“You have a newborn; why are you running around the factories?” Mamaearth co-founder Ghazal Alagh recalled a question she often faced when reflecting on her entrepreneurial journey, which began not with a business plan but with deeply personal struggles. In an exclusive interview with Livemint, the Gurugram-based entrepreneur spoke at length about the evolving dynamics of business – with the advent of artificial intelligence – and the challenges surrounding it. ₹1000 million brand, Mamaearth.
Alagh along with her husband Varun Alagh launched their startup Honasa Consumer Private Limited in 2016 to find toxin-free products for their baby. The Gurugram-based entrepreneur revealed that she does not come from a traditional “business background”.
“Actually, I started out as an artist. I studied at the New York Academy of Art and started taking my art career very seriously until my first son Agastya was born,” she told Livemint.
Mother is looking for safer products
Her priorities shifted towards a newborn who had developed severe eczema – a condition that causes itchy and inflamed skin. Concerned about the ingredients in baby care products available in India, Alagh and her husband Varun Alagh began looking for safer alternatives.
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“We spent months searching for products and reading labels, but we were met with complete disappointment. I could not find a single product in India that was truly safe or free of harmful toxins,” she said.
The couple had to rely on friends traveling abroad to bring essential lotions for their son. This ultimately led them to launch Mamaearth to provide toxin-free products for Indian children.
Fighting against social judgment
“My biggest problem was not business logistics, but social judgment,” Alagh said.
“People would ask me, ‘You have a newborn, why are you running around the factories?’ I remember standing in the production unit, exhausted and in milk-stained clothes, being told that toxin-free products were a luxury that Indians would never pay for,” she recalled.
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The couple shared that they invested ₹25 lakhs – their entire life savings – and they had no plan B.
“There was no plan B. If it failed, we were starting from scratch with a small child,” she said.
How AI is changing business
Alagh went on to highlight how business is being transformed by AI, arguing that the technology has dramatically reduced the cost and barriers to testing ideas.
“Today, what took me.” ₹25 million in 2016 can be earned ₹10,000– ₹15,000,” she said.
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She explained that AI tools can help entrepreneurs design product mockups, test packaging concepts and run targeted marketing campaigns before the product itself is manufactured.
For example, founders can run a meta advertising funnel to test whether customers are interested in the product concept. If people click through and get to the checkout stage, this can indicate potential product market fit.
A warning to the young
Despite the benefits, Alagh warned that artificial intelligence should not be seen as a “shortcut to skip the hard thinking”.
“Don’t think of AI as a shortcut to skip the hard thinking,” she said. “It’s a tool that gets you up to speed—testing, personalizing, and understanding patterns—but it can’t replace true consumer insight.”
She stressed the importance of staying in close touch with customers and not relying solely on analytics dashboards.
“The moment you stop talking to real people and just read data panels, you lose something that is very difficult to recover,” she said.
