Industry Disruptors, Social Impact & Indian Heritage with Rooshy Roy

Today we get the honor of speaking with Rooshy Roy, the CEO and co-Founder of Aavrani a skincare brand celebrating Indian heritage, culture, and ingredients.  Choosing to us for-profit business as an avenue to disrupt an entire industry and create social impact is one of our favourite conversations!  Join us, as we learn more about Aavrani's journey from idea to the cover of Vogue India!  

Transcript

Rooshy Roy Transcript Season 3 Episode 15, September 7, 2023

Recorded 2020

Intro/Outro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Practice Good. The podcast that empowers change makers to give good and live good. Here is your host, Shiloh Karshima, social entrepreneur, corporate trainer, and former pastor. Join us as we explore the intersection of social impact and soul care!

Shiloh: So we've had some fun in season three. With bringing back some of our interviews from 2020 where we did a Changemaker Master series and today we're bringing Rooshy Roy. I'm gonna introduce her on the recording, but I cannot wait for you guys to get to know her because she will inspire you to go out there and just disrupt some industries, create some change, and do it confidently. Here we go.[00:01:00]

I'm so excited to have you guys today and talk to our guest, Rooshy Roy.

She is the CEO of Aavrani. The skincare line and I'm just gonna throw this out there cuz I think it's super cool. She was also nominated as one of Forbes 30 under 30, so that is so awesome. Congratulations. Hi, Rooshy. Welcome.

Rooshy: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Shiloh. I'm so excited to be here.

Shiloh: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your product line, what you do, how it started, all that good stuff. 

Rooshy: Sure. So we just launched on aavrani.com a few months ago. Prior to that though I actually started working on Aavrani about three years ago when I first met my co-founder in business school.

So my co-founder Justin, has extensive finance experience, similar to myself, but specific in consumer. So he helped scale and build another skincare brand prior to starting at Wharton. And while we were talking about that experience he had, I couldn't help but think [00:02:00] about all these natural formulas and rituals that I grew up making and using with my mom, aunts and grandmothers growing up. And as I was telling him about that, he was so fascinated. He was asking me why can't you buy that at the store? Why do you spend so much time making them? And these questions, that didn't really occur to me.

 Also because I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, so we didn't have many people who look like me around, so it didn't feel like something to really talk about these sort of using ingredients from the kitchen, like turmeric, rosewater, neme to make just about any personal care treatment. So not just skincare, hair care, body care for any ailments.

Like I remember when I would get minor scrapes or burns, my dad would put graded turmeric on it to to clot the blood. So these little bits or nuggets of knowledge I grew up understanding around ingredients and personal care started coming to a head as he was [00:03:00] telling me about this growing skincare market and the consumer sort of need for cleaner products, more focus on wellness.

I was like, wait a minute we're perfectly positioned to do this. So we dove in right away through business school, ended up soft launching the brand in that summer between, so summer of 2018. And then after about a year into the business this was, so last summer of 2019, I realized that if I'm going to grow and scale this thing in a way that feels authentic to me I'm gonna need to rebrand the whole look.

So it. Now as you see it today on aavrani.com I feel like it's the truest creative expression of me, and I'm so excited to be able to share not just these ancient rituals and ingredients, but the Indian culture with the world. 

Shiloh: I love that. Just personally, I love culture. So like the idea that you were able to celebrate your Indian heritage and bring [00:04:00] in it sounds like a lot of spices that come from that heritage is really fascinating to me. My kids are half Nigerian and so I'm constantly looking for skincare products and hair products that are perfect for their little combination skin. And I love, and their hair and I love that you're able to celebrate that. So oftentimes we think as entrepreneurs or business leaders or advocates that we have to dumb down or water down these pieces of us in order to fit into the mainstream and people to receive us.

And what I hear you saying is that like you just celebrated who you were and exactly what you do, and that became something really special. And it even. Shows in your branding, which I love. 

