The Successful Brand Called MDH! And the Legacy continues …

MDH (Mahashian Di Hatti) is not just a masala brand; it represents the spice culture of India. It’s the flavor of India. Ever since I was a child, I grew up watching the MDH advertisement on our black and white television set. Asli Masale Sach Sach, MDH, MDH! The tagline still resonates in my mind. What I liked most about the ads was the grand old masala man Mahashay Dharampal Chunnilal Gulati in the commercials proudly flaunting his mustache and a turban. He remained the life of every commercial of the brand, as long as he was alive. The iconic man, the winner of Padma Bhusan died in 2020 at the ripe age of 98 but he remains etched in my mind. I always liked reading about businesses and business personalities, their struggles, and their growth. However, I am always in awe of Late Mahashay Gulati and the brand he built.

Recently, the news that HUL is in talks to acquire MDH shook me up. How could it even happen? No way could I imagine MDH, the iconic legacy of Late Shri Gulati, becoming the feather in the cap of another company. As I said earlier, it is not just a company but a story that inspires everyone. It is the true replica of a start-up that grew on to become Rs. 10000 crore business. And then, the clarification came, that the news is fake. Hmm, I heaved a sigh of relief. I came across the new commercial of MDH on our new flat-screen television. I loved the ad with his son Rajeev Gulati taking his place in the long mustache. Excited I screamed, “and the legacy continues…”. I thought it will not be just if I keep the inspirational account of this mega man and his mega-brand to only myself. No doubt, there will be only a few who do not know about MDH. But in times of start-ups and entrepreneurship all around, the story of MDH is worth a revision. It can inspire all of us to stay focused on our dreams and be successful.

So the story goes like this. MDH Chachaji or Dadaji, or Masala King, as he was popularly known, was born on 27th March 1923 in Sialkot, present Pakistan. He spent his initial 25 years of life in Pakistan where he used to assist his father Chunni Lal Gulati in running his spice shop. During the 1947 partition, his family migrated to India where they spent some time in a refugee camp in Amritsar. Later they shifted to Delhi. With just Rs. 1500 in hand, Dadaji bought a Tonga and started taking passengers around Delhi. He realized that it was not his cup of tea, and hence, got back to his roots. He bought small tools and once again started his family business in a small shop in Karol Bagh, Delhi in 1948. He added another shop in 1953. Within another span of six years, he purchased some land and set up a spice manufacturing unit, Mahashin Di Hatti in 1959, the same name with which his father ran his business in Sialkot. From just a small shop in 1948, Dadaji laid the foundation of his huge empire. MDH is one of the most recognizable brands in the spices segment with a global presence in more than 100 countries. It has a range of spices and products. The majority of the sales come from the Chat Masala, Chana Masala, and Deggi Mirch variants. Each variant has a sale of over a crore packets every month. During the financial year 2021, the brand had operating revenue of over Rs. 500 crores. It has a chain of thousands of wholesalers and retailers across the country. MDH Spices is a household name in India.

There are many things that the late Mahashay ji will inspire for decades to come. He was a fifth-class dropout yet had a keen business inclination. He tried his hands in several businesses such as soap making, carpentry, hardware business, etc. He failed and failed in all these businesses before picking up his father’s spice business. But he never got discouraged. He faced ups and downs in his life. However, he never backed off. He scaled his business bit by bit. Once he realized his expertise, he stayed rooted in what he and his family were best at. He learned through his mistakes. His perfect entrepreneurial spirit reflects in the fact that he dared to relaunch his business in a new territory. As a far-sighted innovator, he provided variety in spices that nobody would have thought of in the spices segment. Even at the fag end of his life, he remained energetic as ever and featured as a brand ambassador for MDH. He became the highest-paid CEO in 2017 but used to give away 90% of his salary for philanthropic activities. During his lifetime, he opened several schools, a hospital, and a mobile hospital in slums, and did many other charitable works. He remained a disciplined man throughout his life. Every day, he diligently took rounds of the factories, dealers, and markets, including Sundays, until he was satisfied that everything is fine, something that we must learn. Mahashayji believed in the simple mantra of success, that is, to follow the principle of honoring his commitments and serving his customers through pure and quality products. This is a significant thing that young entrepreneurs should keep in mind. Quality and honoring commitment are ingredients to achieve success in any business, small or big. Above all, he believed in honesty in business transactions to his core. Mahashayji may not be any more today, but he set an example of how businesses need to be conducted. With fearlessness, perseverance, hard work, dedication, and a service attitude, any business can grow from the grounds to the skies.

