:53
Speaker
And then 2-3 months down the line, while he was leaving, he was like, Harini, you know what? I have a brilliant idea. When I spoke to all your customers, right? When I called them, and without your knowledge, I told your customer, I'm sorry for keeping the money for so long. Please cancel the order. When the product is ready, we will call you back and you can place the order again and buy it. And surprisingly, most of your customers refuse to take back money.
00:22:16
Speaker
And they said, we know that Harini takes two months. It's okay if the money we get, let them send it afterwards, is what they told me. Which means, you have built credibility, you have built trust and they like your product. And this is something we should build on, is what we thought. And while we were discussing this, he was like, Harini, why don't we get out and probably do something bigger? I am also free right now. Let's start something on our own.
00:22:39
Speaker
If we win, we win. And if we lose, we have nothing to worry about, right? We're not depending on this money to actually sustain our lives or anything. Why are we worried? Let's give it a shot. My first concern was, how do I get out of the house? Because I have a son who is non-willed. My son, my older one cannot speak. So he's always been in the restricted environment around me, sitting with me. Why not make soaps? He used to sit with me and cut the soaps and all of that.
00:23:06
Speaker
So I had a night next to me while I was working also. And now suddenly thinking of getting out of my comfort zone, which is my house, and moving into a space where I had to actually leave my kids back home. And getting into that job kind of appealing, where you want to be out of the house for a couple of hours was very, very difficult for me. I've gone through that kind of pace of people calling me suddenly and saying, Harini, why are you standing in the balcony? Is anybody there at home? And I used to run like literally like a mad person and just to ensure that he's not standing in the balcony.
00:23:36
Speaker
So typically, housewife scenarios of housewife transitioning into a work professional who's trying to come out of the house and figuring out how to make everything work, both house and work. So 2019, this was the time end of 2018 and 2019. So 2019, we took up a small space outside house. So the first thing that I told me and my dad decided was we should not be far away from home because this is the first time we're stepping out.
00:24:03
Speaker
let's save the building right next to our apartment so we took the little next up you know there was a small marketplace right next to my apartment and there are like you know a lot of shopping complexes exactly like a shopping complex so I took a small 800 square feet office space there and we in that 800 square feet 400 square feet I had allocated for manufacturing and another 400 square feet for you know keeping the laptop and everything and working and all of that
00:24:33
Speaker
So both of us together we started and when we set up everything, I still remember the day when the rent was about $18,000 or $19,000, I went and I told my dad, Daddy, I doubt if I will be able to pay this rent of $18,000 month on month. My dad was like, could you ask me today? No, you can't afford it.
00:24:55
Speaker
But if you ask me, can you in future, I think you have great potential to be able to do it. I mean, when I told him, it's he with the shop, right? It's okay. So with that confidence, I was like, let's jump into this. So start in that place. And when we start in that place, I think the first thing that we both realized was, we both can't be doing everything. We need one more person to help us, right?
00:25:16
Speaker
And that's when obviously everything, even the revenge was something which we were actually trying to figure out how we're going to pay. And obviously salary was the last thing that we wanted to incur in terms of how are they going to pay someone. So I had a brilliant idea. So I went to the security guard on the condo where I live in.
00:25:38
Speaker
And I told the security guard that, I said, I'm going to kill him. So he was like, I'm going to kill him. I said, I'm going to kill him. So the next day my calling band started ringing and they were girls coming, one after the other saying, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him. Out of all these girls, Akshay, I spotted one girl, one girl. She was just 22, around 21, 22. She was wearing a saree. You know, she was from this village called Sundar Ban.
00:26:08
Speaker
She had covered her head with a study, you know, how these... She's like a role play, fresh from Sundar Bhatt.
00:26:15
Speaker
She had just landed and she was looking for odds in his job, like, you know, a maid's job in the condo that I was living in. And she was like, didi. And I looked at her. I asked her, are you educated? What do you think? Shouldn't I graduate? I was shocked. She was a graduate and she was looking for a job. And I asked her, why are you English? Why are you so bad? My English is also bad. You see how I sound.
00:26:41
Speaker
She was like, how do you like it? English 5.5 and last night and finally. I said, you're sorry. I gave her a salary of 5,000 rupees, which otherwise she would have earned some maid as well in the condo where I lived in. So I told her I'd give you the same 5,000.
00:26:58
Speaker
So you come to the building next, and from tomorrow, when she came the next day, the first test for her was I gave her a bunch of invoices. That's my website generates, right? I gave her and I told her, I'll give you one last time, just go through these invoices, then you tell me what they understood from it. And after one month, she came and she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me, she told me,
00:27:25
Speaker
So she has an idea as to what was happening around her. I was happy that she's understanding what's happening around her. So then I started training her into manufacturing, into operations, packaging, dispatch, how we actually plan the flow from the website, what order is coming, how do you pick back and keep it ready for dispatch and all of that.
00:27:48
Speaker
But then, one to one, you won't believe it. She came back to my dad and said, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle,
00:28:11
Speaker
Business is one side, but actually seeing someone evolve right in front of you is another thing. And that gives you more happiness when you see people evolve right in front of you. And Momita was one such girl for us. Today, Momita is still a part of her rhythm. And in the factory where we've been, she handles a team of 25 girls.
00:28:35
Speaker
She claimed at the salary of 5,000 rupees. Today, she earned 10 lakh of what she was getting. And had she been away, had she not taken up this opportunity that way that knocked her door?
00:28:48
Speaker
She would have still been in the same place, doing the same job and getting the same 5,000 points, right? So I think this was, I think, I don't know what to connect, like, you know, we met at the right time, both of us. And today, if you see Mobita, she, you know, the way she has evolved even as a person, personality, the jeans, the T-shirt. And I always, I still have a picture of her first saree class. And I say, please see her, please see her.
