Mellow Success Story: Mellow aims to bring the wisdom of Ayurvedic Lifestyle to the world

Company Profile is an initiative by ListMyStartUp to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Mellow.

Mellow Success Story

Mellow is a premium Ayurvedic, natural, and herbal skin care & hair care brand. Its product offerings are in three distinct categories - Hair Care, Body Care and Face Care. It brings the best of Ayurveda and the care of mother nature together. The startup aims to bring the wisdom of Ayurveda and Ayurvedic lifestyle to the world.

Mellow - Company Highlights

Startup Name-Mellow
Founder-Sujata Sharda
CEO-Vaishali Sharda
Headquarters-Chirawa, Rajasthan
Founded-2008
Industry-Beauty & Wellness
Website-mellow.co.in

Mellow - About and Vision

Mellow is a premium Ayurvedic, natural, and herbal skin care & hair care brand. Its product offerings are in three distinct categories, namely: Hair Care, Body Care and Face Care. The startup believes in the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda that the body is a temple and to nurture the body with pure and natural products is an act of gentleness, love, and kindness.

Mellow's long-term vision is to take India to the world- to bring the wisdom of Ayurveda and Ayurvedic lifestyle to the world. In the future, it plans to take the brand beyond India. It is soon planning to launch on Nykaa, Sublime Life, Vanity Wagon, Amazon US, and UAE.

The brand's core belief is not about progressing alone but to progress with the society and various stakeholders involved. Authenticity is what the foundation of its products stands on and they firmly believe in quality over quantity. The team believes in affordable luxury and is striving to take Ayurveda to the masses instead of just a handful of people in society. Mellow's current vision is to continue to serve its customers with the best, authentic, and premium Ayurvedic products. The brand wants to make Ayurveda accessible for all. Its aim is to not only find a spot on people's shelves but in their hearts.

Mellow - Market/Industry Details

In the FMCG and more precisely the beauty segment, Mellow's market size is quite big because its Ayurvedic products are safe to use from seven to seventy years of age. The startup can already see a lot of awareness and interest among people about Ayurveda in the past decade. In the next five years, it sees the market shifting to more natural and herbal-based products and people adopting the Ayurvedic lifestyle. The day is not far when every other household in India will have Ayurvedic products for their skincare and beauty needs.

Mellow - Idea and Inspiration

"The journey of Mellow is a story of my mother's love for me and her quest for her independence. Decades ago my mother, Sujata Sharda, a homemaker, and a mother went searching for the answer to her daughter's hair fall problems" - Says Vaishali Sharda, CEO, Mellow

Her strong resolve to find the solution to Vaishali's hair fall in mother nature, led her to a journey of discovery across Vaidays (Ayurvedic doctors), botanists, herbal experts, and after many souls searching, research, and experimentation with various natural formulations in her own kitchen, she made the first Sesame Hair Oil- the hair elixir. The oil yielded astonishing results for people and was an instant success!

Initially, it was close family members, friends, and neighborhood people who became the first customers. People loved the hair oil. As the word for the natural elixir spread far and wide among relatives, communities, and beyond, orders started pouring in and demand grew, it was time for her to move beyond the confines of her kitchen.

In 2008, she laid the foundation of the first factory, and thus Mellow was born. It has been 13 years since and still, Mellow stands for artificial and chemical-free natural products to date. Currently, Mellow offers the product range in three distinct categories, namely Hair Care, Body Care, and Face Care.

Mellow - Products and USP

If you look at Mellow's initial product, the Sesame Hair Oil - it solves a wide array of problems from stopping hair fall, hair strengthening to hair re-growth. So rather than creating five different products for your hair problems, Mellow created a single product that can cater to all your hair problems. Take the example of its anti-wrinkle cream, it not only reduces wrinkles but tightens and nourishes your skin too. So instead of three different products for three different issues, it made one product- the anti-wrinkle cream that solves all your issues in one go.

Mellow Hair care essentials
Mellow Products

Mellow is here to simplify people's lives. So the basic strategy behind its innovation is, if there are similar kinds of problems faced by people, there should be one simple solution for it. That is the brand's USP and its approach to R&D and innovation of every product. Each product that comes out of Mellow takes six months to a year of R&D, sampling, and rigorous tests before it is launched in the market. Another big factor is that it has simplified skincare and haircare with affordable products.

"Our USP, I would say is that we are natural, Ayurvedic and herbal products that are free from harsh chemicals. We bring best-in-class and premium Ayurvedic solutions at an affordable price point" - Vaishali added.

Mellow is a natural, Ayurvedic Skincare and Hair Care brand. It brings the best of Ayurveda and the care of mother nature together. It has a range of products that treat and solves problems related to hair and body care faced by modern men and women. Since its inception, the brand's motto has been to provide the best and purest Ayurvedic products for everyone.

Mellow - Founders

Initially, it was Vaishali's mother, Sujata Sharda who manufactured all the products from her own kitchen. Mellow is Sujata Sharda's brainchild. She started the brand from scratch, and used to manufacture, package, and label all the products on her own in the startup years. From there, she nurtured, cultivated, and grew the brand over the years. Vaishali was always involved in the brand but became a full-time contributor from 2020.