Source: MDH Website

Rule over Success in Your Business with These Golden Rules

Rules are important to avoid chaos and become organized. Rules define how balanced an approach you have in your life. Rules help to posit to the world what you are, and why you are where you are. Societies go by a set of rules; families have rules; schools define rules; organizations have conduct rules. Rules are everywhere. A golden set of rules is like a compass to steer clear of any little ambiguity or indecisiveness. That’s why successful people and organizations, and societies go by rules. In this article, I would like to discuss a few golden rules that young enterprising people might find helpful to start with.

Train your mind to handle everything and anything: Entrepreneurship is all about managing people, finance, and resources. And managing these, to perform well in the market, also have its own constraints and pressures. Whether it’s you or someone else, everyone has to perform under pressure at some or other point in time. There is deadline-related pressure, the monetary pressure, people pressure, and whatnot. But it is all about how we react to pressures and situations. Everyone gets butterflies in their stomach when in a totally uncalled-for situation. But how we make the butterflies fly, is something that we need to arm ourselves with. It is an art to respond to such a stimulus in a positive way. Rather than trying to interpret what our body experiences as nervousness, it’s beneficial if we can interpret it as excitement. Becoming the Yes Man and saying Yes I can do it, I am excited would push you forward rather than backward. No doubt, the experience within the body will be the same, but the interpretation will be positive, hence this positive push. When we train our minds to see the positive and believe in the positive things, entrepreneurship will be fun even under pressure and constraints.

Do anything you want to do and the way you want to do it: There are two ways to see the world. Some see through the half-glass full approach while some as half-glass empty. Some people see the things that they want and some people see the things that prevent them from getting the things that they want. Don’t wait and watch, just do it in whatever way suits you. Nothing is going to stop you from getting whatever you want. Just keep in mind the ethics but at the same time, you don’t have to do it the way everybody else has done it. Do it your way.

Take responsibility for your actions: You may take all the credit in the world for all the things that you do right, as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong. It must be a balanced equation. But the problem is that people want to take only credit and don’t want to be accountable. Say for example, when you start a plant that makes the best quality leather shoes you are known for, you also need to acknowledge that somewhere you have created a polluted environment. You have thrown away your dangerous residue into nature. An environmentally enlightened entrepreneur would take it as his responsibility to clean up the mess. It’s good to see that these days most new-age entrepreneurs acknowledge that being in business is set to impact something in the surrounding, and they need to pay back for what they took. I am not endorsing any product or company, but the way I get it through their advertisements, some personal care brands, have the commitment to plant saplings towards every order made. Because they are taking the responsibility for their actions, they will gain consumer appreciation, and hence their loyalty, in the long run. Taking accountability or responsibility for one’s actions at every step must be in the rulebook if one aims to mark an impact in the minds of the consumers.

Compete with yourself not others: Set a rule to compete with yourself and not others. You are your competitor. Be the infinite player, ask yourself every day how you become a better version of yourself than you were yesterday; how do you make your endeavor better than what it was yesterday. It’s not about getting yourself or your business ranked in the list of best entrepreneurs or enterprises. It should be about how to make sure the work that you are producing is better than the work you produced before. Competition with yourself ensures that you keep up in the game the longest and infinite, not competing with your competitors.

Be genuine: Staying in business or being in a society are one and the same. It’s all about communication. The way we display our emotions, act, and say things, presents what we are and what we believe in. Displaying something else and doing something else can ruin growth, whether it’s your life or your business. People may get attracted to the image that you may have presented, but once they realize you are not what you show, their trust gets broken, and so is the loyalty of customers in business. People look for consistency in your approach. If there is slight deviation, you start losing your ground because people no more can connect to the ideology you symbolized. That’s where businesses start getting labeled as inauthentic. Must have heard or read about many such shooting star businesses that meteorically rose and fell. Entrepreneurs must remember that consumers surround themselves with products or brands that match what they believe or who they are. For example, people who are conscious about health get weirdly drawn towards products and brands that display their products to be 100% natural and organic. A slight deviation ruins the prospects forever. Remember how Maggi had to fight hard to build back its image in India when some reports suggested that it contained Lead. Consumers had started shifting to other alternative noodle brands. It’s another case that alternatives to Maggi’s could not make a mark in the consumer's minds. So the rule is to be genuine always to rule the minds and hearts of your customers.

