CHOOSING A NARROW PROBLEM ON PURPOSE
Every city has tales of entrepreneurs who have built brands out of problems they cannot ignore, and currently Nagpur’s brand story is being developed, although quietly and steadily.
Although it might not appear to be a glamorous issue, it is certainly an interesting one: water. To be more precise, the water that passes through the taps in various parts of India. Hard water has a number of effects — it makes scalps itchy, renders hair strands brittle and causes colours to fade more quickly. Even though people know that their hair-care routine isn’t up to standard, no one links the cause to hard water. It is this mismatch between how consumers perceive the situation and what may actually be contributing to it that Headtrixx identified as its problem.
Starting a brand in this way reflects Nagpur’s entrepreneurial approach — rather than being driven by a trend, one identifies a problem that nobody else has noticed.
Om Nandekar and Somnath Dhande had no intention of launching “another haircare brand”. Since the direct-to-consumer section of the Indian market is already crowded with shampoos that claim to give shine, volume and a transformative effect, Headtrixx took the opposite approach by choosing to be narrow rather than broad.
Instead of trying to cater to all kinds of people, the brand has decided to concentrate solely on one aspect: the effect of hard water on the hair and on the formulation designed to counter that effect.
Headtrixx’s language shows this approach — “Made for Your Water” isn’t a slogan come up with by someone in the boardroom. It is the straightforward answer to a question that a customer never would have thought of asking.
This method of branding is difficult since it takes longer to teach consumers about a problem they are unaware of than it does to sell them a dream. Yet it is also the way in which specialist brands are able to gain an advantage that generalist brands cannot: trust, since the story is believable.
A CITY THAT DOESN’T GET ENOUGH ATTENTION IN THIS DISCUSSION
The geographical aspect of branding consumer goods in India is a problem since most of the stories, most of the funding, and most of the headlines regarding the next big brand originate from just two or three cities, with Nagpur’s story rarely included in this circle even though the ambition, discipline and the founders are present in equal measure.
Which is why the story is of importance not just in relation to the brand. The fact that a specialist brand has solved a real and underserved problem in this area, having been established by founders who operate in Central India rather than in an innovation hub, provides a useful counterpoint to the notion that scale is only achievable from a small number of zip codes.
Last month this was demonstrated in practice when the founder of Headtrixx went to the seminar titled BOUNCE BACK – Rise Beyond Limits, which was held in Nagpur. He spent an afternoon with other founders and business owners in the area — that is the kind of setting where regional ambitions build up one deal at a time and one conversation at a time. He was there simply as an attendee, not as a headline speaker and not as a sponsor.
WHAT “BECOMING A NATIONAL BRAND” MEANS FROM HERE
That isn’t what a press release is; it refers to the dull and tedious job which specialist brands have to carry out while generalist brands do not need to — the job of proving that the mechanism works, one city at a time and for each type of water; building up trust step by step through individual reviews rather than faking five-star ratings; and extending distribution without weakening the single claim on which the entire brand is based.
Headtrixx isn’t a national brand at the moment; it’s a brand from Nagpur that is addressing a problem of national importance, and that seems to be a more difficult but also more interesting starting point.
What can be learned from this story is that the founders who go on to create something big begin by identifying a particular problem and choosing to solve it.
Learn more about Headtrixx: Headtrixx Official Website
Explore the Headtrixx haircare range: Headtrixx Haircare Products
