'The moment you drop optimism, it is a dead game'

One of the highlights of the e4m D2C Summit 2023 was a panel discussion on “How to Build a 100 Crore+ D2C Brand?” chaired by Sneha Beriwal, CMO, Vahdam India, where industry experts discussed their journeys from a seed to a Rs 100-crore D2C brand, the various benchmarks they set for themselves during the said journey and how they built their teams.

The panellists included Deep Bajaj, Co-Founder Sirona; Raghav Verma, Co-Founder, Chaayos; Ayushi Gudwani, Founder & CEO, FS Life, and Divij Bajaj, Founder & CEO, Power Gummies.

The session opened with Beriwal asking the panellists how did their journey start and at what stage did they feel that they have achieved the “terminal velocity” and are looking at a business that will make Rs 100 crore. To this, Deep replied, “Nobody starts with the vision that this will become these many crores sort of a business. We are all trying to solve problems that we ourselves have experienced in some form or the other and for us, Sirona also started similarly.”

“I had seen how women suffer because of lack of toilets, lack of variety in period products, lack of safety solutions when they are travelling out. As a father of two daughters, I thought it's time that I stopped complaining about it by saying I'll get it from abroad but make them here. The velocity started coming when customers started accepting our products,” he added.

Talking about how he started Chaayos with the goal to make it big but had to put that on hold and just focus on his first store in the beginning, Verma said, “We gave ourselves 6 months. With the thought that if this doesn't work in 6 months, if we don't see customer traction, we have to let it go.”

He further explained how there was not a single terminal velocity, rather the entire process of building a 100-crore brand is a cycle. “At one point you think everything is working, then you start to scale up and realize ‘this city is not working for me’. Now you need to turn it around. That starts to work then you get that confidence. So, it is kind of cyclical that things work for you and then suddenly things stop working. It is a journey.”

Contrary to Deep, Gudwani pointed out that she, as an experienced strategy consultant for other businesses, began by analyzing if the category had the scope of creating a billion-dollar business. She said, “The decision to narrow down on the space was completely business plan based. I didn’t start thinking if I wanted a 50-crore brand or a 100-crore brand. I actually started with the thought that it has to become a billion-dollar brand.”

“Day one onwards we forgot that this was the business plan or we had to achieve that,” she said agreeing with Verma. How will the first garment be created, who will be the logistics partner, who will open the office and traverse through similar problems.” Gudwani called that the real journey and something that has been humbling and has stuck with her.

Talking about how the optimism of an entrepreneur works, with respect to when one feels that they are going to create a 100-crore brand, Divij said, “It is when you get your first order. It is important to have that optimism because that is what carries and that is the only driving force you have till the end. The moment you drop that optimism, it is a dead game.”

“Marketplaces have a very important role to play in the journey of any D2C brand,” Beriwal said, taking the session forward. She asked, "What are the ‘go(s)’ and ‘no go(s)’, especially for other entrepreneurs who might be getting on to these platforms. How do you evaluate them or think about them? Are they your partners or are they on the opposite side of the table? How does it work?"

To this, Verma replied, “Both Swiggy and Zomato have been a part of our extended team. If someone had asked me 5 years back that ‘will there be a behaviour of ordering chai at home and office’, I would have said it might take many years to actually create that. But there was this belief within that team that if we work on it, we can actually create a behaviour around it."

"Marketplaces are clear partners as Raghav mentioned. It is critical for us to scale. It's initially hard to scale but you have to be at all channels," Gudwani elaborated. "At the end of the day, we are all building brands and we have to be channel agnostic. Which channel enables you to build a brand ahead of its time is a choice that you will make."

Talking about how the people strategy changes as the business grows and how one makes sure that these people align with what one is trying to do, Divij said, “Till one crore you have to have versatile people who are in there. That is where you will find your core people who are ready to do any and everything for the brand. Ultimately if you subsidize them or channel them to a particular role, they will of course fight because that is the fighting tendency that they have developed with you. They have seen the brand grow from the start. From one to ten crore, you need more experienced people who bring in the kind of knowledge that you do not have. 

“Post that it has to go on in a very structured manner where you need more senior management people who can structure the organization. Post that the delegation has to be so strong and the channelizing has to be so strong that you are ideally not involved in the operation,” he elaborated.

Deep concluded the session by answering Beriwal’s question on staying true to listening to the consumer. He said, “We try to take feedback that we are getting on every portal. Even within the organization, the ethos starts from saying that feedback is king. Even the customer care executive at the first level is empowered to offer a refund no questions asked and then we investigate. The job is not to just park the buck and settle the query, it is to make the customer say ‘I'm satisfied’ and to get them satisfied on the first call. You are so approachable today because of LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. If a customer is dissatisfied, they have your kidney. So, we try to keep our kidneys to ourselves by not letting them down too much.”