How Paper Boat remade itself

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Editor's note: Hector Beverages has been laying low. In the make-a-show-of-every-little-development world of Indian startups or the newer build-in public movement, the maker of Paper Boat juices has been quiet for close to two years. A lot has changed since then. For instance, today, Hector Beverages is less about the flagship Paper Boat juice and more about Paper Boat Swing. This is not to be taken lightly. Because Paper Boat’s niche juice business used to be the life and blood of Hector Beverages. Built to invoke nostalgia, it broke the monotony of a sector dominated by mango, apple and mixed fruit juices. The company introduced flavours that were termed ethnic and/or traditional—aam panna, aamras, jaljeera, kokum among a few others. Compared to its peers, Paper Boat was more expensive. It talked about preserving local Indian drinks that were being forgotten, and the company genuinely thought that it could take on the world with this pitch. Except the world doesn’t run on nostalgia. It runs on hard numbers. It would be fair to say that Neeraj Kakkar, the co-founder & CEO of Paper …