Everything We Learned From Vineeta Singh, Founder & CEO, SUGAR Cosmetics
We recently announced the first round of basecamp- India’s first early stage, consumer brand focussed accelerator, powered by LBB and RPSG Capital Ventures. And the perks of being selected from a massive pool of applicants not only was equity investments, distribution and marketing, but also invaluable mentorship from leaders and experts in the industry.
LBB hosted a session for the basecamp brands with Vineeta Singh, Founder & CEO, SUGAR Cosmetics. A brand that launched in 2015, SUGAR Cosmetics reportedly clocked in over INR 130 crore in revenue for FY21 according to The Mint. We got chatting with Vineeta, and she gave us great insights and pointers which SUGAR Cosmetics implements. And here’s what our takeaways from her growth, experiences and experiments in making SUGAR Cosmetics what it is today — and for the most part, they are category agnostic.
Invest In Content & Community
Content (creation and marketing) is crucial to help build trust and credibility with users, audience or buyers. If the audience knows the how, what and why, it’s easier for them to make decisions.
Vineeta mentioned how SUGAR currently does all content creation and marketing in-house, and from what we gleaned, reaching users with content appears far more economical and efficient than using relying on performance marketing. With a focus on brand awareness, and getting a following for the product by selling it as a brand, content is a great way to build and leverage ones social media community. This is also why the content team at SUGAR has no sales target- their focus is on building brand awareness and engagement.
“Learning about makeup happens in a store, but without a store, how can you take that learning elsewhere, and scale it?” That’s where content comes into play! Investing in content can ideally lead to sales, but more importantly, it helps grow the top of the funnel. Consistent, quality and engaging content, is what creates value.
Less Is More
Quality > Quantity. Learning from what SUGAR Cosmetics does, and does well, having a ceiling on the number of SKUs can impact customer experience for the better, and also help build better merchant/manufacturer relationships. We dug up on this too, and contrary to popular belief, too many choices can sometimes overwhelm a consumer. Besides, limited SKUs means better products that have been filtered down based on data and experimentation.
Let Data Talk
“Don’t assume things”, Vineeta said categorically. “What you think is a Hero Product, might just be because of a bias. Look into the data. What is selling better? What brings in higher numbers? What increases engagement?” And like, Vineeta says, the data will tell you all the answers. In SUGAR’s journey too, it was the case. Vineeta gave us countless examples of how the SUGAR team’s used data to create better products, and build customised SKUs tuned closer to what their customer/consumer wants. In fact, data is not just for sales and revenue. If leveraged in the right way, it also helps you understand your customer a LOT better.
Keep Experimenting
“Sometimes the thing that you expect the least, works the best.” Vineeta told us. Simple things like testing your hypothesis or products through your user community can go a long way. And that’s where direct conversations with consumers - be it through a focus on D2C and/or a focus on your brand’s own Social Media channels. To take a page from SUGAR’s growth book, having frequent launches and experimenting with D2C in small batches, have been instrumental in helping create better products, finding hero products, and also testing the waters before scaling a product to retail and multiple marketplaces.
It’s also important to kill an experiment quickly, if you don’t see results. Move on to the next one.
This also holds true for a team. Change is good. Change the targets for your teams with change(s) in product journey.
Growth Is Different For Different Brands
We loved this point brought up by Vineeta! She spoke about how every founder should take a personal and individual call on what kind of company they want to build and the pace at which they want to grow. This is extremely important to be clear about on Day 1, so as a founder you’re able to set realistic expectations internally and with all necessary stakeholders.
Related to this, she mentioned how performance marketing can be a drug and a disguise. It’s easy to show growth when you’re putting heavy budgets into customer acquisition. But the difference in between a “seller” and a “brand” is the ability to deliver on a. Customer Delight b. Repeat Orders c. Sell Without Excessive Discounting. This is only possible if you’re invested in growing right vs. growing fast.
To paraphrase Vineeta, nothing great is built overnight. Give yourself the chance and time to build, and grow without compromising on consistency and quality.
Competition/Competitors Is A Good Thing
“You don’t always have to beat competition. You can co-exist with them.” Vineeta specifically spoke about this in context of Nykaa, a brand she has great respect for. Having enablers, complimentary platforms and even competitors are needed to expand and grow the market, and collectively create an opportunity.
PR Is An Underrated Investment
This one was a pleasant surprise for us! From Vineeta’s point of view, PR isn’t just about selling a brand; it’s about being talked about for what you want to be known for. And if you are spoken about regularly, it’ll only amplify your brand presence and awareness. It’s complementary to all your other marketing efforts, in avenues that perhaps social media doesn’t otherwise reach.
We had an absolutely fantastic session and took copious notes on Vineeta’s journey and learnings building SUGAR!
We’ve got more sessions lined up, and will be sharing those learnings too. Stay tuned.
