Gwalior-based Amrutam’s Stuti Ashok Gupta is the ‘Principal: Brand & Vision’ at Amrutam, an Ayurvedic Lifestyle Brand. Stuti Ashok Gupta shares her journey on making the brand and future expansions.
Apart from building a global wellness community through Amrutam, Stuti Ashok Gupta is a part-time mental health professional with a master’s degree in Applied Psychology with clinical specialization. She wears multiple hats and straddles between building communities, brand curation, storytelling, mental health, and weaving narratives inspired by her life experiences and travels.
Currently, Amrutam’s e-store boasts a size of 140+ SKUs ranging from personal care and beauty to healthcare and wellness. Amrutam also has a telemedicine platform called Amrutam.global, where people can consult with Ayurvedic Doctors online.
Stuti aims to introduce Ayurvedic courses, treatments, experiences, and books to enable people to lead an Ayurvedic lifestyle in an accessible way.
In conversation with Globalspa, she spilled the beans about her journey to be featured in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list, Brand Amrutam, further challenges and much more.
1.) How has your journey been so far with Amrutam?
My Amrutam journey has been full of learning and a lot of adventure. I studied Clinical Psychology. I don’t come from a business, tech or marketing background. I have experienced so many challenges and picked up on skills on the job. Every day presents itself with a new question that I seek answers to, and in that process, I learn something new. It has been quite spiritual; too, where everything we do at Amrutam is to bring people closer to a healthy lifestyle. Be it with our social media content, ads or our website blog posts. We are not just a product brand but a global wellness community. Back in 2017, when we got our first order, it was still hard to imagine the impact that we would create in people’s lives today. I am really proud of that positive change we bring as a brand by existing.
2.) What makes the brand different from others in the market?
Society has come a long way, from the simpler times when Ayurvedic and Vedic customs were the way of life to the modern, industrial, fast paced race that we live in. Somewhere along this transition, Ayurvedic practices were gradually forgotten. Maybe the difficulty of incorporating ancient rituals into a modern lifestyle is why so many people ended up disregarding this wonderful practice. We at Amrutam firmly believe that by adjusting for modern lifestyles, Ayurvedic formulations and practices can be just as impactful as it was back in the day. We draw our inspiration from this concept to create products that incorporate core Ayurvedic principles while also taking into account the current day scenarios.
· From the Classics to the Modern Day Products
Of all our products, only the Kumkumadi Oil and Chawanprash are produced from the original, classical Ayurvedic recipes. We design our products to provide the best results while adhering to the basic Ayurvedic principles. The variety of Ayurvedic herbs and spices available gives us the freedom to be creative while designing the formulations.
Be it Personal Care, Gourmet or Health Care, our products have been created with the modern lifestyle in mind. IAmrutam’s products provide you the benefits of easy-to-incorporate products. The Kuntal Care Series perfectly embodies this ideology. While the various external-application based Kuntal care products like the Hair Spa, Oil, Shampoo and Conditioner work on the problem from the outside, the consumable Kuntal Care Malt remedies the hair related issues internally.
· An Assortment of Lovingly Created Formulations
Products like the Nari Sondarya Malt are versatile as they have been designed to remedy multiple conditions. This consumable is capable of providing relief during the female menstrual cycle, treating skin related disorders in women, while also mitigating depression and treating infertility.
However, we also have several single herb churnas available which can be used based on the consumer’s needs. These churnas, Harad Churna, Marodfalli Churna, Brahmi Churna and Amla Churna to name a few, are prepared using 100% natural and organic ingredients sourced from trusted local vendors and cultivators.
· Beyond Beauty and Healthcare Products
At the end of the day, our objective is to provide an easy-to-access source of Ayurvedic products to everybody. We have published a book titled Ayurveda Lifestyle – The Beginning. This text is the perfect first step for anyone who is trying to embrace the Ayurvedic lifestyle. The book discusses several topics and also provides quick and handy guides to remedy a range of health issues (Plus the book itself is aesthetically pleasing and filled with gorgeous illustrations!). Amrutam.global is yet another way by which we have tried to bridge the gap between modern life and Ayurveda.
Our extensive range of Gourmet products is the icing on top of our metaphorical Ayurvedic cake. Infusing Ayurveda into delicious classical recipes was a challenge which we relished solving. The end product was the creation of several extremely well-received products like our signature Gulkand and Ayurvedic Sharbats.
· Our USP and Overarching Ideal
Health is Beauty has been our motto for a long time and is something we truly believe in. True beauty can only be achieved if you are healthy from the outside as well as the inside. If we were pressed to express our USP in just a line, we would pick our motto without a doubt. Health is beauty and Ayurveda is the fastest way to achieve this state.
3.) How has your educational background and your beliefs about emotional intelligence helped shape the brand?
I studied Science (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) with Psychology for two years in school. I applied to Christ University, Bangalore, got through it, and studied triple majors – Psychology Sociology and English Literature in my graduation and passed with a degree in BA – Psychology Honors. Interestingly, I got through TISS and went for my masters degree in Applied Psychology in Clinical specialization, and while my life in Bangalore groomed me as a person, it is my life in TISS Kerala that truly unraveled me and unfolded my true path.
I travelled quite a lot, took about 40 odd trips during my two years course across the country, I wrote about 300-400 poems during this time, and decided to publish my book – Sublimation, a collection of poems. Later,I decided to start a therapeutic community [a participative, group-based approach where ‘community’ is a tool of healing for mental health concerns], and since I had to pitch this idea to my parents, I had to include a revenue model that was sustainable. So we called it The Lost Tribe. It is a chain of backpackers hostels that I co-founded when I was only 22 years old.
If I have to talk about how being a mental health professional has helped me with the brand development, there are 3 important points here:
1.) I understand that Amrutam is not just a brand selling products, but we are offering a healthy lifestyle and with that building a community around it.
2.) We try to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes or even our employees’ shoes and then decide.
3.) Providing space for grievances, complaints and critical feedback also helped to become a great brand that you see today.
4.) Has the entire wellness movement of going back to the roots helped Amrutam?
My parents started this company with a vision of healthier lifestyle, however, before the pandemic we felt that people were more interested in our hair and skin care products such as Kuntal Care Hair Spa and Amrutam Face Clean Up, and it was just easier to sell beauty products as outside mattered much more than inside. Since the wake of Covid19, we have seen a big paradigm shift where three of our healthcare products – Nari Sondarya Malt for women, Kuntal Care Malt for hair care and Zeo Malt for stomach and gut health – are now in our top performing best sellers. People have really started seeing the importance of internal health and how if you are healthy, you are beautiful. Amrutam endorses the idea of “Health is Beauty” and post-covid, people have finally started understanding the meaning of it, and Amrutam Ayurvedic recipes have seen the love in the form of high repeat sales.
5.) What/ when have you been the most proud of regarding your achievements?
Being featured in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia was a proud moment for me.
I was selected to be a part of a fully-funded course at IIM Bangalore – GS 10k women.
6.) What’s your wellness philosophy?
Being in sync with my body and breath. I like to stay mindful about what I consume – be it food for my body or content for my mind. I believe in holistic health and working out and being active is essential to stay fit.
Little things like not eating before bathing and drinking a litre of water first thing when I wake up are some of the practices I have been following since I was a child. This not just makes me feel healthy but also strengthens my will-power. Looking at health at all three levels – spiritual, physical and mental is my wellness philosophy.
7.) What’s next for you?
Excited to launch Amrutam’s new website and app.
