Cocotang: Mocktailing their way to success

Here are the excerpts from the interview.

What is the concept behind your startup and can you tell us more about your store?

Because of my health condition and low amniotic fluids, I was advised to take a lot of fluids. Even coconut water was included in my diet. The coconut water available outside was not palatable for me. Then my husband started including fruits like oranges, and watermelon, in my diet. Slowly my condition improved. When I found that many are facing a similar problem, I thought that there are no such drinks readily available in the market with goodness of coconut water and fruits which gave birth to the idea of Cocotang in 2014.

Ever since, we have been working on it by adding to our menu tender coconut water based mock tails, then tender coconut pulp based shakes and the list kept increasing. We now have vegan (tender coconut pulp based) coffees and so on.

Delving deep into subject, we found that nature's divine drupes (coconuts) are sensitive to heat and light. Apparently the coconuts are exposed to these elements of nature making difference in the taste as well as nutritional value.

Following an intensive ground work, we have developed about 121 varieties of drinks that are tender coconut based mock tails and pulp shakes, which are absolutely dairy free, preservative free and free from nutrients-killing processing.

From where you collected the raw materials and is it easy to source them?

We started sourcing coconuts directly from farmers and later on tied up with many farmers and took a lease of coconut farms to ensure the perennial and consistent supply of it.

Did you face any problems in starting the unit?

Being a doctor (dentist) by profession and leaving behind the profession to embark on entrepreneurial journey was initially met with resistance by my family and other well wishers, but we overcame that; they (family) understood our passion towards what we were working on and the support from the family was immense when our first pilot project was successful.

Did you apply for a bank loan? If so, did banks give loans easily?

Initially, we started with all our bootstrapped funds and later borrowed from family and friends, we invested a lot of money in research and development and innovating new procedures.

At one point, we completely ran out of funds and didn't know how to proceed further. We took the help of an organisation called BYST( Bharathiya Yuva Shakthi Trust) through which we got a mudra loan .

Initially, the banks resisted since it is a new concept but later the bankers were satisfied when we showed them the data. After that, we never looked back. Starting with one store, we have expanded to three exclusive walk-in stores and 10 online outlets by 2020.

As we all know, when the pandemic hit, we were literally on the road. We had to redefine the business model.

Can you give any suggestions for people to begin a startup?

Perseverance should be the first quality of an entrepreneur. Believe in yourself and focus. An entrepreneur should be vigilant about the changes happening around them, and they should be agile to quickly adapt to the changes.

Do you think rules and procedures should be more entrepreneur-friendly? If so, what is your suggestion?

Rather than the rules and policies being told, they should be known to the people who are starting their startup journey. They should be furnished with enough information regarding rules. Also we should get many incubation Centers not only at college level but also at grass root level for entrepreneurs too.

What are your achievements?

The following are some of the accolades and achievements to my credit.

n Awarded National Record "Telugu Book of Records "for being the first exclusive brand into tender coconut-based pulp shakes and mock tails without any preservatives and processing since 2014.

n Won JCI Business Excellence Award-2018.

n Case study published in renewed international journal Emerald Journal- published in UK which was circulated in 5 countries in 2019.

n Selected as sustainable project and got a chance to present at British Deputy High Commission - Chennai in 2020.

n Selected as best performing Mahila Mudra Unit and telecasted in National media zee news after being scrutinised by Prime Minister Office on March 8, 2020.

n Shared global platform with Google, Accenture and Youth Business International in January 2021.

n Won COWE business excellence awards 2021 from the hands of Sri Kishan Reddy.

n Won "Entrepreneur of the Year" from Vijayalaksmi Das Entrepreneurship Awards at Delhi on March 8, 2021.