Pure Mitti is a Brooklyn-based social enterprise that sells sustainable, eco-friendly personal care and home goods products across the United States. These products are sourced and manufactured from rural communities in India, in turn economically supporting and empowering the women that create them. The purpose of my project with Pure Mitti was to create a a short- and long-term sales growth plan as well as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) pricing and marketing strategy.

Before the pandemic began, Pure Mitti earned the majority of its sales through independent wholesale distributors. However, by the time I joined the company in June, these sales had declined significantly. Hence, it was time for the company to revaluate its overall sales channel strategy and shift focus to growing its online presence. Pure Mitti was also at an interesting junction in that it had just planned to introduce a new house brand and line of products by the end of the year – and hence needed a comprehensive sales, marketing, and pricing strategy that could help guide it through this transition. I conducted extensive online customer and competitor research and worked closely alongside the founder to lead this endeavor. From my research, I was able to develop strategic recommendations on branding, online and offline partnerships, and various D2C initiatives that the company should implement to increase sales as well as brand awareness, customer engagement, and retention. I also identified and created profiles of various candidates that Pure Mitti would need to hire in order to implement these initiatives.

My project with Pure Mitti aligned very well with my MBA education and experience. I used the concepts I had learned from my pricing and economics classes to create a pricing tool that the company could use to effectively price its current and upcoming house-branded products. I used this pricing tool, as well as the learnings from my MBA, to determine optimal pricing for various products across different platforms such as Amazon. I used the results of my customer research, as well as skills acquired from my marketing classes, to create customer personas and help Pure Mitti better understand and market to its target audience. I was also able to draw on my education to create targeted marketing recommendations along the customer journey (awareness to retention) and help the company better determine its unique value proposition and brand positioning. The concepts I learned from my strategy and entrepreneurship classes, as well as on-campus extracurricular activities, helped me think about the company from a long-term perspective and develop a sustainable sales growth and marketing strategy.

There were several challenges that I faced during my internship. The first was that Pure Mitti has a varied and diverse persona, being an all-in-one social enterprise supporting international rural community empowerment, a personal care and home goods company, and a sustainability-focused consumer brand – and consequently did not have a clear, unified brand when I began my internship. Hence, there was a steep learning curve in fully understanding the company’s mission, ethos, and products. However, as a result of my customer analysis, I was able to help the company clearly define its branding and messaging for its current brand, as well as a vision for the upcoming house brand. Another challenging aspect of the internship was the nascent stage at which the company was in growing its D2C presence. However, this also presented an opportunity for me to learn more about online marketing and shape the growth of the company through this channel. Last but not least, it was challenging working in a virtual-only environment. Although our weekly team Zoom meetings were helpful in discussing and refining individual ideas, the virtual environment contributed to a more solitary internship experience and the relatively longer time it took to fully understand the company and brand. Using some of Pure Mitti’s products, however, helped make the overall experience more tangible.

My goal coming into the internship was to use my prior skills, experience, and education to add value to a company whose cause I believed in. I felt that I was able to significantly contribute to Pure Mitti while also learn about the inner workings and challenges of working in a social enterprise and startup. The experience further affirmed my interest in the consumer goods space and broadened my exposure and interest in branding and marketing. I found the company’s social mission to empower and economically uplift women in rural communities abroad to be especially compelling and found contributing to this cause to be very rewarding. Through my research and conversations with the founder, I developed an increased interest in sustainability and have become much more environmentally conscious in my purchases since. In sum, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it to be an incredibly rewarding opportunity to drive growth of a unique and highly mission-driven social enterprise.