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If you are seeking new ways to increase your ROI on marketing with your commerce platform, or you may be an entrepreneur who wants to grow your team and be more efficient with your online business.
Talk Commerce with Brent W. Peterson draws stories from merchants, marketers, and entrepreneurs who share their experiences in the trenches to help you learn what works and what may not in your business.
Keep up with the current news on commerce platforms, marketing trends, and what is new in the entrepreneurial world. Episodes drop every Tuesday with the occasional bonus episodes.
You can check out our daily blog post and signup for our newsletter here https://talk-commerce.com
Brent Peterson (00:02.059)
Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Puneet Nanda. He is Dr. Fresh. Sorry Puneet. Go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day -to -day role and one of your passions in life.
Puneet Nanda (00:15.247)
So I am Puneet Nanda. That's at least my TikTok handle. am Puneet Nanda. But most people know me as Dr. Fresh. It's been my nickname since my school days. And I would, I am currently running a company called Guru Nanda. So Guru Nanda is, Guru is teacher. Nanda is my last name, which is Puneet Nanda.
the reason I say teacher Nanda it was actually the name of my yoga studio that ended up becoming the name of my current business and the idea was to teach people how to be the guru of their own wellness. I'm not saying I'm a guru, I want to teach people as a teacher how to be the guru of your own wellness by introducing natural products in your life by going away from
everything synthetic by taking care of your mental and physical health and by ensuring to be being more mindful in everything you put inside your body or you're on your body.
Brent Peterson (01:29.56)
That's great. And passion, do you have a passion in life besides what you're doing for work?
Puneet Nanda (01:35.215)
So literally the biggest passion lately has been making TikToks. I could do TikToks, I could make TikToks seven days a week, 365 days and not feel like I'm working. So that is, I found that I should have been an actor rather than being in business probably in my next life maybe.
Brent Peterson (01:39.67)
Yeah, that's awesome.
Brent Peterson (01:59.81)
Yeah, and I have watched your TikTok videos and they are very entertaining. Yes, thank you. Okay, so before speaking of TikTok, I do have a thing called the Free Joke Project and it's on TikTok. I'm just gonna tell you a joke. All you have to do is tell me or give me a rating one through five on the joke. So here we go.
Puneet Nanda (02:18.095)
Okay, I'll try my best.
Brent Peterson (02:20.428)
Why should you never brush your teeth with your left hand? Because a toothbrush works better.
Brent Peterson (02:41.986)
What do you think? Two?
Puneet Nanda (02:45.007)
Thank you.
Brent Peterson (02:46.026)
All right, that's fair. Yes, that is a good representation of the quality of my jokes. Probably why I don't have that many. As many TikTok
Puneet Nanda (02:54.223)
No, I'm sorry. Maybe it's my... My IQ is low because I'm using too much fluoride, I guess. When I was young. When I was young. Okay.
Brent Peterson (03:03.246)
I don't think so. I think it's my jokes. Definitely my jokes. So tell us a little bit about Guru Nananda. This is a commerce, know, at the heart of it, we have a lot of people that are in commerce and selling online and marketing and tell us a little bit about your product and your background and how you got started.
Puneet Nanda (03:26.649)
So I am originally from New Delhi, India, and I went to study medicine in Russia. I came to United States, started my own business because I did not want to go through all the studies back again because overseas studies don't mean anything in the United States. I started a business and it was called Dr. Fresh.
the brands became pretty decent size, but I also became pretty big. I started living the American lifestyle because I kind of was trying to become American by eating fast food every day, gulping in lot of big, big glass sodas. And before I knew I was 50 pounds heavier than what I am today. Plus I was gulping in 14 pills a day. And one day I realized that enough is enough because I had a little
warning sign where I literally thought I had a heart attack and it was just a nose breakdown, but that gave me a jolt to the inner self and I was in my late 30s at that time and I said I'm done. I sold that company. I went back to my roots in India. learned yoga, learned Ayurveda, which helped me connect the ancient Indian wisdom to the medicine that I learned and
kind of connect the two. And after learning yoga and becoming a trained teacher in yoga, I said, okay, I'm gonna open up a yoga studio in Beverly Hills area. stood that, Jay Leno called me on it, just Jay Leno garage. And we did a lot of fun projects. That's where actually I became popularity and essential oils was one of the category that I saw a lot of women using them from deuterium, young living.
which were the high quality essential oils, but they were extremely high priced and these women were all working class and they were like, we want the real deal because most of the stuff being sold on Amazon from fictitious companies from China and from India are selling fragrances as essential oils. And the good quality ones are so expensive, like 10, 20 times more expensive than they should be. So I said, okay, I'm gonna, my inner...
