We invited Divij Bajaj, Founder of Power Gummies Company for an interview with Most Popular Stories. Let’s get to know about his entrepreneurial journey.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneur
My journey coming to this point in life, bringing in force my health supplement brand ‘Power Gummies’, following the philosophy of ‘Health Inspired by Happiness’ has been a life learning experience. As a student, I have always been curious to know things and finding my ways to deal with things. Always had an ever encouraging environment around me, my dad used to always motivate me by saying, ‘Those who wait or rely on destiny only get what has been left by those who struggle and achieve’.
This statement has always triggered me to give my best shot at whatever I do. I had encountered many instances while pursuing an MBA from Maharaja Agrasen College, I.P University, and graduation in the discipline of commerce from KMC College, the University of Delhi that made me realize that I’m cut to be an entrepreneur. I kept tackling my schedule with a problem-solving approach be it related to managing the hustle between the schedule of my extracurricular activities or my academic performance. Always a backbencher who used to finish my syllabus using smart study techniques. Been glued to the idea of starting my venture and brainstorming about what it could be.
Going amidst the quest of where I belong, I founded an Edtech platform called The Admission Portal to ease the admission related problems faced by both students and parents that later got merged to become justdakhila.com. A single platform to enroll through all school admissions. Later I also adventured to start a silent disco chain by the name of “Headphones”. It became a sensation in Delhi amongst the youngsters because of the unique concept.
Moving forward I kept on eyeing what to do next, and the idea to curate super tasty supplements came into mind in a vividly interesting way amidst my daily routine of trying different ways to make vitamin supplements comforting for my mother to cure her back pain issues, by mixing them with honey or chocolate as she hated all pills believing ‘ every tablet was a medicine’ which was just an OTC nutraceutical product. This led me to function this thought in my brain why we cannot have tasty vitamins which are nutritious as well. I understood the call was to devise a supplement that should not look like another medicine yet needs to be flavorsome, and conquer the game-changing barrier for the nutraceutical industry which is that people believe every pill is another medicine,
Yet this too has a backstory, I understood about developing tasty vitamins after many failed experiments for a continuous period of a year with cookies, chocolates, brownies, and effervescent tablets. I failed miserably every time due to issues like stability, composition, and perishability that meant a shorter shelf life.
All these hurdles took me to step by step towards gummy supplements, and that is how Power Gummies came to life in 2018. I realized that I did not want my product to be just another multivitamin and wanted to create an edge over the rest available in the market. The continued meticulous research made me stick to gummy supplements after a stringent R&D sating focal that taste will be our USP and all issues as I just mentioned.
Fortunately, I did follow my imagination to reality believing great things do take time and bring testing times too when no one could believe my nutraceutical startup could be a market leader delivering a stellar performance. The aim has been to cater to the adult nutrition category taking away the fear of bitter-tasting medicines or pills, and also bringing their attention to how they have been missing out amidst their fast-paced lifestyle with no stopping ever. Today, the simple approach of our brand is to introduce Power Gummies supplements as a genuine over the counter product which becomes a part of their lifestyle with the pursuit of complete nutrition or need to seek any expert opinion except in case of medical conditions.
To be known today as a successful business founder has not been easy but strenuous to focus on my vision bringing Power Gummies in place to create differentiated products suiting all – fulfilling complete requirements and industry innovations. It was tough, peculiarly when everyone believed it to be another ‘kiddish’ idea. I am glad to have come across these difficult times to become an entrepreneur, which I always wanted to.
It has not been an easy road but being honest and rightful to my goals guided me on this path when everyone else laughed. The world often picks on you when they do not resonate with your ideas but must not stop trying. No reason is enough for you to stop trying until you stop believing in your vision.
2. Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
As an individual, I always yearned to learn everything in my capacity and grasp things. Strikingly, I love to excel in anything. I believe in smart work to perform tasks and be ahead of everyone else. Being a creative minded person with a keen interest in dramatics and debate from the college days, managing my academic performance was a tedious task, and my resort was using the technique of smart study to cover whatever I have missed upon as I mentioned. At a young age, I realized victory comes with smart work and not just with hard work, which is very important to aim for overall development.
