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Sugar Cosmetics : Breaking the Foreign Dominance in Beauty and Cosmetics

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 12:35:11 +0000

It could have easily deterred Vineeta Singh, from pursuing her entrepreneurial interests after the failure of two startups. Her ambition to become an entrepreneur to start something of her own was ingrained in her since she was 17. Being a graduate of the premier engineering and business schools IIT and IIM-A, it would be foolish for anyone to decline a high-paying investment banker job. And, yes it did happen. To her parents’ surprise, Vineeta declined a high-paying job paying a handsome amount of Rs 1 Crore to follow her dreams of starting a venture. At 23, she moved out to Mumbai in a pigeonhole apartment with a shoestring budget carrying high aspirations. Today, Vineeta Singh co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics is one of India’s fastest-growing premium cosmetic companies, with a cult following among millennials, especially among the brave independent women. The brand lies between premium and mid-range with an average selling price of approx. Rs 750.

A failed startup became the path of success

It is a normal human tendency to look and admire an individual’s achieved success and fame but unfortunately, the success story forms a smaller fraction of the iceberg. Failures are the ones that drive ideas to fruition and the same happened with the inception of Sugar Cosmetics. The year was 2012 when e-commerce shopping was catching up quickly in India with a significant number of women having disposable income. Vineeta, already passionate about building a consumer business for women felt apt to begin her second venture Fab Bag, which was a subscription business that offered women an assortment of beauty and cosmetics products from global brands every month delivered at the doorstep for a small fee. The venture ran for a good number of nine years and amassed 200,000 customers. But, the subscription model did not work among individuals who found themselves locked into a subscription that prevented them from trying new products, which became the reason for failure for Fab Bag. However, the failure was an eye-opener for Vineeta who learned from the data of a close-knit community of women customers from the previous venture that the beauty and cosmetics space in India is largely dominated by foreign or local brands that do not cater to the deeper Indian skin tones, skin problems, and preferences. Moreover, such cosmetic products and brands are lacking in India where the makeup has to be long-lasting and matte that does not come off when women travel by public transport on local trains or polluted roads.Gathering such insights, Vineeta Singh and her husband Kaushik Mukherjee teamed up to begin a venture in beauty and cosmetic products designed high on style and high on performance for the tech-savvy, outgoing, employed Indian women of today and thus birthed Sugar Cosmetics in 2015.

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Vineeta declined a high-paying job paying a handsome amount of Rs 1 Crore to follow her dreams of starting a venture.

New mother and business: A tough road

Unlike, its brand name the road for Sugar was not sweet initially. Juggling between new motherhood and her entrepreneurial dream Vineeta led to a hectic schedule. Business and entrepreneurship generally perceived as male domain hindered Vineeta to source funds. Once she met an investor who refused to talk to her since he wanted to have the business talk with a ‘man’.
There were several sleepless nights when one hand had office files and the other held a newborn baby.
Like every other retail or e-commerce brand, Sugar Cosmetics too faced the problem of managing the credit cycle since it is the key to keeping the working capital cycle to a bare minimum to ensure efficient capital use and rotation. They had set up a separate unit that monitored the credit cycle daily to manage finances efficiently.
These struggles were part of the venture’s success that rose to become the best lipstick brand. It took 5 years for Sugar Cosmetics to build a team of 1500 of which 75 percent constitute women.

Sugar Cosmetics: Selling cosmetics through screens

Sugar Cosmetics realised a dearth of education and awareness in the market regarding cosmetics and beauty products. Women wanted to know how to use an eyeliner before purchasing one. At the same time, affordable smartphones and internet connectivity ensured every millennial was consuming plenty of digital content. It was also the time of budding influencers who began teaching makeup or recreating the makeup inspired by the actresses in popular web series, films, reality shows, etc. Their most popular videos include one with acid attack survivor, Anmol Rodrigues. An average millennial Indian girl wanted to look beautiful inspired by the global trends, so precisely a global trend had to be Indianised for her. Sugar Cosmetics harnessed the loyal fanbase of makeup influencers on platforms of YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook by sending them PR packages to create content on makeup for several occasions such as weddings, festivals, office no-makeup look, etc., using Sugar Cosmetics products. By working with influencers of different Indian skin tones, the viewers found confidence in the products and thus Sugar Cosmetics emerged to be the digital-first brand in cosmetics.

Indians love buying from retail

Indians are risk-averse where they are scared about shopping from e-commerce. Women were impressed with the unique colour range and had never seen before formulation of Sugar Cosmetics but was sceptical about purchasing it online. The visitors would come to the website two or three times and refrain from buying it because they were not convinced that they could try a new brand just based on some influencer telling them that this is a good lipstick or blush. On analysing website visit numbers they found that a customer would spend 65 minutes, in two, three different visits before the actual purchase decision is made. This signalled their foray into physical retail stores and to become an omnichannel cosmetics brand. The business would also scale from there since it is easier and quicker as the process of buying from a physical store occurs naturally to the customer such as testing the foundation, trying various swatches to select the best shade that goes with the skin tone, etc., also not to forget the social media push. In February 2019, Sugar opened its first owned store in n Forum Mall, Kolkata, in a space cluttered by M.A.C and Forest Essentials. By February 2020, offline sales accounted for 60 percent of Sugar’s revenues. Presently Sugar’s offline presence is in more than 2500 outlets in over 130 cities.

Sugar cosmetics expanded during the pandemic

The grim times of the pandemic could not dwindle Sugar Cosmetic’s profits. April-May the initial months of the first covid lockdown the company made zero sales. Unlike, most retailers who decided to close stores, Sugar went ahead and added more physical stores to its count, by strengthening its content marketing game on social media resulting, in addition of monthly impressions of 240 million from 100 million, got 1 million followers and Instagram and their app has witnessed more than 800,000 downloads. It was a strategic move since right after the lockdown restrictions were eased the stores prepped themselves for the festive season clocking Rs 100 crore with maximum sales registered in November. In April 2021, it achieved unicorn status.

Success for Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee at Sugar Cosmetics is a well-devised plot. In a short span of seven years, Sugar Cosmetics has grown to become a Rs 100 Crore company, when big players such as Lakmé, L’Oréal, and MAC Cosmetics dominated the market. Besides, the failure of two startups, her indomitable spirit of becoming an entrepreneur did not die down. For a venture to succeed, struggles and hardships are part and parcel, one has to be ready for it. Sugar Cosmetics’ perfect product-market fit to its vocal, opinionated, well-informed customer and keeping customer persona at the centre of the strategy s probably one of the most fundamental reasons for their success so far.

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Tcyhon: Offering Instant Access to Various Fintech Products Within a Click

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 14:42:32 +0000

The word ‘ instant or getting things instantly done within the comfort of a click in the past few years has bowled over people. Latching on to the characteristic to provide something instant and fast soon became the USP of many startups across business verticals that have challenged the archaic business processes of the biggies and have made consumers spoilt for choices. The processes have become instant be it purchasing food and medicines online to procuring raw materials say, for an auto spare parts business.
Apart from the growth of online shopping, India’s fintech ecosystem has grown enormously in the past five years. According to a joint report from FICCI and BCG, 67 percent of the more than 2100 FinTechs in India today were founded in the last five years.
With a myriad of fintech startups on the plate, users become overwhelmed with the abundance of information available on the internet while selecting the appropriate fintech product sufficing their needs.
Precisely, the ecosystem lacks a consolidated platform for accessing all the information about fintech applications on a single screen with benefits listed for the users. Realising a gap here, Harsh Sharma’s Delhi-based startup Tchyon is now looking to change this.

Tchyon : Aiming to offer financial services faster than the speed of light

Inspired by the nature of the hypothetical particle that always travels faster than the light, Harsh Sharma – an MBA graduate from the University of Rochester named his financial discovery platform- Tchyon. Standing true to its name, this venture aims to offer its users give access to the best financial services on its platform at a lightning speed.

While working as a credit analyst in Joust in the United States, Harsh handled the crucial function of writing underwriting models for businesses. While working there he realised the long trail of paperwork and documents that made it cumbersome for businesses and individuals to seek credit cards or open a bank account. Such archaic processes in the digital era are a major disappointment for the users to gain confidence with the financial product.

The drive to start his venture came into fruition during the pandemic when he moved to India and found himself in the middle of digitalising his father’s business.

In the process of digitalising the business, he witnessed that opening a bank account and setting up payment gateways would require to fill documents such as MoA ( Memorandum of Association), AoA ( Articles of Association), etc which seemed a daunting task. Harsh wanted to address this problem and thought that instant access to financial services digitally should be as easy as ordering food online just within the click of a button.

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According to a joint report from FICCI and BCG, 67 percent of the more than 2100 Fintechs in India today were founded in the last five years.

