Ishita Sharma impresses with ghee-based skincare products
After Ishita Sharma (Finance '25) landed in Edmonton from Delhi, India in 2021, she attended university to study astrophysics. A year into the program, however, she realized she couldn’t see herself behind “four walls researching every single day.”
She may also have been denying a calling. Sharma decided to pursue a more “practical and reasonable” route at NAIT, enrolling at the JR Shaw School of Business. There, she rediscovered her love for entrepreneurship.
Sharma has a knack for business that goes back to her teenage years in India. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she created a virtual debating platform. Open to students across India between the ages of 14 to 19, it started with 26 participants and grew to 700 within months. It was successful enough that she was able to share some of the proceeds with her family when shutdowns affected their own businesses.
“I think [entrepreneurship] is in my genetics,” says Sharma. In India, her grandparents owned a moving company, and her parents have a real estate business. "It's like a generational thing.”
The same may be said of Sharma’s latest business.
Through her program at NAIT, she discovered the Mawji Centre for New Venture and Student Entrepreneurship, a resource centre for enterprising students. Frequently, it hosts pitch competitions, which appealled to Sharma’s love of public speaking. She also had an idea. Rather, her mom had an idea for her – one rooted in ancient Indian traditions that now point to a possible future for her daughter in Canada.
Awakening the competitive spirit
Ghee is a type of clarified butter with origins in India, and is used for cooking, healing and prayer. As Sharma’s mom pointed out, it’s also a versatile skincare product that’s good for dry skin. Although some products in the North American skincare market currently using ghee, Sharma saw a gap.
She recognized an opportunity to go beyond meeting the market demand for all-natural products. Using 100% ghee, her brand, Ghii, would be safe enough to eat. Ghee is rich in vitamins and antioxidants. And Sharma's products are free of chemicals.
“There's nobody playing in the zone [where the product] is edible,” she says.
That was at the heart of her presentation at the Mawji Centre’s Pitch it to Me Student Competition in February. Sharma spent months perfecting her pitch. Before she took the stage, she handed out lip balm, her flagship product.
Looking at the quality of the other student pitches, Sharma considered her chances of winning to be slim. When the emcee announced her as the winner, she was shocked.
“I didn't even think I would be in the top three,” she says. Mostly, Sharma was in it for the experience. “It awakens your competitive spirit. And, at the same time, it proves the concept of your business.”
And it wouldn’t be the last time she’d succeed in doing that. Thanks to the strength of her product, Sharma was headed for even bigger stages.
“I'm going all in"
After Pitch it to Me, Sharma continued her winning ways in March at NAIT’s Business Innovation Showcase, an event that saw 100 students show off their ideas to 400 visitors, including local entrepreneurs and investors. At the end of the event, she earned the prize for the most innovative idea.
That boosted Sharma’s confidence enough to pitch to CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
“I'm actually riding a wave because I see a lot of people transitioning to natural skincare,” she says.
The producers agreed. Sharma didn’t make it on air to pitch to the Dragons in Toronto, but those preliminary reviewers liked her concept enough to ask her to try out again once she has some sales.
Those may not be far off. Sharma has already put her NAIT education to work as a full-time mortgage financial adviser, but that hasn’t stopped her from working on her product. Sharma recently used her competitions winnings to contract a manufacturer to produce her lip balm. She’s now looking to register her business, develop a website, and sell through Amazon Canada.
“I'm going all in,” Sharma says.
But not alone. Through the Mawji Centre, she connected with Rob LeLacheur (Marketing ’94), owner and founder of Road 55, a content marketing agency. As Sharma's pitch competition coach, he sees her as a promising entrepreneur.
“Ishita is going to be successful in whatever she chooses to do,” says LeLacheur. Winning competitions has “given her a new level of confidence and understanding of how to do the work. I think she's got a bright future ahead of herself.”
In the meantime, Sharma’s simply grateful for how far she’s come, and for the people and education that have played a role in her success. What’s more, it’s helped her honour her own history, and the impact of the generations that have come before her.
“Everything that I've been doing has some sort of reflection of my parents,” says Sharma.
“I just want to look at them and [see] they have pride in their eyes. That's all that would matter to me.”