Wellness Expert's Warning: This Could Be The Next Ozempic! | Puneet Nanda | FO546 Raj Shamani

34:12Or my next generation. And what if something happens tomorrow? We have a famine mindset. Right. And what if the famine comes, what will we do then? Exactly. These guys have an abundant mindset. Abundant mindset. Tomorrow will be better than today. Yeah. And even if it is not, the way they've been raised is whatever you have, take advantage of that today. So that is a very big difference in mind. So don't underestimate America. Do not underestimate America. So when you said turmeric is already saturated, there is no saturation point in America. Zero. This country does not have a saturation point.

34:57So going back, so let's say you said you sold 90 ,000 pieces then. Okay. And then you delivered them and you lost 17 cents a piece. and then but then when I went back to Dave first of all listen to this also when I delivered I went to Dave I said I delivered the goods he says that's very impressive I think when he looked at my face he was not sure that this guy would deliver right and he gave me the check right away And he says, I'm giving you the check. And whatever the money was, 44 ,900 something. He says, I'm cutting 32 cents. I said, why? I didn't ask why. He said, ask me, do you know why?

35:44I said, why? I don't mind, but why? He says, because I'm giving it to hand delivering it to you and not mailing. So I'm saving that 32 cents. He said, that's Jewish mentality. You know that. So from the 44 ,000, he cut just 32 cents. 32 cents. But he said, that's the Jewish mentality. You always save where you can. Nice. Okay. And then you entered this and you have a brand. Yes. The brand name was Dr. Fresh. Dr. Fresh. Okay. So you gave it and then what happened? So I actually built that brand, but I, so very soon, very quickly, Once I was in the 99 cent stores, I knew that there is an area in the market that the giants are ignoring.

36:35So these giants thought if they put their product in 99 cent stores, this would be like a branding disaster. Branding disaster. Because they'll start making their brand cheap, not premium. Right. So they never they underestimated these 99 cent stores kind of stores, which 99 became later on 450 stores. And about a thousand more stores cropped up chain stores. So dollar mania, dollar land, dollar days, like greenbacks, so many cropped up. And later on Dollar Tree, which was one of the biggest cropped up. And he started gobbling all these people. so ultimately all these dollar stores got gobbled up and today the big one is Dollar Tree which has got 7500 stores all around US all around the US so in America never underestimate anything that is for sure never put a limit to anybody but then your business grew because you were only 99 cents?

37:39No. So my business grew because once I was in 99, 99 was in California. Dollar Tree could never enter California because 99 had its stronghold. 99 had like 10 ,000 square feet stores versus Dollar Tree was more known for like a smaller 2000 square feet store set. So they would come to 99 to watch what they are doing, even though they had only 35 stores. So when Dollar Dollar Tree saw my product in there. And when I approached Dollar Tree, Dollar Tree immediately took me seriously and put my product there. Now I was in 500 stores all of a sudden. Then from there, I kept growing. But I also knew that where do I go from here?

38:23How do I get into Walgreens and Walmart? So there is a strategy that I deciphered to get into Walmart and Walgreens. What's the strategy to get into Walmart? So the strategy to get, I'll tell you how I got into Walmart. That was a lot of guerrilla work, very similar to your story. Actually, I was reading your story too. But before I tell you that, I'll tell you the strategy. The strategy is, number one, you either need to have a brand name of your own, which I did not have. I had Dr. Fresh, but it was not like an age-old brand like Colgate that anybody would give me space, right? Number two strategy, which is alternate, which I kind of learned myself is license a brand.

39:15So back in the day, I figured out that Unilever had just sold their brand Pepsodent and close up to Church and Dwight. Okay. So I approached Church and Dwight. I said, can I license your brand in Pepsodent close up because you're focused on only toothpaste. You are not doing the toothbrush business. Why don't you let me do it and help pay your royalty on that? They were not agreeable. I kept going back and back and back, like persistently back for so many times you can't imagine. But the guy would always refuse me. That was David Fox. Later on became a great friend of mine. So once he moved to a different company, the secretary, the person who was next to David Fox, like the second person, or she was a junior person to David Fox.

40:10She called me, Tammy Tallarico. She said, are you still interested? I said, oh, I'm super interested. I said, and luckily I'm in New York. Their office was in Princeton in New Jersey. So I was actually not in New York. I was in L.A. So she said, okay, when can you come? I said, I can come tomorrow. I actually took a plane that evening. I went to New York. I reached early morning, 5 o 'clock, because I take overnight flight. That's the cheapest way to go back in the day. And took a shower, went to Tammy, sat down in front of her, and did the deal. And boom, I was now all of a sudden a brand. I got Pepsodent and CloseUp, which are big brands in India, right?

