`We Hub Launchpad': Where women entrepreneurs exchange their startup ideas

Vakula Sharma, the founder of `PulpBrew', a startup selling ready-to-blend smoothies, was one of the participants. She shared her mantra of using fruit pulp instead of flavored powders for smoothies. But she had a few questions: "How will I market it? How will I differentiate it from a Maaza or any other top juice brand? How will I convince a regular Maaza buyer to try it?"

Kishore Indukuri replied: "It's all a trial and error method. Listen to your customers and keep modifying."

Like Vakula, women entrepreneurs selling different products from smoothies to organic mosquito repellants to millet, jowar sweets were eagerly sharing about their startups and asking for branding and marketing tips from Kishore and his team.

We Hub Launchpad is a programme where experts from different startups and businesses come and share their success stories.

"It's a very useful initiative because I can't walk up to the Sid's Farm office directly and meet the CEO. We Hub brings such people to us. It gives an easier space for networking unlike BNI and other groups where we have to pay a huge sum. Also, in such meetings, we meet women with similar goals and we can exchange our ideas.," Vakula said. "Not just that, there are times when we feel low. Such sessions are inspiring and remind us not to quit," she added.

Kishore said such initiatives are very important to empower women entrepreneurs. In between, he shared his story of Sid's Farm.

Kishore, an alumna of IIT Kharagpur and the University of Massachusetts quit his job at Intel in the United States and came back to India to pursue his passion, agriculture. His interactions with some of the farmers and his observations made him realize that there was a shortage of unadulterated milk.

He started in 2012 by buying 20 cows and setting up a dairy farm in Hyderabad. With an idea of providing pure, healthy milk, free from antibiotics, hormones, preservatives, and other harmful adulterants, he began Sid's Farm in 2014.

"We started learning about customer issues in depth. We fundamentally understood milk. And in the last eight years, we have never added water to milk," he proudly said.

One of the unique things about Sid's Farm is its extensive testing of milk. "Usually milk is supposed to be consumed immediately. But we consume it after some time. Chilling milk is the first step to preserving it. These days, a lot of adulterants and preservatives like Hydrogen Peroxide, Baking Soda, and even antibiotics are added to milk. Drinking milk with antibiotics will make a person immune to the effects of antibiotics causing problems in the long term," Kishore said.

Sid's Farm does multiple tests to check for the presence of each of these adulterants and preservatives. "It's the most tested milk," he added.

On his association with We Hub, Kishore said they intend to share the learning which might help some other entrepreneurs too. "Moreover, a majority of our customers are women that is, in most of the homes, decisions about buying milk are made by women. We are here because of them. So it's our way of giving back to them," he said.

Kishore said plans to tie up with some of these entrepreneurs, especially in the dairy industry are in the pipeline. To all those entrepreneurs who were keenly listening to his team's session, Kishore urged them to go ahead with their passion.