The Exchanges

Q for a girl? Like, I will never know this because I can't resonate with how a girl would feel, but when a girl gets male attention and is appreciated or is wanted from a very like, Emotional lens is wanted by many people. Desirable. What does it do to you? Like, how do you feel? Is it validation of something? Is it an insecurity going away? How do you feel?

A So for me, it was an insecurity going away and me becoming more confident in my appearance. For example, you have farewells, right? And schools, farewell parties, et cetera. And you have to dress up and you have these events which are happening ramp walks, et cetera. All the kids participate. I never used to participate in that. I never had the confidence to go up the stage. I never had the confidence that if I dress up and style my hair, I will end up looking good. So that, that emotion was so strong that I used to avoid events like these. My mother realized that I was trying to avoid some of these events because I had, I was image conscious and I felt I wasn't beautiful. Is when she brought in a lot of magazines at home and she started talking to me about a few models and I was not interested in that space at all. And just for me to feel a little more confident on how I looked. She started complimenting me at home. For anything, like any weird thing that I'm doing.

AI assessment note: “for me, it was an insecurity going away and me becoming more confident”

Q How do you study U.S. regulation? Where do you find it? Online? Free?

A Absolutely freely available. Freely available. You study, you can study U.S., you can study Europe. I did all of that. Google was my best friend. And studying these products, for example, going to an honest company's website and seeing what are the ingredients that they're putting in their product. What is the source? You take the name of that ingredient. You put it on Google. It tells you what that ingredient does. Why is it used for? What is the ideal percentage, et cetera, et cetera. So the only thing that I understood out of all of that study was the fact that one coconut based cleansers exist, which can make the shampoo far more milder and non irritant in nature, beat for the eyes beat for the skin. And I wanted to replace the harsh surfactant systems, Which were banned in countries outside of India, but were being used in the baby products here with the coconut based surfactants. And then after that, I had to reach out to people who could help me build formulations. And when you're starting out.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely freely available. Freely available... Google was my best friend.”

Q How much did it cost you to get to this point?

A Nothing. This business, getting your prototypes, for example, what we were working towards was having five pieces of each, which we could show to people, let them experience it, sort of figure out and give us feedback. Pancha pancha pieces banane te, handmade batch banaya. It's like working in your kitchen. It's like beakers and you're whipping it and you, you made hand, it's not as fine as the commercial batch, but you know, if the formula is okay, if the feel and texture is okay, the commercial batch will come out fine, right? Again, because we were digital first, we did not have the pressure of number of units that need to, to be created, right? Because we were not distributing it in one warehouse. You can produce as low as 5000 units of per product. So it cost it to set up the warehouse. No, again, we didn't own the warehouse shared ecosystem. You use people who have, ah, you know, and all of those of the world who have that infrastructure and you sign up with them. No cost.

AI assessment note: “Nothing. This business, getting your prototypes, for example”

Q I can use a co-packer and it'll just be, be just as good. Probably better because if one guy is not doing good, I can come make him compete with another and get a better product. Now I've gotten to the point where I can manufacture. How do I get distribution? How do I sell? What worked for Mama Earth there?

A So when we were doing the consumer study, sitting, standing outside that toy shop, we realized we got a lot of feedback on how to communicate, what to communicate, what was, what were they understanding? What were they not understanding? So one of the examples, our pack said, sulfate free. And this one mother came to us and said, sulfate free. So that was the understanding that the consumer had. And we realized that Just communicating this free, that ingredients, this is free of these harmful ingredients is how we've got to put it. We can't say sulfate free, paraben free. Communication got sorted from there. What we also realized was that for a new brand, purchasing from directly from the website takes some time for them to have trust on the product or the brand. And hence platforms which have Which these guys already trust, which were like Amazon, flip card, etc. It's better to list yourself there and be available there because the trust on the platform has an equity rub off on your brand that if this brand is available on the platform that I trust, yes, I would want to give it a try.

AI assessment note: “platforms which these guys already trust, which were like Amazon, flip card, etc.”

Q It's not an Indian brand, right? So save more.

A So that was my trigger, right? That was, I was like, this is just not acceptable outside of India. And because I had lived in New York, I knew back in New York, there was this whole movement around J&J going on where the talc had some cancer causing ingredients in them and they were being taken off the shelves. So I knew that there's something off with the brand because I used to use that talc back then. When I came to India and I was getting all of those gift sets, And then internationally, those controversies are happening in India also started getting those cases is when it was, it was like a very strong trigger that how can this come close to any of our people?

AI assessment note: “this is just not acceptable outside of India. And because I had lived in New York”

Q So you, you figured, in India, there's no such product. So what is the, how do you go from there to making a product?

A Yeah, so, like, like a very brief conversation between me and Varun, where I'm saying ordering products is so crazy, you're like tracking friends and family, who's going where, what are you doing, take this packet, and then the packet runs, it gets lost, right? It was so much pain, and I just went as a cribbing wife, I said, why, this problem needs to be solved, in India, why are you doing this? And he just made one statement, he said, if nobody else is doing it, why don't you give it a try? And that statement stuck. I think all through my life, I've, I'm just realizing now that there have been certain statements which have been like, uh, life changing for me. And this was one of those statements where he said, figure it out. Can it be done or not? It might be a possibility that it can't happen in India. Ingredients are only available outside and hence it's not happening. So I got like a lever to like, I wore that research hat and I went mad around figuring out what's happening in the baby care industry, in personal care.

AI assessment note: “I wore that research hat and I went mad around figuring out what's happening”