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Startup Mantra: Every fragrance tells a new story
In 2017 Hrishikesh along with his wife Ashlesha and Prajakta Deo launched their startup in Pune – A Fragrance Story
The sense of smell… is used from the time you are born to recognise your mother and then gets associated with memories, perceptions or self and even used by marketers to sell everything from soap, food, clothes and even leather seats of cars.
Perfume is everywhere! The Indian perfume market (for personal use) is worth ₹4,000 crores. And of this ₹3,000 crore is the deodorant market. Of the ₹1 crore, 30% is taken by the imported perfume brands and the rest by the Indian brands. In this space comes a startup from Pune – A Fragrance Story (AFS).
How it started
Says Hrishikesh Lonkar, founder AFS, “Even out of the ₹700 crore market people spend on buying Indian perfumes, it is largely spent on buying perfumes in the ₹500 to ₹1,000 range. In addition to this, Indian brands in a bid to capture customers were offered discounts. The result? They cannot then offer a good product, that would then push the discerning customer to the foreign brands.” Hrishikesh who has spent 12 years in the perfume industry sniffed the opportunity there.
“I felt that there are people who want more than what Indian brands are offering and are willing to spend a little more for a good perfume. Besides the ones who are spending on deodorants too will over time upgrade to perfumes.” And so, in 2017 Hrishikesh along with his wife Ashlesha and Prajakta Deo launched their startup – A Fragrance Story.
The story
What’s ‘story’ doing in the brand name one may wonder? Says Hrishikesh, our perfumes were launched with the idea of being a proud Indian brand.
Moreover, every perfume we make has a story, much like the perfumes you use. Perfumes are deeply embedded in our memories and can immediately take us to that incident, or place if we smell it. Nothing is more memorable than a smell. All our perfumes have a story, an Indian story.
“For example, we did a fragrance called Parikrama, which is based on the Narmada Parikrama. To create Parikrama, we used the key ingredients found or grown on the trail of Narmada Parikrama. Ingredients such as Gulbakawali or Ginger lily flowers, Mahua flowers, tendu patta or Coromandel ebony or East Indian ebony, and honey. Besides using ingredients found on the Narmada trail, we also had the design on our bottle carton designed by an art professor who had himself done the Parikrama several times. In short, we ensured that the consumers get the Parikrama experience through our perfume AFS used the mood of the nation to craft their Ayodhya perfume.”
Says he, “It’s a seven-letter word which is close to the hearts of billions of Indians spread all over the world. It is the name of a city but for us, it’s the ultimate destination of simple divinity. We felt compelled to capture this event in a bottle! Our “Ayodhya” perfume whisks you away into the temple sanctorum.
Sandalwood, the imperial base note of our fragrance, is woven together with gentle floral notes. Whiffs of rose, spices, musk and amber create a fragrance that ignites the positive energy within you and inspires you to have faith in all that is good! We have tried to capture the vibes of Ayodhya into the bottle.”
Fine fragrance
Formulating a perfume goes much deeper than the story it tells. Says Hrishikesh, “Every perfume has a concentrate or what’s called the fine fragrance. Any perfume has three stages at which the fragrance is released. Much like a pyramid, the top notes are generally the delicate ones like citrus, certain flowers that immediately upon coming in contact with body heat are released. This is what you smell when you just apply perfume. Then comes the middle note or the heart note which is released after a while and the base note is released last.
The middle notes are the core of the fragrance, much like its theme or our story comes from these notes, while the lasting fragrance comes from the base notes.” Ingredients like musk, sandalwood, and frankincense make up the base notes while rose, jasmine are middle note flowers.
Hrishikesh collaborates with two such experts who help AFS create a perfume that has all three notes in perfect harmony. “After all it is the way you use these notes that makes for a great perfume. These men who have a large repertoire of experience collaborate with us to make it right. Once we agree on the components, we make about 100 to 150 samples that we distribute to our long-standing customers and channel partners in Mumbai and Pune. In a week they get back with their feedback and we then formulate our final product.”
Selling a Made-in-India perfume
The sales tell another good story – 100,000 bottles worth ₹5 crore sold in seven years. “We have many repeat customers who are also our samplers for new perfumes. I think what has worked and works is that our perfume is made in India totally and each perfume has a story to tell that our customers can immediately relate to.”
Another aspect of this performance is the fact that Hrishikesh focuses as much on the quality of the product as on the packaging. “It plays a vital role in this business. It helps communicate about our brand and has a sensory and visual appeal all of which are important to us. We put a lot of effort into our packaging. For example, when we developed Goa, we used caricatures by Mario Miranda so that one can immediately connect. From the bottle, and the cap to the colour everything is planned in detail to communicate our fragrance story. It does cost us a lot, but it is what we believe separates us from the other brands.”
Competing with big brands
What can a small flea do in the marketplace that has big brands with deep pockets? Says Hrishikesh, “At the very outset we identified our target audience as those who value fragrance even though they cost more. Our customers are not the ones who prefer deodorants or cheap perfumes, but those who understand perfumes. We look at Skinn from Titan, Yardley and Embark as our competitors. There are some new companies like The Man, Bombay Shaving Company, and Ustraa who have launched fragrances for men and are our competitors. These brands have deep pockets, are big on distribution and can spend big on advertisements both online and offline. Besides they also get celebrity endorsements.”
Hrishikesh’s strategy is to do what his big competitors are not doing. “We have studied the channels where these brands are a little weak and are focusing accordingly. Our go-to-market (GTM) consists of an omnichannel distribution, we are focusing mainly on the travel retail sector, defence canteens, institutional gifting, online (gifting portals), our own website and traditional distribution in limited cities.”
“As far as the imported perfumes are concerned, though we are at par with them in terms of quality, we will take a year or two more to compete with them. It will happen only when we start selling our perfumes in the international market, and validate our perfumes by global consumers. We are moving in that direction.”
Funds
Hrishikesh has so far invested ₹30 lakh which has been from the angels in his family and friends’ circle. “Our average revenues have been ₹80 lakhs per annum and our net profit (after tax) has been about 8-10%. This after the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic that were totally devastating. In fact, we had to start all over again. But we’ve been there. Done that and now have a better understanding of the market and how to move ahead.”
Here’s hoping A Fragrance Story will have a happy ending.
