‘He was under lot of debt…’: Mamaearth’s Ghazal Alagh opens up about father’s struggle, mother’s courage

Mamaearth founder Ghazal Alagh has said that she received the first lesson in business from her father when she was still in school and he was facing a financial crisis.

In a conversation with Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath on his podcast WTF, the CEO of the personal care brand shared events from her younger years which shaped her into the person she was today.

“First lessons in entrepreneurship, I learned from him when I was in standard 8th. So big joint family. My father is three brothers and five sisters, so eight kids in total. Grew up with a lot of love but eventually realized that a business that was being run by brothers, when my grandparents were no longer there, there was certain friction that started coming in and there was an unfair distribution of wealth,” Alagh said.

“The division happened in a way that the shop that he got was under a lot of debt. There were a lot of receivables that had to be recovered from the market and we knew that was dead money. I think it would be anywhere between Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh back then. That was a big amount.”

“We had to sort of as a family take care of that. It was an unexpected event in his life, he broke down and I saw him breaking down for the first time. A very confident fun-loving person that he was, I saw him getting very quiet, not talking to people, not going out, and I could feel that he was going into depression.”

Alagh said her mother showed a lot of courage and helped her father overcome the crisis.

“What I also saw at that point of time was the power that my mother had to correct the situations. She had been a housewife all through her life. It was beautiful. She pulled out all her gold saving, sold it, brought in some money, helped Papa put inventory back into the shop,” she said,

“I also saw my mom step up by taking tutions for smaller kids, trying to help the family. I saw how they both beautifully came together.”

She added: “He was into accessories of all of these cars and trucks. I still don't know how to how to accurately describe the business but that's what my brother still continues to do by the way.”

It took about 5 years for Alagh’s family to repay the debts. “Things started getting better slowly and steadily. It took us almost 5 years to come out of that debt to start making money. But the conversations that I had with my father during those five years were beautiful. I think the first lesson that he told me was ‘money only comes home when the business makes profit’. That was my first lesson ever. If any business if it's not making profit, the money doesn't come home,” she added.

Ghazal Alagh, who originally comes from Chandigarh, started Mamaearth in New Delhi in 2016 with her husband Varun Alagh. Mamaearth was initially founded as a baby care brand but later transformed into a broader beauty and personal care company. Mamaeath's parent company Honasa Consumer Ltd listed in the stock market in November 2023 and currently boasts a market cap of over Rs 12,500 crore.