00:29:15
Speaker
So, you know, her transition has been really, you know, I could see in front of my eyes. And that's how she was the first employee. After her, I recruited a lot more girls from my condo. In fact, he put in my condo because every single woman in my condo thinks that I poached them. So, I used to really know him. So, every security guard knew that Madam Kripa's son was dead.
00:29:48
Speaker
I used to give them jobs. I used to spend them telepacking.
00:29:58
Speaker
So we became a team of around 8 heavy girls, plus me and my dad working in that place. And that's how, that's when, when we started a company, we transitioned from soapworks India to Kurtz. And the reason why he did this was, so while it came out, then we created a company called out today.
00:30:16
Speaker
we were very clear. I wanted to own the manufacturing. This entire business was a passion-driven business. It was a passion project that got converted into business and my core forte and my interest lies in the product.
00:30:33
Speaker
in the formulation into how you create this product. That gave me joy not selling the product and seeing those figures growing doubly. While that became an agenda over a period of time when we built the business. But the initial days was only about for me creating the product and seeing, you know, suddenly three, four ingredients going together and boom, there was a cream, there was a lotion, there was a soap and everything coming out of my kitchen.
00:30:57
Speaker
So, I think I wanted to own the manufacturing. So, we applied for a manufacturing license and we had a small store. When were you like 8-10? You said you had 8-10 girls working with you. When was this? It was around mid 2019, around June, July. And what was your monthly sales then? By the time you had this team of 10?
00:31:19
Speaker
And we were going around 5 to 10 bucks a month, approximately. Amazing. So you multiplied it by 5x in a year's time. Yes, yes, yes. And then the story is very interesting after that. So when then what happened, we thought that the space is getting really cramped. And until that time, I was functioning under sales. And did sales growth happen organically? Or did you spend on Google ads? Zero.
00:31:46
Speaker
Zero, literally zero. Okay. Pure word of mouth. We have no money. Pure word of mouth, you know, I'm sending it. I used to keep publishing on, you know, Instagram. I mean, early on we started using Instagram, Facebook, all of these things. Keep on posting everywhere. That's the only way we were promoting. Spend zero money in actually bringing revenues to, you know, people or people to website.
00:32:08
Speaker
And then we decided we had to apply for manufacturing license and we need to move to a little bigger space. Until that time I was functioning with the MSME registration, right? So for small home grown mentors, you can register under the MSME and still, you know, if you want to stay, then you're probably sticking something and sending or probably you're making out of bait, but you still can have an MSME and you can function. So technically I was under MSME for until that time and MSME has a threshold. I think in your turnover times,
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think some 3 lakhs or 13 lakhs, I don't remember exactly. There's a threshold for it. And once you reach the threshold, you need to come out of MSN. You can't tell the benefits of MSN.
00:32:47
Speaker
So we applied for manufacturing license and we moved slightly a little far away from that place. We took one step at a time. We thought let's go a little more far away and take one post waste. Now from this 800, we went to like 1,500 square feet. We took double the space because that's the minimum requirement for getting the manufacturing license. So we took 1,500 square feet space. And we all clearly had a plan in terms of how we will manufacture where it's sent. And this was around the early 2020 time.
00:33:14
Speaker
And that's when, you know, I was launching the brand into the market, right? And my dad was furious with me and he was like, Harini, why are you going on bringing products? Tell me one thing, you made a soap. Why can't you sell the soap alone? Why are you creating lip balm? Why are you creating cream? I said,
00:33:31
Speaker
One, I know how to make them, so I want to keep them in my gas. No, that's simple as that. Number two, people who come to buy soap and want a shoe, people who come to buy a cream, they want heroin. So you never know, you know, it's fascinating. So you need to have more products on your table for people to actually at least spend time there looking at it, right? So, and hence what happened was I had a fixed set of products and buying it was, you know, uh, figuring out the brand and building the brand
Innovative Strategies for Growth During the Pandemic
00:33:57
Speaker
and all of that. Tell me about the deal.
00:33:59
Speaker
What was the name? Yes, I'm coming to that. So while, you know, setting up this brand, brand name and all of that, the alternative idea came simply because I think over the number of years from 2015 to 2019, you know, when I survived that this home grown entrepreneur,
00:34:17
Speaker
There are some clear reasons why these people, these customers would come and buy product from Soapworks. There were very, very clear reasons. One was personalization. Consumers really liked the fact that they could actually talk to someone and they had something specially curated. When they see it, they say, Harini, I have this issue. And then I tell them, Aksar, do you have this problem? Do you have that problem? Do you want this? Do you want that? That really helped them connect with the product and with the brand and that really helped them.
00:34:47
Speaker
The personalization was one. Number two, you know, today's millennials, even the Gen Z have very, very, you know, conscious about their carbon footprint, right? We no longer want to litter the space we're living in, we want to reduce, we want to recycle. We're moving into that so long.
00:35:06
Speaker
And a lot of people in Delhi NCR would come looking for me because they would come with their reuse bottles or they would come with jars and they would say, can you fill it and give it to me? I don't want to buy one more. I don't want to generate this. So I saw sustainability and the constant feedback to me was, Harini, your products are amazing. But why would you use a plastic bottle for this?
00:35:28
Speaker
So these set of feedback started coming to me and I started figuring out if sustainability is something that consumers are really wanting to stay away from large brands because they're friends that they did not heard by huge MNCs because who actually calls the customer service behind your shampoo bottle and takes the pain of, you know, calling up and giving a feedback because they know that it's not even going to go up the management, right?
00:35:52
Speaker
So much more brands, they had that feeling that, you know, she is going to hear me, she is the person and she is going to hear me. And that feeling actually made them come back to me and give me feedback and, you know, figure out if I was willing to make that change, they are willing to stay with me.
00:36:09
Speaker
That was another reason. And the third one was consumers wear won't be products that weren't accepted. People are tired. So if they did not, if they wanted to make enough product, the market had, you know, there would be regular mass market products, right? Like say, your Namibia greens are there, your luck soaps are there.
