StartupTalky

Tag: babycare products

  • Akanksha Sharma Shares CITTA’s Journey of Blending Tradition with Science for Safe Skincare Solutions

    StartupTalky presents Recap’24, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2024 and discuss their vision for the future.

    In 2025, the skincare market in India is projected to generate a revenue of $10.23 billion. This shows a growing demand for safe, effective, and innovative skincare solutions. Among the key players driving this growth is CITTA, co-founded by Akanksha Sharma, Monisha Sharma, and Tanay Sharma. Combining the wisdom of “Dadi Nani Ke Nuskhe” with modern scientific advancements, CITTA has established itself as a trusted brand in the baby and skincare industry.

    In this edition of Recap’24, we feature CITTA, a brand celebrated for its natural ingredients, transparency, and innovation. Akanksha Sharma, CEO and Co-Founder of CITTA, shares insights into the brand’s journey, its most popular products like the Protecting Sunscreen SPF 70, and campaigns like #LetsThinkBeyondColour. She also discusses CITTA’s vision for the future, focusing on conscious consumption and personalised skincare solutions.

    StartupTalky: What inspired you to start CITTA, and what was the vision behind the brand’s creation?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: CITTA was born out of a deep respect for the wisdom of Indian traditions and the care passed down through generations in our family. Rooted in the time-honored wisdom of #DadiNaniKeNuskhe, CITTA combines trusted skincare remedies passed down through generations with the precision and advancements of modern science.

    We realized that while the world is filled with skincare products, there was a gap in offerings that truly combined this rich heritage with the advancements of modern science. We set out to create CITTA – a brand dedicated to providing safe, natural, and transparent skincare solutions for babies, kids, and even adults. Our vision has always been to make every child feel the endless love of a grandmother through products that uphold the highest standards of quality and care.

    StartupTalky: 2024 has been a year of impressive growth for CITTA. What were the key factors that contributed to expanding your team?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Our team’s expansion from 10 to over 80 employees was fueled by several factors. First, the growing demand for our high-quality, natural skincare products created the need for more hands on deck. Second, our focus on diversifying our product portfolio, such as expanding into adult skincare and launching new baby care products, necessitated additional talent.

    Lastly, our efforts to establish CITTA as a recognized and trusted brand in the competitive skincare market required investments in marketing, product development, and operational support. We’ve built a team passionate about innovation, tradition, and excellence, and their commitment has been instrumental in our growth.

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    StartupTalky: Your #LetsThinkBeyondColour campaign was impactful. What prompted this initiative, and how do you ensure your marketing strategies align with your brand’s core values?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: The #LetsThinkBeyondColour campaign was inspired by a pressing societal issue we couldn’t ignore: the deeply ingrained obsession with skin color, even for babies. Parents, under societal pressure, often search for ways to make their child’s skin fairer, perpetuating unrealistic and damaging beauty standards. We felt it was our responsibility to challenge this narrative. The campaign sought to encourage and empower parents to rethink these biases and celebrate the innocence and joy of their children, regardless of skin tone.

    StartupTalky: CITTA expanded its baby care line in 2024. Which new products have been the most successful, and why do you think they resonated with your customers?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Among our new launches, the Protecting Sunscreen SPF 70 PA++++ has been a standout success. Parents appreciate the sunscreen for its high level of protection and baby-safe formulation. Besides, it is also enriched with humus extract, which stimulates skin immunity and restores skin microbiome. The common thread is that each product reflects our commitment to blending time-tested Indian skincare traditions with the safety and efficacy demanded by modern parents.

    StartupTalky: You’ve ventured into adult skincare as well. How do you maintain the same commitment to safety and natural ingredients across both your baby and adult product ranges?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Our approach to adult skincare mirrors our philosophy for baby care: safety, natural ingredients, efficacy, and transparency are non-negotiable. Our team of R&D experts has conducted meticulous research and rigorous quality checks to ensure all our products meet the highest standards. For adults, we’ve drawn on traditional Indian nuskhes while addressing specific skincare needs with modern scientific advancements.

    StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges CITTA faced in 2024 and how did you overcome them?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: One of our biggest challenges was navigating the competitive landscape of the skincare industry while staying true to our core values of safety and transparency. Educating customers about the importance of natural, effective ingredients over harsh alternatives required consistent efforts. Additionally, scaling our operations to meet growing demand was another hurdle. We overcame these challenges by staying focused on our mission, investing in a talented team, and leveraging customer feedback to refine our products and messaging.