41:04So all of a sudden I have some stature without actual brand. I'm loan licensing a brand. So the more I sell, the more they'll make money. Now I have to prove myself that I can sell, right? So that is one way to get into bigger stores. So second way to get into these stores is doing private label. So if you go to Walmart, Walmart has a private label in the brand name called Equate. Similarly, if you go to Walgreens, they have their W brand as their private label. CVS has their own CVS label. So all these brands have their own labels, private label. I'm sure in India also they have similar stuff.

41:48Third strategy is innovation. And I'll tell you how I innovated. So, I put a lot of focus behind innovation. So, my daughter used to wear light-up shoes. I bought them from Dubai while coming from Emirates. And she wouldn't go anywhere till she could find her light-up shoes. So, one day when she was absolutely not ready, I said, I need to make a light-up toothbrush. Can you make it, Dad? I said, try, I'll try. So, I took, show me that pen for a second. so imagine this is a toothbrush i went to disney walkway which is very close by here and on disney walkway they used to sell those little uh buttons where you would turn them and they keep blinking okay so i bought that i put it behind a toothbrush i put an invisible tape around it gave it to her and say she says can i brush with it dad i said sure go ahead she's three years old goes and brushes with it and comes back in 10 minutes and says dad would this light ever turn off or should I brush my teeth off?

42:51So all of a sudden I realized I've created a psychological compliance in a kid. So that is my aha moment. So a lot of innovation is not necessarily done with having side effect laboratories around you. A lot of innovation is done by observation. So big boring categories that nobody's ready to innovate. You have to remember the big companies like Colgate and Procter & Gamble, kids market is 10 % of the market. So they put their lowest level person to take charge of that kids category. So the innovation speed is very slow. So all of a sudden, when I saw that idea, I observed, I said, OK, let me try now make it.

43:37I went to China. So I found a manufacturer who was making products for Disney, all the things like necklaces and that have lights in them. So I gave them the design. I said, OK, can you guys make it for me? OK, a toothbrush which has a light. Light behind it. OK. So I was able to cut a deal and we made that and I wanted to call it Jugnu. Jugnu. OK. But Jugnu, nobody would have understood. So I was asking somebody, what do you call that little insect that lights up? So one of the girls who was American Indian, she said it's called Firefly. So I named it Firefly. Firefly, once that got launched, I literally went to Walgreens.

44:25I was able to convince them to put it on their stores. It did not sell a piece. and the buyers most of the buyers rejected it saying it's it's a fad product i won't keep it walgreens gave me 10 stores to try i took that did not sell i was so dejected i did not know what to do but in the meanwhile um one of the indian dentists i gave it to him he said why don't you this is amazing he was a pediatric dentist and he said why don't you show it at a cda cda is california dental association show i went and took i went and took a booth in california dental association show i showed the firefly that firefly became the single bestseller at that show Every dentist was enchanted with it.

45:17I gave out 3 ,000 samples that day. And I was able to write 100 ,000 units in orders from dentists. So now remember one thing. When a person in authority is recommending your product, all of a sudden that product gets elevated. How Oral-B was formed was because they went to the dental route. They told the dentist to start talking about it. Recommending it, yeah. Right? Similarly, if you're going to be selling a wellness product, let's say Celia Musk, then you go to nutritionists. You need to have every nutritionist actually buy into your thought process. Once she is bought into it, now all of a sudden, a person of authority is going to tell people, okay, go get this product.

46:10then your product has a better chance of performing in the market. If you go straight up and say, I'm the best, no. First, you have to get the right product. Then you have to find the right authority. And then let that authority have, then create a network of that authority. Like you need to have a network of that authority. Now, all of a sudden, these people become your multi-level marketing people. Although they are not, you're not paying them anything. If they like the product, they'll recommend it because that's their job. Right. So that is the way to go. Once that was the case, now my next thing was, how do I get into Walmart?

46:49So I'm calling Marie Hughes, the buyer in Walmart, and I'm not getting any response. I'm calling, calling, calling. Finally, one day she picks up and she said, okay, I'll give you a chance. I have 15 minutes. Come show up. So the day I have to go, you know, Walmart headquarters is in Arkansas. So I went to, you had to take a flight from, there was no direct flight back in the day. So you have to go to Dallas, Dallas to Arkansas. So I land in Dallas and there's very bad weather. I drive all the way from Dallas to Bentonville, Arkansas all night. I drive and I reach there in the morning. Literally, I get ready in a McDonald's bathroom, get myself dressed up and go reach there, ensure the brush.

