The above quote from Mr. Vijay Ladha's session on Product Innovation was one of the take-aways from the numerous ones which we got on 4th Aug '09. Mr. Vijay Ladha who by education is a Chartered Accountant but forayed into entrepreneurship by choice. He walked us through his interesting journey of innovation.
Mr. Ladha started his innovation - Gas Candles out of a necessity for the middle class average Indian. And that was to help him/her during the times of power shortage. His motives were simple, to provide a simple, economic, hassle-free, mess-free alternative solution of wax candles in turn to the chronic problem of power shortage faced in almost all parts of India.
Mr. Ladha began to manufacture a the product roughly 25 years ago. The product has undergone a sea of change though retaining its original goal. Mr. Ladha explained to us how customer feedback was of utmost importance as that was the main source of innovation of the product. He went on to explain to us the changes that were made to the product which were mainly based on the customer feedback.
The product was originally used as a replacement for wax-candles but soon, the word caught up and people were curious to know about the product. The same product then became a gift, corporates wanted to gift their employees these candles as souvenirs, while some others wanted it for religious purposes.
Soon, some other people wanted to use the gas flame for other purposes and thus, innovation made the product multi-purpose in nature.
The audience then went on to ask Mr. Ladha questions about his innovation, about what drives him to continue the same business and keep innovating even 25 years down the line and his answer was:
"Believe until you have a reason to disbelieve. Continue innovating for as long as you can!"
You can find more information about gas candles at: http://www.fourell.in/
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