The first sales of GO DESi happened at a flea market. It was a milieu of products sourced from a farmer cooperative in Sirsi, it was not even called GO DESi then.

Next came NSRCEL (IIM Bs Startup Incubator) who helped us with placing our products in the IIM B canteen. We also sampled our products in all mentor meetings, conferences and pitch presentations.

This gave us the confidence to approach retailers since it is one thing to sell online and another to talk and convince a retailer which stocks more than 10,000 SKUs and all MNC salesman queuing up to get orders for their products. Believe me, it was tough. It continues to be tough, I have just returned from a new sales route where 7 of the 10 retailers approached refused to stock our products.

To see it from a retailers point of view, they need to trust you, they need to trust the product you have created, they have to hope that all regulatory information is accurate, provide shelf space, assume the consumer is going to love them. It is a leap of faith, no matter how small a leap, it is still a leap.

Recognising this leap and as a token of gratitude we wished some of our first retailers ‘Eid Mubarak’. The point here was not the gift but the thought. At GO DESi we believe in going beyond the transactional and creating a long-lasting relationship with our partners.

We want to stay true to this value whether we are available in 150 stores (Now) or in 1500 🙂