We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sagar Shah a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sagar thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
Having immigrant parents, I grew up in a typical middle-class family, meaning life wasn’t always a cakewalk. My parents came into this country with very little savings and worked tirelessly day and night. In addition, English wasn’t their first language, and most of our extended family lived overseas, leaving both my parents isolated in raising me.
My parents valued the importance of a good quality education. Therefore, we were fortunate to settle into a neighborhood with a solid academic school district. However, I admit I wasn’t the best and brightest student in my classes. Nonetheless, I’ve never been a believer in the best of education being the only recipe for future success. I believe it’s up to each individual to make the most out of their environment and circumstances.
My environment genuinely helped shape me as a person and business owner. Both parents had the entrepreneurial spirit to start their businesses, so I witnessed early on the hard work, dedication, and relentless determination and sacrifices it takes to survive in business. It’s these humble beginnings where I first learned that nothing in life is given!
I started working multiple jobs at an early age and quickly learned to appreciate the value of money and savings. I turned various hobbies into small businesses (some failures and other successes). My parents supported my endeavors, knowing I always worked hard like them. Eventually, things would either click or at the least, I would walk away with life lessons.
Upon graduating with a finance degree, I landed my first real job with Morgan Stanley. After a short stint, I quickly pivoted into launching my business, Nature’s Guru. Many naysayers told me I had zero industry experience (food and beverage, international import-export). Along with no meaningful capital to start the business. My parents had the strength, courage, and belief that nothing is impossible. Their conviction helped me overcome my fears of leaving a comfortable “9 to 5” job.
While my startup grew, I turned their garage into my warehouse, stacked with boxes of products, trying to save every little dollar of expenses to invest in marketing or other capex initiatives. When the business grew further, I often worked until 1, 2, 3, and 4 a.m. into the early mornings. Eventually, my parents would come home from an entire workday to help pack an extra order or two so my customers could receive fulfillment the next day or that I could meet the stringent deadline set by my big box retail accounts for their holiday season.
Although I could never ask them for any seed money or mentorship on business strategies, what they did right was provide their unwavering love and support.
Today, through their sacrifices and hard work instilled in me, I proudly state that Nature’s Guru has sold millions of units globally from North America, the UK, and Chile. Nature’s Guru has been in business for over a decade, ensuring that all our customers’ morning starts with a fresh cup of gourmet tea.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I was born into a South Asian family. More specifically, I came from an Indian culture, which meant we grew up drinking Chai. However, as an American, Chai (or tea) wasn’t as readily available or acceptable as most preferred drinking coffee as the norm.
When I stepped into corporate America, I was disheartened to see that the office pantries were filled with various coffee flavors and that I couldn’t get the Chai fix I’d been accustomed to jumpstart my day. Therefore, I often woke up an extra 20 minutes early to brew my Chai before heading out into the notorious Los Angeles traffic. At some point, I valued my sleep and wallet (coffee in the offices was free) and, therefore, was contemplating changing my daily morning ritual, especially since brewing Chai is a tedious process.
It’s in this dilemma where Nature’s Guru was born—an instant, quick, affordable solution to brewing gourmet authentic Chai on demand.
What differentiates our Chai from others isn’t just the taste! To appeal to American consumers, we had to ensure our product is all-natural, fat-free, low in caffeine, and contains zero preservatives, as consumers were looking for healthier alternatives to coffee. In addition, our flavor profiles are more robust and unique as we incorporate various spices, from ginger to lemongrass, into our Chai blends. As the brand grew, so did our consumers’ lifestyles and dietary needs. We later introduced zero-added sugars and vegan-based Chai. Today, Nature’s Guru has expanded into wellness organic teas that are herbal or functional, using superfood ingredients like Turmeric.
More than tea, Nature’s Guru has forged relationships with various local communities and non-profits as we seek to give back through social impact. Our poverty-stricken farmers are provided fair wages, and we seek to empower women in the workplace.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The tea trade in India is centuries old, since the days of British rule, with well-established players that often lacked an enthusiasm for innovation and change.
I remember one of the first business trips I had taken to seek an established tea manufacturing partner willing to entertain my idea of creating an “instant chai.” At that point, I didn’t know how to speak their national language, Hindi, and was very unfamiliar with the country outside of where most of my extended family lived, whom I visited from time to time during my early childhood. I spent months living in a third-world country without most of the amenities I would have been familiar with as an American (for starters, A/C, Wi-Fi, and GPS). With a very limited budget, I mostly traveled around the country for meetings in buses, trains, and rickshaws. India’s climate, known for its humidity, monsoon rain, and mosquitoes, didn’t bode well for me either.
Nonetheless, I went door to door, or in my case, tea plantation to plantation, looking to convince anyone who would fund my first shipment. Furthermore, I have to convince those manufacturers that the product I am looking for isn’t something they have in existence and would require retooling their existing machinery, which came at a cost to them. After many heartaches and being laughed at, I finally found a supplier who believed in me and was willing to invest, as their sales were stagnant and they were looking for new growth ideas. But, I came to find out from a nutritional analysis that their product has an absorbent amount of processed sugar (just when American beverage conglomerates had launched flavors like Diet Pepsi Max). To further exacerbate my problems, the supplier has never exported any product. This meant I had to figure out how to get US FDA, US Customs, and USDA approval prior to import. Altogether, it took a lot of resiliency and grit to constantly combat various mountains of challenges that seemed never-ending to get a product to American consumers for which I have no clue would even be accepted in the marketplace.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
Guerilla Marketing.
One of my favorite initial success stories is when Nature’s Guru, an unknown brand at the time, landed Whole Foods Market – America’s premier natural and organic grocery retailer.
As I was due to receive one of my first shipments from overseas, I started researching how to supply certain big-box retailers. Time and time again, I read about the necessity to exhibit at various industry trade shows around the US and the tens of thousands of dollars it would cost. Moreover, despite being present at the show, it didn’t guarantee a sale, let alone a purchase order from Whole Foods Market. Even if you got the attention of one of their buyers, you would still need to be set up with one of their distributors first. This might remind you of the paradox about which came first, the chicken or the egg.
At that time, I didn’t have the seed money to partake in an exhibition regardless. Therefore, I decided to attend a show and brought a backpack full of products, hoping I might get lucky. I did, however, prepare and perfect my elevator speech in advance should I run into anyone of importance. I also researched the names of the prospective upper management or decision-makers for Whole Foods Market and their distributors. I walked the show floors tirelessly from the start of the show until closing hours every day for three straight days in search of these folks. It indeed was like a needle in a haystack, as there were quite possibly over 60,000 attendees throughout the tradeshow.
On the last day, I happened to run into the CEO of the largest natural organic foods distributor in the country, and the rest shall I say, was history. At the time, I had no clue, but he mentioned that what I had done was a fine example of guerilla marketing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.naturesguru.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturesguru
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NaturesGuru
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagarvshah/