“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality” – Warren G. Bennis
The truth is that many future leaders are unaware of their potential and lack vision in the first place. It is of utmost importance to have the vision to achieve something in life. Once you have a clear vision, making it a reality is a matter of time and dedication. Many people fail to reach their goals primarily because of two reasons. Either the goal wasn’t realistic or clear enough. Secondly, the person wasn’t patient or resilient enough to achieve that. This is the reason why every 9 out of 10 start-ups fail in modern India. There is no dearth of innovative ideas, but everyone does not have the vision or mindset to transform that into a reality.
Paridhi Goel, the founder of Love Earth, a Delhi-based D2C brand for organic skin, hair, and body care products, showed that one can establish a profitable business without any huge capital investment. She started her business with ten thousand rupees in hand and within a few years, she built an empire that provides employment to many people and earns revenue in crores. Nevertheless, this didn’t come easy but owing to her continuous efforts and perseverance she managed to reach the top of the ladder.
Let us go through her fascinating story.
The not-so-impressive background
Paridhi was an average student in school who haven’t excelled in academics throughout her life. She was mediocre with no career choices. Being a Commerce student, she completed her graduation in Mass Communication and Media Sciences in Delhi. She chose to do a PG in marketing and advertising when some of her friends started working as interns and earning a stipend. In the year 2013, during her Post graduation, she got to do an internship as Content Writer at Nav Bharat Times. However, she realised soon that this was not her cup of tea. She even landed a job offer from the same organisation, but she was not convinced to take up the offer. With an aspiration to do something new, she went on to take Spanish lessons. Also, she worked briefly as an intern at Pioneer Print Media in 2016. But the sparkle was missing and being unable to do something productive, she started feeling pressurized.
Initial attempts at entrepreneurship
At this juncture, she was in despair, not able to understand what she should do in life. This was the time when she met Chinar, her husband and co-founder of Love Earth. It struck the chord between the two having a similar mindset. They both were confused but at the same time were determined not to do a 9 to 5 job. They wanted to set up their own business but had no clue what to sell and how to sell. This was the ideation phase that led them to keenly observe the consumer market, to identify the challenges that they could address and create some value. Based on their study they found out that customers are concerned about the usage of chemicals in the products they use in their daily lives. That’s when they decided to go for organic products. They started making home-grown organic cleaning materials like dishwashers and glass cleaners. Though the products were very good somehow, they didn’t do well in the market. Customers were not keen on buying these products. The main challenge was the price. The initial try didn’t yield desired results due to a lack of scalability. Not letting the initial failure dampen their spirits they decided to move ahead with some other product. The festive season was coming, and the duo decided to make candles, which was a less price-sensitive product. They were always a strong believer in their research and this time they got a good response. Diwali orders came pouring in and they did quite well. But once the festive season was over, they started thinking about what they should do next for the rest of the year. Most of the time they invested in evaluating their opportunities for growth and sustainability.
The first BIG order
Fortunately, a happy customer offered more business and placed a bulk order for an upcoming event. The challenge here was, the customer was ready to invest money, but he wanted some additional gifting options. Since it was a big order Paridhi randomly suggested supplying rose water. The client agreed readily, and they got their first huge order worth twenty-five thousand rupees. Since then, Paridhi and her co-founder have never looked back. Finally, they got the vision and motivation to work towards fulfilling their dream of owning a successful business. Over the next two months, they continued their research and added many other products to their portfolio.
Launching her home-grown brand and reaching the top
In the year 2019, after extensive research followed by customer feedback, Paridhi launched her home-grown organic brand Love Earth. The brand offers organic products for the skin, hair, and body that are free from SLS, parabens, artificial colors, and any other harmful chemicals. These chemical-free products became a huge hit among customers. It is all about her persistence and undying spirit, that has made Love Earth one of the top profitable organic skincare brands in India with a revenue of INR 3 crores. A business that started by selling rose water costing INR 199, the brand has grown to offer more than 70 products across all major categories of skincare. To ensure the superior quality of the products, the company relies on strong research and testing activities. Being very particular about the “organic” offering, Paridhi ensures that very little or no chemicals are used at all during the processing of the products. The usage of plastic is minimised in packaging as well. All the products under the brand are tested and certified by the WHO, FSSAI, the Drug and cosmetic department, and the Ministry of Ayush. It takes several months to come up with a new product, and most of the time is spent on research, feedback, quality checks, and packaging. Another reason behind the brand’s success is its affordability which attracts customers from all social strata. The brand is dedicated to offering organic solutions for consumers with different skin tones, types, and problems. It not only offers common beauty products like creams and oils but with extensive research it also has come up with products that are specific to customer needs. The sunscreen infused with Vitamin C, eye-lash growth serum, nail-growth serum, and face tools like guasha stones or face rollers are also part of the impressive product portfolio that is hugely popular among customers. The products are available through online stores like Nykaa and Purple, and also their official website. Love Earth’s official page on Instagram has more than 80,000 followers and has great content to offer.