Puneet Nanda (05:51.391)
Entrepreneurship came back and I started making a Guru Nanda essential oils. Before I knew I got a call from Walmart, I put them in Walmart. I told Walmart, I'll only put them in Walmart if you put them in the pharmacy section because I don't want to be associated with all the garbage in the air care area because they sell candles and a lot of fragrance stuffs there. So we were in the pharmacy section and
before I knew it just took off. Once my non -compete ended in oral care, I returned back to my roots, which I've done for 30 years. My family had been in this business. We manufactured. My family has manufactured practically every major brand you can imagine at one point or the other. As a contract manufacturer, I knew this business growing up.
I said, okay, I'm going to merge the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda that I've learned. So I bought an oil pulling, which was a very, very unique product to American market. Everybody thought I'm a fool. Actually, I met two of the top entrepreneurs. I can't name them because I talk them in confidence. These are like names you would know.
I consulted with them and they both thought I'm a fool to focus my attention on oil pulling. They said just go for the bigger market, which is mouthwash. Don't waste your time in oil pulling. Nobody in America is going to do oil pulling. But I was very, very, very firm in my thought process because I knew oil pulling is so effective because it had helped me.
personally save my tooth and It is lipid profile. I understood the reason of its being and I said I'm gonna continue focusing on that maybe I'll waste this life and maybe Somebody else once I'm gone would still continue and maybe two three lives later. This would become a big deal in America I didn't know that tick -tock would come into play and some lady out of some trailer
Puneet Nanda (08:10.159)
Park would talk about it and it would become viral. And then all of a sudden everything would just fall in place. I go and start answering questions. And before I knew, I became a sensation on TikTok. And today I'm one of the top 10 producers of TikTok as a product producer, a product reseller on TikTok. And it's been an unbelievable ride since last two years.
Brent Peterson (08:40.6)
Wow, so I want to, a couple things I want to just key in on. So first thing you said, you mentioned oil pulling, explain what that is and explain why it's a benefit for us.
Puneet Nanda (08:51.663)
So oil pulling is basically it's like a mouthwash, simple words, but you have to do it for a little bit extended period of time. And instead of using water, you're using lipid. Lipid means oil. Now it's not the oil like the oil in like what you use in a gas or something. So basically we take, we have produced a very, very unique
version of oil pulling. So we take fractions of coconut oil that are the most useful. know, coconut oil otherwise solidifies. But most people in America, what they were doing is they were taking a scoop of coconut oil, putting them in their mouth, do it for 10 days and then complain of jaw pain, complain that their drains are getting clogged, complain that they're starting to get temple headaches, complain with all sorts of things and then they'll stop.
There was no compliance, but they would say that it does whiten your teeth and it does help with your gums and your sensitivity and your other things, but they won't do it because it causes other side effects. So I said, okay, I'm going to help you out. We took the fractions of oil, coconut oil that are always liquid. We added in essential oils, the seven key essential oils that take care of your holistic health.
So peppermint oil, spearmint oil, cardamom oil, these are known to freshen your breath. You know that. Peppermint oil is used in normal, in our good old days, it was used in every toothpaste. Nowadays, a lot of toothpaste that you buy, they're using petrochemical based peppermint and they call it peppermint, but it's actually not the real peppermint from the farm. They are basically giving you peppermint.
Brent Peterson (10:27.502)
Mm
Puneet Nanda (10:47.107)
which is probably made in NHU in China or Bayer or one of these big conglomerate factory. So that's not real peppermint, but we use everything farm -to -morrow peppermint. So now that said, we also add fennel oil, which has been known to stimulate the salivary glands. We use tea tree or arachno, which are known as natural antiseptic, natural antibiotics in this world.
And then we also have some vitamins like vitamin K2, vitamin D3, and E. takes care of your oral mucosa. D3 is known for bone health. And K2 ensures that the calcium doesn't stick to the teeth so you don't get the calculus or so -called stickiness, sliminess around your teeth. Now that sliminess is biofilms. So what are these biofilms?
