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When Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal invested in Mama Earth, the homegrown personal care brand sold niche mosquito repellents for kids. While the toxin-free brand founded by Delhi-based Varun and Ghazal Alagh has grown significantly over a period of time, the core continues to revolve around consumer love.

In a keynote panel titled ‘The Titan Touch: Entrepreneurial Prowess Meets Investment Acumen,’ moderated by Priyanka Sahay, Assistant Editor, ETPrime, at the Delhi-NCR chapter of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2023, Sahay highlighted how Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Co-founders of Titan Capital and Snapdeal, have not just been the poster boys of the Indian startup ecosystem but over the years they have grown to become the most prolific set of investors in the country. An enduring testament to their investment acumen is indeed Mama Earth whose parent company Honasa recently made its public market debut.

“Most people would think that we must have got an email from a kids personal care company; however nothing of that sort happened,” said Bahl, recalling how he discovered Mama Earth. In fact, a white and green bottle at his child’s shower caught his attention which prompted him to enquire more about the brand from his wife. The year was 2017 when Bahl’s wife reached out to a Facebook mothers’ group seeking help to find an “organic” (the term toxin-free was yet not in circulation) brand for children. Within two hours, 20 mothers replied, with 18 of them recommending Mama Earth.

“What they have built is so inspirational for the entire ecosystem…they (Varun and Ghazal) didn’t come from any IIT-IIM background… They weren’t senior leaders or CXOs at any large company or startup… They built a product in a space where there are companies who have profits equal to their market cap; they built a large company in a span of six-seven years which is profitable and also loved by consumers,” said Bahl, stressing on the incredible journey of the direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand.

The content-to-commerce model, ‘good’ for brands and consumers
In October 2017, Darpan Sanghvi launched DTC beauty brand MyGlamm. In August 2020, MyGlamm acquired the content platform for women, POPxo and the influencer marketing platform, Plixxo. Priyanka Gill founded both POPXo and Plixxo in 2013. Soon, MyGlamm also acquired parenting platform and community, BabyChakra, founded by Naiyaa Saggi.

Today, the Good Glamm Group — referred to as a global digital beauty conglomerate — is divided into three core segments: Good Brands Co, comprising all its D2C beauty and personal care brands; Good Media Co, encompassing its digital media brands and influencer platform Good Creator Co. (There is also the recently started Good Glamm Community.)

Gill, who started as a media entrepreneur, leads POPxo, ScoopWhoop, Miss Malini and Baby Chakra, all under Good Media Co.

“When MyGlamm, POPxo and Plixxo merged together in August 2020, the basic thesis was that the digital brands of the future have to be built on the basis of content and commerce together because if we were to go along the journey of commerce alone, marketing would be extremely expensive,” said Priyanka Gill, Group Co-founder, Good Glamm Group, at a Fireside chat titled ‘Scale 2.0: How content and commerce at scale will power India’s first global beauty company”. The session was moderated by Miloni Bhatt, Digital Broadcast Editor, Economictimes.com.

MyGlamm, touted to be the second largest personal care and makeup brand in India, is home to a diverse set of brands, each with its own distinctive voice, niche and tone. Sample this: St. Botanica sells shampoos and hair care products, while Sirona sells menstrual cups and other menstrual health and hygiene products along with personal care products.

“We have a bouquet of companies that sell to very different audience groups; they sell a very different line of products. Each of these brands are brands in themselves and follow the best practices in brand building,” said Gill.

As an approach that has worked for the group, Gill emphasised that content creators and influencers should be native to wherever the brand is building from. However, content-creator-community as a strategy is not going to change no matter where the brand chooses to operate.

She shed light on a similar approach to the eclectic media platforms housed under Good Media Co: POPxo, a primarily female-centric platform; ScoopWhoop, a digital media platform; Tweak which appeals to a very engaged and mature female audience; Baby Chakra which engages with parents and mothers; while MissMalini is a Bollywood and fashion content platform.

“Each of these platforms have to be very independent; have to hold on to their own voice and tone. And the beauty of the Good Glamm group is that we have managed to figure out our synergies within our ecosystem to ultimately build towards our aim of selling more and more products through our brands,” explained Gill.

Regarding the way forward for D2C brands, she highlighted omnichannel is the way forward for India. Omnichannel includes online marketplaces as well as offline kirana stores, experience centres or multi-brand retail outlets like Shoppers Stop. “You have to sell to your audience where your audience wants to buy from,” said Gill.

She also added that Tier II and Tier III are really coming up, with consumers from these pockets being as aware as their counterparts might be in Tier I cities, and they mirror similar expectations from brands as well. “So, there’s no need to water down your propositions because you are selling to Tier II and Tier III; it’s our job as a brand builder to ensure that we stay consistent and provide the same level of service, convenience and messaging to our consumers no matter where they stay…” emphasised Gill, sharing a critical learning for D2C brands looking to scale.