Mr.Ponnusamy, the founder of Ecolive Exports, Spirulina; an algae-based company shared his entrepreneurial journey in the Algae field so far. Let’s get to know about his entrepreneurial journey.
I have done my bachelor’s degree in B.Sc.Maths (CA) at Kaamadhenu Arts & Science College, Sathyamangalam. Later I have completed my Postgraduate degree MCA (Master of computer application) from the SNS College of Technology at Coimbatore.
Basically our family background has its roots in Agriculture. I am the first graduate in my family. Usually, all parents expect that their children opt for good jobs after their studies. I joined a job in one small software company as per my parents’ expectations. But this job didn’t satisfy me at all.
So my mind always wanted to go back to my native place and planned to do an agro-based business. After 3 years, my job life ended in 2014. From 2013 onwards, I was seriously searching for ways to establish a good agro-based business. Finally, I got news about Spirulina blue-green algae from one of my friends in my native place. Until that time I didn’t know about its value.
Just as I googled about Spirulina, I got more news about it and mostly all news was from foreign websites. Because at that time in India one or two companies only had Spirulina production units in India.
Mainly I wanted to work on this business because of the extraordinary health benefits from this inbuilt High protein and nutrient-rich component. Still, there are many countries facing the malnutrition problem. Many places are not able to supply good nutrient-rich food for all people. Still, there are children suffering from malnutrition in our country. Even we have enough agro products from milk, egg, poultry, mushroom, and meat. So I decided that Spirulina definitely will help to eradicate malnutrition from our country.
Then I planned seriously and started to meet related people in this Spirulina field, who could prove to be valuable resources. I got mostly positive guidance from those I met. But everybody warned me and I stuck in the marketing part. Because not enough awareness about Spirulina and its benefits were in India.
I took the advantage and the way this product creates a market vacuum. If we provide awareness and market it means we can reach this product to all of our people. Same way, we can help to eradicate malnutrition problems in our country. So we may become one of the people to help our country and one business that will provide employment to our native people.
Finally, I entered this Spirulina business in 2014. Initially, I faced marketing issues as per the warnings given by my seniors. Then day-to-day approaches of different contact methods helped to get orders from many companies. I also got good replies from some companies, and their orders boosted me to do this business seriously.
Here I have to mention one of the happiest moments in my business life. I traveled for the first time in Flight and got the first great order on that day and happily returned back on the same day. So both dreams became successful on my business trip.
Based on our wholesale orders, we also began our retail sales in our Ecolive Spirulina brand. Now our Ecolive Spirulina is selling through the Amazon E-commerce platform. We are getting a good response from various parts of our country.
Our future plan is to create value-added products from Spirulina, and we also plan to increase our production capacity. I am extremely happy doing this business with the use of this product, as it ensures good health and wellness for all.
We wish Mr.Ponnusamy all the best for his venture.