Syona Cosmetics: Sees Entering the Premium Cosmetics Market as the Logical Next Step

BWDisrupt interacted Raja Varatharaju, Co-founder & Director, Syona Cosmetics to know how the startup has been functioning in cosmetic space.

Syona Cosmetics Pvt. Ltd is into Professional skin and hair care products, services and markets under the brand Estrella Professional. The products are sold to leading salons and spas.

How has your entrepreneurial journey been since inception?
Within a short span of its launch Estrella Professional is empanelled with corporate chains like Naturals, YLG, Limelight, and other premium home service brands, among other premium salons. Estrella is amongst the top 3 leading players in its TN and fast emerging as a strong contender in the other southern states as well.

Estrella Professional collaborates with leading laboratories in Europe offering Global Quality professional products that are affordable and made specifically for Indian skin. Estrella Professional offers breakthrough product formulations that are safe and deliver high performance and are backed by intense research and advanced technologies.

Both Single Use Kits and Economy packs are available for treatment facials, fruit facials, cleanup’s, Argan oil hair spas, back wash shampoos, conditioners, masks, serums, scalp concentrates, body exfoliators, massage creams, self-warming wraps and retail home care products.

Apart from products, ESHA (Estrella Skin and Hair Academy) has trained more than 5000 beauticians and known for salon support through continuous training. ESHA also conducts beauty/hair courses in its flagship academy.

The journey has been action-packed with immense learning in building teams, managing perceptions, nurturing talent, designing world-class products and most of all creating lasting value in the professional industry. We have been fortunate that our products and training are well appreciated by leading salons like Naturals, YLG, Limelite and other premium salons.
Our goal is to have a nation wide foot-print, train and empower estheticians to deliver a holistic and professional service to clients.

How big has been your client-base and how fast is it growing?
Estrella reaches out to more than 1000 salons mostly in South India. Our products and services included a wide variety including skin, hair and body care in the professional segment. Our product range covers 80% of services offered by a typical salon. It covers services in salons like facials (for all skin types and across price ranges), treatments, hair spa, manicure/ pedicure, under eye treatments, and a wide range of home care products that complement the in salon services. In line with our vision, we are amongst top 3 in our core market and galloping towards the same in new markets.

What is the need you are addressing in the market?
We found that the skincare segment was largely unorganized. When it came to haircare you see a lot of brands like L’Oreal Professional, Matrix, Wella, and Schwarzkopf. Skin however, continues to be an un-organised market and there are several regional players but not many dominant national players. We wanted to address this gap by providing global quality products with international standards but specifically made for Indian skin.

Please talk about your Business Model?
Ours is a professional B2B business model where we sell to salons and spas via distributors. Since these products are to be used only by trained / skilled experts, they are sold through this channel only.

Can you reveal your recent traction details?
We are growing 3 times every year in last 3 years and have made a visible impact in the salon industry. A significant number of salons and salon product traders use our brands extensively.

What are the unique key features of your business?
Estrella Professional is one of the only professional players to offer skin, hair and body services under the same umbrella. This makes us a sought after brand in salons.

We have also disrupted the market with the introduction of single use sachets for all the segments spoken above. This is a first in the industry and the salons are very excited and embracing this initiative with great enthusiasm as it offers them enormous flexibility in inventory holding, investment and accounting.

Estrella offers global quality products that are formulated and procured from Europe. However, these are suited for Indian skin and extensively tested for efficacy and performance. This also makes us a preferred brand among salons.

What is the funding you have received so far? What are your future plans?
We raised our first round of angel funding in 2015 by The Chennai Angels. We are now looking to raise our our series A.

How do you see growth scenario and market size is this business?
Salon industry has, in the last few years, received a lot of attention with ventures in salons, products, online portals, home service etc and since then growing in strong double digits. With series A, we are looking to scale professional business to major cities in India and see ourselves growing at similar rate for next few years. As a logical next step and as a part of strategy we are entering premium cosmetics market in modern retail stores.

What have your best moments in this journey been?
 The joy and fulfillment felt when a key client recommends us to the fraternity is amazing. We’ve also had instances when students trained from ESHA (Estrella Skin and Hair Academy) have shared feedback that they are much more confident and moving ahead positively in their lives and careers after being trained by us.

The icing on the cake is when our investors said that we exceeded their expectation and we are one of the best performing company in their portfolio.
Our team shares the same enthusiasm, passion and ownership towards Estrella as the founding team and this is not only a source of immense joy but also great pride.

Talk about the challenges in this journey?
The challenges have been many, but overcoming them has helped us move to the next level. The startup eco-system, especially when it comes to funding requirements is still at a very nascent stage and this makes it tough for entrepreneurs to survive and pull through in the early years.

The professional segment has many big names and standing up to meet the high standards set by them has been a challenge and an opportunity of immense learning. We’ve also had hiring challenges in the beginning when good talent from the industry would not readily join us as we were not well known then.

What have been your biggest learnings?
This entrepreneurial journey has been one filled with learnings. There is no place for shortcuts and we as an organisation have always valued integrity. We’ve also learnt that people are an organization’s greatest assets and we value their contribution immensely.