47:46And she says, this seems very gimmicky to me. I said, every dentist in America is recommending it. This is not my dentist. Which dentist are you talking about? Obviously, I was just exaggerating because people in California bought it, right? So I said, okay, this is messy. Now I've said that. So I bought 200 of those cases of Firefly, told my guy in LA to ship me 200 cases. I started going to dentist office to dentist office, trying to tell them, okay, keep this, start giving it to your patients free of charge. This is for you. I'm not charging any money. Nobody would let me in because 9-11 had happened recently.

48:32So they saw my face. They said, I don't even want your free stuff. So I was like thinking, what do I do? So all of a sudden I remembered that when I had a booth at CDA, I had met a company that had approached me that if you want show models, you can contact us. So I called that company. She sent me a girl. So they had all over, they have like branches all over the country. I paid for her to come over to Arkansas and she came with me. She was a Raiderhead. Raiderhead means she was cheerleader at one of the Raiders as like one of the teams. And very pretty looking girl, beautiful blonde model. So she comes in very easy to talk to.

49:19So write exactly what I wanted. and I gave her, I hired that U-Haul. I started driving it. I said, you go and you try it out. She goes in one office. They take it. I remember next two, three days, I went to every single office in the vicinity from Rogers, Bentonville, all that area and covered every dentist. And I gave them a box each free. Three months later, I did it and I forgot it. I came back, done. Three months later, Marie Hughes gives me a call. He says, are you still in business? I says, absolutely. So she says, Eric Thompson, my boss, his son got the toothbrush that you showed up with the light from his dentist.

50:09And you were right. The dentist gave it to him and the son cannot stop brushing with it. And he is in the bathroom turning off all the lights and driving crazy his dad. So Eric Thompson said, invite that guy back if he still has it. So I flew back, came out with$270 ,000 in order. So that's my guerrilla marketing journey to Walmart. Very good. So this was back in the day. I was starting up in Dr. Fresh days. So this is how I got at Walmart. Very interesting. So you built this brand. You built the brush brand. You did innovation. You did private label. You did licensing. You did like everything and you didn't leave any stone unturned.

50:57Then you sold this bread. And after selling, like you sold it because you wanted to make some money or you sold it, you were done. You burnt out. No, no, no. I was burnt out. Three things. Number one, when I came to America, you know how I was telling you, Subhash Patel becomes Sam Patel. I became a Sam Patel. In the sense, I wanted to assimilate with America. What did you become? Puneet Nanda who? I still, people call me Dr. Fresh, but that was even before America. But the thing is, the reason I became in my soul, I was becoming Sam Padeo. The reason being, I was trying to assimilate myself. They say, if you're in Rome, be a Roman or behave like a Roman.

51:47I was trying to be a Roman. And that is very common in practically most immigrants. Yeah. Right. So I was trying to be that. But then in that scenario, I was eating burgers every day. I was eating pizzas every day. I was drinking sodas every day. I was not exercising. I grew to 200 plus pounds. So I one day had a wake up call. I basically had a very bad chest pain. I was 39 years of age. And my secretary, Natalie, she called 911. I was taken to a hospital. The doctor there was a Desi guy, fortunately, Indian guy. And he said, you know what? Do you know the name of prime minister of Tanzania? I said, no.

52:34That bugger spent all his life trying to be a prime minister. You don't know his name. Who the hell knows your name? What are you trying to do? Trying to kill yourself. Then a Korean nurse was there. She said, do you do yoga? I said, what is yoga? Means, of course, I said, I don't do yoga. I used to do it when I was like four years old. Not now. He says, oh, if you just do cat cow, you could probably feel better, much better. I do it every day. And this is a Korean girl teaching me. About Indian yoga. Indian yoga, right? So all of a sudden, my eyes started to open up. and he says, there's nothing major wrong with you.

53:17You had a major nervous breakdown. There's a bunch load of medications which stabilized you, go home. But let me tell you, next time you may just go back in a body bag. So that is when I realized this is not what I was, I was running towards something just to make money probably. or just to establish myself. But in the meanwhile, I forgot the aim of life is not that. It's a journey you have to enjoy every day. And you have to love what you do. And I had started doing stuff that I was not loving. I was doing accounting. I was doing everything. As I said, everybody has their own DNA. I love sales and marketing.

