How this start-up is brewing profit with healthy drinks?

The Good Life Company(TGL) is the fastest growing hot beverages start-up in India. In an exclusive conversation Shariq Ashraf  & Bhuman Dani, Co-Founder, The Good Life Company share their journey and what inspire them to launch a venture catered to healthy drinks. 

Kindly shed light on your entrepreneurial journey. What inspires you to launch Mogo Mogo Tea? 
The inception of TGL Co. traces back to when TGL Co. co-founder Bhuman Dani, an MBA from INSEAD, walked into the East India Company store in London one day, little did he know that it would change his life. With no background in the world of speciality teas, this experience opened his mind to brews, blends and blades. But this appetiser only fuelled his thirst for more knowledge in this space. So he began his apprenticeship with Jane Pettigrew, one of the most renowned master blenders of tea in the world and learnt about teas, origins and influence of botanicals in creating the perfect blend.
At the same time, in another corner of the world, Shariq Ashraf, an MBA from Oxford University and a self-professed tea aficionado was inspired by another tea company. While travelling through Argentina, he came across “Tealosophy”. Its founder, Inés Berton, inspired Shariq with her enviable tea knowledge and he began to work towards bringing this spectacular range of speciality teas to India. They were creating the perfect business model, when these ‘brew-bros’ met at a Mumbai alumni event of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a leading global management consulting firm, where both had previously worked. This was stepping stone towards building TGL. 

According to you, what would be the estimated market size of CPG. What are the factors propelling growth in this segment? 
India maintains a market size for organic packaged food and beverages of US$54.6mn in 2017, which is 0.1% of global category sales. The organic markets in India are largely spread across the food and beverages, health and wellness, beauty and personal care and textile industries. The highest growth is observed in the organic food segment, followed by textile, beauty and personal care. The current Indian domestic market is estimated at INR40,000 million which is likely to increase by INR100,000 million — INR120,000 million by 2020 with a similar increase in exports. Adherence to safety measures and quality food supply accompanied by strong global competition is likely to keep the industry’s plate full and stir it towards future expansion. 
We learned that the “Aspirational” segment (income levels 5L to 10L per annum) would grow the fastest over the next 5 years and would in fact 25 million households would be added to this segment. These “Aspirational” Indians represent a new category of individuals that are more value-conscious than price-conscious, which is why we decided to create a premium aspirational brand with high quality products sourced from the finest botanicals in the world. 
Another interesting piece of data was consumption patterns which suggested that owing to the demographic profile and lifestyle shift to “health and wellness”, people valued healthy products with focus on fresh, natural and clean ingredients without any artificial elements. We thus decided to launch products with 100% natural, toxic-free ingredients and no artificial elements. 

Are you bootstrapped or have raised any sorts of funds so far?

The Good Life Company, since inception has raised investments of INR 16.5Cr ( Primary+Secondary) from angel strategic investors.

Kindly shed light on your marketing strategies?

We at TGL Co are making sure that we are tapping the entire medium platform to showcase our products and services. Currently we are working on Digital and on ground marketing. In terms of digital platform, we are running an ad campaign on a daily basis to reach our customers. At the same time we are doing a lot of pop up activities across all the sectors like, Corporates, Cafes, Retail stores, co-working spaces and by doing marquee events like NH7 Weekender, IIFA Awards, Vogue Wedding Show etc.