The Reality of Being a Woman Founder

Rohaan Kaul (00:01.883)
Alright, yes, I was, know, restaurant would have crazy customer stories. So any interesting feedback that you've got from customers, I mean, interesting customer stories from Oli that you have.

Rithika (00:19.566)
So our branding has changed a lot from the time, know, when we launched, we were just essential oils. and Lazada, Shopee are some of the marketplaces, popular marketplaces in Singapore. There was this once where we got a note from someone. So as part of the branding story, and you know, there's a line saying that we talk about how we're sourcing our essential oils. And one underline in there says, for me, this is personal.

Rohaan Kaul (00:26.895)
huh.

Rithika (00:49.006)
We do what we do because of that and it's not about any drama or froufrou, it's just about pure, bringing pure essential oils to you at the best price possible. So some language around that. And this customer purchased something and then a pretty big first order. And then she got the oils, used them and wrote to us and placed a second order and wrote to us and said,

I was looking for this oil and I came across your brand and normally when I find a new brand I'm a bit unsure and I usually order something small but I was reading through your cup like I was reading through the page and it said for me this is Persil and that's trucker nerve and I immediately felt like I can trust

you and I play such a big order and then I was thinking maybe I didn't do the right thing but I'm so glad I did because I love your oils. So because we are on while we're Omni because we started post-Covid we were primarily online and you know being online sometimes is also very frustrating because you feel like you're talking to a wall you're just writing stuff on a website you don't know how much a customer is relating to it it's very hard to get that feedback.

until you've built a community and you've built ways and means of being able to talk to people. So I always look forward to pop-ups for that because then least I can meet people and understand what the reactions are. But for me, that was a time when the power of writing something and seeing how that relates to a customer came through.

Rohaan Kaul (02:22.619)
Mm.

Rohaan Kaul (02:35.61)
Right, any customer feedback or customer interaction that has left you and the team stumped that where did this come from?

Rithika (02:49.154)
Yeah, we've had, so with essential oils, was somebody bought an oil and then wrote to us saying, there's no smell in your oil. And I was like, that's not possible. These are 100 % pure concentrated oils. And they said, no, I cannot smell anything. What have you sent me? And I was like, I don't know, because it's not possible that there's no smell.

So we said, okay, I was like, okay, I mean, what do you say to that customer that I can smell? Why can't you smell? You can't say that to a customer. So I said, okay, we will send someone around and we will swap the bottle out for a new one for you. Because I said, you know, bring the bottle to me. I want to smell it and see what if there's been something wrong in the production line because we do our own production. It was like, maybe by mistake, some leaf filled water in it for a photo shoot and the bottle got swapped or something. I don't know why just.

the bottle was fine, the oil was fine, there was a very strong smell and then she said even the second one doesn't have any smell.

So then we knew it was not the oil problem, it was the customer problem. But that was one, I think, when we didn't know what to say. Anything else, you try and understand what the customer is trying to say and you relate. But you cannot smell an essential oil is the first, and hopefully the last.

Rohaan Kaul (04:03.438)
Uh-huh.

Rohaan Kaul (04:16.601)
Right. Any customer feedback that you come across that led you to some interesting insight which led to product development or anything of that sort?

Rithika (04:31.758)
So, I mean, we always listen to our customers when we had the mosquito repellent, people asked us, do you have something for ants? I have a lot of ants in the house. And that's how we developed our ant spray, which right now, as you know, is our most popular product. It's our most repeat purchase product as well. But yeah, so I mean, we are always listening to our customers and taking down feedback and trying to incorporate it as much as we can.

But we had a very interesting, so you know we've done a rebrand. We've changed a lot of our packaging and a copy on the packaging. And so our hand wash, the previous one said Pacholi and Grapefruit. But all our other products, we highlight three botanicals in the front. In most cases, the blend is of three to 10 oils. But usually we pick the strongest couple of them and highlight it. And so because the hand wash was only two botanicals, just for consistency, we brought

Rohaan Kaul (05:13.453)
Mm-hmm.

