Miscarriage Turned Me Into An Entrepreneur, Says Nenu Super Woman Contestant Sridevi

Telugu OTT Aha launched the first ever business reality show ‘Nenu Superwoman’ in both Telugu states. The show, mainly aimed at encouraging women entrepreneurs, began streaming three weeks ago.

Let us take a sneak peek into the success story of one of the contestants, Sridevi Ashala, founder of Tummy Friendly Foods, who bagged Rs 40 lakh investment from two Angels on the show.

How could you identify the business acumen in you?

I was leading a busy life, travelling frequently and was used to consuming packaged food most of the time. Due to our hectic schedules, neither me nor my husband had time to cook everyday. The copious amounts of packaged food had an adverse effect on my health and eventually resulted in a miscarriage. Then, doctors advised me to switch to healthy eating habits. On consulting some nutritionists, I discovered some interesting facts about food and nutrition and completely changed my lifestyle. Gradually, my husband also shifted to healthy eating.

I worked as a software developer for 15 years, with three different companies. After the miscarriage, I wanted to do something which I had a passion for and also to be able to focus on my family. So, I had to choose between continuing with the software job or running a business in the nutritious food domain. I chose the latter. As a software developer I didn’t get the job satisfaction but this business is giving me that satisfaction because I always wanted to be able to offer employment to people which I can offer do now at my venture Tummy Friendly Foods. Of course, this business is also giving me time to attend to my family’s needs too.

Fortunately, my husband always encouraged me to do business and gradually everything took shape with our hard work and passion.

Can you recall the problems you faced in setting up your startup?

Initially, we had planned to invest Rs 10 lakh to start the business but eventually we ended up pumping in an additional Rs 90 lakh into it. We also faced several problems in identifying genuine and certified raw material suppliers for our food products, placement of our products in the retail stores and even in ensuring contamination-free production. But gradually we found solutions to those challenges and things fell in place. Now, we have 20 staff members working in our startup.

I had the experience of heading teams and also starting a business, as I had done it with one of the software companies I had worked in. This helped me in setting our startup. Though I am not a qualified nutritionist, I am good at digital marketing. We launched TFF in a 2-BHK in Bengaluru in 2020, as I was then working as a software professional there. I had some idea about the products and I also did some research about what type of products should be placed under which category. I had taken some nutritionists as my mentors.

We also had to set up in-house chemistry and microbiology lab as I did not want to compromise on the quality of our products.

Tell us about your initial hiccups in establishing the customer base.

For one year, I researched about the products and the raw materials required for our products. Making a product economically viable needs a lot of studying and footwork. Initially, even the retail store owners did not show any interest in placing our product in their shelf.

We initially launched it on e-commerce platforms and as I had some knowledge about search words and algorithms, we could set the ball rolling. Technology helped me a lot as I could find nutritionists on LinkedIn. My previous experience as a techie came in handy.

In the first six months, a majority of our products were returned from the market for various reasons. However, we slowly rectified our mistake but people did not want to experiment with our products and we faced a lot of problem. To overcome these we ensured that all our products are completely organic and certified. Scaling up our business was really difficult in Bengaluru. Now, we are based in Hyderabad and we are thankful that it has a proper ecosystem to ensure the progress of our business.

Please tell us about your product.

Our Tummy Friendly Foods are meant for kids and adults. Our foods can be consumed by individuals aged one year and above. We have special products catering to the needs of the kids like ragi flour and ragi flakes which are rich in calcium and other micronutrients. Many of our products are in powder form and can be consumed as porridges. We also have some snack items. Our foods also cater to diabetics too, aged above 60 years. Nuts and grains are also available with us.

Our products are available both online and even in stores across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. In Bengaluru, our products can be picked from Organic World and Organic Mandya, in Chennai, Dhanyam, in Hyderabad Daaman and Q-Mart, in Delhi Nature’s Soul outlets. In Mumbai, we are planning to launch our product in Nature’s Basket.  So TFF has both national and international presence. We supply our products to warehouses of BigBasket, Amazon too to make them available for online customers. We also have health mixes which can be cooked under 5 minutes and consumed. Our brand got listed as one among the top brands in Amazon and Flipkart in just 1.5 years of launch.

Launching your product during the pandemic could have been a problem. How could you overcome the situation?

In fact, the lockdown had been a boon for me as my entire family helped me a lot. I could focus on more complicated things as there was help from my family members.  

What is the objective of taking the Rs 40 lakh loan from the Nenu Super Woman Angels?

We want our brand to have more market penetration. We will use the funds for market penetration and distribution. We want to create brand awareness. It is not just money, the two Angels who showed interest in our brand will also help us in extending network by handholding and also increasing our market base. Definitely, we hope our startup will scale up with the Angel’s expertise and network.

Renuka Bodla of Silver Needle Venture and Sudhakar Reddy of Abhi Bus came forward to partner with Sridevi’s business on the Aha Nenu Super Woman show.