54:03Great. Do I love accounting? No, I don't. Do I love certain other aspects of the business? HR, dealing with people, I don't. So a lot of things I was doing, I didn't love. So I said, simultaneously, I got an opportunity. There was a position that I was in a position to sell the company. I sold the company. I took a sabbatical. I actually left. I went to India and a couple of other countries, but I spent a lot of time in India. I really got involved in fixing myself. I originally went to Jindal, the very famous place, naturopathy place. that was my first stop but then i went to kerala then i went to bangalore like i went to every i even went to rajneesh i went to every place went to all the way into uh about 80 miles above rishi occasion in very small ashrams i lived so i spent one year learning ayurveda learning yoga so i I became a yoga teacher, did teachers training.

55:05I became expert in Ayurveda. And then I said, this is the way of life. I started becoming Subhash Patel again from Sam Patel. And I realized that the more authentic I became, the more viable I became in America. Americans want authenticity. They're not looking for another American if you're not. They're looking for who is real. So I opened up a yoga studio in Beverly Hills. I called it Guru Nanda. The reason I called it Guru Nanda was because people were calling me teacher Nanda all the time. I was teaching yoga, right? Even Jay Leno invited me to teach him yoga in one of his vintage car. And I was on, if you Google Jay Leno and Guru Nanda, you'll see I was actually invited in as Jay Leno.

55:56I was in one of his episodes. 14 million people watched it. So while I was learning Ayurveda in India, I had come back to US and all of a sudden I had a big pain in my tooth. And I went to the dentist and the dentist said, you have to get a root canal done. I said, root canal. I said, I'm just 39. I'm not going to let go of one of my child. There's 32 kids. People think if one or two go, it's okay. No. I don't want to let it go. Like if there's 10 fingers, you won't let one finger go, right? Why would you let one teeth go? And I was like scared. And he said, okay, here's NTBRS. Get it. It will turn down the infection and come back.

56:45And then we'll have to do RCT. Otherwise, one fine day, you're going to be in so much pain, you'll call me at the night. So I went to India. I was with the Ayurvedic Vedaya. And I told him, I said, I might have to go back to Rishikesh or Delhi to get this done. If these flares are back again, he says, start oil pulling. So he got me into oil pulling. And it's been 15 years. I have not gotten a root canal done yet. Now, many dentists will cringe and they will be very upset at me. They'll go against you. Against you. And they do it here all the time. Like every dentist becomes my enemy. But truly, go look at my mouth.

57:32And I have my own dentist on record. I have his video saying that this is miraculous. He says that. So when I got such results, when I was in the yoga studio, I actually made some bottles myself. I said, this is something, you know, Elon Musk always says, is if you really find something that you have to do, you find, you do it against all odds. And I put a little bottle together, beautiful bottle. Actually, I had a secretary, she was amazing. And she helped me put a bottle together. We put amazing product together and we started giving it out to all my yoga people who would come in, in the studio.

58:18I also saw that a lot of the yoga student crowd was using essential oils that were with MLM marketeers. And they were buying it at$50 for a small bottle. But then I saw on Amazon essential oils were selling for a dollar. I was like, what's going on? But most of the product on Amazon that was selling for essential oils was all total chemicals. I knew because I knew toothpaste, right? So the moment I said, and these are all, unfortunately, a lot of them are either coming from China or India. These are all companies that are selling them as essential oils in America, on Amazon, even till today. All garbage.

58:59And anyways, not to go there. I saw, why are people paying$50 to Young Living and doTERRA? I saw that they have a supply chain model where they get everything from farm to bottle, everything from farm to bottle. I love their supply chain model that they go to every country. They help the farmers. They put like they they'll put schools there. They'll do whatever it takes to get the best product out of the country of origin. This business is less ingredient business is like fine wine business. You cannot get the same, like if you want to drink a good bottle of wine, you cannot grow the grape in Los Angeles downtown and get the same quality that you'll get in Napa or Bordeaux in France.

59:50So you have to have a certain longitude, latitude, rain, everything to get the right thing, right? Similarly, if you want a good quality essential oil, let's say lavender, you have to go to Bulgaria to Kazanlak. If you want something peppermint, you have to go to Uttar Pradesh to Bareli or one of those vicinity areas. If you want to get clove oil, you have to go all the way to Madagascar to get the best quality clove oil. The efficacy is a lot, lot, lot more. so this is something i realized after i looked into their supply chain model i really replicated that supply chain next two years so this is like years of seeding as i say because i realized the moment i this idea came to me that i have to provide these people these people these people these girls who were either working as a salon therapist or some somebody who's making four $5 ,000, but their poor girl is spending$50 for a small bottle of oil.

