LOS ANGELES — Besharam’s decade-long journey has been featured in an article on YourStory.com, which Besharam says is the Techcrunch of India. The two-hour interview between Aparajita & Raj Armani deep dived into the humble beginnings, the early challenges of running a ‘sex influenced’ business in culturally sensitive India and the small victories of last 10 years which leveled the playing ground for India with rest of the world.
Besharam went live as an international only ecommerce business, headquartered in Tampa, Fla., and marketing/retailing to Indians in India. Along with the endorsement of Sunny Leone who had a flourishing career in the adult business back in the US, Besharam made a splash in India and the Indian media was quick to create the buzz and welcome a change in the otherwise traditional mindset of the average Indian consumer. Since then, Besharam has been featured in more than 200 news & media outlets including Yahoo, CNN, MSNBC, Vice, Entrepreneur, Yourstory, TechinAsia, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Entrepreneur, BusinessWorld, India Today, Times of India and more.
From being non-existent as a category, pleasure products' knowledge, accessibility and demand has soared to record high levels, something nobody could have estimated 10 years ago. In 2016 The Economic Times of India did a front page feature on Besharam and the sexual wellness market and estimated that by 2020 it will cross $400M. Fast Forward to 2021, the rise in demand fuelled by the pandemic raised this market valuation to over $1.2B as evaluated by independent researchers and media outlets, according to Besharam.
Here are excerpts from the feature:
~~~
“There’s a big difference between sex in India 10 years ago and now, especially over the last three years,” says Raj Armani, founder of IMBesharam, an online sex toy store in India that has been around for a decade after being founded in 2011.
He recalls a time during his early days in the field when sex toys were taboo and carried with them the implication that their user was a sex fiend or a “deviant” of sorts. Even the notion that sex could be healthy and necessary — like food and shelter — was radical. “In the initial years of setting up IMBesharam, our path to becoming a viable business was to create acceptance around sex toys. We had to tell people that seeking pleasure was not a sin.” he says.
“If 2011-2013 was about pushing products to people and creating more acceptance, 2020-2022 is the golden age of #sextech, much like the internet in the 1990s.
At IMBesharam, which is arguably India’s biggest online adult toy store, 2020 was the worst of times, and the best of times.
Women accounted for nearly 30 percent of the traffic on IMBesharam’s website, a big jump from just a year ago. With increasing awareness around female pleasure and a less laissez-faire attitude toward sex where women traditionally assumed a more passive role than their partners, the trend is expected to continue and Indian women are expected to make up a bigger chunk of the startup’s clientele.
IMBesharam’s co-founder and COO Raj says after toiling for nearly a decade and giving it his everything, he feels like he is finally standing on solid ground. His aim now is to give back to the community.
He has next set his sights on creating a fund of sorts, in partnership with other interested angels, investors and companies, that will invest in homegrown femtech and sextech companies in India. His aim is to support at least three startups this year, and provide not just funding, but mentorship and sales support.
