The wife's husband leaves the job to support her dream and builds an Ayurvedic brand with a turnover of Rs 17 crore

The key to starting your dream business is often taking bold steps. Six years ago, a Bengaluru couple took one such step. With an annual turnover of Rs 17 crore, they run a smashing Ayurvedic healthcare brand today.

A couple from Bengaluru took one such step around six years ago. He joined hands with his wife, Dr. Yamuna, an Ayurvedic doctor with her clinic in Bengaluru, to start Guduchi, a company that sells Ayurvedic healthcare products. 

The couple started Guduchi Ayurveda Private Limited in 2019 with their savings. They began by selling Ayurvedic products that Dr. Yamuna had been making in her clinic on a small scale. They also took over a struggling Ayurvedic manufacturing unit in Udupi, Karnataka, and scaled the business.

Yamuna, a graduate of Govt Ayurveda Medical College Bengaluru, has been running her clinic in Bengaluru since 2013. She made her Ayurvedic formulations and sold them in her clinic. "We had a small production unit in Hennur, Bengaluru, close to the clinic premise. 

The products were sold only in our clinic and not anywhere else. Apart from our formulations, we were also selling 30-40 products from Patanjali," recalls Prashanth.

Today, they have grown their production to include 150 generic and 50 special lifestyle medicines, all manufactured at their in-house facility in Udupi. Prashanth hails from a small village in Karnataka's Bidar district.

Their products such as Obesidat, Gainit, KM20, Stress-X, NAV-C, PKOD, and Diabex GT, offer solutions for a range of health problems, including diabetes reversal and managing lifestyle disorders like PCOD and obesity. Prashanth's journey from a small village in Karnataka’s Bidar district to co-founding a successful business is truly amazing.

His father owned a tiny sweet shop in their village, which was the main source of income for their family of six. But there was no chance for that,” says Prashanth, looking back on how he started speaking English. So, in 1999, he started learning English from a local teacher and picked up the language. “I began speaking English to everyone who visited our shop.

“I would say simple things like 'please have a seat' or 'please take your money. ' People were happy to see a kid from a small village speaking English. "

Prashanth completed his Class 12 from a local Kannada medium school in 2001 and then joined the Rural Engineering College, Bhalki, for a BE in Electronics and Communications. After his graduation in 2005, Prashanth moved to Bengaluru, where he co-founded a software training institute along with a family friend and took a monthly salary of Rs 5,000.

Yamuna has been making Ayurvedic formulations since 2013 when she started her clinic in Bengaluru. Reflecting on those days, Prashant said, "It was a tough time because my family kept pushing me to earn more and secure a good job.

Prashanth's career took a significant turn when he joined Subex Pvt. Ltd. In 2018, he returned to Bengaluru and joined his wife Yamuna - whom he had married in 2012 - to launch Guduchi. They took a bank loan to grow the clinic but ended up using the funds on extensive research and development for Ayurvedic products instead.

Prashanth convinced Dr. Yamuna to start producing their products for sale, in addition to her patient consultations. In 2019, they launched the Guduchi website to sell their formulations directly. Today, their revenues come equally from online sales and their physical clinic/store in Kammanahalli, Bengaluru. Prashant and his wife have divided their responsibilities to efficiently manage Guduchi.

While Prashant oversees production and holds the position of Managing Director, Yamuna manages the clinic and heads the formulations department. While Prashanth serves as the company's MD, Yamuna heads the formulations department.

This team handles various aspects of the business, including production, marketing, medical consultation, website and online management, quality assurance, and operations management.

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