Recommending the best fintech applications to the user

In general, if we ask anyone about the last fintech application on their phone, it is likely that it must have been referred by a friend, social media platforms, relatives, or other acquaintances. Tchyon here wants to replicate the offline recommendation of fintech applications online and guide a user to help them understand and suggest the best financial product that matches their use cases. With the pros and cons of all financial products displayed on the platform, it creates transparency, aiding the user to make an informed decision.
The beauty of this platform lies in tailoring the onboarding process where the user will undergo a single KYC process to understand a user’s needs.
Let us say, for instance, the user wants to avail services of insurance and credit card only, Tchyon then suggests certain fintech platforms and services that allow the users to avail the services with a simple email id or mobile number through the platform.
It provides a plug-and-play model, where the user will undergo a quick verification process and can instantly set up a digital wallet or begin investing instantly in crypto trading platforms such as Coin DCX or online trading platforms like-5Paisa, Zerodha, etc.
Under one roof the platform has merchant partners for several needs of users such as crypto, neobank, cards, bonds, alternate investment, P2P lending, mutual funds, personal finance, stocks.

How the small businesses will benefit?

The digitisation of various functions in businesses especially finance has been brought to the forefront by the pandemic. Indian MSMEs are riddled with several challenges related to cash flows, setting payment gateways, payroll, and logistics but are not aware of solutions that can minimise these frictions in business operations. The business owners being alien to technology become overwhelmed with the information available with the simple google search.

Tchyon helps to diagnose the problems by asking a certain set of questions regarding the challenges faced in their routine business operations and suggesting the best products.

Collection- A curated collection of financial products

The purpose of the collection feature is to enable people instantly. Looking at the concerns mentioned by a business or any individual the platform’s ‘Collection’ feature will curate a basket of appropriate financial products and services that will effectively address their problems. Once convinced with the solutions provided the businesses decide to go ahead with a simple onboarding process of ‘ Click here ’, upload the necessary documents verified by Tchyon, and sent to the fintech merchant company that Tchyon has partnered with.

Let us say a logistics business is facing challenges with the digitisation of payments, the collection feature will develop a basket of payment gateway services such as-Razorpay or Paytm mentioning the necessary documentation required for easy onboarding process and usage.

Through the platform’s Onboarding-as-a-Service API users are instantly able to signup for the services, thereby helping merchant partners to convert prospects quickly to users and save sufficient time.

With the conventional approach, if to open a payment gateway, the users need to fill and submit bulky documents such as AoA and MoA which is cumbersome.

Upon sending the documents the businesses can begin improving the operations from the next day.

The revenue model

Tchyon does not charge from its users but charges a certain amount from its merchants. Moreover, the platform being a marketplace also earns revenues from advertising.

The road ahead for Tchyon

For the next couple of years, Harsh aims to create a myriad of financial offerings for its consumer by partnering with more fintech merchants. Next, it wants to help businesses to identify their problems to offer quick solutions to provide instant gratification. Third, it has plans to launch virtual accounts that could be used for investing in the stock market, cryptos, or any other asset class. Fourth, it plans to provide credit for both consumers and businesses.

Lastly, talking about India’s fintech landscape, Harsh is quite bullish about the sector picking up growth since India is a populous country with varied interests and unique demands, and to cater to them several fintech platforms are launching propositions that can benefit consumers in a great manner, just all it requires is a consolidated platform that helps them make an informed decision regarding the fintech platform suiting their needs and free Indians from the archaic documentation processes and ease the fintech adoption.

The post Tcyhon: Offering Instant Access to Various Fintech Products Within a Click appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Stuck with Loan Rejections? Now Borrow Loans Digitally through Credit Fair

Shalmoli Sarkar — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 09:31:09 +0000

Yesteryear director Bimal Roy’s masterpiece ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ highlighted the pain and struggle of Shambhu to seek loans from traditional lenders that too without collateral, after Harnam Singh deceitfully mounts a large pile of debt on him. If Shambhu fails to pay off the debt, his land will be seized which seems to be his sole livelihood and asset.

The film has aged 68, but what Shambhu faced is yet unsolved over the years i.e. lack of access to formal credit for lower-income groups. There are approximately 550 million Indians that are underserved with access to formal sources of credit.

There are three challenges faced by the residents of tier-II and tier-III while seeking loans from formal sources :

Lack of prime credit score.
Credit is available at the point of sale via credit card but penetration and usage are low.
High costs are charged by the traditional banks for processes such as onboarding, management, and recovery.

But, Aditya Damani, exactly knew what was lacking in the lending space to help the underserved Indians get loans through formal sources of credit by offering 0% or low cost, short term, unsecured installment loans at the point of sale.

Credit Fair-The inception

Founded in 2018, CreditFair is the brainchild of Aditya Damani whose previous experience of mobile, B2B sales, and Institutional-lending experience has helped him run and grow this venture successfully.

His prior work experience of working with Oakam – a digital micro-lending company based out of London that provides long-term solutions to people who are excluded from the mainstream financial life in London, motivated him to think if the same can be emulated in India. Aditya witnessed the transition of India’s fintech ecosystem from informal to formal and wanted to financially include the ones that are underserved mainly from the tier-II and tier-III cities.

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There are approximately 550 million Indians that are underserved with access to formal sources of credit.

Lending loans digitally to the ‘Bharat’

What makes Credit Fair differ from other digital lending platforms is its partnering with specific merchants and dealers to offer 0% EMI and subsidising the interest cost.

Earlier merchant partners grappled to provide point of sale financing options to their customers due to the inability to pay their high subvention rates, lower approval rates, and the time to loan disbursal can be as long as five days, which resulted in the low number of customers.

Digital lending platform Credit Fair acts as a bridge between the customer seeking loans and the merchant companies willing to give loans.

With the merchant companies it forms a symbiotic relationship giving the below advantages:

Offering no-cost EMIs and growing revenues upto 45 percent.
Get quick notifications using Credit Fair’s app.
Get a higher approval rate with a CIBIL score as low as 600
Faster loan disbursements

To name a few Careerpoint Kota, Indira IVF, Miles Education, Saviesa , Sleek Kitchen from Asian Paints are some of the merchant companies that lend loans through Credit Fair.

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Credit Fair is a microlending fintech platform that lends loans at low cost or 0% EMI to the Indians from small towns and cities.

Sectors in which loans are offered

Credit Fair offers loans to their customer seeking loans in health, education, home decor, and electric vehicles. The need for loans in these sectors has emerged in the pandemic due to online education paving the purchase of laptops and tablets, medical emergencies due to Covid-19, home renovation, and electric vehicles which is to be the government’s focus for reducing pollution. These are high growth sectors and people consuming these consists of the target segment. Moreover, the combined annual spend on these sectors amounts to $20 billion and it gets the first-mover advantage since few lenders offer loans specifically in these sectors expanding the ambit of financial inclusion. The loan amount ranges from USD150-25,000 and tenure from 3 months to 3 years.

Is the borrower genuine?

Since, the loans offered to the borrowers are unsecured, monitoring the end-use of funds lent and giving money for specific use cases, and knowing where the money is going is crucial for Credit Fair’s business model. To minimise the risk of defaults, it has built a machine learning model to estimate the credit limit of borrowers.

In addition to this, it has stringent processes to assess both financial and behavioural parameters to develop a credit profile of a borrower. Among, financial parameters, it analyses an applicant’s banks statement and credit history to understand the capability for repayment of the loan. In behavioural parameters, it leverages the apps used, transactional SMS, and scans the social media behaviour to understand a borrower’s willingness to pay. Identity and fraud checks are also conducted at various points to establish the authenticity of the candidate.

Gamification for collection of loan repayment

Credit Fair has an in-house digital collection facility that realises loan repayments through e-mandates. Currently, 60-70 percent of its customer base uses e-mandates for loan repayment. And 8-10 percent would miss on repayments. Credit Fair uses gamification to induce the right behaviour among their borrowers to ensure and make them understand their consisting defaults will impact the credit score that might prevent them from seeking bigger and better loans in the future. For intentional loan defaulters, Credit Fair engages with its customers to restructure the loan payment period.

It uses an auto-decisioning rule engine to improve the efficiency of operations and reduce turnaround time.

Credit Fair’s Money matters

Recently in November 2021, Credit Fair has raised undisclosed funds from Northern Arc to build its capabilities to expand its ambit of financial inclusion to the underserved Indians belonging to remote towns and villages. With the fresh injection of funds, they want to expand their credit products via their mobile app to offer digital financial services to small businesses and middle and lower-income groups. Besides, the fundraise Credit Fair will benefit from Northern Arc by leveraging its expertise of advising hundreds of leading companies in financial services to optimise their debt-raising strategy in expanding products and services across all market categories and become the market leader. Till date, more than $7 million loans have been disbursed, and more than 30,000 customers have availed of their digitalised and automated service.

In the future, it plans to raise $5 million to reach a $15 million monthly disbursement rate and $75 million assets under management in 2 years.

