How Atomberg sold ₹700 Cr worth of fans?💰
Busting the myth of launching new products for D2C revenue growth.
Welcome to the 132nd edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
$100 mil D2C brand is hard 🥺
Even harder with single product 💸
A fan company busted the myth ⬇
Quick context 🗓
Go to a D2C brands meet-up & ask for advice on" How to enter the ₹100 Cr revenue club?" - The answer is almost always "launch new products". But that might be untrue. For the record, ceiling fan market is huge in India. It reached 41 Million Units in 2022. That's quite a bit of headroom (though it's only growing at 2-3% CAGR).
New player in town - Atomberg 🤠
The company based in India is making over "700 Crore" (~USD 100 million) in annual sales by selling ceiling fans. Yes - fans! A super competitive category owned by Havells, Luminous, Orient & Bajaj.
How did Atomberg get to ₹700 crore revenue? ⬇️
1/ Right marketing pitch 🎯
Atomberg fans use BLDC motors, which consume 65% less electricity while providing similar output. This makes them ideal for use during long hours of load shedding in remote towns. The entire product pitch revolves around this messaging.
2/ Product feature differentiation 💭
Each Atomberg fan includes a remote control for adjusting the fan speed and switching on/off the lights, making it a convenient choice for bedrooms and offices.
3/ Core understanding of the users 🙇🏻
Atomberg's designs cater to the mid-30s audience with disposable income who seek functional fans that can also double as decoration for every room.
4/ Distribution with assisted sales 📞
Atomberg collects user phone numbers with each digital ad it runs, and its average price point of 2K+ allows it to maintain an inbound sales team that complements its digital acquisition efforts.
5/ B2B business for scale 🚀
Atomberg's sales model, which targets corporates and commercial complexes, has been highly successful and is similar to AWS for the company.
6/ Adopting for marketplaces 🙏🏼
Atomberg doesn't compete with marketplaces, it uses them to its advantage. You can find thousands of reviews for it’s products with high ratings on Amazon and Flipkart. Atomberg also responds to every low rating and offers discounts on consecutive purchases to incentivise users to leave reviews.
What's next for the Atomberg? 🎯
Short answer: next product worth ₹1,000 Cr revenue. They just launched a mixer grinder recently - I won’t be surprised if they make ₹500 Cr of it in next 3 years.
Brands like Atomberg will win 💙
Isn't this the old school way of building real "Dhanda"? The fundamentals of understanding the users, wedging the right product feature in competitive market and consistently executing distribution is the holy grail of building a large D2C business. Interestingly, Atomberg fans are expensive than the conventional players? Crazy - it understood perceived value game with “remote controlled fans”.
Go ask your team this question - What’s the one feature about your product category that every user wants but nobody has built, yet? And would customers pay incrementally high for that one feature?
D2C is a hard business to crack 🙇🏻♂️
Especially when you spend a lot to acquire a customer who might not be a repeat customer. That’s core to finding low cost customer acquisition channels. Over 300+ D2C founders & leaders from BlissClub, Lenskart, MyMuse & more have designed their distribution strategy and scaled their revenues. If you work in D2C and want to learn how to solve for customer growth at a cost, checkout the following link.
Missed last few stories?
How CRED, Tinder & Zomato build trust with their customers? 🤯
Why Twitter ditching Salesforce is start of something big? 🥺
Why loose cigarette, sachet shampoo & prepaid recharge work for India? ✨
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