An HRM professional turned entrepreneur, Kavitha Balasubramanian’s story stands as an inspiration to many. After a longstanding successful career in corporate companies, she took a plunge to fulfill her dream of owning and doing something of her own.

Born and brought up in Mumbai, Kavitha Balasubramanian is the founder of RU Naturals - manufacturer of a hundred percent natural hair and skin products. She is an MBA in HR management with more than eighteen years of experience working in corporate companies.

Kavitha shares that she studied in a convent school, where she was not allowed to put on any makeup on her face. Instead, she was encouraged to be natural and simple which is something she carried into her adulthood as well.

After completing her MBA, Kavitha worked in HR management for about eighteen years. Finally, in 2017, she took a plunge to follow her passion and started RU Naturals. She shares that her company is now three years old and it still is in the incipient stage. And each day is challenging for her. But the response that she gets from her customers for her products keeps her enthusiastic and this is something far greater than the success that she got working in the corporate sector as she says.

Talking about the challenges she faced in starting RU Naturals, she shares that she always wanted to do something of her own. But when she started RU Naturals, she did not have a proper plan laid out as to what she wanted to do. All along, she also had to take care of her son and mother and she would have limited time to do her R & D for her products. Besides, she did not have any prior experience working in the Natural Beauty Care Products industry. To gain some knowledge about the field, she did a course to learn about the formulations and trade of natural beauty products. First, she pitched her products to her family members and when they liked them, she decided to increase the production of the products. She had to struggle with regard to procuring raw material, getting the best suppliers onboard, and keeping the prices of her products competitive. She says that she was very particular about keeping the packaging of her products organic and natural and when one of her customers told her that some products got spoiled because of the packaging, she had to change the whole packaging and it took her around three months to come up with new packaging. But looking back, she says that those tough times taught her a lot and it was all worth it.

Kavitha says that she takes inspiration from many people. Everyone who works hard is her inspiration. She takes inspiration even from her maid who despite working long hours always puts a smile on her face and works ungrudgingly. She also eulogizes and emulates the never-say-die attitude of her parents and the people she worked with in the corporate world. Besides, she considers Neha Kare as her inspiration from whom she learned that the more she worked the more she was capable of doing different things.

To aspiring and budding entrepreneurs, her piece of advice is, always be persevering and consistent in your efforts even when things don’t fall into place for you. Besides, never give up and be flexible to change the way you do things.

Kavitha firmly believes that education plays an indispensable role in life. And whatever she is today she thinks that she is because of her education only. She was an introverted kid growing up, but during her MBA she learned to communicate with people and articulate herself. She says education enables one to go out, learn and do new things. Furthermore, she says that it all boils down to observing and learning from the things around that make the difference.

Discussing the Covid pandemic, Kavitha shares that during the pandemic time, she launched the website of her business to make its presence felt on the internet. On the personal front, as she feels, the pandemic brought people closer, and people leveraged technologies to stay connected during this time.

Talking about her childhood, Kavitha shares that she grew up in Chembur - a suburb in eastern Mumbai. She was raised in a joint family and would always be surrounded by her cousins. She would play and do fun activities with them.

Even if she could go back in time, she would not want to change anything as she believes that each and every experience that she had and the mistakes that she committed made her the person that she is today. She also says that as a kid, she did not enjoy going to school and would often make excuses like stomach aches and headaches to leave school early. But in her secondary and higher classes at school, she made a good circle of friends and loved attending school.

Kavitha advises that we shouldn’t seek external validations to make ourselves happy and to be able to do what we want to do. She says don’t wait for somebody to hold your hand, just believe in yourself and take the first step for whatever you want to do.

Kavitha shares that it’s not that you have to put in long hours to be able to build something big. Even a couple of hours a day consistently can do wonders for you and you can end up building something big in the longer run.