How son’s skin woes inspired Mamaearth co-founder to build ₹1,000-crore business: ‘We started from zero’

"You have a newborn; why are you running around factories?" Mamaearth co-founder Ghazal Alagh recalled the question she often faced while reflecting on her entrepreneurial journey, which kick-started not with a business plan but with deeply personal struggles. In an exclusive interview with Livemint, the Gurugram-based entrepreneur spoke at length about the evolving dynamics of entrepreneurship — with the rise of artificial intelligence — and the challenges surrounding her ₹1,000-crore brand, Mamaearth.

Alagh, along with her husband Varun Alagh, launched their startup, Honasa Consumer Private Limited, in 2016 in search of 'toxin'-free products for their child. The Gurugram-based entrepreneur revealed that she did not come from a traditional 'business background'.

“I actually started as an artist. I studied at the New York Academy of Art and was getting very serious about my art career until my first son, Agastya, was born,” she told Livemint.

A mother's search for safer products

Her priorities shifted towards her newborn, who developed severe eczema — a condition that causes itchy and inflamed skin. Concerned about the ingredients in baby care products available in India, Alagh and her husband, Varun Alagh, began searching for safer alternatives.

“We spent months finding products and reading labels, but were met with total disappointment. I couldn’t find a single product in India that was truly safe or free from harmful toxins,” she said.

The couple had to rely on friends travelling abroad to bring basic lotions for their son. This eventually prompted them to launch Mamaearth with the aim of providing toxin-free products for Indian babies.

Battling societal judgement

'My biggest challenge was not business logistics, but societal judgment,' Alagh shared.

“People would ask me, ‘You have a newborn; why are you running around factories?’ I remember standing in a manufacturing unit, exhausted and in milk-stained clothes, being told toxin-free products were a luxury Indians would never pay for,” she recalled.

The couple shared that they invested ₹25 lakh — their entire life savings — and had no plan B.

“There was no Plan B. If it failed, we were starting from zero with a young child,” she said.

How AI is changing entrepreneurship

Alagh further stressed how entrepreneurship is changing due to AI, asserting that technology has dramatically reduced the cost and barriers to testing ideas.

“Today, what took me ₹25 lakh in 2016 can be done for ₹10,000– ₹15,000,” she said.

She explained that AI tools can help entrepreneurs design product mock-ups, test packaging concepts, and run targeted marketing campaigns before actually manufacturing the product.

For instance, founders can run a Meta advertising funnel to test whether customers are interested in a product concept. If people click through and reach the checkout stage, it can indicate potential product-market fit.

A warning for youngsters

Despite the advantages, Alagh warned that AI should not be treated as a 'shortcut to skip the hard thinking'.

“Don’t treat AI as a shortcut to skip the hard thinking,” she said. “It’s a tool that makes you faster — at testing, personalising and understanding patterns — but it cannot replace real consumer insight.”

She stressed the importance of staying closely connected to customers rather than relying only on analytics dashboards.

“The moment you stop talking to real people and only read data dashboards, you lose something that is very difficult to recover,” she said.