Social media taking a huge role in the promotion
Paridhi, being responsible for the branding and promotional activities of her products, worked relentlessly to build her customer base through social media platforms. At one point, she posted daily for seven consecutive months on Instagram without really expecting a positive response. But her resilience gave her great results. The social media influencers were the initial users of her products whom she supplied products for free. The objective was not to make money but to have valuable feedback from the users that would ultimately help improve her products. This turned out to be an intelligent move as most of the influencers loved the products and even promoted her products on social media. She now has a community of 100 influencers who use and approve the products before the market launch. Many celebrity makeup artists like Kriti Dhir, Leena Bhushan, Guneet Virdi, and many others vouch for Love Earth products and they frequently showcase their love and trust for the brand on social media.
If you want to know more about Paridhi, her brand, and the products follow the link below:
Key mantras to succeed as an entrepreneur
Here are the excerpts from Paridhi’s interview in JoshTalks that will give you some valuable tips if you are an aspiring entrepreneur:
- Understand your customer, even if you have very less of them. Ask for their suggestions, and feedback, and positively take the inputs. Implement the changes needed and go back to those handfuls of customers for their further input. It is also a highly important tactic to earn the faith of the customers as they know that their opinions are being valued.
- Be consistent in your efforts. As previously mentioned, Paridhi incessantly kept posting daily for seven straight months and she got her first online order in the eighth month. You may feel frustrated at times but even if no one is responding to you there is still a chance that a few are noticing you. These few can be your loyal customers in the long run. So never stop making effort.
- The psychology of huge capital investment is vague. Not every product that you start your business with needs investment to produce. You can start with producing or stocking a small quantity at your home. Use Instagram and other social media platforms for promotions and orders. As you keep getting more and more orders, you might need more money to spend on resources and logistics. However, once the customer base is built and orders start coming in, money will keep entering the business and you will grow eventually.
- Clear vision is something without which you cannot succeed as an entrepreneur. Irrespective of your educational, family, or financial background, clarity in vision is the first thing you will need to achieve your goals.
- Don’t think about profits from day one, if customers are satisfied, you will make a profit someday. Many entrepreneurs start their dream business enthusiastically but end up shutting it down when they don’t get the desired returns within a stipulated time. It may be tough to sustain for many to rely only on the start-up in terms of income. So, it is a good idea to have a permanent job that assures a fixed monthly salary and serves as a backup. Start-ups may take months or years to give the desired ROI and one needs to accept that fact before moving forward.
Recognitions and social responsibilities
Paridhi is a popular face in the media as she is regularly seen in various talk shows and interviews. Her articles are published in YourStory.com, Femina, The Channel 46, ABP News, BW Disrupt, The TOI, and so on.
Love Earth is a strong supporter of the #vocalforlocal mission and employs a workforce consisting primarily of women for packaging and distribution of the products. To showcase her gratitude towards society, a portion of the profit goes to an orphanage in Ghaziabad.
Love birds to Business Partners
Paridhi and Chinar set perfect couple goals in terms of personal as well as professional relationships. The entrepreneur duo met at a private party in the year 2012 at a New Year’s party. As per Paridhi, something clicked right away but it took time for the love to blossom. Since then, they have been good friends, and after seven years of courtship they got married. When it comes to working, both are extremely professional. Mutual respect and allotment of responsibilities is the key to success for this power couple. While Chinar manages the finances, Paridhi looks after the entire branding and marketing strategies of the company. They complement each other in every way setting an example of a perfect pair.
Concluding Remarks
There are many challenges that an entrepreneur needs to face in the initial days. The most obvious one is the need for investment to fuel the business. Also, the uncertainty of getting the desired returns from the investment made is another concern. This is somewhat of a genuine concern but when you have a realistic vision and a zeal to make it happen, you can do that without investing huge capital. Paridhi Goel is one the role models whose life and achievements will remain to be an inspiration for the post-millennial generation. Without any funds and investments, the journey she started from her home has taken her to the height that is a dream for any entrepreneur to achieve. May her story continue to encourage many other aspirants envisioning successful entrepreneurship in the coming days.
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