Rooshy: Thank you so much. I have to note though, it, it was definitely a process to get there, right? Yeah. So the first sort of aesthetic we put out there I wasn't so comfortable celebrating myself and my identity and it was really through the process of building of Ronnie as a beauty brand that got me to look inwards and.

Come to [00:05:00] terms with who I am and not just feel good about it, but now celebrate it proudly. So thank you for acknowledging that. 

Shiloh: I love it. So what is, does the name mean something or where did the name come from? 

Rooshy: I'm so glad you asked. The name was actually the brainchild of both Justin and myself.

He wanted to give me complete creative control on it, but had one suggestion as I was thinking of names, and that was through anecdotally his experience in finance. He noticed that once you get through the first half of anything, a listing, a group of investment memos, prospectuses you stop paying attention as much.

It's just human nature. 

Shiloh: Yeah. 

Rooshy: And since a lot of these things are in alpha order to our benefit to be as high on the alphabet as possible. We knew we wanted to start with a, just taking it most simply. And a big part of this beauty brand for me was centered around female empowerment. I had felt beauty was always a[00:06:00] channel that I felt like I didn't really have access to.

I felt a little bit ostracized from that conversation growing up. As I said I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian suburb Not seeing people like me just didn't make me feel like I belonged in that conversation. And I wanted to remind women, especially South Asian women who understand what that means that what our roots are.

And so Rani means queen in Bangla, which is my native language and also queen and Hindi and a lot of other Indian languages. So I wanted to include that word Rani in our name as well. So we have an A in Rani, and then I added another A because the Indian languages when translated to the English alphabet often have that double a sound.

And so we had the double A and the Rani, and then went through all 26 letters of the alphabet. And V was the letter that Justin and I both loved because the name Aavrani just felt so soft and appropriate for what we were trying to build. And so we [00:07:00] never looked back from there. 

Shiloh: I love that it's got so much meaning and history and culture and it's so beautiful.

I love it. You talked about female empowerment. What is your mission, your vision for your product line? What do you hope to do in the world through this? 

Rooshy: Yeah, so at the highest level I wanna disrupt the global beauty industry with an entirely new category. Which is I beauty or Indian inspired beauty.

As we saw over the last five to 10 years, the growth of K Beauty or Korean inspired beauty to the point where there are entire K beauty sections at global retailers. That's what I want for I beauty. I want the world to understand and appreciate these all natural solutions that have been around for centuries, but are just starting to be appreciated now. And in order to do that it's not just Iranian alone, it's, there have to be a lot more Indian inspired brands out there, not just even through beauty, but through fashion and [00:08:00] culture, food to bring noise and to draw attention to ourselves in this way.

And so that's really what I want to do. I want to revive these Indian rituals and also share them with everyone so that they understand really what the original form of clean beauty really looked like. 

Shiloh: You've mentioned a couple of kind of ingredients that you've used, like what are some specifically that you really love, 

Rooshy: Our best selling product Is my favorite child of them all. It's the turmeric mask, the glow activating exfoliator. And that's because turmeric as an ingredient is just so iconic to the Indian culture. It's not just in our skincare, but in our food. And the turmeric mask is a part of our wedding ceremonies and rituals.

It's a, it's very sacred to the heritage. So it was amazing to be able to take this traditionally. DIY mask that I grew up making and a lot of women still make today and translating that into a [00:09:00]modern shelf stable format. It's the best fusion of my upbringing in my identity of my roots and my and my lifestyle today fusing the ancient rituals with the modern, clinically proven science. And the turmeric mask is really special and it's able to be added to any skincare routine. So we're seeing a lot of women, not just Indian American women, but women from all back backgrounds and ethnicities using the exfoliators part of their regimens.

And it brings us so much joy to be able to do that for them. 

Shiloh: This started like in your kitchen growing up with like your mom and grandmother and those type of things. Like how was it going to them and being like, Hey, I'm starting a business out of this.