Stay composed, and be patient: The worst thing that is happening in our generation today is that we are becoming more and more impatient. We don’t have time to wait till the fruit is ripe. We are ready to eat carbide, but we don’t have the patience to see the banana become ripe naturally. This is what exactly happens everywhere, be it in our lives, career fulfillment, or relationships. We don’t get it instantly, and so we quit. To be in business and become successful, you have to be there for a long period, and that requires great patience. There are ups and downs in everything. There are hiccups everywhere. You have to feel in love with whatever you do. As love requires patience, so does entrepreneurship. You have to give it all, to feel the sense of love that eventually builds up when you dedicate yourself to your job. The golden rule to succeed is to be composed and calm.

Piece of Advice from Great Indian entrepreneurs

Motivational quotes inspire us. It makes our day. Even a few letter quote “Yes you can” ushers that great gust of energy in us to get up and get going. So here are a few great pieces of advice by some of our successful entrepreneurs in India for the upcoming entrepreneurs of the country.

1. Ideas are no one’s monopoly Think big, think fast, think ahead - Dhirubhai Ambani

2. Today I see a billion people as a billion potential consumers, an opportunity to generate value for them and to make a return for myself. It is important to achieve our goals, but not at any cost - Mukesh Ambani

3. You cannot Get into the Business for the fashion of it - Azim Premji

4. If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small - Azim Premji

5. None can destroy iron, but its own rust can! Likewise, none can destroy a person, but its own mindset can - Ratan Tata

6. If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together - Ratan Tata

7. The trade market is the place with the least scope for emotions, especially fear and greed - Rachit Chawla

8. Building a company is similar to building a product. Culture is the UX for employees and support is the UX for customers. Don’t be a jerk! Even if you are brilliant, don’t be a brilliant jerk! - Girish Mathorrobootha

9. Love your job, but never fall in love with your company because you never know when the company stops loving you - Narayana Murthy

10. Never Hire someone to do initial sales, in fact, you must acquire your first 100 customers yourself - Shashank

11. If you truly accept the worst that can ever happen in your journey, fear won’t ever be an obstacle in starting up - Kunal Shah

12. It’s a long long road. Sometimes all you need are people who pat your back and say, carry on. Thank you to everyone who encourages - Shraddha Sharma

13. Always hire people smarter than you - Sachin Bansal

14. There is no secret ingredient to make something special. You just have to believe, its special - Rahul Yadav

15. Scale is important for a start-up. Think big, but take one day at a time - Kunal Bahl

16. Building predictability on top of the marketplace economy is how new-age businesses will get built - Ritesh Agarwal

17. However big or small, make it a good business, make it a clean business, make it a business you are very proud of- Deep Kalra

18. Entrepreneurship is akin to riding a dragon - there are more ups and downs than you can ever imagine. But every challenge on the way only makes you stronger, and every failure only bears new learnings - Yatin Hans

19. Human capital is the most precious of all forms of capital available – A. Ramasubramaniam

20. Good start-ups build a business, but great start-ups build a category – Deep Malhotra

21. One should not have to choose between health and beauty. Beauty should be without any compromises - Pritika Singh

22. Business heads will have to expedite the decision-making process to innovate and adapt to customer needs by relying more on data and actionable insights, and less on hunches - Madhurima Agarwal

23. Entrepreneurship is never a sprint. And it can be a difficult, lonely job - Krishnan Ganesh

24. As an entrepreneur, you need to go on and on … and somewhere along the line things do fall in place and work out for you - Kalpana Rao

25. The trench is as much a part of growth and expansion as the peak is. Hitting the bottom before you succeed is almost a rite of passage - Dr. Ashwin Naik

Entrepreneurs! Make the power of positive visualization a habit

Entrepreneurship is an uphill task. It is rough, tough, and full of hiccups. People literally love the idea of being an entrepreneur. But it is difficult to fathom the kind of hard work, lifestyle changes, and great sacrifices that they make to reach to the heights that many of us also want ourselves to see. Why is it so that some people fail and some make a mark in the world of business? Why is it so that some grow and grow while some just turn to dust? The reason is that some entrepreneurs start adopting habits that condition them to become successful while others don’t. They continuously improvise themselves to achieve what they want. Even if they did not do it before, the zeal to become successful, that is the prospective reward, drives them to do it. Adopting good habits is very difficult but if we practice we adopt, right? It becomes effortless. There is a great book by Charles Duhhig on the power of habits. One can always read this book to know how to develop great habits.

