Meet Sushant Gaur, Delhi drummer who earned Rs 60 crore revenue selling paper bags with co-founders Ashish, Atulya

Delhi-based Sushant Gaur could play myriad musical instruments by the time he went to college. The drummer in the college band, however, chose to divert his creative energies into making the world a better place by manufacturing environment-friendly packaging material. He started Urja Packaging in 2012, with a capital of just Rs 15 lakh. He relaunched his company in 2019 as Adeera Packaging Pvt Limited, along with his co-founders, Ashish Agarwal and Atulya Bhatia. Last financial year, the firm earned a revenue of Rs 60 crore. 

He completed his schooling from DPS Noida. A year later, he joined an engineering college but left the course mid-way. He later completed his graduation in mass communications. In college, he met Samar Puri, who is now part of the Sanam band. He taught Gaur how to play drums. They played in the college band together. However, after college, Samar found his calling in music, Gaur in business management.

He joined his father's business after finishing MBA. However, within a couple of years, he decided to go solo. He launched Urja Packaging.

He went to the Ministry of Environment seeking a license. He noticed that everyone there was talking about plastic being banned by the government. This is how everything started. Sushant Gaur, Ashish Agarwal and Atulya Bhatia spoke with DNA and shared their journey.

What's the story behind Adeera?

Sushant: We started this around a decade back when my MBA got over. There was a previous version to the company called Uja Packaging. I went to the Ministry of Environment to purchase a license for a renewable energy electricity generator. Those guys at the Ministry of Environment could not stop talking about how the plastic bag ban is going to be implemented and that there aren't enough alternate supplies available of packaging material. Ashish and I were classmates at school. As a 10-year-old, I had participated, along with Ashish, in many campaigns around the concept of saying no to plastic bags. We had made bags out of newspaper. We had recycled paper at home. What the officers at the Ministry of Environment told me was that there is no alternative to plastic available. So I started researching the paper bag industry. I realized that it was an industry which was not doing really well. Because since 1990, when plastic bags were first introduced in India, this industry started contracting. And it was very fragmented. So I thought, we already have some information before others in the market -- plastic bags would be banned, the market will be underserved and the current players are not big or strong enough. So we felt there was an opportunity there.

And how did you guys meet?

Sushant: Ashish and I went to school together, but we met after many years in 2020. Atulya and I had a supplier-manufacturer relationship. Atulya was a supplier to Big Basket, supplier to a lot of different brands of other products. And he wanted to add paper bags as a product that he wanted to sell. And as a manufacturer he came to us and we worked together for three years before realizing that this industry is now growing very fast. We thought we should stop this relationship and convert it into a single company called Adeera Packaging. Urja Packaging, which was the previous company, was shut down. Atulya shut down all his other business ventures and both of us started this company. Ashish joined us in 2020 as an investor. After six months of working like that, we decided to come together as co-founders.

So all of you come from corporate backgrounds. How did you decide to become entrepreneurs?

Ashish: Businesses are always built on a cause. I think there has to be a larger cause. For me, from childhood, I thought the planet and profit, both were important. I think somewhere I was sort of sensitive towards crackers or plastic pollution. I think because of the upbringing that we had in DPS -- both me and Sushant, I was very sensitive towards what the impact that as human beings, as our generation, are having on the planet. So I was always sort of very unknowingly, very sensitive to it from childhood. And I think that is what Sushant mentioned, that he got an opportunity to go to the Ministry of Environment and he finally saw an opportunity.

People were looking for solutions and there were not enough players in the market who could provide this sustainable solution. I think that's the gap that Sushant identified. Also, he wanted to be his own boss.

I worked with agri commodity companies, some Fortune 100 companies and even had the chance and an opportunity to go to Indonesia and work there for four years. So I have an international background and my role was basically into buying coffee and cocoa. So at one point I was buying 25,000 tons of these commodity indonesia. So I was working very closely with the farmers. So that gave me an opportunity to understand that whatever we are dumping in the cities ultimately it ends up in trenches or ends up in the ocean. Coincidentally, in 2018, I came back to India because of family reasons and I got an opportunity to work with Duplex, which is India's largest plastic film manufacturer.

And I think in that company, I was able to clearly see that plastic is on a downtrend and there will be a requirement of sustainable packaging. Sushant and I were already following his journey very closely, I think. I was looking for an opportunity to embark on my entrepreneurial journey. Sushant was kind enough that he understood the value or the experience I bring to the table.

What was the central idea behind the startup? I mean, did you want to make a difference or you wanted to make a successful business?

Sushant: So profit and environment by chance in this business go hand in hand. Paper bags back then and even now is an underserved market and we are able to get good margins. Whether it is India, whether it is exporting out to eight countries, whether it is in large orders for large customers or whether it is even the small switch up at the corner, we are able to make good margins. What we do take care is we only purchase Forest Stewardship Council-approved paper approved recycled paper. And the chain of custody of the paper reaches us through a dealer, through a go down through paper recycling facility or a paper mill, and where the paper recycling facility got their raw material, got their waste, all of this is tracked and monitored.

We have the option of using Virgin Kraft paper from importing it. The paper which is Virgin Kraft is of better quality. However, we still choose not to use Virgin Kraft because right now, there is no dearth of availability of recycled paper. Also our side projects, -- our research is going on to move from recycled paper to agricultural waste-based paper. Again, we may not have a lot of financial advantage in moving to that, but ultimately, if we are using paper made from agricultural waste, that is the most sustainable and circular way of manufacturing sustainable paper. So our effort is both ways. We need to grow the company. We can't grow the company 2X every year if our focus is only on the environment. But it doesn't mean that we can't be environment-focused and still make money.

