Skincare brands are currently dominating the Indian market, and Mohit Yadav, who is also one of the panelists on the business reality show Shark Tank India Season 5, is the co-founder of one such major player in the category—The Minimalist. Mohit founded the company along with his IITian brother Rahul Yadav, after dabbling in several high-profile corporate jobs and experiencing a few unsuccessful entrepreneurial ventures.
After two failed startups, Mohit finally tasted success with Minimalist. However, the journey was far from easy. For this venture, he took significant risks, including mortgaging his own house and borrowing money from his family. So what has Mohit Yadav’s entrepreneurial journey been like, and how did he go on to build a multi-crore skincare brand? Let’s find out.
Mohit was born and raised in Jaipur. After completing his education, he worked in several high-paying corporate roles. He was employed with Deloitte and later worked as an Assistant Vice President at Credit Suisse during the late 2000s.
Eventually, Mohit joined hands with his younger brother Rahul, a chemical engineer from IIT Roorkee, which marked the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. In 2008, the brothers founded Scopial Fashion, an online T-shirt store. Scopial Fashion was later rebranded as Mangostreet, an online kids’ fashion brand. During a recent episode of Shark Tank India Season 5, Mohit admitted that the brothers had taken money from their family to start the venture. However, the business failed to scale, and they eventually decided to sell it. The brand was later acquired by Hushbabies.com.
After exiting his first venture, Mohit joined another startup, CarDekho, as Vice President. However, he quit the company to start Free Will, a startup focused on creating customised haircare products. Although the startup still exists, it failed to expand at scale.
Using the consumer data and insights that Mohit and Rahul gathered while working on Free Will, the brothers launched another brand—The Minimalist—which went on to achieve massive success. The brand initially launched a range of serums targeted at specific skin concerns and positioned itself as an ingredient-first brand offering ‘clean and transparent products’.
When Minimalist was launched in October 2020, the brand reportedly had only 200–300 followers on Instagram. However, within days, its first set of products sold out. As per reports, within just two days, the brand’s follower count jumped to 10,000, and its stock was completely wiped out. Within eight months of launch, the brand had reportedly minted Rs 100 crore in revenue.
In 2025, Minimalist sold over 90 percent of its stake to Hindustan Unilever at a valuation of Rs 2,955 crore (approximately $350 million USD).
The journey, however, was anything but smooth. Speaking about his entrepreneurial struggles on Shark Tank India Season 5, Mohit opened up about the risks he took. He said, “Years ago I had started a seed grant (Seed grand provides initial funding to early-stage startups or projects for crucial early development) that used to make kids apparel. It was my first venture in 2010–2011. We had also taken money from our families. Even later, when we started Minimalist, we had mortgaged our house to raise Rs 1 crore loan. I knew in my heart that if this doesn’t take off, maybe my family won’t have a home to stay in.”
He further reflected on failure and resilience, adding, “A lot of time as a founder, we think that if we shut this brand, we think of the brand as our identity, and we think that this is a failure personally as a founder. After years, I realised that when you close a shut or start something new.. It does not matter if people think you are a failure. The best thing I did was to accept that that venture was not working out, move on and do something else, and then build a brand. I wouldn’t have been here if I was still doing apparel.”
Curated by Dr. Elena Rodriguez
