Product of a mother’s love

According to a report on ‘Indian disposable diaper market’ in 2015 by Market Express, there are around 27 million babies born each year in India and there has been a rise in the demand for diapers. Babies till the age of-3 go through 7,000 diapers and each diaper takes 500 to 700 years to disintegrate which is an impeccable amount of time considering the production of more than 100 tons of waste produced each year.

Parents on an average spend Rs. 60,000- 70,000 each year on disposable diapers. On the contrary, with respect to sustainability of our degrading environment, the use of cloth diapers is much safer. As compared to a disposable diaper, it takes 70 years for a cloth diaper to decompose and there is growing need to promote the use of eco- friendly and biodegradable products for babies.

To meet such growing need, Pallavi Utagi with the help of mothers like her founded 'Superbottoms'to produce sustainable cloth diapers that would appeal to the Indian market.

'Superbottoms' are the trimmest cloth diapers with a unique dry feel fabric and super absorbent organic cotton pads that can help it last the entire night. “The fabric used in Superbottoms cloth diapers are of superior quality and designed thoughtfully by mothers. The fabric used in our soakers is GOTS certified Organic Cotton and is CPSIA tested,” shares Pallavi.

Excerpts:

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur in the business of eco-friendly diapers?
The idea of 'Superbottoms' didn’t actually come with the aim to create an entrepreneurship at first. When my baby was born in 2013, my husband and I were struggling with our baby’s potty management with langots, disposable diapers, and baby rash creams which led us to discover cloth diapers. A baby’s potty management is an important aspect of baby hygiene and care. This gave me and Salil an opportunity to create a company named 'Superbottoms'. I would thus say, my baby's first diaper rash has been the motivation. Fascinated by the use and benefits of cloth diapers, both of us started the company in 2015, November and now it is one of the leading start-ups in Mumbai that spread to markets in Kochi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune and North India.

How did you build awareness about the product?
Our biggest awareness tool has been word of mouth. Our customers who love 'Superbottoms' voluntarily and happily spread a word for us in their parenting circles. Mom communities today are very close knit and authentic feedback truly gets any brand good visibility. We also have a cloth diaper helpline set up only for handholding new parents for cloth diapering.

Moreover, we have grown as brand owing to strong usage of digital technology.As a new brand, foraying into retail and convincing retailers about a completely new brand as well as a new concept was impossible. Amazon and online selling helped us build the initial traction on the brand by reaching out to our customers directly via social media and closing sales online itself.

Once our brand presence was built and brand’s reputation at consumer level was established, we were able to approach the retailers who were open to stocking the brand because they had seen the response online. We believe online selling platforms have indeed made it possible for genuine brands and products to stand in the market and offer their products to customers without having to convince the retailers who become the decision makers otherwise.

Today, 'Superbottoms' has a Facebook group of 6500 parents who actively help new parents come aboard cloth diapering, share their love for the brand, and help troubleshoot if some parent needs help with their diapers. This community of parents named ‘Superbottoms' Family’ is our biggest asset and we often reach out to these mothers for everything right from product ideas, feedback, to help in conducting local events.

In fact, today, Team 'Superbottoms' is made up of all-mothers who were a part of this same community and were looking for an opportunity to work from home and balance their personal and professional commitments.

What is your advice to people/moms who want to be entrepreneurs?
Take the first step. And then keep taking them one after the another and learn to delegate as soon as you can, so you can grow faster.