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ForMen Success Story
ForMen is a wellness startup founded by medical specialist. The starup is focused towards men's health and wellness products. They offer variety of products ranging from general wellness to weight management, eye, hair and more. Their USP of products is - Synergistic action with high absorbability into the body. The startup is doing quite well with its unique concept of medically researched wellness products for men.
Let's know more about ForMen - founders, products & services, business model, and the complete startup story.
ForMen - Company Highlights
- Startup Name-ForMen
- Headquarters-Hyderabad
- Industry-Health & Wellness
- Founded-2021
- Founders-Dr. Lalitha Reddy and Sreeram Reddy
- Website-www.formen.health
ForMen - About
ForMen is an online holistic Health & Wellness platform for men. It provides wellness products & online doctor consultations. The Health & Wellness startup was founded in 2021 by Dr. Lalitha Reddy and Sreeram Reddy at Hyderabad.
ForMen - Industry
The Men’s health & Wellness industry has gained prominence over the past few years. The Men’s wellness market has more than doubled in India in the last 3-4 years and is all set to grow at 16-17% annually. Most of the growth has happened in the grooming sector. A significant growth may be seen in the supplements sector too in the coming 5 years. Increased willingness of the millennial generation to discuss non-critical health issues, combined with increased awareness and purchasing power will push the nutraceutical category to higher growth rates in the coming years.
Health & Wellness industry is one of the most stable & time tested industry. With the present day lifestyles, increased incidence of lifestyle diseases, newly evolving infections, increased burden of stress and obesity etc the need for wellness, fitness and health will only keep growing. Awareness and interest of people towards wellness will surely rise, so will the adoption of good practices. Wellness industry is growing steadily but surely in the years to come. The startup focus will be on natural, safe and effective products as compared to chemicals.
They aim to carve a niche for themselves in this category with their unique, natural, safe and effective products that are formulated by doctors & pharma experts. They look at the entire country as their market. Children, adults and geriatric population, everyone from Day 0 to Day 100 will do better with supplements. A just born baby needs Vit D supplementation so will a 100 old centenarian. Bringing awareness is the key. They not only had a look at the market research statistics etc, but they also knew from Pan-India colleagues’ experience as well as from surveys and scientific articles, the extent of lifestyle disease burden in India and projected numbers in the next 10 years. This combined data was enough to convince about the huge need for genuine and effective supplements.
ForMen - Founders and Team
Dr. Lalitha Reddy and Sreeram Reddy are the Co-founders of ForMen. They share almost the same vision and passion. They are highly committed to quality.
Sreeram is a serial entrepreneur with a vast and successful experience. He is a graduate of Purdue University, a very passionate and motivated person, who loves to build and nurture companies.
Dr.Lalitha Reddy, is a medical specialist with over 25 years of experience and an alumni of prestigious institutions like JIPMER, NIMS, Osmania General Hospital and ISB. She is the former Vice President of Yashoda Group of Hospitals and presently is Vice President of Telemedicine Society of India – Telangana Chapter. She is a very accomplished academic and scientific trailblazer with many awards and gold medals to her credit. She has many scientific research articles published in various national and international journals, delivered over hundreds of lectures both in India and abroad and is an author of two books.
Her vast experience along with a deep understanding of patient problems and psychology has led her to pave the path for ForMen & ForKids along with her colleagues.
The Core team of ForMen consists of experienced Doctors & Pharmacologists who are well aware of the health & wellness issues existing in the society as well as, have profound knowledge of complex body mechanisms, supplements & drug formulations and kinetics of absorption, utilization, effectivity, dosage, synergy and side effects of various supplements/drugs/molecules in the body.
ForMen - Idea & Startup Story
Having worked in hospitals for the last almost 30 years, the have seen that a huge proportion of sickness could be prevented, if only people focused on preventive health and wellness. In the early days of the pandemic, they had first hand experience of seeing peoples’ panic, different degrees of severity of illness based on age and immune status of a patient and of course the sudden appearance of many ‘so called Immune boosters’ in the market, mostly of poor quality and inadequate / over dosages. The consequences of the un-informed, unaware & gullible people falling prey to various kinds of misinformation also did not escape to their notice. So, their team decided to embark on a journey of Preventive Health & Wellness, where they focus on supplementing nutrients in order to help improve the quality of life of people.
They initially focused on men because men are usually hesitant to approach a doctor or get professional advice for wellness issues. They do not prefer to discuss their performance, sleep, stress, weight or another issues. Also there has been a significant increase in men’s health issues over the last 1-2 decades. Ex-Testosterone levels in men have reduced over the past 2 decades. Sperm counts of men have declined and infertility issues have also risen significantly in men. So has the incidence of Stress and related mental health problems.
So they, as doctors and experts felt that they could contribute significantly by creating a non-judgmental and discrete platform for men which offers genuine, effective & safe formulations in the right combinations and dosages.
The team were aware of the issues that they wanted to help solve, they also had the knowledge of formulations, so all they had to do was to partner with ingredient suppliers and manufacturers who had similar conviction towards quality & safety that they had. They travelled extensively for factory visits and interacted with various manufactures/suppliers before they chose the best, who aligned with their vision and mission. After that came the website development, branding, warehousing, last mile delivery partners etc. The entire journey was a humongous learning for us.