00:36:27
Speaker
why would they come to something like soapworks India? What are they looking for? They're obviously not looking for anything which is already in the market. So they want something which they're coming with a hope that this is going to work for me. The market ones are not working. So these are the three things that I clearly laid down in mind. These are the reasons why consumers are actually coming to soapworks.
00:36:49
Speaker
So with these three things in mind, I built, I came at the same earth with them. The idea was to build the brand around sustainability. There are 100, I would say, I'm heavily focused on sustainability. I can't call myself 100% sustainable. That would be a big fat lie. You never can claim 100%. But we're largely sustainable in terms of how our supply chain is, how we've actually managed to keep the ecosystem on board, to manage our waste and all of that.
00:37:17
Speaker
A lot of these things were made over a period of time but initially when I started I was clear that the brand has to resonate sustainability to consumers. The second one being inclusivity. Now inclusivity, the reason why I included it was I think I being a mom to a child with disability
00:37:35
Speaker
I've signed it that in India, even today, inclusivity is not something which is common. People really do differentiate you, right? I still remember being judged for having people like Fomita working with me. I had some customers who actually doubted the ability or the efficacy of my product because Fomita made it, right? So, these are things that have come out. I've seen this throughout my journey.
00:38:02
Speaker
And I find that, you know, inclusivity has to be a part of it. While this is not going to bring revenues to the brand or anything of that sort, but I find this is a very strong message which people can actually relate to through the brand story, right? So inclusivity was one. The third one was clinical attentiveness. Now, this came into the picture because, like I said, people were looking for problem-solving products.
00:38:26
Speaker
And while looking for problem solving for us, the biggest advantage was today, if you've seen all the BPC brands, especially in the BPC category, which are existing, only a handful of them actually own manufacturing, right? You will probably count them in your fingers. There are very, very few brands that can own manufacturing.
00:38:43
Speaker
And when you hold manufacturing, you have the ability to actually go into in-depth in RMB. And you can actually do clinical trials. You can do in vivo analysis, in vitro analysis. You can do a lot more with the product and give consumers that comfort whether this product is going to be effective, whether this product is going to work for you or not even before investing your money into that product.
00:39:04
Speaker
So, that was the third opinion that we wanted to build around autism. So, with these three, I wanted to bring autism into the picture. I had a huge fight with my dad because my dad is a Purana, the mana person. And he was sentimental about his name, Soapworks.
00:39:29
Speaker
I don't know about luck and all because I think soap works. If I send a cream, a body lotion in the name of soap works, people come and ask me is this a soap or a lotion?
00:39:40
Speaker
There's a misconception. So I wanted to break that. And hence the earlier is better to change the name rather than doing it much later in your mind. So hence I changed the name to Earthswitham and rebranded it. And the first front-end set came from Earthswitham was Shampoo Bars.
00:39:58
Speaker
Now, when we came to shampoo bars, now when the shampoo bar is over, you're not dumping anything in the dustbin in terms of plastic waste, right? Now, our pieces to consumers was that we told consumers a simple logic, that they're not asking you too much, they're asking you to just try and replace one product in your entire lifestyle, which is a shampoo bottle or bar form.
00:40:20
Speaker
Now, imagine if you as one consumer, if you can stop yourself from dumping one shampoo bottles a year into the duct bin, just shampoo bottles alone. And if I can manage to convince 5% of India's population
00:40:35
Speaker
3% of India's population to move from shampoo bottles to bad format. Imagine the amount of reduction in the landfills we will have by just replacing one product in your robin which is a shampoo bottle. Because it is an essential product.
00:40:52
Speaker
got rid of, you know, got a lot of people inquisitive and they were willing to try shampoo bar first. So my inference was to make it exactly look and feel like, you know, it has to be like, I didn't shoulder it, it has to be like, it has to be like, it has to give that feel to consumers, right? And that was my only agenda. And I was pushing consumers prior to product and, you know, people love it. And I,
00:41:21
Speaker
How were you talking to consumers? Were you like uploading videos on Instagram or was it during those mela events and such things? No, lives, Instagram lives. So I used to go live. So actually a lot of customers actually, they have seen Harini from soapworks in their days, where I used to be the face of the brand. So I used to, you know, go on live 10 people. All these things I have done myself.
00:41:51
Speaker
Even today, we received mails and customer support saying that, can I sit to Harini before I place my order? It was super important use to these, you know, these roti of ticket to Harini before I place my order. I meant to get one order, I'll sit for 20 minutes. Today it's really tough for me to sit for 20 minutes for one order, right? So it's a journey that way, you know, in terms of how consumers have actually traveled with me.
00:42:15
Speaker
And I think, you know, it happened organically, to be very honest with you. And once shampoo bar became a hit, once people started lighting shampoo bars, I brought a lot more products under the same line. So now I call this line the zero waste skin care. Zero waste skin care is bringing products that can actually generate zero waste to the environment. And even the shampoo bar ingredients were biodegradable, which means the gray water that goes into the soil can break down.
00:42:42
Speaker
which means the septic can use, the multipliers use, the preservative use, everything is all biodegrade. So, the next set of products that we brought was cleansing balms, which can replace your face wash, and bath bombs, and few other soap baths, and many other things, which are all around the concept of zero waste skin. And we started doing them. Now,
00:43:01
Speaker
During this time, I think, you know, I had moved on to, you know, I think 2020, June, from my WordPress after the several crashes that I had with WordPress again and again and again. Finally, somebody told me, Harini, you should try Word Shopify, because Shopify is a crashing company. Why don't you try Shopify? So, I sat day and night again and built my own Shopify store. So, these are the days that I actually cut costs, right? I did not go to an agency.
00:43:31
Speaker
management was still just you and your dad. Everyone else was like shop floors. Yes. Yes. Yes. What about like packaging and stuff like that? Like you were doing like through printing out those labels at home, but you moved into that bigger space.