Anyways, coming back to habits, research studies suggest that when we keep doing what we do, continuously for 21 days, we make those into habits. Good habits are an essential part of entrepreneurial success. We must have heard or read it all over and over again about what successful entrepreneurs do. We all curiously read the things that they do in their daily lives. I mean, how do they start their day, what do they eat, how much do they eat, do they exercise, do they do yoga, gym, etc., etc. We all who plan of having our own businesses must have made this list about what successful entrepreneurs have said about their daily routines. The list goes like this:

1. Successful entrepreneurs have a fix schedule. They maintain a routine.

2. They are curious.

3. They have an early to bed and early to rise routine.

4. They read books a lot.

5. They do yoga, go to gym to stay healthy and active.

6. They manage time.

7. They are open to changes.

8. They manage their money and focus on their priorities.

9. Track their own progress and learn something daily.

10. And of course, stay ahead.

These are basic things or habits that everyone who wants to become successful must rigorously follow. But above all this, I believe, that there is one very special habit that one should adopt. And that one habit I am talking about is visualizing. The power of positive visualization is an extraordinarily powerful tool. You may have heard about the law of attraction and manifestation, right. We all know that brain is a complex system that is formed of millions of neurons and its network. The job of this neuron system is to filter information, filter information of all sorts, the good and the bad. It does not know any difference between good and bad information. This system allows certain information in your brain and blocks out others. And guess what, we are the master programmers of this filter system. When we start focussing on the negative things, we somewhere tame this system to feed images as evidence to confirm the negative. It may be images from your past or the present, whatever, that may show up as reels, let’s say, reels that show how you are failing in your entrepreneurial endeavor, how you are failing to launch your product, failing in providing your customers satisfaction through your products. And when this happens in your mind, you just drain out all the energy that you could have invested in something productive. But the good part is that you can reprogram this system.

As earlier explained, if you continue positive visualization for 21 days at a stretch, you cultivate it as a habit. Once you start practicing this, your brain starts to spot opportunities. Your brain starts to spot evidence that things are working out, and your brain starts to spot those coincidences. At some point in time, we must have realized that when we focussed on finding out solutions to a problem in hand with closed eyes, we found many ways to solve that. Because we visualized the solutions, we received the solutions. Similarly, if we visualize our business running successfully, earning good revenue, reaping great profits, setting up factories, and faces of our happy customers, we start finding ways to achieve those. Consciously visualize the good things that you want to enfold in your business, mirroring the specific picture that you want to be in. When you visualize it, your brain encodes it as real memory. It changes the filter system. The more you visualize positive things happening in your business, the greater your confidence is going to be to run the business, and the greater confidence you are going to have in your business. And here is the really cool thing about it. It takes only 60 seconds of your day to create that positive image of your business in your mind. Research has proven that simply visualizing positive things actually develops the spirit in your brain that everything is possible and you can do it. This is what is required in entrepreneurship.

I know developing this habit is pretty tough like every other habit. We have conditioned our brains to generally see the less positive aspects. What if, it fails? What if, I fail? So and so. That is why many entrepreneurs fail. Why not try seeing, ‘what if I succeed, how great my life would be, what a huge sum of money I am making every day, how my customer base is growing day by day?’. I probably believe, all successful entrepreneurs must have done this when they started their journey and must be doing this to grow, grow and grow. Musk would have visualized about reusable Falcon 9 rocket, and therefore, it materialized for him. Bezos must have visualized providing A to Z solutions to its customers, and thus, Amazon can offer everything. So budding entrepreneurs, do add this one extra habit to your habit list. Visualizing good things is absolutely free and business and entrepreneurship are about looking for great profits, right!

