Best of Weekender: Gifting startups for Valentine's Day and a pet bakery that makes furry friends happy

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and like each year, it is a day dedicated to showing love and appreciation to our loved ones and ourselves.

But have you run out of ideas thinking about what to buy your partner as a unique and heartfelt Valentine's Day gift? Leave it to gifting startups who make the task easier for you so that you don't have to wade through the countless gifting suggestions flooding your social media.

Here are five gifting startups that promise to make your V-day experience hassle-free and memorable.

But Valentine's Day isn't necessarily just about celebrating human relationships. After all, you don't want to leave your pet baby behind.

Launched by Yashika Arora in 2017, Delhi-based Paw Petisserie is an exclusive bakery for pets. The bakery caters to both dogs and cats, with mostly all the products on the menu suitable for both.

“Paw Petisserie emerged from the pure joy and love for our pets. After my pet Cristo entered my life, I started creating pet-friendly baked goods to ensure he has access to the best treats. This venture escalated into making high-quality goodies for other pooches too. Ultimately, we want to ensure our loved ones receive nothing but the best,” Yashika shares with YS Weekender. 

The whey and protein supplements industry is burgeoning in India, with the demand for protein isolates not just high among fitness enthusiasts, but also vegans and vegetarians who want to make their diet more wholesome.

Recognising the same, Anish Garg and Namrata Agarwal launched Delhi-based Abbzorb in 2019 to provide high-quality products.

Abbzorb launched with twelve products including whey protein, mass gainers, whey protein isolate, and creatine, among other offerings, in their first year. Each of their health supplements addresses the three pillars of performance, quality, and taste.

The pandemic-led lockdown inspired a surge of creativity, as many used the isolation to take up new hobbies, take to writing, and explore their creative side.

For Sukanya Shah, former editor at Condé Nast, the lockdown resulted in her turning author with a children’s book, Shiny and Her Wardrobe of Virtues. 

The book tells the story of a little girl called Shiny who discovers magical items from her wardrobe that help her navigate through daily-life situations with virtues such as gratitude, kindness, confidence, patience, and love.

The pandemic has also taught us the importance of financial planning and management. With the acceleration of digitisation, there is now a flurry of financial platforms for all your needs.

Koppr was founded by Snehal Fulzele and Mandar Marathe in 2020 as a ‘complete financial wellness ecosystem’ that strives to address every financial need.  The Thane-based startup started as a B2B financial wellness platform, and in 2021, they pivoted to being a D2C financial services business to cater to a glaring market gap.

Koppr encourages its patrons to adopt the Learn-Plan-Act-Track method for their finances. They do this by creating real-time financial profiles that have a ‘Koppr Score’ – a rank that tracks the user’s income, expenses, wealth and investments, keeping their financial goals and risk profile in mind. 

In women, maintaining the delicate balance of hormones is essential to healthy living.

Signs that you must pay attention to your hormones can include having heavy periods, PMS, light or heavy periods, short cycle length, erratic periods, breast pain, PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, mood swings, migraines, anxiety, depression, water retention, weight loss resistance, hot flashes, irritable bladder, low libido, and acne.

Most of these are treated in isolation, with some form of medication. Rarely are hormones looked at in this context. Yet, the hormones are what matter when it comes to all these individual symptoms and conditions.

Here are 11 ways to improve hormone balance.