These biofilms are dead bacteria, protein, and all that stuff that the bacteria use as a shield to stay behind so that they can, it's like their shelter, their igloo, their home. So like every human, first they build their own hut. That's how bacteria do. They build their own hut, which is biofilm. So what these biofilm on top of biofilm on top of biofilm become plaque and plaque on top of plaque becomes tartar.
So a lot of people you see they have bleeding gums or they have this kind of layer of yellow stickiness in their mouth. You can't even go near them. They're smelling so bad. These, they're chewing tobacco, they're smoking, they're doing other kind of stuff. These are the people who got tartar and that only can be removed from a dentist because you have to literally drill to take it out. It's so strong. It's stronger literally than anything you can imagine.
and all these bad bacteria are hiding behind it. So what oil pulling does is if you're actually using it as a part of a healthy regimen, which I promote, you oil pull, you loosen up those sticky biofilms and once you loosen them up and you use a butter on gums toothbrush, which is very, very soft, but it has got extra bristles. So that softness doesn't mean that it wouldn't clean. It would clean equally as effective as a regular brush. We've just got ABA approved.
Puneet Nanda (13:12.411)
and it still will get all those bar films off. So once those bar films are off, you tongue scrape because a lot of the gunk is on your tongue, not just on your gums. So most of the people they do half cleaning when they just clean their teeth because the gunk or the plaque that's sticking on their tongue comes back. So all of a sudden you're back to where you started or at least
that one half is left that becomes one fourth on tongue, one fourth on the gums back again. So when you started, you're not really fresh. You're like three fourths fresh. So that said, then we tell people to water floss, floss and water floss both, because once you floss, you actually dislodge the biofilm that is between the teeth. But then when you use the water floss, you flush it out. So,
I think water flossing is another thing that everybody absolutely needs to do. Now, water flossers used to be very expensive because Waterpik was the only product of choice back in the day. It used to be 100 plus dollars. And even me who could afford it used to think 10 times before I have to buy a new one. Now we've made it very accessible. 15 to 20 dollars. You get a water flosser, you're done.
Then after that, we have a rinse. We have two kinds of rinses. We have a concentrated rinse that you put a few drops either in the water flosser or in a little cup that comes with it, add water, swish with it. No artificial colors, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors. So everything is made pure. That's farm to bottle.
in variants. That's what we try to use. Except the emulsifiers, which are important. Whenever you mix water and oil, you have to use emulsifier. That said, it also saves 10 bottles plastic because that little bottle of mouthwash, concentrated mouthwash, can become a convert into 10 bottles of a regular 16 ounce bottle of mouthwash. Most people, they don't realize that they're hulling those 10 bottles. There's a lot of transport
Puneet Nanda (15:36.417)
involved, there's a lot of carbon credits, they are actually saving the world. Now, that said, we also have a dual chamber mouthwash. One side is hydrogen peroxide, other side is baking soda, essential oils and xylitol. When the two mix together, you get the burst of that bubbles that go and clean up all the stains on your teeth. that because what is hydrogen peroxide? It's the water you drink, the oxygen you breathe is.
H2O2 so that this breaks when you mix baking soda with it. pH becomes neutral so you don't get that sensitivity and now you got whitening without sensitivity and we have claims on it because we have done some studies and we've proven it. on the website gurunanda .com. So we're doing science -backed in a natural way. So we're trying to marry nature with science together, do some clinicals, bring it to the public.
not add unnecessary cosmetics. For example, most mouthwash and toothpaste that you see, the first thing you see is color. I see young kids using a toothpaste, blue, dark blue, dark red colored toothpaste, spitting and feeling happy about it. my God, you're putting in kids' mouth at two or three or four or five years of age, you're putting in their mouth a color.
Color that is banned already in Europe. It's still not banned in US. You're putting a color for what reason just for cosmetics What is the use of color? Absolutely should be abolished. So that is what what makes me Very upset that there is no regulation people are just doing everything just because there is no this is the the Wall Street way or highway so So and people like me whenever they come
Either people get bought out or they get squashed because they lump you up with so many lawsuits that finally you just fade away or you sell to them, you chicken out. So something or the other like that, they do it all the time. this is how the big players play. That's why if you look at the big map, there's only 10 or 12 companies that control everything around you in a big super store.
Puneet Nanda (18:03.043)
This is like jungle, like jungle, literally like jungle. The big fish eat the small fish, the small fish eat the even smaller fish, and the crocodile eats them all.