1:00:56I knew I found a way that I would copy that supply chain of MLF marketers, cut off the sin. The sin is, what is the sin? The sin is the 50 people that they were giving commissions to and give it directly to these people. And how do I find these people? I asked, these people were the ones that were buying at Walmart and Dollar Tree and all these non-whole food kind of stores. Because I could take my product and sell it to a Whole Foods. But these are in Whole Foods are the rich people who already have 20 wellness items that they can choose from. I wanted to go after that one person whom the wellness companies had totally forgotten.

1:01:39That was bridging the gap. I wanted to serve the underserved. So essential oils on one side gave me the infrastructure to find sources of ingredients. Next two years, it also gave me an opportunity to go see places because even though I had the money after selling the company to go relax and enjoy the beach, I realized to me, I need to have a purpose. I cannot just go and go and sit on a beach. I'll be bored in two hours. Simultaneously when I was even teaching yoga or doing yoga, I started to realize that my personality is karma yoga. I have to do, I'm a deal junkie. If I don't do a deal, it's not gonna happen.

1:02:27I'm a deal junkie. So that is what gives me the most pleasure. So that's what instigated me. And then oil pulling was already becoming so popular in the yoga studio. my secretary, the same girl, she put it on Amazon. And she said, why don't you provide it to the rest of the world to take it? And that's how it got into Amazon Essential Oils. I created a line. I actually created a line, showed it to another Walmart buyer. And I named it Elements originally. The reason I named it Elements was I thought nobody would buy it otherwise. So the buyer, when he saw it, he said, what's this? I said, my range of essential oils that we talked about.

1:03:13He said, you were talking of the name Guru Nanda. I said, but Guru Nanda is too Indian. He said, that's authentic. And that's what I'm looking for. That is my life changing thing. This guy's name was Charles Greathouse. That we took and scraped off the entire elements line. I said Walmart wants it Guru Nanda Guru Nanda it is and my tagline back in the day when I started was if I don't touch the soil I don't buy the oil so everything I did I went to that particular spot I'm insured everything is farmed nothing added nothing removed so a lot of times they add or delete something no, straight Number two, I wanted to ensure that if I'm going to get something done, I want to test it every which way, do clinicals every which way, and ensure that the product has efficacy to the highest degree.

1:04:17And then bring it at a price that a normal person can afford. And that is what made Gurunanda brand. And we got two SKUs initially, two SKUs. And then next year, he literally wiped out, you were talking about Nature's Bounty at that time. Nature's Bounty, which was a big brand at that time. I think Nature's Bounty, correct, it's owned by Nestle today. They wiped out their entire 18 items and gave me the spot. The reason was because Walmart knew this is coming from the heart. This is coming, this guy is structured. this guy is bringing something that the people need nice so you talked about the framework bridge the gap that if you want to build a product to make that product better bridge the gap between you and the shitty product which the competitor has right and you talk about clean ingredients you talk about read one star reviews like tell me what are like three four ways that i can bridge the gap and build a better product so that I can sell in a competitive market?

1:05:24So first, let me tell you why I call myself, my company, everything I do, bridge the gap. I always find areas that have been ignored by the people. To start, begin with, if you look at 99 cents, that was ignored by Colgate back in the day. Now it's Colgate everywhere, but big companies had ignored it back in the day, right? So I found that it doesn't apply to just product. It could apply to the area. It could apply to, let's say, if I got into ships, the cruises, maybe nobody took care of them. So I did because I want to be where nobody is. So that's one. Number two, I wanted to bring the grandmom's kitchen wisdom, The wisdom, because I don't call it Ayurveda all the time because sometimes you need to do soft marketing.

1:06:25Here, everything, you see, if you look at Henry Huberman, which is a big podcaster like yourself, he talks about NSDR, non-sleep, deep rest. Now, what is that? It's yoga nidra, right? But he calls it NSDR. It's a big deal now. Similarly, Starbucks brings Haldik Doud. They call it turmeric latte, right? Similarly, so you have to package it right. If you don't package it right, it won't sell. But this is soft learning. I learned one thing. Similarly, I'm going to give you one more example. Andrew Weil, he treated Bill Clinton and everybody. He taught him 478 breathing exercise. inhale stop and then exhale which is pranayama basically even four seven eight is now the biggest yeah sleeping breathing right so it's it's like the thing that will bring down your cortisol even i was looking at immunity shots which is a big thing in america which is just like a kala kala right and it's it's ginger i will actually if you want um if you want to me to do it, I can spontaneously build a product for you right now.

