Success Story of Blue tea; driving 5X revenue growth from Indian Market in last 12 months, in conversation with the maestro Mr. Nitesh Singh

Blue Tea is making big in Herbal Tea Category

Blue Tea is flower based Herbal Tea’s Brand and every flower has unique properties which are good to overall Health and Wellness. Every ingredient has to itself own medicinal property; Butterfly Pea is good for Detox, Chamomile flower is good for sleep, Hibiscus Flower is good for hair.

Blue Tea operates in Health & Wellness segment, offering peculiar and healthier tea’s options compared to available alternatives like Green Tea, which no other brand is offering, and eventually, it has now become the competitive advantage for the brand Blue Tea. While starting we did a lot of research on the herbal tea category, it was necessary to do this research as we wanted to understand the competition in this category and test the waters before diving into it.

We thoroughly evaluated Indian market as well international market and saw lot of opportunity in these, someone said, ‘India runs of Tea’ and it is absolutely true; India is a cluttered market but still a very huge market for tea, every Indian is a consumer of tea, so that is the kind of potential this category has.

Our Flagship product range is Flower Based herbal Teas like Butterfly Pea Flower, Chamomile Flower, Hibiscus, Lavender etc each offer specific Health benefit. This has been driving the entire product portfolio. We were very clear from the ideation stage to develop something which no one else is doing, else it would have been very difficult to fight with the giants and make a place in the highly competitive tea category.

Building the ‘Blue Tea’ business

Initially, when you are starting off there are lot of challenges everyone has to face and still manage to show. Initially, we faced a lot of challenges; we had limited capital to run to show and at the same time being new to this category, we had little knowledge about the business; so we have gone through a rough initially, entire team stretched themselves and contributed a lot to reach where we are standing today.

I think challenges would be there throughout, only the nature of challenges would change. Today, challenges are different; in today’s scenario we are expanding so hiring manpower with a right fitment is a challenge and at the same time, formalizing concrete marketing strategies for the business is a challenge as tea market is really competitive. But somehow, we are pulling-off things well and the entire team is charged-up to take this on.

Our Current MRR is Rs. 3.0 Cr+ so we will close FY 2024-25 with revenue of around 45-50 Cr. Growth of 5X from FY 21-22; Our India’s revenue has grown 5X in recent 12 months.

Since the inception we have been focusing on the product quality, today also product quality is the foremost priority for the entire team; and alog with that we have added developed 2 more tangents where team is working; serviceability being the prime focus, and secondly creating brand awareness/ maintaining top of the mind recall; being a cluttered product segment, staying on the top of consumer’s mind is really important so that brand becomes a preferred choice while making buying decision.

Pricing Strategy for the brand

Blue tea has positioned itself in the affordable premium category, therefore pricing has been kept premium to about 20-30% with respect to the competition offering similar product proposition.

While pricing the product, it is imperative to freeze the target MRP and work backward on value chain and COGS to maintain the profitability of the business.

Coining the brand name “Blue Tea”

During that time, one of the close friends and co-founder Mr. Sunil, came in as a blessing in disguise and they together discovered a unique flower called Butterfly Pea Flower, when it is infused in hot water the color of the water turns blue naturally, and high medicinal value in Ayurveda as it offers numerous health benefits. This clicked our minds and we were clear by now, that this is ‘the product’ we would like to take forward to the consumer and build this in the coming times eventually, we named it Blue Tea, as turning Blue naturally was a unique feature and we anticipated this to be a brand growth driver.

An Advice to budding Entrepreneurs

Today, things are a lot different; when we started exposure wasn’t there unlike today; today exposure is next level especially digitalization changing gears, and plenty of information is available. Picking up the right information is important, one foremost advice that budding entrepreneurs should follow; whatever product or service you are creating, you must have differentiation and there has to be at least one problem you should be solving 3X better than the competition or which no one is talking about it. Make this proposition your USP and start driving things around this proposition.

Also, it is important to stick to the core of the business, don’t try to create a lot of products; stay focused so that your consumer also doesn’t get confused with the brand.

The success mantra is to ‘Keep things simple’. If one has to run the business peacefully, it is suggested to keep things simple to manage. This is what has been the prime mantra for Blue Team Team which is why the team hasn’t seen any major setbacks since inception. In today’s era, social media plays a vital role in creating brand visibility and awareness among the target audience.

If there is any problem that your brand is solving, then as brand custodians it is important to find an effective way to communicate the same to the target audience, without creating the necessary awareness, consumers would never get to know what value addition your product carries.

Knowing Mr. Nitesh Singh, Founder of Blue Tea

A qualified MBA initially suffered in the initial years of his career due recession in the economy in 2009. Somehow managing the show with petty jobs. During that duration with suggestions from the peer group, Nitesh started preparing for a government job and luckily landed in one of the government jobs with United India Insurance as an Administrative Officer, where he worked on New Product Development, making new tie-ups, etc.

This job was never able to engage Nitesh, as he always wanted to do something of his own; so he tried Acting, music, and YouTube but somehow nothing was working out. And, he started looking for some product that could offer value to the consumers, the idea was to solve a problem that no one was addressing or had not been touched by anyone.