Meerut-based engineer Jyoti Srivastava quit her job after having her first child to start Little Cherry Mom, a millet-based snacks business that aims to offer healthier food options for babies. Jyoti runs Little Cherry Mom, a millet-based baby food business that offers various products including millet flours, instant dosa mixes, sugar and jaggery free laddus (sweet), healthy snacks for kids such as khakras (thin crackers), A2 Bilona cow ghee, and amla prash (immunity booster made from Indian gooseberry), among others.
In India, motherhood often forces women to leave the workforce — around 50% of women leave their jobs after the age of 30 to take care of children, and only 27% return. But for 32-year-old Jyoti Srivastava, a chemical engineer by profession, motherhood was not a barrier to her success. Instead, it birthed an entrepreneur in her. Since its launch in 2022, the company has catered to more than 12,000 customers. With this, she has been able to clock nearly Rs 1 crore of revenue.
An exclusive interview with Jyoti Srivastava, Founder, LittlecherryMom
Question - When were you founded?
-> We started LittlecherryMom in February 2022.
Question - How many employees do you have?
-> We are a team of 10.
Question - How do you get an idea to start this venture?
-> In 2020 when our kid turn 6 months we started searching for healthy food for our baby for starting his Solid journey. But we found that most of the baby food products were high in sugar content or either not organic so we thought of starting Littlecherryfoods which will help making babies solid journey smooth by fulfilling all nutritional requirements of babies.
Question - Is the company funded?
-> No our company is bootstrap Company.
Question - Briefly explain about the business?
-> Our Founder Mrs. Jyoti Srivastava, planned and started research for this brand in Sep 2020 when her son was 6 months old as she was looking for baby products which are healthy for them but as she couldn't found any she thought of starting her own millet based product journey for babies, at the same time as Covid was at peak she was not able to step out so she started her page on instagram to spread awarness among mothers about babies feeding and with god grace the page grew very well.
And by the time the company was started in February 2022 we were already having 65k followers on our page.
Question - What is the future Plan?
-> Our Future plan is to reach more & more mothers with the help of our products & workshops, as we are soon launching a vast range of baby foods like Pasta, Noodles, Pancake, Puree's, etc.
Question - How different from others?
-> Our products are well researched we always focus in making our products healthy and easy digestible for babies also we are manufacturing our products inhouse so we have a full control on our product quality.
Question - What’s your revenue?
-> FY 2022-2023 is 1 Crore.
Question - How fast are you growing?
-> When we started in Feb 2022 our turnover was 2,87,000 INR & we fulfilled 385 orders and we talk about current time we are generating a business of 12 Lakhs a month and fulfilling an average of 1300+ orders. Also till now we have served 10,000+ customers and 13,000+ Orders.
Question - Where did you get the idea for this company?
-> During Covid time when Our founder Mrs. Jyoti was cooking for his baby without any househelp she thought that actually its time taking to cook millets and even all are not familiar with its cooking process. so she thought of starting her brand which can provide healthy millet options.
Question - What’s your background? Did your grandmother have the problem you’re trying to solve? Did you?
-> Mrs. Jyoti is Gold Medalist In Chemical Engineering (M.tech) from DRDO Lab Pune.
Before starting the venture she was working as Assitant Manger In RnD for solar explosives Ltd. She use to work on Rocket Propellent & explosive industry for Indian Army.
I am trying to solve the problem which every mother has been facing from decades about child healthy food options.
Question - The skills you needed to start the business?
-> As we thought of starting our venture online we needed skills like online marketing, online product promotion skills for we researched a lot and improved our skills.
Question - Who’s on your leadership team and what’s their background?
-> Mrs. Jyoti & her husband Mr. Gaurav Goel is running this business so its an perfect combination of technical knowledge and Marketing.
Ms. Jyoti handles all products invention as she is certified in Infant and young child feeding by UNICEF and Mr. Gaurav is MBA pass out having good knowledge of business plus he runs an success business of Cricket Equipment's.
Question - Successful in this space? What’s unique about your leadership team?
-> Yes we are successful in baby food industry because we provide millet food options which are healthy for babies.
The uniqueness about our leadership is that being Husband and wife we have good understanding and other then that one is perfect in food processing and designing recipes and other is good in marketing them.
Question - Why is your team perfect to solve the problems you’re tackling?
-> Our team is perfect in customer support if we get any customer complain which we get very less our founder themselves reply customers within 24 hours and try there level best to satisfy.
Question - How did you get here?
-> With contestant hard work and customer satisfaction we are moving ahead day by day as customers are liking our products.
Question - (If you’re a B2c startup) Who are some of your clients?
-> Our clients are mothers.
Question - Who are your main competitors?
-> Nestle and Slurrp Farm
Question - How are you different from the competition?
-> We are different because we manufacture our products ourselves that's why we have full control on our products quality. Also all are products are prepared using organic raw material and are completely sugar free.
Question - How much have you raised in total over how many rounds?
-> We are a bootstrap company so no concept of funds.
Instagram Link - https://www.instagram.com/littlecherryfoods/
Website - https://littlecherrymom.com/
