Working on health and nutrition

Increasing health consciousness has seen a jump in the number of people who value fitness. This has created a strong demand for health supplements and it is this segment that entrepreneurs Arvind Jain  and Himmat Jain decided to cater to with their start up As-It-Is Nutrition — a range of single-ingredient supplements that don’t have any flavours, preservatives, sweeteners or additives. 

The genesis

Arvind, a gold medalist in BPharm from Karnataka University started his entrepreneurial journey at a very young age and worked extensively in nutrition & pharaceutical space for 15 years. Himmath, an MBA from Goa Institute of Management joined his family’s pharmaceutical business after working with some of the leading firms like India Bulls and Morgan Stanley for five years. In March 2018, their interest in nutrition and supplements led them to introduce ‘As-It-Is Nutrition’ to the Indian market.

Challenges

With a huge variety of protein supplements being sold in the market with no scientifically proven effectiveness creating a niche among the existing brands was one of the key challenges. The founders spoke to as many as 1000 customers in the initial phase of product launch to ensure that there was no missing link in the value offering. Other key challenge was effective customer engagement. After it’s inception in March 2018, the company started receiving close to 200 customer calls every single day in the next three months. “This was handled efficiently by the team of customer care executives who were trained well to handle customer request and queries. The company also set up a team to take feedback from customers on a regular basis”, says Arvind Jain. 

Achievements

The brand was launched in March 2018 and by July 2018 the brand became number one seller of protein supplements in India selling online.  To meet the burgeoning demand, the production capacity was also increased to 5 times of existing capacity. The digital marketing strategy paid rich dividends.

Future plans

The brand has already tied up with about 70+ distributors across India through Distributor Development programme. The company plans to make products available in 5,000 stores across India in a year’s time. “The team is working to build a strong in-house IT & creative team to embrace rapid consumer expansion programme”, says Arvind. The team is also working on appointing distributors in neighbouring countries as there is a lot of request from customers through social media from Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Middle East and Srilanka.

A word of advice

Find the right problem to solve. Don’t try to build solution around a problem which does not exist. Money is only one element of business, it is your hard work which makes the difference. India is undergoing huge transition, there are opportunities everywhere keep your eyes and ears open. Always keep an eye on unit economics. That’s where the crux of traction lies.