ForMen - Mission and Vision
Vision of ForMen - To be the most trusted health & wellness partner, offering high quality wellness products that are a part of the wellness journey of all Indian men.
Mission of ForMen - To promote wellness, preventive health and encourage discussions on health issues in men.
In the short term, they wish to firmly plant ForMen as a trusted brand that provides expert guidance and genuine, effective and safe products of unique formulations.
In the long term, they wish to grow in the wellness space and become a household name. They foresee expansion in product line as well as international presence. Focus will also be in spreading awareness about wellness, sickness prevention and overall wellbeing.
The Core belief of this experienced team is that preventive health & wellness is extremely important to improve quality of life and prevent sickness. Simple tweaking in lifestyle and supplementing diet with the correct nutraceuticals having the correct ingredients in the right dosages will significantly improve the energy, sleep quality, performance, weight issues, fertility, and other aspects of physical & mental health. They also believe in spreading awareness about the importance of preventive aspects of health, the importance of wellness enabling people to live a life of Quality & Happiness.
ForMen - Name, Tagline, and Logo
ForMen logo and Taglines are very simple, direct & reflect what the brand offers.
Since the team wanted to start with Men’s wellness products – The name ForMen was quite literal and fortunately available for us. Tagline ‘ For all things men’ simply followed the logo. Since their kids products were exclusive for kids, the logo ForKids was also designed on similar lines. The tagline ‘ForKids with smart moms ‘was also very apt and simple.
ForMen - Product & Services
All ForMen products presently belong to the following categories:
1. Performance
2. Sleep
3. Skin
4. Weight management
5. Stress
6. GUT Health
7. Eye health
8. Immunity
9. General Wellness
10. Hair
Innovation is seen in the form of formulations, bioavailability & safety. They have a unique combination of herbs, vitamins & minerals that are essential for the body in the process that the product is designed to improve. Ideal effective dosages are very important for a supplement to work effectively. Synergistic action with high absorbability into the body are also the USP’s of the products. They have worked towards maximum efficiency of the product in the body, aligned as per the body’s requirements. The high concentration of Bio actives is another USP. They wish to achieve a balance between high quality & affordability.
ForMen - Business Model & Revenue Model
Please brief us on the business and revenue model. Do include pricing range, profit margin or commission if comfortable.
Our platforms offer products as well as consultations. The consultations are provided discreetly and free of charge. The products are also very reasonably priced, in order to bring them within the reach of most of Indians.
Since they wanted the products to be affordable, our margins are significantly less as compared to similar brands. ForMen have no commission models at present and are not very keen to walk that path. ForMen aims to grow as a D2C brand, whose products sell on the basis of their effectivity, quality & safety.
ForMen - Startup Launch
They launched the brand one fine day, and started advertising on social media. Orders slowly started picking up, mostly by word of mouth. They consciously kept their marketing budgets low and avoided the marketing blitzkrieg as founders were very sure of the slow and steady pace of growth based on ‘word of mouth’. They believe that a satisfied consumer is the best form of marketing.
ForMen - Challenges Faced
Since the core knowledge about wellness, remedies and formulations was with us, the challenge only lay in associating with partners. They did face challenges initially in associating with talent, that understood their core principles and also respected timelines. Due to the pandemic the website designing, raw material procurement & creative agencies were all not able to meet deadlines due to lockdowns, staff falling sick etc. This was a very frustrating aspect, which drove us to optimize their operations better and strengthen in-house skill sets. One of the important lessons for us, was to increase inhouse talent and reduce dependency on external agencies. This is more cost effective more flexible and amenable to quick decision making and course changing, when necessary.
ForMen - Growth
ForMen is headquartered in Hyderabad. Their suppliers & manufacturers are spread across the country.
They have a central warehouse also located in Hyderabad. The company is doing well presently with 8-10% month on month growth. As ForMen expands their product portfolio, the future surely looks bright & shining. Their GMV is around Rs.600 on an average at present. Feedback from consumers has been very positive & encouraging.
ForMen - Funding
Hustle Partners has been doing the initial funding for ForMen. They may go for further funding in the coming 6 months, if they feel the need.
ForMen - Recognition and Achievements
ForMen has been featured in various magazines and have received an award ‘ Icon of the Year – Emerging Start Up Company for year 2021’ from the Times Group.
ForMen - Future Plans
ForMen team has plan to expand their product portfolio of ForMen and ForKids as well as step into International markets. R&D for unique and effective formulations targeted towards various aspects of health is in progress.
ForMen - FAQs
When was ForMen founded?
ForMen was founded in 2021 by Dr. Lalitha Reddy and Sreeram Reddy.
Where is the headquarters of ForMen?
ForMen has its headquarters at Hyderabad.
What are the products offered by ForMen?
ForMen products presently belong to the following categories:
- Performance
- Sleep
- Skin
- Weight management
- Stress
- GUT Health
- Eye health
- Immunity
- General Wellness
- Hair