At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the start-up ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another passionate woman entrepreneur Eesha Bhatia for an exclusive interview with us. Eesha is a Leader and Founder of Myra Veda Organics Pvt. Ltd. Let’s learn more about her inspirational journey and advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Eesha:
We are aware of your contribution to the ecosystem, talk us through your background and your journey as a woman entrepreneur, please;
My educational background is that of a lawyer, I completed my BA.LLB (Hons.) in Bangalore back in 2016 and had a brief stint with a corporate law job before I made this massive switch to entrepreneurship. I was constantly questioned by a lot of people along the lines of “your passion is fine but what’s the point of studying five years of law and letting the degree rot?”
To that, I just have one thing to say, if I could do it all over again, I’d still choose to study law because law school taught me things I’d never ordinarily know, it was an experience of a lifetime. I was an avid debater and represented my law school internationally as well in parliamentary and British parliamentary debates, which not only helped me improve in public speaking but changed my entire worldview and opened my mind in a way I never imagined was possible.
I was horrible when I began debating and only improved by consistently trying – just like it works for so many things in life. Anyway, my journey with formulating my own self-care products began out of my mother’s kitchen when I was 6. More professionally so when I began studying advanced cosmetic science as a law student.
By 2016 I had my own laboratory which became my happy place. I never stopped learning though, I still continue studying as well as equipping my knowledge base with the latest scientific advancements and discoveries in the industry.
I see many men as well as women entrepreneurs not accepting the glorification of women being in entrepreneurship, they firmly believe that gender should have nothing to do with it. While I respect their right to own their opinions, I absolutely disagree.
Let’s be very honest here, men and women in this world and especially our country don’t have an equal playing ground. We are brought up differently in coherence with patriarchal societal beliefs, are trained to assume gender roles and are given different privileges, with those for boys seeming so much fairer.
I have the utmost respect for women that breakthrough far more boundaries than men usually need to, to take charge of their financial independence be it through employment or entrepreneurship.
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
My entrepreneurial journey was unplanned because I wasn’t intending to capitalise on my passion. I purely created skincare, hair care and mineral makeup products for myself and my loved ones because I did not trust commercially available brands including the big luxury brands.
I was never attracted towards creating my own brand either. I had a promising corporate law career ahead of me. This choice was rather organic because it became difficult to manage my job because of unending orders coming my way for my products that began gaining popularity through word of mouth.
I was spending more and more time in my lab creating formulations for people to tackle their skin and hair problems. When my products worked for them, they further recommended them to others.
Before I knew it I had a loyal client base. I wouldn’t even charge them for the products initially but they’d insist on paying so they could get a lot more things made without it seeming like a favour.
That’s when I was pushed by these same customers and my loved ones to start a brand. However, I was very sceptical because I had no formal training in how to run or manage a business. That’s how I decided to first gain some experience working with a start-up and seeing if it was even my cup of tea.
I volunteered to work for a then-upcoming Stevia brand and helped them grow substantially by giving my all. They’re ever so grateful for my contributions that even today they keep me in the loop for all their important decisions.
After giving them a year of my hard work and learning so many facets of entrepreneurship along the way by making a million mistakes too, I felt like I could take that plunge.
So it was not a case of being attracted to the idea and then jumping on it, I tried it out by helping someone else while figuring if it is something I like and am good at. I don’t look at it as this vs. that, both have their own pros and cons and one just needs to understand where they fit in best.
‘Myra Veda Organics Pvt. Ltd.’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving?
Well, Myra has a lot of meanings in different cultures but the two I loved the most were ‘extraordinary’ and ‘beauty to die for’.
As for Veda, my grandfather whom I love and respect immensely is named Ved.
The name Myra Veda works out perfectly in tune with the USP of the brand which combines Ayurvedic Botanicals with exotic ingredients used in beauty traditions of different cultures around the world. Something like extraordinary Ayurveda.
We’re the only brand in the world that have created and follow this concept of combining the best of many worlds in every product.
My mother has been a world traveller and from every country she has ever lived in, she has always brought back so many locally available ingredients used by people there to enrich their health and beauty.
My grandmother on the other hand is an Ayurvedic practitioner and one of the most knowledgeable women of her generation. Growing up in a joint family with so much exposure made me combine the knowledge and practices of it all to create unique and potent formulas.