Rithika (05:29.482)
one more so we also had lavender highlighted on the new packs someone ordered a hand wash reefer and then they returned it because and then they sent an email with a picture of the old pack and said I ordered this and a picture of the new pack saying I received this the new one has lavender I ordered the one without lavender and so then we had to explain to the customer that is exactly the same product it's just new branding and the old one also the back if you look at ingredients it mentions lavender

Rohaan Kaul (05:45.465)
Hmm.

Rohaan Kaul (05:48.877)
Hmm.

Rithika (05:59.616)
It's just that we've not highlighted it in the front of the pack until now. So yeah, it's small things, which when you're making it sometimes, I'm always second guessing and I'm wondering, we're putting in hours into this. I wonder if anyone even sees it. I wonder if anyone's reading it and does it register, but it clearly does.

Rohaan Kaul (05:59.617)
the

Rohaan Kaul (06:03.481)
Mm-hmm.

Rohaan Kaul (06:21.53)
Right, interesting. So let's say if somebody wants to start a D2C brand today, what would be your advice now for them to get started? What are the top three things that they should do before launching their product?

again out of passion let's say product and everything is done well. mean from a go to market point of view what are the three things that they should have done before to get to start successfully selling from day one.

Rithika (07:07.598)
think understand, know your audience and this is much easier, I know everyone says this but I also realize now that half the people don't know what that means and it's not that easy to figure it out. You need to talk to, do surveys, talk to 50 to 100 people not just the five of your friends or the five people you think will use the product because I promise you when the product gets popular

The five people that you initially interviewed, chances are they're not your target audience. There's a small chance one of them is, two of them are. Most likely they're not. Your friends are not your target audience. So understand who's your target audience, understand their behavior better, and own your marketing for the target audience. When you are pushing a product and I've made this mistake, I've made this mistake in all of these things that I'm talking about.

Rohaan Kaul (07:44.984)
Hmm.

Rithika (08:03.222)
I'm so excited about my product, I'm like, look at this, this is a hand sanitizer and this is what it does and this is what it's made of. People don't care. There's enough options in the market. They don't care. What is it if I'm trying to sell you something, what is it that this product will do for you? What is your pain point that this product is going to solve? Start there. Talk about, do you see that when you wash dishes, your hands get itchy?

and get allergies and then people who relate will say yeah actually that happens to me all the time and then you go into how you can solve it and why your product is different and what it solves so I think that is

Yeah, that's the one thing I would change. And the third thing is I would say when you're launching a product, the only constant is change. Be prepared to adapt. Be flexible, no matter how well you researched and you think you know what you're doing. And I hope for your sake that everything works out exactly as you planned. But there's a very high chance that you haven't gotten everything right. Be humble enough to be willing to as and when required and keep that open mind.

Rohaan Kaul (09:17.718)
Right. So that brings me to an interesting thing. You know, there's a lot of talk about being agile and nimble specifically from startups point of view. And I find it at times really horrified that, you know, while they talk about it, but you know, because of where we have worked, know, corporate environments and this thing, it's very difficult to shift to that mindset. Right. So

What mistakes, what would you say that people or startup founders or people should do to actually be in that nimble, agile mindset so that they are able to make that pivot fast?

Rithika (09:59.266)
Look, I think that first of all, being a startup, being your own company versus a corporate itself is an atmosphere where you're able to pivot quickly because you don't have to get 20 approvals and run five presentations and get buy-ins because you're in charge. I think it's just purely about keeping your eyes and ears open. Just knowing that things...

Whenever you do something, there's always at a minimum a 50 % chance, right? It's always at least a 50-50 chance that it might succeed or it might fail. So just be aware that there's a 50 % chance it will fail and it's okay to fail. It's no one's judging you.

I have a lot of respect for founders who failed because the learnings from that is what makes you take that next step and get better. So don't be shy, don't be afraid to fail because the faster you pivot, the faster you learn and you try new things, the faster you can get to that point of success that you actually want to get to.

