This slow-fashion startup wants to revolutionise daily essentials : Suscin

• ByStartupStory     |    December 12, 2021

“Before launching our platform, we reached out to people to understand whether we actually
need a solution and if people are aware about the problem,” said Suscin co-founder Akshay
Agrawal in an exclusive interview with Startup Story Media. He added, “We found out that a
majority of people don’t even consider plastic a problem.”

In today’s era of Shein and Zara hauls and rapid fashion cycles of weekly trends, environment
activists have called out for fashion houses to slow down production. Globally, the fashion and
textile industry generates 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases every year. Thus, slower
fashion cycles using more sustainable materials has been increasingly imperative.

Founded by Akshay Agrawal and Aman M Gupta in April 2021, eco-friendly brand Suscin aims
to provide to its customers sustainable alternatives to daily-use essentials. With a primary focus
on ethically sourced apparel made from bamboo, this startup is your one-stop solution to
beginning your sustainability journey.

From Coaching classmates to co-founders

The two minds behind Suscin, Akshay and Aman initially met at a coaching institute
during their school days, preparing for IIT. The pair went on to attend IIT Jodhpur and IIT
Kharagpur, respectively. It was during their college years that the two realized the
abundance of plastic in daily-use essentials.

Understanding the imminent threat of environmental degradation looming over humanity,
the pair began trying to understand public views on plastic. They found that,
unfortunately, many people either refused to acknowledge plastic as a problem or did not
care enough to change their habits. That’s when the pair decided to come up with
eco-friendly alternatives to daily-use essentials.

The fabric of this startup: ethical sourcing

While they started out selling daily essentials like toothbrushes made from bamboo, the
founders realized that people were hesitant to make the switch. They began selling
t-shirts made from bamboo alongside daily essentials. Suscin today offers its customer
base apparel made out of bamboo- one of the fastest growing plants on the planet.
Furthermore, the brand offers eco-friendly essentials kits to empower an individual’s
journey towards living a more sustainable life. Their t-shirts, specifically, are sourced
from small production houses in Tamil Nadu. The startup ensures that they only
associate with suppliers who engage in ethical labour practices.

With a majority of its products made of bamboo, Suscin boasts an absolutely ecologically
friendly and ethical production process and has made its products easily accessible to
consumers through a variety of e-commerce platforms.

Slower fashion

“With each t-shirt sold, we plant a tree on the customer’s behalf,” said Akshay

According to Aman and Akshay, the regular life cycle of a Suscin t-shirt is more than
twice of a regular cotton t-shirt’s life cycle.

This fact teamed with the plastic-free wrapping utilized by the brand, lowers their carbon
footprint significantly. Their focus on mindful consumption and ensuring long lasting
products only highlights that for Suscin, profit does not trump conscientiousness.

“It comes at a loss to our business but we are okay with that!” exclaimed Akshay.

A two-man army and the vision for growth

Entirely bootstrapped till date, the company consists mainly of the two co-founders and a
few freelancers hired sporadically. Its product offerings of soft apparel made of bamboo
are wonderfully complemented by its eco-friendly daily essential boxes that contain
toothbrushes, earbuds, tongue cleaners, towels, and combs. The packaging utilised by
the company also happens to be completely plastic free.

The company does, however, have a vision for immense growth in the near future. The
co-founders mention the possibility of diversifying their product offerings to include
products made from vegan leather.

Suscin, having sold over 300 t-shirts in four months, stands as testament to the current space
available in the market to offer sustainable and eco-friendly products. While it may seem like a
herculean task to switch to a low-waste lifestyles, brands like Suscin are on their way to
ensuring that humanity lasts a little longer than the first ever toothbrush made in the 1930s
takes to degrade

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