Alumni Profile: Vineeta Singh (Sugar Cosmetics)

It would be highly unlikely to find a person, especially an IIT aspirant who would not know Vineeta Singh - CEO and co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics and even more popular as one of the sharks on Shark Tank India. Vineeta Singh is an alumna of IIT Madras - she secured her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2005. She says that being from an academically strong family along with being a determined dreamer, she knew from childhood that she would go to the best institute in India, IIT Madras, and then to IIM Ahmedabad, and how cracking the entrances were not Herculean tasks. Her professor, Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who is currently a faculty in the department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, recalls his first meeting with her on a flight as a young IITian, where she sought him out and he remembers broaching the topic of entrepreneurship to her. He also wrote about how he had the inkling that she would go places and his elation to see her at the helm of Sugar in the present.

She was active in sports while at IIT Madras, winning 2 gold and 2 silver medals overall at 4 Inter-IIT Meets between 2001 and 2005. She discusses how she became aware of her tendency to avoid failure, as she only took part in competitions where she was certain she would win gold. She made the decision to dream big and to prosper in the areas where she already excelled. She had no doubt that she could find a career in investment banking, and after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, she did receive a sizable payout of one crore from Deutsche Bank.

Singh and her colleague wanted to start a women’s lingerie business based on their research, but could not find investors who cited the reason that they were inexperienced in building a brand. The drive to build a company was sparked by the books she read while she was at IIT and she admits that if she had known the challenges attached to building a business from scratch and the number of failures she would encounter along the way, she would have never set out. Singh established Quetzal, her first startup, in 2007. However, it did not take off as expected. In 2012, she launched Fab-Bag, her second startup that offered monthly supplies of cosmetic products. These repetitive series of rejections and failures, made her decide to set up a company by bootstrapping - she gave up her 1 Crore package to grind with a salary of just 10,000 by providing background verification services to clients for 5 years. Her clients too had the same doubts pertaining to her inexperience but she was determined to never give up.

Based on the market research and client interactions, Singh along with her husband located an avenue in women’s personal care and beauty products as all big brands catered to older and working age groups. There were not many options specifically catering to the huge faction of young women, who needed quality products, but at affordable rates. The funding was granted under the condition that her husband joined the company full-time, which she viewed as gender discrimination. She envisioned changing the narrative of the Indian female workforce and "inspiring young girls to dream big". Young women had shifted to online platforms to shop and the big brands did not align to their interests. Young women chose makeup that made them feel confident - which led to Sugar’s long-lasting products which did not get disheveled in the grind of the entire day. She believed that by world-class products to the table at affordable rates they would not have to invest heavily in marketing. Customer reviews and word-of-mouth publicity from woman to woman is what has made Sugar a company with a valuation of 3000 crores. 

Vineeta Singh describes the journey of Sugar as a cycle of failing, learning and trying of nearly 15 years - consistency, daily hardwork and patience were the penchant to build up something from dust. She describes Shark Tank India as a platform that addresses the biggest gap in our economy, finally providing budding entrepreneurs a venue to meet investors who have a first-hand experience of what failures one can face and can thus guide them and associate with them to help them grow. Starting a business in a product that you are passionate about is the first step - skills such as management or branding can be learnt. Vineeta believes in aiming as high as you can so that you achieve something remotely close to it. Having a flaming ambition that drives you is the way to go about a business and learning from consumers is the best way to address failures. Following are some notable achievements she has made as an entrepreneur: 

• Start-up of the year award by Entrepreneur Awards, Delhi (2019).

• W-Power Award by Forbes India (2021).

• BW Disrupt 40 Under 40 Award by Businessworld (2021).

• Fortune's 40 Under 40 (2021).

• World Economic Forum's Young Global Leadership list (2022).

Vineeta Singh has been a speaker at Shaastra 2023, IIT Madras’ Annual Technical Fest. Interestingly, she was the PR Head of the Core group of Shaastra 2004. She had been a Professional Shows Coordinator at Saarang 2005 and a member of the Inter-IIT Contingent from 2001-2005. She has won several intra and inter-university badminton tournaments from 2001 to 2005, during her time at IIT Madras.

