Hey,
Hope you are doing great!
It feels so good to be doing what I love the most i.e. sharing our thoughts via this newsletter.
This year is turning out to be really unexpected.
At the beginning of the year, I knew this year is going to be life changing and we will be doing a lot more however I didn’t imagine that we would get so occupied in building the business and the brand that things I find joy in, I wouldn’t find the time for. And there are too many things that I haven’t been doing but I guess that is life. No regrets at all.
Last ~12 weeks, probably have been the busiest weeks of my life. You may be wondering what is keeping me so busy and well, the answer is there is too much happening. We have been working day & night to launch our most awaited product, streamlining our supply chain, hiring new team members, taking customer feedback so that we can accordingly make changes, etc. etc.
And today, I want to share a quick story about our latest product launch i.e. Teeth Whitening Pen. This one is really special and has taken us a long time to make the launch happen.
Back in the day, during the winter of 2020, when Tushar and I were brainstorming on launching Perfora, we wanted to introduce products that are revolutionary and are really innovative. You know, products that we haven’t experienced before but would love to. Products that will provide solutions to the problems that haven’t been actively addressed.
One such problem that we as consumers identified was Teeth Whitening. For the longest time, teeth whitening hasn’t been given it’s due importance and the existing product formats don’t do justice.
We felt, there has to be a better way to whiten teeth, at home, without going through multiple dentists sessions. Not only it is expensive to get professional teeth whitening treatment done via dentist but one also experiences post treatment teeth sensitivity due to the use of Hydrogen Peroxide. We started exploring what solutions can we create or come up with to make teeth whitening easier and effective, at the convenience of our consumers. After spending quite some time researching the possibilities, we narrowed it down to 2 formats - serum and strips.
Globally, both these product formats exists and multiple brands have launched teeth whitening solutions however we wanted to create a product that is in line with the expectations of Indian consumers.
During the initial days, we conducted quite a lot of surveys and spoke with our potential consumers to understand their requirements and how can we best cater to them.
Around ~78% consumers we spoke with, were more curious about teeth whitening pen i.e. serum format and said they would want to try it out. We had our answer in place and thus, we began working on this product in the early 2021.
Very interestingly, what we didn’t factor in or realised at that point of time, innovation takes time and it is highly unrealistic for us to launch the product in a few months. To start with, we spoke with so many manufacturers in India if they have the technology to manufacture this product in India and unfortunately, most people ridiculed us at this idea whereas some of them said, we are thinking ahead of the time.
Considering, we were so determined, we started looking globally to see if there is anyone who can help us manufacture this product. In parallel, we had started working on the formulation and we were figuring out what ingredients to add that are not harmful and yet effective.
After reading through so many research papers, we got to know about PAP i.e. Phthalimido Peroxy Caproic Acid, an active ingredient that is proven to whiten teeth without causing any sensitivity and is becoming quite popular. If you would like to read more about PAP and it’s efficacy, please check out this link - https://bit.ly/3xhcA3A
Once we had identified the manufacturer, we got to know that to import a cosmetic product in India, we have to take the product approval from CDSCO and this is an extensive process that requires a lot of documentation. And here we faced another set back as we realised the manufacturer we had identified, wasn’t able to comply from a documentation stand point to apply for CDSCO approval.
At this stage, the product formulation was ready and approved but we didn’t have a manufacturer in place :(
We were back at ground zero and started speaking with manufacturers again, this time with a clear thought that documentation compliance is equally important. After a few months of speaking with multiple manufacturers, we finally found the one who was cooperative and could resonate with our vision.
It took us about ~6 months to get the CDSCO approval due to the innovative nature of the product and some role played by the infamous COVID as govt. departments weren’t operational throughout.
To summarize, it took us about ~16 months to launch India’s First Peroxide Free Teeth Whitening Pen. A lot went behind making this launch happen, right from figuring out the ingredient sourcing to product stability to freight challenges to packaging delay, etc.
In all honesty, I want to say that a lot of hard work and sleepless nights go behind introducing a new product and on some days, it is really a stressful experience. All this effort is worth it if consumers like you appreciate the product and find value in it.
Hence, I request you to give our Teeth Whitening Pen a try and share your feedback. If there is any scope of improvement, please feel free to email your feedback and we will work on it.
BTW, we are offering a FLAT 30% OFF as a launch offer so that everyone of you can experience bright and shining white teeth. No coupon code required to avail the offer :)
Our product Teeth Whitening Pen is very simple tou use and you can follow the instructions mentioned below. If you still have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Lastly, we are also running a DEAL OF THE WEEK offer for the next 48 hours are offering Teeth Whitening products at a very very good discount i.e. upto 35% OFF. We want to make sure that you take your teeth whitening regime seriously and hence, the super sweet price :D
Thank you once again for all your trust and support. It means the world to us.
Warmly,
Jatan