Herbal King - Dilvinder Singh Narang -Ayur Herbals

What started with meager Rs 5,000 in 1982 is now a Rs 150 crore company, and propelling fast towards the Rs 200 crore mark by the end of this year. Today, Ayur Herbals boasts of over 55 variants of hair, face, and skin care products, coupled with 2,000 distributors nationwide in the Rs 3,000 crore herbal cosmetic industry. Dilvinder Singh Narang, the entrepreneur behind Ayur Herbals, spoke to DARE about his entrepreneurial journey so far...

Can you share with our readers the genesis of Ayur Herbals?

Ayur Herbals came into being with one main motto — to make Indian women beautiful! Looking back, I think the journey has been very pleasant. Of course, there were a lot of hurdles en route. However, I have always faced all these hurdles with confidence, and ensured that we will always give the best to our customers.

Dilvinder Singh Narang Ayur Herbals

As for the genesis, I used to be a salesman in a company, back in 1982-83. It was during that job that I felt that there was tremendous scope in the business of cosmetics. I saw an opportunity lying vastly untapped. I believed I could do well in this industry so I took the leap and started Ayur Herbals, which is now a Rs 150 crore company.

Did you always want to be in the field of cosmetics?

I came from the field of electronics. I did give a shot to become a doctor as well. However, in those days getting into medical schools was extremely difficult. So I went ahead and studied cosmetology instead. This is where, you could say, my interest in cosmetics started.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in starting up?

I would say it is something like this — the day a child is born, challenges start in the form of ensuring healthy growth, to provide good food, to educate, etc. Similarly, when I started up this company, there was no dearth of challenges that came my way. The thing with me is that I decided to take one step at a time.

The biggest challenge though was entry into the field of cosmetics. There were many established players already in the market. This led to a lot of questioning by the customers on the lines of: “Why pick your product over the others?” This problem was all the more aggravated as we did not have the kind of funds required for massive advertising and promotions. At this point we decided to route our products through beauty parlors, small cosmetic shops, etc. Eventually, the sales picked up a decent number and we started doing good business.

Where did you get your early support from?

My early support came from my parents and my siblings who gave me the confidence to start up. As for funding, my father gave me Rs 5,000 to start this business in 1982. Besides this, my parents also gave me our old house, where I started manufacturing products on a very small scale and then tried to sell them daily. Like mentioned earlier, we had to route our sales through beauty parlors and small cosmetic shops.

Besides this, I would also say that I got a lot of support from the ladies using my products — many beauty contest winners, Mrs Chawla, and more who helped me enter into the field of cosmetics.

What was your first big success as an entrepreneur?

My first success came after three years in 1985, when I introduced a nail polish remover, which at that time was an innovative product. The sheer simplicity of this product was that ladies just had to dip their fingers in a bowl full of this product to get rid of nail paint. This product helped me gain a lot of acceptance in the cosmetics market. After this, I introduced sugar-based hair removal wax, which again was a new concept and garnered huge success. Then I came out with an amla-shikhakai shampoo, which was basically a homemade product that we used ourselves — this product too was loved by customers. It is then that we came up with the brand name Ayur for our products.

What would you say was a failure that you learned a lot from?

There were many failures — which I would say was mostly bad luck. However, there was one failure that I learned a lot from. I had got this huge export order. We manufactured the whole order, which they canceled on the day of shipment. We had to sell the whole batch of products in India slowly.

What was the biggest act of faith that you received in your early days?

There was a Mrs Chawla who motivated me in preparing a variety of new products. Also, there was a Blossom Madam, who again showed a lot of faith in me. It was these two whose faith led me into coming out with innovative products and make a big business out of it.

SUCCESS MANTRA Be sincere and true in whatever you choose to do as a business. Believe in God.

Who were your biggest critics?

Everybody! By everybody I mean the shopkeepers and dealers, not the customers. When we started off, our products were looked upon skeptically and rejected more often than not. I had to hear rude statements such as “Kahan se utha ke laaya hai?” (Where have you picked this up from?). As our products were conceptually new in the market, rejections were flying in from
all directions.

Back then, nobody had used a black shampoo, or a sugar-based wax hair removal cream, and so on. However, we kept going on and some dealers in the market gave us a chance. Once this happened, they realized that the customers were liking our products — the quality, the price, etc. From a state of inertia to a small move, we had to be ever so persistent.

With so many corporate giants in the field, how should an aspiring entrepreneur find success?

One needs to come up with innovative concepts, good quality products at reasonable pricing to click with consumers. Of course, the big companies spend loads of money on advertising and promotions; also they have five- to ten-year plans figured out, etc. So for them it is not so difficult to maintain their market share. However, for aspiring entrepreneurs it is crucial to keep a watch on the current market trends, and they must start slowly. I cannot really say how to find success in this fiercely competitive market. But I would suggest that slow and steady wins the race.

Can you tell our readers about market trends that you have seen for so long?

Every day one sees new products coming into the market. And why shouldn’t they? Every day is a good business day in this field of business. If you are wondering when it is a right time to introduce any product into the market, I would say, whenever you have the resources and product ready — just roll it out.

As for gender break-ups, my products are used by both the genders, even though one would like to think of it as a mainly woman’s brand. The fact of the matter is that the break-up is equally distributed. However, most of my customers come from a middle-class background.

Things were different back in the old days. Twenty years back, women hesitated to go out of home. Nowadays, all of them are coming out — for work, for socializing, etc. When going out they all want to look good, feel good about themselves. Quite simply, they need cosmetics.

Looking back, how much was luck and how much was hard work?

I believe all this success is God’s blessing. Hard work has always been 100%, but then without Almighty’s blessing, all this would not have materialized.

Source - The article earlier appeared in the Dare magazine