It would be highly unlikely to find a person, especially an IIT aspirant who would not know Vineeta Singh  -  CEO and co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics and even more popular as one of the sharks on Shark Tank India. Vineeta Singh is an alumna of IIT Madras - she secured her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras in 2005. She says that being from an academically strong family along with being a determined dreamer, she knew from childhood that she would go to the best institute in India, IIT Madras, and then to IIM Ahmedabad, and how cracking the entrances were not Herculean tasks. Her professor, Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who is currently a faculty in the department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, recalls his first meeting with her on a flight as a young IITian, where she sought him out and he remembers broaching the topic of entrepreneurship to her. He also wrote about how he had the inkling that she would go places and his elation to see her at the helm of Sugar in the present.

She was active in sports while at IIT Madras, winning 2 gold and 2 silver medals overall at 4 Inter-IIT Meets between 2001 and 2005. She discusses how she became aware of her tendency to avoid failure, as she only took part in competitions where she was certain she would win gold. She made the decision to dream big and to prosper in the areas where she already excelled. She had no doubt that she could find a career in investment banking, and after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, she did receive a sizable payout of one crore from Deutsche Bank.

Singh and her colleague wanted to start a women’s lingerie business based on their research, but could not find investors who cited the reason that they were inexperienced in building a brand. The drive to build a company was sparked by the books she read while she was at IIT and she admits that if she had known the challenges attached to building a business from scratch and the number of failures she would encounter along the way, she would have never set out. Singh established Quetzal, her first startup, in 2007. However, it did not take off as expected. In 2012, she launched Fab-Bag, her second startup that offered monthly supplies of cosmetic products. These repetitive series of rejections and failures, made her decide to set up a company by bootstrapping - she gave up her 1 Crore package to grind with a salary of just 10,000 by providing background verification services to clients for 5 years. Her clients too had the same doubts pertaining to her inexperience but she was determined to never give up.

Based on the market research and client interactions, Singh along with her husband located an avenue in women’s personal care and beauty products as all big brands catered to older and working age groups. There were not many options specifically catering to the huge faction of young women, who needed quality products, but at affordable rates. The funding was granted under the condition that her husband joined the company full-time, which she viewed as gender discrimination. She envisioned changing the narrative of the Indian female workforce and "inspiring young girls to dream big". Young women had shifted to online platforms to shop and the big brands did not align to their interests. Young women chose makeup that made them feel confident - which led to Sugar’s long-lasting products which did not get disheveled in the grind of the entire day. She believed that by world-class products to the table at affordable rates they would not have to invest heavily in marketing. Customer reviews and word-of-mouth publicity from woman to woman is what has made Sugar a company with a valuation of 3000 crores. 

Vineeta Singh describes the journey of Sugar as a cycle of failing, learning and trying of nearly 15 years - consistency, daily hardwork and patience were the penchant to build up something from dust. She describes Shark Tank India as a platform that addresses the biggest gap in our economy, finally providing budding entrepreneurs a venue to meet investors who have a first-hand experience of what failures one can face and can thus guide them and associate with them to help them grow. Starting a business in a product that you are passionate about is the first step - skills such as management or branding can be learnt. Vineeta believes in aiming as high as you can so that you achieve something remotely close to it. Having a flaming ambition that drives you is the way to go about a business and learning from consumers is the best way to address failures. Following are some notable achievements she has made as an entrepreneur: 

• Start-up of the year award by Entrepreneur Awards, Delhi (2019).

• W-Power Award by Forbes India (2021).

• BW Disrupt 40 Under 40 Award by Businessworld (2021).

• Fortune's 40 Under 40 (2021).

• World Economic Forum's Young Global Leadership list (2022).

Vineeta Singh has been a speaker at Shaastra 2023, IIT Madras’ Annual Technical Fest. Interestingly, she was the PR Head of the Core group of Shaastra 2004. She had been a Professional Shows Coordinator at Saarang 2005 and a member of the Inter-IIT Contingent from 2001-2005. She has won several intra and inter-university badminton tournaments from 2001 to 2005, during her time at IIT Madras.