00:43:47
Speaker
There also mostly it was all I was only printing. I was designing and I was printing myself. But then I found a vendor who was actually slightly expensive, but could make professional labels, say 100, 200, 500 quantity. Rightly expensive, but that was the stage where I was transitioning. I was trying to figure out when I was. I used to get more small. If one product was actually selling very well, then I used to take the risk of printing thousand labels and keeping with me.
00:44:13
Speaker
So on that, you know, it was an experimenting stage at that point of time. But then once we, I went to Shopify, I still remember, I think I launched it on July 16th, or July 20th, around second week of July, I launched Shopify.
Challenges and Success in Securing VC Funding
00:44:26
Speaker
What was your point? He says that in middle of 2020.
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm coming to that. So very interesting, right? So one change that I did, one change from moving from WordPress to Shopify in July, I was doing about 10 to 1 lakhs in June. We closed the month, I said 1 lakhs, July with zero spends, we did 35 lakhs.
00:44:49
Speaker
Just one big upgrade, which was moving from WordPress to Shopify. That's it. Because consumers had that seamless experience. Shopify is much more user-friendly. That's when I was able to believe that what customers experience needs in a tech world. Consumers really want to see beautiful pictures. They want all information easily available.
00:45:13
Speaker
the entire journey, the process flow should be seamless. And that made a difference. And I think that was the first success that we had. And both of you, me and my dad, we saw. We were actually moving office after office after that. Every six months, we'll run out of space and we'll take an additional 1,000 square feet. And that's how we were moving with our, like, there was a point where people used to think, yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
You know, we were moving from place to place and I did 2021. So, that was a, you know, and it finally kicked in 2020, right? And I think during that time also, you know, I think that was the best stage that that when the business was actually going. You were able to keep running like you didn't have to shut down.
00:46:04
Speaker
No, no. So I had a brilliant plan for that. So many pandemic hits in March when the lockdown was announced. I went to the state of the office and I applied for manufacturing, the permission to manufacture and sanitize.
00:46:19
Speaker
So, what I did was, there were very brilliant moves that I did and I got the permission, I got the license approved to manufacture hand sanitizers. I knew how to make hand sanitizers, it was not a rocket science. So, with that permission, I opened my factory and I ensured that and I brought a scheme saying that every owner, and you know, you remember the adhesion phase of the pandemic, there was a scarcity for hand sanitizers.
00:46:43
Speaker
So I told customers that with every order, we'll give you 100 ml of free sanitizer, right? So we simply placed order at Earth and order 100 ml of sanitizer. Amazing. So that was a small strategy that we used to, you know, keep the business going and not really get paid and shut paid or close it down or anything. And we opened it and even running throughout the pandemic.
00:47:06
Speaker
2021 came, we started steadily seeing growth in our revenues. From there on, there was no looking back. And suddenly there was this big funnel from India, which reached out to us. They're one of the top three funds in India, right? We see funds.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yes, consumer brand focused ones and it's like extremely prestigious to be associated with them, right? They reached out to me and they went like Harini, we want to evaluate your brand. They've been seeing the growth journey. It's tremendous. Yeah, can we engage?
00:47:42
Speaker
I phoned in. You were just selling through Shopify. You were not present on Amazon. Amazon we started. We started Amazon by then. My car didn't stop. Amazon we had started by. Small presents for Amazon went stopping. What kind of sales? From 35 lakhs, where did it go? By 21? By the time this fund approached you. We were doing about 1 crore a month. Wow. Amazing. In 2021.
00:48:10
Speaker
So, and then what happened was this fund approached me and they were like, you know, can be engaged. And honestly speaking, I didn't even know what we see funding made. And then I told my dad, Danny, these guys have approached me. I don't know what they want. So my dad was like, you know, he again, he's a very traditional guy. And he was like, we don't need outside funda non. If you want money, I'll take the loan from the bank. He's a bank and obviously, yeah.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, so my dad was like, immediately he should have been saying, no, no, no, we don't want any money. And we had a bootstrap company and we were 100% profitable. So he was like, we don't need money, Harini. Why do you want money? We don't need money. So, and then they were really pushing us. They wanted to somehow reach out to us and one step, they were like,
00:48:54
Speaker
Every time I went and I spoke to them, I felt like such a big duffer sitting in front of them. Because in the company, my dad was taking care of the business side, like he was taking care of the sales logistics operations. I was taking care of the product, procurement, purchases, design, marketing was done by me. But still, I was the face of the brand. So this particular VC fund always wanted to interact with me. Obviously, they liked younger people and they wanted to interact with me.
00:49:19
Speaker
And when they used to ask me, what are your gross margins? What is your CM1? What is your CM2? What is your net profit? What is your GMV? I still remember sipping on that call. I still remember what's up in that ad and asking what is GM.
00:49:39
Speaker
You know, that's how I, you know, if I went abroad, my dad used to tell me that, you know, after all these conversations, after feeling a little stupid sitting in those conversations and not understanding anything, I went back to my dad and said, you know what, you need to give me a crash course on the PNN. I don't understand, I don't understand anything in the PNN. And if somebody asked me something, I'm standing there blinking, saying that I'm check and pay, which I don't want to do any.
00:50:06
Speaker
So my dad sat down and he told me how P&L works, you know, how everything is calculated. And, you know, even he didn't know what CM1, CM2 and all was, but he basically was maintaining a rough P&L month-on-month, right? When it's since it's been completed and, you know, everything was, you know, the revenue is now calculated. But these days, they are like very pushy. And finally, they ended up giving us a term sheet, because we were not, the more we were the next thing, you know, how we seek answer, the more they are pushy.
00:50:31
Speaker
It was a 2 million cow and it was a seed round funding. 2 million is amazing for a seed round. What did they value you at? Like 8-10 million times. The donation was 30, pre-money was 30 crores.