I'm sure they were super proud, but what was that like that experience going home to them? 

Rooshy: Yeah they were elated. The kind of shock alluded to around Justin asking me why I can't buy them at the store and me realizing I was thinking about it for the first time was the same sort of reaction I got [00:10:00] from them.

So they were really excited by me bringing them to the forefront because even my mom and aunts in our community in Michigan they don't see themselves represented. They don't see turmeric mass at the store. They don't see these things that they brought with them to this country being celebrated.

So the fact that I was taking that inspiration and bringing that to the forefront made them feel very honored. So they're very excited by what we're doing. 

Shiloh: So you had this idea and then, and you had this fellow student, who was like, "Hey, this is a great idea.We should do this together." What happened after that? What was the next steps? I'm sure you had to get some type of capital or funding to get started. Did you immediately have a team together or was it like an organic build? What was that startup like for you guys?

Rooshy: Yeah. And to be clear, we had no idea what we were doing.

So I, when I talk about this, it's like, it seems like it was a planned route, but it was very much just figuring it out at every turn. The first thing we did after we came up with the name Aavrani [00:11:00]was get it legally incorporated. We paid a couple hundred dollars on legal zoom.com to get that done. 

And then we transferred our business school tuition that we had saved up for into a joint business account, we decided to go all in. And with the capital that we had saved, we were able to bootstrap the business for the first year and get that first production order out. That was a scary thing, of course.

And at the time it felt like, oh, my life savings is going away. But when I step back and think about it. And especially now we have, we're so much, there's so much more to grow, so much more to learn and we're just getting started. So I felt like that first sort of transfer was that real bet on myself that this was going to be something real. And it was incredibly comforting to have someone else, like another individual feel the same way at the same time. Like, how lucky is that? 

Shiloh: Yeah, that's awesome. 

Rooshy: As soon as we did that we rented this [00:12:00] little private room at the library where you can. Check out a computer for a certain amount of time, and we ended up staying there through the night, coming up with our first business plan, which was, okay, what is the first thing we're gonna do?

Let's even outline the next steps. And to me, the products themselves. That was everything that needed to be perfect before we're able to think about even branding and scaling. And so I dove in right away on that end in terms of enlisting a team of R and D chemists and beginning to work with them, talking to them about the ingredients I wanted to highlight as well as the ingredients we wanted to avoid.

Customers are getting more and more educated around ingredients and what's good for them. And I wanted to ensure that we met the highest level of clean beauty standards at the end of this journey. It started with very clear constraints around the products. And then I iterated on 15 to 16 samples for each product throughout the entire first year of business [00:13:00] school where I perfected the texture, absorbability, scent, application. Every little bit of the product and how it's used in terms of the experience start to finish. I really wanted to ensure it was authentic to the rituals that I used growing up because otherwise I didn't feel like I would do them justice in honoring the heritage.

So that was a really fun experience for me. I got to. Get a lot of feedback from focus groups and by that I mean my girlfriends at Wharton, 

Shiloh: Yes! 

Rooshy: We're all trying the products the whole time. And they also came from a diverse set of backgrounds. So it was awesome to be able to get that initial feedback around how people are resonating and receiving a product like this, which, isn't on the market today?

Shiloh: Yeah. 

Rooshy: So in that summer, as I had said we had self launched of Aavrani.com and that means Justin had watched a couple YouTube tutorials and created a website for us. And we launched it with the four products [00:14:00] that we had completed at the time. And that summer was critical for us because that's when the real work started.

 As I said, I thought product was everything, and in many ways it is, but a great product that works is table stakes, right? Yeah. There's no longevity in a business without a great product. But what I saw, especially in the context of the beauty space branding, packaging, the entire experience, as I said, is so important.