All I’m trying to highlight here is that my personality traits and thinking horizon are of a problem solver, which signaled me who I wanted to become. With my brand, I have been able to explore every role stepping into varied roles on a need basis. On the other hand, all corporate job roles are precisely defined and restricted to a particular set of core responsibilities wherein I do not want to bound myself similarly. By no means, I degrade a corporate career. However, everything sums up at what drives you from within yourself.
3. What was the vision behind it?
Our vision is simple to introduce Power Gummies supplements as a genuine over the counter product and part of their lifestyle where people do not miss on nutrition or seek expert opinion except in case of medical conditions. It is starkly different from the rest of the multivitamins or any other supplements offered in the market for end consumption in pursuit of nutrition. We want to put forward an offering that seems like a ‘tasty’ go-to-product for regular nutritional intake curing different issues along with overall wellbeing.
As health has become an integral part of human life in this fast-changing lifestyle, adults are acutely facing the wrath of lack of nutrition due to lack of time, and no focus on nutrient intake results in deteriorating health. Options we had before Power Gummies were time-consuming, bitter, and not so easy to take. There was a market call to have a supplement that was fun, tasty, nutritious, and creates a nostalgic experience. It took a lot of research for our team of taste experts and food scientists to help us discover these irresistible gummies – yummy yet nutritious. Also, various market players were advancing their variants with single vitamin ingredients or for a particular gender, which were again in a powder or pill format.
Our long-term vision to forward a Power Portfolio of nutrition brands that anticipate and satisfy the desires and health with a simple rule of 2 gummies a day.
4. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
We know the science behind our supplements. The aggravating environmental conditions and rigid lifestyle has made it impossible for the young generation to caress themselves with proper nutrition. These gummies are aesthetically curated to eradicate this issue of adult nutrition and provide the benefit of optimal health on-the-go. There are a plethora of hair products available in the market with increased usage and demand for hair care products such as serums, shampoos, conditioners, and oils to improve the volume or strength. But, they do not fix the root cause issue of the problem – lack of nutrition, which led us to curate our first variant as hair & nails vitamins. Amazingly, people are becoming more self-conscious and adapting healthy ways to nourish with multivitamin supplements.
Power Gummies is a super-tasty, vegan, unisex chewable vitamin dietary health supplement, crafted with the highest quality ingredients, no gluten, no gelatin, cruelty-free, and bursting out berry flavor creating a nostalgic yet enjoyable experience. Consists of the power of ten essential Vitamins (A to E), Biotin, Folic Acid, and Zinc, crucial for maintaining healthy hair, nails, and skin. As I mentioned above, neither the hair products available in the market do not take away the issue of nutrition and nor the existing supplements like pills or powder provide a seamless consumption experience to consumers. We have provided an effective and easy way to be healthy with just two gummies a day. And, we aim to continue to do so in the future by creating a portfolio understanding their pain points.
5. What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
We keep motivating our health and nutrition professionals to dig deeper into modern nutrition science. Primarily, this has helped us to overcome the challenges and come up with an industry-standard product being awarded as Startup to Watch 2020 by Inc42, Best Innovative Product by Forbes, and Third best-selling Product on Amazon Launchpad. The road to building an entrepreneurial venture has its share of recurring problems and challenges. Initially, I started as a sole army, by finding research organizations, procurement, and distributing the samples in the market for pilot trials. Took upon each required role – understanding the customer behavior, pain points, and market demands, detailed insight analysis of the industry.
In terms of coming up with a suited gummy product, The significant challenges were the stability and composition development. It took a lot of research, and our team of taste experts and food scientists helped us to discover sweet and tasty gummies that are both nutritious and yummy. However, there were several third-party experts, agencies, and labs that supported me in the research process.
However, another challenge was to reinforce the idea was to address them and bring attention to what everyone is missing in this hectic lifestyle without even noticing, which was ‘Nutrition’. Our innovation got us the First-mover advantage of bringing one-of-a-kind health supplements catering to adult nutrition in tasty, healthy, and chewable gummies. Still, Power Gummies has been through the complete journey of people assuming to be regular candies to actualizing the potential output one can drive from regular consumption of these gummies. Hence, we have created a market for us from scratch by educating customers about the concept of on-the-go nutrition with this gummy supplement and related topic areas. However, there is still a long way to go. We want to communicate our message to the people living in tier 2 cities audiences as well.
