Shark Tank’s Anupam Mittal calls this startup’s wellness offerings ‘a sin’

• Zoe is a Gurgaon-based startup branding itself as a health and wellness brand.
  
• The startup saw a steep decline in its sales after Covid — from ₹10 crore in FY21 to ₹3 crore in FY22.
  
• Shark Anupam Mittal called the product ‘a sin’ and said that founders lacked the requisite knowledge.

In recent years multiple businesses have cropped up claiming to offer a healthier lifestyle with novel diet plans — but few have been able to back up the claim. As per the Shark Tank India S2 panel, the latest startup to appear on the show — Zoe Nutrition for Life (Zoe) may be one such.

Founded by husband-wife duo Karan Jindal and Taniya Dhirasaria, Zoe is a Gurgaon-based startup branding itself as a health and wellness brand providing diet programmes and wellness products like detox kits, wellness teas, etc.

The sharks were left unimpressed with their products, with Anupam Mittal (founder, Shaadi.com), going so far as to call their business “a sin”.

“I believe you know very little about health and human anatomy. I consider what you’re doing akin to a kind of sin… it’s a heavy word (but) it’s true,” said Mittal.

A steep decline in sales

When Jindal and Dhirasaria started Zoe, neither of them had any educational background or work experience in the field of diet and nutrition. Prior to Zoe, Dhirasaria managed growth and revenue for the e-commerce platform Myntra and Jindal was running another startup, Indians Realty Exchange — a real estate social network for brokers.

In the six years of running their business, the couple claimed to have undertaken international courses on human anatomy, wellness and interacted with doctors and nutritionists. Zoe currently has a nutritionist and a doctor on its team, the founders shared.

The founders shared that Zoe recorded lifetime sales of ₹43 crore in six years — with sales worth ₹10 crore during Covid in FY21. However, there was a steep decline in sales in FY22 to just ₹3 crore. At the time of appearing on the show, the startup was recording monthly sales of ₹10 lakh.

The couple attributed the declining sales to parenthood — they had two children in a short period of time and took a break from running the business to raise the children. The decline in business also led to the startup going from a team of 40 people to just 7.

However, their reasoning didn’t sit well with boAt co-founder Aman Gupta, who backed out from investing because he believed they left behind their first child — their business.

“When I had my first child, my wife looked after one baby and I looked after the other baby — which was boAt. You did injustice with your business. You said, let it (the business) slack,” commented Gupta.

A product that lacked depth

Meanwhile, co-founder of CarDekho.com, Amit Jain believed that Zoe saw a decline in sales due to increased competition after Covid — and not the pressures of parenthood. He backed out stating the product lacked depth because the founders didn’t have the requisite experience in the field and even advised them to shut shop.

Mittal, who had the most apprehensions about the product, claimed that the business was failing due to a lack of repeat customers because Zoe’s diet and detox plans were ineffective. Mittal added that Zoe’s detox diet plans involved drinks rich in sugar that would actually increase the urge to eat because of instant spikes and drops in glucose levels.

“Anything is being sold in the market in the name of health. People think it (a plan or product) worked on them, so they can package and sell it. That’s not business, that’s cheating in my books,” remarked Mittal.

Namita Thapar, executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, also backed out stating that her philosophy of detox is very different from what the founders were selling — she believed in fresh produce, rather than packaged products for detox.

Peyush Bansal, the co-founder of Lenskart, also blacked out but called the founders an “amazing combo” and advised them to learn from their mistakes and move forward.

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