Brent Peterson (18:14.798)
I did, like I said, have a chance to look at your TikTok channel and I did enjoy it and a lot of things that you said. I like the way you've presented the mouthwash where you put out the peroxide and the baking soda and then you had your solution. I also learned something. I don't brush my tooth or my tongue often, but it makes sense that you should scrape your tongue rather than brush your tongue.
Tell us a little bit about how TikTok has helped you as a business.
Puneet Nanda (18:48.857)
my god. my god. I will tell you TikTok has given me a loudspeaker. the algorithm of TikTok is if you like health, TikTok will show you health. If you like porn, TikTok will show you similar stuff. If you like food, TikTok will show you food. If you see like dances, TikTok will show you dances. it's an algorithm that is so well built. It's unbelievable.
Brent Peterson (18:50.924)
and are using TikTok shops.
Puneet Nanda (19:17.601)
It's to the fault that it could be at time questionable, but I would tell you one thing. It has helped me quite a bit because I'd love to talk about health and I love to look at health, healthy stuff. So it's given me the voice that I have to the audience that is looking to hear that voice. So it has connected me. I started off as a nobody, like who wants to follow a bald guy in his...
you know, over 50. But for some reason, I found a diehard following, diehard following to the point where I get shocked myself. I said, okay, I'm in San Diego for about half hour between this and this and coming outside the convention center. I'd love to see if there are any followers in San Diego. And before I knew, I got 38 people show up. So I took them all to the Starbucks, but
You know, that's the kind of love you see on TikTok. I've never seen it anywhere. I was in Facebook and Instagram. I was on other platforms before, but the way TikTok has, I don't know, it's somehow their algorithm or something about the whole community on TikTok. It's the poor people, do they call?
poor people's diamond. And I've seen people on Instagram are very rich people. All they do is like believe in all fake stuff. Like everything is kind of a little bit fake. Versus on TikTok, everything is real. Real. This is real world. And these are people who are underserved in my whole mission when I started the company.
was to serve the underserved, to basically bridge the gap, but not just between the served and underserved, between East and West, between ancient wisdom and Ayurveda and modern science. So it was all about bridging the gap. And that's why you look at my name and says, I'm Puneet Nanda, bridge the gap. So that resonates really well with the TikTok audience. And I've had nothing but success on TikTok.
Brent Peterson (21:42.356)
I know that in India, Tik Tok is banned. Do you have a backup plan in case at some point the U S government decides that Tik Tok is not acceptable with the U S market?
Puneet Nanda (21:52.367)
I know, number one, I trust and believe in US democracy. And I don't think TikTok would be bad, but you never know. Like the way things are always changing and dynamic is dynamism and the polarity in right and left and everything. It's dividing our nation because I'm...
I've seen a divide in other parts of the world, like between haves and have nots, between color, between religion. In America, I've seen something very unique. It's the right and the red and the blue. That's what is dividing the nation. So you never know tomorrow. I agree with you. So, but if TikTok does get banned,
I did open up an account on Instagram. It's the same name. I'm Puneet Nanda. I did open up an account on YouTube. I'm Puneet Nanda, but it's not as successful. Instagram is becoming, since they came out with Reels, it's starting to pick up a little bit. But I still think that they are still a long way to go. I know YouTube came up with Shots, but I think nothing is close to TikTok yet.
Do I have a secondary plan? I really don't at this point. But I also believe in America. I'm a diehard believer that the US legal system will not let one party or one person dictate how people want it. And even if they do, for a limited point, it will come back. So I believe in USA.
100%. That's why I left the rest of the world to come to US.
Brent Peterson (23:51.374)
Are you primarily concentrating your efforts in selling in the United States or do you have markets in India?
Puneet Nanda (23:59.407)
At this point, No, I'm 99 .9 % of the sales at this point or 99 % are in US, maybe one point in UK or Canada or like here and there, Timbuktu, I don't know, but mostly it's the US. We're very focused on US. We are a US manufacturing company. We're US based in Los Angeles and we...
currently are catering to the US people. Do I have a plan to go overseas? Yes. Mostly I'll start with English speaking countries, which are easier to deal with like Canada, like UK, like Australia. And then later on, maybe at one point to China, maybe at one point to India, I don't know. Whether India or China are ready for us.
