How a teabag sparked the birth of skincare brand mCaffeine

Innovation is at the core of mCaffeine and it has made it the world’s largest single-ingredient personal care brand offering caffeinated products across 4 major categories including face care, hair care, body care, and lip care. What also makes the brand a sure-shot favourite of the crowd is its gender-neutral positioning that reŦects the lifestyle of today’s youngsters and also personifies their values

An exciting start

What led Tarun Sharma, Vikas Lachhwani, Vaishali Gupta, Saurabh Singhal, and Mohit Jain to start mCaffeine is an interesting story. Way back in 2015, a minor accident caused Sharma’s left eye to swell up. When one of his roommates suggested that he put a teabag over it to reduce the inflammation, he unknowingly sparked Sharma’s incurably curious appetite. Sharma calls this a eureka moment that led to the idea of starting mCaffeine.

He began reading up on the benefits of caffeine and realized that most global brands use it in their skincare products. Starting India’s first caffeinated personal care brand seemed like a good idea to him, and he decided to jump on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster with Lachhwani, Gupta, Singhal, and Jain—who were his closest friends.

“We knew each other very well, so it was an easy decision for us to come together and build mCaffeine. Each of us has very unique and complementary strengths which we bring to the table. We truly have respect for each other and value each other’s skill sets,” says Sharma.

Before entering the personal care segment, however, they did extensive research. “We studied why caffeine has such a gripping effect on its audience and why it is often considered a bond of modern kinship (in some cases). We met scientists whose clinical trials had found that caffeine, present in coffee, green tea, and chocolate, is good for the hair and skin. Keeping the amazing healing properties of caffeine in mind, we decided to create a digital-first caffeinated personal care brand with a clear focus on the millennial audience in India to bridge the gap between effective personal care and gender-neutral products,” says Sharma.

What also made their decision easier, Sharma continues, was that around 2015, social media and influencer-led discovery along with Amazon India, Nykaa, and Flipkart-led distribution were making it easy for challenger brands to reach out to their target audience. “India was also witnessing the rise of a new type of consumer: millennials. Hence, mCaffeine was born,” conveys Sharma.

Along the way

At mCaffeine, all five co-founders have leveraged their areas of expertise. “Vikas brought power into the product, Vaishali was the brain behind the brand, Mohit built the market for our offerings, Saurabh strengthened the supply chain, and I was the connector of all the pieces,” explains Sharma. Together, they have made mCaffeine into a D2C brand that succeeds in efficacy, ethos, experience, and emotions—what Sharma calls the four E’s to build a thriving D2C millennial brand.

“What is vital for any D2C brand is having a robust foundation built with new-age building blocks of the four E’s, which can support it as it steps up to scale new heights,” shares Sharma.

Looking to the future

According to Sharma, the target in the next three years is to start capturing the international market. “Using caffeine in skincare products is a global concept, and hence expanding overseas is a great opportunity for a brand like ours. Moreover, now the time is ripe to build home-grown brands and go out on an international level to win a share in those markets,” shares Sharma.

mCaffeine has already entered Nepal and Maldives and is planning to launch in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) market, which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. “Basically, we plan to launch in 20 countries such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the US, UK, Canada, and Egypt in the next six months. We intend to put mCaffeine on a global map and create an iconic premium brand from India for the globe,” says Sharma.

Apart from global expansion, mCaffeine is eyeing offline expansion. Further, the brand plans to launch 15-20 more products in the next year and splurge on brand building and acquire smaller brands in the near future.

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