The road ahead for lending loans

By 2025, Credit Fair aspires to witness atleast 1 million Indians having access to the right amount of credit at the right cost and time. They want to penetrate deeper into the masses to offer no-cost EMIs and offer better loan terms and personal loans than what banks and large NBFCs offer. Moreover, they want to foray offering loans to sectors that cater to the individuals of the age bracket of 25-40 years. They want to build a credit ladder for those individuals with no credit history.

It wants to build a P2P lending platform to lower the cost of funding and keep the cost minimum for customers.

The post Stuck with Loan Rejections? Now Borrow Loans Digitally through Credit Fair appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Tinkerly: Now Learn Coding the Hybrid Way

Shalmoli Sarkar — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 06:48:40 +0000

The word ‘coding’ when it strikes our ears, we associate it with the computer engineering students who remain glued to their blue screens for several hours until the compiler returns with a satisfying ‘no error’ comment. In pandemic, several edtech companies in the pandemic have grabbed immense attention as they have launched online coding programmes for the kids.

However, school kids learning to code in the formative years of their education have received mixed reactions from parents and education scholars since they are invariable believers of the screen or online learning hampering a child’s concentration.

Learning to code at an early age also makes parents think that the child will ignore the basics of maths and science for weak fundamentals.

But, with the emergence of advanced technologies like AI and ML and their inclusion in business processes, the nature of jobs in the future will demand coding as a must acquired skill. According to the LinkedIn’s emerging jobs report of the last decade for the role of coding experts the demand of data scientists will rise by 650 percent and demand for coding is said to increase by 37 percent y-o-y.

The online coding learning brought in by the edtech companies in India has been a bit monotonous as kids glare at the screens to understand and follow their trainers. In short, there is a lack of practicality along with lectures and tutorials. To this, a Jaipur-based edtech startup Tinkerly is disrupting online coding courses for the kids by introducing a blend of fun and hands-on learning experience that allows them to explore their love towards building robots and smart gadgets.

Tinkerly’s humble beginnings

What dreams would usually a fresh graduate from IIT have? A high-paying job in an MNC? or climbing the corporate ladder to become the next CEO? Surprisingly, these aspirations were not a part of Sharad Bansal’s dreams.

What made his entrepreneurial ship sail in the edtech space was the absence of practical sessions in the school pedagogy. The academics in IIT followed an LPT structure i.e. Lecture, Practical, and Tutorial, which is a balanced combination of theory, practical, and practice of the lessons learnt.

Putting the LPT structure in Indian schools we can witness that there is lecture happening in the schools and tutorials happening from external classes but the practical part is lacking. Also, due to limited infrastructure, it is not feasible and possible for a school student to go to the laboratory now and then and come back to their classes.

This led Sharad to think of effective pedagogy to add a twist to the mundane online coding programmes with a ‘learning by doing approach by incorporating STEM educational kits.

These STEM portable labs or educational kits cover the basic science concepts based on the 5-D methodology comprising of see, touch, feel, understand, and perform with a focus on covering the essential 21st-century skills such as IoT, rapid prototype,3-D printing, computational and design thinking.

As we near towards a technologically advanced era, the majority of the jobs be it engineering, fashion designing, or humanities would be demanding STEM skills i.e. science technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Standing true to its name Tinkerly- build-out of English words‘ tinkering’ and the suffix ‘ly’ meaning the habit of improvisation has indeed brought a revolutionary change in the field of STEM education that has benefitted over 150 thousand students across India, the Middle East and North America.

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According to the LinkedIn’s emerging jobs report of the last decade for the role of coding experts the demand of data scientists will rise by 650 percent and demand for coding is said to increase by 37 percent y-o-y.

Let’s tinker with the kid’s learning

Tinkerly’s innovative online coding learning solutions are not just to code but to build things with coding that enables students to design, build and deploy their code to make real-life tech projects. Tinkerly’s products are divided into three-

Online Coding courses
STEM kits
Lets Tinker App

The online coding courses blended with STEM toys are designed for the students for grades 1-12. The kids here get to build next-generation solutions and projects that solve real-world problems. Inculcating these into the early stages of education might seem a bit overwhelming for the child already managing the school curriculum but it is a future-ready skill set that enhances cognitive skills and improves analytical and problem-solving skills.

The online coding courses with STEM toys are segregated into three stages for every grade i.e. explorer, learner, and achiever. The classes can either take place in the 1:1 or 1: 5 teaching model.

Tinkerly’s STEM kits consist of DIY kits appropriate for the 8-12+ age group. The specialised DIY STEM kits consist of equipment belonging to electronics,3-D printing automobile, Agritech, Biotech, Biomedical, Robotics that comes along with a concise instruction manual.

Over the years, India’s education system has demanded students to score well in the examinations forcing students to blindly memorise concepts rather than questioning them and somewhere curbing a child’s curiosity in the process. Tinkerly’s lets tinker app fosters curiosity among the students by allowing them to learn about the latest education trends from subject matter experts and top teachers. The learnings include real-life scenario activities grooming sessions and enhancing the problem-solving skills with its organised tests on class-wise content.

The online coding classes in Tinkerly are affordable that begin with as low as Rs 500 a month and is the first edtech company worldwide to offer coding courses in Hindi.

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Tinkerly has raised Rs 6.5 crore from Navneet Tech Ventures which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of publication and content provider, Navneet Education Limited(NEL).

Tinkerly’s funding, revenues, and the road ahead

Recently in September 2021, Tinkerly has raised Rs 6.5 crore from Navneet Tech Ventures which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of publication and content provider, Navneet Education Limited(NEL). With this recent funding round, this edtech company has raised Rs 10 crore.

With the newly raised fresh capital, Tinkerly plans to utilise the same in product development, increase consumer awareness and expand into new geographies developing vernacular content. The company has ambitious plans to become a strong global brand.

The launch of Tinkerly’s learning platform Let’s Tinker in April has been beneficial just after 3 months of its launch. It witnessed its revenues surging up to 8 times with more than 50,000 online learners who have undergone more than 300K hours of learning.

Future Jobs will require STEM skills

According to a report by McKinsey & Company Global around 800 million jobs will be replaced by robotic automation in the future. Taking early steps to build analytical and cognitive skills among students the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has introduced coding from Class 6.

Besides coding, gamification with hands-on experience will be the most effective tool for the kids of today since they have a lesser attention span. Also, it has been observed that kids while engaged in games and learning use all of their senses, therefore Tinkerly’s hybrid learning solutions will offer hands-on experience to the mundane theory learning and will make studies interesting thus giving kids a controlled and active learning screen time.

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Stellapps Technologies- Digitising the Dairy Supply Chain

Shalmoli Sarkar — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:40:23 +0000

Amul’s famous jingle of the 90s era featuring Smita Patil’s cameo at the end of the commercial is reminiscent of an epic white revolution that made India a world leader in milk production from a milk deficient nation after independence. The commercial at the end, expresses gratitude to Amul’s cooperative milk movement that made the village women economically independent. Since the revolution, India’s dairy farming took great strides that emerged to be a self-sustaining industry and largest employment provider after Britishers left our economy in shambles.

With all the praises for India’s white revolution, India’s dairy industry is yet mired in the hands of unorganised players. Approximately, 60 percent of surplus milk is handled by the unorganised sector (milkmen), while the remaining 40 percent is procured by the organised sector comprising of dairy co-operatives and private companies. Moreover, the industry is highly plagued by inconsistent quality and quantity of milk, incapable of managing a bigger herd, and wastage of milk. According to Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and MRSS estimates, about 3 percent of the milk produced gets wasted annually.

The bright rays of advanced technology do not seem to have reached the dairy industry due to its domination by unorganised players all these years until, in 2011, five techie friends from Wipro witnessed the prevailing roadblocks in the production process in dairy farming decided to intervene technologically by establishing Stellapps Technologies.

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According to Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and MRSS estimates, about 3 percent of the milk produced gets wasted annually.

Stellapps Technologies– A brainchild of Wipro techies

Bored of their mundane jobs, five Wipro techies Ranjith Mukundan, Ravishankar G, Shiroor Praveen Nale, Ramakrishna Adukuri, and Venkatesh Seshasayee in their late 30s and early 40s thought of starting their venture that will improve the quality of life. After much discussion, the techies narrowed down to set up their venture in agriculture and health that birthed the idea of digitising the dairy supply chain thereby establishing Stellapps Technologies Pvt.Ltd in 2011. The startup based out of Bangalore nurtured and incubated at IIT Madras focuses on digitising the dairy supply chain using IoT, machine learning, and data acquisition. Milk is the largest consumable beverage in India but the yield per animal is low, due to a lack of preventive healthcare, proper nutrition, veterinary assistance, and reproductive management for cattle. Stellapps solutions target the small and medium farmers who own small herds of cows and operate without any technical intervention. Its multiple automation and knowledge-based solutions aid the farmers in optimising the milk production process and monitoring the health of the cattle. A tech intervention in the dairy supply chain will drastically improve the operations of the entire chain.

