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This is the story of Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar. How a homemaker who was taking care of her disabled child turned to become an entrepreneur.
This is the story dates back to around 2015. Harinin Sivakumar is the mother of two children. She quit her banker career because of her elder son’s disability conditions. So, as a mother, she sacrificed her career to look after her child.
Then she noticed her son was having Eczema. It is the condition, where the skin dries faster and becomes itchy and bumpy. So, she went to the doctor and prescribed to use castle soaps.
Castle soaps are soaps that are rich in olive oil content. It is good for those who are suffering from Eczema.
Then Harini Sivakumar found out that there were no such companies that produced Castle soaps. She started importing from the USA.
It became a norm for her, that whoever goes to the USA, she requests them to buy Castle soaps for her child.
One day she browsed on internet for ” How to make Castel Soaps at home”. She was fascinated that the process is very easy to make castle soaps at home.
Then she tried to make but failed miserably during the initial trials.
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Soap making business
Harini Sivakumar did not gave up. However, she continuously tried to make soap at home. Finally, she got better results day by day.
During the same time, Harini’s mother passed away. This news shattered her on all sides of her life. However, she was a strong and resilient woman.
So, Harini Sivakumar decided to start a soap making business at home. Then she could have a focused mind rather than regretting her mother’s death.
Now she was very passionate about making soaps in her home. Harini used to have 100 types of soap in her bedroom. Because all day long she was busy experimenting with the soaps.
Then she started giving out soaps while taking her son back from school. There Harini used to give soaps for free to parents and tell them to give feedback.
In this way, Harini Sivakumar started her Soap making business. However, she prepared Castle soaps which was good for the skin and made out with zero chemicals.
Her good and sincere work yielded fruitful results. Everyone started giving good feedback and also gave orders to her to make similar kinds of soaps.
At this point, Harini decided to start a business professionally.
So, she took some online soap-making courses in 2016 and also did some courses on the formulation of soaps. Harini Sivakumar did online courses
- UK basked Formula Botanica
- Institute of Personal Care
Then in 2017, she took 5000 from her husband’s credit card without telling her husband. Now she had an idea of making soaps professionally. Next, she started making creams, Lib bum, and other 10 products in her house itself. She turned her flat into a mini home factory of soap products.
Now she gave orders for packaging as well. She contacted US printers via onlinetables.com. Harini prepared her design templates and gave them to make packaging material.
Harini was doing everything like taking product photos on a white background with DSLA, delivering products to customers, and designing templates.
During those times, in 2018 she earned over 1 lakh per month from the soap-making business. Then she started setting up stalls nearby location during festive seasons. So, that she can reach more customers.
Soapworks Soap Business
In 2018 she launched an e-commerce website in WordPress with the domain soapworks.com
Even her father believed in her business and also witnessed the demand for the products. Then her father registered the company as Soapworks. Now it is an official Soap company.
One day Harini’s father came to the house. There he observed her daugher Harini was busy in a room all day alone. Then he came to know that her daugher was running a soap-making business.
Even Harini’s father was a retired bank employee. So, he did not have any other work. So, he joined Harini’s soap business. Initially, he used to be a customer executive attending calls, replying to emails, and taking orders from the site.
At one point in time, both of them realized that running a business from home was not possible. So, in 2019 both decided to take 800 sq of space in front of her apartment.
Harini Sivakumar divided that 800 sq feet space into office space and a manufacturing unit.
Harini doubted herself can she give monthly rent of 18,000 from their soap making business. However, she was determined from her vision and started in a new space.
Even now, Harini and her father are running the business. Now the business needs more staff. So, Harini contacted the watchman of the building to get some women for work.
Then surprisingly a graduate woman came to work. It was surprising for Harini that a graduate was willing to do packaging and other day-to-day work.
Then she came to know that the woman named Mobita from Sundarbans. Harini gave her a job with a salary of 5000 and gave them the responsibility of handling the website orders.