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: We see a continued shift toward conscious consumption, with parents prioritizing safe and transparent products. Skincare solutions that blend traditional wisdom with modern science will likely remain in demand. Personalization is another key trend, with customers seeking products tailored to their specific needs.

    Additionally, digital-first strategies and direct-to-consumer models will continue to be critical for brand growth. At CITTA, we aim to lead these trends by innovating our product offerings, expanding into niche skincare categories, and embracing technology to connect with our audience.

    StartupTalky: How has customer feedback shaped the development of your products?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Parents often share their concerns, preferences, and ideas, which guide our product development process. Listening to our customers ensures we stay relevant and responsive to their evolving needs.

    StartupTalky: How do you utilise social media in your overall marketing strategy, and which platforms have been most effective for growing CITTA’s presence? Are there any particular growth hacks that worked well for you?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have been particularly effective in building our community, while YouTube has helped us share educational content and campaigns like #LetsThinkBeyondColour. One growth hack that worked well was leveraging user-generated content – parents sharing their experiences with CITTA products have built trust and authenticity around our brand. Influencer collaborations and targeted ads have also helped amplify our reach.

    StartupTalky: As a founder, what advice would you give to other founders in the skincare industry?

    Ms. Akanksha Sharma: Stay true to your vision and core values, even as you scale. The skincare industry can be competitive, but building a brand rooted in authenticity and transparency will earn customer trust over time. Invest in research and prioritize quality as customers are becoming increasingly informed and discerning.

    Explore more Recap’24 Interviews here.

  • Nurturing the Future: Introducing Shishu, the Next-Generation Baby Care Brand

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

    The baby care market in India is a rapidly growing sector, driven by the increasing purchasing power of middle-class families and a growing awareness of the importance of infant and child health.

    The market is dominated by a mix of domestic and international players, offering a wide range of products such as diapers, baby food, baby skincare products, and baby gear. The market is expected to continue its growth trajectory in the coming years, driven by factors such as urbanization and rising disposable incomes.

    The demand for natural and organic baby care products has been growing in India, as more parents are becoming conscious of the chemicals and ingredients used in conventional baby care products. However these products and quite expensive.

    To address this challenge, Akshat and Abhishek, two brothers from Bihar, gave birth to Shishu. They started the baby care product brand with an aim of providing natural products from Tier 2 and tier 3 cities and rural areas at mass production. Let’s have a look at the startup journey of the firm in detail.

    Shishu – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Shishu
    Headquarters Bangalore, India
    Industry Baby Care Products
    Founders Akshat Agarwal and Abhishek Agarwal
    Founded 2022
    Website shishu.co

    Shishu – About
    Shishu – Industry
    Shishu – Founders and Team
    Shishu – Startup Story
    Shishu – Mission and Vision
    Shishu – Name, Tagline, and Logo
    Shishu – Business and Revenue Model
    Shishu – Products and Services
    Shishu – User Acquisition
    Shishu – Challenges Faced
    Shishu – Awards and Recognition
    Shishu – Competitors
    Shishu – Future Plans

    Shishu – About

    The majority of personal care and baby care product-selling companies use harmful chemicals in them. These chemicals prove to be toxic to the skin and have long-term side effects.

    To avoid all this, “Shishu” was born in 2022. It is India’s first-of-its-kind brand focusing on tier 2 and tier 3 cities, and rural areas.

    Shishu – Baby Care Industry

    As per the data shared by Databrodgemarketresearch, currently, Indian Babycare Market is About $ 11.5 Billion Dollars and would rocket up to USD 39.54 billion by 2029 it is growing at a CAGR of 17.40%.

    As per the data shared by Macrotrends, about 70% of the Population of India Belongs to Tier 2, 3, and Rural Areas and the Birth Rate of this Population is 17.163 births per 1000 people. Hence the target market of Shishu is estimated to be around 7 Billion Dollars.

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    Shishu – Founders and Team

    Shishu was founded by brothers Akshat Agarwal and Abhishek Agarwal
    Shishu Founder- Akshat Agarwal(left) and Abhishek Agarwal

    Akshat Agarwal

    Akshat has completed his education at St. Xaviers University, Kolkata. For 1 year, he was completely involved in his father’s pharmaceutical distribution business and then started Shishu with his younger brother. At present Akshat serves as the CEO of Shishu.

