Community portals are littered with queries, such as, “What is a good way of setting a beard for a long time without using Simco?”

Today, the firm boasts of a “customer base of 1 million” spread across India and 12 countries including the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. What helped in the times of double-digit inflation is Simco’s ability to sell cheap. “The cost of production was going up in Delhi. So we moved to Himachal Pradesh to avail tax benefits and set up two units in Baddi,” says Kanwardeep, Kuldeep Singh’s 35-year-old son and a Delhi University graduate. We started with wall paintings and ads in Punjabi dailies. Today, we place ads in all national dailies and Punjabi channels,” says Kuldeep Singh, who took over the business after elder brother Gajendra Singh’s demise.

In an era when there was no internet or TV and radio communication was still new, marketing Simco outside gurdwaras proved to be an efficient strategy. Gurdwaras often have small food stalls and utility shops that Sikh families visit after offering prayers. The Baggas would set up stalls to display Simco too. They would demonstrate its use and ask Sikh men to try it.

That is less than eight per cent rise in price over two years. So even when people were slicing their monthly household budgets, Simco remained on the shopping list,” says Kuldeep Singh.

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Our product caters to religious families. So long as these people follow tradition, the market will continue to grow. A community doesn’t disappear just like that,” Kuldeep Singh says. He, however, refuses to divulge the company’s annual turnover. “You can call ours a small and medium enterprise. Till date, no big company has ventured into this market. Par iss trade mein humain ek badi brand ki izzat miltee hai (But we get the respect of a big brand),” he says. Simco simplified grooming for Sikh men. Moreover, the modest pricing made it a universal product. “My elder brother, Gajendra Singh Bagga, was the first one to launch Simco advertisements in Punjabi newspapers and magazines. We always had a very clear idea of our clientage, so we ran a very focussed campaign – targeted at Sikh men,” says Kuldip. Remaining low-key even though the brand kept getting bigger might be one of the reasons why Simco never faced much competition from other similar products made by other companies. The answers range from ‘traditional thread and net’ to foreign brands of strong hairstyling gels. But most end with the usual concession — no alternative works as well as Simco. Under his elder son Gajendra Singh Bagga, Simco became the first beard fixer brand to launch an advertisement campaign in Delhi and Punjab.