"My purpose has been and will always be to build something that delights people."

Shankar Prasad shares a powerful perspective: true business success isn't solely about scale, but about creating genuine customer delight. This is a core tenet of Plum Goodness that got built in during their 5 year bootstrapping journey.

Shankar Prasad is the founder of Plum Goodness, a rapidly growing Indian direct-to-consumer beauty brand. Starting with a mere 15 SKUs in 2014, and bootstrapping for the first five years, Plum is now on track to achieve a ₹500 crore annual revenue run rate.

Shankar, a chemical engineer from IIT Bombay and an MBA from ISB, with experience at Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey, and as a leader at Faces Canada, built Plum with a unique customer-centric and frugality-first approach.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• Frugality as a Core Value: Shankar's upbringing instilled a deep sense of frugality, influencing Plum's operations from its inception, allowing the company to reach profitability in its early years.
• Customer Obsession: Plum prioritizes customer delight above all else, reflected in its product development, customer service, and even the founder's personal involvement in addressing customer complaints.
• Product DNA: A focus on high-quality, "goodness"-driven products is central to Plum's identity, differentiating it in a crowded market.
• Bootstrapping Benefits: The initial five years of bootstrapping allowed Plum to solidify its brand DNA and values before seeking external funding.
• Capital as an Input: Shankar views investment capital as a resource to fuel growth and achieve the brand's vision, not as an end in itself.
• Channel Agnostic: For Plum, the most important aspect is to build a brand, and be present where the customer is.
• Experiment to grow: Shankar explains the multiple experiments across channels and products, and how that helps Plum, not only expand its offering, but also learn what works, and become better.

• 00:00:00 - Intro: Accidental Beauty Founder
• 00:05:14 - Ice Cream to Beauty: Unilever & Faces
• 00:09:52 - Defining "Goodness": Plum's Purpose
• 00:24:44 - Bootstrapping & ₹100 Facebook Ads
• 00:38:21 - Saying "No" to Fairness
• 00:58:24 - Frugality's Downside
• 01:09:12 - Online vs. Offline: Plum's Strategy
• 01:14:38 - No Tech Team?!
• 01:29:37 - Customer Delight: Only View
• 01:22:23 - Anti-Unicorn Philosophy
• 01:48:53 - Future Vision: Billion Lives
• 01:59:12 - Key Takeaways

Hashtags:

#PlumGoodness #ShankarPrasad #D2C #BeautyBrand #IndianStartup #Entrepreneurship #FounderJourney #Bootstrapping #CustomerObsession #Frugality #BrandBuilding #Skincare #Makeup #Haircare #IndianBeauty #VentureCapital #StartupIndia #BusinessStrategy #CustomerExperience #Goodness #Podcast #FounderThesis #IIT #ISB #Unilever #FacesCanada