Rohaan Kaul (11:06.037)
Right. Interesting. So going back, if one thing with this business that you would want to do differently in terms of starting this up, what would that be?

Rithika (11:24.75)
I don't know all the things that I said I would I would define and I'm doing this on a regular basis. We are looking at branding. We're looking at honing down our audience. We're sharpening our messaging, making sure that all the goodness that our product offers is actually coming through. We're trying to find that are always working on finding the right

Rohaan Kaul (11:36.055)
Mm.

Rithika (11:53.568)
messaging to reach our audience. So I think it's not that you've done it once and you're stuck in that place. I think we constantly try and change and get better. Yeah, obviously, in hindsight, it would be nice to do all of these things from day one.

Rohaan Kaul (12:11.83)
Cool, now let's come to the fun part that I love the most. recommendations, book recommendations, content recommendations, podcast, anything that you love listening to, reading to or watching for our audience, any recommendations that you might have.

Rithika (12:32.226)
Podcasts, so Business Wars is a podcast that I really like listening to. Another one is How I Built This, which is they interview small business or startup founders and founders of really famous brands who were once very small and talk about what their stories were. I think it's really nice to listen to stories of founders who've

Rohaan Kaul (12:39.573)
Mm-hmm.

Rohaan Kaul (12:43.381)
Okay.

Rohaan Kaul (13:00.821)
Hmm.

Rithika (13:02.424)
started small and made it big because then you realize when you listen to their stories and realize the things that have happened and the problems they've dealt with, you realize that you're not doing something stupid. It gives you lot of confidence knowing that someone else was there as well. for example, I was listening to Methods, the founder of Method and they were talking about something that went into all of the supermarkets in the US and then they realized that there was a leak because of some...

because of the way the bottle was kept and then they had to send people across the country to put something to fix the leak on each bottle and you know as a I relate to that because sometimes shipment goes out and there's a leak and the entire box is wet and I'm thinking it's so stupid of us to not check the caps but you realize that in this business this is a common problem and this is just an example of a liquid product business

but just like this the more you listen to the

You realize that all the business owners are human and they've gone through this and the trick is on how you deal with it and come out on the other side.

Rohaan Kaul (14:13.907)
right okay anything else

Rithika (14:17.71)
Thanks.

Rohaan Kaul (14:19.623)
any book recommendations, anything that you're watching right now.

Rithika (14:23.662)
If only I had time. think... No, actually when I'm watching is usually fiction series because that's unwinding, not using your brain time. Yeah.

Rohaan Kaul (14:42.996)
So anything which you watched recently and you found it really fascinating.

Rithika (15:03.278)
drawing a blank

Rohaan Kaul (15:08.084)
Netflix.

Rithika (15:09.951)
Cowboys.

Rohaan Kaul (15:21.044)
Cowboys? The petrol one? Wild Rallying?

Rithika (15:25.05)
No, no, Yellowstone. Yes. So just finished watching Yellowstone the entire series and figuring out the next one to watch.

Rohaan Kaul (15:34.051)
huh.

Rohaan Kaul (15:39.144)
Nice, nice and any no-brainers that you love to watch.

Rithika (15:43.614)
Yeah, this kind of stuff that you've seen. Peaky Blinders. That's a show that I love and I would go back to. But also no brainers like the Kim's convenience store. you seen that one? Yeah.

Rohaan Kaul (16:02.791)
I love it.

Cool. All right. All right, Ritika, thank you for your time. It was wonderful talking to you. I know within your all the running around that you've been doing, it's been really difficult finding time. And I'm really thankful that you were able to make time for it because the advice that wisdom is going to save us from a lot of meaningless hustle, like hustle that is really

Rithika (16:09.549)
Thank you.

Rithika (16:27.51)
you

Rohaan Kaul (16:35.401)
not required and I think so that would be really helpful to people who are out there. A of younger generation that is trying to make getting into B2C with more sustainable brands. think so your advice would be really helpful given that you've worked in multiple businesses. Thank you for your time today. Love you having me.

Rithika (16:57.07)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Rohaan Kaul (16:59.742)
Thank you!