There are so many major problems that Myra Veda as a brand solves so I’ll just sum them up in these points:
1) The right of a customer to make an informed choice is given the utmost priority. Whatever we apply on our skin has a chance of penetrating from our dermal layer into our body/bloodstream. Even the biggest of luxury brands don’t reveal their whole ingredient list and hide toxic content behind ‘base qs’ or ‘key ingredients’. An unsuspecting customer has no idea what they are putting on and in their bodies. Myra Veda is 100% transparent, conscious and honest.
2) Almost all brands including the big names in the luxury segment increase their profit margins by using cheap and toxic harmful chemicals to improvise the texture, feel, shelf-life, fragrance or stability of the product. There are a lot of natural alternatives available but because they’re far more expensive and rob the brands of the chance of making extra profits, they don’t opt for them.
They would rather compromise on the health and well-being of their customers than part with their profits. Myra Veda is dead against this practice, the cost of manufacturing our products is extremely high because of the superior quality natural ingredients we use and our profit margins are extremely low because we still need to match market prices. We would rather earn less than damage the health of our customers in the long run.
3) Not only does Myra Veda use superior natural ingredients, we as a brand eradicate the usage of sulphates, parabens, palm oil, mineral oil, plasticisers, silicones and over 400+ typically used harmful chemicals all while ensuring that our formulations match the commercial products in terms of ease of usage.
Meaning they are almost the same as regular products when it comes to applying and using them, minus the harmful chemicals and toxins. While doing this, we also bridge the gap between Indian and international beauty traditions by choosing ingredients and practices that are celebrated in various cultures around the world.
4) Statistically women don’t get employment as easily as men because companies do not wish to provide maternity benefits among other things such as women don’t normally stay back after office hours as many men do, they happen to take more sick leaves especially when they have menstrual problems, their physical strength is not comparable to that of men, more responsibility of their safety is supposed to be taken and whatnot.
Try asking women who are trying to restart their careers after taking maternity gap how difficult it is! Myra Veda is all about women empowerment. The brand is not only 100% owned but also run by women on all levels of the organization. We give a special employment preference to single mothers and widows. Also, a part of our already low-profit margins goes towards Girl Child Education in India through various organisations including the Nanhi Kali Foundation.
5) Sustainability is our core practice. Straight from sustainably sourcing raw materials from all over the world with the least carbon footprint, to eradicating the usage of unsustainable ingredients in our products such as Palm Oil (because palm trees are the natural habitat of so much wildlife), to ensuring that our packaging is 100% recyclable and the ink we use for printing is sustainable.
We however don’t let our responsibility towards the environment stop there which is why we have our unique Green Goddess Recycling Initiative which is one of a kind where we encourage our customers to collect all our empties until a certain number makes it environmentally and economically viable for us to get it picked up from their doorstep anywhere in India. We have contracts with local recycling companies that we then give the empties to and ensure that they are recycled efficiently.
6) As a proud Indian women empowered brand, we use our voice and platform to target various social and environmental concerns to raise awareness. Be it Child Sexual Abuse with Arpan Foundation or donating our most loved hamper boxes to YODA and other animal welfare organizations for auctioning and raising funds to promote the concept of Adopt Don’t Shop for animals to sponsoring gift packs for underprivileged girls, we don’t shy away from using our voice to make a difference, however small it may be!
For every festival, we curate gift hampers that are loved and appreciated by HNI customers in India, London, Singapore, Dubai and other countries so we ensure that we include handcrafted items like Diyas, Santa caps, keychains, and more personally made by women in need to support them as well as promote them in our circuits. We can’t change the whole world but we can definitely do our part wherever possible.
What are the various products offered by MYRA VEDA to its clients? What are some unique features about these products that make them different and unique in the market?
Myra Veda among other things has a wide range of extremely beautiful gift hampers consisting of so many fancy options to choose from, which I’ve personally designed and copyrighted since they received a lot of acclaim.
We’ve recently come up with a wide range of Occasion Based Cards to go with the gifts, in which we provide your message handwritten on your behalf. That’s another aspect that makes such a luxury brand different.
But obviously, that’s not all, our customer retention rate is 90% because they love our advanced formulations that are safe, effective, and natural. The current range includes Skincare based Mineral Makeup, Lotions, Scrub-Masks, Therapeutic Hair Oils, Shampoos, Cold Processed soap, Steam Distilled (edible grade) Rose Water, Skin Glow Tea, Bath Salts, Natural Deodorant Balm with Amazonian Lily Extract. Our range of products includes Loofahs and Anti-Breakage Wooden Hair Brushes as well.
