In 2019, the gardening bug had just bit India, and Truphe was ready to cater to the thousands of green thumbs coming its way. But it wasn’t always like that. 

When Honey Gupta shut down his B2B Lead Generation venture in 2012, he had a couple of learnings from the journey but he still didn’t have a venture of his own. A few years later, he spotted a major gap in the market - manufacturers of products like gardening tools, ladders, and irrigation systems didn’t want to sell online. 

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‍He took it upon himself to create an online destination for people who wanted to buy home improvement products. 

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The time was right - online marketplaces had just started operating in India, and each one wanted to promote the lawn and gardening category because of its high-growth and high-potential nature. Truphe managed to get right in front of those tailwinds. 

Having worked in IT companies his entire life, running a business brought new challenges everyday for Honey Gupta. Sometimes it would be a tax issue, and sometimes entire shipments would get misplaced in transit. Each time, he would identify the right person in his team and empower them to solve the problem. 

While everyone in e-commerce was focusing on revenue, Honey took an unit economics approach to Truphe. For example, the sale of a single garden shovel would warrant an accounting of  potential costs related to returns, damage, discounts. This ensured that the company would always be profitable. 

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Truphe started expanding its product catalogue to include pots, plant stands and even seeds - business was soon booming. 

One of the greatest learning he’s had from the businesses he’s run, is that it’s incredibly important to educate the consumer. Clean product descriptions, use-case videos, and good-looking content matters. From Google’s algorithms to the end-user - people like knowing everything about their purchases. 

Honey has built a business with strong fundamentals that does a great job of catering to a community of passionate hobbyists. The Home Improvement segment is on a trajectory of massive growth, and at UpScalio, we plan to capture a major chunk of it with Truphe.

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