Candle Making: A Simple, Low Cost and Profitable Business

Anyone looking out for a simple, low-cost, home business idea! This is definitely a read.

To start with, let me first give you a rough idea of how big the candle-making industry is and how much growth potential does it have? As per a research firm analysis, the global candle market is expected to reach USD 6.06 billion by 2025. During this forecast period, it is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 8.4%. India is a major exporter of candles in the world. Connect2india analysis suggests that 107 countries actively imported candles worth 32.8 million USD from India. As per OEC reports, candle exports stood at USD 48.1 million in 2020. These data show the huge potential that candle making sector offers. Candles are something that can be used anywhere and everywhere. To light up the day and to start the night, in homes and hotels, in temples and churches, during festivals and otherwise, in massage centers for aromatherapy, and in restaurants for candlelight dinners, its demand is continuously growing.

Candle-making does not require a great set of skills or qualifications. Anyone with a desire to own a business can fit well into this industry. The best part is that it does not need heavy investment in raw materials, people, or machinery. An individual can start it from home itself. And thanks to the e-commerce sector, selling is also not a problem these days. One can start this small-scale business from the comfort of home. Candles have aesthetic appeal and if you are creative enough, you can take up your business much faster. You can play with the scents, the basic raw materials required, the look, and the style to have a niche area of your own. The emphasis on elegant living among customers in today’s world has opened up huge scope for candle makers who are in business and those who would like to be.

We shall now discuss stories of a few successful candle entrepreneurs who have already made it big in no time. Like every other small business, the journey of Rad Living started from home. Two years back, Seema Arora was just another homemaker doing her daily chores. Things started to roll when her son Vineet, during the Covid Lockdown, asked her to start making candles. She knew nothing of candle-making then but decided to support her son’s endeavor. The entire family Arora family got together in this home project. While her children and husband involved themselves in concept, designing, and logistics, she worked on experimenting with the product. It was a unique experience for her. Every time they received orders, she felt empowered. Rad Living has a range of unique candles to offer now. They have signature collections like Heer, F.L.Y, and Truth Bombs. The candles are priced anywhere between Rs. 250 to Rs. 2,000. Seema is excited about going to her own office now once the business moves to a new manufacturing unit. So homemakers! Wanna try your hands at candle-making. Dare take a plunge.

25-year-old Engineering graduate Mehak Pervaz launched Shamaaque by Mehak to revive the candle-lighting culture in Kashmir Valley in 2020 during the pandemic. The other reason is her encounter with the lack of good scented candles for decoration during one of her cousin’s wedding. That inspired her to be in the business. She is fond of arts and art-making. Candlemaking is also an art. She likes to design and customize candles on her own. She has received tremendous responses from the valley people. Initially, she had to take support from her family to get the required raw materials. Currently, she is selling her candles on Instagram. Covid did not dampen the spirit but enlightened the entrepreneurial spirit in her. She has plans to turn her business into a full-fledged one. So dear youths! Got inspired to start something like this.

Umbr Tree is another business that has its own share of success in the ever-accommodating candle-making industry. Basically, a home fragrance brand, Umbr Tree launched by Syed Naqib and Sangeeta Nandy in Bangalore emphasizes sustainable candles- candles without paraffin or petroleum, animal by-products, free from dyes, additives, and chemicals. Their niche is the use of all-natural soy, coconut, palm, and bee wax. They make their own candle wicks from organic cotton. Their candles are certified natural air purifiers and they have a range of fragrances. Their prices range from around Rs. 700 to 3000. Umbr Tree is aiming to be a leader in the sector. With so much space and scope in the industry, we hope to see Naqib and Sangeeta reach their goal soon. So friends, if candles are something you love and you want to carve a place herein, I hope this article inspires you to stop thinking and get going. The candle industry has much to grow. You can also be one of the growth engines.

Source:

https://yourstory.com/weekender/candle-startups-rad-living-pinenlime-umbrtree-philotree/amp

https://www.femina.in/trending/achievers/this-homemaker-of-over-30-years-co-founded-a-luxury-candle-business-221960.html

https://thelogicalindian.com/smb-stories/kashmiri-girl-candle-business-29910

Photo source:

https://www.radliving.in/

https://www.umbrtree.com/