00:50:53
Speaker
Okay. No, no, no, sorry. Yeah, 30 crores, 30 crores, correct. How much is that in millions? Five, six million, something like that. Yes, yes. Okay. And yeah, it was a pre-money 30 crores. Post-money was 38 or something like that, right? It was around that. It was around that.
00:51:15
Speaker
And then what happened was we stuck in the process. They issued the term sheet. And while I was sitting on the entire process of this evaluation stage, their internal due diligence that they go before they issue the term sheet, I was very open and transparent in telling them that the company currently has just me and my dad in terms of running the company. And the rest of them are all workforce, who does ordinance, and it's still largely done by only both of us.
00:51:44
Speaker
And we don't have processes, computerized processes in place. Everything is still very cut up because we're still in the stage where we're trying to evolve. And you know, it's an egg, let me put it out. And these guys appointed PwC.
00:52:01
Speaker
Okay, and PwC came with a picture. First thing he came and he asked, Harini, where's your bomb? I was like, what is a bomb? I really know the bomb, B-O-M-B. What is a bomb? Then I was like, okay, what is the bill of material? Don't you have accounts as to what you manufacture, how you keep track of the inventory and all of that? I said, yeah, we don't maintain all inventory, we track everything. Then I took a ledger and I showed him this book as everything. What do you want to see? Tell me.
00:52:31
Speaker
So, you don't have an ERP, like no ERP, we don't have any ERP at this point. So, we spent six months trying to prove to PwC that we are doing a business in an ethical way, you know how due diligence are, right? There are no leakages. And the entire accounting at that point of time,
00:52:53
Speaker
It was such a disaster, to be very honest. Every day, it was six months where, you know, the most treacherous time that I have gone through in my entire career of being an entrepreneur, I think that's the only experience I did not enjoy. Every night I used to sit like...
00:53:08
Speaker
up till 2am, 1am on calls to PwC with this VC fund along with them on a joint call, trying to figure out why this is not happening with that, why this is happening with that, all of these calls. Around the end of the fifth or sixth one, my dad, one day it was around 2.30 in the night when I finished the call.
00:53:26
Speaker
My dad came and told me, Harini, do you really think you need this money? And what is happening is you are trying to prove yourself to them when you want to prove themselves so much with your friend. What is trying to prove to them? You don't need this money. They are profitable again and again and again and then. You don't need this money. I think you should take a call on those.
00:53:44
Speaker
So, that's why I still remember I snapped with a very heavy heart because even I was giving up slowly. It's not happening. It's just not working anymore. And I was also feeling a little demotivated that, you know, I'm not able to, you know, when people honestly keep on questioning you after questioning you, it becomes like, you know, how much can you prove yourself after a point, right? Yeah, you start to doubt yourself.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I started to, you know, I was in this frame of mind feeling like, I don't want this money anymore. So the next day morning, I had hoped to them saying that I want to get on a call. And the minute I sent them in, they also realized what was coming from my side. But they also prepared themselves and they came to the phone. And it was a mutual decision that we decided on the call. And they also said, Harini, I think you really need to spend time. You've built a great business. You have good revenues. You're profitable.
00:54:29
Speaker
But we are not able to take that call today, whether you will be able to build the other processes with the pattern that you have right now. And we are not able to take that call today. And I think maybe we want to wait for six months and re-evaluate this after six
Brand Building and Market Positioning
00:54:45
Speaker
months. And maybe in that six months, you should make any list of things, list of things you should do.
00:54:50
Speaker
I was not even listening to what he said, but I was feeling extremely demotivated, rejected, sad, and the rejection, the feeling of redemption was there. After this entire episode happened, after like one week, so I got back to normal routine. My dad was saying, let's get back to work now. So he started getting back to work. After one week, Ashwin reached out to me and he was like, Karini, I want to meet you. I was like, why? I don't want any money.
00:55:19
Speaker
I am sappy the way I want. Let me draw one step at a time. I don't want to receive money. He was like, no, I want to meet you. And he just forced him to be barged into the office and he said, listen, I know things didn't go well in this receive one, but I have been scrapping you from the entire six months. And I have full conviction in you. I won't do any due diligence. And this entire, he didn't do 1.2 million. I mean, he didn't do 2 million, but he said I will do 1.4 million.
00:55:47
Speaker
But I will do the entire round, 1.2 million. Nobody else will come. And I'm not going to do any diligence. No due diligence. Let's start. Tomorrow, let's start. That's a little reassuring. Somebody is actually showing trust in you. And I was like, I took some time. So there were a lot of discussions happening between me and my dad as well. Is this what we want to do? Because once we breathe and eat, it's a one-way traffic. There's no looking back. It's only going forward. So it was really contemplating the thing through. And then finally,
00:56:15
Speaker
But somewhere we had to take that risk and business is all about taking cancellation risks. Somewhere you need to take that risk to move forward. I was like, if I'm going to get this money, the things which this VC fund told me that I did not have, I want a human doll of that. Let me just move forward. So we raised 1.2 million USD from Aniket. This was around 20 to 81. June, July was the time when we closed this round.
00:56:44
Speaker
And I think from there on, I think today, 2022, this year, May, we closed our series A funding with Bika and Renika participating together and we raised $8 billion USD. The country was valued at 200 crores. From doing one crore at that point of time in 2021 to doing five, seven crores a month today, we've grown in size and scale in terms of how we've
00:57:10
Speaker
you know, you know, tripled and doubled. And this traditionally, the sometimes you're talking about 5x, right? Additionally, we have grown 5x year on year, right? 18, 19, we did 1.6 crore. 18, 20, we did 1.6 was our revenue. 20, 21, we closed at 6.7 crores. 21, 22, we closed at 48 crore, which was 5x, 5x, 5x. Year on year, we were actually, you know, going at 5x.
00:57:40
Speaker
So how did you do this 35 crore top line? You must have had to use additional tactics and approaches to grow because at a small base, growing 5X is easier, but now you're at a big base. So how did you do that? Was it still purely organic? No, no, no.
