Interview with SAK Rajesh & Sayantan Bhattacharjee | Imbue

We hope this can inspire you to become a successful entrepreneur too! Why is it important to hear the story of a successful entrepreneur?

Having the vision to become an entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story!

In that frame, we had the pleasure to interview SAK Rajesh & Sayantan Bhattacharjee, co-founders of Imbue. Imbue – Life Simplified is a boutique brand that is both socially relevant and delivers on quality.

1. What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e what’s your source of motivation?
At Imbue, our purpose is to “Get.Women.Going”. It is this purpose that keeps us motivated. Over the last 5 years, we were lucky to be part of cosmetics, social selling, and digital space, which gave us front row seats to observe emerging consumer needs. In our professional capacities, we had regular interactions with several women communities. It is these interactions that made us realize the importance of reproductive health. Many aspects of reproductive health such as daily intimate care, intimate hygiene, and sexual wellness are taboo topics with low awareness. This leads to ignorance and neglect which then creates health issues. We were shocked to learn that 3 out of 4 women suffer from a vaginal yeast infection at least once and worse it recurs for almost half of them. Further, taboo means, many established brands do not risk entering this segment, resulting in inferior / chemical-based products, which can create long term health complications.

As a team of doctors, social influencers, and product specialists, we believed we can break through this maze of taboo & bias to create both awareness and safe products. Thus, Imbue.
Literally speaking, Imbue means to inspire. So, with that name ought to be inspired and motivated each day.

2. Why should people choose your product/services?
Imbue is for people who are looking for clean, credible, and convenient to use intimate care & sexual wellness products.

Clean: Our products are all Natural, Vegan, Chemical Free, Paraben Free with zero tolerance towards any cruelty or toxin of any kind. We make no compromise on cost or effort while sourcing ingredients.
Credible: Each of our products is based on years of scientific research. Our first product – The Intimate Hygiene Foam, has a research trial of 12+ years. We are proud of our research & innovation and are patenting all the 3 products that we have launched.

Convenience: Intimate Hygiene Foam is the first intimate cleanser in India that doesn’t require rinsing post usage (works like a sanitizer for the intimate area). So, that makes it easy for any woman to use it while traveling or at work. All our products are easy to carry and convenient for daily use.

3. What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?
To fulfill our purpose, it is essential to not just sell products but also making an honest effort in creating an ecosystem that encourages open, unambiguous conversations around women’s health, wellness, and anatomy. In Year 1, we have built a community of 15K + women which include people from different walks of life be it cities, professions, age, etc. Doctors, health specialists, bloggers, frequent travelers have voluntarily contributed to creating a reference source of information. This community fosters awareness. If we look at our Instagram page and blog, it goes beyond products to talking about different aspects of health & reproductive care.

4. What risks are you facing?
Reproductive care has very little awareness, and as we are building a new practice, we sometimes being run the risk of being doubted at, “ is it really required?”, “ Is it a marketing gimmick?”
However, we know that products have clear health benefits. In fact, we have doctors both using and recommending the products.

For example, Imbue Intimate Hygiene Wash replaces the practice of washing the intimate area with soap & water. It’s not us, but various research papers talk about how soap or douching can disrupt the VH balance of the vagina, making it susceptible to infections.

If we look at our own tradition, in Ayurveda and its branch of Yoni Prakshalanam, cleansing the vagina with water is not recommended. It is Ayurveda and its recommended usage of Panchvalakala for vaginal treatment which serves as the inspiration for the Imbue Intimate Hygiene Wash.

5. Have you considered any alliance/partnership?
Yes, we partner with various brands, clubs, social work organizations to spread awareness and break biases around the reproductive health of women. In the last 6 months, we have partnered with brands such as Clovia, Heyday, Saathi Pads, healthcare establishments such as Nimaaya, Rose Walk, and various other Mahila samaj & communities.

6. What are your cash flow projections? When will you break even? How much will you need in investments?
Our objective is to spread awareness and education, which requires investments. However, as a business, we ensure that our unit economics is strong. This helped us battle through COVID.
By June 2020, we reached our pre-COVID levels of business, and in September we did 200% of our best pre COVID number. And along with top-line growth, we reduced our customer acquisition cost by 60%
So, our thrust is to maintain cost efficiency which can help consumers get the best products at the cheapest price and allocate our investments for awareness/customer acquisition.

7. What comes first for you money or emotions?
When we started, we were a team of doctors, chartered accountants, influencers, and marketing professionals. What got us together and keeps us together is our purpose. So, for us when it comes to Imbue its emotions come first.

8. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
The feedback that we have received about our product and conversations. It was so encouraging when one of the early users called Imbue a “Miracle in a bottle”. It inspires us each time when we get messages about, someone being cured of a recurring infection using Imbue, or a mother being inspired by our blogs to talk to her son about female anatomy.

9. If you sold your company today, what would be the tone of the conversation? What would you want to gain? What would you want to avoid losing?
We are an early-stage startup we would only want to sell the company if we believe someone else would do a better job than us in fulfilling Imbue’s purpose to “Get.Women.Going.” What we are most scared of, is losing customer’s trust and belief in the brand. We have taken painstaking efforts to ensure the best in product efficacy, packaging, communication, and education. That is helping us to build credibility for the brand and we would hate to do anything which dents this credibility.

10. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
The question which you asked “Money” or “Emotion” is so relevant and we believe anyone starting out should introspect on it. Anything new requires patience and perseverance. So, unless we are passionate, it is difficult to remain motivated, especially, because there are so many other / easier avenues to have a secured income. So, starting out for the right reason is important, as that helps us stay on course.