Based on the premise to bring safe, non-toxic and natural products, The Moms Co. has a wide range of solutions for expecting mothers, babies and mothers. The brand was started by husband-wife duo Mohit and Malika Sadaani, when they were scouting for natural, safe and toxin-free products for their baby. Their need to find such products culminated towards them starting their own brand as they realized the dearth of safe and certified products in the Indian market. Mohit Sadaani, Co-Founder at The Moms Co., gave detailed insights into the brand, the product range and a rundown on how there’s been a shift in marketing for the millennial parents, in this exclusive interview with Mommy & Baby Times (MBT).
August 30, 2019
MBT: Kindly trace the business journey of ‘The Moms Co.’ and the motivation behind starting the company.
Mohit Sadaani: Our journey as The Moms Co. started about five years ago, when Malika and I started looking for safe, non-toxic products for our daughter. It was a tough period for us as we had to rely on friends’ and families’ abroad travels to get our hands on safe and certified products. On perceiving the dearth of safe and toxin-free baby products, we started ideating on whether it was possible for us to create high-quality, natural and toxin-free products. Then, it took over three years in R&D, as we formed a team of people from India, Australia, and Switzerland, to create and formulate products for us. Today, we have about thirty products for moms and babies and we have solutions for sensitive skin, for hair fall, and all of our products are completely natural, Safe Cosmetics Australia-certified, Made Safe-certified and toxin-free.
MBT: Please elaborate on the product range of the company.
MS: We have an elaborate range of products to enable us in our mission to help moms make safe, natural and effective choices and we have a wide range of products that can solve all the needs that a mom has.
We have products in five distinct categories, ‘Pregnancy & Mom’, ‘Baby Care’, ‘Hair Care’ ‘Face Care’ and ‘Skin Care’. We have a wide range of solutions for problems such as pigmentation, dark circle, and dry skin. ‘Hair Care’ has solutions for hair fall and damaged hair, ‘Skin Care’ has products for stretch marks mostly, and then a complete ‘Baby Care’ collection that features a range of baby wash, shampoos, lotion, diaper rash cream, sunscreen and talc-free powder, etc.
“We have thirty products today in our range and another thirty in the pipeline that we will be introducing soon.”
MBT: Could you outline on the certifications that The Moms Co. has attained?
MS: Our intent is that we work so hard on ingredients, and create so much transparency that we do the job of looking at the ingredients instead of moms having to look at it. Once the products are formulated, they are rigorously clinically-tested. Safe Cosmetics Australia, a global leader in the field of toxin-free ingredients certifies all of our products as being certified Australia-Certified Toxin-Free, Made Safe and allergen-free. If there is any concern raised on a particular ingredient in the Scientific Community anywhere in the world, that ingredient won’t be included in our products. From an ingredient-safety perspective, we are about ten years ahead in the sector.
MBT: Are you intending to elaborate the product range anytime soon?
MS: We are constantly in chats with mothers, and whenever the moms come up with concerns or suggestions, we try and create products and solutions accordingly for them. We have thirty products today in our range and another thirty in the pipeline that we will be introducing soon.
MBT: How do you chart your distribution and marketing strategies?
MS: As a fairly new brand, a lot of our efforts are invested in talking to the mothers and understanding their needs/concerns. About the online reach, we have a very sturdy presence across social media, with bloggers and influencers, and a number of platforms where a mother is spending her time. As regards our offline or retail presence, we have 10 stores today across premium hospitals including Fortis, Cloud Nine, Max Hospital and so on, where we get to connect to about 60-70 thousand mothers every month. We are also present in 100 retail stores and will be ramping up to 500 retail stores within the year.
“We have 10 stores today across premium hospitals including Fortis, Cloud Nine, Max Hospital and so on… We are also present in 100 retail stores and will be ramping up to 500 retail stores within the year.”
MBT: Do you feel that there is a certain kind of difference between how products were marketed before and how it is done now, considering the digital boom and the evolution in the choices of millennial parents?
MS: There is certainly a huge difference between how products are being marketed now as opposed to the promoting of products, say about a decade ago or so. If we look at the way marketing worked about ten years ago, the only means of reaching out to mothers was limited to TV and newspapers, i.e. through mass media and advertisements. We understand that the millennial parents wants to know a lot more and be well-informed before making purchasing decisions. We want them to trust us because we are honest and transparent, not because we have a fancy or appealing tagline. That is, if you go into the detail of every product, you will find tons of information that you would want about the products’ safety and efficacy. We rely very heavily on genuinely getting reviews from moms, on word-of-mouth and on moms’ sharing their experiences on social media. So, I think the big shift in marketing has been from a company telling a fancy tagline to presently, the moms sharing their own experience with the products.
MBT: And talking about your tagline, “Nature In, Toxins Out”, could you elaborate on that?
MS: “Nature In, Toxins Out” would be our way of educating the mothers, and it means that if you look at any of our products we do a few things very differently, one is we will always list the full ingredient list on the back. Our main focus is on the policy of being 100% transparent and honest to our customers. That’s the core part of “Nature In, Toxins Out”. The second aspect is that every ingredient used in the products is nature-derived, that is they are extracted from some herbs, flowers or vegetables, etc. So, that’s why our philosophy is “Nature In” and “Toxins Out” as we keep out any potentially harmful chemicals like sulphates, paraben, mineral oil, phenoxyethanol, even the ones that people do not know so much about.
Thus, it means being all-natural, toxin-free and providing the best of nature to our customers and we have a number of certifications to testify that assertion.
“every ingredient used in the products is nature-derived… that’s why our philosophy is “Nature In” and “Toxins Out” as we keep out any potentially harmful chemicals like sulphates, paraben, mineral oil, phenoxyethanol, even the ones that people do not know so much about.”
MBT: How would you describe the strengths of the company, what gives an edge to ‘The Moms Co.’ and it products?
MS: One of the major strengths of The Moms Co. is that we have is that we have a strong connection with the mothers. We talk to about 300 moms a day and having a one-on-one interaction with them helps us in knowing what they think about the brand. It also helps us in understanding the kind of products they need and the kind of ingredients they prefer having in the products. Thus, the sense of awareness of what a millennial mother wants allows us to really help create effective solutions. I would say that the other big difference is just the level of transparency that we believe in. When we say ‘no compromise at our end’ or ‘love without compromise’, I think moms are starting to understand what we mean by that. And that is why they are starting to associate with the brand and appreciate that here is the company that is like us and is unwilling to compromise when it comes to baby care.