00:58:04
Speaker
The first round of marketing spend started, I think, in 2020 when I moved to Shopify, right? When I moved to Shopify, that time, you know, a couple of my friends told me, you know, they gave me some advices and they said, why don't you keep a marketing agency? You need to run ads. You need to, you know, and at me, I wanted an agency to help us with Amazon, to be very honest, because Amazon is a very complex ecosystem because algorithm-based and so many other things. And it's a complex ecosystem. And I wanted someone with the technical ability to help me in Amazon.
00:58:34
Speaker
When I brought that agency in, that agency helped me to, you know, I still remember my dad and me fighting saying that to spend 1 lakh rupees for marketing send. My dad was like, 1 lakh? You want to spend for marketing? Are you crazy? Yeah, right. Now, what is spending? He's like, you know, all of these are memories that we had, you know, we had these conversations where do we spend? My dad was invited to the agency saying, if I do one lakh spend, will you give me for it?
00:59:04
Speaker
We spent one lakh and then we found out that even if we didn't make revenue, we were actually getting users to the website. And then month number two, we decided, okay, let's spend 1.5, 2, 5, 10. We started increasing our marketing sense and our revenue also was growing, coordinating to it.
00:59:28
Speaker
And hence, we had the conviction that we are in the right direction. And interestingly, for us, very different than many other B2C brands that exist, even today, maximum amount of revenue comes from our own B2C website, not from e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, Mica, Mintra, no. They are all there, but about 60% of the revenue comes from our own website.
00:59:55
Speaker
Which means we have built along this journey, right? The biggest advantage that we have harnessed, we have built the brand stronger. You know, why do people go to Amazon? If I find it, I assume it. But I would say it's safe buying a product from Amazon if I don't know the brand. Because I know if I don't like it, the return policy is easier.
01:00:16
Speaker
on Amazon, right? Whereas if I dare to buy from the brand, all these issues are there. So building the brand strong from day one is extremely important. And a lot of many new brands that I see today make this very, very classic mistake. They chase after revenues in the early stage itself. So what happens is e-commerce, when you threaten to build, obviously Amazon and all these marketplaces may be able to give you a faster revenue because you're spending more time and energy over there.
01:00:46
Speaker
Ultimately, you don't get the customer data means you don't have access to customers. So you can never read the other day or you don't even know who these customers are who are buying your product. Number two, you are not building your brand. You're actually people remember they bought something from Amazon and rarely they would remember the brand at all.
01:01:05
Speaker
So, hence, building, you know, from the biggest advantage for how you call it is, you know, an advantage or you fall it. That's how it organically happened for me. But, you know, people who have traveled and seen how autorithm existed, how supports India transitioned into autorithm. And on this, you know, we built that journey where consumers actually spoke word of mouth. It was more. To be very honest, Abhishek, today I go to all these huge, tight, global events, you know, that I talk about.
01:01:32
Speaker
They gave me a topic recently and they told me, can you please speak about minimum viable plan, right?
01:01:39
Speaker
I read the Google before the event and I proposed to speak about minimum viable plans. And I went there and I told them the truth. I spoke about minimum viable plans in the audience, but I told the audience, honestly, I have to also tell you by the end of this session that I did a Google search to talk about this today for you guys. And when I started the business, all what is mentioned in minimum viable plan happened organically, right?
01:02:04
Speaker
There was a space where I tested the product. There was a place where I built the prototype. There was a space where I sampled it. There was a space where I found the product market case, where I brought the product into the market. All these things I did, but just that I didn't know this was only called MBT. There are fancy terms that are there in the startup ecosystem, which you organically do, which you don't even realize, but you know that this is the process and this is how you build a graph.
01:02:30
Speaker
These are some of the things I think which are very, very things that I think I have overcome in this journey. I still remember a lot of VC funds who came and asked me, are you from the IITs? I am from a simple Madras University. Obviously, investors live for a certain pedigree to probably invest their money. And I'm not saying it's wrong.
01:02:52
Speaker
First, there are some refuses like a commencement which was built on passion, which was built on a model, which was probably built very organically and the fraction was built organically. I think they've done all this in a very short span of time. I think from 2019 to 2022, from doing 10 max to 20 max a month in 2019 to doing
01:03:19
Speaker
You say, you know, like I said, five, seven, fours a month to date. We've made a lot of mistakes. I'm not saying that, you know, we've gone through a lot of things. Recently, I still remember like a month ago, we installed, we spent like,
01:03:37
Speaker
3-4 CR and we bought a fully automatic machinery in the factory where you know there is no human touch right from the stage you start the production till the end process the product is passed sealed and comes out there is no human touch. So we bought a machine like that. Where is your factory now? It's in Udyabwihath. How big is your factory now? 20,000 swivel. Wow amazing okay.
01:04:03
Speaker
800 square feet. And what is the production capacity? How many SKUs per day do you manufacture those? So production capacity today, we can manufacture about 3000 kgs per day.
01:04:19
Speaker
that the capacity that we have. It can be any product, but 3000 pages at one goal is the capacity that we have. And when the machine actually kickstart is right, last week was the time when everything was set up and the machine started, we did a huge and we got the machine kickstart. And that wasn't peers, because we come from the place where we were actually, you know, these lassi-vala-handlingers? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:04:50
Speaker
It's a journey of its own, right? I mean, you just couldn't have found that. I mean, there are people who can actually get funding and simply stop it, boom, like that. But for me, even today, my, my machinery, uh, guy who was the electrical guy was sitting there. I didn't want to go there. I didn't. Because as a finder, I have done all of these things.
01:05:16
Speaker
Like I told you, I have done photography, I have done digital marketing, I have done brand marketing, I have done the supporting purchases. And so, you know, when I was teaching the purchase manager how to talk to Chinese, because we buy a lot of our packaging materials from China, Korea, Taiwan, I used to teach him how to, you know, how, what kind of English do you speak to them? So they understand English in a very different way. You can't speak to them with complicated words like, you know, uh, um, you know, can you reiterate this?