The road to entrepreneurship was not smooth

Like most ventures, roadblocks to success was no stranger to Stellapps Technologies. One thing which played in their favour was the unfamiliarity of the founders regarding the functioning of the dairy industry. Since none of them belonged from an agro/dairy background they invested a significant amount of time in understanding the vertical and begin everything from fundamentals to be able to implement their IoT stack to it. Their lack of experience helped them to look at things from a fresh perspective.

Access proved to be a major challenge for the founders since their customers or target audience lived in the outskirts of the cities that made deployment, support, and maintenance cumbersome as lots of time were spent travelling to those places.

Moreover, Stellapps realised that to educate the farmers about the importance of adhering to quality control, traceability, supply chain, and cold chain optimisation protocols, they had to find an alternate way to work with milk federations and unions, since approaching the dairy markets under government control directly would mean battling red tapism.

Smart Milking and cattle monitoring

The milking process and cattle monitoring is the first step in dairy farming that is a daunting task for the farmers due to the long intercalving period, low awareness in nutrition management, less access to quality veterinary services, and skewed ratio of cattle population and veterinary institutions. Here, Stellapps mooON device is an AI-enabled animal wearable that has two components: mooON device and app. MooOn device is a pedometer for cattle that detects heat based on their activities and resting behaviour. The app is a herd management application that gives real-time alerts on animal activities, recommends personalised nutrition plans for every breed, and provides cattle historic data management. This wearable has enhanced milk quality and yield by 20 percent, reduced the intercalving period by one month as AI helps to detect the heat for artificial insemination, and has led to a 50 percent and 10 percent reduction in cattle health and farm admin expenses respectively.

Creating transparency in the dairy business

After completion, of the milking process, the next step is to send the collected milk to various collection centres. The collection of milk in the collection centres takes place manually and is riddled with challenges such as data manipulation due to manual capturing, milk adulteration, lack of analytics for making an informed decision in dairy management, troublesome reconciliation for paying farmers, and lack of transparency. Smart AMCU from Stellapps is an automatic milk collection unit enabled by the android IoT device smartCC.

The cloud-based chilling management solution smartCC collects data automatically that consists of total solid loss in milk and checks the quality degradation of the milk due to delay in chilling after procuring from farmers. The data collected is made available to the dairy processors and is made visible to other farmers in the collection centre on a real-time basis, thereby creating transparency while incentivising.

The dairy companies now have to pay a higher price for better quality milk and therefore cannot pay a price that is compromising to the farmers. It also upgrades the milk quality and reduces adulteration as the data now will act as the litmus paper for determining the milk quality depending on which farmers will be incentivised. Thus, this will mutually benefit both the farmers and dairy processors as the deal will be of the right price for the right quality.

ConTrak, which is another IoT-enabled device that does real-time management of the cold chain storage with its advanced reporting and monitoring mechanism accessible through web and mobile portals, while MooFlow ERP helps in simplifying dairy operations.

MooPay- digital financial inclusion of farmers

When it comes to loans and seeking financial help, the banks and financial institutions in India turn a deaf ear to the farmers whether agriculture or dairy, thereby, forcing them to borrow money from friends and unorganised lending institutions at enormously high-interest rates. MooPay makes financial services from banks accessible to the farmers by bringing attractive financial products such as loans, and insurance at attractive interest rates to be able to carry on their daily operations. To the dairy processors, it saves from the hassle of cash handling by offering an automated and direct farmer payment and quicker payment reconciliation eventually increasing farmer’s loyalty.

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Stellapps multiple automation and knowledge-based solutions aid the farmers in optimising the milk production process and monitoring the health of the cattle.

The Pricing, profits, and business model

Stellapps follows a competitive pricing model as compared to its counterparts overseas. The price of its solutions includes the entire budget starting from the infrastructure development to the milking process and cold storage. They realize their revenues from a fixed share per litre of milk production from a profit-making farmer and earn profits when a farmer makes profits. They also supply their dairy solutions in a zero-capex model business i.e. rental payment models where they charge customers for subscriptions and cloud services. Its clientele consists of dairy processors and milk cooperatives such as Nandini, Amul, Heritage, Nova, Milk Mantra, Osam, Thirumala, Milk Lane, Hatsun, and Britannia.

Stellapps -money matters and funding

Recently, in October 2021, Stellapps has raised $18 million as a part of its first funding for its pre-series C round from global animal nutrition and aquaculture company, Nutreco. Its other existing investors include Qualcomm Ventures, Celesta Capital, and ABB Technology Ventures. With funds raised Stellapps plans to utilise the funds to scale its traceability network and digital footprint across India.

A round of applause and the road ahead

Stellapps is India’s first dairy technology solutions company, building automation tools powered with cloud, mobility, and data analytics for dairy farms, cooperatives, and private dairies. Its statistics consist of transforming the lives of 1.3 million dairy farmers, working with 4,50,000 cattle, processing 2 billion litres of milk through its solutions annually, and has enabled farmer payment worth $750 million annually.

After the lockdown disrupted the dairy operations in 2020-2021, the organised dairy sector is set for a rebound and is estimated to grow by 5-6 percent, to cross Rs 1.5 trillion in sectoral revenue for the first time, according to Crisil. This growth projection of organised dairy means ample business opportunities for Stellapps.

Stellapps also has ambitious plans to step into foreign geographies like – Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, other SAARC nations), and in developed markets in Europe and the US through partnerships with large original equipment manufacturers.

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From Attempting Suicide to Multi-Millionaire, the Story of Kalpana Saroj

Aakash Sharma — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 12:35:08 +0000

The world is a tough place for women. From the historical accounts of denial of the fundamental rights to the contemporary challenges in daily life that women face, their journey is far too different (and more difficult) than it is for the opposite gender in the race. More so, India is an even more difficult country for women to succeed in and navigate through life.

Case in point, one of today’s most successful entrepreneurs and amongst the biggest names in India’s business circles, described as the ‘original slumdog millionaire’, a compliment as backhanded as it is degrading – Kalpana Saroj. Saroj is an Indian Dalit woman who once attempted suicide to escape discrimination, poverty, and physical abuse and is now the Chairperson of a multi-million dollar company.

Here we attempt to document her journey, which is the epitome and an icon of the Dalit struggle, as well as the difficult life of a woman from the margins of society.

Rags to Riches: Story of the Woman who has lived this Phrase

Kalpana Saroj’s is a story that is seldom heard in India and is even rarer to become a sensation for not only women but an entire generation of entrepreneurs. Her life seems like the outline of a Hindi film, with a narrative that has overturned so many hindrances to resolve with a pleasant ending. The “rags to riches” cliché can be overused, but it goes some way in describing the story of Saroj, a woman who struggled on almost all the occasions on her way to the top.

Born into a family from the Dalit community, she was harassed at school, coerced into marriage at the age of 12, and fought discrimination and social pressures to leave her husband, before she tried to take her own life.

India’s caste system is an ancient orthodox social hierarchy still practised by a majority of Indians. This hierarchy puts people into different strata by virtue of their birth – people born into the lower castes have historically faced oppression and discrimination. As a Dalit woman growing up in a remote village, Kalpana’s gender and caste made her life more challenging as these identities hung like a double-edged sword over her in her journey to the top.

After being wedded off at the tender age of 12, she was forced to live in a Mumbai slum with her husband’s abusive family, only to be later rescued by her father. She went back to her village to live with her parents. There, she attempted suicide after being ostracised by the villagers.

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Kalpana Saroj faced an extreme life crisis, on one dark day when she was in her lowest moment; she decided to end her life. She consumed three bottles of termite poison insecticide.

Her aunt walked into the room and saw her in a critical condition. She rushed her to the hospital and, thus, saved her life. The incident became a watershed moment for her. At 16, she came back to Mumbai to live with her uncle.

She started by making less than a dollar (Rs. 50) a month by sewing and tirelessly learning how to operate industrial sewing machines. As a result, she saw her salary rise. But the money she made was not enough to pay for her sister’s treatment which could have saved her life, an incident that defined Kalpana’s entrepreneurial spirit.

The Tragic Making of ‘Entrepreneur’ Kalpana Saroj

Money was always scarce for Kalpana. Amidst an already financially thin situation, her youngest sister fell ill. Her family could not afford the treatment. Despite scrounging everywhere for help and resources, she could not be saved. This incident made Kalpana realise the value and necessity of money more than ever. She came to the realisation that life without money was worthless and she was going to earn lots of it. She began working sixteen hours a day, a habit which she still maintains.