Slowly 8 to 10 girls started joining the Soapworks company.
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Rise of Soapworks Soap Business
After renting a space of 800 sq and running an e-commerce site in WordPress, her business started to do 10 lakhs per month.
Even Harini also uses Instagram for marketing. Here she was not doing any paid marketing. It’s just posting videos of her soap business and sharing her journey. Eventually, she became the face of the brand.
Earth Rythm New Brand
In 2020, she changed Soapworks to Earth Rythm. Now, her products have also increased from 10 to 50+ products. Even her customers were also suggesting products focusing on sustainability.
Even one of her Shampoo bars also got a lot of traction from the customers. So, Harini Sivakumar combined her passion and sustainability to come up with a new brand name “Earth Rythm” in 2020.
Then Earth Rythm brand was making great business. Until now, the brand was under MSME. So, Harini started applying for a manufacturing license.
A few months later, they moved to 1500 square feet of space with the manufacturing setup in 2020.
Business was going great but Harini Sivakumar was facing multiple website crashes multiple times. It was a bit worrying for the Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar.
So, she switched from WordPress to Shopify. This small change made her business grow multifold. Yes, it is surprising for her also. The business was making 15 lakhs per month via WordPress e-commerce but the business went up to 35 lakhs per month after switching to Shopify.
By 2021, Earth Rythm products were selling on Amazon as well. Now the brand was making almost 1 crore worth of sales every month.
Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar problem with VC Fund
Now Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar was running a great brand. Everyone started noticing the brand’s growth.
Then Harini got an offer from a VC fund venture for the funding. Then Hairini discussed the offer with her father. But her father was reluctant to take the funds.
Because the business was doing great and also profitable. So, it is not necessary to take funding from external VC companies.
However, slowly Harini understood the advantages of VC funding. Where they can expand their fast network with giants and become a global brand.
So, Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar took the offer of $ 2 million at a 30 crore valuation. Then the company will receive the amount after the due diligence process.
However, Harini did not have a digital process for handling invoices. So, she maintained a ledger. Even PWC also came to help with the verification of the due diligence. For the next 6 months, Harina Sivakumar struggled to prove the sales.
It was very annoying for the PWC and Harini in the due diligence process. So, she quit and rejected the offer of $2 million. She was frustrated because now she needed to prove herself with legitimate documents.
Then she decided not to take any kind of VC fund in her lifetime. Later, another VC Aniket contacted her to invest in the company. Initially, Harini was not ready to take another VC offer.
But Aniket promised her that he would not do any kind of due diligence. Because he knew about the brand and story of Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar.
Finally, Aniket invested $1.2 million. Later in 2022, the brand raised another $ 8 million at 200 crore valuation
The success of Earth Rythm founder
Starting from a soap business in her room to building a business and making crores in a month is a great journey. Now Earth Rythm has a manufacturing unit with Gurgaon with 2000 sq feet.
Now the brand purchased fully automated machinery that costs around 3 to 4 crores. This machine will do all the processes and does not any kind of human intervention. Harini’s father became emotional at this moment because he remembered the day were Harini used to make soaps with her bare hands.
Now Earth Rythm has made some physical presence too. There are over 14 to 15 kiosks across India.
Now, Earth Rythm founder Harini Sivakumar is projecting 100 crore revenue in the coming years.
This is the inspiring journey of the homemaker Harini. How she sacrificed her job to look after her specially able child. Then accidently she became an entrepreneur.
Earth Rythm Founder Education
Harini Shivakumar’s education background
- She did her Commerce at the University of Madara from 2004 to 2007
- Then she earned her diploma in Retail Management at Chennai Business School from 2008 to 2009
- Then she did her MA at the University of Northampton from 2013 to 2015
- To start a business in soaps, she did an online course in Formula Botanica from 2016 to 2017.
- She continued her passion for the formulation of soaps, at the Institute of Personal Care Science from 2020 to 2021