Founder of Mellow

Sujata Sharda

As far as Vaishali's academic background is concerned, she is a B.com graduate and studied Bachelor of Laws (LLB). Before coming to Mellow, she was practicing human rights law and was actively involved in cases/projects involving women and labor rights. But everything changed in 2020 during the lockdown period.

When Vaishali came back home and saw her mother working on the brand day in and out, she was pulled by her vision. She started helping her mother to ramp up the marketing of the brand a notch and very soon she fell in love with the newfound taste of entrepreneurship. In those months of helping her mother, something stirred up in Vaishali, and wanted to join Mellow full time. Vaishali quit her safe, treaded, and secured path of being a lawyer and becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

Mellow - Founder & CEO

Currently, as the CEO of Mellow, Vaishali's role and responsibility is to actively market, grow and revamp the brand. She is involved in all the aspects of marketing, social media, strategizing, digital marketing, building the team, and also the social aspect of the brand.

On the other hand, Vaishali's mother Sujata does all the back-end jobs. She is involved in every aspect of the brand from research, manufacturing to packaging. She is always looking for new information, research, and recent developments in the field of Ayurveda, naturopathy, herbal experts, to find solutions to problems faced by modern men and women. She is the driving force behind all the product development and actively contributes ideas, inspirations, and solutions to the R&D team.

Mellow - Ideology behind Name & Logo

The name and branding of Mellow reflect the Ayurvedic philosophy. It reflects the fact that the team at Mellow is inspired by the Ayurvedic traditions and the gentleness of mother nature. It reflects the calmness, the gentleness of mother nature with the potency of Ayurvedic solutions. The founders wanted a name that conveys to the customers that the brand is completely natural, materials used are derived from nature and it is gentle and soothing on your skin and relaxes your body. After much thoughts, strategic sessions, and brainstorming, the founders came up with the word Mellow which was very apt. It's every product, every jar will make you feel connected to nature, bring you closer to your roots, to mother nature. Hence Mellow- Closer to Nature.

Mellow - Startup Launch

At the initial stages, Vaishali's mother used to manufacture all the products from her own kitchen. She would do everything from manufacturing, packaging, and labeling all the products on her own. Initially, it was on small scale for close family members and friends. The most important strategy for the brand has been word-of-mouth marketing. The first 100 users and beyond came because people benefitted from Mellow's Sesame Hair Oil and recommended it to their loved ones. The word of the natural elixir spread far and wide among relatives, communities, and beyond, orders started pouring in and demand grew. It was time for her to move beyond the confines of her own kitchen. In 2008, she laid the foundation of the first factory, and thus Mellow was born.

"We definitely believe that when you are giving a quality product that is affordable, sustainable, and it is solving your issues, and making our customers happy and satisfied then customers will choose you over other brands. It gives me immense pleasure to add that we have developed deep relationships with customers that have stuck to the brand for more than a decade" - says Vaishali.

Mellow has been able to retain customers by giving quality, premium, and natural products that solve their skincare woes. Customers are central to all the brand does. Mellow's quality control, learning, customer-centric approach, and constant innovation helps not only attract but also to retain customers.

Mellow - Challenges Faced

The most challenging part when it comes to Mellow was not to come up with the product but to market it, to find the strategy, the tonality, the brand story, and to come up with and implement all other aspects of marketing has been the biggest concern. Initially, it was Vaishali's mother Sujata who took care of everything, putting her heart and soul into the development of the product, growing the brand but at the end of the day she was a homemaker and marketing was a whole new dimension for her too.

That is where Vaishali came in. She took the helms of marketing, strategizing, and all other aspects of the brand. She read extensively, talked to a lot of people from end consumers, Ayurvedic doctors, manufacturers to marketers. She also did a little bit of market research to understand people's wants and desires more intimately. It helped her a lot to develop a suitable strategy and to market the brand better. Now things are much more structured and systemized. Branding, promotion, and all other aspects of marketing have picked up. Moreover, people are discovering Mellow.

Mellow - Funding

Mellow is currently bootstrapped.

Mellow - Competitors

Just Herbs, Kama Ayurveda, Juicy chemistry, Ohria, Pahadi local, Soultree, Moms and Co, Blue Nectar, among others are competitors of Mellow.

Mellow - Future Plans

Mellow's aim is to find a place on the shelves of every Indian household. It plans to take the brand beyond India and is planning to launch on Nykaa, Sublime Life, Vanity Wagon, Amazon US, and UAE in the coming years.

The way the brand looks at the future is holistic success for not just the brand but the society too. It wants to create a community of like-minded people, a society around Mellow. Its product packaging is often done by local communities to give them financial assistance. For example, the cloth used for Mellow packaging is done by local slum women for whom the brand provides vocational training. It is the brand's small bit to give back to society. All in all, Mellow is trying to build a community around it and have people rise with the brand.

"Working at Mellow has been a humbling experience. I have learned a lot about the beauty industry, Ayurveda, and people in general. One thing which I have realized over the years is there is a yearning among people to come back to their roots-to mother nature. People are now open and experimenting with Ayurvedic products made of natural ingredients and saying no to harmful chemicals" - Vaishali added.

Mellow - FAQs

What is Mellow?

Mellow is a premium Ayurvedic, natural, and herbal skin care & hair care brand. Its product offerings are in three distinct categories, namely: Hair Care, Body Care and Face Care.