Yogita Muttha & Laukik BotharaFounders of TheViolet.in Published On: Thursday, July 07, 2016 Views 4020

"You just do the math and solve the problem. And then onto the next problem and solve that problem. And solve the next problem too. And if you solve enough problems, you get to go home."

Yogita and Laukik are two budding entrepreneurs with aim to make it big in the startup community. Prior to starting her entrepreneurial career, Yogita worked as a consultant at Ernst & Young. She also worked as Chartered Accountant at SPCM & Associates and did her article-ship at BDO (formerly known as SKJ & Associates). Yogita is an alumnus of Symbiosis and BMCC with an extension program at London School of Economics.

Laukik Bothara on the other hand was an associate at McKinsey & Company and advised corporations and governments on their strategy. He was also a part of engineering and design of the new World Trade Center in New York after the 9/11 attacks. Laukik has a MBA from INSEAD France and a Masters in Civil Engineering from the University of Southern California. Their new venture the Violet, which offers subscription services for women during their periods.

Please provide a brief overview of your product/ service.

TheViolet.in is a box subscription start up that pampers you during your period with a box of full of indulgences and sanitary essentials. The Violet Box has luxury and vegan cosmetics, exquisite teas and coffee, gourmet chocolates and your choice of period essentials. The indulgences change every month giving their subscribers a product discovery platform. For every box sold Violet donates the same number of period essentials to those in need.

What inspired you to build the above product/ service?

Each lady spends over 1500 days of her lifetime having periods. In India there are over 300 Million women in the age group of 15 to 45 & around 60 million girls entering adolescence this year. In spite of this, women hygiene is still a taboo subject here which is shocking. Girls need to be pampered and treated specially at this time of the month. TheViolet.in thus came up with a subscription platform to pamper women with luxury indulgence boxes.

As per BBC and TOI, 70% of Indian women cannot afford sanitary napkins even today. This inspired TheViolet.in to donate period essentials to those in need for every box sold by them.

What is your life mantra?

Create impact.

What was the most challenging part of your journey till now?

I am a Chartered Accountant and Ernst & Young alumni. My co-founder Laukik was an associate at McKinsey & Company and an INSEAD MBA. It was challenging to make the choice of quitting our jobs to invest all our time and effort in a start-up. We decided to take the leap!

Violet launched its mobile app in early 2016 as an e-commerce platform purely for feminine hygiene products. We got feedback from our customers saying they could buy the same stuff from FlipKart, Amazon and other e-commerce sites. After this failure, our friends and family questioned our decision to quit our high paying jobs to run a start up. We were persistent and determined to create impact. Our customer feedback for the app directed us to explore the period pampering space that was very popular in the US and UK. That is when we pivoted and the Violet Box was found.

Share some details about the investments that you have been able to fetch for the business till now.

Seed funding was raised in May 2016 from an angel investor in Pune. We have already started reaching out to investors for Series A to scale up and plan to close the round by August 2016.

How do you protect yourself from the problem of Brain Drain?

We absolutely love what we do. So there is no brain drain.

According to you, what are the three qualities an individual must have to achieve success?

Persistence, Vision and Motivation

Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?

Uber, Facebook and WhatsApp

Share any one habit which you think makes you more productive.

Detail planning, tracking and celebrating everyday progress

Share any one habit which you wish to change in yourself.

Try to be more J (I am a P in the Myers Briggs Test)

Answer in less than 50 words

One tip to success:

Persistence

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Not to give your dreams a shot

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

As Quoted by Mark Watney in the movie Martian: “You just do the math and solve the problem. And then onto the next problem and solve that problem. And solve the next problem too. And if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.”

What are your plans for next 3 years?

To empower the women in India by solving the sanitary napkin problem

If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?

Probably doing the Peter Thiel’s fellowship

What are your top three getaway destinations?

Morocco, Norway and Chile

Share a quote that inspires you the most.

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