The next stage of her life was no different from the already escalating problems and challenges, but this time she was prepared. In the mid-1990s, after working in a hosiery shop for several months, she decided to open her own shop. While working, she often listened to the radio. There, she heard about various government programmes on the radio and subsequently applied for a loan under the Mahatma Jyotibhai Phule scheme. She used this little seed money of Rs. 50,000 to start a small furniture business and sold cheap imitations of luxury furniture from Ulhasnagar, Thane. On the other hand, she continued her sewing business.

When she started making some profits, along with the money from the grant, Kalpana founded an NGO that is now the Kalpana Saroj Foundation. After suffering from the pain of not finding a job despite numerous attempts, she wanted to save as many people as possible from this employment crisis.

Around the same time, an individual offered to sell her a disputed land at a discounted price of Rs. 2,50,000. After the case and litigation were resolved, the land value soared to Rs 50 lakh, paving the way for Kalpana’s entry into the construction industry in Mumbai.

The strange case of Kamani Tubes

Ramjibhai Kamani, a prominent businessman in the newly independent India, was a great admirer and disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. After independence, he came to Kurla and set up three companies: Kamani Tube, Kamani Engineering and Kamani Metal. Everything was a fortune for him with these industrial enterprises.

But shortly after his death in 1987, a quarrel broke out between his sons and the workers’ union. The union then went to court and asked for a transfer of ownership to the workers because the owner’s behaviour was contrary to the company’s interests. Subsequently, Kamani became the first Indian company whose license was granted to the workers union by the Indian Supreme court instead of the founder’s heirs.

But if there will be three thousand owners, who will do the actual work?

This inevitable self-conflict soon erupted into a crisis in the company. Union leaders had no interest in the company; they just wanted to make a quick buck. As part of the reforms during the time, the company was inundated with loans, renewals and credits from banks. The government also provided them with various resources and services. As a result, they had a huge capital, but no one had the experience to use these resources for the company’s welfare and growth.

Thus, from 1987 to 1997, the company continued to survive one way or another. But as soon as the investors realised what had happened with the money invested as part of the reforms and credit, they came down heavily. Authorities stopped electricity and water supplies for Kamani industries. 140 cases were filed against the company, and it owed Rs. 116 crores to investors. Of the three Kamani companies, two had already gone under. The third, Kamani Tubes, appeared set to go down the same rabbit hole.

At that time, the workers came to Kalpana Saroj, imploring her to save their company and, thus, their livelihood. Her flourishing NGO and business acumen had earned her a decent reputation among business circles. Her knowledge about the industry was not much, but the thought of 566 starving families made her help the distressed company. She had nothing to lose, and the rest is history.

Turing Fate Around – the Kalpana Saroj Way

She took the company’s reins in her hands and formed a core team of ten, each an expert in their respective fields. Then she hired some consultants and created a proposal on how to go about fixing the damage. When Kalpana took her recommendation to the board made up of several IDBI and bank representatives, they agreed to go ahead on the condition that she sits on the board and undertake the responsibility of all liabilities. She agreed and was appointed company president in 2000.

From 2000 to 2006, Kamani Tubes ran in and out of courts. After numerous high-level meetings, requests, and diplomatic considerations led by Kalpana, the penalty and interest amounts imposed on the company were eventually forgiven, and 25 per cent of the principal amount was also deducted. Courts almost halved the company’s debt as compared to the original sum. In 2006, for leading the company out of a literal existential crisis, Kalpana Saroj was appointed as the Chairperson. The court transferred ownership of Kamani tubes to her.

In restarting the company and shedding the past weight, Kalpana and her team needed to focus on revamping manufacturing and getting the firm back on its feet. They started by replacing all the machinery which either had been stolen or fallen to disrepair. In 2009, they shifted the factory to Wada, and the company began its uphill path from there.

Today, Kamani Tubes is a growing business worth more than $100 million. Moreover, according to numerous estimates, Kalpana has a personal net worth of $112 million.

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A multi-millionaire at the helm of a profitable and successful company, Kalpana Saroj rubs shoulders with prominent people in business and has won awards for her professionalism.

She was awarded the Padma Shri for Trade and Industry in 2013. She was assigned a seat at the board of directors of Bhartiya Mahila Bank, a bank principally made for women by the Indian government. She serves as a member of the Board of Governors at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

Kalpana Saroj’s Expanded Entrepreneurial Umbrella

Kalpana Saroj started KS Film Production and produced her first movie, which was dubbed in English, Telugu, and Hindi. Khairalnji Movie is produced by Deelip Mhaske, Jyoti Reddy, and Mannan Gore under Kalpana Saroj’s banner.

She regularly visits her home village and does charity work to help those in her community. As a Dalit and a woman, her story is all the more remarkable in a country where so few CEOs are from such a background. She finds her inspiration in Babasaheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, the key architect of the Indian constitution and a Dalit social reformer.

Kalpana Saroj is genuinely a person of substance in all senses. Under her leadership, Kamani Tubes Limited, Kamani Steel Re-Rolling Mills Pvt Ltd, Saikrupa Sugar Factory Pvt Ltd, Kalpana Builders & Developers, Kalpana Saroj & Associates, and KS Creations Film Production have thrived to mega success. The fact that she has more than six successful companies with a net worth of over Rs. 1000 crores under her name are testament to her life, struggle, and success.

It is like the coming of a full circle for a girl from an underprivileged small-town family to topping lists and making limelight on the most prestigious national and global stages.

Kalpana Saroj is armed with a lifetime of experience and an admirable journey. Her journey proves that to be a successful entrepreneur, you don’t necessarily need big degrees, just big dreams and the determination to achieve them. Working on her exceptional principles of honesty above proficiency, strength in adversity, and action rather than oration, Ms. Saroj has made an indelible mark in Indian society and the business world for generations to take inspiration from.

Ramjibhai Kamani started Kamani industries with a vision for what the newly minted nation of India would look like. Kalpana Saroj has taken that vision and values of justice, fair play, and equality to a new high, inspiring everyone who aims to succeed in life despite an underprovided background and societal baggage of discrimination.

For more inspiring stories like this, read our Inspire Section!

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Jigarthanda, the Drink from Madurai

Aakash Sharma — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 05:35:09 +0000

Food, culture, and legacy – this is the most time-tested and overwhelmingly powerful trio that has historically contributed to the making of regimes, civilisations and more recently, brands. India is one of the most diverse countries in the world. And this diversity has impacted the long-standing traditions and cultures of this land for centuries.

Taking from this vast and diversified culture, the ‘Food’ in India is also one of the best to be found anywhere worldwide. From Kashmir’s famous Dumaaloo and Rogan Josh, Bihar’s Litti Chokha, and Sikkim’s Gundruk and Sinki, to Rajasthan’s Gatte ki Sabzi, Karnataka’s Dosa, and Tamil Nadu’s Idli, the ‘great Indian food’ is a jewel of pride on every Indian’s head. This pride is felt unanimously by people across religious, social, economic and political lines.

This story is about one such revolutionary, universally loved ‘famous’ beverage that has come to be known as the de facto beverage of Madurai, enticing tourists from faraway lands of all walks of life and quenching the thirst of locals with excellent taste – the Famous Jigarthanda company.

Madurai’s Jigarthanda – A Meeting of Taste and Cultures

Jigarthanda (ஜிகர்தண்டா in Tamil) is a cold beverage that is famous in the South Indian city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India. It literally translates to “cool heart” in English (Jigar means heart, Thanda means cold in Hindustani). This beverage is generally prepared and served at roadside stalls as a refreshment during the Indian summer. It is effectively a cold drink made of milk, almond Pisin (gum derived from the bark of the sweet almond tree), khoya, sarsaparilla root syrup (nannari sherbet syrup) with alternatives of basundi and milk ice cream as toppings.

A drink seemingly born in the local markets of Madurai is now largely regarded as the city’s own drink, with many restaurants and bakeries now selling ‘Madurai’s’ jigarthanda counters. However, anyone familiar with Tamil can spot that the name ‘jigarthanda’ is not Tamil enough to be born in Madurai.

So, where did jigarthanda come from?

Differing Roots of this Now Truly Madurai drink

Jigarthanda is synonymous with Madurai, even though it may not have been born there. Some experts say that the influence of this cold beverage came from the North. They say that the concept for jigarthanda and the widely famous North Indian falooda are essentially the same. Just that in falooda, chefs use almond pisin, semiya, sabja seeds and rooh afza, while for jigarthanda, they use milk ice cream, milk, nannari sharbat, basundi and almond pisin.

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The drink's nomenclature, which has etymological roots in the North Indian language of Urdu, is further cited as a source for the drink's connection to the North. 'Jigar' means heart, and 'thanda' means cool, and thus jigarthanda translates to 'cool heart'.

But the one thing that is certain regarding jigarthanda is the role of a legacy brand that started from a tiny pushcart in the 1970s and today has expanded to over 200 outlets of this ‘famous’ beverage, the iconic ‘Famous Jigarthanda’ of Madurai.