And today we have a loyal customer base as our happy customers who believed in us. We stand ahead of our various competitors in the market who are advancing their variants with single vitamin ingredients or for a particular gender. We are only here to grow as the trends showcase during the period of lockdown as well, the sales for gummy supplements have only been going up as people have started chewing them as immunity building regimen as well.
6. How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
As an entrepreneur who believes in performing my best at whatever I try my hands on, I do emphasize the importance of stress management. Everyone has different ways to manage their work stress which doesn’t need to be productive always or requires anyone to do something. Often people like to take a break and take one day at a time off. Few people love to dance or sing even. All I mean is if anything is helping you to get some relief and release the stress then so be it. Short breaks are not harmful unless they sway you away from your path. As far as pressure is concerned, one day at a time will solve the issue. It is my advice which I follow in my life as well by always articulating my long term and short term goals in every 15 days. We must pull down the pressure we carry on our shoulders all the time.
However, my getaway from work stress is traveling. I love to explore different places and make some memories. I go away for at least a 5-6 day long vacation every two months. I genuinely follow the work hard and play hard philosophy. I have traveled over 38 countries so far and aim to cover all before I die!
7. How do you market your business?
We have touch-based all channels of digital media to communicate and market our business, especially social media. Fortunately, we have been able to capture and create our loyalist community through a recommendation from various celebrities and famous niche influencers from varied categories of fitness, makeup artists, television personalities, and lifestyle bloggers as well. We have been able to build public trust and gave rise to a community of loyalists within two years of inception. We establish direct communication with our consumers through their loved influencers spreading awareness about our campaigns. It has worked wonders for us as we could educate the people about what the product stands for, what we put in, about the brand and directions for use over the 90 days, as we recommend for expected results.
For each of our influencer campaigns, we have tried crafting different topics about the product. Tried to encapture our brand slogan, ‘ 2 gummies a day, for effective nutrition as we say’ for the understanding of new and existing customers. In January 2020, we collaborated with Divyanka Tripathi, a known household name for every category and demographic area in India, another milestone as we envisaged to target different female age groups and run it as an engaging brand awareness campaign. Few recent campaigns, we have done with famous television personalities – Shraddha Arya and Heli Daruwala. Also, we have seen a massive response while working with known MUA’s like Guneet Virdi and Leena Bhushan.
8. How many hours a day do you work on average & can you describe/outline your typical day?
I work along with my team for around 10- 11 hours a day and like to follow productivity with a balance in personal life which is equally of utmost importance. One should seek a balance between work and life. I encourage my team as well to give their best shot in their working hours effectively as I reckon if anyone is taking longer than that then perhaps they need to analyze their way of working or they are not scheduling the tasks properly. Am a genuine believer in smart work, and that’s what I advise everyone to follow.
9. In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Never stopping and always sighting where you want to reach is the first step or key to how you motivate yourself every day to get up and move. I strongly encourage people to learn the difference between forced motivation and actual motivation.
If something drives you, then every small step towards will derive immense happiness to you. There is no definite formula ever made for success. Self-beliefs and intrinsic motivations always play a critical role in how you develop yourself into a skilled person. And skills are always varied and measured in different ways.
Persistence, patience, and consistency are the supreme keys to ensure your success as to the world you are only visible when reaching an epitome however there is behind years of work which never comes in the light yet.
10. What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
For the aspiring entrepreneurs, I would advise every effort matters, and we got lucky to have recognized our abilities to be someone. And to become someone, you will have to go through stepping into everyone’s shoes which is the foremost responsibility of an entrepreneur who wants to be a good leader.
Leadership isn’t about people, organizations, plans, or strategies. Always look for solutions to problems around you for the organization, for your people, and your customers. I firmly believe which I always mention everywhere, “Success is not final; failure is not fatal, and it is the courage to continue that counts.” Never step back and consider criticism as a motivating factor. No matter what or what may come, one has to keep moving forward.
My expedition has stood correct to the virtue of this learning so far. Got me in this position to share my piece of advice with you all today.
Connect here,
Website: https://www.powergummies.com/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powergummies/?originalSubdomain=in
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