1:07:42Then I'll show you what I did with one-star reviews, but let me quickly give you a build a product from nowhere. Okay. From your mom's kitchen or from your grandmom's kitchen. Let's do this. Let's build a product. So first of all, problem solution. Problem, what is the problem? For example, I'm just making it up right Now, nothing in mind. One of the things we were talking about was Zentac and Celia Musk, like a thrift flour, whatever. Problem is acidity is a huge problem. Whenever I go to India, I eat chole, bature, whatever, and I get acidity. So acidity is a huge problem. I'm just making it up.

1:08:23It may not be true, right? I'm just trying to make it up. Acidity is a big problem all around the world. So let's say, I mean, in the sense, whatever I'm saying is may not be 100 % true. I'm just trying to give you the framework. Okay. So let's say you got a problem. We want a solution in mom's kitchen. Okay. Ginger. Everybody knows ginger helps. Sof. Everybody knows sof else. Jeera. Jim was my favorite drink growing up. Then another would be mulatti. Another would be amla. Let's take all four or five ingredients, package it in a biodegradable bag. Biodegradable bag that's got no microplastics, nothing.

1:09:12Right? And then make it a dip-dip tea, put it in hot water, and make it. So what I did was I took a kitchen ingredient, made into something, package it really well, try it, try it for a few days. If I'm a fan, give it to a few of my friends, right? I have no money. If they also love it, my real critique friends who say yes or no honestly, if I love it, then probably print out a label, get everything structured. Okay, no staplers, no bullshit. make sure everything is clean get chat gpt or claude to help you design everything put it in take a phone make a video get an instagram page start selling it it's that easy that is yeah but then how do you find out that my product stays differentiated no i'm and what to look for i like that one star thing how do what do we look for okay so let's talk about one star now talk of a real product that i made and guide me that i'll show you so and this is real product and i'm giving you real honest how i did it so there's a product in the market today colgate wisp it's a huge product okay what is it colgate wisp w-i-s-p okay so colgate wisp was a little mini toothbrush like this size travel toothbrush kind of a mini toothbrush so they found that a lot of people who travel when they travel six hours because the US is big, right?

1:10:48You go from New York to LA, you come out, your breath is smelling, and you're drinking a couple of cups of coffee in the plane, you're going inside a meeting. Let's say if somebody's got braces or there are people who just want to be freshen up all the time, like a breath freshener they need. Instead of the spray, they want a different format. They came out with a product called Colgate Wisp. It's a little plastic toothbrush. You can look it up online. And they have a little ball inside. The ball is when you start brushing, the ball bursts. Okay. And the ball bursts and there's a sprinkle of peppermint oil in your mouth and you feel fresh.

1:11:34So what I will tell you is, if anybody wants to start a company and they don't have the money to buy data from AC Nelson or big companies because they charge you thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? All you do is you look at the one-star review of the company you're targeting or your company you're actually, or the product. Let's say if I'm in oral care, I'm looking at Colgate, which is the biggest, right? And I'm looking at their product, which I like to some degree. I look at their one-star reviews. Okay, what do I see? People love the product. There's a huge love for the product.

1:12:14But then there are certain people who are going and saying, I love the product, but here are the problems. I wish there was a real toothpaste inside that I could swallow rather than this ball because there's a little sheath outside that ball that I don't like when it comes in my mouth. one secondly some somebody had written uh what is the sheath made up of it's gelatin and i'm a vegan i don't want it so all of a sudden they've alienated a lot of vegetarians vegans jewish people muslim people like anybody with that stipulation in mind that gelatin could be pork based right so thirdly the bristles are very hard because their bristles were made of plastic.

1:13:06They had made it so that they could inject everything together. So the cost would be a lot lower than normal. They wanted to do it. They wanted to do a bulk manufacturing. And this was made in Switzerland, very high quality product. But second, thirdly, there was another thing that they were not individually packaged. Yeah. They had tried to save on packaging, but whenever you're traveling you want it individually you don't want to carry the whole box yes right you want so i looked at all four products and i created a product and today it's one of my top three sellers i'll show it to you it's right here it's a big this is not this is not small at all no no no if you really want to see this here and this is not i didn't make it up i keep it in my purse my my uh so you attach a floss to it as well so this is a second generation and I'll talk about that too.

1:14:04So this is, look at this, this is like a Swiss army knife. This has got a little interdental right here. You can, if you have braces, this is like God sent because when people have braces or in Resiline, this is very important. You can go into between your teeth. It's interdental. It has an amazing floss. This is not a normal floss. We got Teflon floss, which Kevlar, this is basically what the bulletproof jackets are made up of. So strong. Then we got a design that is, we went through. So when we design, people can design the same way. I go and ask ChatGPT that, okay, who are the top 10 product designers in the country, in US?

