Did you know? Most of the cleaning supplies we use at home contain really harmful chemicals. Not only are they toxic for us, but they also cause irreparable damage to the environment. They contribute to water pollution, air pollution and create tons of waste that remain in landfills for decades. 

What's the alternative?

Meet The Better Home (TBH): a brand that offers an eco-friendly range of home care products.  

From an exclusive interview with the founder, Dhimant Parekh, we bring you the story of India’s first eco-friendly home cleaning subscription box. 

Striving for a Better India 

Dhimant Parekh and Anuradha Kedia started The Better India (TBI) initiative: a digital platform to bring the conversation surrounding sustainable living to the forefront.  

We can all agree with the fact that the Internet is a powerful means of communication. TBI started with the idea of leveraging this power to bring about an impact in the eco-friendly sector. To enable a catalyst of change by harnessing the power of media. Most importantly, to build a loyal community that believes in values of sustainability, ethical practices and giving back to the environment. 

Community Driven Growth

Fostering loyalty among your readers is not an overnight process. It took The Better India close to 6 years (2013-2018) to build an audience. During this time, as much as 90 million people per month started consuming their content. 

It set the wheels turning in the founders’ head. They realized that more and more consumers were migrating towards content around sustainable products and the concept of sustainability in general. After scores of research, they found a gap in this space where there were not many good eco-friendly products available, especially in the area of Household utility products. Most of the waste is being generated from the household sector, which encouraged them to build on this idea. 

The idea eventually led to the making of The Better Home. By mid-February, 2020 they came up with 4 products, to begin with - toilet cleaners, laundry liquid, dishwashing liquid, and floor cleaner. This was not all. To eliminate some more waste, they came up with a subscription model. If the first purchase was of liquid toilet cleaners, the users would be sent refill pouches on their second repeat purchase. This way, they do not have to make use of extra plastic bottles. 

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Advice to Entrepreneurs Starting a D2C Business

The Direct-to-consumer (DTC) model of business requires cultivating a relationship with the end-user of a product. Dhimant’s word of advice for all the young entrepreneurs reading this is to, first and foremost, build a strong community of users. Fostering the loyalty of users online certainly helps boost your customer base. How does one do that? By understanding their needs. It is essential to strategize and come up with plenty of helpful content for your users to consume. The content you create needs to relate to your brand identity. With The Better Home, Dhimant followed a similar practice. It was because they started with The Better India that they already had a community in place to introduce The Better Home. 

The Year of Reflections

2020 was a tough year for all of us. Businesses shut down, people lost their jobs; it was chaos. We are still reeling from the aftermath. Having launched one month before the country-wide lockdown, TBH had to shut down operations almost immediately. They utilized this time to reflect on their functioning. They spent the time listening to the feedback on their already launched products, understanding what users wanted to experience and developed similar products. 

The Better Home Products

Along with toilet cleaners, laundry liquid, dishwashing liquid, and floor cleaner, The Better Home also offers 100% compostable garbage bags and coconut scrub pads. The products are clean, green, and pocket-friendly.