Nutrabay-a multi-brand nutrition store founded in 2017 with a goal of delivering 100 per cent genuine nutrition-rich products, which came as a boon for those struggling to get original products in a market flooded by duplicate health supplements.
Sharing the journey of his business model, Shreyans Jain, Co-founder, Nutrabay said we launched Nutrabay to fill a void in the market for high-quality products and to educate consumers about diet and fitness.
Speaking to Opportunity India, he shares further details about his business which are as follows:
What challenges did you face in running this business?
Shreyans Jain: The biggest challenge for us when we started was actually scaling up backend processes like fulfillment, warehousing and inventory management as our order volumes grew really fast, it was really difficult to implement a new Warehouse Management system and ERP dealing with thousands of orders a day and without causing any downtime in fulfillment. It took us over six months of trial and error but we were able to do so successfully.
Starting a D2C multi brand store is significantly more difficult than a single brand D2C store. It comes with a lot of nuances as it requires much more complex business processes due to the high number of products and brands and much more complexity in building technology systems to handle the functionalities and scale. Financing a constant increase in inventory holding while being bootstrapped is also a challenge.
How does this business model work?
Shreyans Jain: The company’s business model is D2C and online retail, and its product offerings aim to educate consumers about the importance of fitness and nutrition. Nutrabay products can be found on all major e-commerce websites as well as the brand’s official website.
How is your product different from other natural products?
Shreyans Jain: Due to a large market of unauthorized retailers selling spurious products, there is a presence of counterfeit & low quality products in the Indian market. In light of this, we established Nutrabay to offer authentic, high-quality sports nutrition and functional food products through direct brand agreements and fulfillment.
What is the lesson learnt so far in this journey?
Shreyans Jain: There are many lessons learnt so far but one we would want to highlight is one does not necessarily need constant rounds of funding in order to keep growing among rising competition, if your business can develop the highest level product market fit, innovation and customer satisfaction along with some unique cost effective growth hacks, then it is possible keep growing while being bootstrapped and profitable.
Would you divulge on the last year’s revenue and aim in the near future?
Shreyans Jain: Nutrabay started as a bootstrapped business in Jan 2017, since then we have been a profitable D2C startup. Considering the growth and revenue for 2021-22: 98.32 cr, we are close towards INR 100 cr Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) without any funding.
Please elaborate on your future plans.
Shreyans Jain: We are planning to launch multiple new brands and build a house of brands with Going Omni-Channel with an offline strategy. Recently, we have launched Nutrabay Magazine, with the objective to deliver daily content related to trending topics on health and nutrition. It has already gained 3.5 lakh monthly active users on the 1st month of launch and we are projecting it to reach more than one million Monthly Active User (MAUs) by the end of financial year.
Our current focus has largely been on digital as we continue to expand there, but this year we have begun selling our products offline through a direct to retail model. We intend to begin opening our own brand stores and sampling kiosks in 2024, with the goal of becoming an omnichannel brand.
Advice for young entrepreneurs
Shreyans Jain: I would say everyone has unlimited potential, it’s one’s thoughts that limit them and not their potential or capability. Unlocking this blocking mindset along with constant learning and innovation can direct one towards greater success.