1:14:51They'll say James Dyson, Dyson fans, or Kareem Rashid. These are like the guy who came up with method. So I said, okay, now that you're James Dyson, can you go and design this product for me? And give me 10 iterations. And it will give you 10 iterations. I'll take it and I'll take it to Claude and I'll even further refine it. Then I'll take from Claude and bring it back. I literally at my age can do things that people will only think I can do that now everything is available so that's why when you were saying give me through your back end today life is so much easier there is no better time in this world to do business than today but what did you put in this like in the middle there's no ball where in the no no ball so we put a toothpaste with xylitol is the base.

1:15:48Xylitol is an amazing ingredient. It ensures that the xylitol is a kind of a sugar, a sugar that the bad germs, they are called streptococcus mutants. The streptococcus mutants are the ones that end up causing cavities. The reason being they love sugar. But regular sugar, whenever you eat, let's say you ate a biscuit. biscuit sticks to your teeth and they that becomes the feast of streptococcus mutants they eat the biscuit and they poop when they poop that poop is acid that acid is the one that forms cavities it's not the sugar it's the acid pooped by streptococcus mutants that is forming the cavities, right?

1:16:39And when these cavities get formed, they get little caves where they start to reside and they keep growing and then plaque or plaque or plaque becomes starter and bigger problems arise. But the thing is the xalitol that we put on there in the toothbrush bristles the base toothpaste that goes, they love to eat it. When they eat it, they can digest it and they die. So you built this entire product end to end. End to end. So originally this was just this product. Without the braces. Without the floss. Sorry, without the floss. So it was actually a different one. We call it, it was, imagine this one at the back.

1:17:26Okay. This was the first product. So the product was still for people with braces, not for the flossing. Our floss was like, so we, I have to, in my office I have two rooms. One is innovation room. One is continuous innovation room. So I read my one-star reviews also. And I continue to innovate on my one-star reviews. One-star reviews is the cheapest and the most inexpensive data you will never pay for. One-star reviews of any company, because customers don't lie. They are your cheapest resource. And that is the true data. How can you compete against the marketing of Colgate? So how are they? Because they have deep pocket filled with large distribution, relationship, marketing dollars.

1:18:23You don't have any of that. So absolutely, you're right. So Colgate is, their oral care sales is$9 billion. Procter & Gamble is$6 billion. combined is$15 billion their marketing budget is$2 billion 100 times more than my marketing budget there's no way I can compete with the big giants right so I go the gorilla route I go the gorilla route what I do is I've got a phone I will come to my TikTok story I've got a phone I can make a video so in today's world what I do is Last four hours of the day, three o 'clock, like 2.30, 3, whenever I come back from lunch till 6, 6.30. Only thing is what I do is make videos.

1:19:13So I'm like a studio like you. I'm making 10 videos per day today. On TikTok. On TikTok. And that got you to become the third highest selling product in the country, like for you? This product? Yeah. This became not just because of TikTok, because my number one thing that became very popular is oil pulling. And that has changed the world. Like, I am so happy that oil pulling, I was able to bring respect to an age-old Indian system. And I've changed America to some degree. Today, you go to a Target or a Walmart or a CVS, you'll find oil pulling sitting right next to a Listerine or a TheraBret. or a Colgate.

1:19:58I was reading about you that you targeted specifically single mothers. You never created marketing or you were not trying to sell it to everyone. You were trying to sell to one specific category of people. Why? Why single mothers? There is about, as per stat and don't hold me to it, it's about a hundred million people who are single in America and half of them are obviously single mothers and they are living with a couple of kids and they do not have the same amount of resources that a normal family would have. So a lot of them started to follow me. And when I saw initially that my TikToks, a lot of people who were following me were these women of about 40, 45 years of age or 30 to 50 years of age between that age bracket.

1:20:51I contacted the first 10 women. and I asked them, I said, I know you love my product because you comment on every post that I do. I figured it out and can I talk to you? This is my number. I called them directly. And once I was able to get them on call, I said, would you work with me? Would you actually talk about it and make videos for me? So eight out of 10 agreed. and these were not women who were Miss India, Miss America or anybody. There was like normal run of the mill. Somebody could be 200 pounds. Somebody could be anybody. But they were real people who loved my product and who loved me, right?

1:21:40And they started talking about Guru Nanda. I paid them very nominal fee, very nominal. Maybe back in the day I agreed to pay$500, but I told them for$500, I would want as many videos as you can in return, maybe 8, 10, 20, 30, 50, whatever you can. And trust me, you tell them this, you trust them, they give you more than you can think. These women did 50 videos a month. But they said, you know, we only have 50, 100, 200 people follow us. Nobody knows us. I said, that's fine. I don't care. Number one, I'm getting two things. These hundred people that follow you are people who are your loved ones.