The iconic ‘Famous Jigarthanda’ of Madurai

Today, Famous Jigarthanda is a household name in the city of Madurai. Started by P.S. Sheik Meeran at the Kaalavasal junction in Madurai in 1977, the business has gone full circle, from Sheik Meeran initially selling ice creams made of milk, sugar and vanilla essence on a pushcart to selling thousands of glasses of jigarthanda during the season’s peak.

When Sheik Meeran began selling the jigarthanda on his pushcart, it immediately became his most sought-after product, and people bought it overwhelmingly. Though this drink is available everywhere, Famous Jigarthanda’s became quite different from the others over the years due to the mixing of ‘basundi’ for adding more taste to the drink.

In simple terms, Jigarthanda is a cold beverage like falooda, but the taste of the two drinks is entirely different. What separates the Jigarthanda from its northern cousin is pisin. While the latter uses vermicelli and is scooped up and eaten, the Jigarthanda is stirred and drunk.

Sheik Meeran’s farming ancestors hailed from Yangon, Myanmar. Tales of the Meeran family say that Sheik Meeran’s grandfather was the one who first made up a drink comprising basundi (condensed milk), milk and edible almond gum. He coincidentally came up with a version of Jigarthanda that was hot as it lacked the ice cream.

Situated on the famous East Marret and South Masi Street intersection, the Famous Jigarthanda shop attracts hundreds of customers every day and peaks further during summer. Their customers gave them the name ‘famous’ to identify their shop – it has stayed so ever since, and Meeran’s sons have made the proper use of it.

With five simple components, P. S. Sheikh Meeran and Sons have made the jigarthanda synonymous with the town’s name. There is no recorded history of this beverage; legends situate its origins in Mughal emperor Jehangir’s reign, all with too much contestation. Yet nobody knows jigarthanda better than perhaps the locals of Madurai.

People of Madurai have adopted this drink and made it their own popular-staple drink. The city is full of jigarthanda vendors, and there are minute differences in the variants available. But the name that stands out as the best is ‘Famous Jigarthanda – Since 1977’.

Famous Jigarthanda – From Tiny Pushcart to 200 Outlets

Today, P.S. Sheikh Meeran’s four sons have expanded the business into a chain of nine shops in Madurai and 35 regions across Tamil Nadu. S. Peer Mohammed, Sheikh Meeran’s eldest son, takes care of the Anna Nagar branch, while his next son, S. Zinda Madhar, is in charge of the shop on East Marret Street. The third in line – S. Shahul Hameed – takes care of the company godown. The youngest son Amanullah takes the shop’s name and fame beyond the city limits. He is in charge of the out-station orders.

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Ten people manage the leading shop that sells not less than 1,000 glasses of jigarthanda in a day between 10.30 am and 10.30 pm, with only one holiday — on Diwali — every year.

They regularly supply for weddings and other functions in Erode, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Chennai and Bangalore. Famous Jigarthanda has its head office in East Marret Street Madurai. It operates branch offices in Madurai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Tirupur, Ramanathapuram, Sivagangai, Tuticorin, Virudhanagar, Hosur, Dindugal, Vellore, Theni, Sivakasi, Tiruchy, Pudhukottai, Erode, Perambalur, Idukki, Namakkal, Thirumangalam and Bangalore. This legacy brand runs around 200 outlets.

Famous Jigarthanda sells two types of jigarthanda: the Ordinary and Special. The main ingredients that go into jigarthanda are milk, almond pisin, basundi, ice cubes and sherbet. The unique variety has more khoya than the ordinary one. The legacy brand makers prepare their own sherbet.

The drink that Famous Jigarthanda serves to its customers has condensed and chilled cow’s milk, nannari sherbet syrup, almond pisin, sugar syrup, cream, milk ice cream and basundi. This varies as per the customers’ orders. It is generally served in glass tumblers and is a body coolant, true to its name. It is perhaps this cooling nature of the drink that made Madurai embrace it as its own.

In 1988, Meeran diversified his products and began selling Jigarthanda at night. He saw the drink was broadly available in the area, so, at Rs 3, he kept the price per glass lower than other vendors. He also infused more basundi for a better taste in the drink. This simple yet innovative idea worked, and Meeran set up his first shop on the busy street of East Marret in 1993.

Fast forward to 2021, and the brand today has 200 franchises across Tamil Nadu with a daily footfall of around 300-500 customers per shop. At its main store in Madurai, 1,000 glasses of Jigarthanda are served every day. The current prices of the brand’s titular products are incredibly affordable, explaining the brand’s mass appeal and widespread success.

Starting with the Jigarthanda Ice Cream Small from Rs.15/- and Jigarthanda Cone Ice at Rs.20/-, the company prices its Jigarthanda Basundi at Rs.80/- and Jigarthanda Basundi Parsal at Rs.85/-. The Famous Jigarthanda Special is priced at Rs.60/-.

The sales of thousands of these products rope in profits for the brand. More importantly, it keeps the legacy of Sheik Meeran’s indigenously created beverage alive by serving it chilled to customers from all walks of life.

What makes Famous Jigarthanda so popular?

Jigarthanda is to food enthusiasts what the city’s famous Meenakshi temple is to devotees. Tourists from across the world, including celebrities and movie stars, have come to taste this chilled drink.

In the Famous Jigarthanda factory, chefs boil 100 litres of cow’s milk in multiple batches till it reduces to 40 litres and refrigerate it to make khoya. While most jigarthanda makers use kadal paasi, also known as china grass (or agar agar), this family run business (brand) use what the father-founder Sheik Meeran started to make the products stand out from the competition- the self-made khoya.

They soak the natural body-coolant badam pisin (almond resin) overnight, grind it and add it to the main drink in a particular measure. Home-made vanilla ice cream is another essential ingredient. The sweet nannari (sarsaparilla) syrup is made by boiling the roots and mixing it with sugar and basundi (sweetened thickened milk). All these are combined to make the thick shake that spells magic in the mouth.

Coming of Age with New Era Technology and Online Shift

As the company has turned itself into a legacy brand with deep roots in the South Indian region, it has not failed to realise the new era of technology driven changes and new models to expand its business. With a well-maintained website serving as its easy to access portfolio and information hub for lakhs of potential customers, it also gives online ordering services to its customers.

From letting people order desserts online to promising fast delivery of these sweets at their doorstep, the company has tapped into the large market of individual customers and the bulk ordering and large-scale event segment. It regularly supplies for weddings and other functions all over Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. The door delivery service offered by Famous Jigarthanda is also available for events and bulk orders, with the threshold order quantity set at 100 plus items for local delivery and 300 plus for out-state delivery.

Famous Jigarthanda has become a renowned franchisor with years in the making, and it now has franchises all over Tamil Nadu, Bangalore and Kerala. The brand’s conduct in the market made its franchise expansion possible. As a franchisor, it provides the undertaking parties with a clear picture of the competition and helps them differentiate as entrepreneurs in the market.

This legacy brand’s entrepreneurial feels, greater confidence and a constant demand for its product have boosted its stature in the market and food ecosystem of South Indian circles. More recently, the company has been involved in exporting its food and beverage items. It now undertakes export orders of Jigarthanda to countries like Malaysia, Dubai and Singapore.

Though the next generation of Sheik Meeran’s family has moved out of the business and has gone into academics, the family hopes they will lend their professional knowledge to expand the business further. Undoubtedly, the famous Jigarthanda is the signature drink of Madurai, and the Famous Jigarthanda shop is a not-to-be-missed destination for visiting tourists. In its making of the legacy brand, this once local beverage company has set new highs for other small businesses and local entrepreneurs to strive for more and succeed even in the age of the tech-based business ecosystem.

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Learnings from Jack Ma

Vaishali Das — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 05:35:07 +0000

An employee earning $12 per month rising as China’s third wealthiest person, Jack Ma is a man of perseverance. With a net worth of $51.5 billion (as of April 2021), his story is a perfect example of a rags-to-riches story.

Widely known as the Chinese business magnet, Jack Ma is the founder and CEO of Alibaba Group, the multinational technology company specialising in e-commerce, retail, Internet and technology. Here are some takeaways from the journey of this billionaire entrepreneur for all the aspiring and budding entrepreneurs.

5 Learnings For Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

You have to start somewhere

Jack Ma was born and raised in a communist Chinese society. Without having a strong financial background or connections, Ma learned that only education can lead him to success. This made him an enthusiast for learning English and ended up in one of China’s local teacher’s institutes.

From making $12 a month at a local university, which was his first job, to creating a net worth of $51.5 billion, Jack Ma has established himself as an influential figure in the startup businesses sphere.

Failure

Jack Ma dealt with a number of failures all his life. Starting from his school days, Ma failed his final exams thrice before passing. He even failed the entrance exams for colleges before getting in Huangzhou Normal University.

Along with his educational phase, his early entrepreneurial ventures were a disaster too. He failed in two of his initial internet ventures and made it in his third chance. Alibaba, his third company, took off and created a buzz in the e-commerce industry with a legendary IPO by setting a world record as the biggest offering in the history of business.