Not just when you start applying the product, but really when you open the box. And we wanted our customers to feel a certain way about the brand and all these little nuances that I didn't even understand before I did. It started coming to a head and that's how I slowly started to realize I'm learning about the beauty space, but I need to be a little more flexible with how I'm thinking about this because the landscape is changing so much. We're seeing emerging brands every day. It's never been [00:15:00] easier to start a brand, but at the same time it's never been more difficult to sustain one.

 So we're really excited to have. Launch with this new brand as I had mentioned when I decided to even step back and rebrand, Justin really oversaw the management and operations of the current business to ensure we were continuing to grow while I was thinking about that next step, that next vision.

And really what is a reflection of both of our commitment to what we're building here. 

Shiloh: Do you feel like it has been a challenge to almost educate people in the skincare industry about something that they need, that they might not even know they need?

And what has that process been like? It's, I'm sure it's incorporated branding and marketing and messaging and copywriting and all these things. What has that process been for you?

Rooshy: I mean, that, that has been such a trial and error. And to be honest with you, we're still in that process right now.

 You don't know what you don't know. And so for me, as I had even said, I didn't know that. [00:16:00]Non-Indian people didn't know about how you can use natural ingredients for this. And that has an effect in every aspect of the business. The copy messaging, the packaging, every little bit.

 So that first year was an incredible learning experience. Because, Here I am thinking you hear turmeric mask and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Meanwhile, some people don't even know what turmeric is. And so we had to step back and understand, okay, what do our customers actually know?

Oh, so some of them know about it, some of them don't. Some of them are in the middle. Maybe they've had a turmeric latte or they've seen turmeric supplements, right? There are so many subtleties to how educated people are on this, and that was that's a process that's ongoing. I'm starting to understand how to segment our customers better from that end, but my ultimate goal is remaining authentic. I'm constantly trying to straddle that, divide myself. 

Shiloh: [00:17:00] So you started these products the first kind of summer, you had four different products, then you rebranded later on. Now are you guys going direct to consumer or did you guys create some, like a wholesale are you going to big box stores and all those things?

Like who are you guys selling to and what was the process like going from just this organic startup to hey, now I've gotta find these other outlets for buyers? 

Rooshy: You're actually asking me that question at the exact time that I had that to myself and my team of okay, where do we go from here?

Shiloh: Yeah. 

Rooshy: So the fact that we're exclusively on Aavrani.com was completely intentional. I wanted to take some time to build the brand, get people familiar with who we are before we enter physical retail. By the time you're in physical retail, people should be looking for you asking the sales associate, where can I find Aavrani?

And that can only happen once we have a certain level of brand recognition. So the first six to 12 [00:18:00] months of the business is focused on pure brand awareness and driving people to our website. But we have a robust plan in place for next year and have already started the conversations around partnerships with niche retailers such as Goop, Revolved Net-a-Porter, ones that access our end consumer, but through a new and differentiated way, as we've seen even with Covid it's completely changed the way people shop and their attention to the digital space, especially for relying on their beauty products.

So we're excited to keep watching that and to meet our customers where they are. 

Shiloh: So how do you guys like scale in terms of bringing awareness to your brand solely through your website or clearly you guys are doing some social media marketing, are you doing some SEO like on Google?

How are you guys navigating marketing online directly to your brand? 

Rooshy: We are majority of that [00:19:00] marketing is organic, so we're focused on those social channels, as you said. Really honing in on the community. One of the biggest things I learned over the last year was just how critical our community is towards building that loyalty.

 And. Social media through a non-paid way, where people are able to see the journey behind the scenes, meet the team. That's what fosters that community. It's more of a long-term strategy, right? Because you're not gonna make a sale for every behind the scenes video you show of your manufacturer.

But over time, that's what builds trust and sort of fosters that intimate relationship with the customer where they feel like they're a part of this with you. So that's really what the strategy is to be as authentic as possible when we're putting our face behind, behind these things.

 As we grow, we're looking to activate various different high level gorilla marketing like projects. One fun [00:20:00] idea we have for next year was rooted in an event that we had in October, actually, a couple months ago we disrupted the front entrance of a chic Indian restaurant in New York City.

