Built from the backyard

Anyone who has had to do the run would tell you that it isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Built from the backyard
Built from the backyard

For all those in the line of entrepreneurship, the maxim of mandate might as well be “To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running.” Anyone who has had to do the run would tell you that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. But, having crossed over to the other side successfully, Premila Murugavel has enough reason to believe that there’s no other way to do it. For it allowed her to kick-start a wellness brand from the backyard of her father’s import-export business and nurture it to the point of an established label — all in a few years. And it’s not been without a slew of lessons in the process. Excerpts from the interview.

I started this online in 2015 with skincare products, right after completing my BTech. Slowly, we’ve grown to establish physical outlets too. Later, we added clothes and silver jewellery. My father is in the export-import business. Now, we are exporting Athibaa products. We started small but we’ve grown to a significant level.

It must not have been easy to set off on the entrepreneurship journey at such a young age. What were the challenges you faced?

Only my father and mother were supportive. All my relatives suggested that I do a job related to my degree or get married. My parents were derided for this “theva illatha vela dhan ithu”. And we struggled a lot in the first six months. The product was new and they didn’t trust me, given that I was only 22 years old. But we kept at it continuously and it took a year for the brand to find recognition in the market. The struggle has been a great lesson.

How did you overcome the mistrust people generally tend to have towards new, small businesses?

We offered our products for sampling across the board. We tried to introduce unique products like our Thanka Powder. In the interest of purity, there are no chemicals or fragrances added. This made people suspect if it was a genuine product. Only when they tried the samples that people started trusting it. Now, with our products available on Amazon and in many stalls across the city, our reach is far deeper.

You mentioned women’s empowerment as a driving force behind your business. How do you implement that in everyday affairs?

The idea to start this business itself was to show that we can do this. Now, my office staff is entirely made of women. It started with us recruiting college students looking for a part-time job; the money was helping them with their exam fees and such. We still have college students on our team.

How has Athibaa managed to survive the pandemic?

We came to the point of shutting shop; we couldn’t import or export anything. But we continued to promote our brand online and keep up our work. Even when the students were unable to make it to work, we didn’t fire them. We have slowly managed to recover; we’re still in the process.

What’s vital for business in the present climate?

The struggles have not only been financial but in terms of competition too. There is a new brand coming up every day. There is the need to be unique among all that.

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