Shankar Prasad, CEO and founder of Pureplay Skin Sciences with vegan D2C beauty brand Plum and men’s grooming brand PHY, says Plum will touch Rs 300 crore revenue run rate soon while PHY will clock Rs 100 crore.
Please take us through the journey of Plum and its underlying philosophy. What prompted you, an IIT-ISB alumnus, to move away from a long corporate career to turn entrepreneur?
Plum’s philosophy is simple, and that’s baked into our logo as well - ‘be good’. It’s as simple as it sounds, and we believe in living that philosophy every day through our thoughts, products, brands and actions. We started as a one-person company operating out of an apartment in 2014, and have since then grown consistently whilst trying to live our purpose of spreading real goodness. I didn’t have entrepreneurship on my mind for too long before I took the plunge. It was quite a sudden decision and it did help that I have been in the FMCG space for close to 25 years now, and I love having the opportunity to create things that people love using. That’s what has kept me going through the years.
What is the USP of Plum’s vegan and cruelty-free beauty and personal care products in a market crowded with others offering similar products? What are the challenges before you?
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While the market does look crowded, once you begin to look beyond the claims and ask three questions: does the product really work, does the brand walk the talk in doing what they claim, and do consumers fall in love with the brand and come back to the product, the crowd will thin suddenly. That’s where Plum comes in - living a promise of connecting consumers with real goodness. As we are focused on delivering delight at every touchpoint, the challenges are not external but with making ourselves better every day to address emerging opportunities in this very exciting market.
You just signed on millennial youth icon Mithila Palkar as brand ambassador. Tell us how she fits into the marketing strategy and what you have planned, going forward.
Mithila fits perfectly with Plum - both are fun, approachable, likeable and focus on doing things right. She also connects very well with the millennials, especially the ones who consume online content. We have lots of interesting things lined up - those are best left to speak for themselves, hopefully soon!
What are your priorities for Plum and the men’s grooming product company PHY in the long term? What are your focus areas and targets right now?
Guys are not cared for enough in our country. Very few brands have made genuine attempts to understand what makes guys tick, what their joys and pressures are and how to make life better for them. It’s almost like some ‘default’ mode is in operation. With PHY, we are looking to talk to guys that they should care - we care about guys who care. We are focused on making sure PHY is meeting the everyday needs of every guy, and doing it in a way that is fun and memorable. We expect PHY to be a Rs 100 crore brand within the next two years.
What can you recount as some of your most memorable on-ground experiences that went on to become learnings in your entrepreneurial journey?
Perhaps the most interesting is how I accidentally discovered online selling through plumgoodness.com way back in 2014, and ended up becoming India’s first online-only beauty brand (the term D2C was not coined then). I started with a Rs 100 per day Facebook budget for a content platform I was running prior to a full-fledged brand launch, and that really helped understand the intricacies of e-commerce and performance marketing. My biggest learning is that one shouldn’t anchor oneself too much into anything - be it product, location, technology or just about anything else. One should be mentally agile and learn to evolve rapidly as the market changes. The pace of market change today is several times what it was even five years ago, and any degree of excessive anchoring to some viewpoints is dangerous.
How has Brand Plum fared in terms of revenue and growth in the last one year? How far have you been able to leverage the ‘vocal for local’ sentiment?
We have grown approximately 2.5x over the last year and hope to be touching a Rs 300 crore revenue run rate very soon. The beauty market is mainly driven by product efficacy, modernity and affordability and is not too affected by the ‘vocal for local’ sentiment, but one can’t deny that it is an important underlying factor in the consumer’s choice of brand. We have to remember that, ultimately, it is a performance-driven market.
Finally, tell us about Shankar Prasad, the person, beyond the realm of work. What takes up your time outside the worksphere?
Outside of work, I mostly spend time with my family, largely at home. I love watching science and history features on television and find some time to do it every day.
What is one motto that defines your work as well as personal life?
Be good.
