Timios: Aswani CN on Building an 'Honest' Healthy Snack Brand for India's Next Generation

Guest: Aswani CN Date: January 15, 2026 Read Time: 10 mins

The transition from the high-stakes world of investment banking at Goldman Sachs to the competitive FMCG market might seem unlikely, but for Aswani CN, it was a move driven by fatherhood. After spending over eight years building software for global banks in the US and UK, Aswani returned to India only to face a frustrating problem: a total lack of healthy, age-appropriate snacks for his own children. Today, his brand Timios (Greek for 'honest') is filling that gap, providing wholesome, preservative-free food for kids across India.

The 'Fatherhood' Epiphany: Identifying the Junk Food Gap

Aswani’s inspiration for Timios came while he was still at Goldman Sachs, shortly after the birth of his second baby. "I observed that when you go to a supermarket, 9 out of 10 times, kids are reaching for snacks high in salt, sugar, and preservatives," Aswani explains. "There was a clear gap in the market for food products exclusively designed for children's different age groups."

Leveraging his family's expertise—his sister is a nutritionist and his father is an agriculture scientist—Aswani built a "team in the house" to prototype products. With his family's blessing and his 15 years of career savings, he took the leap into entrepreneurship in 2016.

"Entrepreneurship is very lonely. You will have more bad days than good days. Motivation is one thing, but support from your ecosystem—your family and friends—is the most important thing to get you through the bad days." — Aswani CN

Building the 'Honest' Brand: What is Timios?

Timios is designed to be a parent's most trusted partner in nutrition. The brand caters to children from 6 months up to 12 years, offering everything from porridges and finger foods to energy bars and biscuits. Every product is 100% natural, low in salt/sugar, and completely free from artificial preservatives.

The Timios Philosophy

Honesty: Transparent ingredients and labeling (the meaning of 'Timios' in Greek).
Age-Appropriate: Tailoring nutrition and texture to specific developmental stages (0-12 years).
Accessibility: Making high-quality, organic-style nutrition available through both online and offline channels.

The Bootstrapping Journey: 15 Years of Savings on the Line

Aswani didn't seek external funding immediately. Instead, he treated Timios as a project with clear milestones. "I was very clear that we would achievement ABCD in a specific time frame," he notes. By investing his lifetime savings, he ensured he had the "skin in the game" required to stay motivated. His disciplined approach to finance allowed the brand to survive the initial 18 months before seeking external capital.

The Timios Launch Workflow

Validate with Target Audience: Opened on niche e-commerce sites like FirstCry to test with baby-focused parents.
Direct Customer Feedback: Aswani and his early team made personal phone calls to every initial customer to gather feedback on taste and packaging.
Iterative Improvement: Refined shelf life and store visibility based on direct market response.
Digital Shift: Leveraged demonetization and GST shifts to move completely into digital payments and pan-India shipping.

Support Systems: Winning the 'Inner Circle'

One of Aswani's most profound insights is the role of the family in a founder's journey. "Before you can win the world, you have to win your own crowd," he says. By involving his wife, parents, and in-laws in the thought process, he turned his family into his first "team," ensuring that he had an emotional and strategic safety net during the inevitable "bad days" of startup life.

Impact & Reach

Pan-India Presence: Supplying snacks from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and the Seven Sisters.
Category Creator: One of the first Indian brands to focus exclusively on the 'clean label' kids' food segment.
Resilience: Maintained zero layoffs during COVID-19 and focused on immunity-boosting ingredients to grow revenue.

The Future: A Healthier India

Aswani’s vision for Timios is global, but his focus remains on the Indian child. With 25 million babies expected every year for the next decade, the potential for impact is massive. "We need to provide more options designed for kids," he asserts. "If they eat junk for 15 years, the effects on the country will be devastating."

His final message to aspiring entrepreneurs is one of risk appetite: "Reduce your operational expenditures, cut down your personal responsibilities, and increase your risk-taking capacity. That is how we make India big."