It's actually the only restaurant of its kind here, and everybody knows it, at least in the Indian American community, the restaurant's, bar bar. And so we used our Aavrani branding, our new sort of street style look to bring awareness to who we are and the new aesthetic that we had created.

And it was such a wonderful experience to see how people resonated with it. Even to access the menu when we're all now using our phones with the QR codes we even branded the menu. So we were able to, as I said, meet people where there are, where they are, despite the.

The covid circumstances that are preventing us from doing the classic things like popup or a meet and greet. Which we hope to start up again next year too. 

Shiloh: [00:21:00] Oh yeah, man. Let's see what happens. 

Rooshy: Fingers crossed. But that's the thing with, you can't rely on any one driver of marketing or growth, right?

 There has to be a diverse set of projects that you're working on, cuz you never know what's gonna hit. Yeah. You just have to give it your all. Throughout. Yeah. 

Shiloh: That's awesome. So how did you build your team? It's you, it's Justin, you guys have this idea and clearly like what you're doing is massive scale right now.

Like you've gotta have a team. How did you begin that process? And I'm sure delegating things and this is your baby like this is what you love. Like how, what was that process like for you? 

Rooshy: So you hit the nail in the head. The whole idea of letting go is again, something I'm still very much working on.

 But our team is so wonderful and Justin and I are incredibly lucky to have found that. We have two full-time employees right now. One is our head of growth marketing and she manages those sorts of partnerships I mentioned [00:22:00] with the restaurant and also all of our relationships with influencers and whatnot.

 She's able to bring the message of the brand in the most authentic way possible. And as I said, that, that is the priority for me to be able to do that. Our other employees are chief of staff who is running on all of the product and all of the the distribution storefront, all of that, which is right now our entire website.

So she optimizes our full digital presence. And it's amazing to be able to not just create something that they can build upon, but really have thought partners who are able to tell us what we're missing, how to do things better and work together as a real meritocracy.

 I feel like. That's a buzzword that a lot of workplaces use. But our team has really become our family in that way because not all of us are just so driven by the mission of the brand, but none of us really know what we're doing at the end of the day. And so it, it's really a wonderful [00:23:00] experience that has.

 Even for me personally, bridged the divide between a professional and work life. I just, I feel like I'm with my friends all day. 

Shiloh: You're in this process of learning. Tell me like what's one or two things like that have been your biggest lessons and venturing out as a young female Indian, CEO doing your own thing. What have you learned in the process that you know is, was new to you? 

Rooshy: Oh, what have I learned? I feel like anything I thought I knew has gone to the wayside and it, I'm just like completely full of learnings right now. I guess one of the first things I learned was that I had a lot of work to do on myself in terms of my identity and my comfort with what I was trying to build.

 Even when I first started the brand in 2017 with Justin and was so excited to, to build it. It came from the lens of building a business. I've always been very entrepreneurial and enterprising even as a child. And so that was the part that excited me the most. And as I [00:24:00] got into building this thing I realized that with a product like beauty that is so personal and intimate you're with people in their most intimate moments, in their bathrooms while they're alone.

 If you don't have a personal connection to the product, That you can celebrate and own, then nobody else really will. And so that was really difficult for me because I was in denial. I was like, no I'm so proud of who I am. I am, everyone would say I'm a relatively confident person.

That was never really an issue for me. But when it came time to network, let's say at a trade show, and I have to look someone in the eye and shake their hand and say, I am the CEO and co-founder of a beauty brand I just couldn't do it. And I realize if you're starting a company, especially one that's attached to a product, that product's gotta be essentially an extension of you.

And so that required a lot of looking inward and self-reflection and introspection. And the same kind of work had to be done [00:25:00] again, as I built the team there's, especially, as you said this feels like it's my baby. And it I was so protective of every little bit of it. I needed to give my team the flexibility to take risks and try new things because otherwise how are we ever gonna grow from where we're at?