    Abhishek Agarwal

    Abhishek is two years younger than Akshat. With a plan of ditching the traditional education system and doing something adventurous, he serves as the COO of the Shishu while simultaneously completing his education at Jain University, Bangalore online mode.

    Shishu – Startup Story

    The prime inspiration behind starting Shishu came from the founder’s father. He started his business at the age of 14. He used to work very hard and traveled on top of the bus for business work just because he was unable to afford the ticket. His hard work paid off well and now he is the largest distributor of pharmaceuticals in their hometown Sitamarhi, Bihar.

    Since Childhood Mr. Akshat Agarwal was involved in his family business while pursuing his education simultaneously. During his 3rd year of graduation from St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata he was in his hometown and attending his classes online due to covid.

    During this time I was kind of Completely involved in my family business, used to go to our Business Premises with my father in the morning and come back with him at the night. And in this time a get a lot of knowledge about offline Distribution, Supply Chain, Rural Markets, and how Brands get built through Offline Distribution Channels. This all led me to decide to do something for Tier 2, 3, and Rural Markets – As explained by Mr. Akshat.

    For the next three months, he kept researching different categories with their current market trend, brands available in the market, everyday problems faced by the consumer, cost to produce and sell, and competition.

    From multiple considerations, he stopped his search in the baby care category. The prime issue pointed out by him in this category was that in recent times people prefer natural products over chemical ones.

    However, when we talk about baby care products, some chemical-based products were still dominating the market because of the high cost of baby care natural quality products. With this realization they decided to make natural and organic baby care products at the same price at the mass consumers are comfortable buying.

    As a next step, they did a lot of R&D to find a formula that fulfills all the conditions. After the finalization of the formula with formulationist, they tried doing all the tests and approvals like dermatologist, stability, toxin-free, pH balances, tear-free, etc. to make a trial bath of 30 pieces of each product.

    We hosted a Kitty Party with my Mother’s friends at home and as a Gift, we gave them our Products with Very Good Packaging. We don’t let them know that these products are of our Brand. After one Week My Mom called every friend of hers casually and everyone said that the Products were amazing and felt so Natural, Even they were asked where did you buy them, explained by Mr. Akshat.

    This led to the start of a completely natural baby care brand named Shishu.

    Shishu – Mission and Vision

    Shishu works with an aim of making a natural, organic babycare conglomerate for the mass market that belongs to Tier 2,3 cities and rural areas, where they are going to create different sub-brands for every babycare sub-categories.

    They work with a simple goal “to eliminate the choice many parents have to make – deciding between what’s best for their little ones and best for their budget.”

    They believe in premium for all because every baby deserves the best.

    We wanted babies to enjoy their skincare time with fun and excitement and at the same time, with 100% Natural, Soft, and Clean ingredients.

    They wanted to have a brand name that easily shares the idea of what they are doing. But were unable to come up with anything similar to it. Then the idea of keeping the name “Shishu” came from a freelancer Mr. Akshat was working with.

    The tagline for Shishu is “Caring like no there”.

    The idea behind getting this tagline came from his mom when he was in a hard conversation with her and she said “jitna hum tumhara khyal rakte ha na, utna koi nahi rakh sakta”.

    Shishu – Business and Revenue Model

    Shishu - Website
    Shishu – Website

    Shishu founders were in a way to build a mass brand at an affordable price range. With a D2C business model and an offline distribution model, it was quite tricky to ignore the increased use of the internet and e-commerce. Hence, they built a unique and scalable business model called the D2D model (Direct-to-Distributor).

    Earlier when online platforms were not that much available, the distributors of FMCG companies had the exclusive distribution rights of a particular brand in there their desired area.

    With those rights, no other company or distributor will sell the product in that area and the company can also not sell the product to other distributors from that area. Because of this, their profit margin used to be very small around 2-3% even at the cost of purchasing goods at an advance payment from FMCG companies.

    But in the present time, the situation has changed because of the introduction of the online marketplace. Now customers, retailer, and wholesalers purchases online rather than from local authorized distributors.

    To overcome this, Shishu will appoint a local distributor for both their online and offline sales in each particular area. In this way, they can also provide a quick commerce service to their customers, reduce RTO, Reduce ETD, and reduce the cost of shipping while also providing an additional source of income for the distributors.

