D2C Disruptors Revisit Their Success Journeys

At a recent industry conclave, the D2C ecosystem took the center stage and disruptors across categories deliberated on the overall contours of the landscape, as well as their personal growth journeys. One of the most insightful sessions, that housed Mathew Joseph, Co-Founder and CEO of Sleepyhead; Aakash Anand, Founder and CEO of Bella Vita Organics; Sujeet Kumar Mishra, Co-Founder and CEO of Winni; Abhineet Sawa, Co-Founder of Snapmint and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder of Bluestone, revealed their secret of ideating, building and running a successful D2C brand. It brought to the spotlight the different decisions that went into positioning the brand, the parameters that defined success for them, the benchmarks that were set and building an efficient team.

Anand here said, “I think marrying my business idea to commerce came naturally since my business idea was surrounding a need in the customer base. There are 3 Ps that I followed, and every new entrepreneur should while venturing into the D2C foray; Product, Pricing, & Purpose. 

Your product has to be of top-notch quality with some differentiation. The price of the product has to be fairly acceptable to at least 8 out of 10 consumers. And, thirdly the purpose, which is of utmost importance. This three Ps strategy typically works well for all.”

Kushwaha added, “I suggest listening to your customers and their signals to improve your brand is important. Secondly, a first-principle approach to solving problems, which we identify by looking at customer signals and third, a data-driven approach to sales can really bolster your business in the right direction.”

He added how in 2012, it was clear that he wanted to build a product brand and not just a market category, so the entire focus was on it since the inception.

Joseph also explained how one of the first things they did was to go through the customer journey and to understand what are the different parts of a mattress purchase. "We tried working on reducing the number of barriers to the final purchase of mattresses by the consumer. That's when we found out that the biggest issue was the huge mattress size. And hence, we tried working something around those lines."

Mishra agreed that the competition was very high when they entered the market. "The first challenge was of finding out how to satisfy the customers. This is because the consumer is not buying for themselves but for someone else, so the purchase pattern changes. We built a team, included machine learning, analysed and then understood the customer journey. It is only after all of this that we finally worked on individual products," he emphasised.

Sawa also shared how it was only through personal market analysis of their consumer base that he realised that the latest generation is not investing in TVs and fridges, but in fashion and apparel mostly. "They're ready to direct their earnings towards these things more. That was a revelation for our brand," he added.