There's yet a lot of education required in certain, some of those countries like China. They're already making my life sometimes hell by bringing in so many dupes here in US and with the current administration not helping you at all. Like the regulations are so bad. there's, that courts are not taking any decisions. are, if you go to Amazon and type Guru Nanda, you'll find
25 people dupes selling and I've gone to every court of law and nothing is happening. So I'm very, very, very, very ashamed at this point on how the legal system is becoming worse and worse by the day. This is not a talk that we should be having, but I'm just telling you my frustration I'm having every day.
Brent Peterson (25:50.454)
Yeah. What do you see as, so you're working on a number of products. you have anything that you can hint that maybe comes out sooner? Do you continue to innovate and bring better health to people?
Puneet Nanda (26:05.101)
Yes, so we've been, I follow me, I follow me, which means let's say, I'm just telling you, let's say if I wanted to have Ashwagandha because I felt like I need some calmness in my life or I need some adaptogenic product. So I go and research that and once I'm convinced that this is the best, I bring out that product. Similar to that, whatever products you see in my
portfolio 80 % of the products are ones that I literally would use or have used or made it for myself or one of my family and 20 % of the products that I make are just because The retailer dictated it and said hey, can you make this? you make this but literally eight out of ten products? I make it for myself. I make it with all my passion and ensure that this would work for me
or my family member. And that is why I'm able to do such a good job in bringing the highest quality product with the best quality price. The reason being because of my expertise in supply chain, because of my long -term manufacturing prowess that I've gained over the years, manufacturing for most brands, most retailer, retail brands as well. I'm using that prowess, including my Ayurvedic knowledge, vitamin supplement knowledge.
marrying them, which is very, very unique. I don't know anybody else personally in this entire world that has similar kind of knowledge base that I've been able to gather because a lot of people that are working with me in my team are people who worked with me for 25, 30 years. So these are people who have clung along with me all these years and they are nothing but wealth of knowledge combined. I would say we have three, 400 years of knowledge today.
Brent Peterson (28:01.592)
Yeah, Puneet, this has been an extremely fascinating conversation and we're quickly running out of time. As I kind of close out the podcast, I give my guests a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they want, which means you can promote anything you'd want. Shamelessly, what would you like to plug today?
Puneet Nanda (28:20.503)
So I would say if you are looking for four or one thing, let's say, you need to get on a guru regimen, which is oil pull, tongue scrape, brush, floss, water floss, wreaths. And if you really are a young person who really is into dating scene or looking good or modeling or whatever, you can even do make whitening strips.
and everything we do is as clinical and as ancient Ayurveda mixed as possible. GuruNanda .com is our website and we also sell on TikTok shop. We sell on Amazon and a lot of our products are available in Walmart. We're still not in regular other stores except Walmart. We're still gaining distribution one by one. We've got like for example a little
oil pulling in CVS or we've got a few Walgreens and Myers or HEB or Albertsons or Kroger's coming along but not all of them a few but if you want to see our entire range it's on Walmart retail stores Amazon .com Guru Nanda .com apart from that supplements we do make a couple of amazing supplements one of them is
Black seed oil with vitamin D3 and K2 and I recommend it to everybody Everybody that is something I take myself practically every member in my family takes and I don't want to get into the details of why vitamin D and Black seed are important for you. That could be a long half hour again So that's another product that I would say and I show them the liquid Sublingually whenever you take something right below your tongue
and keep it for 20 -30 seconds, you bypass your entire first pass system, your digestive tract, and you get the benefit right there and then. Like in matter of minutes rather than hours, then your bioabsorption goes up a lot more if you take it this way. And you don't have to take gelatin and all other additives that are there in capsules and gummies, especially gummy.
Puneet Nanda (30:44.495)
Is one thing I with sugar That is growing trend in america. That's 25 percent of americans buying those I am absolutely against gummies with sugar Absolutely against so if you're into gummy supplements, make sure they are sugarless
Brent Peterson (31:05.88)
That's great. Yeah. Now I'll make sure I put those on the show notes. and how, what is your, what is your handle on tick tock?
Puneet Nanda (31:13.013)
It's at I am Puneet Nanda, which is I am P -U -N -E -E -T -N -A -N -D -A.
Brent Peterson (31:18.734)
Perfect.
Brent Peterson (31:24.504)
Perfect, I will make sure I put that as well. Punit Nanda, Dr. Fresh, it's been such a great, fresh conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.
Puneet Nanda (31:32.857)
Thank you, Brent Peterson.