    Shishu – Products and Services

    Shishu - Products
    Shishu – Products

    Shishu products have amazing reviews and responses from their customers. Apart from that, the products provided by them are completely natural and are not expensive. Some of their USPs and innovations are:

    • Shishu Natural Talc Free Baby Powder is India’s 1st Softest Talc Free Powder. The most common negative review about Talcum baby powder on the web is that it feels like sand or carrom powder. Whereas Shishu has a baby powder that is as soft as one can expect it to be.
    • Shishu Natural Baby Soap is a PH 5.5 Soap just at 75 rupees for 75g. The shape of the soap is a patented design with a market selling similar soaps at the price of 150 rs for 75 grams.
    • Their products are designed in a way that whenever any baby or kid sees them, it gives them a natural feeling of a kid’s belonging.

    Shishu – User Acquisition

    Shishu started expanding its business network by spreading brand awareness. The first 100 customers were very organic to them. They started marketing their products on the channels which were already available to them because of their family business. Apart from that, the co-founder Mr. Akshat also used his mom’s friend network to create and share brand awareness.

    Shishu – Challenges Faced

    One of the major challenges or in other words a great opportunity faced by Shishu was the unwillingness to change the babycare product brand frequently. Basically, parents do not prefer to switch brands easily for the babycare products.

    Shishu’s team found it as an opportunity with a belief that if they provide them with all the essential things, parents might not change from their brand any sooner.

    With an extreme passion for delivering exceptional experiences to parents and engaging with them to resolve their issues while accepting feedback. They try to continually engage with parents through an offline and online medium in the customer’s own native language in order to make them aware of the brand, its natural ingredients, and its benefits.

    Shishu – Awards and Recognition

    Shishu Brand has Got Recognized by the Indian Government under DPIIIT Startup India Initiative.

    Shishu – Competitors

    In India, Shishu is competing with global giants like Johnsons, Himalaya, etc, and on the

    global front, they take inspiration from brands like Sebamed, Cetaphil, Mustela, etc.

    Shishu – Future Plans

    • Shishu is Soon going to launch Face Cream, Hair Oil, etc . to complete their Baby Personal Care Range and then Foraying into Baby Hyenine Category with Cotton Based Diapers and Wipes and Baby Accessories Category with Feeding Bottles, Nipples, and Other essential Accessories with Different Sub-Brands.
    • In Next Three Years they are Targeting to Reach 1000+ Distributors Across India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. Penetrating to Deep Rural Offline Market from Tier 2, 3 Cities & Rural Areas and Reaching 300000+ Retail Outlets.

    FAQs

    Who is the founder of Shishu?

    Shishu was founded by Mr. Akshat Agarwal and Mr. Abhishek Agarwal in 2022.  

    What is the market size of Indian baby care products?

    The Indian baby care product market is estimated to reach around $ 39.54 billion by 2029 with a CAGR of 17.40% during the forecast period of 2022-2029.

    Who are the competitors of Shishu?

    In the Indian market, Shishu is highly competed by brands like Johnsons and Himalaya.

  • Akanksha Sharma, CEO and Co-founder, CITTA, Brings Indian Childcare Wisdom and Science Together for Modern Parents

    StartupTalky presents Recap’22. This is a series of interviews in which we conduct in-depth discussions with founders & industry leaders to understand their growth in 2022 and their predictions for the future.

    Baby care products are items that are used to care for and support the needs of infants. These products can include items such as diapers, wipes, formula, baby food, baby bottles, baby clothing, baby bedding, and baby hygiene products.

    These cosmetics are formulated to be gentle and safe for a child’s delicate skin and hair and are free of harsh chemicals and irritants. They are also designed to be tear-free, which is important for young children who may have a tendency to rub their eyes.

    According to a report by Research and Markets, the global baby care products market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.8% from 2020 to 2025. The market is driven by factors such as increasing birth rates, rising disposable income, and growing awareness about child health and nutrition, and it is expected to grow due to increasing awareness about the benefits of using baby-specific personal care products.

    For this Interview, we invited Akanksha Sharma, CEO and Co-founder of CITTA World, and we talked about the growth, challenges, insights, and future opportunities in the Baby Care & Skincare industry.

    StartupTalky: Akanksha, what products does your company sell? What was the motivation/vision with which you started?

    Akanksha: Our product range includes premium natural skincare and bath essentials for babies– Moisturizing Baby Balm For Face and Body, Nourishing Baby Massage Oil, Tender Foaming Baby Wash, Gentle Foaming Baby Shampoo, and Soothing Talc-Free Baby Powder. We have also launched our natural face mists – Pure Rose Water Mist and Hydrating Mist with Rose and Aloe Vera – for adults.