01:05:45
Speaker
Can you repeat this? All these small changes, I should teach my team. How do you talk with Chinese? How do you make it easier to speak to them? These are things that I've learned in the journey. These are things that happened like, suddenly, somebody taught me and I did it. I did it and I understood. I made mistakes. Kind of slowly, lost some money also, doing some expensive mistakes.
01:06:13
Speaker
I tried to build a mobile app, it didn't work. I wasted some money there. Mobile app for e-commerce, so people can order from it. Yes, yes. And why didn't it work? Use cases. It does get lost, but just that, you know, make mistakes in the sense that, you know, we went to the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, spending money on wrong things is also a big problem, right? You should know how to tighten your growth.
01:06:42
Speaker
I wanted to buy an app when we were still small, which is a wrong thing. I was spending money in the wrong place when I could acquire some money in the wrong place. The mistakes that I didn't know during the journey and figured out, maybe I invested that money in the wrong place. I could have used not only that money to buy something else for the company, rather than I spent money in building a app.
01:07:02
Speaker
The ROA that the app could bring would be much much lower than what if I just nice doing something else it could have been better. So these are you know you'll never learn things you know unless you make mistakes.
Impact of Social Media and Influencer Marketing
01:07:16
Speaker
I think, apparently I've you know covered a lot of things if you have specific questions. Yeah I have a few specific questions. So which
01:07:25
Speaker
What is working for you in terms of generating demand, like Instagram or influencer marketing or Google AdWords? What are the most effective channels for you?
01:07:37
Speaker
I think today's influencer marketing is very, very powerful. There are two sides to this. One is, let's look at social media as a channel, and then let's look at these online channels like Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads as a channel. Social media is so powerful these days.
01:07:59
Speaker
wants to see a celebrity endorsing Meeraskin Esehugia. Nobody wants to see it, right? Because people believe, because gone are the days when Shahrukh Khan stood with the lux soap and said, this is the soap that I like, and all the women wanted to go and buy that lux soap, right? Today, people are driven by UCG, user generated, sorry, UGC, I'm so sorry, user generated content, right? People want to see faith like girl made store,
01:08:27
Speaker
using the product, the way you would use the product and they want to see it that way, right? And even today I have this challenge with my brand team and I can then, but when I used to make a post back in the day, searching at home, using my mobile phone, I used to get so much high engagement than your studio short photos that you put today. Why?
01:08:49
Speaker
Well, people like realistic students, authentic. They like to see things raw. They like to see things as intense. They don't want all these jars and all that. And they know somewhere, you know, it's getting fake in the process, right? I think that is where social media is cracking the game, being real. So you work with like regular people. You don't work with like celebrity influencers.
01:09:17
Speaker
Now, today, because we've both grown to a size and scale, we have a combination of everything, right? But I think for a brand's journey, it has to be if a new brand is coming in and they want the leverage on getting some brand recall or getting consumers to start seeing the brand or getting more eyeballs to the brand, I think the best and effective way is to start from butter influences.
01:09:39
Speaker
where there are a lot of influencers who have, you know, back in the day, if you know, there are these market-reserved agencies with you. So, how are these mystery shoppers? Have you heard of them? When they used to give money to mystery shoppers, go to the shop, use the product and give feedback. Today, we signed a strategy that doesn't exist. Mystery shopping doesn't exist. Instead, we have barter influencers, right, who are willing to get the product from you.
01:10:02
Speaker
and make a content for you out of it. It can be a how to use, it can be a before-after content, it can be any content, it can be an informative content when they're talking about the product any day, right, about the product. For the influencer, she has access to the product, for the brand, we access to the content.
01:10:20
Speaker
That's a piece of England situation. So, you start with a water influencer and then you go to a micro influencer. You start with, probably you go to a nano influencer, micro influencer and then you go to mid-sized A-list influencers and then celebrity influencers. And there's a budget for everything, right? That's how influencer marketing works. What is that segregation? Like, nano influencer is what, for lower count?
01:10:47
Speaker
say about anything less than, you know, thousand would be nano, thousand to 5,000 would be micro. Anything about 5,000 to, you know, 5,000 to say 100,000 would be, you know, endless influencers, depending on the engagement rate and everything. Anything about 100,000 and going in millions and all. Got it. So, I saw that you have like 175,000 followers on the earth through the page. How did you build that?
01:11:17
Speaker
That I think is a function of, you know, being just being the face of the brand as a founder, being the face of the brand that worked very well for me the initial days, right? Even today, I feel like a celebrity sometimes. Not everywhere, not to the extent of, you know, celebrities.
01:11:35
Speaker
But I've been in that situation where people have recognized me when I go outside. I feel very, you know, imagine the power that we have created. People are able to get new software on social media and they're able to relate that she's from this brand. And that is extremely interesting and that's how you build a brand. So people need, people need points to connect with the brand. Yes, they need to connect with the brand. It's not just the product, you know, visuals that they see, but they need, one example I'll tell you, another one.
01:12:03
Speaker
So there was a time when we were in the journey, right, somewhere around 12 to 18, I think. I used to, because we could not invest in a lot of resources in terms of paying service, my son goes to a special school.
Social Responsibility and Viral Engagement
01:12:16
Speaker
And over there, his school principal once asked me that since you run a small company, we have adults with autism and Down syndrome who are 25, 30 plus. We have trained them to become quite efficient in doing simple tasks.
01:12:32
Speaker
If there is something that you can go, why don't they just consider both? So I thought over and I used to pay them a small stipend of 1000, 2000 rupees and they used to come like 2-3 hours a day and they used to stick neighbours in my unit. Like 4-5 adults used to come and these were people with spectrum, people with dance enrolment.
