How Elements Wellness Borrowed Eureka Forbes’ Playbook To Build A ₹1,264 Cr Wellness Brand

In the early 2010s, Rajesh Chandan, then in his 30s and years before he founded IndiaShoppe in 2013, faced a health scare that changed the course of his life. He suffered from debilitating weakness and frequent fevers.

Like anyone else, he visited a doctor, convinced that a few prescriptions would have him back on his feet in no time. Little did he know that his first doctor’s visit would mark the beginning of a vicious cycle of prescriptions laden with allopathic medications and repeat consultations that offered only temporary relief.

After nearly 2 years, Chandan gave up. He was almost at the brink of depression when he decided to look the other way.  

“‘Why was the illness coming back?’ I asked myself. I had no answer, but I knew one thing: I cannot keep going through this forever,” Chandan said, speaking with Inc42.

Desperate for a cure, Chandan turned to Ayurveda, India’s centuries-old system of medicine. “Well, I did not have anything to lose, so I engrossed myself in finding a cure in Ayurveda,” Chandan said.  

As he immersed himself in Ayurveda’s ancient wisdom, Chandan realised that his condition was the result of years of neglecting his health and lifestyle, and there were no quick fixes. He needed a treatment that focused on curing the root cause of his illness rather than merely suppressing its symptoms.  

He had already tried allopathy medicines and various natural therapies, but they had all failed to give him lasting results.

After several attempts, what made him keep going was an unyielding drive to truly recover and persistently regain his health.

That single-minded focus kept him optimistic through every step of his journey until Ayurveda finally provided the permanent solution he needed. 

2 years later, Chandan had pulled himself out of the abyss. More importantly, he had achieved something that haunts many people for a lifetime. He had regained his health. 

During his journey, as he made progress every week and month, a thought to do something about a lot like him remained the only constant in his endeavour. 

“If I had to struggle this much to find something that worked, how many other people must be going through the same thing?” Chandan would ask himself in times of despair. 

Motivated by his progress and the chance to change the fate of many like him, he made studying Ayurveda his obsession. Chandan started spending a lot of time with Ayurvedic doctors and formulation scientists. 

In 2013, he brought in K.K.Rajesh, former executive director at Dabur, and Dr. D.B.A. Narayana, former director of Dabur research foundation—both of whom continue to serve as key consultants at Elements Wellness today. 

As Chandan continued meeting Rajesh and Narayana, their long conversations about Ayurveda gradually led to an epiphany. This was also the time when the duo were working on product discovery.

The meetings led Chandan to a simple but profound realisation: healthcare shouldn’t begin in a clinic after illness strikes. If prevention is the ultimate goal, it should begin at home and with the products people use every day. 

Driven by this vision, quality became the primary objective from day one. To achieve this, the company partnered with leading industry manufacturers, the very same facilities that manufactured for legacy FMCG brands like Dabur and Colgate. 

Every product was developed as an AYUSH-certified Ayurvedic formulation, bridging traditional science with modern manufacturing and safety standards. This commitment to quality laid the groundwork for high product acceptance and strong customer trust as the brand took shape. 

From Healing To Building

Yet, turning personal recovery into a scalable consumer brand required more than just strong formulations—it required a fundamental shift in how people approached their daily health.

The idea stayed with Chandan. The more he thought about it, the closer he was getting to a solution. One day he sat on the drawing board to find answers, restating the problem statement to himself. The answer was right there: to make everyday products contribute to long-term health. 

“People brush their teeth every morning, bathe every day and apply oil to their hair without giving it much thought. If these everyday products could be made healthier, preventive wellness wouldn’t feel like an extra task. It would simply become a part of people’s daily routine,” Chandan discussed with Narayana and Rajesh.

He believed that the idea had the potential to become something much bigger than a personal belief. Chandan never had such a hunch before, even when he started IndiaShoppe in 2013.

To turn his vision into reality, Chandan partnered with Viresh Mehta in 2013 to launch Elements Wellness products under their retail venture, IndiaShoppe. Their goal: to make preventive wellness a part of everyday life through products people use daily.

To support that vision, the company also assembled a specialised panel of 8–10 scientists and consultants alongside Narayana and Rajesh to strengthen product development and build a robust R&D pipeline. 

More than a decade later, that idea has grown into a wellness brand with over 110 products across personal care, healthcare, food and beverages. Today, Elements Wellness serves more than 14 Mn customers through a network of 5 Lakh+ wellness experts across India. Elements Wellness alone accounts for 40% of IndiaShoppe’s overall business mix.  It made a top line of ₹1,264 Cr in FY26. But the road till there was anything but a straight one.