    CITTA World was started with the vision of blending Indian childcare wisdom with rigorous science and making it conveniently accessible to modern new parents. We as a founder are a testament to the special connection between a mother and a child.

    At CITTA, we believe that every child deserves to feel the endless love of a
    grandmother. While Akanksha had the wholesome, grounding experience of being cared for by her grandmothers, not every child today has that privilege. CITTA’s goal is to provide babies with that nourishing experience so that maybe one day, they remember the fragrance of CITTA just as fondly as she reminisces the aroma of her grandma’s hands.

    StartupTalky: What other products/features have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your products?

    Akanksha: Our products are made with the finest natural ingredients in innovative formulations to provide maximum efficacy to the customers. Whether it is the most effective texture or the most convenient technology, we have created all our products after rigorous research to serve our customers in the best way possible. Our products are also cruelty-free and free of harsh chemicals like parabens, sulfates, silicones, mineral oil, toxins, and allergens.

    Following are the USPs of our products:

    Moisturizing Baby Balm:

    • Blend of 7 natural oils, Shea Butter and Vitamin-E
    • Unique thick texture for long-lasting moisturization
    • All-in-one balm for use on the face, body, and nappy area of the baby
    • Prevents rashes and itchiness through anti-microbial ingredients

    Nourishing Baby Massage Oil:

    • A unique blend of 12 natural oils
    • Provides deep nourishment
    • Non-sticky texture
    • Anti-microbial & Anti-inflammatory
    • Promotes growth and bone strength

    Soothing Talc-Free Baby Powder:

    • Made with the safest natural alternatives of talc – Corn Starch, Oat Kernel Flour, Kaolin Clay
    • Naturally absorbs excess moisture and oil
    • Soothes your baby’s skin
    • Prevents rashes and itchiness

    Gentle Foaming Baby Shampoo:

    • Gently cleanses, hydrates, and moisturizes your baby’s scalp and hair
    • Enriched with 3 natural oils
    • Non-drying, no-tears formula
    • India’s 1st Natural Foaming Baby Shampoo

    Tender Foaming Baby Wash:

    • Gently cleanses, hydrates, and nourishes your baby’s skin
    • Infused with Aloe Vera, Coconut Powder Extract, and Hydrolysed Rice Protein
    • Prevents dryness and irritation
    • India’s 1st Natural Foaming Baby Wash

    StartupTalky: How has the baby care and skincare industry changed in recent years, and how has your company adapted to these changes?

    Akanksha: In recent years, customer awareness of the ingredients in personal care and skin care products has increased tremendously. Especially ingredients such as talc in baby powder, which have severe detrimental effects on babies’ health. Fortunately, our company has been able to leverage this to our advantage – since CITTA has focused on creating the safest products from the start. With this rise in awareness, people are discovering our brand organically and then choosing us consciously.

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    StartupTalky: Repeat purchase is one of the most important parameters on which most e-Commerce brands are betting. How do you keep your customer engaged to stop churn?

    Akanksha: CITTA’s products are currently available on 6 online marketplaces – Amazon, Flipkart, 1mg, The Mom Store, Kindlife, and Purplle. With these marketplaces, we have sold our products throughout India, including 2nd and 3rd Tier cities as well. 25% of customers who order our products from online marketplaces are return customers.

    The efficacy of our products and their unique ingredients are our biggest strengths. Recently, when an internationally reputed brand’s baby powder was deemed unsafe by multiple authorities, people started looking for safer alternatives and discovered our product which is made with the safest natural alternatives of talc and has a soothing effect on the baby’s skin– CITTA Soothing Talc-Free Baby Powder. Our baby powder has been selling rapidly to date. So much so, that it has even run out of stock twice. We have been able to retain 30% of the customers who order our products from our website.

    We are a customer-centric brand and the biggest performance metric for us is the number of repeat customers we have. We have already achieved considerable success in this regard, and we are sure that in the coming years, as more and more people start trusting us, this number will only continue to grow.

    StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack which you pulled off.

    Akanksha: CITTA has been employing omnichannel marketing from the start, unlike many other brands that begin with an online-only user experience and expand to offline channels later. We wanted our users to have the choice of interacting with the brand in the way most convenient to them, and our online and offline teams have worked together to achieve that.

