Spearheaded by Dr. Mahalakshmi V Reddy, Lyo Florals is all about flowers and the fragrance of memories. Fresh flowers carry lots of sentiments and turn priceless when handed to loved ones on valentine’s roses, wedding bouquets & garlands, and more. At times, flowers gifted on Birthdays and Mother’s days carry big emotions. With that said, the brand believes that these flowers wither and slither sweet emotions. Realizing the need to preserve flowers with effective technology, Mahalakshmi began her research and ventured Lyo Florals - Forever Memories.

In an insightful conversation with Women Entrepreneur India, this ambitious lady from Hyderabad takes us through her inspiring journey.

Give A Brief Overview Of Your Brainchild. What Prevailing Problem Are You Trying To Resolve With The Brand?
While florists grow a surplus variety of flowers, the utility value of these fresh flowers grows very high during festivals and wedding seasons, and in slackened season, the same goes into the trash, due to poor keeping quality. If given value-addition before flowers start losing its freshness, their potential worth can increase multi-fold.

Advanced countries have realized this worth few years back and expanded business ventures on preserved flowers to meet the global demand. The lack of technology to preserve the flowers in our country has thrown a challenge to research on the Preservation of flowers.

Lyo Florals is a ‘first of its kind’ Flower Preservation Company in India for home processing, located in Hyderabad, established in November 2016. Tag-line ‘Forever Memories’ focuses on the specialty of ‘Lyo Florals’, where flowers are processed with ‘Lyophilization’ technology. It’s a self-owned, micro-enterprise to preserve natural flowers into preserved flowers. The goal of this company is to gain the attention of the public to gift preserved flowers as a fragrance of memory for any occasion and to save precious flowers..

How Is Your Novel Idea Of Preserving Flowers Possible?
At Lyo Florals, we energize the withering flowers with the best preliminary care and process pre-treated flowers in ‘Floral Freeze Dryer, a pilot plant “Lyo Flora’ designed at Hyderabad by M/S Lyophilisation Systems, for this purpose. These preserved flowers are further post-processed and protected in shadow box frames and transparent glass cases. This self-funded brand has a well-established small workshop for processing and a design studio for turning the preserved flowers into a hand-crafted gift, ideal for a variety of occasions. A point to highlight is the duration of the process and the intricacy of the design. It’s energy-intensive, needs careful handling of papery processed flowers to exhibit its natural state.

Take Us Through The Foundation Journey Of Lyo Florals.
I am a flower lover, my mother motivated me to love nature and especially plants and flowers. An emotional incident with my mother before her demise was the reason for focusing on this research to evolve preservation methodology. Understanding the potential of this technology and knowing my expertise in this area, Mrs. Rama Devi, President of Association of Lady Entrepreneurs, ALEAP - India, motivated me to establish an enterprise. With this support and my passion, patience, and perseverance to work flowers, I took up this entrepreneurial journey as an opportunity to keep me engaged after official retirement.

As A Business Leader In The Consumer Sector, What Are Some Important Business Lessons That You Have Learned So Far? In Your Opinion What Are Some Critical Traits Required By One To Become A Successful Entrepreneur?
Business is a challenging task. Keenness to pursue this path requires willpower. It calls for a thorough knowledge of business, the latest trends, and materials. Exploring changing trends and accepting to cope with the ups and downs of work pressure in the early stages of the business is part and parcel of growth. Meagre returns may disappoint us initially, but the willingness to move forward is the sure path for success. Maintaining good relations with trained staff and treating them with respect is a must. Putting efforts to learn new and effective ways of business management, having a hold on Digital technology, online marketing are the boon for budding entrepreneurs.

“Mahalakshmi is an ardent entrepreneur commercializing her innovative floral preservation technology”

For the joy of success, I believe that constantly upgrading business managerial traits, gaining knowledge of advancing methodologies and technologies, exploring better-coping strategies, and learning new skills of sales and marketing are essential to cope with high competition.

Given The Demanding Nature Of Your Job, How Do You Manage To Strike A Balance Between Your Work And Home Life?
I am 64, retired as Professor and Head of Department, and held the position of Associate Dean, Scientist, in 2016. As I was always busy, I opted to keep my post-retirement busy with my hobbies of flower preservation, gardening, reading, travelling, etc. As I opted to start the micro-enterprise, I took up a course in EDP at ALEAP, Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India, Hyderabad.

My surplus time and good health allowed me to move in this new direction. As my children are settled, and my husband being a book lover and busily involved in scale model collection hobby, I had my time for my own engagement. My father-in-law was great support for my enterprise. Everyone at home is happy with my way of keeping me occupied in a creative hobby.

I can easily manage my work and home, as my workspace is my home basement. At present, all of us are experiencing the protected living because of the pandemic.