I've learned that having a team that is committed to your mission is the most important thing because skills and a resume only go so far. If the person doesn't care enough to go the extra mile every now and then. You're not gonna be able to grow with them you're just gonna stay stagnant.

So even in the way that Justin and I seek out new hires, it's all about that commitment and understanding of what we're trying to do and very little about what they've already done in the past. Yeah. If they have a certain baseline foundational skills all they need is a passion for what we're doing to be able to fit in perfectly here.

And that was huge for us to understand.

Shiloh: [00:26:00] That's huge cause I think a lot of people look for skillset, and skillset is good, but at the end of the day, if somebody doesn't have a passion and kind of a personal connection to what you do, they might not be around very long or they might burn out at a certain point.

So I love that. It's like taking ownership it's being able to give them a piece of that brand to this is mine and I believe it's mine. And I think you'll have people long term in with that strategy. That's so cool. Okay, another question that I'm gonna let you go after this, but for all those changemakers out there who are looking to create good in the world or disrupt an industry with something beautiful like a skincare line that represents their heritage to all those who are aspiring to do more or something better or different than what they're doing, do you have some piece of advice that you would give them or that you have soaked in that's helped you to build something and create something from the ground up?

Rooshy: Yes. Absolutely. I have so many mantras that I, I refer to, even on my notes app on my phone is just full of inspiring quotes. But I'll share one of the most profound ones off the top of [00:27:00]my head. It's actually a by a rabbi. I'm forgetting his name, but the wisdom is, let me fall if I must fall, the one who I will become will catch me. And I think that it's so powerful for somebody who's in a position where they're not sure if they should pivot or change industries or take a step back because we often don't trust ourselves enough. We're so much more resilient and powerful than we give ourselves credit for, and it's easy to recognize those things in retrospect, like events or circumstances of the past, but it's harder to apply that going forward and actually trust that, you know what, I'm gonna figure it out.

I don't have to have all the answers in this moment right now. It's okay if I fall and I fail because. The person I will be at the end of that will know better already, and I can trust that. That's something I'm still reminding myself of over and over again because as I've been [00:28:00] doing this more and more the whole question of, okay, do you wanna keep doing this?

 I have to ask myself that almost every day now because, every day there's a new failure, mistake or disappointment that I feel like I'm backed into a corner. And it's very easy to think oh, why am I doing this? Or should I even be doing this? And when you can double down on yourself over and over again it builds a sense of purpose and identity that's unlike anything I think you can experience otherwise.

So if you're not going to pivot for everyone else who will benefit from your business, you know you should pivot for yourself. 

Shiloh: So powerful and so good. Rooshy, I just appreciate your time and I've learned a lot and I know that everyone here has learned a lot and we're so grateful.

How can people find out more about your products or connect with you guys on social media, what is the best way for them to do that? 

Rooshy: Yeah, so our primary channel is Instagram. But our handles all over Twitter. Facebook included is just @Aavrani, A A V R A N I.[00:29:00] Right now we need help with word of mouth, so if anybody wants to support it's, you don't have to buy a product necessarily.

Shiloh: I think I just saw a post from you guys. Are you guys in Vogue or something?

Rooshy: So we were featured in the Vogue, indie October issue. Yes. 

Shiloh: Congratulations. That is, 

Rooshy: Thank you so much. 

Shiloh: So cool. 

Rooshy: Thank you. That was special to be recognized, especially in India as a new beauty brand that's inspired by the heritage. 

Shiloh: Thank you for being with us today.

I feel so honored and it's been such a blessing. Your energy is just so fresh and alive and fun and I appreciate it and I'm looking forward to getting me some products. 

Rooshy: Thank you Shiloh. Yes. Such a lovely conversation. 

Shiloh: Yes. Thank you, Rooshy 

 [00:30:00]