When I had embarked on the journey of an entrepreneur, I gave myself 12 months to have the best of the team in place and move on to finding newer gaps in solving issues. But it took me a year to hire my first employee.

Entrepreneurship does bring in the glory and media attention for the successful, but do we ever think before embarking on this journey about the hardships that were needed in carving out their names. While there is no perfect guide to entrepreneurship; one way to achieve your goal is to learn from your mistakes.

Here are a few mistakes that I made in the initial days of Bleu and how we rectified them.

Selling condoms without mentioning ‘sex’

There was an internal rush to launch Bleu Condoms, as I had been pushing the deadlines for the past three months. On November 23, 2019, I did a small muhuratam puja in celebrity style to press the button and unveil the website. I stared at the backend of the website the entire day, expecting orders to pour in. Disappointed, I placed an order in the name of Komal Baldwa and registered myself as the first customer of Bleu.

The reason was our initial marketing communication work. Our advertisements, creative and marketing copies got repeatedly rejected on Facebook and Google platforms to the extent that our account also was suspended. Words like “sex”, “vagina”, “breast”, etc, mostly get flagged and are not approved. So we had to think of ways to talk about sexual awarness and condoms without actually using the word “sex” in our copies.

Design matters more than you think

Almost all startups start bootstrapped. When personal money is at stake we tend to choose the most reasonable freelancer who can do the job in renowned agency fashion. And so did we! The designer made condoms in three variants (Ultra thin, Dotted and three features in one) of the same band colour packaging, with a small variation in the text. Only when we reached out to our angry customers who got wrong orders were we able to crack the issue. The warehousing staff wasn’t able to differentiate between the variants solely on the basis of the text.

Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes

The journey teaches one about acknowledging the customer preferences and needs over one’s beliefs. We, on our bold mission to create awareness about sexual health, started delivering orders by screaming aloud the contents on the packaging cover. Not realising the dilemma of consumers who still are uncomfortable with the word “condom” splashed on a package being delivered to their homes. Initially we couldn’t understand these consumer sentiments, but with constant feedback, we decided to adopt an “all discreet” point of contact and delivery with our customers.

Don’t let the brand mission blinker you

I had launched the company with a single mission of awareness and to help my tribe, without realising the other practical aspects of the business to make it successful. The very first packaging of Bleu condoms was created with a single brief of eco-friendliness and hence the packaging had to get rid of the one-time plastic cover. It resembled a pencil box.

But it came with its own challenges. We forgot about the issue of tampering due to our focus on retaining the aesthetics. So, at the last minute, my family and I placed stickers on the pack. Hence some had a “genuine product” hologram, and some didn’t, which made customers sceptical about authenticity if they bought multiple boxes together.

There’s no substitute for first-hand knowledge

In the D2C startup world, the importance first-hand customer interaction can never be over emphasised. The early adopters of Bleu have received a personal call from me to understand and improve their experiences regarding everything from product and order placement to delivery. We made our customers feel comfortable enough to share their feedback. A lot of improvements were made based on the feedback we received.

Sexual wellness is an evolving category in our country and a lot of apprehensions and doubts are prevalent. But it also gives us an opportunity to understand the consumer’s requirements closely and strengthen future product development.

-- The author, Komal Baldwa, is Founder, Bleu Cares.

First Published:Feb 5, 2022 6:58 PM IST