NIRMA – Story of Entrepreneurship motivated by Daughter’s love

“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct, and control your environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.” – Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich.

You may not have heard about the person that I am going you write about today. But, you must have heard about the brand that he created – “Nirma.” Yes, I can see that in your mind, you are already jiggling “Sabki Pasand Nirma,” I can’t stop doing that either.

Let’s find out how Nirma came to life – from 1 person to a company of 25000+ employees and a turnover of over Rs 15500+ crore.

We all have heard that the tech giants like Apple, Google all started in a garage. We are no less than them; we have a similar inspirational story here in India of Mr. Karsan Bhai Khodidas Patel – the founder of the Nirma group.

He was born in 1945 in Mehsana, Gujarat, in a family of farmers. He completed B.Sc. in Chemistry at age 21 and started working as a lab technician at Lal Bhai Group in New Cotton Mills. Later he moved on to working at Geology and Mining Department of the Gujarat State Government.

In 1969, Karsan Bhai started manufacturing phosphate-free Synthetic Detergent Powder and started selling it locally. Detergents were a premium product for the most middle class and poor people at that time.

He sold this new yellow powder at Rs 3.50 per kg, at a time when Hindustan Lever Ltd (Now Unilever) Surf was priced at Rs 13-15.

All the packing and the formulation took place in a 100 square ft room in his house and he was quickly able to sell nearly 15-20 packets/day while traversing 15 km distance to his office on his bicycle.

Nirma washing powder removed the stains from the clothes without harming the hands and was better for the clothes than a regular bar of washing soap. The powder also came with a money-back guarantee. With much obviousness, the product in no time gained a huge demand in Ruppur (Gujarat). 

Marketing Strategy’ of Nirma: “Low Cost, High Quality.

Nirma had wholly changed the dynamics of the game, in a blink of an eye – by offering good quality products at a drastically low price. When majorly all disregarded this trick, Nirma aggressively used it as their marketing strategy!

After three years, Mr. Patel decided to quit his job and pursue this project full time and challenge the big players in the market. At that time, credit terms were the norm for retailers to follow & when the salesmen used to go for collections, the retailers used to postpone the payment dates and not respect them either. If Patel followed those, he would have been left with a massive cash crunch. Something he could not risk. One day, Mr. Patel called on a meeting and took one of the most significant risks of his life.

Mr. Patel ordered the sales team to either ask retailers to clear the payments or collect all the products from the store.

Competitors and retailers were surprised to see this local detergent product disappear overnight. Many thought that the company is closing.

But, Mr. Patel knew the risk and reward go hand in hand. He came up with an out of the books visionary idea. At that time, India was emerging at a great speed, and televisions were common in every house. As soon as he got all his goods back, he invested all his money in running an advertisement on TV for one whole month.

Mr. Patel created one of the best housewife-friendly advertisement jingles ever, “Washing Powder Nirma, Doodh Se Safedi Nirma Se Aayi, Sabki Pasand Nirma.”

Yes, I know you also want to watch it now again, so here you go

The jingle that went beyond lip service made a profound impact on the mindset of women. The advertisement was a big hit and created such a significant impact that every typical middle-class wanted to buy this detergent.

But, remember, Mr. Patel had removed all the stocks from the market. MASTERSTROKE! Isn’t it?

For the next 4-5 weeks, customers kept watching the advertisement, but whenever they would go out to purchase the washing powder, they would return home empty-handed. 

Two things happened here. First – retailers were losing out on business, and second – customers thought that the product is so good, and it always sold in a minute. This spiked the demand more.

The retailers begged Patel to resume the supply, and after a month, he obliged and flooded the markets with the product but with a terms and conditions paper to retailers. The paper said the retailers would have to make the payment on the delivery company will not give any product on credit. This decision changed the brand’s image totally, and then KarsanBhai joined the elite list of the top businessman.

That year, sales of Nirma peaked exponentially, making it the most sold detergent, way above their nearest rival – Surf of Hindustan Unilever.

With that, Nirma modified their earlier Marketing Strategy to: “Give the consumer what they want, when they want, where they want, and at the price they want, selling will be done quite automatically.”

Such is the confidence of Nirma that; even today every packet of Nirma in the market comes with a money-back guarantee. Nothing has changed!

After establishing its low-price Nirma brand in detergents, Nirma launched the premium products, including Nirma beauty soap, shampoo, Nirma toilet soaps, toothpaste, edible salt Shudh, Nirma bath, and premium detergent Super Nirma detergent. Ventures into toothpaste and shampoo were not as successful.

Within a decade, Nirma was the largest selling detergent powder and detergent cake in India. Today Nirma has an overall 35% of detergents and 20% market share in soap cakes, and Nirma Group is one of the largest manufacturers of soda ash in the world. Forbes listed his net worth as the US $3.9 billion in 2017.

In 2004, Nirma’s detergent did a business of 800,000 tonnes – which was one of the largest volumes sold in the world under a single brand.

Everyone thinks it’s just a successful and extraordinary story of entrepreneurship. But, in my opinion, it’s a story of entrepreneurship motivated by Mr. Patel’s love for his daughter.

Mr. Patel did a lot to develop India, Here are some of the facts:

Some of the achievements of Mr. Patel are as follows:

He lost his daughter in a car accident even before he started the venture in his backyard. His daughter’s name was “Nirupama,” and everyone called her “Nirma” at home. Now, you know where the name came from. The girl on the packet of Nirma is also the incarceration of his daughter.

He started this the brand under her name and brought back his daughter to life. Even when she was alive, not many people knew her, but look, the whole world knows her now.

Future generations may not know KarsanBhai Patel, but everyone surely will remember Nirma. Such is the love of any father for their daughter.