Started in 2020, Nirmalaya is an eco-conscious aroma brand which was recently featured on Shark Tank. The homegrown Indian brand specializes in 100% charcoal-free aromatic incense sticks, cones, backflow idols, essential oils, organic diffusers, and havan cups is already popular with woke consumers, who swear by the products made from recycled flowers and natural ingredients. They have now launched ittars, organic gulals for holi and essential aroma oils as well. Startup Reporter recently conducted an interview with Mr. Bharat Bansal, CEO & Co-Founder of Nirmalaya.
Kindly brief us about Nirmalaya, its specialization, and the products that it offers
Nirmalaya started in 2020. Rajeev, one of the founders, visited Shirdi, where he saw the process of conversion of flowers into incense. Since we have been living in Delhi for almost 30 years, we have seen Yamuna getting polluted to an untreatable extent. Rajeev was fond of waste management and me & surbhi were fond of fragrances, creating brand and selling, we all joined hands and Nirmalaya was born. We started with 6 fragrances in Incense sticks, cones and Dhoop sticks and Havan cups and today we have 15+ fragrances, with Havan Cup being our star product.
Considering you are here with something that is indeed niche – can we hear it from you on what truly makes your brand stand out?
Our product has an attractive and standardized price compared to our competitors, as well as higher quality and a wide range. Coupled with a fragrance that exceeds its rivals in both scent and duration, it is no wonder why the customer leans toward us. India boasts the largest incense industry in the world, exporting to over 150 countries, with a total market size of 11000 crores. Rising disposable income and increased awareness of healthy and sustainable products have increased the demand for premium items such as ours.
Please share with us the team structure in place.
We are three co-founders. I am the Co-founder and CEO. Our other Co-Founder is Surbhi Bansal who is also our CBO and our 3rd Co-Foudner is Rajeev Bansal, who is also our COO.
A note on your customer outreach initiatives with details on social media initiatives and special campaigns that you have run across for your patrons.
We are very actively involved in outreach programs and community events – we try to be a part of any such event that happens over the weekend in order to get us in front of the customers. We have done well with these initiatives and the customers buying our products from here often make online repeat purchases. On social media again we are very active. We regularly do competitions to keep our followers engaged and involved and keep updating them on new launches/range of products etc. We are also coming up with a unique initiative to help women become small entrepreneurs. The same is still on paper and we would launch this very soon.
Expansion and Hiring plans of Nirmalaya to stay on top of their competitors. How does the brand support rural women?
As a brand, our theory is simple. The more we will sell, the more we will generate employment, recycle more flowers and scale up. We are looking big time on exports and also the offline channels of marketing. By the end of Q1 of FY 2023-24, we plan to be present across 300+ stores in Delhi/NCR and other cities. 80% of our workforce is rural women and we intend to go in the direction of hiring more as we go ahead.
The Indian incense sticks market is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years. What sets Nirmalaya apart from its competitors, and how do you plan to stay ahead of the curve?
The market is growing many folds especially because people are becoming more and more conscious about mental wellness, the environment and sustainability, and they want to contribute to the environment in some way or the other. There is growth in disposable income of the customer in turn allowing him to buy good quality products, which is a positive point for a brand like us. We have various competitors in the segment because of the large size of the overall wellness sector. While others focus only on recycling the flower, our prime focus is waste management via recycling the flowers as well as wellness through fragrance. Apart from this, our product portfolio is wide when compared to our competitors. We have 4 products- incense sticks, hawan cups, cones, and dhoop sticks along with gulal, essential oils, attars, etc. Along with that, the fragrance that we offer is quite long-lasting, better than any other product available in the market and the smoke from our products also does not suffocate.
Can you discuss Nirmalaya’s “waste to wellness” approach and how it aligns with the larger trend towards sustainability and environmentalism?.
We are a company based on the model of a circular economy. We have derived a value out of floral waste and intend to continue doing this in the future and are known today for our fragrances. By recycling floral waste into Incense products, we are addressing many problems at once. We are recycling floral waste, which accounts for 16% cause of our river water pollution, we are employing 100+ underprivileged women for the process, providing them with livelihood and focussing on women’s empowerment and we are also manufacturing products that are not harmful, and irritating, thereby focusing on health and wellness. If we talk about wellness, there are 7 types of wellness and Nirmalaya very well focuses on 3 out of them i.e. environmental, spiritual, and emotional.
Revenue projections of the brand for FY 23-24.
We have set ourselves with an aim to achieve a 3X jump every year and we aim to achieve a revenue of 22 crores in FY 2023-24. We have seen great surge in our D2C sales and we have our growth strategy drawn well, which will help us achieve what we have planned
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