True Frog is an Indian personal care brand from Earthy Blend, founded by a team of professionals from diverse backgrounds. The idea behind the brand is to create products that are vegan and environment-friendly. Being on the edge of innovation, True Frog endeavors to be the first to come up with advanced products that cater to the ever-changing demands of the personal care industry. The brand co-creates products using traditional and unique ingredient solutions bringing the potential of people, nature, and technology together to make life better. True Frog products reflect the health, beauty, and diversity of those who use them.
True Frog was incepted in early 2020 by Sarika Mangesh, Subrata Nag, and Mangesh Gawande. Sarika is a veteran in the field of cosmetology and has relevant experience in product formulation and design. The other two founders – Subrata Nag and Mangesh Gawande, have more than 20 years of experience in building organizations, turning around companies, and managing large setups very professionally.
The founders always wanted to pursue their entrepreneurial dream. After shaping and scaling businesses successfully, they decided to charter their path with a bootstrap venture that is true to the fundamental belief that beauty can have integrity.
In an exclusive interview with Startup Terminal; True Frog’s Co-founder, Chairman & MD, Subrata Nag shares more insights about the startup and future roadmap.
Excerpts:
ST: What was the idea behind starting your venture True Frog?
Subrata Nag: All three founders have had very long stints with organisations of stature in their professional roles. Sarika is a veteran in the field of cosmetology and has relevant experience in product formulation and design and deeply understands consumer requirements. I and Mangesh have worked in senior leadership positions, build businesses, worked with start-ups, turned around companies, and have created institutions. After shaping and scaling businesses successfully, we joined forces to pursue our entrepreneurial journey with a personal care brand that is true to the fundamental belief that beauty can have integrity.
ST: Can you briefly tell us more about your venture?
Subrata Nag: We realized that with increasing consumers’ awareness there is a need to offer skin and hair care products that are good, harmless, and are environmentally friendly. Together we worked on developing these products and banked on the booming e-commerce to take them to the end customers.
True Frog products reflect the health, beauty, and diversity of those who use them. We believe that we represent the new age skin and hair care brand which is completely true to itself, to its customers, and also understand the sustainability is the only way forward. We are steadfast to constantly thrive towards developing products that are effective and harmless.
ST: Have you received any funding so far? What are your plans to attract investors in the near future?
Subrata Nag: We are currently bootstrapped and have used our funds to launch our first set of five products in the haircare range. We’re in the process of introducing more products in the skincare range and will look at adding 3 – 4 products every quarter.
We will look at investment in the near term to fund our expansion and growth.
ST: How has been your entrepreneurship journey so far?
Subrata Nag: We have just started. All three of us always wanted to begin our entrepreneurial journey and finally pursued our dream by launching True Frog in early 2020. However, Covid-19 was a momentary scare but we continued with what we started. Starting and restarting again is a part of any entrepreneurial journey. You have to keep making progress in the right direction; it will not always come at the desired speed.
ST: What business opportunities do you see particularly in the personal care industry?
Subrata Nag: We believe clean beauty will have a lot more to offer in the long run. We see an opportunity for an Indian Origin brand to go global and deliver world-class products to consumers. Being on the edge of innovation, we endeavor to be the first to come up with advanced products that cater to the ever-changing demands of the personal care industry. There is a huge demand for sustainable products and we are determined to offer products for every concern which our customers have.
ST: How do you see the brand in the next 2 years from now?
Subrata Nag: We plan to diversify our product portfolio and are looking at introducing 20- 25 products for the next two years. We are also working on reducing the usage of plastic where ever we can and are looking for more sustainable packaging solutions and have products that are environmentally friendly and biodegradable. We will continue to focus on the e-commerce model till we gain a substantial volume. We are also eyeing geographical expansion and gain access to new markets even outside India.
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