Healthy Indulgences: The Secret Sauce to Success for a Hot Beverage Consumer Start-up in India These things will help in building the brand and the financial background of your venture

There are various phases involved in building on a start-up - from ideating to executing each stage is crucial in shaping the future of the company. One of the central steps in this process is researching – researching on the industry, the competitors, the legal processes involved and definitely the consumer behaviour.

Amongst all these stages, there is a step that involves analyzing how the market is segregated. This is an important part of research as these findings of this research helps the team understand which segment is more likely to purchase what products, and then work on a strategy to cater to each category. This part of the research involves analyzing consumption and spending patterns, income distribution and market category data for hot beverages in India.

One of the earliest stages is understanding how the market and the key commodities are placed. Some of the important findings for the hot beverage sector in India contributed that the market size for tea is INR 18,000 crore - dividing this further, the speciality tea amounts to INR 5,100 Cr and is growing at a rate of 12per cent per annum. Another key player in the market is coffee which is at INR 4,500 crore – further dividing it to instant coffee which is INR 2,800 Cr, is growing at a rate of 5.5per cent per annum and Fresh Coffee which is INR 1,500 Cr and is growing at a rate of 6per cent per annum. These are the statistics of the hot beverage industry, which helps in building the brand and the financial background of it however understanding the consumers and their division helps in the execution part of the start-up.

• Understanding Consumers

Consumers can be broadly understood by their income, and for our convenience, an average Indian household can be segregated into 3 categories based on the same. The elite and affluent category - whose income is more than 10 lakhs per annum. Aspirational category - whose income is between 5-10 lakhs per annum and lastly the Next Billion – whose income is less than 5 lakhs per annum. Over the next 5 years, it's the Aspirational category that going to grow, and catering a commodity product to this segment it involves making the commodity "premium." This way, the aspirational yet value conscious Indian.

• Health and Wellness:

More than 50per cent of India's population is less than 25 years old and 65per cent of the population is less than 35 years old. The youth of India are noticed to be conscious about their health and wellness as they are motivated by global trends, peer pressure, influencers, celebrities and many more. Going healthy is a notable trend, however, due to the same, the consumers are consciously opting for healthier options to fast food. It is thus important to provide consumers with healthy offerings natural which contain ingredients with medicinal values, thus helping the youth with fulfilling their health goals.

• Innovation & Indulgence

Focus on health, wellness and the quality factor of a product is important however to drive the brand sales further one needs to break the barriers of the health segment and get creative and to ensure the product becomes a daily indulgence for consumers and repeat purchases. It is extremely important to be receptive to the shifting trends in the industry, such as mimicking dessert profiles and cocktail concoctions by creating a world-class blend of fruity and naturally sweet tea.

The secret sauce to success for a hot beverage consumer start-up is to make the products an all-day, all-time indulgence.