From promoting good health to being environmentally conscious, here are the best picks of SMBStory this week
This week, SMBStory covered stories of entrepreneurs who are focussed on promoting good health in the time of coronavirus.
From immunity boosters to healthy footwears, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in India are striving hard to survive the cut-throat market competition with their innovative ideas.
This week, SMBStory covered the story of entrepreneurs who are looking to promote good health among people with their products. Here are the top SMB Stories of the week.
Zyro Health Care Pvt Ltd
The coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to a standstill, with the number of cases in India nearing 300,000. While there is no vaccine at present to prevent the disease, people have to keep themselves safe by boosting their immunity levels.
In this scenario, the demand for food supplements and immunity boosters is seeing a spike. For instance, manufacturing giant Dabur, which makes honey and Chyawanprash, reported a 400 percent rise in the demand for its flagship products.
Similarly, Kamayani Naresh, a retired Indian Navy officer, claims to have developed a long and sustainable solution to boost immunity. Naresh is the founder of Zyro Health Care Pvt Ltd, a Delhi-based company that provides food and herbal supplements. Similar to allopathy and homoeopathy, he has come up with the term Zyropathy, where ‘Zyro’ means helping humanity.
In an interview with SMBStory, Naresh reveals what Zyropathy is, how it differs from other forms of treatment, and how it can help treat the coronavirus.
Magneto CleanTech
Clean air has become a luxury for many people today. Looking at the deteriorating air quality in Delhi, hotels in the capital have also started offering clean air to customers.
To fight air pollution in the country, Himanshu Agarwal and Bhanu Agarwal founded Pvt. Ltd. in 2017.
The Delhi-based company was launched with an aim to provide solutions in a sustainable manner, without compromising on the environment.
In the ’80s and ’90s, when real estate markets were booming, Himanshu noticed its impact on the environment. He says, “I could see what I call the ‘sick building infrastructure syndrome’, which is the process of humans taking up commercial activities at the cost of the environment.”
This is how his interest in air purification began. The year 2015 was a turning point for Himanshu. As India continued to climb the rankings on the worst air quality and polluted countries graph, Himanshu decided to look for answers.
He noticed that air conditioners were practically everywhere and gave comfort, but caused health problems as well. Himanshu and Bhanu decided to look for something new in the air purification domain. They started looking at some of the most successful and best technologies in the US while developing the product. Since Bhanu is based out of America, the co-founders used several labs in that country to conduct experiments.
These efforts led to the invention of Magneto Central Air Cleaner (MCAC), a polymer-based product installed in air conditioners.
Von Wellx Germany
Ashish Jain, Founder, Iatric Industries
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on turning COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity to create ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant nation) has struck a chord with many people.
In an interaction with SMBStory, Ashish Jain, Founder of Iatric Industries, said: “We started Iatric Industries in 2016 in New Delhi after seeing a huge gap and lack of awareness among people about footwear. We were initially manufacturing in China, but recently shifted our unit to Agra in a move to strengthen the PM’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.”
Ashish says, he came across the ‘Five Zones Technology’, invented by Dr Walter Mauch of Germany, when he came across the brand Von Wellx Germany. He says, the technology is based on the science of reflexology, stimulates the nerve endings in feet, balances muscle tensions, and acts as a spring absorbing shock surface. This brings “the gym in the shoes”, he says.
Iatric Industries decided to collaborate with Von Wellx to cater to the footwear market of India, Middle East, and some Asian countries. After several brainstorming sessions with the company in Germany and Italy, Iatric Industries signed an exclusive manufacturing and marketing contract and set up a manufacturing unit in China.
“We started by manufacturing in China to meet the supply chain of the Asian and Middle East countries. However, to further leverage the supply chain and boost the manufacturing, we came to India, further corroborating the Prime Minister’s speech for Atmanirbhar Bharat,” Ashish tells SMBStory.
Other SMB stories of the week:
Sula Vineyards
Chaitanya Rathi, COO of Sula Vineyards
In India, whiskey, vodka, rum, and beer have emerged as clear winners in the alcohol segment. Crawling behind with a consumption pattern of almost a million or so is the wine industry.
While wine consumption has remained very low in India, the story of is one that you would want to pull up a chair and listen to. This year, the Mumbai-based brand, which started selling wines from the year 2000, celebrates its 20th anniversary.
The company is one of the top wine brands in India, and clocks a turnover of almost Rs 500 crore.
Winemaking is a laborious process. Moreover, maintaining its taste, texture, and flavour is all the more challenging. How has the brand been able to consistently manufacture good quality wines for 20 years? “Time and patience,” says Chaitanya Rathi, COO of Sula Vineyards, emphasising the one thing they have done differently from others is to focus on the quality of the wine.
Three Fourth Solutions
Three Fourth Solutions cofounders and directors Husain Lucky (left) and Siddhant Jain (right) with partner Pragati Agarwala (centre)
While working with AIESEC, a youth-run NGO, Siddhant Jain met Husain Lucky. The two realised they had a lot in common - they were both BTech graduates, had a passion for marketing, and believed East India – and their hometown Kolkata – had a dearth of marketing agencies.
Wanting to change the way marketing was perceived and serviced in the city, Siddhant and Husain started their own marketing agency – (TFS) – in Kolkata in 2014. They roped in a third founder, Aashita Sethi, who had a diploma in design.
“We laid the foundation of TFS, sensing a need in the market for an organisation that provided a variety of marketing services under a single umbrella. Otherwise, the coordination and delivery of solutions would become a difficult proposition,” says Siddhant.
The trio, who were all in their mid-20s, bootstrapped the company with just Rs 20,000, which they earned by hosting a cooking workshop in collaboration with a star chef.
Doing everything for the first time and making mistakes and learning from them, the young founders grew TFS into a Rs 3 crore revenue business with over 50 employees.
TFS claims to have worked with over 400 clients from various sectors, some of which include Uber, OYO, Inc 5, Vespa, Pernod Ricard, CII, Kwality Wall’s, and more.
Edited by Megha Reddy