This explains that all these failures didn’t stop him in any way from dreaming bigger rather taught him to value his work more.

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Never give up. Today is hard, tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.

Rejection

If anyone knows how to overcome rejections, then it is Jack Ma. He received more than a dozen rejections, starting from his college days. After graduating with a degree in English he applied to 30 jobs and was rejected in each one of them. He even applied for a police academy with 5 others but was not even considered for it. He was the only one turned down for the job because he was “no good”.

With minimal job options, he applied for Harvard scholarship but was turned down 10 times. In an interview, Jack Ma once mentioned that when KFC came to China, 24 people went for the job. He was the only one who was rejected for the position and the other 23 were offered the job.

Being Persistent

Despite all the rejections and failures, Ma persisted throughout. He accepted his failures and allowed himself to stretch his vision for a better future. He managed to procure a gig with English translation services and went to the US as a translator. This was the breakthrough of his life. He was introduced to the internet and from there he started his second company ‘Chinapage’. This particular phase of his life gave him the opportunity to make connections in the business world.

Had he been not persistent, he would have never landed on the right path and Alibaba would never have been born. Making every challenge, rejection and hardship an opportunity to knock a new door and keeping a wide lens helped him through his tough times.

Never Give Up

Jack Ma’s struggle with hardships and desire for a successful life is inspiring for the budding entrepreneurs. Going far beyond his financial and professional capabilities has made him what he is today. His never giving up attitude towards life is what all entrepreneurs and small business owners should learn from.

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Crofarm, On a Mission to Streamline Farm-to-Fork Supply Chain

Mohit Pandey — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 12:30:09 +0000

Who does not want to set up a farm in their backyard and get fresh vegetables daily for healthy intake of resources? Or better, would it not be great if we could get fresh vegetables directly from the farm, as per our demands and delivered within a day? It is like taking a big step towards a healthier and hassle-free lifestyle, avoiding even stepping out of the house, while still getting the freshness straight from the farm delivered at doorsteps. Crofarm is doing just that.

This agri supply chain start-up buys fresh fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers and supplies them to the online and offline retailers in a cost effective manner.

Crofarm: The Necessity of a Direct Farm-to-Fork Supply Chain in India

The agricultural sector in India, even though being massively unorganised, employs around 50 per cent of the workforce of the country and accounts for 18 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). It is still astonishing to see that due to the absence of transparency, more than 90 per cent of the agricultural produce is eaten up by the middlemen who are well entrenched in the system, leaving very little for the farmers. Additionally, 20 metric tons of the harvest is lost due to an inadequate supply chain.

In 2017, India ranked 100 in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) out of 119 countries. This also results in the wastage of about 7 per cent of the total food produced in a year – which is worth about Rs 58,000 crore. When we understand that farmers are indeed the backbone of society and agriculture is the biggest sector of the economy, farmers’ plight due to the layers of intermediaries denying them a fair price for their produce becomes more visible.

Due to these reasons, Varun Khurana and Prashant Jain took the responsibility onto their shoulders and started towards solving the problem by streamlining the supply trade, removing the middlemen and establishing an efficient trade relation between farmers and retailers by incorporating Crofarm in May of 2016.

To ensure a better price for both sides, Crofarm serves as a platform to form a relation between the farmers and the retail market, building direct trade. Also, by reducing wastage and offering better value of their produce to the farmers, Crofarm is friendly and meaningful for both the farmers and the retailers. By optimising the logistics of supply chain management using AI-enabled proprietary tools, Crofarm supplies to big retail chains like Big Bazaar, Reliance Retail and online stores like Big Basket, among others.

In 2020, Crofarm shifted from a farm-retail business to become a B2C platform using Otipy, which is a community-based platform that helps connect the farmers directly to the consumers, bringing the freshness directly to the doorsteps. After this new strategy and integrating WhatsApp to their business structure, the company gained more authenticity and helped the farmers and consumers build a direct connection removing the need of retailers as well.

The Founders: Bringing Crofarm to Life

The problem and the inefficiency of the ‘mandi system’ always bothered founders Varun and Prashant. This made them start their previous business venture in 2014 – Greenbox – which was a smartphone-based grocery delivery platform. Later, the platform was acquired by Grofers which was building a supply chain directly from the mandi to consumers. Varun joined as the Chief Technical Officer of the app while Prashant was the Vice President of Operations.

While working at Grofers, they understood the problems of the supply chain system and wanted to create a direct link between the farm and retail entities. Therefore, after leaving Grofers, Varun and Prashant spent time across the major farming states like Haryana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh meeting vegetable and grain merchants, understanding their problems and figuring out the inefficiencies of the supply chain that gets their fresh harvest to the public. Through all the research, they were able to build the platform, Crofarm, with the aim of eradicating the problem and hassles of a mandi.

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Crofarm helps farmers get their fair share by removing the middlemen and also by providing the retailers with freshness from the farm.

How Crofarm Brought in Much-Needed Innovation of the Supply Chain

The revenue model of the business is pretty simple – procure the fresh fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers and deliver them to retailers or consumers, with the company getting their commission for the delivery. This direct trade makes the system transparent and easy for both the farmers and the consumers. On every sale it makes, Crofarm is able to get a commission ranging from 15-20 per cent depending on the quality of the produce.

Starting with a $1.5 million seed funding from Pravega VC and a couple of angels including Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India) and Jitendra Gupta (MD, PayU India), the founders have been able to raise around Rs 15 crore in the venture. In 2018, the company raised Rs 5 crore pre-series A round from Factor[e] Ventures and other existing investors, and planned to raise another round soon. Since its integration with WhatsApp, the company has been able to cater over 5,000 daily orders from over one lakh registered customers across NCR.

During the fiscal year 2019, Crofarm, after directly serving the consumers, managed to grow its sales by nearly 2X to around Rs 11.26 crore compared to fiscal year 2018 when they posted a top line of Rs 6.7 crore. In FY20, the new business model showed its true efficiency, when the company was able to raise a little over Rs 24.4 crore which is nearly 2.2X of their sales in FY19.

The company had to expense around Rs 30.72 crore in total in FY20, growing by 86.8 per cent from the total expenditure in FY19 of Rs 16.4 crore. Since the demand for their services increased, the majority of these expenses, around 72 per cent, incurred in collecting farm produce, which grew by 2.15X from Rs 10.31 crores in FY19 to Rs 22.15 crore in FY20.

Expansion and Consumer Satisfaction

Focusing on the growth of the employees is also the biggest target of a company. Crofarm’s employee benefit expenses grew 47.4 per cent from Rs 2.5 crore in FY19 to nearly Rs 3.7 crore in FY20. The company also incurred around Rs 4.44 crore in operating expenses during the same period.

With current supply in cities like Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi, Crofarm is also planning to raise $10 million this year to expand Odipy, the farm-to-fork chain, more in tier II and tier III cities of the country. The company had already raised $2 million in 2020 from Inflection Point (IP) Ventures and the Smile Group.

Not just driven by economic motives, Crofarm also helps in supporting social causes. In 2020, the platform was able to produce a robust fresh produce category supporting over 2,500 women and stores as resellers. This group earns a commission of more than 9% of all group sales, which is the highest across all social commerce brands in the country.

With the use of AI powered engines for better traceability, transparency and hassle-free designs, Crofarm has been able to make its place known in the agricultural industry of India as the most trusted and reliable brand. The growth of a company is always dependent on factors like employee satisfaction, economic growth and satisfaction of the customers, and Crofarm has been able to provide a surplus of these values in their venture.

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In 2020, the platform was able to produce a robust fresh produce category supporting over 2,500 women and stores as resellers.

How Crofarm Dealt with Maintaining Quality and Its Place with the Competitors

India being one of the largest producers of fruits and vegetables, maintaining the quality of the farm produced freshness is a challenge that all agricultural sector companies face. Around 30 per cent of the wastage of the produce happens because of inadequate logistic support and inefficient supply chains. One of the biggest advantages that Crofarm was able to take was using cold storage for perishable vegetables and protecting them from moisture. While commodities like potato and onion can have a higher shelf life, leafy vegetables like spinach, methi etc., require a certain moisture level to ensure maximum life.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that due to the lack of good refrigerated storage space, vegetables and fruits worth around $8.3 billion, which is about 40 per cent of the total produce of the country, get wasted. Additionally, if the commodities have to get transferred through various vendors, middlemen, mandis, the amount of food wasted is increased substantially. In NCR, Crofarm promises to deliver vegetables from farm-to-fork within 12 hours. This makes sure that there is a lesser need for storing commodities and delivering them fresh.

With major competitors like Bijak, BlueCart, Agrowave and AgroCenta, Crofarm is constantly applying new technology and techniques to keep up with the increasingly competitive market. Keeping in mind the separate requirements of each part of the supply chain, five separate engines have been created to help in the efficiency of the supply chain.