We are making paper bags, not paper. We are using this paper to make paper bags for paper mills. Paper bag industry is a very small, very low interest industry because as an industry, our consumption is not even 10% of what the printing industry consumes. So it is imperative for a company like us to exist which then funds the experiment of agro-waste based paper being manufactured in low GSM, high BF without any odour and without a company like us, that paper cannot exist even if we don't make that paper. So we've had five trials of the agro-waste based paper out of which we've got mixed responses. So that's where we are. On the paper. On the agro waste-based paper. Recycled paper is a very common thing. It is available everywhere.

In fact, there are more paper recycling facilities in India than Virgin Kraft paper mills. Agro waste based paper is also available widely but it is available in a thicker quality which is suitable for corrugated but not for paper bags. So we have taken center stage in trying to develop this agro waste paper in the quality that is successful in paper bags. So that's what we're doing.

You have a really good retention rate. Your company profile says 90% of your employees have been with the firm since inception?

Atulya: So what I do is, I take care of my co-workers. I make sure that I make some time to speak with mostly every employee, even if it's a helper who's just helping on the machine to pick up bags. So we take our time. We spend 15-20 minutes, half an hour every few days. We understand their problems, we resolve their problems. If somebody is going through a tough time due to some family emergency, we support them in terms of providing loans from the company. Trusting the person, especially during COVID when the lockdown happened, everybody was going haywire. We helped everyone. We keep doing small things for our employees so that they feel they belong to the company. Even when they get good offers, they don't leave us. This is why we have almost zero attrition. They come to us and they tell us that this is what is being offered, and just see and discuss if something can be done in this regard. That's the kind of openness and environment that we've created for employees. And that's how we've had almost zero attrition. Almost.

What's the quality that makes a good entrepreneur?

Ashish: The corporate I've come from. I think it's what you choose entrepreneurship. It's a journey. I think corporations have their own positives. You don't have to take so many risks, you don't have to worry about the next paycheck, you don't have to plan. So there is set growth. You are in an environment and you can get used to it. So you can get comfortable very soon. And that's nothing right or wrong there. I think it's just a personal choice. There are a lot of my friends from there living a very happy life, content life and they are in the corporate sector, that's okay. But it's a choice that you make. I made a choice because I saw an opportunity that sustainable packaging is going to be the next thing. I got an opportunity, I took it.

And retrospectively, I think I'm very happy where I am today. But at that time when I took that plunge, there was risk involved, there were a lot of concerns I was leaving a corporate career. So that risk if you can take, if you can see the larger picture only then it's a fruitful journey. But 90% of the businesses fail so that's also a reality. There is nothing right or wrong for me in corporate or it's just a personal choice. And just to answer your question, the quality which I feel is very critical is the ability to learn.

I think as an entrepreneur you have to wear multiple hats and I know for a fact that I had to learn so many new things in my life when I joined Adeera. So unless there is a willingness to learn and willingness to learn new things, unlearn old things, I think it becomes a tough journey because business is ever evolving. So I think I'll put that ability to learn new things as a second quality.

Atulya: How I would put it is I worked in the education sector, marketing education, vocational education for peers in education at the time and it was not easy. We used to do below the line marketing and I've done, like, stood in, canopies, did all that. And if I compare it with today, this is also not easy. So it has its ups and downs. We have struggled also. Like when we go for meetings, we get time together, all three of us. We sat down. It happened that we sat down to sunrise and discussed things. How are you going to plan what is going to happen? So that is one thing that I wanted to add.

But how I see this, how to build a good business, is you have to understand the pain that your customer is going through if he doesn't get his product on time. If you can empathize with that, and if you were in his position and you can empathize with that situation and you can service that to the right time and the right quality, there is nothing that can beat you. You can demand a higher price, you can demand a higher standard of quality, you can demand a higher respect in terms of supplier. And that is something I think is a key to having a successful business.

What is the upside to being an entrepreneur?

Atulya: Let me answer that. Monday to Saturday, nine to six, it doesn't work. It has to be on the go when I want it, and it has to be all in or it has to be if I'm relaxed. The upside that I see is that I can rely on my partners, Ashish and Sushant, that I can just say -- I don't feel like working today, I'm taking off. And that's probably not possible when you're working for somebody. So that's the upside that I see.

Sushant: So in the initial years, for the first six years, I was a sole entrepreneur. And what Atulya is doing right now, operations. I would be managing operations. In fact, I would be managing everything. I could see the way small entrepreneurs would treat their helpers and would treat their lowest employees. And I could see that there is a lot of power that you have as an employer over your employees, who doesn't have any other opportunity. And you can either use it well or you can use it in a way to only generate profits. In any other situation, you would not have the power to help somebody in a way that you can help somebody as an employer. We currently employ around 350 people, including the three of us.

And we are touching all of their lives, all of their family's lives, all of their children's lives. Because of us, their children are able to go to better schools, they are able to get better health care. They know that somebody's got their back. That feeling is quite amazing. If you started from a level where you only have five employees in the beginning and none of them know where suppose our business goes down, none of them know where their food is coming from the next month and from there to bringing those five people. So a lot of people from back then are still employed with us. And there is nothing that touches you more than that. So it was a long answer, but yeah. So this was actually one of the first times I thought of this.

Ashish: It has been very clear -- it is basically impact. So when you are doing a job, you're basically trading your time for a salary, right? In any company, nobody's indispensable, no matter how crucial you are, the show moves on. The show moves on. As an entrepreneur, what I see is, even if I'm not here, can I build a legacy? Can I build a company that can outlast me? Can I create an impact that can be felt to the next generation? For me, I think that's where and it's not like corporate can't do it, but it's very hard to get those opportunities. We can create an impression that you leave behind after you're not there. I think with entrepreneurship, I think you definitely can create companies that outlast you.