01:12:54
Speaker
expression abilities that exist and they used to come down and they used to stick labels and one such customer who bought a product for words 500 or 600 wrote a stinker email to us saying that I've paid 500 rupees for this product and look at the way this label is stuck it was little tail down like you know it was not stuck it was slightly up you know a little bit up and down she sent a photo and she said I want a full refund of this product
01:13:19
Speaker
So I told my dad, I have a plan for it. Let's let 10 customers. Why this happened, right? Everybody should know it if somebody is in a concert. So what I did was, first I told my dad, give her a refund. No question left. She's not happy. Just give her a refund.
01:13:38
Speaker
Then what I did, I took a video, a small clip of my peel that sits there and spins style to stick those labels. We don't have machinery. We are all hand pasted labels. So I took a small video and I made a video on Instagram saying that
01:13:55
Speaker
Maybe, you know, you did not find the value in that 500 rupees and you face that, you know, it was not basically done. But the effort that went into sticking that label by the individual was way more valuable than the 500 rupees.
01:14:12
Speaker
And this was what I actually did and I posted it. You won't believe it went viral. It went viral and people started sharing it, sharing it, sharing it, sharing it. That lady who wrote that mail reached out to me on LinkedIn and she was so emotional. She was like, I want your phone number, Harimi. I want your phone number. I gave her my phone number. She called me and she said, I'm sorry. I said, please, John, apologies. You as a consumer have the right to demand for what you have paid. Whereas it is my duty also to tell you.
01:14:39
Speaker
What will I do in terms of keeping that balance between the both of us?
01:14:44
Speaker
So, and you're not being saying these, right? I think, you know, it's important while you're building your brand to show the realism, the real facts to consumers. Sometimes people who sit and order on the laptop only see the screen. They don't know what's behind the screen, what goes on behind which, what, what effort has gone in. Nobody knows we are open about this.
Exploring Omni-channel Sales Approaches
01:15:05
Speaker
And that's why social media is a huge game changer, right? You can reach out to millions.
01:15:10
Speaker
You know, social media today can make or break brands. If they want to, the amount of netizens who can actually pull you down. So I think that way we leverage really well on social media, you know, it does. And the other side was, I think
01:15:29
Speaker
In the initial days, I think Facebook really helped us in terms of scaling revenues. Facebook was a very good channel because in the initial days, 2021, Facebook was not so expensive. DataC was still, it wasn't the whole, but it was not saturated at that point of time.
01:15:45
Speaker
But today if you ask me, Facebook is just not profitable because the number of brands that exist, the competition that is there, it's still expensive. Facebook ads have become way more expensive today. So we need to find ways to get out of that cycle of being dependent on Facebook ads and Google ads and find newer channels to bring revenues. And that's when we also decided to go omni-channel, right?
01:16:10
Speaker
We thought, okay, let's also try to create a small offline presence. Let's probably put up a kiosk and see if we are able to generate a new kiosk. Today, we have set up 15 kiosks from India. These are like inside the multi brand cosmetic stores. No, inside malls. Okay. So that is standalone kiosk, which you can put up. So we took our small space and we put that kiosk in all. About 14 to 15 kiosks we have from India today.
01:16:38
Speaker
You employ the people who are manning these kiosks. They are completely company-owned managed. This is also one more reason to it. We are first-generation entrepreneurs. We don't come with an experience of business.
01:16:57
Speaker
all come from a business family also, who thinks like business, right? We are typical service class employees who suddenly randomly jump into the business class and try to figure out how things work. I still remember my dad telling me how any business is not for us. It is not in our blood. This is what he told me, it is not in our blood. So, you know, all these dialogues I've heard from my dad, and today he's the one who is like so obsessed with it. So that's more than me. It works like 12 hours a day.
01:17:28
Speaker
So because we are first generation entrepreneurs, we did not want to go offline. Because there's a lot of credit involved in the offline market, a lot of credit involved. And you know, businesses like, you know, we're still a growth stage brand. And for us, the credit cycles
01:17:44
Speaker
has to be really shocked and we can't afford to have 60 day, 90 day credit cycle. And then, you know, there's a lot of, if you don't have the ecosystem to manage your offline network, like say an area sales manager, national sales manager, and all of that network is not there. Who is going to go and do the connection? Am I going to go to eat city until I know, right? So it's impossible sauce.
01:18:05
Speaker
Hence, the first step for us was if we want to go offline, let's figure out the way where we are managing it. We know the inventory, we know that there is no credit involved, but still we are offline, but still we are closer to the customers.
Future Goals and Community Engagement
01:18:17
Speaker
So, we set up Kiaos on our own. It was a part of our business plan while we were raising our series there around the funding.
01:18:23
Speaker
We put up kiosks and we wanted to ensure that we were going offline, actually taking baby steps if not going very forcefully as in the offline market. But just get that presence, get that feel, understand what is the categories, what are the plus, minus that are there being in the offline space.
01:18:41
Speaker
The offline presence also acts like a brand building exercise because people see it and they get to try it. There's more discovery happening. Yes. It's probably good to brand recall. Yes. Right. Amazing. Okay. And so today you're listed across all e-commerce platforms and your own website, like largely the sales is through your own website. What percentage is your own website?
01:19:08
Speaker
60%. Wow. Amazing. Okay. And what do you expect your turnover for this year? So, I know the message is much bigger. Yeah, I know. Yeah, the message is much bigger. So, we, we've been looking for just 100 crore mark this year. We've seen that track, but we're at least hopeful that we'll be able to, you know, at least, you know, 8 people might be CR, CR is made by targeting.
01:19:34
Speaker
Amazing, amazing. And that brings us to the end of this conversation. I want to ask you for a favor now. Did you like listening to the show? I'd love to hear your feedback about it. Do you have your own startup ideas? I'd love to hear them. Do you have questions for any of the guests that you heard about in the show? I'd love to get your questions and pass them on to the guests. Write to me at adatthepodium.in. That's adatthepodium.in.