Questions Answered by Jitendra Sharma Founder Hair Originals
Questions Answered by Jitendra Sharma Founder Hair Originals(First Indian Premium Natural Hair Extensions Brand)
In this blog post we bring questions about Hair Originals and their hair extensions answered by Jitendra Sharma, Founder- Hair Originals
Q. How Hair Originals Started?
A. So after completing my graduation from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, I was placed in a France-based Oil Giant, Total. My job at Total gave me very good exposure to the international market and various cultures around the globe. I learnt many foreign languages, met people, and made friends from around 30 countries. When I was on my project in Africa, I got to know about hair extensions. Women there were very curious about Indian Human Hair Extensions and kept asking me if I could bring them on my next trip. A small research led me to the conclusion that human hair from India is the best quality hair in the world. It has great demand, but there is a huge mismatch between the expectations of customers and what is supplied by the market. I quickly acted, and hence was born the first premium Indian natural human hair extensions brand.
Q. Where are your customers located? What are the complexities of a startup serving foreign clients?
A. We have customers from around 22 countries across the globe. It’s a very challenging task to communicate with customers from such varied cultures. They speak many different languages and have varied demands as far as hair extensions are concerned. Handling them with utmost care is very important. Even to this day, I personally check the quality of products and other aspects myself. We always rate customer satisfaction as our first priority.
Q. When you started focusing on Indian market?
A. Usually, it happens the other way around, but we, after making a good start in the foreign market, started looking at the Indian market. The idea again came from the queries my Indian female colleagues had about hair extensions. They were very keen to know about the product: How are hair extensions made? How to wear hair extensions? Are there any DIY (Do It Yourself) products they can use quickly and also remove at their own will without going to a salon? All these queries were questions from potential customers, loud enough that we started fulfilling their needs and made the necessary arrangements and implementations to make their experience fully satisfying.
Q. How you funded Hair Originals?
A. So, in the beginning, it was me putting in my savings. Then a few friends became interested, seeing my passion. At that time, we were not working with Indian customers, so it was mostly me communicating, understanding where to get the best hair from, how to convert it into the best quality finished products, meeting people who could handle manufacturing, and much more. People were investing in the passion and hard work they saw in me. Slowly, we started gaining appreciation from our customers. This led me to explore funding from some known angel investors. We were also featured in the Indian edition of Shark Tank. The experience was very good; we secured funding with all the Sharks showing interest in our company. I see this as validation of our future plans and growth strategy, both in India and abroad. We are also getting a lot of traction from other investors, information about which will be disclosed from time to time.
Q. What are future plans of Hair Originals?
A. We want to make our production more stronger. We want to provide more customisation available to our customers. We want to make our products more affordable. We want to make buying experience of our customers more smooth. We want to provide them salon service to them at their home or nearby. We want to cover more and more cities. We want to train more and more salon professionals about how they can deliver best hair extensions related services to their customers. We want to make beauties all over the globe happy satisfied, confident about their looks, make them experiment with their hair styles.
Q. What you would like to say to young budding entrepreneurs?
A. I would say, don’t just create products or services—create experiences. We feel deeply satisfied when our customers are happy with their new look or succeed in using our DIY products to transform their style. If you can create a product that connects with your customers on an emotional level and leaves them truly satisfied, everything else will fall into place. You won’t need the advice of business consultants or management gurus.
