The Journey
“No matter what you do, things always come to an end. You work hard, you drive all your energy in doing one thing, and then you achieve, that’s it. There is no next in these things. But the idea that drove us towards starting this startup was there will never be an end to it until we want it.” This is how the founders of betaMG talk about their dream project.
The call to Adventure
Ayush Panara, one of the founders of betaMG and a resident of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, always had a knack for creating things. Back in high school, he did many projects which even allowed him to represent India in foreign countries. Later on, in college, he wrote 2 research papers which again gave him the chance to think out of the box. But for him, all of this was temporary. During his college days, he started toying with the idea of ‘startup’. As said by Ayush, “It was more of a gradual, cumulative process whose roots went back to his school days”.
On being asked how they came up with this startup idea, the founders share it was based on the cumulation of past research papers, first-hand experience of the market need, and an overwhelming response they received from many NGOs after publishing the preliminary results of the startup on the internet, that motivated the team to do something that can help others.
“Low on cost and Simple to use”.
The Start
Focusing on this motto, the team consisting of an academic researcher and a management undergrad, backed by industry experts from the Chemical and PHARMACEUTICAL Industry started their pursuit of making a healthy lifestyle appealing for the first-timers.
Creating betaMG wasn’t just a startup idea for the team, it was a way to give something back to society; which is why the team created a product that can help both parts of India. Through the rural approach, the founders wanted to make nutrition a basic right that is accessible to all. Through the urban approach, the founders wanted to help a product that can help foodies get healthy without sacrificing their tasty meals’.
The Trials and tribulations
This whole startup idea seemed very alluring for the team at first. Being your own boss & not answerable to anyone. But in reality, it comes with a baggage full of responsibilities that were comparatively tough for these first-timers.
One of the biggest challenges that anybody faces in a startup is patience. It is hard to keep faith in yourself and your dreams that one day all this hard -work and patience is going to pay off. You can’t grow muscles by going to the gym for 1 day. You’ve to work at least 30-40 days to see a difference. Fortunately, after 2 years of relentlessness, betaMG was able to see a difference.
‘We were able to bring down our product’s daily cost to mere 20Rs a day, a price point similar to any roadside snack’.
However, keeping perseverance when no result was coming, was one of the biggest challenges the founders faced during their course.
The Wisdom
One more thing founders wanted to share is that being first-time entrepreneurs, they were scared of rejections and thus intended to read books to tackle situations they will be facing in the future. But as the saying goes, “One cannot learn swimming by reading books on it. For that, one needs to enter the swimming pool.” Similarly, it is later that the founders realized that one cannot become successful by reading books on startups. For that, one has to enter the real world and make real decisions.
Upon asking how the founders managed to fight these challenges, the founders said it was through sheer will, and imagining the betterment in the situation of people who need betaMG is what kept them going.
The Vision
To sum up, the team says they were able to achieve these miles only because of their vision. Every time they would hit a roadblock, they would ask themselves, ‘Do we really want nutrition to be a privilege that only a few can afford? Or a basic human right that should be available to everyone?’ this thought was enough to push them and try one more time.
So, to everyone else who’s ready to read, we would like to let them. If you believe in an idea strong enough and you are willing to work day and night for it, people will come and support you. If you would like to help them in making India free from malnutrition.