When A Good Product Isn’t Enough

When Elements Wellness entered the market in 2013, Chandan and Mehta believed they had everything in place — from experienced Ayurvedic experts to traditional science-backed formulations. 

“But this wasn’t enough. Consumers don’t really understand perfection. They buy brands they trust,” Chandan said. 

For Elements Wellness, convincing someone to replace the toothpaste or soap they had used for years wasn’t simple. It meant asking them to change habits they had followed for decades. And Chandan knew that wouldn’t happen overnight.

Therefore, like most young consumer brands, Elements Wellness needed people to first discover its products. But Chandan really did not want to spend on digital marketing for penetration. He has always been old-school and an evangelist of traditional advertising methods, where the brand has its foot on the ground. 

According to him, his scepticism isn’t unfounded and comes from experience. Having built IndiaShopee before launching Elements Wellness, Chandan had already experimented with digital advertising. He knew the right way to sell wellness isn’t performance marketing but a direct connection with the end user.

“Consumers want to understand what they are putting into their bodies and seek reassurance from someone they trust before making a purchase,” Chandan said.  

Taking A Page From Eureka Forbes’ Playbook

In a bid to find its go-to-market strategy, Chandan didn’t have to look very far for the answer. Long before influencers and social media transformed consumer marketing, direct-selling companies had already figured out something fundamental: people trusted people more than advertisements.

Eureka Forbes was perhaps the best example of this, building a household brand on trust-driven, direct-to-consumer selling. Its products reached consumers not through retail shelves or expensive advertising campaigns, but through conversations, demonstrations and referrals. The model built one of India’s most trusted direct-selling networks, and it gave Chandan a blueprint for solving his own challenge.

Chandan adopted the model for preventive healthcare. Instead of creating a network of distributors, Elements Wellness began building a community of wellness experts. Unlike traditional sales representatives, they were expected to understand preventive healthcare, guide consumers through Ayurvedic principles and recommend products based on individual needs rather than pushing a sale.

“We didn’t want pushy salespeople chasing a quick transaction. We focused on creating a network of knowledgeable guides who could sit down with a customer, understand their lifestyle and explain the root causes of their health issues through the lens of Ayurveda,” the founder said.

The company started by bringing on people who believed in preventive healthcare and training them on its products and the basics of customer counselling. Regular, structured training programmes were conducted for the wellness expert network to keep them updated on product knowledge and consultation techniques. The idea was awareness over sales.

The strategy worked, as each expert became a trusted voice within their own community. They introduced consumers to preventive wellness through one-on-one interactions, helping them understand the products before recommending them. 

As more and more customers used the products, they willingly joined the network, creating a referral-led model where trust fuelled both customer acquisition and entrepreneur growth.

Today, Elements Wellness works with more than 5 Lakh+ wellness experts, serving over 14 Mn customers across India. For many, the platform has also become more than a source of income. 

As the business scaled, however, a new challenge emerged. Managing a nationwide network of experts, processing millions of orders and delivering a consistent customer experience. It demanded technology and supply chain infrastructure that could scale alongside the business.

Meeting that growing demand also required the company to rethink how it manufactured its products. Initially relying on third-party manufacturers, it established its own manufacturing facility in Ahmedabad in 2019 in partnership with its supplier—a unit that now handles roughly 40% of its total output. 

Scaling A Preventive Healthcare Movement

Yet, manufacturing was only half the equation. The trust-led, direct-selling model that fuelled Elements Wellness’ rapid growth also presented a massive operational challenge as the business scaled nationwide.

Managing a network of over 5 Lakh wellness experts, serving millions of customers and processing commissions at scale demanded a strong technology backbone. 

To address this, the company built a digital ecosystem around its experts network. It later launched its own online training platform, MI Digi World, enabling wellness experts to continuously learn about products and sharpen their selling skills.

At the same time, the company deployed AI across customer care, supply chain logistics, and CRM workflows—using AI-driven follow-ups to significantly boost customer retention. 

The platform also integrated its banking systems, enabling commissions to be transferred to its wellness experts within hours.

Leveraging the network, the company expanded into complementary sectors—launching Indie Agro for agriculture in 2018 (which now drives 30–35% of IndiaShoppe’s business), Aahar for food products, and a new lineup of 6–7 colour cosmetics.

But for Chandan, AI isn’t about replacing people. “We will be AI-first in FMCG and wellness. But I will make sure that our wellness experts use these tools to get more sales. They have been with us for many years, and I don’t want them to feel that technology is making them redundant,” Chandan said.

From a personal health struggle to a fast-growing wellness company, Chandan’s journey has come full circle. As Elements Wellness sets its sights on ₹1,500 Cr in FY27 revenues, its mission remains unchanged: prevention before cure. 

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