A Housewife To A Successful Entrepreneur | Journey Of Harini Sivakumar |
Hello, my name is Jalee. And I'm the founder of a personal care brand called Earth, it was started by them, you know, accidentally, very honestly, and the whole story of Earth for them today certainly gives you a lot of insight into that. How it came to be. in regards to. Existence and what we are trying to create in the environment today. In 2009 I was 22 years old and got married very soon. And surprisingly, within a year of my 23rd marriage, I had a son and my son was born with a disability called Down syndrome. Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that affects your physical and cognitive ability and, you know, other problems that can lead to skin problems. He should not pursue his corporate career. I did the same thing when I quit my corporate career in 2010. It's over as soon as it started. Fast forward, I think I was a very happy housewife until 2015. I'm moving from city to city, I've been to many cities, I'm trying to find a solution for my skin or my son's disability, I'm thinking right now in 2015, very honest. From, very honest. In Delhi, my son was about five years old and had started school. And at that time, you know, I had a lot of time on my hands and I wanted to, you know, start, you know, start, I wanted to do something by myself. And I decided to start working on my son's skin problems. And that's how I started creating my own skincare line, a small brand called Soap Works India. It was a small Indian brand that he created himself and registered under MSMEs. And at that time the idea of starting a big multinational corporation was not part of my dream or vision to be honest. But I was very clear that I wanted to do something on my own. So I started making a bunch of skin care products, or as I would call them DIY skin care products in my kitchen. Generally the idea was to sell in the community where I live. At the time I would call it a passion project that I had, I had a lot of time on my hands. And you know, Big took me a little too seriously. And I decided to study the formulations in detail. 2016 came again, and I decided to take some time to study chemistry in detail. I come from a working background. So I had to forget my business economics, relearn my organic chemistry in organic chemistry. I have taken many courses and my understanding of how formulation works has sharpened me. I started selling through many social media channels in 2017, you name it Instagram, Facebook, Google, I was trying to sell my products everywhere on social media channels. I think it was when I started building my website. I was quite curious. I wanted to build my brand on my own, from the website to the packaging to the graphic design, I literally had my hands on everything. And I tried to do everything myself. By the way, you know, in 2018 when my dad was going to Google, I moved from Delhi to Oregon. And my dad was going to Google. And he literally saw me in this room, sitting in the middle of a bunch of boxes, trying to make something, and my son is screaming outside and, you know, wanting attention. Dad came in, you know, really pissed off and said, "Honey, what are you trying to do?" So you have to draw a line between your passion and your job. And you have to start paying attention to your family. It really hurt me.
Knowing that many customers were waiting for my product, I decided why give up on my dreams. Why should I give up on my dreams? And there, I decided to take myself. I asked him to help me build my brand and not hinder me. He was a great father, they decided to do business together. We started in 2019. Through them we renamed Soap Works and launched it in 2019. When I entered the market, a very honest, first-generation entrepreneur, completely inexperienced in business, even mid-level. As a stay-at-home mom for seven years straight, without a corporate operator and suddenly I decided to start a brand on my own. It was literally overwhelming at the time. But I think what really drove us forward was the dream, the passion and the vision. There was something we wanted to do in 2019. And I decided manufacturing, deciding to own manufacturing was a very complicated decision because, you know, when we went into the market for ourselves, we were very small, you know, just me and my father, giants in the market. are, and we wanted another person to help us, you know, we were running the business and we had just bought it and it was closed and we had literally no funds, with the company. The technical operational issues we had were a house that was literally a house. So, where do I go to find this person? And as I think and think, how do I get this thing off the ground? I decided to hurry and go to the security guard of the apartment where I live and told them that MJ could kill the man with the priest. Security was like a kiss that Kalita Jaco bought, I told her she could appease the hugger by paying for the DG upgrade. The next day, there was a line of girls outside my door asking didi what kami jadu porsche, but then what to do kagarman, I said kootene karna aao. do you know? Do you know how to read and write? You trained with all these girls? I saw a girl. Her name was Mimi. And he came from this village called Sunderbans, a small village in West Bengal. He was very young, between 20 and 23 years old. When I saw him in 2019, I asked his mother, do you know how to read and write? Ed said, "I'm a graduate, I'm surprised. He was a graduate and yet, you know, he was looking for help with the house and asked what made him pursue that role. He said, 'I don't speak English, but I can read. But I can write and read in English. And at that point, I decided that he was the person I was going to