THIRD-GEN ENTREPRENEUR Dhruv Sayani, founder of KT (Kehairtherapy) Professional, KT Kids and now KT Men, is disrupting India’s personal care industry in ways that can best be described as transformative. With a vision rooted in science and sustainability, the KT brand has, in just six years, re-ordered the traditional templates of hair and personal care at scale.
KT Men, which was launched ahead of IPL 2026, is primarily targeted at younger consumers into fitness, competitive sports and performance-driven lifestyles.
In an interaction with SportzPower, Sayani offers a deep dive into the evolving vision he has for the KT brand in general and KT Men in particular.
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We’ve been profitable for the last five years.
Yes, and there was 18 months of R&D before KT Men launched.
You’ve mentioned that over the next two fiscals you are targeting ₹200 crore top line. From the outcomes from these last three months, do you feel you’re on track to achieve that?
That’s right.
How has the IPL been for your brand in terms of point of sale output, both e-commerce as well as physical, because you’ve just launched your product?
It’s been a great run the last two-and-a-half months. The IPL has been a fantastic platform to communicate with the fans and customers directly. The fan following is literally across the country. RCB played seven home games. We see it as 14 home games, because every game that RCB plays, you literally see the stadium is half red.
And now, just ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, you have kicked off the association with the Argentina Football Association (AFA), fronted by Lionel Messi, and teammates Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández, for the KT Men’s GOAT Edition product line. The template is pretty much on the lines of the activations you did with RCB and MI for IPL.
You’re absolutely right. The campaign in the last week or so has been all about connecting with the football fan base across the country. We’ve connected with Messi fans, but in the process, added many more fan pages of Messi that should know about our product line. We’ve also created a community of young people across the country that are into active lifestyle or athletic lifestyle.
As we run up into the World Cup, which kicks off on the 11th of June, our campaigns will be far more aggressive throughout the month, because that’s when the fever will be on the rise.
And it’s not only about activating through the World Cup. It’s post World Cup also to keep engaged with the football community.
Because I’m sure you understand that football is an investment in India right now, with a major gap in the way the game is being looked at in the country.
I strongly believe that it’s a very promising sport. All youngsters are associated with football, and we definitely want to be associated with it, not only for the today, but for the tomorrow of India’s representation at a much larger scale when it comes to football, and we all are hoping for an India football team that eventually makes it to the most watched sport in the world.
There’s an interesting facet about football, though. The HNI youth demographic that engage with international football fit far better in terms of the positioning you’re trying to make than your average cricket fan. International football stars connect to them in terms of even what kind of merchandise they buy. If you ask that kind of a TG, what would be his favorite team? It would not be an RC or an MI, it would be an Arsenal or a Barca. That plays out well with the TG that you’re looking at, whether India becomes relevant in the football ecosystem globally or not. I don’t see that necessarily negatively impacting your product or how you engage.
No, absolutely. But our job as a company is not only to sell product but also to encourage the sport at every level. Which is what we want to continue doing.
I understand exactly where you’re coming from when you talk of demographics and the people who associate with football, vis-a-vis cricket, and that’s the data we’ve also seen.
But we are also extremely encouraged by the idea that there is also a very large demographic that is learning the game, playing the game, but probably don’t have the right kind of training or the right kind of infra or the right kind of encouragement.
So now here we are going out of marketing and into potentially activations on the ground, supporting coaching initiative, supporting academies, or tying up with groups within India, which are working on grassroots football?
Post the World Cup our activations will be with schools, with universities, where there are potential players of the game, who lack the right kind of training, who lack the right kind of equipment, and the right kind of build up for the sport, but do have the potential.
KT Goat Edition has promised to support for three years of football training, including gear and training for potential players of the game who can eventually start representing at a much larger level through the association. If that helps them become great players at a state level or eventually at a national level, that is something that we would want to encourage.
There will be a marked out percentage of our profits that will be diverted towards supporting the game, and especially the underprivileged who will love the sport, but require the right kind of training and support.
One entity that immediately comes to mind is Slum Soccer, which came out of Nagpur. Have you potentially identified who you want to align with on this?
We’ve kept it largely open, because at a company we wouldn’t want to come under a single window, we want to definitely keep our doors open where people can reach out to us directly. There will be an outreach campaign that the company will run digitally, and we will be running campaigns to let people know about this initiative, and invite applications, and we would want to scrutinize these applications ourselves with a team of experts who would help us vet these applications.
And eventually, once we create a cohort, we would be taking the decision on how they need to be supported. Could be a child from Himachal or a child from Kerala, require the same kind of attention.
So, basically, it will be internally done.
We want to internally manage it and align them with the right pool and set available in their own city and state, because we wouldn’t want to create any kind of discomfort for the child.
But even if you’re managing the initiative internally, you’ll have to set up a separate team for that, the professionals capable of doing all this.
Absolutely. There will be a committee of six that will sit on this on a permanent basis to oversee the whole initiative.
So this will play out after the World Cup, correct?
Absolutely.
Now coming back to the World Cup, you have stated publicly that around ₹36 crore ($3.78 million) is what the brand building initiatives. Now, just doing a basic check on what is required for you to tie up with MI and RCB and now with the AFA, would be way over budget with just these three activations.
Secondly, this association with the AFA is for the duration of the World Cup?
No, no, it’s one-year association.
Which circles back to the first part of my question.
This activation cost is separate from many other inbuilts that already exist, which include distribution costs, marketing costs, which is not included, because those layers are already in order, and something that the company is doing. When we speak of the ₹36 crore amount, it’s a marketing and communication cost, when we do Instagram ads, Facebook ads, when we run promotions.
Noted. Can you offer some tangibles on what is the marketing play out that is planned in the course of this World Cup vis-a-vis the Argentine football team?
For the World Cup, we will be having many fan events for all Argentina games across the country. We’ll be largely speaking to six cities – Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi, Delhi, which is where we are going to be showcasing the games.
Admittedly, we are on US time zone, so there will be a lot of limitations around the larger availability, because games are being aired at 6.30 in the morning, 7.30 in the morning. One odd Argentina game is at 10:30 pm on a Saturday.
So, while we were looking at giving screenings to the fans, we’re also looking at creating fan zones in these six cities, not only for the duration of the World Cup, but even after that, where you know one can go and play the game of football with a Messi integration and an Argentina integration as a virtual football gaming experience.
Apart from that, it’s also many other fan events that we are looking at hosting. At the same time, activations with football clubs, regional clubs, at all levels where we would want to integrate the GOAT Edition, because it’s not only about promoting the brand, and it’s also about providing the right product.
The GOAT Edition line focuses heavily on athletic recovery. Products feature intense cooling body washes, deodorants, gels, anti-fatigue skincare, and muscle recovery sprays.
So it’s the range of products you have for the active male that you’ll be marketing.
I would call it active fitness. And it’s not only targeted at those playing football, but even runners, those into yoga. So we’re talking about the active fitness community. And it’s a growing community. And we have no direct competitors in the category. So we’re taking a first mover advantage of building into that category.