1:22:27So I'm creating an MLM kind of a structure. Because whenever there's an MLM, whom do you sell? You sell your best friend or your friend's friend. You don't go outside that. But without actually forcing them to sell like MLM or getting commission on it or something, I kind of created that pseudo MLM structure. So all of a sudden, you have to realize these micro-influencers that I created were not your run-of-the-mill pretty-looking people. Like in India, if you go and look at it, when Colgate launched oil pulling, they hired Kareena Kapoor and Anushka Sharma. And I don't know if they do oil pulling.

1:23:15I don't know if people associated Colgate with that or if there's still a product or not. But I know that people do love micro-influencers, that people who are their own family. Oh, you're doing it? All right. How do you make sure that people can't copy you? Because the moment you launch this, there will be hundreds of people who will copy you, sell it in cheaper, probably do the same things. then where do people fail? Because they've tried to copy you and they've still not been able to do it. I actually had somebody just say that last week to me. So I am the most copied product on earth. Probably.

1:23:57I have at least 1500 copies of mine floating around. And majority of them coming from either China or Pakistan. I never kept the price high. A lot of my copies are actually more expensive than me. The reason being, I went to the source. So the way you, this is very, very important. Probably the most important thing that I'm going to tell you in your entire show. You never make money by selling a product. You never make money by selling a product. You make money when you buy. You understand? No. So if you've bought the right product, from the grounds up. For example, when I buy peppermint oil, I go to Boreli or that area and I go to every small town, Sambal or even small places.

1:24:53I go and buy that peppermint directly from the farmers, right? I've got a team during harvest time and I buy for the whole year together. I don't want to buy it from a trader in November. I want to buy it from a farmer directly in May. I'm going to stand there or my guy is going to stand there while that purchase. I'm going to purchase it for a whole year. That's a big investment. But now that I've made investment at the harvest time, the price is the lowest. If you buy the same thing in November, it would be 50 % more. It could be 100 % more. And a product could be adulterated. So I buy it at the cheapest price possible from around the globe.

1:25:39I manufacture it in-house to ensure the quality is impeccable. And then I sell it. So when I sell, it automatically sells because my price is the best and I don't overcharge. So I create value for money. It's not the price that people should look at. You could have a price. price is not the factor. It's the value you're getting. When you buy something, it is the value you're getting in return that counts. Fair. Interesting. Okay. Here's one last question, which I ask almost all my guests, which is,

1:26:23what did it cost you personally to leave your own country, come to America, and build this multi-million dollar empire? What did it cost you? What's the cost of it? This place was 10 out of 10. When I came here, all of a sudden, you didn't need any medication. All of a sudden, everything was easy. Warm water was a big deal for me. I don't like cold weather. I like warm water shower here. Electricity was not a problem. Like physical comforts were there. But psychologically, you die for a little bit. Because that home comfort with your mom and dad, your brothers, your everybody, that you leave. And that is a huge psychological loss that you initially have.

1:27:13And I don't think nothing can replace that. Number two, I would say I got so engrossed in business initially. And then when I became authentic and became more Indian back again, I started to realize, no, I'm an Indian and I want to be a proud Indian. Of course, I'm an American citizen, but I'm an American Indian and I'm proud to be one. The moment you start that realization, then things start to be looking different. Now I feel the world is global. Whenever I want to go meet anybody in India, I go. But simultaneously, I've also seen that now the same connections have kind of feebled up. It's not the exact same thing.

1:28:07It's a very complex question that you ask, a very psychologically complex question. But I would say, yes, physical comfort, this is 10 out of 10. psychologically this is a five out of ten initially at least first ten years and then later on it kind of tapers down back in india physically it was five out of ten and psychologically it was nine and a half or ten out of ten right the cost you pay is a psychological cost yes that you lose comfort, you lose your people you lose people who give you comfort and joy initially you lose that for sure, first 10 years are very hard but then because you lose that for 10 years, you can never repay it for the rest of your life you can obviously make up some amount of it but completely you cannot absolutely not, once it's gone it's gone, it's gone, gone you know, life is a cycle keeps rotating once it's gone, the years are gone Perfect.

1:29:11Thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you. Thank you for teaching us how to build a brand in America. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me today. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching this episode till the end. We would love to know what you liked or disliked about this episode and which guest you would like to see again on this show or which are the new guests that you want to see. Let us know in the comments. Your feedback helps us improve and make every episode a little better. I'll see you the next time. Until then, keep figuring out.