C.K. Ranganathan quit home and family nearly three decades ago to start CavinKare, a Chennai-based consumer goods startup that once gave the likes of Hindustan Lever sleepless nights. I am not sure how many of you remember the Chik shampoo that came in single-use sachets. The brainchild of Ranganathan’s father, R. Chinnikrishnan, the sachets reimagined distribution of expensive products for India’s middle-class consumers.
While CavinKare is still growing through its ups and downs, its founder’s journey is worth learning from.
As a schoolboy, Ranganathan used to keep over 500 pigeons at one time, visualising which ones to cross-breed for newer varieties of the bird. Much later, after founding CavinKare, Ranganathan used his power of visualisation to create new product lines.
“I started as a copycat,” he tells me in this episode of Outliers.
Tune in to learn more from the journey of one of India’s best homegrown retail brands.