Here are some of the technologies that Crofarm employs:

Procurement Engine: It is made for the farmers for better traceability of the produce and its quality. This app also helps farmers in complete transparency of their POs and payments.

Distribution Centre Engine: It uses AI-based demand prediction based on historical data-efficient procurement. It also helps in tracking the shelf life of the vegetables by alerting in case of aging inventory.

Transport Engine: Providing optimal routes to reduce delivery time and real-time tracking of the delivery vehicles.

Reseller App: Uses AI powered CRM enabling better communication and tracking customer orders and deliveries, while also earning incentive on sale.

Consumer App: It is filled with catalogues and offers a simple interface to place orders and track delivery.

With the introduction of AI based technology, Crofarm has been able to take big leaps ahead of its competitors, therefore, building its proper place in the market.

Crofarm: the Present and the Future

After recently extending services in Bhiwadi, Crofarm is constantly taking big steps to cater to more and more cities of India. With the introduction of the new farm bills by the Indian Government, which present farmers with an alternative platform to sell directly to a retailer without going through mandis, Crofarm’s Odipy will work with the farmers to create a level playing field. With the asymmetrical information system of the agricultural sector, where the farmers had no knowledge of the price of their produce, now with the help of these new emerging agritech platforms, they will be able to negotiate well with their customers. Moreover, by the elimination of the gulping middlemen, the farmers can now establish their own stand in the chain.

Varun and Prashant’s aim to provide a solution to the plight of the farmers by incorporating Crofarm and giving them a platform of their own now seems to be taking big steps in every part of the country. By giving the farmers an assured price, bringing efficiency into the supply chain and reducing wastage of the commodities, the company has already proven to be a contributor to the ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’.

For more inspiring stories, check out our Inspire Section!

The post Crofarm, On a Mission to Streamline Farm-to-Fork Supply Chain appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Postman – Hitting the API Growth Pedestal with a Strong Product

Franzil Dias — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 12:35:08 +0000

In 2012, two humble coding interns at Yahoo kept running into the same issues over and over again. Working out of their Bengaluru-based office, Ankit Sobti and Abhinav Asthana had one key job – to take Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and convert them into a shareable format that developers could use in their projects. Doesn’t sound very simple, does it?

Well, amidst this complicated procedure, the duo found a solution to many coders problems, and thus began the inception of Postman, the collaboration platform for API development.

The Birth of Postman

To begin with, let us understand what an API is. Application Programming Interface – API – is a software intermediary that, in simple words, allows two applications to talk to each other. When you open an application on your phone, any type of process or service from that app requires an API to function. It works as a messenger between the app from your phone to the server’s mainframe wherever it is.

For the founders, learning how the APIs worked was a complex process. Testing and debugging APIs was also a pain for the production team. They had to start over every time an API was changed or updated.

The duo figured out that there were a lot of communication issues when it came to API testing. However, they failed to reach a consensus or a probable solution. The same issue erupted a few years later at Asthana’s first start-up TeliportMe, a social media platform.

The duo was then joined by Abhijit Kane, the third co-founder of Postman. This team of three was building a front-end architecture of their app, and that’s when they had to work with a complicated API and needed to exchange details in the process. However, they ran into the same communication issue and failed to find a solution.

This became the first building block for the trio’s venture. Collating all the previous and current issues, the founders had realised that the tools to support API development were missing. They started noting down the codes to solve the issue (making API testing easier) and posted it on the Chrome Webstore; things took off from there. Google reached out to the team and appreciated the Postman tool. Thereafter, they featured it on the homepage of the Chrome store, which gave the start-up a fantastic visibility and the needed kickstart.

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Postman is the leading API growth collaboration platform in India and is being rapidly adopted throughout the industry.

A Good Product Sells Itself

APIs have been around for four decades but Postman is probably the first start-up to realise the opportunity of private APIs. It is an online company that works into designing, developing and managing APIs for organisations and developers. As soon as the company was launched in 2015, the trio’s desk was flooded with feedback from developers besides enquiries from investors. Interestingly, the USP of the product is its scalability. Right from start-ups to big companies, the adoption, applicability and usage of tools is not limited. The start-up had nearly half a million users even before officially starting the business.

Postman is branded as an all-in-one toolkit for API developers. It is a versatile tool for rapidly, effectively and precisely creating linked applications using APIs. There are two components of the Postman API Network:

Postman Public API Network

It is accessible to the entire API world

Postman Private API Network

It is only accessible to particular groups.

As a user, you can make and store basic and complex HTTPs requests, as well as read their comments. Consequently, the work done is more productive and less stressful.

But the obvious underlying question here is what is so special about this product? Or, why is it so prominent in today’s market?

The answer lies in the product’s versatility in almost all aspects of the company to suit the customer. For example, there are three different types of plans for clients just to make the product more inclusive.

Free option
Postman Pro: For small teams and projects with expanded usage limitations
Postman Enterprise: Includes additional governance and account management for official corporate needs.

Apart from versatility, another reason why its demand in the market is high is because of its convenience. It has many in-built features which make the ability to design, mock, debug, generate automated tests, monitors, documentations and published collections easier. Besides, it is able to fix bugs at 4x faster on average, which helps in staying ahead of the curve.

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The sheer number of operational options on the platform not only make it a favoured platform but a versatile one too.

Turning Product into Business

The start-up received its first round of Series A funding in 2016 of $7 million from Nexus Venture Partners and opened offices in Bangalore, San Francisco and Austin. To date, the company has managed to raise $208 million from the existing investors besides others like CRV.

In June 2020, after receiving $150 million in a Series C round from Insight Partners, at a valuation of $2 billion, Postman became the quickest Software as a Service (SaaS) business to attain unicorn status. Postman is the API development tool of choice for nine of the top ten cloud computing providers, according to Asthana. Its API development platform is used by over 11 million developers around the world, across more than 5,00,000 companies globally, including Microsoft, Twitter, Best Buy, AMC Theaters, PayPal, Shopify, BigCommerce and DocuSign.

What is interesting, as stated by the founders in their blog, is the fact that Postman was started in India. Lots of technology products start in the Silicon Valley and getting global support right in the beginning was commendable for the start-up.

Twitter bought into the idea of Postman because of their feature of mock servers. Daniele Bernardi, a staff partner engineer at Twitter Inc. said in a media statement that they would be able to offer developers easy access as well as secure their production data due to the feature of mock servers.

Microsoft’s decision to become a client of the platform was because of the feature where Postman allowed them to create API integration tests for all of their endpoints, which meant that its API would verify whether the system was functional or not. Apart from this, they also used environment variables and test scripts offered by Postman to build their own flow control structures.

One of the reasons the Postman product is so successful is because of the founders obsession with customer feedback. The team, starting from initial days itself, began tracking every piece of feedback from users all over the world. They were obsessive about product reviews and user requests, and had in-depth conversations with developers as often as possible and continue to do so to date.

In his blog, Asthana writes that loads of feedback is great, but one has to be smart about acting on it. Many start-ups encounter problems when they try to take on too much at once, focusing on the big picture rather than the next feature needed. He says the company had decided early on that it would tackle only one or two problems at a time, get as much input as possible, and really get the solution right before moving on to the next problem.

Besides the initial setup of API Testing, Postman faced a series of challenges. They weren’t too concerned in the early days about things like business model and pricing and wanted to be (and still are) focussed on the product and its development. While other companies prior to Postman were building products, they were close to managers or decision-makers rather than the developer community. That’s where Postman earned the brownie points with the developers. They first started exclusively with developers and gradually moved into more of a true business-to-business offering where they solved organisation-wide problems that impact managers, senior leaders, and cross-functional teams. This was the most organic growth of the company. The product-market-fit was found and worked upon.

Postman ranks 5th in the top 10 API Companies around the world. Its management software is a popular technology and many people are looking for top-rated, well-known software that includes API testing, monitoring and app integration. It is also one of the only three Indian start-ups to appear in the Forbes Cloud 100 list of the most influential SaaS companies in the world

The Pioneer

Postman’s portfolio of products is based on making developer communication simpler. Its approach has been to provide free customer assistance, which is a function that many SaaS firms charge extra for. Given that the majority of developers utilise Postman’s platform, the only option for the company to continue to grow is to extend its use cases and build on the present product.

According to Gartner’s prediction, more than 65% of global infrastructure service providers’ revenue would be produced by API-enabled services by 2023 – that is up from 15% in 2018.

SaaS unicorn Postman will always be credited as the first in history to recognise the potential of API management. In the current era, no software engineer lives without the Postman platform if they ever work on APIs. Postman has become a default tool in API testing and development. APIs may have emerged as a critical part of the software ecosystem lately, but this product will always be credited to be the first one to recognise their potential.

For more inspiring stories like this, read our Inspire Section!

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