We also have Pure unbleached clays with options such as Glacial Green (Volcanic) clay from New Zealand, French Green & Pink Clays, Brazilian, Serbian, Moroccan, and Egyptian clays that our customers can safely add to their DIY home beauty practices, to detoxify their face & body in a 100% natural way.
The Indian cosmetics and beauty industry has been growing rapidly, especially with the D2C trend picking up massively. How big is the said market currently and what opportunities do you foresee for new-age brands such as MYRA VEDA in the market?
The Indian Cosmetics Market was valued at USD 13191.23 Million in FY2020 and is forecast to grow at a double-digit CAGR of 16.39% through FY2026 to reach USD 28985.33 Million by FY2026.
The anticipated growth in the market can be attributed to the growing disposable income leading to the increasing purchasing power of the people, especially women. For Myra Veda as a brand, the emergence of safe and efficient online retail is a key factor that is expected to drive the cosmetics market, during the forecast period.
The direct access to customers digitally with safe payment experiences, and the rise of social media has given a lot of young brands like ours the exposure which was impossible to get in a short span of time, not too long ago.
During this COVID-19 crisis, what are the measures you have undertaken to continue your business without disruption?
After years of hard work of so many women, Myra Veda was all set to have an official launch that got disrupted by the pandemic. We launched bang in the middle of the first nationwide lockdown as soon as logistic companies started working again.
We got some thinking space in between on how to deal with the rapid spread of the virus so firstly we kept 99% of our team in their own homes. Those that could work online and the warehouse team was just asked to stay safe at home.
Two members living close to our unit were given specific instructions on how to manage work taking far more precautions than those suggested by the government or WHO.
Every single package was thoroughly sanitized and sealed for the utmost safety, the unit was fumigated and sanitized regularly and once it was available we immediately installed a few Shycocan Virus Attenuation Devices to ensure maximum protection.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
Just as it is in life, in business some days are fantastic and some not so much but we need to understand and accept that change is the only constant. Bad days pass too and nothing is permanent. The most important way I face challenges head-on is by practising mindfulness meditation regularly.
When I say it out loud, many unaware people who don’t understand the concept laugh at me for being nuts, they possibly can’t fathom that closing your eyes and keenly observing every breath and sensation without judgment can change your life for the better. But I know it does because the benefits of doing that help you deal with life from a different state of mind that is calm and composed. It makes all the difference!
As for what drives me, creating beautiful designs for packaging, potent products that are actually effective and the challenges that come with them get me jumping out of bed every morning eager to start the new day.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
My husband for sure, it’s so important having a supportive partner in life if having one is something you want, and I am ever so grateful for mine. My whole family from mine and my husband’s side is very encouraging, they believe in me, and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.
Unfortunately, that is not the case for so many women out there and my heart goes out to them, if you’re reading this all I can say is hang on and believe in yourself even when no one else does, it’ll get better eventually!
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
We all grow as people each day with our experiences and circumstances, I have started being kind to myself. For better or worse, I’m a perfectionist which is probably a reason I’ve always been too self-critical and harsh on myself. It was only when I developed hypothyroidism and put on a lot of weight did I realize how much I beat myself up about everything.
I used to look a certain way that I loved and with weight gain came so much criticism from those around me (body positivity is lost as a concept in our society). While some spoke out of genuine concern for my health, others were not so sincere. I couldn’t believe what had become of my “perfect” body so I really spiralled downwards.
I began regaining my newly lost sense of self with mindfulness meditation. I also began understanding that the way I speak to myself is extremely harmful so I consciously made some changes.
I’m working towards restoring my health and fitness in a sustainable manner and it is a long process so I always remember to be kind to myself through the journey. This has to be the single most important strategy that has been working for me towards my personal growth.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
Success is not a straitjacket formula and is also highly subjective, It isn’t just financial success. If we are to talk about achieving success, given that basic hygiene is covered (such as hard work & determination), one needs to consistently get out of their comfort zone, stop being afraid of making mistakes and never ever stop learning. The day you stop learning, you stop growing.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Not all our passions can be capitalized on and rightfully so but if a major one can, consider choosing that because you’ll have so much fun on each workday. A Monday doesn’t have to be blue!
And if your passion cannot be your career choice for practical reasons, don’t be afraid to try new things. Only when you try something new do you realize your true interest and potential in it, so keep trying until you find something you would like to stick with and don’t look at the faster achievements of others, you’ve to suit yourself. If you do something you love, you’ll have a more fulfilled life.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