hire. He was my first employee and the person I was most proud of in the journey I made with him on earth. We accept him with a salary of Rs 5000 in 2019. He is today compared to 2019. Earns 10 times the salary. And the amount of confidence or evolution that I've seen over the course of several meters. There's something on the ground through them that I have to talk about here today, when it comes, you know. Yes, there are two sides to her. One is the physical side. The other is the intellectual side, right? There's nothing wrong with her physical appearance as a person who covers her head on Saturday. But she came across as this cute little girl. Was, you know, from the city The outside was fresh and so she came to earth through them. And from there I can turn it into a person coming up to me a month later and explaining the strategy to the guy at the cheese company, can they just order the code on Friday, can we just prepaid on Tuesday. Can order? Created strategy for the company. And that was a moment of awakening for me. And I, that day, felt that I had already tasted success, because I had my first successful building on earth with him, you know, built thanks to him. Since then, we have hired many women, such as Mamita, who runs the entire production facility, who today work at the factory site on the ground. Also we work, naturally as you know my son has a special talent I wanted to make sure that we were fully involved, we wanted to make sure that We brought disabled people with us. Many of you know, people on the spectrum, people with Down syndrome, working with us on the factory site and in different roles. And this was done consciously with the thought of making sure that we were fully included.
As far as the work environment we have, as a home entrepreneur when I was still alive, I had five or eight daughters who came to my house, you know, to build the brand. help me. And at that time it was literally a challenge. Because people around me always wondered why there are so many girls in my house. And I think that deciding to move out of that house and onto a home office setup site was an important step for me. Technically, this was a big deal for a mom like me, considering I never left the house and didn't worry about what my son would do. Who will take care of it? How do I get out? It was literally out of my comfort zone. It was a stage where I had to decide between my career and my dreams for my son. And I had to do both. I had no choice and at that point I think that as women, you know, we make very difficult decisions and we come out on top. Fast forward. The brand had grown from a small home setup in 2019 to a company with over 100 employees today. We have built it very carefully over the years. Considering the number of products we have, we have about 160 products sold on the website and that's not 60 products like the first day, you know we spent hours and wanted to spend that time. They wanted. For example, being a local entrepreneur, I noticed that many customers flocked to small businesses like mine. Back then, when I was, you know, a little soapy house setup worked for two big reasons. First, because they wanted customization, consumers didn't know how to approach big brands and give them the customization they wanted. This was one of the main reasons why consumers flocked to smaller brands. Secondly, some of these consumers want a very sustainable lifestyle, they are very conscious consumers, so it has become easier for them to approach smaller brands and ensure their sustainable practices. You know, lifestyle. . With both in mind, we've decided to take a thoughtful approach to impacting the 2020 pandemic, a zero-waste skincare line, which I believe is understated in the personal care space. . There were more users. Become more aware of your self-care routine. As per your information, we want the B2c market mix that we chose to make the brand a fully digital brand. Why? Why? Honestly, for any house, you know, any Indian brand. I think owning a digital brand is definitely a much easier task because the barriers to entry are not that high and anyone can easily enter the online marketplaces. Most of our target audience was consumers, you know, nerds. A lot of content from social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and voila, you know, low-hanging fruit, we feel like, you know, it's easier to target. I could go when we wanted to go in. This was our market strategy, we wanted to make sure we were a 100 person digital brand, we built our b2c website, integrated other third party platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, mica and some more. Started selling through other channels. It now delivers over 25,000 orders per month. We did it all digitally only. And if I can do it at the age of 35, if I can start a 200 crore company with no experience, I think what are you waiting for, you have a long way to go. You may be a mother, you may be a newlywed, you may be a pregnant woman, you may be a woman who cut her career short. Don't wait this is the start of something really big in your career, I was never a very bright kid neither in my school nor in my university. But I always thought I was very street smart. Even today, though I know you have many interactions with investors, I have consistently kept the same condition whether I am from IIT or not. This is a super dumb added benefit for me though. But that won't be the deciding factor for me on where I'm going, and do you know how much I can grow my company at this point? If it comes, it will be a brand of 50,000 garments. 50 years of age can. And if I can build a 35-year-old brand. With 200 million rupees still a lot of potential, codecs and
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