    With our offline marketing strategies, our products have reached multiple pharmacies in Pune city. To attract the right customers and make them aware of the brand, we focused on placing our offline advertisements where they could see them – the pharmacies!

    The advertisements were designed to highlight our brand differentiators – unique, safe natural ingredients and product formulations rooted in traditional Indian wisdom and backed with rigorous science. With these campaigns, the customers could directly compare our products with our competitors in the market. This not only boosted our offline sales but also generated curiosity about the brand, leading to traffic to our website.

    Newspaper advertisements helped us to build this customer relationship more and reach a wider audience.  An essential part of our offline strategy was to build trust with doctors – pediatricians and dermatologists. They have started recommending our products to their patients. This number is steadily increasing and is helping us reach more and more physical stores in turn. It has been reassuring to see our products help babies with their skincare issues.

    Our online marketing strategy has been multi-pronged as well. Here too our focus has been on establishing ourselves as a credible and trustworthy premium natural baby bath and skincare brand in India. We achieved this firstly by creating a brand language and identity that visually separates us from the competitors and has a great recall value. This brand identity is maintained throughout all our online channels – website, social media, and marketplaces – and has helped us cement the trust of our customers.

    With our website, we have created a smooth, hassle-free buying experience. Our focus has been on ease of communication. Any customer service issues are dealt with promptly and effectively. We provide our repeat buyers exclusive offers to retain them. The website is also aimed at helping parents with their concerns regarding baby skincare, we have a dedicated space on the website that caters to this. Our social media marketing strategies are also focused on bringing value-addition to our customers – in line with our brand ethos of being a wise grandma-like companion to new-age parents. We achieve this through a mix of
    engaging, community-building, promotional, and informational content. To us, bringing value to the table matters more than jumping on the flashy, short-lived trends.

    Our online marketplace campaigns have been designed similarly, and as a cumulative result of our omnichannel strategy, have been getting traction from customers all across India. We have also tapped into WhatsApp marketing. We run WhatsApp broadcasts weekly to our existing customers with skincare tips and exclusive one-day deals.

    StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in the baby care and skincare industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen within states in India?

    Akanksha: Expansion to other states- Modern Trade and General Trade

    With an omnichannel marketing strategy, CITTA has been able to get sales from Tier I, II, and III cities and reach 300 general trade stores in Maharashtra. Now we plan to expand to other states in India in both Modern Trade and General Trade sectors and establish ourselves as India’s best Baby Bath and Skincare brand.

    Reaching doctors across India

    Educating doctors about our products and the research undertaken to create them has been crucial to building people’s trust in our brand and creating demand for our products in offline stores. We want to expand our network to reach leading doctors (pediatricians and dermatologists) across India and become the brand every parent trusts for their baby’s skin.

    Entering the international market as a pioneer of Indian skincare and baby care knowledge and techniques

    We strongly believe that we are sitting on a goldmine of diverse natural ingredients and immense tradition-based expertise in India. Especially so when it comes to skincare and baby care practices. What the rest of the world is only starting to appreciate and emulate, we have been practicing in India for ages – “maalish” or baby massage is a classic example. We want to champion our Indian roots, back them with rigorous science, and bring India’s knowledge to the rest of the world with our range of our products. We want to create our own identity and presence in the international market as a pioneer Indian brand in the baby care and skincare segment.

    Exploring products for women

    CITTA products have resonated with our customers because of their high efficacy. We have received positive feedback from numerous mothers. We want to build on this trust and explore products for women in the coming years. With our commitment to quality and efficacy, we are confident that we will be able to do this well.

    Opening up experiential stores

    In the coming years, we aim to open experiential CITTA stores at multiple locations in India. These stores will be designed such that our potential customers can see, touch, smell, and feel the textures of our products. They will be educated about every ingredient that goes into our unique product formulations in an engaging, fun way so that they can remember it. We believe these experiential stores will help us to establish ourselves as customer-centric premium skincare and baby care brand.

    StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, SKUS, and team base in the future?

    Akanksha: We plan to expand our customer base by reaching more states through physical stores as well as online marketplaces. We are also finding new ways of engaging meaningfully with our customer community – CITTA Care Club is a step towards that. Through this non-profit initiative of ours which is focused on parents’ well-being, we get to interact with parents – our potential customers – and understand their concerns in real time.

    We thank Akanksha for spending her valuable time and sharing her learnings with all of us.

    You can read other Recap’22 Interviews here.