The longest journeys start with the first step. As an entrepreneur, every step from idea to execution requires audacity, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to your vision. Becoming an entrepreneur is something that happened as an extension of my personal experience as a mother. As eager millennial parents of a baby with a skin condition, when my husband (Varun Alagh, Co-founder and CEO, Mamaearth) and I were researching everything that we bought for our baby, we realised that all the baby care products available in the market contained some chemicals that were not suitable for the baby’s sensitive skin. That’s when we realised that there was a huge gap in the market for safe and toxin-free baby products in India. This led to the creation of Mamearth, a Made Safe-certified, toxin-free baby care brand.
When we started, we were regular people who had quit our jobs to get on this journey. Eventually, we created our first product line with six baby products. The next challenge was to define the sales channels. Selling on our website wasn’t the most feasible idea, hence we decided to go on Amazon, and eventually set up a direct-to-consumer channel. Over the course of this journey, we have been able to build a company with a diverse portfolio of six brands. While my journey of building Mamaearth might seem like a lot of work, my experience tells me, if one builds an action plan and stays consistent in their efforts, any goal becomes achievable. To that end, here are a few pointers to what founders need to keep in mind:
Decoding the Why
India is brimming with opportunities and India’s start-up ecosystem has been on an upward trajectory for the better part of a decade now. Over the past few years, the ecosystem has witnessed some encouraging numbers, with a 15x increase in total funding, 9x increase in the number of investors, and 7x increase in the number of incubators. Further, direct-to-customer brands, software-as-a-solution, healthtech, fintech, edtech and e-commerce firms are leading the charts in these aspects.
The Germination of the Idea
Start-up ideas don’t happen in a vacuum; the key is to work towards something that hasn’t been addressed before. For us, the journey started with a personal problem. Step one for anyone who aspires to embark upon their entrepreneurial journey is to identify the product-market fit to know if they are filling a need gap, solving a problem, enabling access, or transforming landscapes through innovation. Consumers today believe in why-based brands over what-based brands, as that gives them a sense of contribution.
Step two is to assess whether your idea has the potential to be transformed into a viable business. This phase is marked by resourcefulness as founders seek initial funding, build prototypes and validate their concepts. It’s a time of uncertainty, when the idea’s strength and the team’s resilience becomes paramount. This is the phase where you may face major challenges and may even have to rethink your idea several times. The greatest lesson in this phase is to keep course-correcting yourself unless you are absolutely confident about the path you’re on.
The Go-to-Market Challenge
As an entrepreneur and investor, I go through multiple pitch decks weekly. Most of them have the idea and the product, but many fall short on their go-to-market (GTM) strategy. To bring in your first 100 or 1,000 consumers, a start-up needs to have a GTM strategy that is simple and clear. If you successfully tackle this challenge, the road ahead becomes pretty smooth.
During our initial days, Varun and I ensured that we had a clear, workable launch strategy. We decided to launch through Amazon, and only after we witnessed some traction on the brand did we create the Mamaearth website. The key lesson here is to keep your GTM strategy as uncomplicated as possible. Entrepreneurs must ensure that their focus at this stage is to define the customer profile, figure out how to reach them, and build a strong word-of-mouth trend through the initial customers, using great products and after-sales service.
Building Capacity with Funding
As the seedling of an idea takes root, early funding rounds provide the nourishment needed for sustained growth. Angel investors and venture capitalists become vital partners, injecting capital in your project to fuel product development, market expansion and team building. Start-ups need to pivot based on learning from successes and setbacks, all the while striving to achieve product-market fit and scaleability.
We started with a goal to build a toxin-free brand for babies, but we soon realised that there was demand for toxin-free personal care products even from older customers. We then diversified our portfolio, and widened our offerings to cater to a higher consumer cohort. This expansion needed securing initial funds to scale operations, onboarding strategic partnerships, and hence, scaling became an imperative. After that, the focus shifted to market dominance and fortifying our position. Each round brought with it a unique set of challenges and learnings, shaping the company’s trajectory and my growth as a leader. The goal of each funding infusion should be clearly defined, with one of them being the necessity to bring in a funding partner who can provide strategic support towards achieving the goal.
The Big Leap
We strongly feel that one should never start a business with the goal of creating a company that will be listed on the stock exchange. Getting listed on the exchanges is a significant milestone in a very long journey of a company. The goal should be to create a company with a strong value system that delivers great quality products. The focus for any entrepreneur should be on building a sustainable, and profitable business that delivers on the promises made to the investors and shareholders. At the end of the day, that’s the ultimate goal for any company and founder.
Views are personal. The author is co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Mamaearth