Letters from the founder, not flyers from a brand

Rohit's Mithai makes burfi: the Indian sweet that gets passed around the table at weddings, at Diwali, at every celebration that matters. Rohit remade the recipe he grew up with so it keeps the melt-in-the-mouth texture without the sugar load, and sells it in the US through his own store and Amazon.

The account had the usual problems and one that quietly cost the most: the coupon appeared on screen the moment someone signed up. Nothing was left to open the email for, and the code was not inside the email either, so when a subscriber finally wanted it, it was gone.

Underneath that, the emails were flyers. Product, price, button. None of the story that makes the product worth its price.

We read the founder's long strategy document and listened to what he kept returning to: what he wants to build, what he regrets, what he finds hard. The realisation was simple. The best storyteller in this account is Rohit.

So the emails became letters from him. He tells you why he did this. He nags you about your health. He admits what he is struggling with. He explains that what arrives is more than a box of sweets. In an inbox of standardised commercial language, a founder writing like a person reads as a relief, and people responded to it.

The welcome coupon was shown on the signup screen and never included in the email, so subscribers had no reason to open and no way to find the code later. Two cart flows overlapped, browse abandonment had sent twice in a year, there were no post-purchase flows and no segments, and the writing sounded like every other brand.

Two of the founder's letters, as they land in the inbox.